Ahoy mates, the following is a letter from the War development team:
After careful consideration, the team has decided to postpone the release of Alliance War Refresh. We did not take this decision lightly; the major contributing factors to our decision have been:
- The latest Alpha test spurred a lot of negative feedback around lack of diversity (every battle felt the same), winning fewer battles compared to legacy war, as well as feeling constrained with few teams left to attack.
- At least 2 major bugs caused frustration and cannot be released.
- Desired strategic depth is not there yet. Even with the frustrations and bugs in place, Alpha alliances still managed to clear or almost clear the new map in less than 24 hours. As this gameplay refresh is meant to reinvigorate war for years, the ease of clearing does not align with our goals.
It is clear that the new Alliance Wars design does not deliver on our goals. It does not create an aspirational challenge for our top alliances, and it is not more fun for most players.
Next Steps
We are taking the feature back to the drawing board, reevaluating every aspect. We need time to do this, and for this reason, we will not be releasing the AW Gameplay Refresh on November 2nd.
Instead, the normal war will continue as soon as possible, with Enlistment opening on October 19 (Rotation 4). We will also be sending compensation to all players, just as a thank you for your patience as we work to improve this experience.
More Alpha Wars
As soon as we have new concepts, we will run new Alpha Wars, seeking to validate our hypothesis. Thank you for your honesty and your patience!
– The AW Dev team