War matchmaking manipulation

That’s not how I understand it. My impression was that war participation was fixed at whatever the participants were at the time of matching, which could be at any point during these three hours.

I might have missed something, of course. Got a source?

A source that says exactly what I said, no.
But… what you’re saying is that since we know preparation starts at 20:26 (in some timezone), the players who return to their alliances between say 20:00 - 20:20 would likely not be able to participate in war? There were some doing that before chests, and I think they were able to participate in wars.
And also… you say “time of the matching”. Does matching for one alliance take one instant or 3 hours?

The players are ‘locked’ when matchmaking STARTS. If any leave during the matchmaking time, during the prep phase or during the war, they will leave a ghost team on the field.

Also, if any players remove their participation check during any of those times, they will leave a ghost team and cannot participate in the wars.

Any player who joins or adds a participation checkmark anytime outside of the matching, prep or actual war will be included in the matching and be able to play in the wars.

Any player who leave or remove the participation check outside of the matching, prep or actual war will not be on the battlefield and, therefore, will not be able to play in the wars.

Short answer - No.

Hope this clarifies my previous response and gives you the answer(s) you need :grinning:

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That’s exactly what I meant.

In theory:
20:20 on Thursday we get the message “the war begins soon”
20:20 on Friday we see an opponent in war
20:20 on Saturday we can use our first flag

I read somewhere post that we have 3 hours when the system search an opponent for us, let’s imagine that is on Friday 17:20 - 20:20 and after that we see our opponent.

I can imagine that first all alliances must be scanned, and then it takes some time to pair with another alliances, which takes some time. The question is if someone will swap a small part of players on Friday at 19:30 can be scanned lower than the real power? I’m sure that those players will have a chance to play.

@LadySuzanne your answer is clear, but I’m almost certain it is incorrect. The players joining mere minutes before the message “alliance war starts in 1d” are allowed to participate in the war.

In this scenario, if you waited until Saturday at 20:20 to use your first flag the war would be over.

When you see the message “war begins soon” you would also see your opponent alliance at that time. Then 24 hours later, war begins.

Players are locked in when that message appears. Meaning that anyone joining an alliance (or opting in to war) after that point will be spectating, which won’t help their alliance. Anyone leaving or opting out will not help either.

That being said, I understand your question. You believe that if the match making happens at for instance 17:20 (three hours before the war begins message) and you are matched with an alliance, and then at lets say 20:10 (ten minutes before the war begins message) they swap out their weaker members for stronger members that you could end up facing an opposing alliance that is quite a bit stronger then your own. In theory it sounds plausible. IF what you read about matchmaking happening at some point BEFORE the war begins message.

It was always my understanding that the matchmaking occurred pretty much right at the moment when that message and lockdown occurred. But I may be mistaken.

According to what the devs have stated in the main war thread (I believe you can find it in this thread: Alliance Wars Matchmaking (Discussion & Developer Response) MASTER), the process goes like this:

  1. The message on the war tab states that the next war starts soon (something like that). This is a 24-hour time frame.
  2. Although that message lasts 24 hours, it only takes the last 3 hours of that message to do the matching. At the start of that 3 hours is when the snapshot of all alliances are taken. Everything is based on where the alliance stand at this time.
  3. During the 3 hours, the system creates an updated war score and matches the alliances against similar alliances.
  4. At the end of the 3 hours (the last of the before stated 24 hours), the ‘Alliance Wars start in 1 day’ message is broadcast. This is the Prep phase where you can see your opponent and your battlefield.
  5. At the end of the prep phase, the war starts.

Ah, ok so there are two different messages (war starts soon and war starts in one day) I’ve never noticed that. Interesting.

To be clear, this is a hypothetical question? If so, you’ll want to read the main war thread I posted previously. It’s long, but should answer all your questions. If not, I suggest asking the question in that thread as there are many voices there that can help. They will also confirm what I previously said that the matching is locked at the start of the 3 hours.

If this is right, so 3 hours before war prep everything is locked, I would have expected a forum explosion on this topic. I think there are still people going in and out alliances at this point, they would all be in spectator mode if you are correct. And nowhere in the game it is stated that they can’t move because of war.
But, I can’t be sure, because we don’t merc. I do think we once got a new member just before prep started, who could participate. I don’t think there still was 3 hours before prep, but here I am not entirely certain either.

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Not everything. Just the matching – who’s part of it, who’s not.

And there has been a fair amount of “why am I in spectator mode” questions on the forum. Dunno what more it takes to be numbered among explosions?

I have seen the “why in spectator mode” posts, but not as many as I’d expect if everyone in those 3 hours that switched alliances would have been excluded.
And I have read most posts in the main topic and I don’t think I have seen @mhalttu say that people are locked in hours before the prep starts. Only that matchmaking takes 3 hours and that people are locked in during prep. Still, I don’t think prep starts at exactly the same time for everyone, so could be that individual matches are instant (with prep starting immideately), but the whole process does take 3 hours.

I’m not sure how it works exactly. I just noticed a strange movement between two alliances, when a part of weak is replaced by the same amount of strong players. Only devs know if that works so that I left it here.

I consider very strange to move a bunch of players here and there because they lose the war chest.

If matchmaking is done 24 hrs prior to a war, how is it possible that an opponent alliance has multiple members on the field that joined less than 24 hours ago? That doesn’t seem right to me. I count 6 that say joined in 1d or less. 5 of those are within the last 12 hrs.

Once matchmaking is done, those that are in war can leave the alliance and come back. It has no impact to the war matching, but allows those traveling between family alliances to go help where needed.

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MATCHMAKING In WAR still needs work.

Opponents have 6 level 60+ to our 2, 23 level 50+ to our 8, 8 level 40+ to our 13, and 1 level 30+ to our 4.

Analyzing them, they clearly control cup levels by deliberately losing them.

This is the 3rd straight match we are going in as huge underdogs. The Perkins School for the Blind would have a better chance to beat the US Women’s Soccer team than we do in this latest WAR.

SG PROGRAMMERS: Get your (deleted) together.

As I understand it, cups/trophy counts have no bearing on war matching.

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Correct, cups don’t affect war matchmaking. Neither player level.

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I thought matchmaking was also based on the highest heroes in each member’s roster, not just what they had set for their defense?

What you set for your defense has no effect whatsoever on matchmaking. Your top 5 heroes in your roster do get extra weight though.

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