Q&A: Sandbagging Response

Replies

  • StarSon
    7411 posts Member
    StarSon wrote: »
    TheRHOMBUS wrote: »
    StarSon wrote: »
    Obi1_son wrote: »
    sorry for my lack of knowledge, but can someone briefly explain how sandbagging works? It seems likes it’s not possible for it to give you an advantage, but I would assume I just don’t know how it works.

    To me it just seems that the matchmaking system just does a not-so-great job at taking into account the varying rosters across the board.

    A group of 40 players, with 5.5M GP (mostly relic'd) takes on a guild of 50 players, mostly 4.4M (barely relic'd), both are 220M guilds...
    Who do you think wins easily?

    My money would be on the guild with 50 players

    Chances are they will have more meta toons/teams

    Well, then you would be wrong. Because the guild with 40 players has 40 of each meta team with all the appropriate zetas and most at g13. The guild with 50 will have maybe 30-35 of most of the meta teams, without all the zetas, and with worse gear levels.

    Why doesn’t the guild with 50 have 40+?

    Because it doesn't fit his narrative.

    He has to assume the group with 40 has all 40 g13 and the group with 50 have only 30 g13 meta teams.

    In reality either group can have 20, 30, 40, or 50 g13 meta teams and the difference in gp can be completely on the bottom ends of the rosters or even in ships.

    The only thing we do know for sure is both guilds have roughly the same active gp

    It's got nothing to do with "my narrative." Sure, they might have that many, but in my experience they don't.

    Here are two examples (one from August and one from September). In the first one, we got sandbagged and lost, in the second we sandbagged and won.

    Also, this first one, the character numbers were close enough to not matter, so I didn't include them in the screenshot.
    oryswbyhc582.png

    This one the Revans and Malaks were a big difference, so I included those. The rest of the characters DSR tracks were not significantly different.
    cjr2ocb9l3vc.png

    And these are just two examples from a single guild's matches. For us, anecdotally, 95% of our matches are sandbagged in one direction or the other. I can provide many more matchup screenshots if you want.

    You can provide all the screen shots you want they won't prove anything other than your using a discord bot.

    44 vs 48 revans as evidence of sandbagging? Lol that's just ridiculous

    @JDK82 for your pic...

    Seriously your evidence if sandbagging was where both guilds full cleared and the difference in score was just 50 points between the two guilds that less than 0.01% of the total score. 18880 vs 18833

    So let's try describing that scenario with and without the word sandbagging to see how this works.

    A ) the match was extremely close and could have gone either way but one guild narrowly won a hard fought and fun matchup.

    B ) one guild sandbagged to beat another guild.

    B can be applied as an excuse for a win or loss in every war based on your use of it.

    If the devs can make matchmaking between guilds so close it comes down to less than 50 points I think that matchmaking is very good regardless of if you use the word sandbag or not.

    That's a fact. ^^^^^^ indisputable.

    All this sandbagged rhetoric is ridiculous we have like 35 sign up for tw in a 200m plus gp guild if we had to fight other 200m plus gp guilds with 50/50 players we would get crushed every war because we would be down by 15 players and like 50 to 80 million gp. That's not making better matches it's making matchmaking way more imbalanced and if you cant see it then I'm sorry.

    Were a day 1 guild half the guild gets 600 and that's it... ya some people have 4.8m gp but they are bored and dont have time to play tw.

    Plus all 5his cheating or sandbagging for what zetas lol wow. I find it amusing that so many people think so many other guilds actually go through the trouble to sit players out intentionally just to sandbag to get 1 or 2 extra zeta parts over a 2 and a half month period. If you even make this argument it shows a low level understanding for the game zetas dont even matter. I have 400 plus zeta parts and counting. I purposely dont use them because it makes GAC much harder. Any semicompetitive player that's knowledgable knows that zetas were once important but now they are just adding "fluff stats" to your roster that most day 1 account dont need anymore. My point is cheaters aren't going to cheat by getting favorable matchups just to get zeta rewards they dont need and that will make their future matchups less favorable to them. This is just counterintuitive.

    I have almost 200k in zeta currency I can buy 100 more from the shop at anytime but why I have 400 in inventory ready to go with no one to put them on. Theres no reason to go through all the effort to sandbag forcing people to sit out so the guild can average 1 or 2 extra zeta parts every few MONTHS.

