I read through the thread pretty fast, so maybe I lost this thing but, will all legendary heroes (read regular, event, hotm and atlantis) be treated in the same way?
Because in my opinion non-regular heroes increased team powers do not reflect their actual greater usefulness. As an example compare Horgall and Zeline (extreme comparison, just to make a point): Zeline is clearly way better but has only 15 point more when fully ascended. This means that an alliance of spenders with many Zeline, Guinevre or Gravemaker can easily be matched with a mostly f2p alliance that features more Horgall, Thorne or Quintus and so on. Iām saying that these kind of matches can easily happen because 15 points are 7/8 levels of a partially levelled hero, so the edge given by having a lot of special heroes is easily filled by a few hours worth of levelling
The skillās effects and hero speed donāt factor at all in hero power (I thinkā¦). Only the level of the special skill does. Zeline has higher power because she has better stats. Itās only the variations in attack/defense/health that make the difference between the power of maxed 5* heroes (itās the same for 4* etc. heroes).
This is by design, I think.
It fixes the AW matchmaking because alliances with people many 3/70 5 star heroes has an OVER INFLATED team power number so if they get matched against an alliance that has mostly max 4 stars at 70, the alliance of 4 stars will be much more effective because 4 star 70 are more effective than 3/70 5 stars.
Think about each hero having a superficial rating and an actual effectiveness rating. 5 stars at 3/70 have a higher superficial rating because of bogus āteam powerā formula than max 4s but a lower effective rating. So when you add that up aggregate across an alliance, when one alliance has an abundance of non-max 5 stars in their top 30 of each player, it gives them a higher superficial rating (i.e. team power) which is what matching is done on.
Itās sort of like how in sports betting, people always bet a lot of money on the āpublicā teams like the Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, LA Lakers, and Green Bay Packers. Those teamsā odds are generally less favorable to the bettor than they should be since sports books know people will bet on them even with crappier odds than the game calls for. Thereās a built-in penalty for betting on those teams because of how much action they will get.
non-max 5 star heroes are the same way - thereās a āteam powerā penalty (i.e. power rating is higher than it should be) on them.
hereās an example, itās not 100% accurate but it illustrates the concept
letās say a 4 star max 70 has matching rating of 80 but actual effectiveness of 75. Now take a 5-star 3/70 who has a matching rating of 100 but an actual effectiveness of 70. If you have Alliance A of 30 players with 30 4 star heroes as their top heroes, you have a matching rating of 30x30x80 = 72,000 and an actual effectivness rating of 30x30x75 = 67,500. Now take alliance B who has all 5 star 3/70 as their top heroes. Their matching rating is 30x30x 100 = 90,000 but an actual effectivness of 30x30x70 = 63,000. So alliance A is rated as only 80% as powerful as Alliance B in the matching (72,000/90,000 = 0.8) BUT they are actually the stronger alliance. In actuality, those alliances probably wonāt get matched and Alliance B will get matched potentially against an even STRONGER alliance, depending on that allianceās mix of non-maxed 5 stars.
Now that was a bit extreme of an example since no alliance has 30 players whose 30 heroes each are all the same like that, but it does illustrate that for non-max 5 stars, the team power metric thinks those heroes are much stronger than they actually are and alliances with those heroes get matched vs stronger alliances than they otherwise should.
The change will simply be to bring the team power (i.e. AW matching rating) down closer to the actual effectiveness rating of the hero.
But honestly, the whole point of trying to rate the heroes is a moving target anyway due to various team concepts, skill complementing, etc. The real fix is to use some sort of laddering system and it will sort itself out over time. This team matching and formulas is going to be a constant mess of adjustments and a time sink.
@mhalttu, iād be more concerned about how does the war pairing be affected for non-5* teams vs 5*'s, lowering 5* top power score would cause pairing to be more against non-5*'s if Iāve understood your posts correctly. Iād put effort of war pairing, not on this, since war chests now make war an effort instead of just a joke.
Except that if the underlying metric used for pairing (i.e. hero power) isnāt an accurate representation of how powerful a hero is, then thereās no real way to āadjustā that until the individual metrics used are accurate. I.e. you need to get the measuring tools correct before worrying about analysis from using the tools because the data coming from the tools is broken.
Your argument is like the WoW players that got upset when they gave purple and orange gear to everyone. Itās just a number, get over it. Your need for numbers is literally causing people to quit the game, this helps fix that.
@TylerDirtyn
what exactly seems to be your problem?
War victories merely serve to feed oneās vanity as well. The loot is nothing to write home about.
