TW Sandbagging issue

Replies

  • Kyno wrote: »

    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.
    I obviously do underestimate. Our guild are also in that range and it just never happens with us. Or the other guilds I’m in contact with.

    As for swgoh.gg, you can spot a ticket alt a mile off. I’ve seen a couple occasionally in an opposing TW guild, but never more than that.

    I stand by it - there’s no way the majority of guilds in the range Seedy stated are doing this. It is vastly more likely that some people just don’t sign up when they’re busy.
  • Gifafi
    6017 posts Member
    Kyno wrote: »

    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.

    drop down to perform better...in TW?? Why? Besides like, helping out a friend/guild, I don't see a reason
    Maybe End Game isn't for you
  • Ultra
    11449 posts Moderator
    bq5hdiscf60b.png
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    Gifafi wrote: »
    Kyno wrote: »

    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.

    drop down to perform better...in TW?? Why? Besides like, helping out a friend/guild, I don't see a reason

    Top HSR rewards.
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    Kyno wrote: »

    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.
    I obviously do underestimate. Our guild are also in that range and it just never happens with us. Or the other guilds I’m in contact with.

    As for swgoh.gg, you can spot a ticket alt a mile off. I’ve seen a couple occasionally in an opposing TW guild, but never more than that.

    I stand by it - there’s no way the majority of guilds in the range Seedy stated are doing this. It is vastly more likely that some people just don’t sign up when they’re busy.

    We all have no idea how many do it. I was nearly supporting that this style of merc play is out there.

    As I said, my current guild always has 3 or more moving around all the time.
  • This is perhaps more of a problem with how the GP of these new characters is being weighed. Their usefulness was thought to be balanced by having to bloat your roster with all of the requirements. Maybe that doesn’t net out.
    Lozsta wrote: »
    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

  • GJO
    172 posts Member
    Seems legit...

    But, on the other hand... what's the point of getting more rewards?
    It'll lead to a better arena team, that leads to crystals.... for what? More arena?

    Arena is by far the most annoying part of the game.
    IDK, but IMHO, the point og getting good teams is to use them, in TW, for instance. Or GAC, the two best player modes in the game. If you play only to accumulate teams and never uses them, what's the point of playing anyway?

    Ok, some ppl maybe doesn't like TW. But for ppl who like, this sandbag system is terrible, either if it is because of mercing or not. It spoils a good part of the game.

    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.

  • MasterSeedy
    4992 posts Member
    @DarjeloSalas
    I stand by it - there’s no way the majority of guilds in the range Seedy stated are doing this. It is vastly more likely that some people just don’t sign up when they’re busy.

    No. That's not what I said at all.

    I said that most guilds are not "sandbagging"... BUT of the guilds people think are sandbagging, those guilds probably include a high percentage of merc-friendly guilds.

    A majority of 4% is still less than 4%.

    I'm not saying I know exactly how many high-gp guilds are "sandbagging" (even as a percentage: 1% or 4% or 10% or whatever) and I'm not saying how many guilds have a high percentage of mercs. But since I know that people merc, and since I know that over the past few months as I was looking for a new guild 3 different officers promised me the freedom to merc between TBs, and since TWs happen between TBs, I figure that there's got to be some merc'ing happening that affects how many people from high-gp end up joining their TWs.

    I think this is a small minority of guilds, but a high percentage of guilds that people think are sandbagging.

    I also admit that this is a guess, and I told you why I think my guess is reasonable. But a small amount of information + a reasonable inference is not nearly as good as actual data, so if anyone has actual data in this area, I'll be happy to be corrected.

    However, if you're not going off data, just off your feeling that since you don't do it, and your friends don't do it, that no one does it, then you're not in any way more informed than I am.

    I might be wrong, but you've got nothing to show that yet. And since you weren't even able to correctly read what I was saying, I don't have the highest possible faith in you correctly interpreting the overall situation.
  • @DarjeloSalas
    I stand by it - there’s no way the majority of guilds in the range Seedy stated are doing this. It is vastly more likely that some people just don’t sign up when they’re busy.

    No. That's not what I said at all.

