TW Sandbagging issue

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Sidious_Is_Pikachu
153 posts Member
edited May 2020
the TW matchmaking is a problem. a lot of guilds exploits this matchmaking, sandbagging, going with less players, and enjoy easier fights. it shouldn't happen.
I'm not sure if you are now realizing that there's a problem (cause in one Q&A I saw that one of your devs don't understand what's the problem..) so I'll explain:
a guild of 300M GP, has a few not sign up, they go with active GP of 260-270M, and face a guild with 260-270M GP.
the guild with 300M GP have fewer players, but it doesn't matter, they have much much more mods, relics, and super top teams like GL Rey/Kylo. A HUGE advantage to the 300M guild with fewer players.
so when will you fix the sandbagging issue? there are many solutions for it.. you can:

- Create more brackets and "punish sandbaggers" that go lower bracket

- you can make it mandatory for all 50 (maybe not so good idea, but will increase competitiveness)

- you can change the matchmaking to prioritize number of players also... guild of 300M that sandbagged 10 people to 240M, won't face 240M guild, but face a guild with 9-11 missing players, at 295-305M Gp. it will create much more even matchups, and won't punish anyone actually.

- you can make the zones still 25 even if a guild comes with 40, and that might help a bit to the weaker guild, cause the sandbaggers need to place more on def.

- you can, but you won't do, make the rewards much better and worth joining.

TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
Post edited by Kyno on

Replies

  • Keeping it at 25 squads per zone no matter what and having more zones at the top tier will help.

    It's too easy to clear the board
  • Tezza23
    88 posts Member
    Don’t find it a problem anymore cause it usually switches around . Plus how do you know they keep people out ? We had 7 not join due to life issues and as a result went down a bracket when we rather have competed for 1st in a higher bracket and a easy to clear board means your guild must work on efficiency, this led to more co operation from our guild than mindlessly throwing teams at them.
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    edited May 2020
    Let try to keep this on topic.

    I removed a few references to any intent or nefarious activity.

    As others have said in other posts on the topic, let's not focus on how to guilds get to equal active GP but different numbers of players.

    Once they are there:
    -do you think its fair?
    - should it change?
    - what's wrong with it?
    - ..... and so on

    Let's stay on the topic of matchmaking in this scenario, not how we reached the initial point, as not everyone plays the same way, or has any intention on being mismatched
  • Kudlaty
    106 posts Member
    aqja5itbnx38.jpeg
    Galactic legends: our guild 1GLR 4SLK vs 22GLR 15SLK
    Our guild 48 people vs 40 (from what I saw most common in sandbagging) in opponent guild.
    When You have rotation set for 40 people, every guild member plays 4 TW and pause 1 - outcome per person: you win them all, you have more Zeta materials than from 5 loses and no morale problem in the guild. And of course as a bonus: bragging rights how awesome guild you have. It’s most common in highest reward bracket with guilds that have enough GP to stay in highest bracket with only 40 people participating. I can’t believe that developer can’t track that behavior- just look for guilds that have all the time around 40 out of 50 people participating. Guilds playing the system are taking away all fun from TW :(
  • snookalo
    289 posts Member
    edited May 2020
    Maybe tier it like gac. I know that depending on what gp signs up you get tiered, but that doesn’t equal close matchups. Have the tiers set what guilds can be matched up based on overall gp then use the tw tiers to separate those guilds out and match them up. You’ll be matched up against a similar guild based on the initial tiering and won’t run into as many totally unfair matchups
  • Tezza23 wrote: »
    Don’t find it a problem anymore cause it usually switches around . Plus how do you know they keep people out ? We had 7 not join due to life issues and as a result went down a bracket when we rather have competed for 1st in a higher bracket and a easy to clear board means your guild must work on efficiency, this led to more co operation from our guild than mindlessly throwing teams at them.

