Being in one of the top 3 clans, take my opinion for what it's worth, but I find it fun albeit simultaneously a chore to fit into the timeslots while also finding a desirable template. While it would be fun to also challenge for ranks 1 or 2, I can't say we don't have the ability to do so, just lack the drive to make it happen. Meaning, WR aside, both #1 & #2 consistently have more members playing everyday. All of the top 3 have 40 people playing each season, but we don't have enough people playing actively to be able to make a challenge.

Now look from #4 and down, it's the same trend but worse. They typically have even less members playing consistently everyday. But it's also these same teams that claim they don't have a reasonable chance of competing for top spots for various. And without discounting those reasons, I would counter with, the first step is getting more members to play every day. If you can't at least achieve that, doesn't matter what else changes in CW, you'll never make a play for the top ranks.

That aside - I do think that the Territory rewards should be more attainable. The fact that only the top 3 clans make it to 20 territories for the elusive +15% AP bonus CW reward can certainly be a deterrent for activity. If the only territory rewards they're realistically going to get are the ones they want the least, it's deflating.

The idea of individual rewards in additional to group rewards is a great idea. As it stands now, either the whole clan succeeds or fails together, and this makes it difficult for an individual member to be motivated if the clan as a whole isn't already motivated. This is fine for the top 5-ish clans, but for every one below that, it means someone has to incite vigor in the ranks in order to even get more than 1-2 territories, and this is hard. At least if there was some _desirable_ (ie: not just some crappy reward, something players actually want and can use and is material) reward(s), then an individual can start to play, get benefit, and this can be motivating. It all starts with 1-2 members, and can spread to others. Maybe rewards for 10, then 20, then 30 games played in a season (played, not won), and a different reward for 10, 20, 30 wins per season. Add an MVP distinguishment for clan (most wins?) per season. Technically 1 FC is given to everyone player, so yes, an individual reward does already exist, but it's just for playing any game at all, and obviously it isn't enough of a factor, b/c there's still not enough activity.

As for Fizzer listening to the community - yes, he has listened a few times, but more often than not, no, he doesn't. The case has to be convincing, meaning you have to actually convince him it's for the better of the game. He won't just implement something b/c many people want it, that isn't enough. Times he's listened? When we complained about the cooldown of Active Artifacts - he lowered it from 24h to 16h (sure, it's still not enough, but it's an improvement). And when he reinstated the empty bonuses for superbonuses to support IDSS (whatever the Iskander whatever whatever whatever abbreviation is). And a few more. Yes, for each time he listened, there are 100 times he didn't, but he can't implement everything, and we shouldn't expect it (and let's be honest, some requested items are just plain dumb and should never be implemented anyhow; but certainly there are some gems and missed opportunities). And who knows, maybe all these times he did listen (except the IDSS, that was legit making a case to overturn something he materially disagreed with because he didn't understand why we wanted it, and once he did, he saw the value & changed his stance) it was only b/c it was already something on his list that he happened to come to the same conclusion as the community on. Anyhow, what he did say about CW, the TLDR is basically to wait another 6-10 months to see how things go and maybe they'll stabilize and get better. So don't expect any short term changes.

In designing Clan Wars, a lot of effort was put into making sure that it’s fun for everyone who participates. In a traditional ladder, I feel it’s a lot of fun for the top 10%, who are competing for a high rank, but pretty bland for the majority.

And that's the problem, isn't it? The top 5% are happy, the next 5% are happy-ish, the next 80% are unhappy/complaining that they don't have more opportunity. So it's not really accomplishing the 100%-happy-across-the-board goal that it's aiming for. But it could ... and the community has provided lots of options to improve it.

And lastly ... I've said it before and will say it again - the timeslots are terrible, the template selections are terrible. Basing one's routine schedule around 4h timeslots is soooo inconvenient, and exacerbated by being online at the right time and finding no preferred templates. If the goal is widespread participation, this seriously needs to change. No idea why it's so fixated on fixed 4h timeslots and including templates that numerous people have indicated they don't like. This deters participation. Make it easy to find (A) a time to play, and (B) a desirable template. There are many options for this so I won't even go into a discussion.

