Grand Arena Megathread

Replies

  • Gannon
    1619 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    Vombatidae wrote: »

    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.

    I'm with you, I think if they want to see who is "the best in the galaxy," only allow us to use each team once during the whole event
    Post edited by Gannon on
  • Gannon wrote: »
    Vombatidae wrote: »

    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.

    I'm with you, I think if they want to see who is "the best in the galaxy," only allow us to use each team once during the whole event 👀

    There is currently not enough characters for the amount of battles and required defense sets. I would currently need 140 characters to complete entire arena. This would lead to the last battles to be empty boards.
  • Gannon
    1619 posts Member
    Nah, shrink the boards accordingly. Maybe shrink the player pool also. Would be a better judge of who can better use what they have tho, right? If you could only use revan teams once across several rounds of diminishing boards? You don't think
    😕
    I'd be down for that..
    Have to wonder if I should drop my best early in for the win or save for later rounds, what to use and where.. And so on. Much more strategy than reusing the same 12 or so teams
  • Liath
    5140 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?

    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?

    You can write me off if you want. I’m not actually arguing for or against anything changing. I believe it’s important that people think not just about what they would like to have happen, but also about why the devs do what they do. It helps to understand whether something you are requesting is reasonable or a pipe dream, and to potentially frame requests in a way that is more likely to get some traction.

    Personally, I dislike arena, dislike TW, and fully expect to dislike GA. PvP just isn’t my cup of tea. So I don’t care all that much how the matchmaking is done.
  • PolskaStronaMocy
    30 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    I log in to forum just to write this- GA is way more fun then I expected. I like it. Devs should throw curve balls from time to time for example- no tanks GA season, no rebels GA season, no team stronger then 40k season. Something like that. Anyway- Im TW hater but GA preseason game was FUN! Good work!
  • Liath 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?

    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?

    You can write me off if you want. I’m not actually arguing for or against anything changing. I believe it’s important that people think not just about what they would like to have happen, but also about why the devs do what they do. It helps to understand whether something you are requesting is reasonable or a pipe dream, and to potentially frame requests in a way that is more likely to get some traction.

    Personally, I dislike arena, dislike TW, and fully expect to dislike GA. PvP just isn’t my cup of tea. So I don’t care all that much how the matchmaking is done.

    There may be people on here who need help framing, articulating, and thinking through their requests for change, or understanding how the incentives of the devs and the playerbase conflict. I can assure you that, on this matter anyway, I am not one of them. Thanks for your “help,” anyway.
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.
  • Liath
    5140 posts Member
    Liath 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?

    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?

    You can write me off if you want. I’m not actually arguing for or against anything changing. I believe it’s important that people think not just about what they would like to have happen, but also about why the devs do what they do. It helps to understand whether something you are requesting is reasonable or a pipe dream, and to potentially frame requests in a way that is more likely to get some traction.

    Personally, I dislike arena, dislike TW, and fully expect to dislike GA. PvP just isn’t my cup of tea. So I don’t care all that much how the matchmaking is done.

    There may be people on here who need help framing, articulating, and thinking through their requests for change, or understanding how the incentives of the devs and the playerbase conflict. I can assure you that, on this matter anyway, I am not one of them. Thanks for your “help,” anyway.

    What made you think I was trying to help you specifically? I was raising a point that people have not been addressing in their demands for the change that would make them personally feel the match was “fair.”

    The original point I responded to wasn’t even about whether the matchmaking algorithm was good, it presumed that it was bad and declared that it being bad must be due to incompetence. I disagreed that it was necessarily incompetence as opposed to a measured decision that this is the best way for their bottom line.
  • Liath wrote: »
    Liath 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?

    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?

    You can write me off if you want. I’m not actually arguing for or against anything changing. I believe it’s important that people think not just about what they would like to have happen, but also about why the devs do what they do. It helps to understand whether something you are requesting is reasonable or a pipe dream, and to potentially frame requests in a way that is more likely to get some traction.

    Personally, I dislike arena, dislike TW, and fully expect to dislike GA. PvP just isn’t my cup of tea. So I don’t care all that much how the matchmaking is done.