    doesn't matter your specific case. and if you have 7 not join once, one of the suggestion si that you'll face guild at your level with 7 people out also. or something close.
    whats the problem with that ? you afraid of an even matchup?
    its not usually switch around, there are guilds that do it regularly to keep win TWs.
    Alpha, Global Force, Bravehearts are the obvious examples.
    check at the leaderboard: Alpha at #13, with 1,083,000,000 GP defeated, and their GP is 320M. that means that on Average, they are sandbagging 50M per TW. they are beating 270M GP, 4 times. its INSANE. its auto win for them, and it give no chance and no fun to the opponent guild. the difference between 270M go and 320M in rosters, mods and GL is huge.
    for example, My guild (TheBigChewbowski) is at #8, with 1,123,000,000 GP defeated, and our GP this month was 280M+-. we beat around 280M 4 times, cause we go with 50 usually - and we also had 1 TW when we had 1 missing player this month.
    check kudalty picture. look at the Mods, the Relic difference. the sandbagging is a huge problem, I offered lot of solutions that will help it. if some people in your guild cant participate - it wont hurt your guild - it will make it EVEN, instead of having advantage.
    sandbagging need to be stopped so matchups will be even
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • NicWester
    8928 posts Member
    Sandbagging takes a boring and stale part of the game and makes it even worse.
    Ceterum censeo Patientia esse meliat.
  • Sewpot
    2010 posts Member
    What is a guild has only 40 members but 10 alts. The alts are just to farm raid tickets. Then what??? You want those alts in TW if they are super weak.
  • Sewpot wrote: »
    What is a guild has only 40 members but 10 alts. The alts are just to farm raid tickets. Then what??? You want those alts in TW if they are super weak.

    This is why I suggesting a solution - that will make the matchups even / make sandbagging not worth it.
    you have 10 alts, you don't join them, fine. you face a guild with kinda same situation, that have 10 people not joining. the better guild wins - and no one has advantage over the other.
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • Kudlaty
    106 posts Member
    Sewpot wrote: »
    What is a guild has only 40 members but 10 alts. The alts are just to farm raid tickets. Then what??? You want those alts in TW if they are super weak.

    Please look at the screen I’ve attached to my earlier post. You want to tell me that guild on the right have only 40 regular players that joined TW and 10 weak alts that didn’t join? Then matchmaking is even more off in that case ;) To be perfectly clear I don’t want to push people into joining TW - for example in our guild TW isn’t mandatory because life happens sometimes. Idea is to match guilds first for similar (or close, for example +/-1 or 2) count of participating people and then within this group match for GP/Inventory or whatever they see important for fair fight. Or add more reward tiers that would not allow significant sandbagging without dropping to lower reward tier.
  • Lozsta
    195 posts Member
    Kudlaty wrote: »
    Galactic legends: our guild 1GLR 4SLK vs 22GLR 15SLK

    This line alone is what is wrong with TW and GAC matchmaking. Nothing will be done though as the P2W brigade always want to beat up on the proles. It is absolutley wrong.
  • If there's no advantage to getting the latest, greatest toons (in this case, GLs), then no one will pursue those toons.

    You may not like it, but for the health of the game CG has to allow (not encourage, but allow) GAC matchups between people with GLs and people without, and TW matchups between guilds with more GLs and guilds with few/none. To do anything else would mean that the winning strategy would be not to develop any new toons, and instead to max out mods.

    As someone in a guild that had relatively poor participation and consistently lost in TW (we had a win rate less than 20%, and could sometimes lose 10-20 TWs in a row), I was frustrated with our lackluster performance, but I would never have suggested that the algorithm ban matchups against guilds with a better set of meta toons. About a week ago I moved to a new guild, and they're active and organized and we lost one in a very close match, and then won the next by a blowout. And I can tell you that I enjoyed the loss even more than the blowout win b/c it was my first TW in a long time where people were communicating and sharing strategies, giving each other encouragement.

    For me, it's what happens between guild mates that makes a TW better or worse. And though I understand the frustration of losing over and over again, I think it ruins the game to set up a situation in a which a winning strategy is to avoid acquiring meta toons.
  • Lozsta
    195 posts Member
    If there's no advantage to getting the latest, greatest toons (in this case, GLs), then no one will pursue those toons.
    I'll just post this again so it can resonate with you...
    Kudlaty wrote: »
    Galactic legends: our guild 1GLR 4SLK vs 22GLR 15SLK
  • MasterSeedy
    4992 posts Member
    @Lozsta

    I read it. I understand it. I was part of a guild who lost more than 80% (probably way more, but I didn't keep track) of TWs over two years. I get that losing isn't fun.

    If it's possible to do matchmaking to more precisely match gp, that's fine with me. But if the goal is to fine tune matchmaking until current meta-toons (GLs right now, others in the past and future) are near-equal, that's never going to happen.

