Sandbagging, the new normal?

Replies

  • StarSon wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    BubbaFett wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    BubbaFett wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    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.

    People are responding to the use of the word sandbagging because it suggests that the player is intentionally trying to get an unfair advantage when that’s obviously false (since the player made the decision not to level these characters long before the game mode existed). If he’s not faulting the player he should have worded his post differently.

    Ok. Will you be sandbagging going from here? Will it be the new normal?

    But why is smart development considered sandbagging?

    If I focus my future development the way I have since TW was introduced, is that sandbagging?

    I focus on useful teams and toons and look for unique combinations. I am happy when a toon or team has multiple uses and look really hard on choices where a toon/team is not going to be useful outside of a particular place.

    What's smart about your development that my development lacks? As you already know there's zero amount of resource reallocation in what I did.

    It's by definition sandbagging, you lower your competetive rating below your capability in order for some advantage or profit.

    But hey I'll be the happy sandbagger too as long as these are the cards we have to play it.

    I suggest you look up sandbagging and get back to us..... It doesn't mean what you think it does.....

    Then our suggestions are mutual. Back at you.

    piwgwumtspci.jpg

    Wouldn't "underperform" mean you throw a match or I guess not spend resources in this game?

    I dont think anyone is advocating not spending, just spending wisely and with intent.

    Actually all you have been saying is don't spend. Again lvling toons to 85 and gear lvl 7 cost nothing that would prevent you from lvling your top toons , so you are saying literally dont spend all your excess creds , mats, and gear. Idk how you can say your not saying that.

    so spending $10 and $20, but leaving my change in a jar is not spending?

    What i have said is spend wisely. Use the limited resources you have in the most effective way possible.

    You are still missing it. Or just choosing not to acknowledge it. The point has nothing to do with wise spending. Keeping a stack of 500 purple mats instead of spending them on lower toons does absolutely nothing to inhibit investment in strong teams.

    Your point is invalid to anyone that has been playing long enough to just naturally have more resources than toons to spend them on.

    I'm not missing anything, you said I have been saying "dont spend". I have and I dont think anyone has said that.

    The advice always given is to manage resources, invest wisely and to not feel "forced" to do anything.

    to invest my mat, i need to gear my toons, to gear my toons i need to level them. that is more of an investment than just the mats. credits are always as close to a premium currency as you can get. keeping those at a good level to be able to level up mods to check for slicing, buy new mods and possible buy stuff in the weekly shipment is all important.

    There are enough credits in the game to level every toon, star every toon, and still buy every decent speed secondary mod in the store. "Management" is invalid after you reach that point. There is nothing inherently wise about hoarding gear, mats, and creds unless your goal is to minimize GP.

    CG made it clear with paper zombie that not gearing toons should not be a goal.

    I have played for 3 years and i still do not have enough credits to mod and level every toon.

    Your point is invalid. Or rather, your whining is invalid.

    This. So much this. I've been playing since December 2015. I get perfect combats in both TB. I have over 50 g12. I currently have 40M credits, but a few dozen characters are still not 85, and I can't buy "every speed secondary" in the shop, because I need to keep credits at the ready for new stuff.

    You can't buy every speed secondary in the shop now (and nor should you), but prior to the mod store change that came with the sith raid, good mods with speed secondaries showing were very rare and easily purchased without causing any issues with your credit management.

    Well, considering it's RNG, you really have no idea how often a mk5 mod with speed secondary for credits showed up for me in the shop. Or how many times I refreshed to get more.

    But, this is all kind of the point. It's resource management. I prioritized mods over leveling characters I wasn't planning on using. As of today, I have 40M credits. This is rare for me, though it may be the new normal since I am comfortable with my status in the game right now.
  • They need a pve for normal people and a pvp for sandbaggers , do the events at the same time and you only have the option of joining 1 or the other.
  • No_Try wrote: »
    +100 speed takes +14 on each mods besides arrow. Do you have 75 such mods?

    I now have 170M credits that I'm unable to spend no matter what I do which only goes up btw. This is after extreme fluffing (lvl,abilities,mods for all etc)
    It's possible to have that many +14 or greater secondary speed mods, even at lower GP. I have 80+ and I'm at 3.8m GP. Doubtful that I can put all of them on 15 teams in a fully synergistic fashion though.

    You could have spent and still could spend a ton of your credits buying secondary speed mods from the mod shop, particularly with crystal refreshes. Some have been recommending for a while that a player should crystal refresh the mod shop instead of farming mods from challenges.

  • Snake2 wrote: »
    Agreed that this is not sand bagging. However, if the matchmaking is going to be gp based, how about only looking at the gp of the number of toons required for the mode?

    So if you're setting 7 teams on defense, do a match based on the total combined gp of the top 70 toons. ( 5 toons for 7 defense and 7 offense squads).

    It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be better.

    This

    Then you're not punishing those of us in weaker guilds who have tried to get as much GP as possible (not artificially inflating as some know-it-all stated) in our inventory to help with TW reward tiers; as well as more TW squads for defense (again applies to those of us in weaker guilds that most of you turn your nose up at).
  • StarSon wrote: »
    StarSon wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    BubbaFett wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    BubbaFett wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    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.