    I’m not trying to prove sandbagging. But to appease you guys that don’t like the term, the two screenshots I provided were situations in which one guild was at 50 members and the other was at 48 or fewer. The Discord bot shows the advantage that doing that gives.
  • The solution to the matchmaking problem is fairly straightforward:

    Currently, guilds are matched based on total GP of the participating players from each guild. Then the number of defensive slots is equal to half of the player count from the smaller guild.

    The fix would be to have a two step match:
    1. sort guilds by number of participants (could group odds & evens together so 41 & 42 would be in the same bucket)
    2. match based on GP for each bucket

    This way, matches would have very similar average GP and very similar total GP both, regardless of how many joined. Therefore it would completely eliminate the incentive (perceived or real) for holding out players to get a more favorable match.

    It would also reduce the pool of guilds for a particular join range, so rematches would be more common.
  • @EventineElessedil - my goodness you were on a roll last night.

    No, I was not claiming it took me 5 seconds to go through 13 pages. I said I found evidence of what you have been denying is possible in 5 seconds, solely looking at the 13th page.

    Specifically, I mean this post and follow up:
    kem5wwd4zzz1.png

    So that’s 46 signed up facing 35 or 36. A difference of at least 10.

    I’ll await your skewed interpretation of this and pithy remarks, because it looks unlikely you’ll apologise and admit you were wrong.

    I know, right? Far too much time on this topic. Suffice it to say I already conceded that my previous understanding of numbers of TW registered players may not have been correct. See here:
    So here you go: you are right.
    You don't like the level of detail in my post, or the way I write, that's okay neither do I. I do my best. The problem is that it's a complicated subject when you start thinking about it, but you are free to not think about it if that's your preferred approach. There is a difference between having a productive, enlightening discussion and slinging insults, a concept that not many people seem to understand these days. I don't know why this discussion should hurt your feelings and require an apology. Have a nice day.
  • BeralCator wrote: »
    BeralCator wrote: »
    I think the question was perhaps not phrased as well as it could be, as it does imply intention to the mismatches.

    The following might have been more effective:
    "The community has noticed that TW matches with a large delta in active guild members are very noncompetitive and have only grown more so as GP scales while the map size remains static.

    With only n*5 spots available on defense (where n is the smaller guild size), a 40-person guild that has an average GP of 5 million has a massive advantage over a 50-person guild with an average GP of 4 million, as their top 160 squads and 40 fleets will be significantly more developed.

    Has any thought been put into either a) limiting match-ups to guilds with near-identical active players or b) expanding the map size so that n is the size of the larger guild (or larger)?"

    The guild with 50 can have 50 meta malaak, 50trayas, 50 of everything,
    Guild with 40 has only 40 meta malaak, 40 trayas, 40 of everything.

    There are advantages to both sides

    For the GP to match, the guild with 40 players will have 40 Relic 7 Malaks while the guild with 50 players will have 50 G12+3 Malaks, etc.

    In a game mode where winning on the first attempt grants additional points, there is no advantage to having more teams that are all slightly worse unless the map is so large that full clears aren't certain. Currently the map is so small that both sides inevitably get full clears, but the smaller guild gets more points because their teams are so much better.

    When TW started we had significantly less characters and ships than we do now. We used to stock the back rows with trash like Rogue One and Maul as we didn't have enough teams available for both offense and defense. Currently, the worst teams we are putting on defense are Relic KRUs or insanely fast Jango/Bossks, often with Nest or Wat Tambor.

    If you think 40v50 match-ups are a good idea (which I personally don't agree with), the map needs to be a lot bigger so that the 50-person team can actually make use of their extra squads in an attempt to offset the 40-person team's better squads.

    Having 40 r7 malaak vs 50 g13 malaak isnt the only way they can match, surely both guilds could have all malaak at r7 and the difference in gp can be elsewhere. But ok I'll go with your example in your case the guild with 40 r7 malaak has much superior teams so they should win, even if they had 10 alts with 200k each just farming coins that joined they would still win with 40 sanbagged or 50 full strength
  • Gair
    616 posts Member
    This is absolute insanity that people have complained about sandbagging for like months or longer and they still dont know what it is? What rock are these people living under?

