Sandbagging, the new normal?

Replies

  • Would you like some cheese with your whine?
  • Are people familiar with the term "ex post facto"? It literally means "after the fact." When I started 3 years ago, we were encouraged to max out toons. In fact, mod farming required useless toons. Additionally, some toons became useless as the game progressed. Zmaul, ZQGJ were meta, now they are on the trash heap.
    Then came TB and we were told to build GP.
    Now GA tells us to not level. I'm sorry, but I can't unlevel and unzeta characters from 2 years ago.

    You've benefited from them in the past. Much like the 2 veteran smugglers that became an almost "mandatory" farm, you do things for a reason. Sometimes that reason is for a single benefit, then you move on. But you'll most likely be in a better position overall by having done that action, than not doing it at all. Just not in every phase of the game though.

    And zMaul is far from useless, that is a good squad for defense on TW, unless you are in the most upper tier of GP, and every squad on defense is G12, maxed everything with 6E mods.
  • @cannonfodder_iv, how long have you been playing? I started 3 years ago. Back then the game required fluff. (Mod farming required specific teams) Then came TB and we were encouraged to add more fluff. TW and GA are now telling us that we are SOL.
  • @cannonfodder_iv, how long have you been playing? I started 3 years ago. Back then the game required fluff. (Mod farming required specific teams) Then came TB and we were encouraged to add more fluff. TW and GA are now telling us that we are SOL.

    How so?

    Let's say player A has almost all of his GP tied into 4-5 really strong squads. The rest are level 50 g4.
    Player B has only 1-2 really strong squads, but a lot more 2nd tier toons.

    In GA, Player A is actually at a disadvantage. If he saves his best for attack, he's got no one guarding the gates.
    If he leaves his super teams on defense, he's got nothing to attack with. GA rewards depth of roster, not a few really strong teams.
    Ally Code 766-465-766 swgoh.gg/u/trystansr/collection/
  • Plus, tw has been out for a long time. If you’ve been bloating your roster since it came out, that’s on you. Everyone should have about 2 decent pvp teams per 400-500k gp of theirs, one forndefense and one for offense in tw. Not to mention that the heroic sith raid requires a number of teams that can easily be altered to pvp everyone should have been working towards.

    Finally, if you’ve been reaping the benefits of a bloated roster from Tb, people who haven’t been bloating their rosters have been inversely not benefiting for the same reason. You made a decision and benefited from it. They made their decision and are also benefiting from it. They’re also probably doing better in the arenas that the bloat player. But everyone made their own decisions. Lay-off then and get off your high horse.
  • TVF
    36489 posts Member
    I also missed the part where, having improved "useless" characters, you have to continue to keep doing it with your new knowledge.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • Until this game feature is removed set one defense squad and call it a day. Report back when notifications say you have rewards for little effort.

    Repeat as needed till feature has been removed.

    Wait 12 months.

    Rage at new feature.

    Repeat process........
  • TVF
    36489 posts Member
    I love the rage. It's so glorious every time.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • Haidon wrote: »
    I used to, at the very least, put every new toon to gear IV, level 32. No longer. That method, while helpful to the guild, is totally hamstringing me in Grand Arena.

    The difference between a g1 lvl1 and a g4 lvl32 character is less than 1k in gp.
    So, the massive disadvantage thats hamstringing you from winning is like 30 toons * 1k gp = 30k gp?
    Get a break...

  • StarSon wrote: »
    So, your entire roster is level 85 g7?

    I've been playing for 3 years. I'm at the point where I can level grey mods just to see. Unfortunately, I cant unlevel my useless toons. Now, your answer seems to be that I should have predicted GA 3 years ago and planned ahead.
    I’m a 2.9 yr player with a roster is all 85, G7 min, all abilities 7+. Revan is the only locked toon. I did this to be a good guildy when TB came out to help push us over 120M. Doing that hasn’t slowed down G8+ for meaningful teams. I just don’t spend enough to keep up with the whales who dominate top 30 in my arena which would get me the crystal income I’d need to have more G12 toons or to unlock toons like Revan first time through rapid farming. I’m fine with this it was my choice.