    People are responding to the use of the word sandbagging because it suggests that the player is intentionally trying to get an unfair advantage when that’s obviously false (since the player made the decision not to level these characters long before the game mode existed). If he’s not faulting the player he should have worded his post differently.

    Ok. Will you be sandbagging going from here? Will it be the new normal?

    But why is smart development considered sandbagging?

    If I focus my future development the way I have since TW was introduced, is that sandbagging?

    I focus on useful teams and toons and look for unique combinations. I am happy when a toon or team has multiple uses and look really hard on choices where a toon/team is not going to be useful outside of a particular place.

    What's smart about your development that my development lacks? As you already know there's zero amount of resource reallocation in what I did.

    It's by definition sandbagging, you lower your competetive rating below your capability in order for some advantage or profit.

    But hey I'll be the happy sandbagger too as long as these are the cards we have to play it.

    I suggest you look up sandbagging and get back to us..... It doesn't mean what you think it does.....

    Then our suggestions are mutual. Back at you.

    piwgwumtspci.jpg

    Wouldn't "underperform" mean you throw a match or I guess not spend resources in this game?

    I dont think anyone is advocating not spending, just spending wisely and with intent.

    Actually all you have been saying is don't spend. Again lvling toons to 85 and gear lvl 7 cost nothing that would prevent you from lvling your top toons , so you are saying literally dont spend all your excess creds , mats, and gear. Idk how you can say your not saying that.

    so spending $10 and $20, but leaving my change in a jar is not spending?

    What i have said is spend wisely. Use the limited resources you have in the most effective way possible.

    You are still missing it. Or just choosing not to acknowledge it. The point has nothing to do with wise spending. Keeping a stack of 500 purple mats instead of spending them on lower toons does absolutely nothing to inhibit investment in strong teams.

    Your point is invalid to anyone that has been playing long enough to just naturally have more resources than toons to spend them on.

    I'm not missing anything, you said I have been saying "dont spend". I have and I dont think anyone has said that.

    The advice always given is to manage resources, invest wisely and to not feel "forced" to do anything.

    to invest my mat, i need to gear my toons, to gear my toons i need to level them. that is more of an investment than just the mats. credits are always as close to a premium currency as you can get. keeping those at a good level to be able to level up mods to check for slicing, buy new mods and possible buy stuff in the weekly shipment is all important.

    There are enough credits in the game to level every toon, star every toon, and still buy every decent speed secondary mod in the store. "Management" is invalid after you reach that point. There is nothing inherently wise about hoarding gear, mats, and creds unless your goal is to minimize GP.

    CG made it clear with paper zombie that not gearing toons should not be a goal.

    I have played for 3 years and i still do not have enough credits to mod and level every toon.

    Your point is invalid. Or rather, your whining is invalid.

    This. So much this. I've been playing since December 2015. I get perfect combats in both TB. I have over 50 g12. I currently have 40M credits, but a few dozen characters are still not 85, and I can't buy "every speed secondary" in the shop, because I need to keep credits at the ready for new stuff.

    You can't buy every speed secondary in the shop now (and nor should you), but prior to the mod store change that came with the sith raid, good mods with speed secondaries showing were very rare and easily purchased without causing any issues with your credit management.

    Well, considering it's RNG, you really have no idea how often a mk5 mod with speed secondary for credits showed up for me in the shop. Or how many times I refreshed to get more.

    But, this is all kind of the point. It's resource management. I prioritized mods over leveling characters I wasn't planning on using. As of today, I have 40M credits. This is rare for me, though it may be the new normal since I am comfortable with my status in the game right now.


    I have 100M. I pretty much always operate with that reserve for probably a year or more. I buy every mod in the store that hits my criteria. Purple or greater, Speed Secondary showing >= 4, No crud secondaries (tenacity, potency, defense), no crud primaries (tenacity, defense), no mismatched primay/set (don't buy a potency primary cross on a tenacity set or a offense cross on a defense set for example), no speed arrows, no diamonds or squares unless I have a specific need. I'd bet I average 1 mod a day. This doesn't really dent the income stream.
  • Rebel_yell wrote: »
    this convo really escalated. So, I get people saying people who pay should have an advantage. I agree with this. The crux of the issue is that newer players that spend are doing so with the answers to the test, whereas longer players were doing more trial and error. The solution is to simply have a modified GP used to group players together in GA. This solution has nothing to do with premier toons or ranking "useful" toons. It just levels the playing field.

    Stars and mods are the two largest drivers of "fluff" that aren't a resource management consideration. You gain shards by playing, starring up a toon shouldn't be penalized in match making. Mods, for longer term players, are plentiful. You remove a mod from a premier toon when you have a better one to equip and move it to a lower use toon. Both these inflate GP artificially.