  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    leef wrote: »
    I wish people would just stop arguing about unintentional and intentional sandbagging, the end result is the same regardless. The sollution (fixing matchmaking) is also the same for intentional ánd unintentional sandbagging.
    As for the dev inquiring about sandbagging, they're the ones with all the data. Just check all the matches between guilds that have a 3 or more player difference in participation and check if the guild with less players signed up wins more often. Should be easy enough, they could even check different GP regions and/or participant differences, check the w/l ratio of guilds with full participation etc. etc. to see if there's anything there.
    Speaking for my guild only, our w/l ratio with full participation is lower than our w/l ratio without full participation. This could be a coincidence ofcourse.
    Even if guilds with a lower number of participants win more often it doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem with matchmaking. It could also be caused by something simple like guilds that sign up with less players have less players that actually don't participate eventhough they did sign up which would hurt the chances of their guild winning.
    I'm no data analyst, but i'm sure someone who gets paid to do that job can figure it out.

    The only reason I make the distinction is that the solution (better matchmaking) needs to be fair and not "punitive" against the smaller guild or guild with less participants than normal. In other words, it shouldn't "presume" sandbagging.

    But I do agree - better matchmaking is the goal and the solution to addresses either "variant" of sandbagging.

    I get that, but if you end up endlessly debating what sandbagging is eventhough both sides of the argument can actually agree on the sollution, you're just wasting eachothers time. I see that happening in pretty much every thread on this topic.
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Just because the solution to a problem is the same whether it is intentional or not doesn't mean the difference is irrelevant. To say in one sentence that guilds that sandbag are underhand and deserve to have people leave, then in another say it doesn't matter why it happens is the same as just insulting every guild with non-mandatory participation in TW, which isn't a reasonable way of going about things. All the maths suggesting the advantage have assumed a drastic increase in success while also saying it happens almost all the time, which are two points that can't both be true, else most sandbagging guilds would just be matched up against other sandbagging guilds, their win rate goes down, they don't get the increase in zetas. It also assumes that if you don't sandbag you win exactly 50% of the time, but if a guild is committed enough to sandbag, it's committed enough to put in the organisation to win more than they lose.
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    Waqui wrote: »
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    leef wrote: »
    I wish people would just stop arguing about unintentional and intentional sandbagging, the end result is the same regardless. The sollution (fixing matchmaking) is also the same for intentional ánd unintentional sandbagging.
    As for the dev inquiring about sandbagging, they're the ones with all the data. Just check all the matches between guilds that have a 3 or more player difference in participation and check if the guild with less players signed up wins more often. Should be easy enough, they could even check different GP regions and/or participant differences, check the w/l ratio of guilds with full participation etc. etc. to see if there's anything there.
    Speaking for my guild only, our w/l ratio with full participation is lower than our w/l ratio without full participation. This could be a coincidence ofcourse.
    Even if guilds with a lower number of participants win more often it doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem with matchmaking. It could also be caused by something simple like guilds that sign up with less players have less players that actually don't participate eventhough they did sign up which would hurt the chances of their guild winning.
    I'm no data analyst, but i'm sure someone who gets paid to do that job can figure it out.

    The only reason I make the distinction is that the solution (better matchmaking) needs to be fair and not "punitive" against the smaller guild or guild with less participants than normal. In other words, it shouldn't "presume" sandbagging.

    The solution will not be punitive to anyone, if all matches are even (50/50 chance to win when considering the active rosters) disregarding how many players enter on either side.

    100% agree that that should be the goal. Of course, the devil is in the details. As with all matchmaking, finding an algorithm that actually makes even matchups is the issue

    The hardest thing would be to find an algorithm that makes even matches while maintaining the incentive to develop your roster. I guess it's two mutually exclusive goals.
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    BeralCator wrote: »
    I think the question was perhaps not phrased as well as it could be, as it does imply intention to the mismatches.

    The following might have been more effective:
    "The community has noticed that TW matches with a large delta in active guild members are very noncompetitive and have only grown more so as GP scales while the map size remains static.

    With only n*5 spots available on defense (where n is the smaller guild size), a 40-person guild that has an average GP of 5 million has a massive advantage over a 50-person guild with an average GP of 4 million, as their top 160 squads and 40 fleets will be significantly more developed.

    Has any thought been put into either a) limiting match-ups to guilds with near-identical active players or b) expanding the map size so that n is the size of the larger guild (or larger)?"

