Grand Arena Megathread

Replies

  • The only gripe I have with the matchmaking in the current installment of GA is the inclusion of ship GP in it. You're only using ground troops, so let that be the measure to compare rosters. If ships play a big role in the future, I can understand to a certain extent that the same algo is used for this one-off test.

    Regarding the complaints like "My 4MM GP aren't as good as the next fellow's", I can only say that the guy with the fluffed up roster is rightfully in for a bitter defeat. He spent his resources in a certain way, and this way turns out to be not paying off the way he wants. But he was able to contribute more to TB, earning higher rewards than if he only activated toons he could take to g12 straight away.

    If you only pair lean-mean rosters in one group of 8, and only fluffy rosters in the next, the eventual winners of both groups would walk away with the same prices. And that would be even more unfair - imo - than setting it up so that the weaker roster loses the match.

    And on the suggestion of only pairing Revan owners and non-owners against each other, I don't agree either: If I can't muster a team that beats his Revan, while he clears my entire defense, I deserve to lose. Losing ain't fun, but sometimes a loss is justified.
  • NicWester wrote: »
    Really, the best thing they can do after this is post some hard data on how the matchmaking turned out. Something like "X% of players were matched up with someone within Y% of their power" etc, because the only posts we're seeing are people who were grossly mismatched, which could be outliers or could be common, we just don't know. Hopefully they're scraping the data.

    I posted how I'd adjust the matchmaking algorithm earlier, but another thing I think I'd do is add a few more tiers with narrower banding so that instead of a 2m player and a 2.99m player being considered equal and in the same grouping (making those numbers up--I can't find the post that gives the actual gp limits per tier) you break that up into two 2m-2.5m tier and 2.51m to 3m tiers.

    I think the tiers only determine how many teams you have to put up. I haven't heard of 2.99 gp players being matched with 2 mil gp players. I'm pretty sure in the large pool of players in that range, they match the low end with the low end and the high end with the high end.

    Both of my matches were within about 20k gp which is a rounding error at 2.9 mil gp. Both matches, i had a slight advantage but I have a pretty tight roster. But at least with the last one, it looks like I'll win by about a few hundred banners if they don't clear my last team and 75 if they do. So pretty close. My bastilla team held on defemse twice. That was the determining factor. But it wasn't a slaughter or anything like that.
  • I think although there are some teething issues with matching and the points system is not perfect The Grand Arena is going to be a good addition to the game.
    Once it is more established we will all get a feel for what works and can either build our roster accordingly or choose to give it a miss.
  • The only gripe I have with the matchmaking in the current installment of GA is the inclusion of ship GP in it. You're only using ground troops, so let that be the measure to compare rosters. If ships play a big role in the future, I can understand to a certain extent that the same algo is used for this one-off test.

    Regarding the complaints like "My 4MM GP aren't as good as the next fellow's", I can only say that the guy with the fluffed up roster is rightfully in for a bitter defeat. He spent his resources in a certain way, and this way turns out to be not paying off the way he wants. But he was able to contribute more to TB, earning higher rewards than if he only activated toons he could take to g12 straight away.

    If you only pair lean-mean rosters in one group of 8, and only fluffy rosters in the next, the eventual winners of both groups would walk away with the same prices. And that would be even more unfair - imo - than setting it up so that the weaker roster loses the match.

    And on the suggestion of only pairing Revan owners and non-owners against each other, I don't agree either: If I can't muster a team that beats his Revan, while he clears my entire defense, I deserve to lose. Losing ain't fun, but sometimes a loss is justified.

    I agree that ships should either be used or not part of matchmaking. But I think they'll probably be used. Though they may not add more than 1 slot for ships. Maybe 2 for high gp players. But with only 4 capital ships, you can't field a lot of strong fleets.
  • Drim
    359 posts Member
    Not only did my opponent not set defense but he gets to attack me and do his quests....that’s sounds fair
  • Here's a possible solution: allow each player to decide how many teams they want to use, within a reasonable range, before matchmaking. At 4.1M gp, I was at a huge disadvantage due to one meta team (out of 7) I couldn't take out easily since I didn't buy Revan. If we were using 10 teams on D, my opponent's lack of depth would have given me an easy win. Letting the player choose would lead to fairer matchups, IMO.