    I said that most guilds are not "sandbagging"... BUT of the guilds people think are sandbagging, those guilds probably include a high percentage of merc-friendly guilds.

    A majority of 4% is still less than 4%.

    I'm not saying I know exactly how many high-gp guilds are "sandbagging" (even as a percentage: 1% or 4% or 10% or whatever) and I'm not saying how many guilds have a high percentage of mercs. But since I know that people merc, and since I know that over the past few months as I was looking for a new guild 3 different officers promised me the freedom to merc between TBs, and since TWs happen between TBs, I figure that there's got to be some merc'ing happening that affects how many people from high-gp end up joining their TWs.

    I think this is a small minority of guilds, but a high percentage of guilds that people think are sandbagging.

    I also admit that this is a guess, and I told you why I think my guess is reasonable. But a small amount of information + a reasonable inference is not nearly as good as actual data, so if anyone has actual data in this area, I'll be happy to be corrected.

    However, if you're not going off data, just off your feeling that since you don't do it, and your friends don't do it, that no one does it, then you're not in any way more informed than I am.

    I might be wrong, but you've got nothing to show that yet. And since you weren't even able to correctly read what I was saying, I don't have the highest possible faith in you correctly interpreting the overall situation.
    Ok I did miss the distinction that you think most guilds going in short handed are doing it for this reason. In my defence it is a long post! 😉

    Sandbagging posts have always triggered me, ever since my own guild was accused of some orchestrated process to drop members for TW “to ensure an easier matchup” when we went in with 45 members.

    We have no orchestrated system. People can signup or not signup as they wish - all we ask is that if you sign up, you are around to contribute.

    And that’s the same rules as many other guilds in 240-299 range.

    So, I’ll rephrase: lots of guilds make TW optional, without any mercing. You and Kyno point out that many guilds have mercs who disappear during TW. Neither of those options are the orchestrated rota of sitting out that some people insist goes on!
  • Kudlaty
    106 posts Member
    It’s true that in many cases sandbagging may be unintentional for many reasons (holidays, life, mercs and so on) but intentional or not it simply destroys matchmaking for highest GP tier in it’s current state. Still, I would love to see how many top tier guilds would allow mercs/guild hoping during TW if it would not give them any advantage... It’s easy to say we don’t do it on purpose and we don’t care about the advantage when we know we will have it ;) It seems that the simplest and most fair solution is to include participation in matchmaking but I don’t know if I will live long enough to see it ;) In the end it is what it is, I know that and I accept that I can’t change it. Only thing that is bugging me are people that claim that they don’t care about it but still (intentionally or not) welcome the advantage...
  • Kudlaty
    106 posts Member
    edited June 2020
    Kyno wrote: »
    SWGOH.gg there are several reasons, alts, guild transfers, lack of updating. Dont bots pull from SWGOH.gg?

    No, not going into technicalities but You don’t even need to have an account on SWGOH.gg to be included by a bot. And while swgoh.gg updates profiles most commonly once per 24h, bot can take fresh numbers every time you use it, so it’s almost always most actual data available. That’s why it’s difficult for me to believe in many things mentioned in this conversation, because guild hoping / helping / mercs would mean that Guild GP changes a lot: so before TW 10 strong players leave the guild to help friends with HSith or whatever, and guild invites 10 low GP players to allow them farming for Traya shards - that would mean that guild GP drops a lot before TW and increase a lot after TW and before TB. I’m not saying that it’s impossible, I’m just saying that I don’t see anything like that in our opponents guilds...

  • Ultra wrote: »
    bq5hdiscf60b.png

    the topic is the meme. xD
    but if we want the lolz :
    y55mdb7txzqm.png

    I cropped it but we all know/guess where the message from anyway.
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • My takeaway from this thread is that the TW matchmaking is bad because the HSTR rewards distribution is also bad.
  • My takeaway is people spend way to much time developing and employing strategies to squeeze every ounce of juice out of the game. I just can't envision, spending my waking moments devising strategies to incrementally improve my rewards in a game that has no end. What you don't get today in the game you will get tomorrow in the game.There will always be someone better off in the game and someone worse off in the game no matter what you do.