    The guild with 50 can have 50 meta malaak, 50trayas, 50 of everything,
    Guild with 40 has only 40 meta malaak, 40 trayas, 40 of everything.

    In theory, yes, but the members of the 50 participants guild only have 80% roster GP on average, compared to their opponents, and will be less likely to have the same amount of META teams or counters to the newest META teams.
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    Just because the solution to a problem is the same whether it is intentional or not doesn't mean the difference is irrelevant. To say in one sentence that guilds that sandbag are underhand and deserve to have people leave, then in another say it doesn't matter why it happens is the same as just insulting every guild with non-mandatory participation in TW, which isn't a reasonable way of going about things.
    It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is in no way insulting to guilds who don't enforce particiation.
    There's no difference in terms of gameplay between facing a guild that sandbags intentionally and a guild with non-mandatory participation (assuming they signup with the same amount of players).
    On top of that it's also irrelevant what you, i or anyone else thinks about guilds who intentionally sandbag since it's not against the rules. It's not like putting a halt to intentional sandbagging stops the problem either.

    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    Just because the solution to a problem is the same whether it is intentional or not doesn't mean the difference is irrelevant.

    When discussing possible solutions the difference is irrelevant. The solution is the same. The algorithm would not be able to distinguish between the two. It's irrelevant. Distinguishing between the two is only good for pointing fingers
  • Waqui wrote: »
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    Waqui wrote: »
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    leef wrote: »
    I wish people would just stop arguing about unintentional and intentional sandbagging, the end result is the same regardless. The sollution (fixing matchmaking) is also the same for intentional ánd unintentional sandbagging.
    As for the dev inquiring about sandbagging, they're the ones with all the data. Just check all the matches between guilds that have a 3 or more player difference in participation and check if the guild with less players signed up wins more often. Should be easy enough, they could even check different GP regions and/or participant differences, check the w/l ratio of guilds with full participation etc. etc. to see if there's anything there.
    Speaking for my guild only, our w/l ratio with full participation is lower than our w/l ratio without full participation. This could be a coincidence ofcourse.
    Even if guilds with a lower number of participants win more often it doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem with matchmaking. It could also be caused by something simple like guilds that sign up with less players have less players that actually don't participate eventhough they did sign up which would hurt the chances of their guild winning.
    I'm no data analyst, but i'm sure someone who gets paid to do that job can figure it out.

    The only reason I make the distinction is that the solution (better matchmaking) needs to be fair and not "punitive" against the smaller guild or guild with less participants than normal. In other words, it shouldn't "presume" sandbagging.

    The solution will not be punitive to anyone, if all matches are even (50/50 chance to win when considering the active rosters) disregarding how many players enter on either side.

    100% agree that that should be the goal. Of course, the devil is in the details. As with all matchmaking, finding an algorithm that actually makes even matchups is the issue

    The hardest thing would be to find an algorithm that makes even matches while maintaining the incentive to develop your roster. I guess it's two mutually exclusive goals.

    Absolutely. That's why TW and GAC don't do that - they're focused on even matchups. Roster development incentive is what arena (both), TB, raids, and every other gqme mode is for. Glad we agree. ;)
    In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie

    In game guild: TNR Uprising
    I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
    *This space left intentionally blank*
  • leef wrote: »
    It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is in no way insulting to guilds who don't enforce particiation.
    There's no difference in terms of gameplay between facing a guild that sandbags intentionally and a guild with non-mandatory participation (assuming they signup with the same amount of players).
    On top of that it's also irrelevant what you, i or anyone else thinks about guilds who intentionally sandbag since it's not against the rules. It's not like putting a halt to intentional sandbagging stops the problem either.

    I never said there was a difference in gameplay, and I explicitly stated that there was no difference with regards to a fair matchmaking solution. But given the original point was them wanting to see evidence of a guild doing this to try and gain an advantage, CG's issue is with intent. Also when people are complaining about people sandbagging and saying its "Gaming the system", or even ruining the game, then I would be hesitant to paint the vast majority of the playerbase with that brush without being willing to defend the people who do it intentionally. I don't see much benefit to the idea, I don't think it's that prevalent, but I do know guilds with low signup rates are rare and don't necessarily win more often, admittedly from largely anecdotal experience. It may not solve the problem, but I hope you can at least see where I'm coming from.
  • Going by some of the criteria for sand aging outlined in this post our guild would be accused of it.