    ...or you could just modify toon GP ratings to accurately reflect their real power, because two 10K toons are almost never the equivalent of one 20K toon.
  • I don't know about anyone else, but I'm loving Grand Arena. Matchmaking issues or not, it brings the Strategy back with an additional individual event, which is why I play this game. Thanks to CG for making it happen, and for "taking one for the team" (considering all the **** and moaning that is going on).
  • Drim wrote: »
    Not only did my opponent not set defense but he gets to attack me and do his quests....that’s sounds fair

    On the bright side, you get a win. You get more points for defense then they can possibly get on offense. So you'll eventually get to do your quests while you get the win.
  • Vombatidae wrote: »
    Here's a possible solution: allow each player to decide how many teams they want to use, within a reasonable range, before matchmaking. At 4.1M gp, I was at a huge disadvantage due to one meta team (out of 7) I couldn't take out easily since I didn't buy Revan. If we were using 10 teams on D, my opponent's lack of depth would have given me an easy win. Letting the player choose would lead to fairer matchups, IMO.

    ...or you could just modify toon GP ratings to accurately reflect their real power, because two 10K toons are almost never the equivalent of one 20K toon.

    Revan is not unbeatable. It does depend on mods but there are counters. If you have a fast thrawn, ep led nightmare can beat them. I know because, I beat the less well modded revan teams in arena with that team. And I'm only at 2.9 mil gp. Ns, jtr with droids, and a few other teams can also win.

    But by 4.1 mil gp, if you can't find a revan counter, then you deserve to lose because you're not super skilled or haven't built a very strong roster.

    And I doubt requiring more teams would give you the advantage. If they have better developed teams at the high end, they can disperse the g12 characters to make several good b teams that can beat you g8 toons. Or send in a g12 character solo to clear your g7 team. There are several ways that the person with the tighter roster can still win in that situation.
  • Grand arena, am I right?
  • Cus you lost.
  • I do not have Fun with Grand Arena.
    I try to collect as many Characters as possible. Therefore my GP is relatively high. The problem is I have to set 6 Defense Teams. But I dont have enough Teams left for offense then.
    I dont have 12 Strong Teams, just a lot of Characters that I have modded and leveled up, but without proper Gear... The matchmaking will not work for me in the Future :/
  • Azgard wrote: »
    I do not have Fun with Grand Arena.
    I try to collect as many Characters as possible. Therefore my GP is relatively high. The problem is I have to set 6 Defense Teams. But I dont have enough Teams left for offense then.
    I dont have 12 Strong Teams, just a lot of Characters that I have modded and leveled up, but without proper Gear... The matchmaking will not work for me in the Future :/

    I have 2.9 mil gp and can field almost all the teams so it is possible.

    My teams are

    Ep nightmare
    Jtr
    Cls with chewie
    Bastilla jedi
    Bossk lead bh
    Wiggs
    Ns
    Murder bears
    Empire
    Fo
    Pheonix

    That's 11 teams that I have developed at various levels but all are between 70k and maxed. I did have to use one trash team of lando led scoundrels but that van be rectified woth some effort.

    So with a bit of focus on teams that are good, you should be able to build some good teams if you focus your gearing on teams that are good.
  • Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.
  • Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    If you get them developed enough, you'll be prepared for anything and win more often.

    Though probably more than a week long process. But the good news is, if you develop teams for hstr, tw, and tb, most of the same teams are good everywhere. So if you develop your best 12 or 14 teams, you'll do well in most areas of the game. If you spread it from the 60 or 70 chatacters to the other 100 or so, you may not do as well.
  • Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    If you get them developed enough, you'll be prepared for anything and win more often.

    Though probably more than a week long process. But the good news is, if you develop teams for hstr, tw, and tb, most of the same teams are good everywhere. So if you develop your best 12 or 14 teams, you'll do well in most areas of the game. If you spread it from the 60 or 70 chatacters to the other 100 or so, you may not do as well.

    In general I agree with you about focusing on 12-14 teams being good for development in many game modes. I’m responding here to somebody who argued that the implied incentive from the introduction of GA is to gear up more PVP squads. I agreed with that, but argued further that CG would strengthen that incentive by improving the matchmaking.