    There may be people on here who need help framing, articulating, and thinking through their requests for change, or understanding how the incentives of the devs and the playerbase conflict. I can assure you that, on this matter anyway, I am not one of them. Thanks for your “help,” anyway.

    What made you think I was trying to help you specifically? I was raising a point that people have not been addressing in their demands for the change that would make them personally feel the match was “fair.”

    The original point I responded to wasn’t even about whether the matchmaking algorithm was good, it presumed that it was bad and declared that it being bad must be due to incompetence. I disagreed that it was necessarily incompetence as opposed to a measured decision that this is the best way for their bottom line.

    Well, there’s the fact that you claimed to be motivated to help someone, and it was in response to one of my comments that you first asserted that the bad matchmaking was intended to incentivize players to farm for PVP. I argued that if that were the devs’ incentive, then they’d be better off with a pairing algorithm that creates more competetive matchups. Then, rather than admit I was right or rebut my argument, you claimed we’d never been arguing in the first place. Sound about right?
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.
  • Vombatidae wrote: »

    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.

    Occasionally you'll face a team that has way better mods and you can't beat without switching mods around (which ypu can't do for this mode and understandably so). But if yoy face a revan team that you can't beat, that only stops you from clearong the one area. If your roster is superior everywhere else you should be able to clear the rest and still have a chance at winning. But if he clears the rest of yours and still keeps revan on defense, he probably hase a better roster, revan being part of that.

    Some say the solution is to make players that have revan only face others that have revan but that removes some of the challenge in my opinion. And they'd contantly have to change the matchmaking to exclude one character or another. It just really isn't a good approach.
  • TVF
    36526 posts Member
    Too early to judge.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • Definitely this isnt the full version so there isn’t alot to judge yet. They knew it would need some improvement thats why its just single rounds for now.
  • So grand arena is more time consuming than either tw or tb... 8 rounds??? Seriously fix the old pvp tournament instead of this rubbish... i hate territory wars as it is and do not want to play this mini version ever again... i won't be playing it any time soon... thanks for making this game just more tedious
  • Well i think to make GA stand out they should increase squad size to 6, or maybe even 7 with 2 leader slots. Requires different thinking and experimentation.
  • Liath
    5140 posts Member
    Liath wrote: »
    Liath 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?

    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?

    You can write me off if you want. I’m not actually arguing for or against anything changing. I believe it’s important that people think not just about what they would like to have happen, but also about why the devs do what they do. It helps to understand whether something you are requesting is reasonable or a pipe dream, and to potentially frame requests in a way that is more likely to get some traction.

    Personally, I dislike arena, dislike TW, and fully expect to dislike GA. PvP just isn’t my cup of tea. So I don’t care all that much how the matchmaking is done.

    There may be people on here who need help framing, articulating, and thinking through their requests for change, or understanding how the incentives of the devs and the playerbase conflict. I can assure you that, on this matter anyway, I am not one of them. Thanks for your “help,” anyway.

    What made you think I was trying to help you specifically? I was raising a point that people have not been addressing in their demands for the change that would make them personally feel the match was “fair.”

    The original point I responded to wasn’t even about whether the matchmaking algorithm was good, it presumed that it was bad and declared that it being bad must be due to incompetence. I disagreed that it was necessarily incompetence as opposed to a measured decision that this is the best way for their bottom line.

    Well, there’s the fact that you claimed to be motivated to help someone, and it was in response to one of my comments that you first asserted that the bad matchmaking was intended to incentivize players to farm for PVP. I argued that if that were the devs’ incentive, then they’d be better off with a pairing algorithm that creates more competetive matchups. Then, rather than admit I was right or rebut my argument, you claimed we’d never been arguing in the first place. Sound about right?

    No. First of all I didn’t claim to be motivated to help anybody. I said that I think it’s important for people to consider factors like what devs want to incentivize and so on occasion I point out such things when people don’t seem to be taking them into account. I just think those things should be discussed in addition to people’s dream matchmaking procedures.