    Did you understand what I said about incentivizing NOT getting the new meta toons, because it means you don't have to compete against better guilds? Refusing to get meta toons would be its own form of sandbagging, and it would be even worse for the game then the problem you're currently decrying.
  • @MasterSeedy GL is huge advantage in 50 v 50 scenarios also. what is this excuse for sandbagging ? GL don't have advantage so go sandbag?
    TW should be fair and even matchups. looking for excuses on why unfair matchups is fine is.. i dunno even what to say. seriously.

    guilds that go 50 should face guilds that go 50. (and same active GP)
    guilds that go 40 should face guilds that go 40. (and same active GP)

    its as SIMPLE AS THAT. there'll be no meaning to this grey-zone cheating called sandbagging, if sandbaggers will face sandbaggers. even matchups will increase competitive drive in the guilds, and will push the guilds to do better on MODS and on GLs, and there's nothing wrong with it - the better guilds will win.
    instead, we have many situations where the coward, abusing guild - wins. and its wrong. and there's nothing that can defend this.

    and that's the whole point of this post. contacting CG to CHANGE this, and do some stuff to make the TW matchups more even and competitive.

    the best way to do it imo is this :
    matchmaking: Guild with X players and Y GP, will face guilds with (between X-1 and X+1) players, and (between Y-2M and Y+2M) GP. simple as that, really. right now the matchmaking is only Y GP , vs Y-2M to Y+2M GP. adding the # of players to the matchmaking will fix this issue right away.
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • @MasterSeedy GL is huge advantage in 50 v 50 scenarios also. what is this excuse for sandbagging ? GL don't have advantage so go sandbag?
    TW should be fair and even matchups. looking for excuses on why unfair matchups is fine is.. i dunno even what to say. seriously.

    guilds that go 50 should face guilds that go 50. (and same active GP)
    guilds that go 40 should face guilds that go 40. (and same active GP)

    its as SIMPLE AS THAT. there'll be no meaning to this grey-zone cheating called sandbagging, if sandbaggers will face sandbaggers. even matchups will increase competitive drive in the guilds, and will push the guilds to do better on MODS and on GLs, and there's nothing wrong with it - the better guilds will win.
    instead, we have many situations where the coward, abusing guild - wins. and its wrong. and there's nothing that can defend this.

    and that's the whole point of this post. contacting CG to CHANGE this, and do some stuff to make the TW matchups more even and competitive.

    the best way to do it imo is this :
    matchmaking: Guild with X players and Y GP, will face guilds with (between X-1 and X+1) players, and (between Y-2M and Y+2M) GP. simple as that, really. right now the matchmaking is only Y GP , vs Y-2M to Y+2M GP. adding the # of players to the matchmaking will fix this issue right away.
    100% agreed.

    This won’t stop guilds with 5 GLs matching with guilds that have 15 GLs though. And nor should it.
  • Rath_Tarr
    4944 posts Member
    the best way to do it imo is this :
    matchmaking: Guild with X players and Y GP, will face guilds with (between X-1 and X+1) players, and (between Y-2M and Y+2M) GP. simple as that, really.
    If its that simple then you will have no trouble sharing the pseudo-code of your proposed algorithm including the data structures you would use and a measure of the algorithmic complexity. Don't forget that your matchmaking pool is probably in the tens of thousands and your matchmaking window is relatively small so it had better be scalable and efficient.
    right now the matchmaking is only Y GP , vs Y-2M to Y+2M GP.
    Is that so? And your source for these "facts" would be... ?
  • Sidious_Is_Pikachu
    153 posts Member
    edited May 2020
    Rath_Tarr wrote: »
    the best way to do it imo is this :
    matchmaking: Guild with X players and Y GP, will face guilds with (between X-1 and X+1) players, and (between Y-2M and Y+2M) GP. simple as that, really.
    If its that simple then you will have no trouble sharing the pseudo-code of your proposed algorithm including the data structures you would use and a measure of the algorithmic complexity. Don't forget that your matchmaking pool is probably in the tens of thousands and your matchmaking window is relatively small so it had better be scalable and efficient.
    adding NUMBER_OF_PLAYERS to the algorithm is the easiest thing they can do, and won't affect any runtime, complexity or anything really. but this remind me of my 1st year in Computer Science studying at the university. thanks for the flashbacks. feels like a war veteran a bit.
    right now the matchmaking is only Y GP, vs Y-2M to Y+2M GP.
    Is that so? And your source for these "facts" would be... ?
    [/quote]

    every TW under 300M GP, ever. active GP is the ONLY thing there. if you are unaware of this, please educate yourself before, instead of acting **** here.
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • Artumas
    324 posts Member
    Did you understand what I said about incentivizing NOT getting the new meta toons, because it means you don't have to compete against better guilds? Refusing to get meta toons would be its own form of sandbagging, and it would be even worse for the game then the problem you're currently decrying.

