Sorry everyone, I broke GW. Today's Power Breakdown

EventineElessedil
6171 posts Member
edited June 2016
TL;DR – I geared up Savage to 7540 power and GW difficulty increased. Coincidence? Probably.

There is a lot of data below. I'll hide it in spoiler blocks for the disinterested (at least, I think I will).
TLDR – Problem: GW is hard. What determines difficulty?
There was a lot of whale noise about GW difficulty in May. Hearing all the talk, and beginning to experience some of the problems myself at 35k power, I decided to start tracking the power levels of GW opponents by node.
Devs have said that GW opponent power is dictated by your highest Arena power victory. Some have speculated that the combined might of your 5 most powerful heroes seemed to be the yardstick. I set out to find out which was true.

TLDR – I recorded 23 GW runs since beginning of June. I upgraded Savage to 7540 yesterday (sorry).
Getting a reliable data set means taking a lot of measurements. To get an idea of daily variation due to RNG, this meant holding Arena power constant and avoiding leveling my highest power heroes. So I made the valiant sacrifice for all of us by doing just that.
My Arena power was 34,883: Ackbar, Luke, Biggs, St Han, HR Scout.
My top5 power was 35,407: Ackbar, Luke, Biggs, Savage, Phasma
Luke was maxed, but the rest were all gear IX, and only Savage and Ackbar were not L80. The plan was to avoid improving any of them or any other hero near the top5 to avoid ruining the experiment, and record GW opponent power for a month.
The total power level for the opposing team at each node was summed by hero and recorded. This was converted into a percentage of Arena Power and Top5 Power. Unfortunately, since my Arena and Top5 were so close to each other, there would be little distinction in the numbers until later in the experiment.
The data is spotty in some places, but I made every reasonable effort to get the numbers right.
  • Between 06/08 and 06/15, I recorded 8 GW runs. Then of course, the update of 06/15 threw a monkey wrench into my plans so I had to start over.
  • Between 06/16 and 06/29, I recorded 14 GW runs that were all very similar. Fourteen data points per node is not that great, but I just couldn't take anymore and it was time to change the experiment parameters. So on 06/29 after finishing GW, I upgraded Savage from L77-IX to L80-X, increasing his power from 6779 to 7540, a significant bump of 761. If there was no discernible change to GW, then I would try bumping other heroes into the top5 (like FOTP, Kylo, Lumi, etc.).
Imagine my surprise when I took my GW run on 06/30. Alarmingly, it looked like GW difficulty was heavily dependent on Savage's power level.

Pre-06/15, the power curve was linear from 60-95% on 1-8, then steadily harder on 9-12 up to 100% Arena power.
Prior to the 06/15 game update, the GW power curve looked like this, based on 8 runs (related to Arena power):
  • Node 1-8: 60%, 65%, 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%
  • Node 9-12: 96%, 97%, 98%, 100%
Max standard deviation was 1.9% on Node 4, stdev on the rest was 0.4% or less.

Post 06/15, the GW power levels generally eased off a lot but had local peaks on nodes 3, 6, 9. Nodes 11 and 12 were 99% and 100%.
After the 06/15 game update, the GW power curve looked like this, based on 14 runs (related to Arena power):
  • Node 1-3: 60.8%, 62.7%, 70.4% stdev<=1.3%
  • Node 4-6: 61.7%, 62.2%, 80.1% stdev<=1.1%
  • Node 7-9: 71.7%, 72.3%, 84.1% stdev<=3.9%
  • Node 10-12: 81.4%, 99.3%, 100.3% stdev<=0.9%
Max standard deviation was 3.9% on Node 9 due to anomalous 70.6% squad on an otherwise 85% node. User error? Maybe. Could have been beer night. Could have been Gremlins in the server.

Today, GW hit me with 4 nodes at or over 100%. Node 12 was almost 6k more powerful at 115% of my Arena level. I didn't finish.
Last night I decided it was time to ramp up the Top5 power and upgraded Savage. This morning I saw the uproar in the forum about unannounced GW changes. Curious to see how I could have affected everyone's GW by upgrading Savage, I took another run. Here's what I got related to Arena power:
  1. 60.0%
  2. 62.5%
  3. 70.1%
  4. 61.1%
  5. 64.5%
  6. 95.5%
  7. 76.2%
  8. 77.0%
  9. 100.4%
  10. 86.3%
  11. 104.1%
  12. 115.4%
Orange text is 5% increase. Red text is 15% increase.
Final node was against a 40,241 power opponent. My best Arena squad is 34,883. My Top5 is now 35,808 thanks to Savage. This squad crushed my whole roster, except for the squad I lost on Node 6. 16 7* and a host of cannon fodder, I eventually took down Anakin. Oh, and I hate Sun Fac.
avrAOyg.png