    I pointed out that there is a reason for the devs not to implement what some players would consider an ideal matching system. I actually went into more detail on this in a different thread, but didn’t repeat it all in the back and forth with you.

    According to many posts here (not attributing this to you specifically), the ideal format for the matching would take into account every factor that differentiates one player’s roster from another and match them as closely as possible across all of these different metrics. As I see it, the closer you get to that “ideal,” the less incentive you have to improve your roster for GA, because any improvement you make will just result in a harder opponent, and you will just be treading water.

    I didn’t respond to your question about whether they would create a better incentive to improve by having closer matchups than they do now, because I think it’s complicated and I don’t know the answer. It’s a bit like the folks who insist that they would make more money with lower pack prices. There are a lot of factors that go into that and some people seem to think it’s as simple as “duh, more people would buy them,” which of course it isn’t. Similarly, here, it may be that they make the most money from people who are upset about getting crushed and buy a whole bunch of shards and gear at once to get up to snuff. The packs currently in the store suggest, at least, that the powers that be might believe this to be the case. I really don’t know.

    I did, however, respond to your question of what the point is of improving your roster when the mismatches are egregious by arguing that you can still improve your chances of having a favorable matchup even if the matchups are rarely even.

    You then attributed a motive to my posting that I don’t have, and I contested that. So yes, we are arguing, just not about the issues you are claiming.
  • Great work with the Grand Arena, loved it.

    Matching on GP seems fair, it's up to you how you gear up your roster, and a good challenge to see if your gearing / mods and gameplay has been more efficient than the competition.

    I was expecting it to be a bit of a time sink, but with pre-planning it's fairly quick and easy to set defense and gets your attacks in.

  • TVF
    36526 posts Member
    Topcatv2 wrote: »
    So grand arena is more time consuming than either tw or tb... 8 rounds??? Seriously fix the old pvp tournament instead of this rubbish... i hate territory wars as it is and do not want to play this mini version ever again... i won't be playing it any time soon... thanks for making this game just more tedious

    Where'd you get all of this from?
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • Nope Grand Arena is a big fail for me. Twice now I have encountered full g12 teams that I cannot even take a dent out of. No way these players are at the same gp as me. Am I being punished for choosing to focus on ships?

    Before anyone ponders how that would translate to how I simply suck at this game and my opponents win:

    Capital games have failed to introduce a fair matchmaking system for a game mode for ALL the players, not just the players who chase the current meta. I am used to winning and losing but this is just ridiculous.

    Not even going to play GA now.
  • TVF
    36526 posts Member
    stepgib wrote: »
    Nope Grand Arena is a big fail for me. Twice now I have encountered full g12 teams that I cannot even take a dent out of. No way these players are at the same gp as me.

    But they are. They just chose to focus more on the top end of their roster than you did, and they are therefore better equipped for a game mode that prioritizes that.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • First this will probably get merged... oh well

    But what if when we sign up for GA we choose which legendary/raid/hero character you use/fight against. (every other character would be considered fair game)

    So basically if you have all of those characters you can choose to use/fight them if you want or deselect them and you cant use them at all. BUT the key is that the person you match with also would have that same selection and similar GP so its a fair fight. Furthermore lets say you really hate fighting a Gen Kenobi defense for some reason, you can deselect him and you don't have to worry about that potential problem anymore; but of course that means if you have Gen. Kenobi you cant use him either.

    Going against a Revan or Traya or someone else (of those categories) that you don't have is a bit unfair, even if there are counters to them it can be a disadvantage to the person without said character. Further onto this if you don't have the character they should/would already be crossed out (deselected) since you don't own them yet; and if you choose you could enable them if you wanted to fight someone with them as a challenge while still not having the character yourself.

    Also I would say, that if you deselect a character you own it should also lower your current GP as well since they wouldn't be used.
  • I log in to forum just to write this- GA is way more fun then I expected. I like it. Devs should throw curve balls from time to time for example- no tanks GA season, no rebels GA season, no team stronger then 40k season. Something like that. Anyway- Im TW hater but GA preseason game was FUN! Good work!