    With GA, I’d just like match making where I’m with my peers and have a decent shot at winning if I do well. If I wanted to fight more focused teams, I could spend a refresh or two each day and push from the 45-55 rank down into the 20’s where the whales swim in my arena shard. I can’t unlevel the toons I leveled to help guild GP for TB and wars.
  • @cannonfodder_iv, how long have you been playing? I started 3 years ago. Back then the game required fluff. (Mod farming required specific teams) Then came TB and we were encouraged to add more fluff. TW and GA are now telling us that we are SOL.

    I’ve been playing a similar length, and leveled plenty of dumb teams as a result (hello 7* Jawas) but I also have 20-30 characters sitting at lvl1 because they’re worthless to me right now.

    Just because you started a while ago it doesn’t mean you were forced to inflate your roster. Having a smaller amount of strong teams helps your guild in raids, TW and TB a lot more than needless bloat. If you couldn’t figure that out then that’s your issue.
  • TVF
    36489 posts Member
  • Haidon wrote: »
    I used to, at the very least, put every new toon to gear IV, level 32. No longer. That method, while helpful to the guild, is totally hamstringing me in Grand Arena.

    The difference between a g1 lvl1 and a g4 lvl32 character is less than 1k in gp.
    So, the massive disadvantage thats hamstringing you from winning is like 30 toons * 1k gp = 30k gp?
    Get a break...

    Yeah, the actual problem is having all 7* G8 Lvl 85 characters with Level 7 abilities. My Gamorrean Guard is sitting at 11,139 GP with no mods. Totally useless, but for long-time players there is a near limitless amount of credits, purple mats, and sub-G8 gear, so I figured what the heck - maybe I can find some way to use him on a DoT team or something.

    I've obviously stopped doing this with new and bad characters, but I wish there was some way to amnesty the 40 or so toons I leveled up before TW came out, as that's 400k GP for me. It's going to take months or years to undo the damage.
  • I'm not really buying the "TB forces roster bloat" argument. I assume this is referring to platoons, but you only need to have them starred up for that, not leveled. A freshly activated character adds what, like 400 to your GP? And a seven-star at level 1 with no gear or abilities adds maybe 5k? So sure, if you really went hard on seven-starring stuff for platoons, it'll inflate your score a little, but not enough to make Grand Arena totally unplayable.
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  • TVF
    36489 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    Jarvind wrote: »
    I'm not really buying the "TB forces roster bloat" argument. I assume this is referring to platoons, but you only need to have them starred up for that, not leveled. A freshly activated character adds what, like 400 to your GP? And a seven-star at level 1 with no gear or abilities adds maybe 5k? So sure, if you really went hard on seven-starring stuff for platoons, it'll inflate your score a little, but not enough to make Grand Arena totally unplayable.

    I assume it's related to deployment, not platoons. Not agreeing it's a valid complaint though.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • Jarvind wrote: »
    I'm not really buying the "TB forces roster bloat" argument. I assume this is referring to platoons, but you only need to have them starred up for that, not leveled. A freshly activated character adds what, like 400 to your GP? And a seven-star at level 1 with no gear or abilities adds maybe 5k? So sure, if you really went hard on seven-starring stuff for platoons, it'll inflate your score a little, but not enough to make Grand Arena totally unplayable.

    ^this

    It makes way more sense to have stronger teams so you can complete all waves, as they’re worth way more points than if you have a bunch of lower levelled undergeared characters to deploy
  • Choosing to not level or star character you are not focusing on or are not useful to your current game goals isn't sand bagging its playing intelligently as this game is about resource management. If a player has limited gear, credits, and energy why waste it on characters who aren't needed for legendary or heroes journey events or meta characters. If you choose to level and gear every new character that's your prerogative its not a mandate that everyone should follow and trust me coming from an experienced player its not the best way to build a roster.

