Grand Arena Championships – GP Divisions [MEGA]

Replies

  • DemonR
    68 posts Member
    This is poorly thought out.

    Divisions set rewards, fine.
    Higher gp = higher divison = better rewards, fine.
    What is NOT okay is fighting in a higher division, but getting the rewards for the lower division.

    I am div 4.
    I beat 3 div 3 players.
    I got rewarded as a div 4 player.

    What is the point of divisions? Currently its just a way to reward people differently for the same skill and effort. Boo.
  • @SirCrankz

    Yes, RNG has everything to do with how you fare in your first few matches. But if you're a strong player with a good inventory who gets bad RNG at the beginning, you will quickly be paired with people who aren't strong players and/or don't have strong inventories and there won't be any real worthy opponents for the AI to pick from. Then you'll win a few matches (and quite easily).

    In the short run, your wins & losses will be heavily dependent on RNG. However, the point of the 5-week championship (which did not happen this time, it was just a 1-week exhibition) is that by the end of the 2nd week you've had a chance for RNG in matchmaking to bounce you up too fast and then set you up against people you can't beat or bounce you down undeservedly and then set you up against easy victims. Either way, by a couple weeks in the initial RNG effects are minimized because your future matches are determined in large part on performance in prior matches, and so then the last 3-week run to the championship will be less and less determined by RNG and more and more by your roster and your skill.

    I think you're failing to appreciate the entire point of moving to a 5-week championship. This one-week exhibition still has all the flaws of the original GA because there's not enough time to adapt matchups - just as there wasn't when your 7 competitors were chosen before the AI could see how well you would do.

    Previously the rewards were more heavily RNG based. Moving forward this will be less and less true. That's not flat earth, that's understanding the point of the new system.

    You seem to not understand the implications on league progression that rng matchmaking makes. 1 week vs 5 weeks will not change this one bit.

    People (all within a given division) have different max points possible thus allowing them to progress to Kyber at different speeds. This applies to 1 week and 5 week formats equally
  • TRanger
    329 posts Member
    TVF wrote: »
    No_Try wrote: »
    Everything hinges on the new matchmaking. People will start speaking different tunes starting from tomorrow if CG manages to meet their intention in the matchmaking announcement.

    Disagree, because people who lose will always complain about the matchmaking, and 50% of people will lose.

    Disagree... matchmaking is very one sided if you do the pre game research on your matches...you know a lean match from a broad match..just by counting zetas and G12/+ toons when your out.matched by 1/3 both ways....then cross compare GP...(and take it further toon for toon). Then in match you see if you set the best you have..and then take 15 rounds to clear the entire board...if you clear the board.... and they can do it in half the time 8 rounds it is clearly still mismatched.
  • TRanger
    329 posts Member
    For myself it no longer matters....they couldn't match players if they were given the answers. We believed in them when they said it was fixed....more balanced and fair. Not the first time we were mislead. This going back to when we were encouraged to develop the rosters for TB, others toons needed and developed exclusive for tb very...and other squads of toons for mods...then have the carpet yanked from under our feet. No longer needed those toons for mod challenges...the exclusive toons for TB needed dropped...and all that build and invest in your roster... now denied. Andnow....surprise.....GA and GAC.

    My idea of balance would be equal zetas +/- 5 and g12/+ (+/-) 10 with +/- 150k GP....not +15-20 zetas & +15-25 g12 with my opponents still coming in lower GP by 250-350k. This is still lean vs broad. Those margins are and do decide matches.
  • Dk_rek
    3299 posts Member
    @SirCrankz

    Yes, RNG has everything to do with how you fare in your first few matches. But if you're a strong player with a good inventory who gets bad RNG at the beginning, you will quickly be paired with people who aren't strong players and/or don't have strong inventories and there won't be any real worthy opponents for the AI to pick from. Then you'll win a few matches (and quite easily).