    So how do you create a format that rewards spending, rewards resource allocation (gear), and doesn't alienate longer tenured players? Measure GP by weighted gear and ability levels. This methodology will still favor younger spenders, super strict resource allocate-rs, etc, but will narrow the competitive gap between someone that has a high concentration of G12 toons and those with lower gear, greater breadth rosters.

    Tldr : you can’t change the matchmaking to make it more « fair » without altering the very nature of the game mode (which is not impossible to do but it’s huge). It’s not as easy/straightforward as people are trying to make it to be.


    Newer players and long term players have very different gp, especially if the long term player has a lot of fluff and the newer doesn’t. They will never meet in ga ever, this not the issue.
    People have tried to justify their pvp inferiority with a lot of sketchy arguments and weird contradictions but the truth is simple. If you want to change the matchmaking to make it so even the weakest players have a 50% winrate (which is exactly what « the collectors » want), you need a scaling reward structure and a matchmaking that take winrate into account.

    You basically turn grand arena into the normal squad arena but with several teams instead of one. Assign ranks. Winners climb. Higher ranks get more rewards. Maybe that’s what people want.

    Changing the way gp is calculated to better reflect power is possible (and would be nice) but won’t change much in grand arena. The proportion of lean players and fluff heavy ones probably decreases with overall gp for obvious reasons, and the gp loss from the new calculation will affect everyone. You will meet people of the same strenght (without going too much into details).
    If not it means you’ll meet newer players with the same number of strong characters as you but way less extended roster which would be even more unfair since they will not only be at a huge disadvantage, they will also have no hope of things becoming better over time since the more g12 chars they’ll add, the older the players they’ll meet. Unlike a collector currently at a disadvantage who can very easily start turning some fluff into functional teams right now.

    People also act as if stars on characters were just useless gp fluff. Stars are a requirement in a lot of game modes including tb but not only. They are required for raids teams, mythic events, multiple other battles or events, unlocking characters...
    People keep talking about how their Teebo is useless and shouldn’t enter in the matchmaking because newer players don’t have one. Guess what the newer players don’t have either : the rewards of the dozens of Rancor you soloed with your Teebo when they weren’t even playing. How about the months/years head stard you have on them regarding mods farming. How is it fair for them to meet you, your revan, your chewie and your c3po when they got none of those because they lack the teams to unlock them but they have the same number of g12 you have.

    You can go on and on. There is no way to match people « fairly » unless you change the whole reward/ranking system.
  • StarSon wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    BubbaFett wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    BubbaFett wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Liath wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    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.

    People are responding to the use of the word sandbagging because it suggests that the player is intentionally trying to get an unfair advantage when that’s obviously false (since the player made the decision not to level these characters long before the game mode existed). If he’s not faulting the player he should have worded his post differently.

    Ok. Will you be sandbagging going from here? Will it be the new normal?

    But why is smart development considered sandbagging?

    If I focus my future development the way I have since TW was introduced, is that sandbagging?

    I focus on useful teams and toons and look for unique combinations. I am happy when a toon or team has multiple uses and look really hard on choices where a toon/team is not going to be useful outside of a particular place.

    What's smart about your development that my development lacks? As you already know there's zero amount of resource reallocation in what I did.

    It's by definition sandbagging, you lower your competetive rating below your capability in order for some advantage or profit.

    But hey I'll be the happy sandbagger too as long as these are the cards we have to play it.

    I suggest you look up sandbagging and get back to us..... It doesn't mean what you think it does.....

    Then our suggestions are mutual. Back at you.

    piwgwumtspci.jpg

    Wouldn't "underperform" mean you throw a match or I guess not spend resources in this game?

    I dont think anyone is advocating not spending, just spending wisely and with intent.

    Actually all you have been saying is don't spend. Again lvling toons to 85 and gear lvl 7 cost nothing that would prevent you from lvling your top toons , so you are saying literally dont spend all your excess creds , mats, and gear. Idk how you can say your not saying that.

    so spending $10 and $20, but leaving my change in a jar is not spending?

    What i have said is spend wisely. Use the limited resources you have in the most effective way possible.

    You are still missing it. Or just choosing not to acknowledge it. The point has nothing to do with wise spending. Keeping a stack of 500 purple mats instead of spending them on lower toons does absolutely nothing to inhibit investment in strong teams.

    Your point is invalid to anyone that has been playing long enough to just naturally have more resources than toons to spend them on.

    I'm not missing anything, you said I have been saying "dont spend". I have and I dont think anyone has said that.

    The advice always given is to manage resources, invest wisely and to not feel "forced" to do anything.

    to invest my mat, i need to gear my toons, to gear my toons i need to level them. that is more of an investment than just the mats. credits are always as close to a premium currency as you can get. keeping those at a good level to be able to level up mods to check for slicing, buy new mods and possible buy stuff in the weekly shipment is all important.

    There are enough credits in the game to level every toon, star every toon, and still buy every decent speed secondary mod in the store. "Management" is invalid after you reach that point. There is nothing inherently wise about hoarding gear, mats, and creds unless your goal is to minimize GP.

    CG made it clear with paper zombie that not gearing toons should not be a goal.