    Also without knowing your GP its impossible to tell what is reasonable for someone to have leveled or not currently none of the characters on your screen shot are particularly useful for any game mode or any legendary or heroes journeys.

    I really wish the collectors and non meta/pvp/tw focuses players would stop complaining about how players who are meta/pvp/tw focused have better rosters for pvp than they do. If you want to play how you want regardless of whats good take the repercussions of your actions. Just like people with focused rosters don't do as well in TB. The point of the game isn't to have a wide or deep roster its to have fun, some people do this by playing pokemon with star wars characters other do it by chasing the meta and staying competitive in pvp. This game mode is meant for competitive pvp players either choose not to take the free rewards for participating with your collectors roster, build a more competitive roster, or just keep doing what your doing and stop worry about modes you clearly don't are important given your roster building strategy.
  • Haidon wrote: »
    I used to, at the very least, put every new toon to gear IV, level 32. No longer. That method, while helpful to the guild, is totally hamstringing me in Grand Arena.

    The difference between a g1 lvl1 and a g4 lvl32 character is less than 1k in gp.
    So, the massive disadvantage thats hamstringing you from winning is like 30 toons * 1k gp = 30k gp?
    Get a break...

    Not sure where you got this number, but it's not a relevant example. The real GP number is more complicated than that and is based on a power multiplier (stars) x (stars again + mods + gear + abilities).

    The challenge is balancing how rosters are evaluated for TW and GA when you have people that started in 2 very different game play environments. Just by nature of playing the game, you accumulate shards to star up toons. A GP specific matchup is going to penalize a player that has more 7* toons regardless of their gear and ability levels. Thus, there is incentive to not even star up a character who has the requisite shards to do so simply so you can keep your GP lower for 1v1 GA matchups.

    Think about the GP matchups you see in fleet arena. It's a terrible indicator of the fleets overall power because there are too many overlapping variables that come into the equation. The same is applicable to a multi-team arena matchup.

    GP is great for measuring 2 exact squads side by side, but fails at measuring competitive strength across a large number of factors. Think of it this way, a 7* lvl 1 character is worth 4k more in GP than a 3* lvl 1. I'm fairly confident a 7* would perform equally to a 3* in any game environment, but is considered 8x more powerful.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/6v8w5p/understanding_galactic_power_character_stats_hoth/
  • Boov
    604 posts Member
    Jarvind wrote: »
    I'm not really buying the "TB forces roster bloat" argument. I assume this is referring to platoons, but you only need to have them starred up for that, not leveled. A freshly activated character adds what, like 400 to your GP? And a seven-star at level 1 with no gear or abilities adds maybe 5k? So sure, if you really went hard on seven-starring stuff for platoons, it'll inflate your score a little, but not enough to make Grand Arena totally unplayable.

    Bringing up all your toons to lvl 70, g7/8, leveling their abilities and modding them adds quite a bit of GP, but doesn't cost alot in terms of resources so it doesn't really interfere with "normal" gearing. Just bumping 10 marquee toons(3*) to g7, lvl 60 + mods and leveled abilities adds like 60k to your roster.
    If all guildmembers inflate GP like that it does become noticable in TB and helps reaching higher reward tiers in TW.
    I'm not saying TB forced players to inflate GP, but it was a valid reason to do so.
    As for the impact it has on GA matchmaking, it's hard to tell. I'd say that the players who inflated their rosters for the sole purpose of increasing GP for TB, but have been focussed otherwise, aren't that much worse of than players who didn't.
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    StarSon wrote: »
    I don't know about you but I'm not struggling with credits and grey/blue gear.

    So, your entire roster is level 85 g7?

    Exactly...and g8 and fully modded (which I took off after GA revelation) and as much leveled in their abilities as I can. None of doing this hurt my piles, used up extra resources that can be used elsewhere or required extra farming (diverting resources). I perfectly managed my resources, there's not a single wasteful decision I made. And I still sit on a 160M credits pile after the fact.