These posts are well thought out. I just wanted to point out that two of the top 3 have 80+ members. So if all clans only have 50% participation then they have 40 members doing clan wars. Where my newer clan is limited to 40 members and would only have 20 members doing clan wars. Newer clans cannot realistically compete with clans twice their size.

@navrunner just remember that the large size of it doesn't matter as much since they cap the amount of participants for CW per clan at 40.

There is obviously a hierarchy in ranking between clans (Clear 1-3) that are extremely active and good for Clan Wars in specific, and thus I don't think anyone is really complaining for the Rank Rewards. The main argument being made here is that the later Territory Rewards are simply too impossible (unrealistic) to reach for every other clan except the Top 3. (The biggest one I have my eye on is the +15% AP which is the 20 territory reward. Season 5 seems to be the first time outside of the Top 3 to finally have 2 more clans in sight (Excel/Polish Eagles) to achieve the 15 territory mark giving the 20% dig cd reduction.)

Anyway though, if nothing is done in regards to this, many can (and already do) just simply view these territory rewards as rank rewards themselves for the top 3 basically. "You might as well just make those Territory Rewards exclusive to the Rank Rewards, because the odds of any other clan getting to them are extremely slim" (The only way this can change is if several of the less active clans fuse their active members, but I don't think it's likely for this to happen, and if it did, maybe 1 or 2 clans would get the ability/incentive to do so)

@navrunner just remember that the large size of it doesn't matter as much since they cap the amount of participants for CW per clan at 40.

Pre-5.12 clans (without the 40-cap) can hit the CW participation cap at 50% participation or less. For a post-5.12 40-capped clan to hit full participation, they need 100% participation. There's no way for post-5.12 clans to follow krinid's simple suggestion without extraordinary effort and churn (because they can't afford to have a single non-participating member in the clan while TSFH can keep around non-participants).

To date, the justification for the 40-cap at the clan level (because CW has a 40-cap) has remained a non-sequitur, just like the rationale for matchmaking CW off a single incredibly noisy clan-level rating ("because it's a clan competition"). It's fundamentally hard when every design decision in first-party community events remains constrained by needing to convince one evidently stubborn authority.

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If the Create Game API's restriction were removed + a platform was made available where community events could broadly reach players including invisible casuals and newbies (like how QM and CW are highly visible to everyone), I bet we'd get something drastically better, more enjoyable, and far more responsive to community feedback than Clan Wars in its present state.

Perhaps we should look at the big picture: the successful, enjoyable, and continuously-improving (rather than degrading) community events have all been community-made, community-led, and community-owned. But the community has been constrained and shut out- the APIs have restrictions to prevent theoretical abuse scenarios (which would be trivial to detect if they occurred at meaningful scale) which make them borderline useless and further insulate the strategic community from the broader playerbase.

This is not the first thread to discuss CW design, and no one seems optimistic about any of this thread's suggestions getting taken seriously. Farah has had an entire class of students working on data gathering and analysis to make the case for a clear-cut obvious change on the 1 v 1 Ladder. CW and QM have fixed templates that, based on relative CW join rates, look to be empirically less popular than the templates developed and tested organically by the playerbase even though the fixed templates (by virtue of cluttering the initial unlocks on QM) have an edge when it comes to visibility and adoption. Meanwhile, MTL solved its rating system problem years ago, player-run events have competitive mechanisms that favor templates players really enjoy, and Clan League improves each season (in spite of the considerable effort it requires just to keep the lights on).

The broader case we should be making is for an ecosystem that promotes rather than handicaps community events, because the group that's most in-touch with the playerbase is the playerbase itself. We need more than half-functional APIs and a half-maintained Community Events page.

Edited 9/3/2021 04:10:12

@navrunner
Some great points. I agree that pre-40 cap clans have an advantage, but I think it's a smaller advantage than people think. Most of the 40-cap clans that aren't doing well simply don't have players joining games often enough. So using the logic of 50% CW participation rate, that puts 20 players in scope, and if a clan had 20 players playing at least every other day, they would likely make the top 10, maybe even higher. But they don't, many of these clans don't even have 20 players participating, nevermind active players.