    I have played for 3 years and i still do not have enough credits to mod and level every toon.

    Your point is invalid. Or rather, your whining is invalid.

    This. So much this. I've been playing since December 2015. I get perfect combats in both TB. I have over 50 g12. I currently have 40M credits, but a few dozen characters are still not 85, and I can't buy "every speed secondary" in the shop, because I need to keep credits at the ready for new stuff.

    You can't buy every speed secondary in the shop now (and nor should you), but prior to the mod store change that came with the sith raid, good mods with speed secondaries showing were very rare and easily purchased without causing any issues with your credit management.

    I do , every decent mod in the store, with ship creds or toon creds, my rng sucks, i nedd volumn lol
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    Mef1428 wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    +100 speed takes +14 on each mods besides arrow. Do you have 75 such mods?

    I now have 170M credits that I'm unable to spend no matter what I do which only goes up btw. This is after extreme fluffing (lvl,abilities,mods for all etc)
    It's possible to have that many +14 or greater secondary speed mods, even at lower GP. I have 80+ and I'm at 3.8m GP. Doubtful that I can put all of them on 15 teams in a fully synergistic fashion though.

    You could have spent and still could spend a ton of your credits buying secondary speed mods from the mod shop, particularly with crystal refreshes. Some have been recommending for a while that a player should crystal refresh the mod shop instead of farming mods from challenges.

    Refreshing mod shop is a good idea, it never came to that for me as f2p, but I should start thinking about it. I'm at a similar place in my mod having them +80 sets at 4M GP. Then seems my mod game hasn't suffered as a result of fluffing, to the contrary I still have an undiminishable pile.

    What mods do you suggest buying from the shop? Maybe I'm not buying enough.

    Either case...what's directly relevant to this topic, the claim that "this is a resource management game, you made bad choices so now you shall suffer" is a false premise and definitely not applicable to all.
  • 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 exactly why they should increase the amount of teams to set on D. those that sandabag wont have enough to beat those with a expansive roster.
  • JohnAran wrote: »
    Rebel_yell wrote: »
    this convo really escalated. So, I get people saying people who pay should have an advantage. I agree with this. The crux of the issue is that newer players that spend are doing so with the answers to the test, whereas longer players were doing more trial and error. The solution is to simply have a modified GP used to group players together in GA. This solution has nothing to do with premier toons or ranking "useful" toons. It just levels the playing field.

    Stars and mods are the two largest drivers of "fluff" that aren't a resource management consideration. You gain shards by playing, starring up a toon shouldn't be penalized in match making. Mods, for longer term players, are plentiful. You remove a mod from a premier toon when you have a better one to equip and move it to a lower use toon. Both these inflate GP artificially.

    So how do you create a format that rewards spending, rewards resource allocation (gear), and doesn't alienate longer tenured players? Measure GP by weighted gear and ability levels. This methodology will still favor younger spenders, super strict resource allocate-rs, etc, but will narrow the competitive gap between someone that has a high concentration of G12 toons and those with lower gear, greater breadth rosters.

    Tldr : you can’t change the matchmaking to make it more « fair » without altering the very nature of the game mode (which is not impossible to do but it’s huge). It’s not as easy/straightforward as people are trying to make it to be.


    Newer players and long term players have very different gp, especially if the long term player has a lot of fluff and the newer doesn’t. They will never meet in ga ever, this not the issue.
    People have tried to justify their pvp inferiority with a lot of sketchy arguments and weird contradictions but the truth is simple. If you want to change the matchmaking to make it so even the weakest players have a 50% winrate (which is exactly what « the collectors » want), you need a scaling reward structure and a matchmaking that take winrate into account.

    You basically turn grand arena into the normal squad arena but with several teams instead of one. Assign ranks. Winners climb. Higher ranks get more rewards. Maybe that’s what people want.

    Changing the way gp is calculated to better reflect power is possible (and would be nice) but won’t change much in grand arena. The proportion of lean players and fluff heavy ones probably decreases with overall gp for obvious reasons, and the gp loss from the new calculation will affect everyone. You will meet people of the same strenght (without going too much into details).
    If not it means you’ll meet newer players with the same number of strong characters as you but way less extended roster which would be even more unfair since they will not only be at a huge disadvantage, they will also have no hope of things becoming better over time since the more g12 chars they’ll add, the older the players they’ll meet. Unlike a collector currently at a disadvantage who can very easily start turning some fluff into functional teams right now.

    People also act as if stars on characters were just useless gp fluff. Stars are a requirement in a lot of game modes including tb but not only. They are required for raids teams, mythic events, multiple other battles or events, unlocking characters...
    People keep talking about how their Teebo is useless and shouldn’t enter in the matchmaking because newer players don’t have one. Guess what the newer players don’t have either : the rewards of the dozens of Rancor you soloed with your Teebo when they weren’t even playing. How about the months/years head stard you have on them regarding mods farming. How is it fair for them to meet you, your revan, your chewie and your c3po when they got none of those because they lack the teams to unlock them but they have the same number of g12 you have.

