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

---

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.

APIs could help. However, if it's not an official piece of core WZ, pretty the rewards are all gone, and would people care anymore?

@Arrow
How does abandoning CW solve any problems whatsoever? That's like if 2 kids are arguing over what game to play, just cancel all games whatsoever.

However, if it's not an official piece of core WZ, pretty the rewards are all gone, and would people care anymore?

The rewards can only be spent in-game, so the ultimate value comes from enjoyment of the game/event itself.

Considering CW is entirely contested within Warzone Classic, it seems strange to me that the rewards are effectively only for Warzone Idle. Obviously he’s trying to promote people playing both games, but it severely limits the incentive for anyone who only plays Classic to care at all about it.

If I want to play a game why should I play CW, when QM has better templates, happens whenever I want, and the CW rewards are meaningless to me as a non idle player?

@Beren
Indeed, seems no reason for you to play it at all. And you're in a non-capped clan, so it doesn't harm the clan that you don't play if they were to decide to try to be competitive in CW. They can still find up to 40 more to participate. It's only harmful if you're in a capped clan that wants to be competitive and can't invite a new member b/c a non-CW player is consuming a spot.

@l4v
Easy to say but let's be honest, people tend to go to wherever there are rewards, like GC, like CW, etc. Why just "play the game" when you can "play the game and get rewards". When both options exist, people will trend to the second. Unless like Beren, the rewards don't really matter to them (which is fine). And the point me and many others are making (including Beren), is that CW in itself isn't fun enough to just play on its own. The templates aren't great, the timeslots are terrible, etc, and thus it's really the draw of the rewards that it's relying on to generate activity, which is bad. It really should be made easy, accessible, fun enough to stand on its own so even if there weren't rewards, people would play it. As Beren stated, what does it really offer that QM already doesn't offering either at the same level or better? The answer of course is Rewards. That's it. It would probably be more effective to just find a way to merge CW to rely on QM matches rather than be a net new and inferior system.

I'd agree with Beren, I played idle for a brief period of time, got bored of it, and as a result, stopped playing clanwar.

^ krinid, that's my point more or less. The CW rewards have value because they can be used for additional enjoyment in-game (on Idle). So ultimately people still play strictly (directly or indirectly) for entertainment.

@Beren: Wordscapes' team tournament model on top of QM could be really nice: https://wordfinder.yourdictionary.com/blog/how-do-wordscapes-tournaments-work/

Basically, what if CW was just a measure of how active your clan is on QM?

Alternatively, CW could become something with more meaningful clan vs. clan clash instead of just a "which clans are more active?" ranking.

Edited 9/6/2021 03:34:45

Yeah Clan vs Clan is smarter. Like have templates and lineup like Clan leagues, but its only against 2 clan like a ladder. So for every win you get x points and for every clan loss, you get -x points. This way, clan wars can replace clan leagues, and provide a much better input of where each clan stands in terms of ranking/rating. So i suggest to make a clan wars ladder.

@knyte, what you linked regarding Wordscapes seems to me like a better way to do this, though Fizzer is rather committed to the CW-style competition, rather than a competition just built on top of QM.

@krinid, I missed one positive of playing CW over QM (for me at least). While matchmaking in CW is not great for reasons that have been discussed many times here, it is still better than in QM. If I play a CW game I am almost guaranteed to play someone in Masters due to my clan's CW rating and the fact that my template taste overlaps with theirs (i.e. i won't play at all unless the template is FB, Guiroma, Strat MME, MA+LD, and Strat ME if it's a template?). In QM only about 1/10 games is against an opponent who can give me a competitive match. The improved matchmaking is a function of the scarcity - if games were ad hoc we'd be back in the QM matchmaking situation.

The matchmaking benefit of CW varies based on a player's skill level relative to their clan. Players who are significantly better or worse than their clanmates instead get worse matchmaking (at least if we posit that the goal of matchmaking should be to create more evenly-matched games*), so clans where skill levels are less uniform (e.g., TSFH) don't reap the same matchmaking benefit. Some people join with the expectation that they'll almost certainly lose, others with the expectation that they'll almost certainly win. Over two seasons of CW (for both of which I had above-average skill relative to my clanmates), I can hardly remember any even matchups even though my skill level in general is middling enough that the ladders & QM are able to accommodate reasonable parity over half the time.

The scarcity is a good point, though. The ceiling for matchmaking quality is set by opponent availability so, in a real-time event, having a large number of people all playing at/around the same time can provide serious advantages if the matchmaking algorithm tries to optimize for evenly-matched games.

* Which may not be a good assumption here, since CW matchmaking- by rating at the clan level rather than individual level- directly does not attempt to optimize for individual matchup quality. Another thing we probably need to gather data for if we want to have some basis for claiming individual-skill-based matchmaking would lead to a better experience. This is interesting, because almost all other matchmaking systems I've seen simply assume that they should optimize for even matches.

Edited 9/6/2021 23:50:48