    As you note, this game offers us a lot of choices for development. Recently, I had to choose between gearing Ewoks for the PVE Threepio event (and maybe a third tier GA squad), or gearing Bastila Jedi for a solid second tier GA squad. Given the state of the matchmaking, I’d be foolish to focus on the better PVP squad, since it’s highly unlikely to result in a greater chance of victory. If the matchmaking were better, that would be a much more double-edged and interesting decision.

    (and just for the record, I’m not making this argument solely as a player who’s being overmatched in my GA matchups. First round I was blown out by a player who had twice as many G12s as me. Second round, I’m trouncing a player who is roughly equal on zetas and G12s, but hasn’t learned to mod for speed. I want competetive matchups, not just Ws).
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.
  • Liath
    5140 posts Member
    Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    The better you are (better in terms of what works well for GA) relative to those at your GP level, the more likely that mismatch will be in your favor. It will take time to see a difference, but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    j7dxa570scr0.png
  • Drim wrote: »
    Not only did my opponent not set defense but he gets to attack me and do his quests....that’s sounds fair

    He also gets an extra 100k currency for each won battle. You don't.
  • Dk_rek
    3299 posts Member
    Liath wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    , but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    How ??? The people incinerating people now wont be improving their roster DUCY ?
  • Commander_Wolffe
    211 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    Liath wrote: »

    The better you are (better in terms of what works well for GA) relative to those at your GP level, the more likely that mismatch will be in your favor. It will take time to see a difference, but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    Exactly.

    For example, I unlocked Old Daka and Jawa today and got enough Ewok Scout bonus shards for me to raise him another star. However, I'm not going to activate them or gear them or level them or star them. I'll keep them unactivated and just keep collecting shards. Once I activate them, their GP will count against me, because I won't be able to use them in GA for a really long time.

  • Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    If you get them developed enough, you'll be prepared for anything and win more often.

    Though probably more than a week long process. But the good news is, if you develop teams for hstr, tw, and tb, most of the same teams are good everywhere. So if you develop your best 12 or 14 teams, you'll do well in most areas of the game. If you spread it from the 60 or 70 chatacters to the other 100 or so, you may not do as well.

    In general I agree with you about focusing on 12-14 teams being good for development in many game modes. I’m responding here to somebody who argued that the implied incentive from the introduction of GA is to gear up more PVP squads. I agreed with that, but argued further that CG would strengthen that incentive by improving the matchmaking.

    As you note, this game offers us a lot of choices for development. Recently, I had to choose between gearing Ewoks for the PVE Threepio event (and maybe a third tier GA squad), or gearing Bastila Jedi for a solid second tier GA squad. Given the state of the matchmaking, I’d be foolish to focus on the better PVP squad, since it’s highly unlikely to result in a greater chance of victory. If the matchmaking were better, that would be a much more double-edged and interesting decision.

    (and just for the record, I’m not making this argument solely as a player who’s being overmatched in my GA matchups. First round I was blown out by a player who had twice as many G12s as me. Second round, I’m trouncing a player who is roughly equal on zetas and G12s, but hasn’t learned to mod for speed. I want competetive matchups, not just Ws).

    With the 3 round format, it likely will be more competitive. The first. Round will separate those with good rosters from those with not so good rosters in most cases and the second round will continue to do so. You'll probably have to have a pretty tight roster to get 3 wins.

    I guess it is possible you can be the only one with a good roster out of 8 but not likely.

    As far as finishing bastilla vs murder bears, I feel for you there. I also could add to my bastilla team (that is the team that held on defense and gave me victory this last round but it isn't maxed by any means). Or I can gear up murder bears for 3PO. I'm doing murder bears for a couple reasons. Legendary characters are almost always useful longterm. And geared murder bears are good as well so will also help me win. I already use them in ga anyway so it's not a waste.

    I did sacrifice some ewok gear to get traya geared up since I unlocked her yesterday. That also helps ga. Hopefully, it won't cause me to not get 3PO. But since I want traya in my regular arena team, I chose to focus on traya for a few days to get her arena viable and then do ewoks.
  • Liath wrote: »

    The better you are (better in terms of what works well for GA) relative to those at your GP level, the more likely that mismatch will be in your favor. It will take time to see a difference, but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    Exactly.