    You can go on and on. There is no way to match people « fairly » unless you change the whole reward/ranking system.

    IMO...you can always change the game mechanics to add more territories and teams to set on D. Make it so we have to place 10 teams(total). 2 teams in 5 different territories so people can strategically figure out a path. Right now someone who has 2 premium teams they paid for can bottleneck a newer ftp player.

    More teams and more territories favors those with a larger roster. There would be less ways to bottleneck. Seems like a simpler solution than trying to figure out an algorithm (which is still a work in progress).
  • YamoGetcha wrote: »
    It's not sandbagging, it's resource management. A bunch of G8 level 85 toons are worthless except for TB deployments. You help your guild, and yourself, a lot more by having a few strong teams than a ton of GP inflating ones.

    I don't know about you but I'm not struggling with credits and grey/blue gear. Resource management suggests that resources are in limit supply. They are not.
    Ironically, you unwittingly make my point. G8, Lvl 85 are worthless. I know. So are G1, Lvl 1. The problem is that G8 lvl 85 toons are beyond worthless, they are an active disadvantage. Once again, Paper Zombie: a G7 zombie was better than a G12. The devs said they didn't like that.

    Gear isn't the resource people talk about when they say it's a resource game. They are referring to energy and crystals. Those are the resources that are in limited supply.
  • Calanor wrote: »
    YamoGetcha wrote: »
    It's not sandbagging, it's resource management. A bunch of G8 level 85 toons are worthless except for TB deployments. You help your guild, and yourself, a lot more by having a few strong teams than a ton of GP inflating ones.

    I don't know about you but I'm not struggling with credits and grey/blue gear. Resource management suggests that resources are in limit supply. They are not.
    Ironically, you unwittingly make my point. G8, Lvl 85 are worthless. I know. So are G1, Lvl 1. The problem is that G8 lvl 85 toons are beyond worthless, they are an active disadvantage. Once again, Paper Zombie: a G7 zombie was better than a G12. The devs said they didn't like that.

    Gear isn't the resource people talk about when they say it's a resource game. They are referring to energy and crystals. Those are the resources that are in limited supply.

    The main, driving reason energy and resources are in a limited supply is the acquisition of...... you guessed it.... gear!!!
  • Calanor
    2 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    Calanor wrote: »
    YamoGetcha wrote: »
    It's not sandbagging, it's resource management. A bunch of G8 level 85 toons are worthless except for TB deployments. You help your guild, and yourself, a lot more by having a few strong teams than a ton of GP inflating ones.

    I don't know about you but I'm not struggling with credits and grey/blue gear. Resource management suggests that resources are in limit supply. They are not.
    Ironically, you unwittingly make my point. G8, Lvl 85 are worthless. I know. So are G1, Lvl 1. The problem is that G8 lvl 85 toons are beyond worthless, they are an active disadvantage. Once again, Paper Zombie: a G7 zombie was better than a G12. The devs said they didn't like that.

    Gear isn't the resource people talk about when they say it's a resource game. They are referring to energy and crystals. Those are the resources that are in limited supply.

    The main, driving reason energy and resources are in a limited supply is the acquisition of...... you guessed it.... gear!!!

    And character shards, personally I spend more time farming toons then going after gear. So unless all your toons are at Max gear level, you too have to decide on how to spend your resources.

    I would also add in that not just energy but store currency is another major resource. Yes it's used to get gear, at least from guild related stores), but characters, ships and high end mats came from these time sensitive resources
  • Calanor wrote: »
    Calanor wrote: »
    YamoGetcha wrote: »
    It's not sandbagging, it's resource management. A bunch of G8 level 85 toons are worthless except for TB deployments. You help your guild, and yourself, a lot more by having a few strong teams than a ton of GP inflating ones.

    I don't know about you but I'm not struggling with credits and grey/blue gear. Resource management suggests that resources are in limit supply. They are not.
    Ironically, you unwittingly make my point. G8, Lvl 85 are worthless. I know. So are G1, Lvl 1. The problem is that G8 lvl 85 toons are beyond worthless, they are an active disadvantage. Once again, Paper Zombie: a G7 zombie was better than a G12. The devs said they didn't like that.

    Gear isn't the resource people talk about when they say it's a resource game. They are referring to energy and crystals. Those are the resources that are in limited supply.

    The main, driving reason energy and resources are in a limited supply is the acquisition of...... you guessed it.... gear!!!

    And character shards, personally I spend more time farming toons then going after gear. So unless all your toons are at Max gear level, you too have to decide on how to spend your resources.

    I would also add in that not just energy but store currency is another major resource. Yes it's used to get gear, at least from guild related stores), but characters, ships and high end mats came from these time sensitive resources

    Be careful now, you're treading dangerous waters. You might suddenly get yourself bunched up with us fluffy fellas. You can collect the shards but you should never star toons, for it's by far the mightiest source of GP. I have 151 7*s, woe is me.
  • LukeDukem8 wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    Rebel_yell wrote: »
    this convo really escalated. So, I get people saying people who pay should have an advantage. I agree with this. The crux of the issue is that newer players that spend are doing so with the answers to the test, whereas longer players were doing more trial and error. The solution is to simply have a modified GP used to group players together in GA. This solution has nothing to do with premier toons or ranking "useful" toons. It just levels the playing field.