    In the short run, your wins & losses will be heavily dependent on RNG. However, the point of the 5-week championship (which did not happen this time, it was just a 1-week exhibition) is that by the end of the 2nd week you've had a chance for RNG in matchmaking to bounce you up too fast and then set you up against people you can't beat or bounce you down undeservedly and then set you up against easy victims. Either way, by a couple weeks in the initial RNG effects are minimized because your future matches are determined in large part on performance in prior matches, and so then the last 3-week run to the championship will be less and less determined by RNG and more and more by your roster and your skill.

    I think you're failing to appreciate the entire point of moving to a 5-week championship. This one-week exhibition still has all the flaws of the original GA because there's not enough time to adapt matchups - just as there wasn't when your 7 competitors were chosen before the AI could see how well you would do.

    Previously the rewards were more heavily RNG based. Moving forward this will be less and less true. That's not flat earth, that's understanding the point of the new system.



    People (all within a given division) have different max points possible thus allowing them to progress to Kyber at different speeds. This applies to 1 week and 5 week formats equally

    Except like 99% of the entire playerbase will never see kyber once in the next few years....The vast majority of the game will take their 1000 GAC coin reward at the end of the month and buy 4-8 salvage.....hopefully the rewards will be different at the end of the big one so we can buy 16-20 salvage after 5 weeks of grinding... woo woo !!!! Not enough to make me care....but enough to at least ensure I will always set a defense and try every match
  • AceCV
    993 posts Member
    The matchmaking IS a problem and probably will be always an issue but can be improved...no doubt about it.

    About cross divisions matches...that need to be fixed. One things is cross league matches (no prob in that ones), other is cross divisions.

    The divisions are defined in the GAC beginning, no way to change it until next GAC and its only based on overall GP no matter what (if the rounds are oinly chars or ships+chars).

    The GP line is not the only difference between divisions.The total teams in defense, the potencial points earned with that and even the final division classification rewards need to be different in each division so, cross divisions matches doesnt make any sense.
  • YetiYeti
    434 posts Member
    The problem that is being made is that they're thinking you're only going to use your top squads or whatever and matching only those. That's simply ridiculous.

    They need to just remove the 'fluff' GP from each matchup, and work from there.

    And by fluff, I mean completely unusable stuff like lv75ish and below/g7 and below. We all spend our resources, in this game, in the manner we think is best. I agree they shouldn't punish people who develop broad, but if you've got a huge squad of usable toons. You're gunna have a hard time holding back higher geared toons.
  • Dk_rek
    3299 posts Member
    edited July 2019
    Never happen but I wish we had to set like up to 20 teams on D use our whole rosters.... G8 Vs G9 matches and such... where you can actually have to plan and strategize instead of "oh look 330 DR and 320 JKR in the front.... I don't get to play this time... fun fun lol

    EDIT : Just realized even with 20 teams to kill 330 DR and 320 JKR would still be in the front so I would not get to attack anything anyway.... fun fun
  • NicWester
    8928 posts Member
    YetiYeti wrote: »
    They need to just remove the 'fluff' GP from each matchup, and work from there.

    And by fluff, I mean completely unusable stuff like lv75ish and below/g7 and below. We all spend our resources, in this game, in the manner we think is best. I agree they shouldn't punish people who develop broad, but if you've got a huge squad of usable toons. You're gunna have a hard time holding back higher geared toons.

    That's exactly what they did.
    Ceterum censeo Patientia esse meliat.
  • I just went over 4.5 mil GP tonight. I hadn’t clicked “join” yet. However, I’m still in div 2. I clicked “join” thinking maybe it will update. Nope. That’s some **** right there.
  • NicWester wrote: »
    YetiYeti wrote: »
    They need to just remove the 'fluff' GP from each matchup, and work from there.

    And by fluff, I mean completely unusable stuff like lv75ish and below/g7 and below. We all spend our resources, in this game, in the manner we think is best. I agree they shouldn't punish people who develop broad, but if you've got a huge squad of usable toons. You're gunna have a hard time holding back higher geared toons.

    That's exactly what they did.

    Not it is not. It would have been if there was some kind of logic to see if the toons beyond 80 are fluff or not.

    now they have removed more than just the "fluff". Most of the time it's fluff but up in division 1 and 2 it's not...