But don't think that new clans can't be competitive - they can, look at Excel in 5th place with 40 members, Rep of Korea in 8th place with only 29 members, Python in 9th place (with only 36 members!), but also consider that Masters at #1 spot only has 54 members. So yes, >40 but not 80, 90, 100, etc, just a mere 14 beyond what the new clans have. They've optimized to be CW competitive.

Cyrkon has 40 members, but only 17 CW players, not even 50% participation. Even among those 17, only 3 have played >10 games. What this says is that the clan as a whole isn't serious about CW - which is fine, but if members want to be competitive, they either have to incite consistent activity, or leave the clan for one that has activity.

The unfortunate part about 40-cap is that it forces new clans to re-organize if they want to be competitive. Old clans still need to recruit new active CW players, but new clans need to both recruit new and cut non-active CW players. It kind of forces you to decide between being a general community clan or a CW-focused clan. This is the advantage that the old clans have.

So using the logic of 50% CW participation rate, that puts 20 players in scope, and if a clan had 20 players playing at least every other day, they would likely make the top 10, maybe even higher. But they don't, many of these clans don't even have 20 players participating, nevermind active players.

It's a vicious cycle and uphill battle because 40-capped clans have a far weaker incentive for players to participate (no chance of getting the nice rewards) and struggle to retain talent when breakout players hop to pre-5.12 clans that offer better opportunities for CW powerhouses.

Excel in 5th place with 40 members, Rep of Korea in 8th place with only 29 members, Python in 9th place (with only 36 members!), but also consider that Masters at #1 spot only has 54 members

Excel, RoK, etc., are likely one-season wonders. Look at the past 40-capped clans that have had strong CW seasons. They fade the next season because it takes a lot more effort to get them near the top than it does to get a fraction of TSFH to participate. Python is an edge case as one of the few clans that can get >50% win rates reliably in CW.

The unfortunate part about 40-cap is that it forces new clans to re-organize if they want to be competitive. Old clans still need to recruit new active CW players, but new clans need to both recruit new and cut non-active CW players. It kind of forces you to decide between being a general community clan or a CW-focused clan. This is the advantage that the old clans have.

And it's a tremendous one. If Ursus has school or work that makes him less available for one CW season, you're not forced to kick him out (and can benefit from his participation in the next season).

Unfortunately, due to the built-in difficulty of fetching data about CW, it's a pain to get numbers here (so it's a hassle to look into things when the admin jumps here and cites some non-auditable cursory data to call players' claim "nonsense"). But if you looked at which clans have lasting CW success, I bet it'd paint a different picture than the 40-cap being only a minor handicap.

Remember PKU58ers? Or look at the current best 40-capped performer in CW: KING. KING lost its two best historical performers to TSFH and their steady improvement more or less comes from Fausto somehow managing to marshal steady participation while the other non-top-3 clans in CW face dwindling results.

Edited 9/3/2021 04:20:08

Big 40+ and definitely have a huge advantage, as knyte said. There's no doubt about that. And that's coming from someone in one of the bigger clans.

40+ clans do have an advantage, one problem which might affect both the small and big clans is a random troll/member joining for one game and never playing again.

I don't expect most of the players who participate to know about this. so when someone participates for fun once that slot is gone for the whole season.
now this is even more problematic for the newer clans who use the "open clan" feature. I have seen trolls join, play and then leave. maybe we can think about a solution for this?

Edited 9/3/2021 16:25:35

As to the troll problem, perhaps only the top 40 slots are used to earn territories? But is that that big of a problem to make a change? Maybe a clan leader could permit members to play CW or not.

Maybe a clan leader could permit members to play CW or not.

Well, then you get into the problem of big clans effectively creating a roster/lineup thing for CW. The whole point of CW is that its for everyone in the community, not just the good players from decent and better clans.

Also, on the topic of getting gameID's for CW games, I hope Fizzer adds that as an option to the GameFeed API. That would solve a lot of problems and allow for a much better analyses of CW.