    Stars and mods are the two largest drivers of "fluff" that aren't a resource management consideration. You gain shards by playing, starring up a toon shouldn't be penalized in match making. Mods, for longer term players, are plentiful. You remove a mod from a premier toon when you have a better one to equip and move it to a lower use toon. Both these inflate GP artificially.

    So how do you create a format that rewards spending, rewards resource allocation (gear), and doesn't alienate longer tenured players? Measure GP by weighted gear and ability levels. This methodology will still favor younger spenders, super strict resource allocate-rs, etc, but will narrow the competitive gap between someone that has a high concentration of G12 toons and those with lower gear, greater breadth rosters.

    Tldr : you can’t change the matchmaking to make it more « fair » without altering the very nature of the game mode (which is not impossible to do but it’s huge). It’s not as easy/straightforward as people are trying to make it to be.


    Newer players and long term players have very different gp, especially if the long term player has a lot of fluff and the newer doesn’t. They will never meet in ga ever, this not the issue.
    People have tried to justify their pvp inferiority with a lot of sketchy arguments and weird contradictions but the truth is simple. If you want to change the matchmaking to make it so even the weakest players have a 50% winrate (which is exactly what « the collectors » want), you need a scaling reward structure and a matchmaking that take winrate into account.

    You basically turn grand arena into the normal squad arena but with several teams instead of one. Assign ranks. Winners climb. Higher ranks get more rewards. Maybe that’s what people want.

    Changing the way gp is calculated to better reflect power is possible (and would be nice) but won’t change much in grand arena. The proportion of lean players and fluff heavy ones probably decreases with overall gp for obvious reasons, and the gp loss from the new calculation will affect everyone. You will meet people of the same strenght (without going too much into details).
    If not it means you’ll meet newer players with the same number of strong characters as you but way less extended roster which would be even more unfair since they will not only be at a huge disadvantage, they will also have no hope of things becoming better over time since the more g12 chars they’ll add, the older the players they’ll meet. Unlike a collector currently at a disadvantage who can very easily start turning some fluff into functional teams right now.

    People also act as if stars on characters were just useless gp fluff. Stars are a requirement in a lot of game modes including tb but not only. They are required for raids teams, mythic events, multiple other battles or events, unlocking characters...
    People keep talking about how their Teebo is useless and shouldn’t enter in the matchmaking because newer players don’t have one. Guess what the newer players don’t have either : the rewards of the dozens of Rancor you soloed with your Teebo when they weren’t even playing. How about the months/years head stard you have on them regarding mods farming. How is it fair for them to meet you, your revan, your chewie and your c3po when they got none of those because they lack the teams to unlock them but they have the same number of g12 you have.

    You can go on and on. There is no way to match people « fairly » unless you change the whole reward/ranking system.

    IMO...you can always change the game mechanics to add more territories and teams to set on D. Make it so we have to place 10 teams(total). 2 teams in 5 different territories so people can strategically figure out a path. Right now someone who has 2 premium teams they paid for can bottleneck a newer ftp player.

    More teams and more territories favors those with a larger roster. There would be less ways to bottleneck. Seems like a simpler solution than trying to figure out an algorithm (which is still a work in progress).

    I agree it would be an interesting thing to do (i would like a ga variation with like twice as much fields, could be fun), but it would also increase significantly the time it takes to play the arena. Come up with 10 defenses everytime then attack at least ten times is serious.
    It would also help the fluff heavy players way less than you might think. Lean roster doesn’t mean a few strong teams and nothing else. It means smart investment and effective development. They have secondary teams too.
    Plus if you believe the collectors arguments (i don’t but still), if your 50 g12 roster meets a 100 g12 roster, having to field and attack 2 more teams would only make it worse.
  • JohnAran wrote: »
    LukeDukem8 wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    Rebel_yell wrote: »
    this convo really escalated. So, I get people saying people who pay should have an advantage. I agree with this. The crux of the issue is that newer players that spend are doing so with the answers to the test, whereas longer players were doing more trial and error. The solution is to simply have a modified GP used to group players together in GA. This solution has nothing to do with premier toons or ranking "useful" toons. It just levels the playing field.

    Stars and mods are the two largest drivers of "fluff" that aren't a resource management consideration. You gain shards by playing, starring up a toon shouldn't be penalized in match making. Mods, for longer term players, are plentiful. You remove a mod from a premier toon when you have a better one to equip and move it to a lower use toon. Both these inflate GP artificially.

    So how do you create a format that rewards spending, rewards resource allocation (gear), and doesn't alienate longer tenured players? Measure GP by weighted gear and ability levels. This methodology will still favor younger spenders, super strict resource allocate-rs, etc, but will narrow the competitive gap between someone that has a high concentration of G12 toons and those with lower gear, greater breadth rosters.