    For example, I unlocked Old Daka and Jawa today and got enough Ewok Scout bonus shards for me to raise him another star. However, I'm not going to activate them or gear them or level them or star them. I'll keep them unactivated and just keep collecting shards. Once I activate them, their GP will count against me, because I won't be able to use them in GA for a really long time.

    I'm still going to star characters I can for a couple of reasons.

    One platoons. I like to be able to help fill them out where I can.

    2nd, the gp difference from staring isn't that large. A ungeared 7 star character only has about 1000 gp. 100 of those is 100k which at 2.9 mil gp is not very much difference.

    Now I focus gear on characters that are good in multiple areas in general. So I think you can still star most characters and gear good characters and do fine.
  • Tbuono89 wrote: »
    Cus you lost.

    First one I won, this one I'm losing. In general, it blows. Can't stand it either way. I don't want to spend 3 days getting mediocre loot.
  • Tbuono89 wrote: »
    Cus you lost.

    First one I won, this one I'm losing. In general, it blows. Can't stand it either way. I don't want to spend 3 days getting mediocre loot.

    You don't spend 3 days playing. You spend an hour playing but it stretches over 3 days so people van play it when convenient.

    But if the rewards aren't worth it to you than don't play.
  • Liath wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    The better you are (better in terms of what works well for GA) relative to those at your GP level, the more likely that mismatch will be in your favor. It will take time to see a difference, but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    j7dxa570scr0.png

    In all likelihood, this game will cease to exist LONG before enough GAs have been run that would for a player to gain a statistically significant number of GA wins by investing in PVP resources over PVE resources, given the current state of the matchmaking.

    As for the cartoon, I’ve experienced the unfairness both in my favor and against me. Neither one of the experiences has been particularly fun, either for me or for my opponents.
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.
  • Liath
    5140 posts Member
    Dk_rek wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    , but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    How ??? The people incinerating people now wont be improving their roster DUCY ?

    If you focus now on characters and teams that will help in GA, then the useless GP will be a smaller and less relevant portion of your overall GP. Build more coherent and synergistic teams that counter the teams people tend to place on defense. Farm good mods and equip your teams properly.

    The people doing well now will keep improving, but they don’t have as far to go, so the difference will be less noticeable. It’s like trying to lose weight when you have 10 pounds to lose vs 100. You might not catch up to the cream of the crop, but you can sure pass by the people who don’t even bother trying.

    Or you can just cry that it’s unfair and give up. Whatever floats your boat.
  • Liath wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    The better you are (better in terms of what works well for GA) relative to those at your GP level, the more likely that mismatch will be in your favor. It will take time to see a difference, but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    j7dxa570scr0.png

    In all likelihood, this game will cease to exist LONG before enough GAs have been run that would for a player to gain a statistically significant number of GA wins by investing in PVP resources over PVE resources, given the current state of the matchmaking.

    As for the cartoon, I’ve experienced the unfairness both in my favor and against me. Neither one of the experiences has been particularly fun, either for me or for my opponents.

    By pve, you mean events I'm guessing. Or TB. But either way there is enough overlap that you can develop teams that are good for both. I can beat about any pve events and have several teams that are good for ga. Like ns is good in all areas so why not focus on them. Bhs are also good in the raid, have several events, and are good in pvp. So are jedi, empire, and some other teams. So it isn't as much a choice but building teams that are good in multiple areas.
  • Liath wrote: »
    Dk_rek wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    , but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    How ??? The people incinerating people now wont be improving their roster DUCY ?

    If you focus now on characters and teams that will help in GA, then the useless GP will be a smaller and less relevant portion of your overall GP. Build more coherent and synergistic teams that counter the teams people tend to place on defense. Farm good mods and equip your teams properly.

    The people doing well now will keep improving, but they don’t have as far to go, so the difference will be less noticeable. It’s like trying to lose weight when you have 10 pounds to lose vs 100. You might not catch up to the cream of the crop, but you can sure pass by the people who don’t even bother trying.