Oh, and people have quit the game over wars, yes. Mostly because they do not enjoy this activity.
Edit:
I have no idea how lowering the team power metrics of fully ascended 5* heroes could make any contribution to improving matchmaking in war.
I do, however, have a very good idea that taking a milestone away from people who have worked hard to achieve it, would not be a wise move.
Be that as it may, mhaltuās last posting seems sensible to me.
Edit- Looks like you got your way, they increased the numbers on the 2 and 3 stars to preserve your numbers, I predict matchmaking will be worse now. Thanks.
- the alliance where I play gets destroyed as well.
- two mushrooms for victory vs one mushroom for defeat does not really make a difference.
- if the war chest is anything like the five titans chest, then that is not worth the trouble either
- my suggestion: you go do the activities which you enjoy, and I go do the activities which I enjoy.
- have a nice day
Edit:
6. yes, this game is pay to win. there is even a big huge thread about this, right here in this forum.
Iām sorry if all the people in my alliance that pay for heroes screws up the matching system. They paid too, why are they less important than you?
Alliance War is the only real teamwork aspect of this game other than coordinated flasks on Titans. I know in my alliance AW point hogs (people who have very strong teams and just spend all their flags beating the weakest teams so they have the most points) are not welcome. AW is about teamwork but itās hard to play when youāre a little league team facing the White Sox.
I voted for the original proposal, but Iād prefer this. Not only does it address the psychological concerns raised, but my impression is that it would give yet another slight improvement on how well the power reflects effectiveness.
Iām of the opinion IF they are going this new route that power scaling would need to be dynamic. 4 1 to 4 80 is worth more per point than 3 1 to 3 70.
Excellent idea. The current system overvalues partially leveled 4* and 5* heroes, compared to their actual effectiveness in matchups.
Maxed 5* heroes arenāt badly overvalued, and donāt need the reduction.
The 5* hero at 1/1, 2/60 or 3/70 is where the adjustment is neededā¦and similarly the 4* heroes at lower levels/ascensions.
I think I misunderstood what @mhalttu said. If the numbers are still being reduced and they will grow in power level only at an additional 5% this may be an acceptable solution although I believe it will be still cause some discrepancy at the 4 70 vs 3 70 level.
Entirely possible. But this is clearly a step in the right direction.
Agreed 20 characters
Makes a bit more sense I guess.
When I read the op ārarity of heroesā in my head that was like a hotm/event hero tax. Saying the rarer heroes made me think it was āthe rarer of the five star heroesā or the rarer of the four star heroes, and not as all fours and fives have a rarity bonus.
My bad.
I was genuinely confused why panther or guin or gravemaker would be rated less powerful than elkanen 
Understanding this a little better I can see this as a step in the right direction
Thank you @Dante2377, for taking the time to explain this in detail. 
I understand why it brings down the power of partially leveled heroes. My worries are more in the area of - it decreases the gap between 3* and 4*/5*ā¦ and as you have mentioned, most alliances are a much more mixed bag of levels and heroes. So, if those partially leveled 5* are now closer in power to a bunch of fully leveled 3s, wonāt that still lead to uneven matches? From my experience, even if a partially leveled 5 is perhaps overrated in power, this hero can still take out a fully leveled 3* sitting in someoneās defense; not difficult at all. And from what I have read in the forum - I would suppose that the majority of alliances are comprised of a mixed level of players with mixed levels of heroes. I know mine is. And this is where the match making has shown to have the most problems. At least, that is my impression. I could be wrong, of course.
The new suggestion made by mhalttu seems better.
But, up to now, every alteration has seemed to be better in theory. Perhaps the data SG has collected also shows that it is better. But it isnāt getting better for a specific area of alliances, as it seems the comments keep coming from the same people - so they arenāt getting better matches yet.
Alliance score - worked for some. Titan score - worked for some. We (my alliance) had overall good matches with that. Top 30 heroes - seemed to be a better way, it was suggested in the forum often. Top 30 heroes with emphasis on the best 5 - seemed to be even betterā¦ well, you see what Iām getting at.
Perhaps the new suggestion will change tthings and matches will be made in a more levelled fashion. I hope so. Because after, how many months now? 8?, I really wish they could get a handle on this.
I actually think your next comment is very true - if they had used a ladder system, it would probably have sorted itself out already.
Basically it fixes the problem of ranking a level one five star higher than a level 3 50 three star that doesnāt have a Max special. Unleveled heroes count the same as leveled heroes in current form and thatās incorrect.