I agree that the cap is a disadvantage, but when I see clans capped at 40 but with <40 members and <10 active players, I just don't see the point in pointing the finger at the 40 cap, b/c it's not playing a factor yet. When you get to a point where you have 40 members and at least 20 active players and are actually limited on who you let in and play, etc, then the cap can be a factor.

As for having troll CW players ... yes, that could be a problem - but I would also argue it's likely b/c the clan just opened itself to 'anyone' joining without any screening or recruiting effort, and hoped they'd be an asset in CW. Why would anyone skilled (which means high participation and at least non-abominable WR) at CW join an open clan? Of course they'd go to one of the already successful clans. No one is going to rally around a clan's cause to become a CW contender if the clan leaders aren't even seriously trying. All the successful clans have put real effort into succeeding. So if a clan isn't even making serious effort, there's no justification to complain about not getting better results.

Excel is minimally a 2-season wonder, b/c they were 4th place in S5, and now 5th place in S6. We'll see with the departure of Arrow, if Shin & the other leaders can sustain it. Hopefully they can. It's good to see a new clan succeeding. It shows that while it is harder for all the reasons stated in this thread, it's possible to be competitive. But it all starts with making the effort to recruit and incite participation.

ROK has improved since S4, now rising in S5. S6 I suspect they continue to ... my understanding is that Shamu has been helping them build their CW capabilities up to compete better, so we'll see how they do next season.

As for WR ... yes, that's always going to be a factor. That's why M & MH are #1 & #2, but they'd likely still be that high due to insane participation even with lower WR, just the gap between #2 & #3 wouldn't be so ridiculous. Now if Python could get their participation up with their WR, they'd easily take #3, maybe even be a threat to #1 and #2.

I think the real problem here is just not enough rewards for the clans that are trying at least a bit. Clans that have 1-10 players and getting 1-4 territories, get a couple okay WZI buffs but none of the free artifacts, powers beyond the 1 FC, coins, etc.

ASIDE: Check out The Royal Falcons ... just 1 single player Word Walker, 21 games, 13 wins, 2 territories! Hats off to him. This is a case where individual participation should count for something. In another clan, he'd be a decent CW asset. Now start a revolution & get more people in the clan like him.

my understanding is that Shamu has been helping them build their CW capabilities up to compete better, so we'll see how they do next season.

All 3 of these high performing handicapped clans (Excel, RoK, KING) have been dependent on energetic leadership marshalling participation (Arrow, sanmu, Fausto).

KING has already regressed this season. Excel burned out Arrow who's now retired. RoK seems to have burned out sanmu, who has also wound down his activity (per his words on Discord, he hasn't been on warzone at all for a bit). He was last seen over 86h ago.

The foundations for performance in these handicapped clans are more volatile. I don't see a path to stable longevity. Moreover, why again were these clans handicapped in the first place? I don't recall it ever being explained what benefit we get from having some clans limited to CW size.

I think the real problem here is just not enough rewards for the clans that are trying at least a bit.

+1. And little incentive for individuals to try in clans that aren't.

In another clan, he'd be a decent CW asset. Now start a revolution & get more people in the clan like him.

Or more realistically, have him hop to another clan where his individual interest in CW gets him better rewarded.

Leaders & members from Excel, RoK, KING ... what are your thoughts on this? As the most successful 40-cap clans, your opinions are valuable to this discussion.

why again were these clans handicapped in the first place?

Don't think it was totally explained, but presumably to increase the # of clans competing in CW, but tbh if the limit on CW remains @ 40, don't see the point in limiting clan members, b/c the ability to get rewards is already limited by CW player cap. That limits for example all players from joining either M or MH, playing once and getting full rewards for 1st or 2nd place. So the clan cap is extraneous imho.

You're wasting your times and efforts talking about this. Fizzer will not read or acknowledge feedback that disagrees with him. Remember COD WarZone is why this game is tanking.