    I love this idea. Would be tough to force people into it, but maybe players could join specific Arenas that were "no tanks", "80k max squad GP", and other fun things.
  • stepgib wrote: »
    Nope Grand Arena is a big fail for me. Twice now I have encountered full g12 teams that I cannot even take a dent out of. No way these players are at the same gp as me. Am I being punished for choosing to focus on ships?

    Before anyone ponders how that would translate to how I simply suck at this game and my opponents win:

    Capital games have failed to introduce a fair matchmaking system for a game mode for ALL the players, not just the players who chase the current meta. I am used to winning and losing but this is just ridiculous.

    Not even going to play GA now.

    You can view your opponent's roster and their gp. If the number says they are the same gp, then they are. If they are at a higher gp, then that's another story.
  • Ok then, thanks for the rundown (genuinely), and back to substance:
    According to many posts here (not attributing this to you specifically), the ideal format for the matching would take into account every factor that differentiates one player’s roster from another and match them as closely as possible across all of these different metrics. As I see it, the closer you get to that “ideal,” the less incentive you have to improve your roster for GA, because any improvement you make will just result in a harder opponent, and you will just be treading water.

    You are 100% correct on this point. People who want the matchmaking to take all this into account don’t realize how much they’re asking for, or that it would require rebalancing the algorithm essentially every time a new toon or ship is added. It would also create incentives that the devs would want to avoid, just like you say. That’s why I’ve been advocating an Elo rating system for GA. I think it preserves the incentive to gear up your PVP roster, and ensures that incremental on your roster will generally be rewarded with incremental success.
    I did, however, respond to your question of what the point is of improving your roster when the mismatches are egregious by arguing that you can still improve your chances of having a favorable matchup even if the matchups are rarely even.

    I made a point earlier in this connection, and you didn’t respond, but I would like to know what you think about it: In anticipation of GA, I was wondering whether I needed to privilege my PVP roster more, and from what I’ve seen, it would be unreasonable to change my farming habits. The small improvement I could make to my GA squads every week is going to very likely to be swamped by the uncertainty introduced by the bad matchmaking. Over the very long run, statistically, yes, I would het higher rewards by making that small weekly investment in more PVP teams. But I really do believe that the long run we’d be talking about in order to realize those gains is longer than the life expectancy of the game. That calculation is very different if I can count on seeing similarly situated opponents every outing.

    I want to also say that although I’m not super-into PVP, I was very excited for this mode when it was announced. I was optimistic about the devs’ ability to match the roster strengths of individual players, because this mode isn’t confounded by the guild-level dynamics that make it complicated to create pairings in TW. I’m really disappointed, because this seemed like a fun mode, but the fun has been **** out by the bad pairings.
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.
  • flux_rono wrote: »
    First this will probably get merged... oh well

    But what if when we sign up for GA we choose which legendary/raid/hero character you use/fight against. (every other character would be considered fair game)

    So basically if you have all of those characters you can choose to use/fight them if you want or deselect them and you cant use them at all. BUT the key is that the person you match with also would have that same selection and similar GP so its a fair fight. Furthermore lets say you really hate fighting a Gen Kenobi defense for some reason, you can deselect him and you don't have to worry about that potential problem anymore; but of course that means if you have Gen. Kenobi you cant use him either.

    Going against a Revan or Traya or someone else (of those categories) that you don't have is a bit unfair, even if there are counters to them it can be a disadvantage to the person without said character. Further onto this if you don't have the character they should/would already be crossed out (deselected) since you don't own them yet; and if you choose you could enable them if you wanted to fight someone with them as a challenge while still not having the character yourself.

    Also I would say, that if you deselect a character you own it should also lower your current GP as well since they wouldn't be used.

    And if I deselect everything except a well developed Revan team?
  • Rebel_yell wrote: »
    I log in to forum just to write this- GA is way more fun then I expected. I like it. Devs should throw curve balls from time to time for example- no tanks GA season, no rebels GA season, no team stronger then 40k season. Something like that. Anyway- Im TW hater but GA preseason game was FUN! Good work!

