My last week with ZING........

Hi Everyone,

It's been an absolute pleasure to be with ZING, it's amazing through hard work, dedication and teamwork we've become a 1.17 Million (at time of writing) rated Alliance, at the beginning of May we were 380k!

There's been some tough times, like when the original creators of ZING left but the good and fun periods far outweigh these and I believe all experiences have made the Alliance stronger.  It's great to leave on a high having been part of the last 7-day Rank Up so that everyone got Yellow Jacket and Crystal Crash as we managed to rank in the top 50!

But now I must focus on other things in life which take priority.

I won't be totally leaving the game, I still want to see Act 4 and get to level 50 but I need to stop playing and so it would be unfair for me to stay when I cannot make the commitment needed to keep ZING growing.

This blog will remain but I won't be updating it, so let me know if anyone wishes to take over.

I shall miss the whole Alliance experience, players old and new, everyone has been awesome but I will try and keep in touch with officers and those who are friends in the game now and again.

My last day, well I haven't quite decided yet, would be nice to win one last Alpha but this week will definitely be my last.

So all the best and just remember play smart, keep working as team, plan and prepare as much as possible, think of your fellow players in the Alliance and don't hate the game, enjoy the game!

Jamey (AKA Waylander)

Latest Kabam News 19/08

Latest News from Kabam Forum, a lot's happenings!

Arenas

1. 7-day Ant-man and Yellowjacket arenas giving players the chance to get 2, 3, and 4-star Ant-Man and Yellowjacket basic heroes. As a reminder, these arenas are being run so that players can use up their existing Pym canisters.

      For those with remaining Pym canisters after these events, they will be converted into battlechips at a rate of 15 battlechips per 1 Pym canister.

2. The 3-day Elite Arena kicks off tomorrow. A reminder of the details:
- You’ll face off against a harder AI
- You’ll see faster difficulty ramping
- You’ll experience a slower increase of streak multipliers (in order to make it more rewarding to maintain your streak)
- Players will only be able to use 4-Star champs

Prizing for the Elite arena is a White Suit Iron Fist ranked reward for first place, and the other players in the Elite arena will be able to earn 4-star Black Panther as a milestone reward. Because we are giving players the opportunity the chance to win Black Panther as a milestone reward, they are not going to have the ability to participate in the 3-day 4-Star Black Panther Arena. This is to ensure other players have a chance at the 4-Star Black Panther Arena.

This one's gonna be tough, to the victor go the spoils!

3.  Two 3 day Black Panther Arenas.
- 3-star and 4-star arenas
- Black Panther and Crystal Shards as rank rewards
- For players that have been with us for a full 60 calendar days prior to the arena starting, the 4-star arena will also see 4-star Captain Marvel Basic Hero as a ranked prize for ranks 401 to 1000

Players will also see a few different 1-day Alliance Events starting tomorrow.

Alliance Quests

We’re coming up to that time again, so I hope you’re all ready to get your game faces on! This week, we have some pretty big announcements pertaining to Alliance Quests. I hope I have your attention! 

We’ve received comments from players saying that they feel like the prizes for Alliance Quests aren’t compelling, that how we award them isn’t fair, and that a lot of players feel like there isn’t any point to participating in these events. This is disappointing to us, because it’s certainly not how we want our players to feel about events. 

We’ve been working away at a number of things in order to address these concerns, and hot damn is it ever an exciting day because we can now start to share some of what we’ve been working on! 

On the subject of Prizing, this week will see the following improvements:

    Better milestone rewards, and an increased amount of prizes for milestone rewards!

- The new Crystal Shards rewards have been added to milestone prizes. These allow you to work towards 3-star and 4-star hero crystals. These are a big deal! You can read more about them right here: http://community.kabam.com/forums/sh...Crystal-Shards

- Alliance Quest Crystals have been added. These can include high level Catalysts.

   Top Rank rewards for lower brackets have been increased!

- More players now have a chance at more awesome prizes

- We’ve added more Alliance Quest Crystals and Crystal Shards to prizing for lower brackets as well!

   

Players will receive an Alliance Quest Crystal with every battlegroup your Alliance manages to explore.

- Alliance Quest Crystals can contain a Tier-4 Generic Catalyst, A Tier-4 Class Catalyst, or other great rewards. These Crystals are awesome to get!

- The more battlegroups that are 100% completed, the more crystals everyone receives!

We’ve also increased the gold payout ratio for maps 1 and 2!