    Our policy is basically not more than 30 days inactive or get the boot and play nice with others

    That works for us. I like it myself (not an officer or leader here either just a voice).

    However, as a result our turn out for a guild war is usually 30-35 out of 46-50 players.
    This is usually our most active/strongest players and a handful of new accounts plus a few of those who've been around awhile and are getting tough.

    Thusly it has to look bad. Our lower 3rd and 4th quarters of our member base are the ones that dont make the /join.

    We blow out alot of our matchups lately especially (most of the time we've been 1 to 1 w/l rates but lately we've been pretty much undefeated.

    Is this unintentional sandbagging or would you expect this to be labeled as such by the ignorant? This is just the game being played in the vast majority of these cases I d suspect. Only the tip of the wiener guild's should even be worried about this underhanded malarky.
  • Synaptic
    38 posts Member
    edited December 2019

    This was our last TW:

    Members :: 50 vs 48
    GP :: 133.1M vs 184.5M
    Avg Arena Rank :: 449.58 vs 281.71
    Avg Fleet Rank :: 105.88 vs 159.02
    Zetas :: 1539 vs 2378

    We had full participation. We had to set 17 defenses per territory. That's not possible without them not fielding significantly less than their full 48.

    Assuming a perfectly average distribution of GP on their side (3.85m GP per account), they would have had to sign up with only 34 people, give or take. Their lowest listed GP on swgoh is 2 million. So it most certainly happens.

    Whether it's intentional or not doesn't change the fact that matchmaking is **** poor at dealing with that scenario.

  • BeralCator wrote: »
    BeralCator wrote: »
    I think the question was perhaps not phrased as well as it could be, as it does imply intention to the mismatches.

    The following might have been more effective:
    "The community has noticed that TW matches with a large delta in active guild members are very noncompetitive and have only grown more so as GP scales while the map size remains static.

    With only n*5 spots available on defense (where n is the smaller guild size), a 40-person guild that has an average GP of 5 million has a massive advantage over a 50-person guild with an average GP of 4 million, as their top 160 squads and 40 fleets will be significantly more developed.

    Has any thought been put into either a) limiting match-ups to guilds with near-identical active players or b) expanding the map size so that n is the size of the larger guild (or larger)?"

    The guild with 50 can have 50 meta malaak, 50trayas, 50 of everything,
    Guild with 40 has only 40 meta malaak, 40 trayas, 40 of everything.

    There are advantages to both sides

    For the GP to match, the guild with 40 players will have 40 Relic 7 Malaks while the guild with 50 players will have 50 G12+3 Malaks, etc.

    In a game mode where winning on the first attempt grants additional points, there is no advantage to having more teams that are all slightly worse unless the map is so large that full clears aren't certain. Currently the map is so small that both sides inevitably get full clears, but the smaller guild gets more points because their teams are so much better.

    When TW started we had significantly less characters and ships than we do now. We used to stock the back rows with trash like Rogue One and Maul as we didn't have enough teams available for both offense and defense. Currently, the worst teams we are putting on defense are Relic KRUs or insanely fast Jango/Bossks, often with Nest or Wat Tambor.

    If you think 40v50 match-ups are a good idea (which I personally don't agree with), the map needs to be a lot bigger so that the 50-person team can actually make use of their extra squads in an attempt to offset the 40-person team's better squads.

    Having 40 r7 malaak vs 50 g13 malaak isnt the only way they can match, surely both guilds could have all malaak at r7 and the difference in gp can be elsewhere. But ok I'll go with your example in your case the guild with 40 r7 malaak has much superior teams so they should win, even if they had 10 alts with 200k each just farming coins that joined they would still win with 40 sanbagged or 50 full strength

    I guess my existential question is WHY should a team of 40 players with R7 Malaks always beat a team of 50 players with G12 Malaks? If the outcome is predetermined, why bother having a TW at all? If a match isn't competitive, the matchmaking algorithm shouldn't be spitting it out, as it's not fun for anyone; it's just a waste of time for all involved.

    If the goal is to have more competitive matches, either
    a) get rid of this scenario (by only allowing similar numbers of players) or,
    b) change the map layout so that there is a disadvantage to going in undersized that balances out having the more developed rosters.