    Tldr : you can’t change the matchmaking to make it more « fair » without altering the very nature of the game mode (which is not impossible to do but it’s huge). It’s not as easy/straightforward as people are trying to make it to be.


    Newer players and long term players have very different gp, especially if the long term player has a lot of fluff and the newer doesn’t. They will never meet in ga ever, this not the issue.
    People have tried to justify their pvp inferiority with a lot of sketchy arguments and weird contradictions but the truth is simple. If you want to change the matchmaking to make it so even the weakest players have a 50% winrate (which is exactly what « the collectors » want), you need a scaling reward structure and a matchmaking that take winrate into account.

    You basically turn grand arena into the normal squad arena but with several teams instead of one. Assign ranks. Winners climb. Higher ranks get more rewards. Maybe that’s what people want.

    Changing the way gp is calculated to better reflect power is possible (and would be nice) but won’t change much in grand arena. The proportion of lean players and fluff heavy ones probably decreases with overall gp for obvious reasons, and the gp loss from the new calculation will affect everyone. You will meet people of the same strenght (without going too much into details).
    If not it means you’ll meet newer players with the same number of strong characters as you but way less extended roster which would be even more unfair since they will not only be at a huge disadvantage, they will also have no hope of things becoming better over time since the more g12 chars they’ll add, the older the players they’ll meet. Unlike a collector currently at a disadvantage who can very easily start turning some fluff into functional teams right now.

    People also act as if stars on characters were just useless gp fluff. Stars are a requirement in a lot of game modes including tb but not only. They are required for raids teams, mythic events, multiple other battles or events, unlocking characters...
    People keep talking about how their Teebo is useless and shouldn’t enter in the matchmaking because newer players don’t have one. Guess what the newer players don’t have either : the rewards of the dozens of Rancor you soloed with your Teebo when they weren’t even playing. How about the months/years head stard you have on them regarding mods farming. How is it fair for them to meet you, your revan, your chewie and your c3po when they got none of those because they lack the teams to unlock them but they have the same number of g12 you have.

    You can go on and on. There is no way to match people « fairly » unless you change the whole reward/ranking system.

    IMO...you can always change the game mechanics to add more territories and teams to set on D. Make it so we have to place 10 teams(total). 2 teams in 5 different territories so people can strategically figure out a path. Right now someone who has 2 premium teams they paid for can bottleneck a newer ftp player.

    More teams and more territories favors those with a larger roster. There would be less ways to bottleneck. Seems like a simpler solution than trying to figure out an algorithm (which is still a work in progress).

    I agree it would be an interesting thing to do (i would like a ga variation with like twice as much fields, could be fun), but it would also increase significantly the time it takes to play the arena. Come up with 10 defenses everytime then attack at least ten times is serious.
    It would also help the fluff heavy players way less than you might think. Lean roster doesn’t mean a few strong teams and nothing else. It means smart investment and effective development. They have secondary teams too.
    Plus if you believe the collectors arguments (i don’t but still), if your 50 g12 roster meets a 100 g12 roster, having to field and attack 2 more teams would only make it worse.

    Those with fluffy rosters aren't collectors more often than not. We collected to be ready for any circumstance like arrival of legendaries, revamp, new releases making old toons viable etc. i.e. right now I'm one toon short to wrap up cantina, I don't hoard crystals and I will go on until all the maps are cleared until next bunch of releases. I see any day that I didn't 50ies on maps and 100s in cantina and ships as a waste, because that may come back to bite me with more expensive refills when situation arises.

    The only difference is I happened level/star up all these folks...for tb...but also for readiness purposes...and because I can without hurting anything else even one bit and only when that's the case. I see that as how the game calls me to do, some incremental improvement each day...that's until CG decided otherwise.
  • TVF
    36526 posts Member
    I'm more concerned about Bandsagging.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • TVF
    36526 posts Member
    I'm more concerned about Bandsagging.

    2.7/10.0
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • Bosske2018
    8 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    wrong post
  • 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.

    I wouldnt call this sandbagging but Characters that just are not worth leveling up at the present time. I have 35 characters at lvl 1. Never had a reason for me to gear them up as I dont plan on playing with them. I started the game about a year ago. Focused on the characters to unlock characters from special events like CLS and Thrawn etc. When they released new characters I did the events and unlocked them but never leveled them up because I didnt see them in my vision of building my teams. Characters like Rose,Amilyn, Vandor chewy, and young lando etc. Also if I got characters from getting shards from the Bronze Data Cards and I didnt see them in my vision of my teams I am trying to build like Dooku, Poggle the Lesser, Tusken Raider etc I kept them at lvl 1. Recently I had all the Old Republic's at lvl 1 but I started to grind them high due to them having to unlock Raven but if they weren't required the only one I would of leveled was Bastila and Jolee because they fit in my jedi rosters.
    I am a F2P player who occasionally will drop money but not much I spent only $40 in the past year I been playing. I dont have the resources to even try to level up all these characters. I wouldnt have the credits to level all these characters to lvl 85 and if your not planning on leveling them to 85 no point in having them past 1. I got tons of gear that can get these characters up to gear 6 but why would I since they will never hit lvl 85.

