Grand Arena matchmaking algorithm and ships

qkjerome
21 posts Member
edited December 2018
Grand Arena (GA) matchmaking algorithm appears to mostly rely on galactic power (GP). At first glance, it makes sense because GP is a decent indicator of how much time (and money) a player has invested in his/her roster. I am sure there are a other variables but they do not seem to matter much.

This is simple and good developers love to keep it simple. However with so many swgoh players and so many different profiles, a simple algorithm is going to be unfair to certain groups of players. If I may try a real life comparison, this is why income taxes are often incredibly complicated.

The current algorithm is giving a handicap to long-time players with now-weak squads, to players who starred every toon for TW...etc. This algorithm is also unfair to players who focused on ships.

A player like me with higher-than-average ship GP / character GP ratio will do awesome in ship battles but
  1. There is only one ship node and sometimes it isn't even there (like today's GA)
  2. This single ship node is behind a character territory which puts me at a disadvantage against the average opponent
  3. Ships have very high GP, one maxed ship is often >50K GP which is equivalent to 3 zetaed G12 characters, yet another disadvantage
  4. Ship pilots are often mediocre or weak characters, yet another disadvantage

Let me describe my current GA bracket to give you an example:
  • Every single opponent has a higher character GP, on average they have +15%. This is huge in 2M GP ballpark.
  • I even have an opponent with +21% character GP.
  • This difference translates into an opponent that has over fifty G12 / G11 characters while I have under thirty of them. We both have a relatively lean character roster.

I love this game and have invested a lot of time and even some money in it. I like grand arena but this matchmaking is so unfair that it is frustrating. I have friends in the same boat who are already tired of it and ready to quit. I have a good character roster for my character GP and an excellent one for my ship GP but I will get consistently wrecked in GA because of that matchmaking.

TLDR; my suggestion to CG: please revisit your matchmaking rules and weight ship GP to account for the very low number of ship battles (and possible banners) that will take place in GA. Also please exclude ship GP if ships cannot be used.

Replies

  • This
  • Being able to place ships in the first territory (front line) would be a good way to make ship investment worth it. This would be an interesting strategy choice in GA.
  • Wholeheartedly agree with this we’ll written post. I’ve been thinking the same thing - it’s odd to penalize people who have invested in parts of the game that the developers encouraged (ships, increasing GP generally even with poor toons for TB, etc.).

    It would seem the easiest algorithm would be to just use the number of G12 or G11 toons someone has (anything below that is of limited value); could even weight G12 and G11 differently with some kind of points system.

    I’m in the same boat since I have high ship GP and inflated overall GP from leveling, starring and modding undergeared toons as a “collector.” So I end up facing opponents with 50%+ more G12 toons. There’s no need to play that out to know who wins...

    This formula encourages one to do unnatural things (like remove mods and be stingy with gear, ability materials and credits) to lower GP. That’s not in the spirit of the game.
  • Commander_Wolffe
    211 posts Member
    edited December 2018
    The game mode encourages "paper fleets" (to borrow the term from CG devs regarding "paper zombies").

    Until GA has 4 ship only nodes (and no character nodes), anyone who is competitive with ships will lose in GA until they have reached a point where ships don't matter (> 2-3m) in GA.
    Post edited by Commander_Wolffe on
  • TVF
    36518 posts Member
    False.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • TVF wrote: »
    False.

    True.
  • TVF
    36518 posts Member
    You said anyone who plays with ship will lose. I play with ships and have yet to lose a matchup. Therefore your statement is false.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • TVF wrote: »
    You said anyone who plays with ship will lose. I play with ships and have yet to lose a matchup. Therefore your statement is false.

    You're correct. I edited my statement.

    When I meant by "play", I meant being competitive with fleets.

    At the < 1m level, just unlocking the capital ships will give you a few hundred thousand GPs. Right now, I'm at around 900k total GP, 450k for characters and 450k for ships. I don't even have a 7* fleet, I have maybe 3 7* ships. I just unlocked fleet arena a month ago or so. So my ship GP is almost the same as my character GP. Others players I've faced have only a couple 4/5 star ships in order to do the zeta challenge. Once they get a couple ships and 3 star that, then they quit investing in ships all together. Which is totally fine to do. They are more than welcome to do that, but if they invest 100% of their resources into characters and I invest 25% of my resources/time into ships, I'll still be handicapped until I get another 2 million GP and then it won't matter because there will be more GP than squads needed for GA.
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