    Other solutions could include:
    • Incorporating some of the GAC matchmaking algorithm and using "effective GP" instead of actual GP.
    • Scaling the minimum GP for a character to be included in TW as you move up in Division. Currently it is 6,000 for everyone, but realistically, anything below 12,000 is going to be pretty useless for guilds over 200 million GP.
    • Some level of partial rewards for clearing zones, so that there is still a point to playing out bad match-ups.

    There's always going to be a winner and loser in TW, but if you can easily tell who it will be before the match starts, that's lazy game design.
  • Waqui wrote: »
    BeralCator wrote: »
    I think the question was perhaps not phrased as well as it could be, as it does imply intention to the mismatches.

    The following might have been more effective:
    "The community has noticed that TW matches with a large delta in active guild members are very noncompetitive and have only grown more so as GP scales while the map size remains static.

    With only n*5 spots available on defense (where n is the smaller guild size), a 40-person guild that has an average GP of 5 million has a massive advantage over a 50-person guild with an average GP of 4 million, as their top 160 squads and 40 fleets will be significantly more developed.

    Has any thought been put into either a) limiting match-ups to guilds with near-identical active players or b) expanding the map size so that n is the size of the larger guild (or larger)?"

    The guild with 50 can have 50 meta malaak, 50trayas, 50 of everything,
    Guild with 40 has only 40 meta malaak, 40 trayas, 40 of everything.

    In theory, yes, but the members of the 50 participants guild only have 80% roster GP on average, compared to their opponents, and will be less likely to have the same amount of META teams or counters to the newest META teams.

    Again assuming that the 80% difference in average gp all comes from meta teams is not true.

    it can be true in some cases but there are other explanations that are more likely such as the 80% difference in roster gp comes from the 150 or so non meta characters in their respective depth of rosters... like the guild of 40 having an average gear of g10 and the guild of 50 having an average gear of g7 on the majority of their rosters or vice versa.

    Assuming the 20% difference in gp all comes from malak relics or even all comes from meta teams is based purely on speculation and it is a very very unrealistic theory that one guild would have all malaak at g12 and another would have them all at r7. Even so if that was the case the guild with more r7 should win the war BECAUSE they DO have better squads.
  • BobcatSkywalker
    2194 posts Member
    edited December 2019
    Synaptic wrote: »
    This was our last TW:

    Members :: 50 vs 48
    GP :: 133.1M vs 184.5M
    Avg Arena Rank :: 449.58 vs 281.71
    Avg Fleet Rank :: 105.88 vs 159.02
    Zetas :: 1539 vs 2378

    We had full participation. We had to set 17 defenses per territory. That's not possible without them not fielding significantly less than their full 48.

    Assuming a perfectly average distribution of GP on their side (3.85m GP per account), they would have had to sign up with only 34 people, give or take. Their lowest listed GP on swgoh is 2 million. So it most certainly happens.

    Whether it's intentional or not doesn't change the fact that matchmaking is **** poor at dealing with that scenario.

    Are you suggesting they should be matched against another 185m gp guild that may have all 50 members signed up? Even if this makes a 130 vs 185 active gp matchup...?

    Or are you suggesting you should be matched against other 130m hp guilds that may only have 30 of 50 members signed up? I'm sure you would like a 130 vs 75m match but the other guild may think this is unfair, dont u think?

    Either solution would create a much more imbalanced war system, I hope you can see that because to me and many others it is clear as day.
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    leef wrote: »
    It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is in no way insulting to guilds who don't enforce particiation.
    There's no difference in terms of gameplay between facing a guild that sandbags intentionally and a guild with non-mandatory participation (assuming they signup with the same amount of players).
    On top of that it's also irrelevant what you, i or anyone else thinks about guilds who intentionally sandbag since it's not against the rules. It's not like putting a halt to intentional sandbagging stops the problem either.

    I never said there was a difference in gameplay, and I explicitly stated that there was no difference with regards to a fair matchmaking solution. But given the original point was them wanting to see evidence of a guild doing this to try and gain an advantage, CG's issue is with intent. Also when people are complaining about people sandbagging and saying its "Gaming the system", or even ruining the game, then I would be hesitant to paint the vast majority of the playerbase with that brush without being willing to defend the people who do it intentionally. I don't see much benefit to the idea, I don't think it's that prevalent, but I do know guilds with low signup rates are rare and don't necessarily win more often, admittedly from largely anecdotal experience. It may not solve the problem, but I hope you can at least see where I'm coming from.