    It's GA that majorly turned it upside down out of the blue (TW to much lesser degree because you can help your guild acquire new prize tiers there)
  • dvvjp7zb2dye.jpg
    Throughout my Grand Arena, dozens of level 1s is common place. (One player has 70 level 1 toons) This is not "focus," this is sandbagging. Now, while the devs have clearly stated that they did not want to give players a competitive advantage to not level/ gear toons (Paper Zombie), they went out of their way to create an event which gives significant competitive advantages to having unleveled and ungeared toons.
    This is not sand bagging it’s called effective resource management. U lvl up gear and promote toons u plan on gearing upgrading abilities so that u can use them in battles not just look at them.
  • jkray622 wrote: »
    No, to "Sandbag" means to deliberately perform at a lower level than you can. These players have been "not leveling" those characters for years - this is not something they did in response to GA. Players who are removing mods from a chunk of their roster are actively sandbagging.

    These players chose not to spend resources to artificially inflate their GP. Instead, all their resources went into upper tier characters that provided them with value in various aspects of the game. Since this is a game of resource management, the decisions those players have made are giving them a competitive advantage in this aspect of the game.

    I've got a friend who started playing over a year later than me. His GP is about 1.7M below me, but in TBs, Arena, and Heroic Sith he is almost as competitive as I am. His roster doesn't have any of those "fluff" toons leveled or geared because those would have slowed down his actual development as a player.

    He didn't sandbag - he just hasn't had the gear or credits to "waste." He's an awesome player with laser focus, and now he's being rewarded for that. Perhaps your opponents are the same way.

    hey, but its easier to cry on the forum than to be lase focused, or at least respect people who are, right? :D
  • Boov
    604 posts Member
    Boov wrote: »
    Jarvind wrote: »
    I'm not really buying the "TB forces roster bloat" argument. I assume this is referring to platoons, but you only need to have them starred up for that, not leveled. A freshly activated character adds what, like 400 to your GP? And a seven-star at level 1 with no gear or abilities adds maybe 5k? So sure, if you really went hard on seven-starring stuff for platoons, it'll inflate your score a little, but not enough to make Grand Arena totally unplayable.

    Bringing up all your toons to lvl 70, g7/8, leveling their abilities and modding them adds quite a bit of GP, but doesn't cost alot in terms of resources so it doesn't really interfere with "normal" gearing. Just bumping 10 marquee toons(3*) to g7, lvl 60 + mods and leveled abilities adds like 60k to your roster.
    If all guildmembers inflate GP like that it does become noticable in TB and helps reaching higher reward tiers in TW.
    I'm not saying TB forced players to inflate GP, but it was a valid reason to do so.
    As for the impact it has on GA matchmaking, it's hard to tell. I'd say that the players who inflated their rosters for the sole purpose of increasing GP for TB, but have been focussed otherwise, aren't that much worse of than players who didn't.

    I'm just going to quote myself..
    Adding to this, farming all toons just to be ready for everything (solid strategy even to this day, but not as much as it used to be) seriously adds to the amount of toons you can inflate GP with. Having all the toons from gw/cantina/arena stores is basically a given for players who've been playing a while for example.
    point being, you shouldn't underestimate how much you can inflate your GP without having to spend resources that are more usefull else where, nor benefitting your roster in terms of having more usefull toons in any scenario the game has to offer (besides deploying them in TB ofcourse). To be clear, some of those toons could have been, or would still be usefull if properly geared and not just inflated for GP purposes.
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    I think the op post is misread often. He's not exactly faulting the player but the system and the title question is pretty legit.

    So are we all going to start sandbagging starting from here? I sure am as long as the current matchmaking system stays in place. That will in turn hurt my enjoyment of the game and encourage me to do less than I can easily can with my current resources.
  • No_Try wrote: »
    So are we all going to start sandbagging starting from here? I sure am as long as the current matchmaking system stays in place. That will in turn hurt my enjoyment of the game and encourage me to do less than I can easily can with my current resources.