    Find me a single guild that would legitimately ask their members to no longer be able to finish top 10 in their squad arenas in exchange for an advantage in TW, and you might have a point. People don't get meta toons for TW, they get secondary meta toons. The galactic legends are THE meta right now. If we were comparing number of 7* The Mandalorians, or something similar, then sure, you'd probably have a point.

    But no one is specifically working on a galactic legend for exclusively TW, and no one would NOT work on a Galactic Legend if it put their guild at a disadvantage (and even then, even numbers of GLs isn't even a "disadvantage", it's just "not an advantage", which is vastly different.)

    Crystals mainly come from squad arena.
    Placing high in squad arena requires meta teams.
    Getting more crystals increases your daily energy refresh amount.
    Increasing your daily energy refresh amount gets you better mods and more relic 7 chars.

    No guild is going to ask their members to not work on META chars because of a perceived disadvantage in TW, and non-meta chars should never effect matchmaking, so they're not really an arguing point either. (again, new meta BH team is great, but nowhere near the power difference of a GL, regardless of the actual GP amount gained from said characters. And even GAS isn't really on the same level as the GLs.)

    I doubt matching guilds based on the absolute most current meta would actually effect a single thing when it comes to spending, attendance, etc.
  • You realize this is just a game, right? People do have lives outside of the game and may not join TW due to RL. I'm not sure why you are so adamant in complaining about a game mode that is optional. I agree the matchmaking needs change but going out of your way to call out guilds and making assumptions about how other guilds participate is uncalled for. A minimum of 25 sign-ups allows a guild to participate in TW. It's up to the guild on how they choose to play. It's up to a player to decide if they want to sign up or not. Forcing members to opt-in won't make the majority in swogh happy, and neither will Optional. It's a tough balance to achieve.
  • MasterSeedy
    4992 posts Member
    My point is that if you think the problem is GP + Players, then you should only be citing GP + Players.

    If you cite # of GLs vs. # of GLs, you're making the argument that it's not fair for a guild with fewer GLs to go up against a guild with more.

    This is wrong. And other people agree with me, so I can't be completely crazy on this point.

    Additionally, I'll just say that this still contains a strong flavor of "stronger guilds are doing this on purpose", even though Kyno tried to stamp that out.

    No one voluntarily foregoes TW rewards so that their guild mates can get one extra zeta mat and 2 extra Mk3 Holo salvage. I'm currently in a guild that's only a short step from the top guilds in the game. We're expecting 30* in DS Geo TB and have 255M gp. I spent 6-8 months exploring other guild options on & off before finally leaving my old, underperforming guild (but that had great people - there are good reasons I stayed so long!). My general sense is that there are quite a few guilds out there who encourage going mercenary, or at least make it easy for members to do so, in between TBs.

    Since TWs never run when TBs are ongoing, that means that the top guilds are losing players for TW so that folks can get in multiple extra raids, because the rewards for doing a single HSTR - other than zeta mats - are dramatically better than for doing a 3-day TW event. With mercing, you can get in 3 or even more HSTRs, often paired with HAATs, over the same three days.

    While there are many top guilds where merc'ing is not the norm, you're not seeing the top guilds where all 50 players stay home, because they're not matched up against you. So it might seem like this is common behavior, and it might seem like this has something to do with TW, but my best guess from talking to a lot of officers in 240-290Mgp guilds is that a significant fraction, if not the majority, of the strong guilds that enter TW shorthanded are in that shorthanded situation because their members are off getting better rewards from doing raids while also helping out lesser guilds that would struggle to complete HSTR without mercenaries. This is helping the lower guilds, not hurting them, since they get a much quicker start on g13 than they could without HSTR, even if none of the guild members are actually finishing top-3.

    So I don't mind saying that the algorithm should be adjusted for active players in addition to total gp. I think I've said that myself at other times and have no problem echoing it here.