    I love this idea. Would be tough to force people into it, but maybe players could join specific Arenas that were "no tanks", "80k max squad GP", and other fun things.

    Agreed. mixing it up would be fun. Maybe have a g8 max one one week and a regular one the next. Then a 3 v 3 or a 6 v 6 with less territories. There are a ton of different ones they could add.
  • Ok then, thanks for the rundown (genuinely), and back to substance:
    According to many posts here (not attributing this to you specifically), the ideal format for the matching would take into account every factor that differentiates one player’s roster from another and match them as closely as possible across all of these different metrics. As I see it, the closer you get to that “ideal,” the less incentive you have to improve your roster for GA, because any improvement you make will just result in a harder opponent, and you will just be treading water.

    You are 100% correct on this point. People who want the matchmaking to take all this into account don’t realize how much they’re asking for, or that it would require rebalancing the algorithm essentially every time a new toon or ship is added. It would also create incentives that the devs would want to avoid, just like you say. That’s why I’ve been advocating an Elo rating system for GA. I think it preserves the incentive to gear up your PVP roster, and ensures that incremental on your roster will generally be rewarded with incremental success.
    I did, however, respond to your question of what the point is of improving your roster when the mismatches are egregious by arguing that you can still improve your chances of having a favorable matchup even if the matchups are rarely even.

    I made a point earlier in this connection, and you didn’t respond, but I would like to know what you think about it: In anticipation of GA, I was wondering whether I needed to privilege my PVP roster more, and from what I’ve seen, it would be unreasonable to change my farming habits. The small improvement I could make to my GA squads every week is going to very likely to be swamped by the uncertainty introduced by the bad matchmaking. Over the very long run, statistically, yes, I would het higher rewards by making that small weekly investment in more PVP teams. But I really do believe that the long run we’d be talking about in order to realize those gains is longer than the life expectancy of the game. That calculation is very different if I can count on seeing similarly situated opponents every outing.

    I want to also say that although I’m not super-into PVP, I was very excited for this mode when it was announced. I was optimistic about the devs’ ability to match the roster strengths of individual players, because this mode isn’t confounded by the guild-level dynamics that make it complicated to create pairings in TW. I’m really disappointed, because this seemed like a fun mode, but the fun has been **** out by the bad pairings.

    Depends how small your weekly changes are. If you put one gear 8 piece a week on a pvp toon and then go back to collecting and spreading the gear, then you're right it won't make a difference. But if you focus you can improve a pvp team by 20-30k in a few weeks. That makes a difference rather quickly. It also adds to your gp but not enough to significantly affect match making.
  • Ok then, thanks for the rundown (genuinely), and back to substance:
    According to many posts here (not attributing this to you specifically), the ideal format for the matching would take into account every factor that differentiates one player’s roster from another and match them as closely as possible across all of these different metrics. As I see it, the closer you get to that “ideal,” the less incentive you have to improve your roster for GA, because any improvement you make will just result in a harder opponent, and you will just be treading water.

    You are 100% correct on this point. People who want the matchmaking to take all this into account don’t realize how much they’re asking for, or that it would require rebalancing the algorithm essentially every time a new toon or ship is added. It would also create incentives that the devs would want to avoid, just like you say. That’s why I’ve been advocating an Elo rating system for GA. I think it preserves the incentive to gear up your PVP roster, and ensures that incremental on your roster will generally be rewarded with incremental success.
    I did, however, respond to your question of what the point is of improving your roster when the mismatches are egregious by arguing that you can still improve your chances of having a favorable matchup even if the matchups are rarely even.

    I made a point earlier in this connection, and you didn’t respond, but I would like to know what you think about it: In anticipation of GA, I was wondering whether I needed to privilege my PVP roster more, and from what I’ve seen, it would be unreasonable to change my farming habits. The small improvement I could make to my GA squads every week is going to very likely to be swamped by the uncertainty introduced by the bad matchmaking. Over the very long run, statistically, yes, I would het higher rewards by making that small weekly investment in more PVP teams. But I really do believe that the long run we’d be talking about in order to realize those gains is longer than the life expectancy of the game. That calculation is very different if I can count on seeing similarly situated opponents every outing.