    Sometimes in TW, GAC or Arena I get crushed and sometimes I do the crushing, that is the cyle of the game.

  • Eddiemundie
    1070 posts Member
    Oh it’s another of these threads again.

    So the TLDR is just:

    1. OP thinks sandbagging is bad and deserving of a place in the burning hells
    2. >90% of the time, sandbagging occurs because people have a life, there are alts, mercs, etc
    3. OP wants guilds to be matched based on GP + participants, but then logically there are coding limitations and potentially insufficient guilds to match in the same bracket
  • Eddiemundie
    1070 posts Member
    Kudlaty wrote: »
    It’s true that in many cases sandbagging may be unintentional for many reasons (holidays, life, mercs and so on) but intentional or not it simply destroys matchmaking for highest GP tier in it’s current state. Still, I would love to see how many top tier guilds would allow mercs/guild hoping during TW if it would not give them any advantage... It’s easy to say we don’t do it on purpose and we don’t care about the advantage when we know we will have it ;) It seems that the simplest and most fair solution is to include participation in matchmaking but I don’t know if I will live long enough to see it ;) In the end it is what it is, I know that and I accept that I can’t change it. Only thing that is bugging me are people that claim that they don’t care about it but still (intentionally or not) welcome the advantage...

    I agree with you that yes, sandbagging is usually unintentional (i’ve missed TW last week by accident myself), and yes, sandbagging gives an advantage. But you also have to note that there are going to be coding and matchmaking limitation. By including participation as second limiting factor, we potentially have an issue of a guild that by chance, dropped 10 members cause they have a newborn/got married/took a break/etc, and absolutely no other guilds with a similar gp to matchmake with. Then in this case, what should the code do? Prioritise GP over participation? Or participation over GP?

    To illustrate this, lets say a 300M guild registered at 40/50 with 240m. No other guilds are in the range of 38-42/50 and 235/245m. The next nearest are:

    1. 44/50 239m
    2. 41/50 228m
    3. 42/50 256m

    Whichever of the above options get matched places the someone at a disadvantage. Also note that since matching 2 guilds removes them from the remaining matchmaking pool, there’s a snowballing effect, where basically all “sandbagged” guilds are matched against each other with less than ideal results until finally the pool is reduced to the 50/50 signups. It becomes very iffy, and whatever the devs prioritise will be met with hate anger and frustration from the playerbase.
  • Kudlaty
    106 posts Member
    I’m aware that no matchmaking is or will ever be perfect, but please notice that every single option that You proposed is more fair than what I was matched against last time ;) Long story short, idea is to have best matchmaking possible and at the same time to discourage intentional sandbagging making it at least less profitable and more risky. As I wrote in some earlier post, I’m pretty sure that as soon as sandbagging advantage would be reduced or removed, participation in TW in many guilds would immediately go up by some unknown reason... In the end probably some guilds would make TW participation mandatory and that can be inconvenient sometimes, I agree. But would it be so difficult to ask “guys I can’t participate in attack phase, can I put more teams to defense?”
  • Oh it’s another of these threads again.

    So the TLDR is just:

    1. OP thinks sandbagging is bad and deserving of a place in the burning hells
    2. >90% of the time, sandbagging occurs because people have a life, there are alts, mercs, etc
    3. OP wants guilds to be matched based on GP + participants, but then logically there are coding limitations and potentially insufficient guilds to match in the same bracket

    1) sandbagging is bad.
    2) HAHAHA. no. at the 300M+- GP, the guilds sandbag on purpose to avoid matching with MAW or TI. all the guilds have no life, but only suddenly on this bracket, some guilds **suddenly** have a life? yea, ok. i already sent a picture of guild leader asking the members to not join TW. if this is not sandbagging, I dunno what is. this "90% of the time" is just a lie. this is just a made up excuse. while sometimes, people do have RL things that prevent them to play in TW (funny how it happen only in TW...), this is surely not that majority case.
    3) Guild sandbagged from 300M to 240M by removing 10 players? they'll face the closest guild to that gp with closest members. if it doesn't find 240M active GP with 40 players, fine. it'll go and search for 41/39, 42/38, 43/37 and so on. there'll always be a guild. maybe sometimes the matchmaking will be uneven, but it'll be more even than the current system, 100%, and it won't be **THAT** much uneven. saying it have limitations is like saying current matchmaking has limitations.
    ANY OF THOSE SITUATIONS :
    "To illustrate this, lets say a 300M guild registered at 40/50 with 240m. No other guilds are in the range of 38-42/50 and 235/245m. The next nearest are:
    1. 44/50 239m
    2. 41/50 228m
    3. 42/50 256m"