    For example:
    If someone has 80 G12 and 100 fluff toons all lvl 85 g7 they are potentially matched against someone with 160 G12 and 20 g7.

    Extremely unbalanced, these 2 players should never fight each other. It's not even a close competition or fun for either side.

    If they just removed the "fluff" only - causing the algorithm to recognize one guy has 80 + fluff and the other has 160+ fluff it could prevent this matchup to begin with. lots of complaints would be eliminated if they just removed the fluff and started from there.

    Essentially they removed the fluff for some people like the 1st guy with 80 g12 , and for others like the guy with 160 g12 they removed any consideration of all the "not so fluff" g12 that are beyond that players top 80.

    There's a big difference, they cut corners here and ended up cutting the legs off the table (legs attach at corners).
  • Great, now I am matched against a player in a higher division. He has Malak, so it's game over before I even started...
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    NicWester wrote: »
    YetiYeti wrote: »
    They need to just remove the 'fluff' GP from each matchup, and work from there.

    And by fluff, I mean completely unusable stuff like lv75ish and below/g7 and below. We all spend our resources, in this game, in the manner we think is best. I agree they shouldn't punish people who develop broad, but if you've got a huge squad of usable toons. You're gunna have a hard time holding back higher geared toons.

    That's exactly what they did.

    Not it is not. It would have been if there was some kind of logic to see if the toons beyond 80 are fluff or not.

    now they have removed more than just the "fluff". Most of the time it's fluff but up in division 1 and 2 it's not...

    For example:
    If someone has 80 G12 and 100 fluff toons all lvl 85 g7 they are potentially matched against someone with 160 G12 and 20 g7.

    Extremely unbalanced, these 2 players should never fight each other. It's not even a close competition or fun for either side.

    If they just removed the "fluff" only - causing the algorithm to recognize one guy has 80 + fluff and the other has 160+ fluff it could prevent this matchup to begin with. lots of complaints would be eliminated if they just removed the fluff and started from there.

    Essentially they removed the fluff for some people like the 1st guy with 80 g12 , and for others like the guy with 160 g12 they removed any consideration of all the "not so fluff" g12 that are beyond that players top 80.

    There's a big difference, they cut corners here and ended up cutting the legs off the table (legs attach at corners).

    Agreed, that (removing fluff) seems to be their intention but it's certainly not the outcome. I really don't know what would be an effective way to remove fluff from the equation though. People here seems to consider only the level they raise toons to gain tb type gp fluff. However my fluff which is everything that's not g11-12 in my roster are all lvl 85 with all abilities developed upto omegas. If CG took an arbitrary cut-off like that (g8 lvl 74 etc) that would immediately kill all my chances to get a decent match-up.
  • Plus, there are some toons that still serve a purpose at low GP ratings. If they were to go for a “discount the fluff” approach by applying a GP threshold, there are still going to be the odd occasion where someone’s useful “paper” toon is discounted.
  • Tx again @CG_Erik . Again im the only div 2 player against 7 div 1 players and again you put me vs 5,2 mil gp players . Good match up 4,3 vs 5,2 . Tx for your joke
  • Anxious to see again players in top division 2 with 30 g12 chars 😀😀😀
  • Zbindiesel
    3 posts Member
    edited July 2019
    This time I have only 1 player that is actually in my division... 6 are one division higher and 1 is even two divsions higher.

    However, my first two rounds were quite balanced so I think their new math is starting to have an impact.
    Post edited by Zbindiesel on
  • Ooooooh.. well...i won't complain to much about the GA matchmaking. No match is ever fair really.
  • But the problem with this matchup its that in the top are very low players since they fight against low players
  • Krull304
    2 posts Member
    edited July 2019
    Hi,
    I have been trying to read through all this to find an answer to two questions.
    1. Is The GP used just Character GP or your overall including Fleet?
    2. In the app you see the GP low and high for a division. From what I read that is a loose guideline. Is that correct?