    So...don't do it? You're going to hamper your ability to enjoy the whole game, as well as contribute in multiple areas that aren't GA...for GA?
    Ally Code 766-465-766 swgoh.gg/u/trystansr/collection/
  • I have tons of toons similar to the picture. Why should I level up characters that I will never use? I try to get all of my characters up to 7* in order help my guild for platoons, but that is it. Why should I be forced to get my gamorrean guard or mob enforcer up to G8 just because you did? I have decided to save my gear and credits to save them for the toons that I want to use them for, such as Fallen Bastilla. Why should I actually be forced to gear/level up useless toons like jedi sentinel and eeth koth? If a character is not useful until they are at least 6*, why do I need to gear them up until get to that point? I understand that you are upset because you think that your investment has become useless, but I am still confident that not gearing/leveling up characters has helped me out more than if I gear/level them up?
    Looking for an amazing new guild? Check out Boba's Allience: discord.gg/trr93Ty
  • Boov
    604 posts Member
    No_Try wrote: »
    So are we all going to start sandbagging starting from here? I sure am as long as the current matchmaking system stays in place. That will in turn hurt my enjoyment of the game and encourage me to do less than I can easily can with my current resources.

    Quickly looking at your swgoh.gg profile, you seem to have quite alot of g8 characters. Do you get alot of enjoyment out of those? Honest question, i'm not trying to be a ... .
    Aside from the many g8's, you appear to be quite focussed. Your mod game doesn't appear to be that strong though, which will probably hurt you more in GA than those g8's.
  • BeralCator wrote: »
    Haidon wrote: »
    I used to, at the very least, put every new toon to gear IV, level 32. No longer. That method, while helpful to the guild, is totally hamstringing me in Grand Arena.

    The difference between a g1 lvl1 and a g4 lvl32 character is less than 1k in gp.
    So, the massive disadvantage thats hamstringing you from winning is like 30 toons * 1k gp = 30k gp?
    Get a break...

    Yeah, the actual problem is having all 7* G8 Lvl 85 characters with Level 7 abilities. My Gamorrean Guard is sitting at 11,139 GP with no mods. Totally useless, but for long-time players there is a near limitless amount of credits, purple mats, and sub-G8 gear, so I figured what the heck - maybe I can find some way to use him on a DoT team or something.

    I've obviously stopped doing this with new and bad characters, but I wish there was some way to amnesty the 40 or so toons I leveled up before TW came out, as that's 400k GP for me. It's going to take months or years to undo the damage.

    Ok, thats fair, Ill give you this.

    However, you do actually have a massive advantage at certain areas. For example, with such roster, you have probably got 7star chewie first time. Youll probably get 7star c3po first time.
    A newer, focused player would have had no reason to level these teams, so unless theyve whaled out, they had no chance to get these characters.
    Im not sure if getting 2 legendary characters faster is worth getting lower tier rewards at GA, but at least it is something.
  • Where are all these resources that don't hamper your active farms coming from? Maybe because I've 'only' played for 2 years, but i never have enough purple mats between zetas and needed characters. I litterally have 30 of them right now and wicket is still missing alot of abilities along with several others. I run into deficits on the laptop computer things, the grey thing, before OR i never had any of the +4 speeds, i never have the green health one when I'm working on a toon... i have 20mil credits, so if i spent it all I'd level up a whole 4-5 of my 36 level 1 toons to level 80. How are you buying mods from the store or gearing up 8-11 without having a shortage of resources caused by leveling every single character to 80-85 and g7 to 8?
  • The only way you can 'sandbag' is pull mods off low characters and not level characters you do not want to farm.... but that is not progression anyway, that's just fluff. I know some of us vets invested in characters that are no longer useful but if you're going up against players with leaner rosters, and lots of new meta characters (and not the old ones), chances are newer to the game than you are and they've just outspent you. Can't really complain about that, it's what keeps this game going.

    Anyway they have to use gp to begin with. The reality is, a 1m gp player will not beat a 5m gp. I think it will be more win/loss focused (with a bit of gp) as the game mode progresses. That might be more 'fair'.
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