    But what I've learned makes me think that this problem has nothing to do with guilds trying to artificially increase their competitiveness and everything to do with people recognizing that the rewards for TW simply aren't worth the 3-day commitment when they could help themselves AND starter guilds at the same time by skipping TW to do more raids.

    And that conclusion makes me think that "Sandbagging" is drastically misnamed. Even if you don't outright say that guilds are lowering their gp on purpose to beat up on lesser guilds, it's implied in the "sandbagging" name.

    I don't think that's what's going on, and I think that it's much more fair to acknowledge that the raid & TW reward structures, combined with the need of young guilds to finish HSTR as early as possible, make this kind of thing inevitable.

    This isn't guilds doing something wrong or trying to get an advantage. At least not most of the time, not from what I can tell. This is top guilds helping newer guilds and the accidental effect is medium guilds get hurt.
  • That’s a very long post with some glaring errors in it.

    1) nobody is mercing to do 3 HSTR in 3 days. There is a raid cap, and anyone who does too many HSTR in a certain time frame can not earn any more rewards. Plus, it is beyond unlikely that someone would find a guild that is ready to launch HSTR, waits for the merc, launches, merc collects prizes then can find a new guild in the same position on each of the next 2 days.

    2) I’m not going to make a claim involving numbers, but I just do not accept that members leaving the 240-299M guilds during TW to help a small guild is a thing. Like, at all.

    I always check swgoh.gg when we find out our opponent. So does most everyone else. If leaving guilds during TW to merc was a thing, why on earth does swgoh.gg always show the opposing guilds as full? Why do discord bots always say the guilds have 49 or 50 members?

    Sorry - this is fantasy.
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    I think all guilds besides mine should sandbag by not getting GL’s.
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator

    2) I’m not going to make a claim involving numbers, but I just do not accept that members leaving the 240-299M guilds during TW to help a small guild is a thing. Like, at all.

    I always check swgoh.gg when we find out our opponent. So does most everyone else. If leaving guilds during TW to merc was a thing, why on earth does swgoh.gg always show the opposing guilds as full? Why do discord bots always say the guilds have 49 or 50 members?

    Sorry - this is fantasy.

    Yes players do this. By help a smaller guild, you mean take top raid rewards, and end up being in a TW where they can perform better, or even be more relaxed.

    SWGOH.gg there are several reasons, alts, guild transfers, lack of updating. Dont bots pull from SWGOH.gg?

    My guild always has at least 3-5 spots that are mercs or placeholders for someone away to merc. We are in that range.

    I think you underestimate the efforts players will go through to get better raid rewards in the current structure.
  • Depends on what you define as the top guilds.

    If it’s the top 3 or 4, fair enough, but I’d say top 200 would the the top guilds.
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    My point is that if you think the problem is GP + Players, then you should only be citing GP + Players.

    If you cite # of GLs vs. # of GLs, you're making the argument that it's not fair for a guild with fewer GLs to go up against a guild with more.

    This is wrong. And other people agree with me, so I can't be completely crazy on this point.

    Agreed. However, you're wrong here:
    No one voluntarily foregoes TW rewards so that their guild mates can get one extra zeta mat and 2 extra Mk3 Holo salvage.

    In previous discussions some players have admitted, that their guilds sandbag strategically to win. One player even posted screenshots from discord as proof that they coordinate it there.
  • 3) 255 mil GP is not a short step from the top guilds, it’s over a 100 mil GP away.

    Meh. Depends on what you mean by "top guilds"

    personally, I think anything over 300m is a "top guild". If I'd meant a short step from 1st place over all other guilds, I would have said that.
    If leaving guilds during TW to merc was a thing, why on earth does swgoh.gg always show the opposing guilds as full?

    Alts.

    nobody is mercing to do 3 HSTR in 3 days.

    I can't verify that people are raiding that often, but I can tell you that 3 different guild officers who were recruiting me for their guilds promised that they make it easy to merc between TBs. They didn't mention TWs in connection with merc'ing, but the TWs are between the TBs. Therefore, the ones promising me opportunity to merc were also saying that the time to merc is during the same timeframe that TWs happen.

    I haven't done any merc'ing for ages, like before HSTR even existed. I was doing it for HAAT. And I only did it a few times, but smaller guilds can easily find people and plan ahead with them for the exact time slot by using the merc server on discord. You don't need to luck into the right time.

    This is happening, whether you think it is or not.

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