    Or you can just cry that it’s unfair and give up. Whatever floats your boat.

    This
  • Liath wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    YaeVizsla wrote: »
    Al it tells me is that im being used as a crash test dummy in a beta test
    Any continuously expanded game is in a constant beta state. No feature survives contact with the player base, and adding new features means there will be new problems.

    If you put a thousand man-hours into testing a new feature, then introduce it to a hundred thousand players, the player base will have more man-hours engaged with that feature in less than a minute. Saying they should test better is ignorant of the fact that testing something as rigorously as the player base will is literally impossible.

    So, yes. Yes, as someone playing a game that continuously has new content added, you ARE part of testing the game, and that is implicit to the structure of the game.

    Grand arena had a limited launch to account for problems. There were problems. Grand arena will be refined. That's the cycle.

    That’s quite possibly a reasonable explanation for the crashing problem in the previous event. But they could run the matchmaking algorithm server-side just to see what the results were. And they could have seen that on any number of metrics it was creating uncompetitive matchups. They don’t have to have it perfect on launch, but there’s no excuse for the quality of the matchmaking that we’re seeing.

    That presumes that they are interested in making the matches competitive for you. They are probably more interested in incentivizing you to make yourself more competitive relative to others.

    @Liath

    Tried to respond to this last night but my comment vanished into the moderation ether, and has not yet reappeared.

    I agree with you that that’s a healthy incentive both for the individual player and the game as a whole. I wholeheartedly do. But that incentive is better served if the algorithm matches players who are likely to provide each other a challenge.

    Suppose I lose a close match, and in the post game, I decide I lost because the Bastila team I set on defense was undergeared. I focus on gearing them for a week, get matched up in another competitive GA, and pull off the win (or come closer to it). That’s what good matchmaking gets you: the player actually gets to see their investment pay off in their performance.

    With the matchmaking as random as it is however, a week’s worth of roster improvements is super-unlikely to be the difference between a win or a loss. I never know if the next matchup is going to be against somebody I can’t beat in a million years, or against somebody who hasn’t figured out to mod for speed yet. What’s the point in investing in the slow process of improving multiple teams for GA, when the result of the match is practically always going to be determined by the poor matchmaking?

    The better you are (better in terms of what works well for GA) relative to those at your GP level, the more likely that mismatch will be in your favor. It will take time to see a difference, but people who start focusing on GA teams will be able to improve their win percentages over time, as it stands.

    j7dxa570scr0.png

    Let me try to say this a different way. You believe that the devs, by introducing GA, intend to incentivize us to farm multiple teams for PVP. I agree that that is what they intend. But I am also arguing that, given the current state of the pairing algorithm, that incentive is FAR too weak to actually cause anyone to change their farming behavior. The competetive edge that I can gain by focusing on squads for PVP is going to be swamped most of the time by difference in rosters between me and my opponent (whether that difference helps me or hurts me).

    If you thought that it was a bad decision on the devs’ part to incentivize farming for PVP, that would be one thing. But it sounds like we both agree that it’s actually a good incentive. Given that, why don’t you think that the incentive should be made strong enough to actually cause a reasonable player to adjust their behavior?

    Or should I just write you off as a status quo apologist?
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.

  • But by 4.1 mil gp, if you can't find a revan counter, then you deserve to lose because you're not super skilled or haven't built a very strong roster.

    And I doubt requiring more teams would give you the advantage. If they have better developed teams at the high end, they can disperse the g12 characters to make several good b teams that can beat you g8 toons. Or send in a g12 character solo to clear your g7 team. There are several ways that the person with the tighter roster can still win in that situation.

    I can usually counter Revan just fine, but not with a high-dollar fast #1 arena team around him - at least not on the first try.

    If my opponent had dispersed that arena team, I would have crushed them.

    And I certainly never said I was playing with g7 or g8. I can field 14 teams of 5 with mostly G12 and some G11, then another 4 teams of at least G10... and the shallow depth of his roster would have paired those G10s against his G6 or even completely ungeared toons.

    But the original point wasn't to whine, but to offer some suggestions to help make matchmaking more competitive, which keeps players interested in the game.
Sign In or Register to comment.