Obvious conclusion: By upgrading my Savage to gear X, I affected everybody's GW run. Sorry folks, I won't do it again.
Not really. But there was clearly a change stealth pushed by the devs. There is no way to reconcile my power levels with these changes. Unless maybe it has something to do with unlocking Dengar and Leia on the same day ...

Cheers.

Edit - added some spaces for readability.

Replies

  • Makes sense to me on how horrible my GW was. The difference between power levels was clearly way over 100% for me.
  • LaLiam
    1589 posts Member
    edited June 2016
    This deserves a bump, good read.

    I havent done gw in about 2 weeks, today i did 24 nodes after i read all the fuss. The first 12 before the update and the second 12 after. The first 12 were easy, the second twelve were notably higher (decided not to auto), 6,9,10,11. With 12 easy. Arena power 36k
    {RotE}
  • Mine was terrible but I finished it. Took me 2 hours. I might quit if this continues.
  • vilvlugt
    76 posts Member
    edited June 2016
    Oh my. People are so on another level in this - and I thought I would waste max time possible on this game.
    Tip of the hat, mate, really: wow.
  • vilvlugt wrote: »
    Oh my. People are so on another level in this - and I thought I would waste max time possible on this game.
    Tip of the hat, mate, really: wow.

    I do this kind of thing "for fun" believe it or not. <3 Math <3
  • Toukai
    1822 posts Member
    vilvlugt wrote: »
    Oh my. People are so on another level in this - and I thought I would waste max time possible on this game.
    Tip of the hat, mate, really: wow.

    I do this kind of thing "for fun" believe it or not. <3 Math <3

    @EventineElessedil
    Your posts are always entertaining to me Eventine. Thanks for your hard work. So the absolute short of it: Stop leveling toons you arn't going to use because it can mess your GW up. Sad. I was purposely keeping my PVP power low and upping my GW/Raid teams but it seems that, too, will gimp me. G8 for liffffeeee
  • Intresting. Would be nice if a Dev would comment. Well one can hope at least...
  • I am just over 35K and my last node was well over 40K. My best team with full protection couldn't defeat that team even without a time limit. My second to last node was beyond tought as well, I was able to power through that one only losing a toon or 2.

    I don't have a problem facing a tough team, but 3 gear 11 and 2 gear 10 heavily omega'd wiped out almost my entire roster. I managed to take down fives with my last attack from Kylo Ren. The only reason I was even able to beat it was because chewie doesn't hit overly hard and neither does RG. But overtime they just outlast everyone.
  • I am just over 35K and my last node was well over 40K. My best team with full protection couldn't defeat that team even without a time limit. My second to last node was beyond tought as well, I was able to power through that one only losing a toon or 2.

    I don't have a problem facing a tough team, but 3 gear 11 and 2 gear 10 heavily omega'd wiped out almost my entire roster. I managed to take down fives with my last attack from Kylo Ren. The only reason I was even able to beat it was because chewie doesn't hit overly hard and neither does RG. But overtime they just outlast everyone.

    Congrats on persevering. It's Miller Time.
  • For what it's worth, I suspect those that experienced supremely easy nodes at 11 and 12 were experiencing buffer overrun: the algorithm looked for a suitable team at the 115% level but hit the end of the list and rolled over to the beginning again. Total conjecture, but there it is.
  • Atlas1
    1713 posts Member
    I beat GW daily with minimal-medium effort. Today I got wrecked on the last node, couldn't finish.
  • For what it's worth, I suspect those that experienced supremely easy nodes at 11 and 12 were experiencing buffer overrun: the algorithm looked for a suitable team at the 115% level but hit the end of the list and rolled over to the beginning again. Total conjecture, but there it is.

    This makes sense. I had the 'glitch' of a super easy team for my 12th node. My top 5 toons are well over 36,000.

    My kids accounts both had insane last battles for them. My kids don't have anyone above gear 8 so the algorithm could find a 115% opponent for them, but not for me.

    Thanks for doing the math.
  • djvita
    1684 posts Member
    SO it takes top five toons even if they are not in arena?
  • djvita wrote: »
    SO it takes top five toons even if they are not in arena?