  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    CLS wrote: »
    Stop complaining and GET BETTER. Or just don’t sign up for it. Grand Arena is not for the weak. It’s about as even as u can get. U get matched with pretty much someone with the same GP. And if u can’t handle it, go play my little pony.

    Git gud squad has just arrived. Nerf this guy.
  • qkjerome
    21 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    I am fine with sandbagging but would like GA to allow an extra optional slot or two to help those who do not do it. I have made character investment mistakes (looking at you mace windu) and sometimes these characters save the day. I often beat a squad or two with ragtag teams in TW, sometimes it take three such teams but that’s still a win.

    Matchmaking and ship GP is what bothers me, how come ship GP is treated equal to character GP when there is only one ship slot and pilots are often mediocre ? I had matchups with 400K character GP difference because of ships, that is frustrating, not fun at all.
  • Out of 8 players in my league all of them sandbagged inCluding me xD. I say it's pretty muCh the new normal yea.
  • No_Try wrote: »
    Out of 8 players in my league all of them sandbagged inCluding me xD. I say it's pretty muCh the new normal yea.

    So looks like none of you got an easier matchup and it ended up being completely pointless since you all met the same players you would have but you all have less gp than you could. Nice.
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Out of 8 players in my league all of them sandbagged inCluding me xD. I say it's pretty muCh the new normal yea.

    So looks like none of you got an easier matchup and it ended up being completely pointless since you all met the same players you would have but you all have less gp than you could. Nice.

    Exçept having to deal with one team less on defense and offençe. Niçe. It's not like any of the fluff would çome to the resçue, yea? (keyboard broken :P)
  • No_Try wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Out of 8 players in my league all of them sandbagged inCluding me xD. I say it's pretty muCh the new normal yea.

    So looks like none of you got an easier matchup and it ended up being completely pointless since you all met the same players you would have but you all have less gp than you could. Nice.

    Exçept having to deal with one team less on defense and offençe. Niçe. (keyboard broken :P)

    I thought you were one of the broad rosters ? Wouldn’t it be an advantage for you to have more teams to field ?
    By the way apparently Ganon said in the bug thread that everyone is getting 8 teams to field for some reasons. I have 2.15m gp and got 8, you ?
  • JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Out of 8 players in my league all of them sandbagged inCluding me xD. I say it's pretty muCh the new normal yea.

    So looks like none of you got an easier matchup and it ended up being completely pointless since you all met the same players you would have but you all have less gp than you could. Nice.

    Exçept having to deal with one team less on defense and offençe. Niçe. (keyboard broken :P)

    I thought you were one of the broad rosters ? Wouldn’t it be an advantage for you to have more teams to field ?
    By the way apparently Ganon said in the bug thread that everyone is getting 8 teams to field for some reasons. I have 2.15m gp and got 8, you ?

    Edited the last message with the obvious answer. It wouldn't matter if I had 10k more g8s, they provide zero fighting power.
  • No_Try wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Out of 8 players in my league all of them sandbagged inCluding me xD. I say it's pretty muCh the new normal yea.

    So looks like none of you got an easier matchup and it ended up being completely pointless since you all met the same players you would have but you all have less gp than you could. Nice.

    Exçept having to deal with one team less on defense and offençe. Niçe. (keyboard broken :P)

    I thought you were one of the broad rosters ? Wouldn’t it be an advantage for you to have more teams to field ?
    By the way apparently Ganon said in the bug thread that everyone is getting 8 teams to field for some reasons. I have 2.15m gp and got 8, you ?

    Edited the last message with the obvious answer. It wouldn't matter if I had 10k more g8s, they provide zero fighting power.

    It doesn’t matter to be honest i’m done with those « sandbagging » and « unfair matchmaking » arguments. Good luck with your ga and all the next. I hope for all of you collectors that you were wrong all along.
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    JohnAran wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Out of 8 players in my league all of them sandbagged inCluding me xD. I say it's pretty muCh the new normal yea.

    So looks like none of you got an easier matchup and it ended up being completely pointless since you all met the same players you would have but you all have less gp than you could. Nice.

    Exçept having to deal with one team less on defense and offençe. Niçe. (keyboard broken :P)

    I thought you were one of the broad rosters ? Wouldn’t it be an advantage for you to have more teams to field ?
    By the way apparently Ganon said in the bug thread that everyone is getting 8 teams to field for some reasons. I have 2.15m gp and got 8, you ?

    Edited the last message with the obvious answer. It wouldn't matter if I had 10k more g8s, they provide zero fighting power.

    It doesn’t matter to be honest i’m done with those « sandbagging » and « unfair matchmaking » arguments. Good luck with your ga and all the next. I hope for all of you collectors that you were wrong all along.

    I'm not a çolleçtor. Explained it in detail a few messages ago. And it's immaterial how suççessful I am in GA, the algo will still suçk.

    If you are done. you may stop posting here maybe. Pretty please?
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