    I didn't interpret the dev quote in the OP as having issues with intent. Even if their only issue is intent, they don't understand the (percieved) problem which also occurs when there's no (evil) intent whatsoever.
    fwiw, i'm preaching the same thing to players on the other side of the intent argument. It's irrelevant either way. To me it doesn't matter what they say, at the end of the day it's not against the rules and it's practically impossible to enforce a rule for which you have to prove intent. I personally don't like to assume/accuse the opposing guild is/of intentionally sandbagging, but i'm still at a (percieved) disadvantage when they have less players signup due to circumstances out of their controll.
    I can only speak to the higher GP regions and from what i can see it works. Small side note, the signup rates aren't low. 46 participants could easily be considered (un)intentional sandbagging.
    I can't be 100% sure it does work, that's why i wrote "(percieved)". I have my own biases and there are more variables that come into play than just the number of participants. Like i said earlier in this thread, the devs should be able to analyze the data and conclude with relative certainty whether it works or not. All we can do is share our experiences and make the devs aware of what we think is a problem, the rest is up to them.
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Synaptic wrote: »
    This was our last TW:

    Members :: 50 vs 48
    GP :: 133.1M vs 184.5M
    Avg Arena Rank :: 449.58 vs 281.71
    Avg Fleet Rank :: 105.88 vs 159.02
    Zetas :: 1539 vs 2378

    We had full participation. We had to set 17 defenses per territory. That's not possible without them not fielding significantly less than their full 48.

    Assuming a perfectly average distribution of GP on their side (3.85m GP per account), they would have had to sign up with only 34 people, give or take. Their lowest listed GP on swgoh is 2 million. So it most certainly happens.

    Whether it's intentional or not doesn't change the fact that matchmaking is **** poor at dealing with that scenario.

    Agreed, looks like your situation is 50 vs 34. News to me that this can happen. Consider me more informed.

    What this all boils down to is that people are dissatisfied with the matchmaking process and that the devs claim they don't see a problem with it. The sandbagging complaint is just the current form of the pitchforks and torches I predicted back in 2017 after TW beta testing.

    IF sandbagging provides an advantage (big IF), it's because of matchmaking.

    People would be happier if the matchmaking metric were avg GP/player; this is what I think it should be and end it there. But then people would just complain louder about other metrics like speed mods, meta characters, etc. Bah, that's exactly what TW is meant to ferret out: which guild has the stronger roster?
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    Waqui wrote: »
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    Waqui wrote: »
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    leef wrote: »
    I wish people would just stop arguing about unintentional and intentional sandbagging, the end result is the same regardless. The sollution (fixing matchmaking) is also the same for intentional ánd unintentional sandbagging.
    [...]

    The only reason I make the distinction is that the solution (better matchmaking) needs to be fair and not "punitive" against the smaller guild or guild with less participants than normal. In other words, it shouldn't "presume" sandbagging.

    The solution will not be punitive to anyone, if all matches are even (50/50 chance to win when considering the active rosters) disregarding how many players enter on either side.

    100% agree that that should be the goal. Of course, the devil is in the details. As with all matchmaking, finding an algorithm that actually makes even matchups is the issue

    The hardest thing would be to find an algorithm that makes even matches while maintaining the incentive to develop your roster. I guess it's two mutually exclusive goals.

    Absolutely. That's why TW and GAC don't do that - they're focused on even matchups.

    That's where you are wrong. TW and GAC are not focused on even matchups with regard to actual roster strength. GP is not a measure of actual roster strength.
    Roster development incentive is what arena (both), TB, raids, and every other gqme mode is for. Glad we agree. ;)

    We previously agreed, that there is some incentive in TW and GAC, though there might be more in other game modes.

  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    Synaptic wrote: »
    This was our last TW:

    Members :: 50 vs 48
    GP :: 133.1M vs 184.5M
    Avg Arena Rank :: 449.58 vs 281.71
    Avg Fleet Rank :: 105.88 vs 159.02
    Zetas :: 1539 vs 2378

    We had full participation. We had to set 17 defenses per territory. That's not possible without them not fielding significantly less than their full 48.

