Riders Of Icarus' Alliance System To See "Major Changes"

Riders of Icarus' Alliance System and Manastone Battles due to players exploiting them. The current system doesn't use a system of automated matchmaking and, as such, major alliances have decided to "take advantage of this system and trade wins with one another in order to receive the lucrative Alliance War reward buff."

In order to stop further exploitation, the Alliance System will be temporarily removed from the game when the Rift of the Damned update goes live on September 29th. Manastone Battles will become "a competition among Guilds and the Militia" during this time. To ensure that the Militia can "provide adequate competition against the larger Guilds," it will allow Rank 3 Guilds to and the buff given to its will be increased.

The "win-trading" exploit also had the unfortunate side-effect of allowing the Guilds that made use of it to earn PvP gear faster. To ensure that other Guilds aren't at a disadvantage due to this, rental PvP gear will be made available to all players. Rental PvP gear will be the same as standard PvP gear, except that it will not allow the wearer to tame Exarahn Badlands familiars.

You can find the full Letter from the Producer here.