GA Fairness: Community Help
June 5, 2022 1:42PM
edited June 2022
Hey all,
Just a thought for how the community could help offset matchmaking disparities.
If you are a notably larger account and outgun your opponent- attack first.
This would drastically help even the playing field without having to involve the devs. I'm not nieve enough to think everyone would do it but it's a nice thought.
Best wishes and thanks ahead of time for keeping all the feedback positive. Or at least constructive.
Just a thought for how the community could help offset matchmaking disparities.
If you are a notably larger account and outgun your opponent- attack first.
This would drastically help even the playing field without having to involve the devs. I'm not nieve enough to think everyone would do it but it's a nice thought.
Best wishes and thanks ahead of time for keeping all the feedback positive. Or at least constructive.
Post edited by Kyno on
1
Replies
Nope. If my opponent is just lazy enough to do one battle, I should be able to see that and adjust my fights accordingly (ie clearing a full territory of theirs) so that I spend my time efficiently. If the scores are hidden then we all have to go full tilt the entire time, which is in an aggravating time sink. If I can successfully win by beating a quadrant instead of multiple, that's a win in my books.
Imagine investing alot of time to attempting a full clear, just to find at the end of match the opponent did one battle. Times that by three opponents. I'd be ticked.
Obviously the devs need to be involved because the players aren't the responsible for the app coding.
Could you explain how you think this may help a lower GP player or even the playing field.
Well if the opponent is notably larger. We mainly have 1 of 3 scenarios.
1. The smaller account has climbed up, and is therefore on par with larger accounts.
2. The larger account has fallen, and is therefore on par with smaller accounts.
3. The larger account isn't playing much, and therefore probably isn't going to attack more than once. And if they do, I doubt they care enough to wait.
This isn't even taking into account 'time factor'. Where a lot of players have a limited time to attack.
I think it's fair to say there's an advantage for sure. Knowing what you need to do to win, massively changes how you will play (in the higher divisions anyway). If you know you can drop a battle or 2 and still win, if you know you don't have to full clear therefore prioritize an area or if you know you don't have the luxury of dropping battles where you can attempt to pinch banners. It 'can' and will in certain matches be a pretty sizable advantage.
I also think there's some other tactics regarding waiting, which I think has got me wins. I don't wish to discuss those though.
You are correct, but it’s wrong to suggest this is ‘the’ competitive strategy. And I was questioning if they understood fully what the advantage was because in my opinion its possible to fairly accurately predict. And allows you to employ some other strategies by attacking first.
I’m more than a million gp less than you and ranked about a thousand spots higher in K1 and I always make sure I go second and run about an 80% win rate. Clearly going second is a distinct advantage, I like when they go first and try to scare me with a full clear.
/s for the inevitable anecdotal evidence warriors.
DISCLAIMER: Post is subject to change.
You won / win because you have the roster that enables you to. That would still be the case if you went first.
Unless you think going second provides some hitherto unseen bonuses for your characters or puts a hex on your opponent.
It’s not about some made up number by CG, it’s about the difference in crystal income between a 60% win rate and an 80% win rate up to this point. I have no illusion that I will stay at that rate, but I also started a lot lower than you did when the initial seeding was done so I’ve had to win a lot more than you have to get to my placing and that means a lot more crystals. Does my roster/mods/strategy allow me to do that? Of course they do, but I use those things more efficiently when I go second.
DISCLAIMER: Post is subject to change.
But you don't know what your win rate would have been had you typically gone first. What you ascribe as a clear advantage has no basis in fact and would be immediately cobrradicted by a "go first" player that usually attacks first and enjoys a similar win rate.
It’s not hitherto unseen, it’s simple math most of the time. In most cases, I don’t have the roster to stop the opponents I’m getting from getting a full clear, so it comes down to efficiency.
The case below, my opponent went first and full cleared me with less than stellar efficiency. Having seen that I knew that I didn’t have to one shot his Exec in my final battle. I only had to clear the zone so I could safely send in a burner fleet beforehand. If that info was not available, there is a very high chance I would have failed as I would have tried to one shot it and we all know what the success rate the Mal counter has now that they have “fixed” buzz droids.
DISCLAIMER: Post is subject to change.
All my opponents “go first” and 80% of the time they lose. That’s the only basis in fact I’m worried about.
DISCLAIMER: Post is subject to change.
This is probably the case in lower tiers but not k1 and K2. At least I'm not seeing people miss attacks.
Of course as you noted, I had less climbing space between my starting point and our current position so I've been chilling around the K1-K2 border ever since. Could I push higher? Maybe. Is it worth the extra effort? No, not to me. I don't put in anywhere near the time and effort that I used to.
- knowing that your opponent used a GL on one of your teams (if he scored 58-59 against your GAS and oQGJ you alrdy know he burned 2 GLs) and you can plan accordingly
- potential for burner squads if you know the banner score allows it - sending in a burner squad against tripple attacker Exe followed by your own Exe makes it a 100% win or your Rebels counter increases it's win rate to like 90%+ whereas before it was probably smth like 70%
- knowing for which route you have to go in super heavy defense matches where a full clear is not possible and both players try to clear 1 path and get as many squads cleared as possible on top of that
- while obviously some pressure is on you if your opponent very efficiently cleared the board (the only advantage of going first and really only an advantage if he was truely efficient) it also at the same time is a warning for you to not be slacking on counters and be very efficient aswell, might even rethink your offense game plan that you might have had when you think you need every single banner and can not just clear a Maul team with Traya for like 52 banners (-5 to soft max)
The advantages of going second are there and whether people want to make use of them or not is up to you but denying that there is an advantage in going second and it being the better approach is just stupid. Hiding the score could be a solution but it would also hurt the GAC streams/ingame battles where it could be appealing to watch when both ppl attack at the same time and try to always be slightly ahead of their opponents score creating a thrilling match to watch/play.
I always attack first, and win more than I lose
So at a level above, there is also the "meta" strategy of deciding whether to go first or second in a particular scenario. Logically the debate is at this level.
There isn't a way to quantify the advantage with either strategy, because, like any complex scenarios, it's next to impossible to control all other factors and compare only going first and second.
For that reason, it is also impossible to calculate the net advantage of any "meta" strategy. The overall WR or other stat differences don't help here, because there are many other factors impacting the stats. That applies to the observation CG made as well. "There is no perceivable advantage in going second" only proves that there isn't a decisive advantage to go second, but it cannot prove that going second is never advantageous in any scenarios. "There is no perceivable advantage in going first" is also valid, but it cannot prove that going first is never advantageous in any scenarios either.
Sure, sometimes it could be better to go first or more often that not it doesn't matter. However, on numerous occasions, it will make a difference.
We’ve been over this same argument many times. Going second has some advantages and disadvantages, and the same goes for going first. No one will ever agree whether or not the advantages of one method outweigh the other.
Since one can always deliberately ignore the banner count knowledge when doing your attack, I would argue going second at least didn’t have disadvantage. Whether it has advantage can be argued forever.
If CG simply change the tiebreak to that if tied in banner, the side who attacked first win. It might balanced out the potential disadvantage that going first might have.
In that case, everyone would do one attack and wait until the last hour to do the rest
But I do think the tie breaker needs to be changed. Instead of basing it on gp, it should be based on participation. How much effort did you put into the round before. If you did a minimal attempt just to get points and participate, your tie breaker score would be low. If you put in maximum effort, your tie breaker score would be high. And if your tie breaker is in the first round of gac then your previous gac score could be taken into account. This would encourage more participation in gac Instead of high gp players floundering in tournaments that no one can beat them in.