This game isn't tanking though. If anything it got a spike in joins right around when CoD:WZ came out (but cause could've been pandemic WFH):


That spike is on 03/22, the inflated account creation rate started on 03/10 and ended on 05/23. CoD:WZ was released on 03/10. That said, Italian lockdown began on 03/10 and something like 40%+ of accounts created at the height of the spike play with Italian flags (vs. 6-10% in post-spike accounts).

source: https://bit.ly/warzone-datadump; interactive: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRPGcpOgw6lZCWmi2_Zq4GxvGn1fkMbZQOTZEDbm_BJss_oL_JuYDa3Se19enjWS7BudFCYV1rgpaH0/pubchart?oid=1133306426&format=interactive

Edited 9/4/2021 00:22:01

Show me a graph of how long those accounts stayed.

In my mind the accounts joined are like sheep, they played the game and realised it was not COD WarZone (which is the wolf) and it killed all the sheep and they left the game therefore.

Tl;dr Cod WarZone is the Wolf which kills the sheep (the new accounts joined).

This is the leading claim that Fizzer will use in court to claim his monies in damages.

Source: I am a business student.

Show me a graph of how long those accounts stayed.

That data is hard to parse because most accounts in general quit very, very early on. Ofc, it's also hard to get as well. This goes back to my earlier point about Warzone's APIs being limited to the point of being useless outside narrow use cases. Imo APIs should not be limited by intended application but instead more broadly by natural operational semantics.

The APIs have struggled to yield results so far because of low adoption rates. But if you probe deeper, adoption has been constrained not by interest but by utility: the community has both the expertise and appetite to make things with the APIs* but basically everything outside the initial imagination of the API design is infeasible. Imo a developer-facing API only succeeds if it can elegantly enable use cases well beyond the imagination of its original designers.

When Twilio** designed their APIs, they could not have possibly foreseen all the ways they're used today***. There's a lot of beautiful things that can happen if APIs are designed well rather than forcing users to handle the cognitive load of implementation details and limitations centered around narrow intended use cases, like how the query game API is so tightly coupled with the idea of analyzing ladder/tournament/CLOT games, to the point that it doesn't even have a good way to analyze auto-generated games outside those 3 groups in a timely and clean manner.

* see: the multiple API use cases that emerged in this thread, the multiple failed community CLOT attempts and projects that failed at various stages
** a company whose product is APIs that let you send and receive phone calls & text messages
*** https://github.com/topics/twilio?o=desc&s=updated

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Show me a graph of how long those accounts stayed.

EDIT: see conversation on FCC Discord (https://discord.com/channels/391085979756134411/713143231428296734/883510089045135370) for data. Accounts that joined during the height of the spike appear to have had about-normal retention vs. non-spike accounts.

But the data also suggests that the spike might've had a lot more to do with Italy's COVID lockdown than with CoD:WZ.

Edited 9/4/2021 00:38:24

@krinid its useless to talk about clan wars cap in front of fizzer(I tried a lot to get excels member cap up by even offering him 2k coins). As for excel performing in clan wars, i am quite tried and busy irl. ZiAnsari would also retire from warzone after covid is gone. And shin would make Excel an Idle clan(IDK if they would play in clan wars). You can also see that after i left Excel's leadership, Excel became #5th from #4th, and is currently not doing so great(you can comfirm by games played). Earning a teritory in a week or so cause very few people still play clan wars.

[EDIT]: PKU is the best clan wars clan(Atleast was for first 2 seasons.) I have been their ex member, so i can tell. They fought very well with 20 members(about 13-15 games a day). So you can add them to your list by replacing KING @Krinid. Cause king is a dead clan and Its founder made KING after i didnt make her manager of Excel 😂

Edited 9/4/2021 12:43:05

I suggest to put an end to clan wars and start an in built clan league instead. Or just get rid of clan wars cap/make clan wars game capacity to 20 a day.

Fizzer should build not build CL, but instead expand the API so the community can build what it wants.

I get that Fizzer wants to keep full control over WZ, but Fizzer simply cant keep up with the pace of the community anymore. Right now, Fizzer comes up with a new idea, implements it, then needs 2 years of fixing bugs with the help of the community. However, 5 months after Fizzer announced the new thing, the community already wants something new.

Rather than make the API have access to more data, Fizzer converted all the WZ pages to UJS, making getting data ever harder. The lack of data means that no proper analysis can be done, so everyone is just making educated guesses about problems.