Regarding difficulty, and ensuring players outside of the ‘Top Alliances’ want to participate:

    We have decreased entry fees for certain maps within the event:

- Entry fees decreased by 80% for Map 1

- Entry fees decreased by 20% for Map 2

   

We have made adjustments to the difficulty of certain maps

- Maps 2 and 3 have been decreased in relative difficulty

- We’ve improved the ramp-up of quest difficulty. Up until now, it was essentially ‘sweet, this is fun and kinda easy OH HOLY CRAP BOSS FIGHT OH MY GAWD HOW DO WE DO THIS’ but with the changes 

we’ve made, it’s now more along the lines of ‘Hey sweet this is fun, oh it’s getting a bit more difficult OH SNAP BOSS FIGHT hey, that was hard but we handled it and we beat it like a bawsss’.

- These changes help to ensure that event difficulties scale better with players

   Map 5 has seen some adjustments as well:

- Bosses for Map 5 have been further tuned to address concerns of difficulty. You can read about those changes here: <link to be included once posted> It is important for our players to note that this Map is still difficult, and meant to be, however we did feel that the difficulty needed to be revisited in this specific instance. A change has been made, but don't wander into Map 5 expecting a hug and a cakewalk! 

Shard Crystals

You’ve seen the tab in the game, you’ve speculated as to where we’re going with this new feature and what it is. We’re excited to start further discussing Crystal Shards with the community, what they are, what we’re doing with them, and how this impacts you! 

What?

Crystal Shards are a new type of item reward that give players the ability to work towards more hero crystals. 

Why?

Our team has had several ongoing discussions regarding prizes, improving rewards, and adding new elements to the game. We know that the community has a ton of concerns in this area, and we are working to address these concerns.

Our intent:

To make events feel more compelling, rewarding and exciting. To give players more ways to obtain the crystals they really want. To add a new layer of meta-game to Contest of Champions. To help work towards addressing some commonly voiced community concerns. 

How they work: 

There are three types of crystal shards that players can collect, to reconstruct the three different types of hero crystals: Premium Hero Crystals, 3-Star Hero Crystals, and 4-Star Hero Crystals. 

Can I mix and match Crystal Shards?

No. You’ll collect the three different types, and each type can only be used to reconstruct their designated crystals. 

How many Shards do I need to reconstruct a full crystal? 

2000 Shards

How do I get Crystal Shards? 

Shards can be earned through in-game events and promotions!

Latest Alliance Strategy 18/08

Open up all crystals we're going for rank rewards!

Rank-Up what you can, we're going for Yellow Jacket in the 7-day event!  Ideally save ranking up for Thursday for possible overlap of the 3-day event but let's go for it, ZING style!

Alliance News & Strategy 17/08

Events

Current 7 day event is Rank Up Push.

As it will end on Thursday, save any more Rank Ups, hopefully we will have a 3-day Rank Up event that overlaps.

Going for the milestones in the 7-day event is not worth it, getting the Alpha in the 3-day is easier.

Also it's been a very long wait, Crystal Crash cannot come soon enough but the 8 are still holding out, just about......ahhhh I really want to open my 4* crystal!!!

EDIT: 

Crystal Crash is finally here!!! So open minimal crystals to register your score so that everyone has a chance to get rewards.  Not good timing for Kylarion and Judd as they are both on hols, but hopefully they can get access to the game to open their crystals as they are part of the 8!

Rank Up Push - 7 day vs 3 day

I know a few players are very keen to rank their 4*s or high level 3 stars during the 7-day event but if we try to do our best during this event, will we lose out on the Alpha from the 3-day event which could follow Crystal Crash?  And even if there isn't a 3-day event straight after, should we not still save those rank ups until there is?

I'm aware that cats are expiring but a screenshot of why this is an issue might be helpful to better understand the issue.

Anyway I think if everyone can post the score they can get from ranking up in the comments below, we can decide which reward is worth going for in 7-day event over the Alpha in the 3-day event.

(For iPhone or iPad you will need to install Chrome to leave comments)

Kenpark Ranked Number 1!

That's right, Kenpark ranked first in the recent 3* Air Support Arena, he may be in the beginner bracket but he certainly knows a lot about the game, very well done!