    After this last GAC started I can see there is a large difference in GP between me and my opponents. Based on the answer to number 1 above I am either ahead a division if based on Character GP or they got pulled back a division if we use total GP. Any insight would be helpful. Thx.
    And a note, my match ups are inline even with the discrepancy in GP, so I think it is a good job. I just want to know more details to share with my guild.
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    Krull304 wrote: »
    Hi,
    I have been trying to read through all this to find an answer to two questions.
    1. Is The GP used just Character GP or your overall including Fleet?
    2. In the app you see the GP low and high for a division. From what I read that is a loose guideline. Is that correct?

    After this last GAC started I can see there is a large difference in GP between me and my opponents. Based on the answer to number 1 above I am either ahead a division if based on Character GP or they got pulled back a division if we use total GP. Any insight would be helpful. Thx.
    And a note, my match ups are inline even with the discrepancy in GP, so I think it is a good job. I just want to know more details to share with my guild.

    Multiply the no of your defense slots by 10, and calculate your top toon gp using that number. i.e. in my case that's my top 80 toons total gp that gets matched with another players. This is the theory, it's supported by ingame explanation and is also working across the border upon many samples. It's even set in the comparison bots right now.

    Then ships are not in the equation right now, but we should expect them shortly.
  • Sunnie1978 wrote: »
    DEV POST
    CG_SBCrumb wrote: »
    From our Feature Producer:

    (This is a continuation of information about Grand Arena Championship. If you haven’t read them already, please read the previous posts here and here, as some presumptions are made about understanding their context in this post.)

    Grand Arena Championships are a five-week series of Grand Arena events and Feats. Our goal is for the experience to feel like a normal Grand Arena event with a few bells and whistles, and then gradually ratchet up the competition and drive for the players who make it up to higher leagues in later events, until by the end of a Championship, it feels like the sharpest competition that the game has to offer. In this post, we’re going to talk about GP Divisions, a feature that enables us to curate the best experience (AND relevant rewards) for all Grand Arena players regardless of their time in game or collection size.

    Your Division is simply your GP bracket at the start of each Championship. Divisions are set the rules and rewards that you are chasing each Championship. Your Division will be reevaluated at the start of each Championship and you’ll receive greater overall rewards the higher the Division you qualify for. You can’t change your Division until the next Championship, but you can reach higher leagues (Bronzium, Chromium, Kyber, etc) within that Division during a Championship to receive better rewards. As your GP creeps up across the five-week championship, your Division will still not change. Leagues are fundamentally the milestones for you to focus on as a player within a Championship. Also note - your inventory is not locked during the Championship (inventory locking per Grand Arena round still follows the same rules), but your Division is.

    This is essentially because we want to provide different rewards and different scoring mechanisms for players, more or less based on the number of squads they are able to field and the rewards and tradeoffs that are relevant to them. And now that matchmaking is less directly impacted by overall GP (see our earlier post on this), this essentially means that outside of optimizing the squads you are using in Grand Arena, your GP is something that you can still work on in the long-term without worrying about its impact on your Championship progress.

    What does this mean practically? Essentially, Divisions allow us to do a couple of things:
    1. Divisions allow banners to matter at all GP levels towards Championship Score – enough to create a small amount of pressure to optimize attacks & defenses, but not too much pressure to take the focus off of winning the match. A 2M GP player and a 5M GP player are very different in terms of their ability to be flexible and optimized on earning the most banners – we need to be able to treat their banner scoring differently so that it doesn’t feel unbalanced on either end. (We’ll be paying close attention to this balance and will likely make adjustments after our first “exhibition” championships.)
    2. Players will get a set of rewards that are a better fit for their lifecycle needs. A long-term goal of ours to get players more relevant rewards based on how far along they are in the game and what specific grinds they are facing. We are starting to pursue this conservatively at first in our Promotion Feat Rewards (consisting of crystals and a set amount of gear), but over time the Division system allows us to begin executing against this long-term goal to create a better sense of progression through various resource management challenges. (E.G. those of you who are over the Holoprojector hump get less bogged down in rewards you can’t use.) Again, we are only just beginning to execute on this goal, and we’ll be able to share more in the future after this update is in players’ hands.
    3. Players should never feel incentivized to tank their GP before or during a Championship, since a higher GP division means better rewards. This, combined with the move away from raw GP in matchmaking, should result in less last-minute weirdness and closer, fairer matches.
    4. If the GP difference across players is great enough, the matchmaking will also default to the lowest-number of defenses required by division between the two players (Note: only the very best-performing low-GP players are likely to encounter this, however). Players who are good enough to end up getting matched with higher-GP players will be able to do so on a more level playing field.
    5. Most importantly, Divisions should create a long-term goal for players and their collections, so that we can reward elite GAC players regardless of the size of your collection, while still encouraging the newer players to build out more and more teams, chase PvE content, and master more characters/ships/squads. We don’t want the only players hitting Kyber League to be the ones with the biggest collections - younger players who consistently beat their opponents, complete Feats and optimize their play should have a shot at glory too.