    is so much better than the current 300M guilds with 40 players facing 240M guilds with 50 players.
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • btw, if you give excuses to sandbag - I automatically assume you sandbag and just want to keep the easy mode on, and you afraid of starting losing when sandbaggers face sandbaggers.
    no need to be afraid of even matchups. the better guild wins - that's the way it supposes to be.
    and actually, CG needs to pursue that, that's why it baffles me so much that they didn't fix the matchmaking yet to be more even and competitive.
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • You sent one picture though. Looks like you’re the one making things up.
  • I agree matchmaking needs fixed - no need to shout.

    I just think the amount of intentional sandbagging that goes on is being exaggerated.
  • I agree matchmaking needs fixed - no need to shout.

    I just think the amount of intentional sandbagging that goes on is being exaggerated.

    it's not, you have tons of proofs in the link I said. but as you said, it's not the issue, so irrelevant. the intentional sandbagging isn't the topic, the matchmaking fix is the topic. Guilds should have even matchups, and sandbagging, intentional or not, should have no effect on the fairness of the TW.
    TW/GA Counters Bot - https://discord.gg/jZH44Hb | Discord: SidiousIsPikachu#5768
  • Waqui
    8802 posts Member
    I agree matchmaking needs fixed - no need to shout.

    I just think the amount of intentional sandbagging that goes on is being exaggerated.

    it's not, you have tons of proofs in the link I said.

    Even before this discussion we had proof that intentional sandbagging happens. However, you have not provided any proof of how much intentional sandbagging is going on. A single instance doesn't tell the amount. I also believe the amount is being exaggerated.

    I agree, that the intention should have no influence on the matchmaking for one simple reason: The intention can't be detected by the game.
  • Liath
    5140 posts Member
    It's a definitional problem. As typically used, there is no such thing as "unintentional sandbagging." It's inherently deliberate. If the action being described is not deliberately intended to gain an advantage, it's not sandbagging.
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    Liath wrote: »
    It's a definitional problem. As typically used, there is no such thing as "unintentional sandbagging." It's inherently deliberate. If the action being described is not deliberately intended to gain an advantage, it's not sandbagging.

    And this definition and part of the discussion do nothing to help or solve the problem of uneven matchups.

    Let's try to keep this on the topic of the matchmaking and not how the guild gets there.
  • The easiest way is that a 300M Guild hit a 300M Guild..maybe plus/minus 1% what are 3 Mio. . When then Guild A decides only to go with 40 participants ..fine....
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    Bytestream wrote: »
    The easiest way is that a 300M Guild hit a 300M Guild..maybe plus/minus 1% what are 3 Mio. . When then Guild A decides only to go with 40 participants ..fine....

    The only problem here is that it punishes the guild when a player has RL issues. The ability to not play and not hurt your guild was the first time this game introduced something like this where you didn't need to be 100% committed (no need to be on at X time). It is a great option for those that need it and guilds dont have to lose players because they can't show up. it may be easy, but its not the greatest solution to this issue.
  • I agree that it can hurt a Guild. On the other Hadn is TW and GAC the only "interesting" feature currently. When you are in a 300M Guild you can expect that people show up for the TW if not they have to reconsider if they are in the right place. You're also right that RL can become an issue there the variance of maybe 1-2% that means that one or players cannot take part.
  • WhoDat
    55 posts Member
    Rewards tiers based on gp, makes sense, but matchups should really compare GLs, relics etc.
Sign In or Register to comment.