    Assuming a perfectly average distribution of GP on their side (3.85m GP per account), they would have had to sign up with only 34 people, give or take. Their lowest listed GP on swgoh is 2 million. So it most certainly happens.

    Whether it's intentional or not doesn't change the fact that matchmaking is **** poor at dealing with that scenario.

    [...]

    People would be happier if the matchmaking metric were avg GP/player; this is what I think it should be and end it there.

    Avg. GP/player as the only metric would be a disaster.
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    Waqui wrote: »
    BeralCator wrote: »
    I think the question was perhaps not phrased as well as it could be, as it does imply intention to the mismatches.

    The following might have been more effective:
    "The community has noticed that TW matches with a large delta in active guild members are very noncompetitive and have only grown more so as GP scales while the map size remains static.

    With only n*5 spots available on defense (where n is the smaller guild size), a 40-person guild that has an average GP of 5 million has a massive advantage over a 50-person guild with an average GP of 4 million, as their top 160 squads and 40 fleets will be significantly more developed.

    Has any thought been put into either a) limiting match-ups to guilds with near-identical active players or b) expanding the map size so that n is the size of the larger guild (or larger)?"

    The guild with 50 can have 50 meta malaak, 50trayas, 50 of everything,
    Guild with 40 has only 40 meta malaak, 40 trayas, 40 of everything.

    In theory, yes, but the members of the 50 participants guild only have 80% roster GP on average, compared to their opponents, and will be less likely to have the same amount of META teams or counters to the newest META teams.

    Again assuming that the 80% difference in average gp all comes from meta teams is not true.

    If the rosters have been developed equally well or in the same manner the higher average GP guild would have the advantage.

    Yes, the lower average GP guild could have an advantage, if they had developed their rosters significantly better than the high average GP guild, but that's got nothing to do with sandbagging.
  • Waqui wrote: »
    [...]

    People would be happier if the matchmaking metric were avg GP/player; this is what I think it should be and end it there.

    Avg. GP/player as the only metric would be a disaster.

    Of course, but better than it currently is!
    But then people would just complain louder about other metrics like speed mods, meta characters, etc.
  • My opinion, we go all out, or bend over and take it like a champ until CG figures out a solution
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    Waqui wrote: »
    [...]

    People would be happier if the matchmaking metric were avg GP/player; this is what I think it should be and end it there.

    Avg. GP/player as the only metric would be a disaster.

    Of course, but better than it currently is!

    In my opinion it would be far worse.

    I'm sure, you can imagine why, but ok:

    Being outnumbered would be a severe disadvantage. Much more severe than the advantage it is today.
  • Waqui wrote: »
    Waqui wrote: »
    [...]

    People would be happier if the matchmaking metric were avg GP/player; this is what I think it should be and end it there.

    Avg. GP/player as the only metric would be a disaster.

    Of course, but better than it currently is!

    In my opinion it would be far worse.

    I'm sure, you can imagine why, but ok:

    Being outnumbered would be a severe disadvantage. Much more severe than the advantage it is today.

    I think you misunderstood my intent. I was suggesting adding avg GP/player in addition to total registered GP. If course there would be problems with that as well ... the rabbit hole goes deep but you have to draw the line somewhere, and more dimensions is not necessarily better because somebody will always be at a disadvantage and complain about it.
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    Waqui wrote: »
    Waqui wrote: »
    [...]

    People would be happier if the matchmaking metric were avg GP/player; this is what I think it should be and end it there.

    Avg. GP/player as the only metric would be a disaster.

    Of course, but better than it currently is!

    In my opinion it would be far worse.

    I'm sure, you can imagine why, but ok:

    Being outnumbered would be a severe disadvantage. Much more severe than the advantage it is today.

    I think you misunderstood my intent. I was suggesting adding avg GP/player in addition to total registered GP.

    No, you were not. You may have intended to, but you didn't. I can only respond to what you actually write - not to your thoughts.

    But OK, now you've cleared it up.
  • Why can’t the matchmaking be changed to this: You’re guild joins TW in a 10 mil bracket range ( by total guild GP) and then the matchmaking is done by the count of players joined. That eliminates the sandbagging and more evenly matches opponents. It’s that simple. @CG_SBCrumb
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