    We have tried to match the number of defenses required and the League Promotion thresholds to fit each Division effectively, and are looking forward to seeing how players clear these hurdles across all GP levels.

    Leaderboards
    Alongside Grand Arena Championships, we’ve invested heavily in leaderboards, in order to provide a strong competitive background that does not simply just recreate the dynamics of Squad Arena and Fleet Arena, but still essentially feels like a competition. GAC will launch with four leaderboard types – Global, My Ranking, Guild, and Ally.

    The Global Ranking is just that – a snapshot of the top 50 players in each League, per Division, ranked by Championship Score. It updates in near-real-time as players get promoted into higher and higher Leagues, and resets at the start of each Championship. Your ranking and basic stats will always be visible in GAC Leaderboards so that you can compare your progress against the very best across Leagues, rankings and even Divisions.

    My Ranking is the same ranking as Global, but extending down to where you are in the ranking of Championship Score, in your rank and Division. (Unless of course, you’ve hit the Top 50, in which case you’ll show up in Global too. Congrats, by the way.) This way, even if you are not one of the top players, you can see what you have to do to climb the ranks into a higher ranking. We should also note that reaching certain rank thresholds in a League result in slightly higher rewards – and we have plans to eventually further reward the very highest players in Kyber in each Division.

    Finally, Guild and Ally leaderboards operate across Divisions and Leagues and provide a bit of friendly competition between you and your guildmates, or you and the list of allies/friends/shardmates/nemeses that you can customize. We’re not rewarding based on these leaderboards at this time but are looking forward to incidental competition and fun amongst friends separate from the hard-edged competition of the global leaderboard!

    Thanks for sticking with this long, detailed post, and stay tuned for more information on the Grand Arena Championships schedule and Exhibition Championships in the next couple of days!




    DEV POST

  • The current matchmaking is horrible. The old matchmaking from Grand Arena was much better. It's a completely nonsense now. All my opponents have Full DR team. How could be any fun on this if I am far behind them??

    Grand Arena was my favorite mode on this game. Championships Grand Arenas just completely ruined that experience
  • Fix your matchmaking. Period. I lost to another guy withmore than 1m difference on my roster and beat my defense by sheer numbers, pulling 2-5 battles against each of my squads while I had to make sure I won each fight with 1 battle. In the end I hit a wall because he had the luxury of setting up gold teams on each slot whilst I had not. FIX - YOUR - MATCHMAKING
  • Compromise: for calculating relevant gp, rather than multiplying defense set by 10, just multiply it by 15. This will help to not punish people who invested heavily in ships and raid characters.
  • Hi Team SWGH,

    I find the arena a big problem from your planning and development. You put me in the arena with a higher division. I am 4 and my opponents are 3 and my GP is 2,7M an my opponents have 3,7M... seriously? Opponents have 2x more gold (yelow) characters with Zeta! I can give a good defense but no attack. Is it that, i'm a low paying player??? I'm sorry, but you played the game a lot with Revan and C3PO.I love the Star Wars very much, but this is not much about star wars. I'm sorry to stop watching the game and i'm not playing Champion chips anymore. Strategy no longer plays a role in this.

    I apologize for this report, I had a need to write it.

    I wish you much success.

    Alvin CZ.
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