    I want to also say that although I’m not super-into PVP, I was very excited for this mode when it was announced. I was optimistic about the devs’ ability to match the roster strengths of individual players, because this mode isn’t confounded by the guild-level dynamics that make it complicated to create pairings in TW. I’m really disappointed, because this seemed like a fun mode, but the fun has been **** out by the bad pairings.

    Depends how small your weekly changes are. If you put one gear 8 piece a week on a pvp toon and then go back to collecting and spreading the gear, then you're right it won't make a difference. But if you focus you can improve a pvp team by 20-30k in a few weeks. That makes a difference rather quickly. It also adds to your gp but not enough to significantly affect match making.

    I should be clear that what I mean is that I’m always going to be investing something in PVP squads—even Ewoks have their uses in TW, and probably in GA as well. But there’s a certain amount of discretionary resources that I could either use for more PVE squads (raid squads, working on top tiers of mythics, assault battles, etc.) or for GA squads. So what I’m really talking about is the marginal utility of diverting those discretionary resources from PVE toons to PVP toons. I just don’t see that the ROI from making that change justifies it, so I’m not changing anything. If the goal of GA was to incentivize the investment of resources in PVP toon, it hasn’t worked for me.
    I demand Grand Arena Elo ratings.
  • I’ve argued enough about the utilization of unused GP, but I will say that I like the mode. I had fun. I had a fair match and won, so sure, that makes it more fun, but it was exciting. It came down to a final match where I had to use Finn (L), Poe, Veers, DT, Krennic against a Phoenix squad and get 48 banners to win. I lost a battle so it threw a wrench in my planned attack teams. Trying to theory craft to piece together my best leftover squad and pick up a do or die win with a team I’d never used together was quite exhilarating. There are several improvements I would make, but I think it’s important to also simply say I had fun as it is.
  • Is this the thread I complain in? Good...

    This feature is a major fail. First of all matchmaking total GP is even, but squad GP equality hasn't been even either time for me.

    Secondly, it seems like a lot of just waiting around for phases to progress. Boring AF IMO. The 24 hour player lock (Preview) phase is fine, but why not allow us to progress the Setup and Attack phases as necessary. Have a DONE button. Once both players have clicked DONE, or all defenses set / areas are conquered...whichever is first...end these phases. This IS NOT Territory Wars. There's absolutely no need to have 24 hour waiting periods for 1v1.

    If it stays as is I'll probably just ignore it. That's another thing: how would I even opt out of this event if I didn't want to participate?

    I agree with what some others have said...the old tournaments were WAY better than this! Kind of like the Blitz mode in Marvel Strike Force.

    Just my two cents...
  • To me, it's less interesting to ask if GA is fair in terms of matchmaking, and much more interesting to ask whether or not this "new" game mode is really adding anything interesting to the game. In my opinion, it isn't, unfortunately.

    It's basically the same old product in a slightly different package. ("Hey, do you like Arena? And do you like TW? Then you'll love Baby-TW-Arena!") Please, CG, I beg you: think outside of the box, and come up with something genuinely new & creative.

    You've been given the keys to the Star Wars Universe (!), and we're still just lining up rows of 5 toys, and seeing whose toys are the shiniest. Crack open the piggy bank, and hire some new creative people with brand new ideas, and take us in some new directions! All the work you've done so far deserves it.

    (If nothing else, GA should just replace Arena for experienced players: e.g., once you've placed top 20 in regular Arena a certain number of times, you "graduate" to GA, opening up new spots for new players.)
  • As usual all I hear on these forum's is complaining. Moan moan moan. I think CG has done a very good job with GA. Yes they have had teething problems but they seem to be fixed.
    My match up was perfect. We both had the same GP.
    If you don't like TW you won't like this and if you don't like GA just stop crying and don't play it. Well done CG you have done a great job, thank you.
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