Other News

Some might be wondering about the Shard Crystal, here's a screenshot that a player posted on the Kabam forum.  Looks like you will have to get 1000 shard pieces to make up one single crystal.  Maybe an attempt by Kabam to make getting a 4* more attainable but no-one knows yet how you have to get a Shard piece.  I thinking it will be from a drop in quests but more might be be available from milestones in the Arena.

Latest Kabam News 13/08!

Originally posted by Kabam:

Hey hey, everyone! It’s that time again - time for the new arena events to be posted.

Thank you to everyone that participated in last week’s feedback thread, there was a lot of great discussion.

This week, we’re running a few different arenas:

1. War Machine Arenas. They do not require Pym canisters, and there is no basic hero prizing. We will be running 3-star and 4-star War Machine arenas from Thursday to Sunday and Monday to Thursday.

The top 50 finishers in the weekend War Machine arena will be eligible to compete in the first ever Elite Arena on August 20th! See #3 below for more details.

2. Two 7 day arenas starting on August 20th that will give players the chance to get 2, 3, and 4-star Ant-Man and Yellowjacket basic heroes. These two arenas are being run to allow players to use up their existing Pym canisters. If you still have a remaining supply of Pym canisters after these events, fear not - they will not simply disappear into the ether. We will advise on what will be done with these very soon.

3. New Elite Arenas. The top 50 finishers in the weekend War Machine arena will be eligible to compete in the first ever elite arena on August 20th! The elite arenas will have the following differences from standard arenas:

- You’ll face off against a harder AI
- You’ll see faster difficulty ramping
- You’ll experience a slower increase of streak multipliers (in order to make it more rewarding to maintain your streak)
- Players will only be able to use 4-Star champs.

This elite arena format absolutely emphasizes difficulty and intense competition. The prize for this arena will be a new re-skin Champion exclusive to the winners of the Elite Arenas.

More on cheating on rewards can be found on the original post here.

Latest Kabam News 06/08!

Arena & Alliance Quest:

Thursday will see three event types going live, giving you a few different flavours to choose from. On the menu:

1. A 7 day Alliance Quest Series will start. We previously ran a 4 day placement round, and we’re now moving to the ‘main event’ system for this new feature. Players – you will be receiving a message today (Wednesday) to let you know what bracket you’re in. As a reminder, each subsequent round of Alliance Quests will determine the bracketing for the next event. Place high in your bracket and you’ll move up, but place lower and you could drop down a bracket instead. The tiers are as follows:

Incalculable Tier – Ranks 1 to 25
Superhuman Tier – Ranks 26 to 100
Gifted Tier – Ranks 101 to 200
Peak Human Tier – Ranks 201 to 300
Normal Tier – Ranks 301 to 400
Training Tier – Ranks 401 and lower

The higher the tier the better the rewards, naturally!

2. A 3 day, 3-Star Yellowjacket Arena. This Arena will not require Pym Canisters.

3. A 7 day, 4-Star Yellowjacket 3v3 Alliance Arena. This Arena WILL require Pym Canisters. We'll be adding a Basic Hero as a Milestone reward for this Arena.


Monday will have two events going live.

1) A 3 day 3-Star Yellowjacket Arena. This Arena will not require Pym Canisters.

2) A 3 day 4-Star Iron Patriot Arena. This Arena will also not require Pym Canisters.


It’s worth noting that there are no new types of alliance events this week, these are all formats that you’ve seen before.

Patch notes for 4.0.1, released Aug 5th

Summary:
1. Alliance Quest improvements and optimizations.
2. Shard Crystals are coming - more information shall be revealed in time. For now, mystery and anticipation!
3. Misc. Bug Fixes

Alliance Quests Improvements:
1. You can now donate to the Treasury directly from the Alliance Quest info page.
2. The highest unlocked Alliance Quest is now selected by default (instead of the first quest).
3. There is a banner in the Treasury that links back to the current quest when tapped.
4. In the Edit Team screen, tapping on a Champion currently in an Alliance Quest displays the time remaining until they are available.

Bug Fixes & Optimizations:
1. Fixed an issue where Battlegroup Chat panel appeared while in single player quests.
2. Fixed an issue where Battlegroup 3 could not change chat channels.

7th place for KVH_PSV!

Congratulations to KVH who ranked an amazing 7th place in the recent 3* Bio-Sting Arena, recording a 250 streak and 1,274,161 score.  That streak will take some beating but I believe Iansyakirin is up for the challenge!  So again well done to KVH!

Zol was able to attain 10th place before with 910K score, so it's great to have another one of our players hitting the top ranks.