    My study is inconclusive in that regard at this point. They just happened to change GW today at the same time I started ramping up my Top5. If they would leave things alone for a while I might be able to figure it out with real evidence!

  • I do this kind of thing "for fun" believe it or not. <3 Math <3

    +1 I love doing math when bored also
  • cevans7
    52 posts Member
    I saw the same thing today after promoting Rey to 7*. I have been running through GW by only using 2 teams and today I got stomped on the last node.
  • Nice write up! I appreciate the hard work involved in working it all out :smile:
  • NicWester
    8928 posts Member
    Weird. Mine didn't seem that bad. Managed to finish it pretty quickly, though I saw some more Leias than usual.
    Ceterum censeo Patientia esse meliat.
  • Awesome post, and great job collecting such detailed data!
  • My savage is lvl 2 so it means my GW should be easy ?
  • My savage is lvl 2 so it means my GW should be easy ?

    You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, it seems your GW (and everybody else's) is somehow tied to the power level of MY Savage. The data doesn't lie.
  • Today, GW hit me with 4 nodes at or over 100%. Node 12 was almost 6k more powerful at 115% of my Arena level. I didn't finish.
    1. 60.0%
    2. 62.5%
    3. 70.1%
    4. 61.1%
    5. 64.5%
    6. 95.5%
    7. 76.2%
    8. 77.0%
    9. 100.4%
    10. 86.3%
    11. 104.1%
    12. 115.4%
    Orange text is 5% increase. Red text is 15% increase.
    Final node was against a 40,241 power opponent. My best Arena squad is 34,883. My Top5 is now 35,808 thanks to Savage. This squad crushed my whole roster, except for the squad I lost on Node 6. 16 7* and a host of cannon fodder, I eventually took down Anakin. Oh, and I hate Sun Fac.
    avrAOyg.png

    New power curve confirmed with today's GW run. Maximum variation was at Node 3 which was 2.7% more powerful than yesterday. Node 12 was EXACTLY THE SAME SQUAD AS YESTERDAY, no cow flop about it, 100% identical with 40,241 power level. The only difference was Anakin's stance on the board:
    SrUTBjB.png

    The other difference was that I didn't lose a squad on an earlier node, but did lose Ackbar, St Han, and RG along the way. After sending in three squads that managed to take out Rex, Fun Sac, and Anakin, my depleted roster managed the improbable:
    eUTcFgz.png

    Out of all the millions of squad combinations I get the same squad on Node 12 two days in a row? I call Shenanigans, people.
  • Nice, a very good read. I'm forty-something years old and *I* am super-frustrated with GW, I can only imagine how kids feel playing it. Games are supposed to be fun. Challenging, but fun. The last 2 days of this has NOT qualified as fun.
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    I do this kind of thing "for fun" believe it or not. <3 Math <3

    You had me at standard deviation.

    Good read, excellent work!!
  • So7hoth
    48 posts Member
    Fantastic, man! I'm a statstician that would love to do something like that, but I fight for rank 1 in arena everyday, so I can't hold my characters to a power level. It's amazing that you actually did this!

    I hope against hope that the devs read this and realize we know something happened and they NEED to communicate!
  • Ironman
    29 posts Member
    edited July 2016
    :o I am very impressed by your work.
    Thank you
  • Akiraine
    256 posts Member
    This data shows why some of us are getting green teams on node 11 and 12.

    When your arena power is > 40k there aren't teams that are 44k+ hence why it 'overflows' and gives a green freebie team.

    which also means we will hit a monsterous team on node 9 (ie I have been running into teams with 42k power on node 9)

    and node 11 will either be another monter or a green base on your data
  • OP, kudos to you. I appreciate a science-minded approach. This is more than math. It's a fairly well-designed, controlled experiment. Well, until the devs decided to throw in an unpredictable monkey wrench lol.
  • Amnor
    116 posts Member
    Thats why I dont upgrade Savage
  • Capin5556
    14 posts Member
    edited July 2016
    Good stuff OP. It certainly seems to be in line with what a lot of us are seeing and explains why some are getting the super difficult node 12 and others who presumably have a higher arena rank are getting rolled over to that easy green team.

    Either way, between this post and the 800+ merged thread, it's clear it's messed up and needs to be fixed.

    First world problems and all but it's not going to be fun slogging through this mess for at least four more days. I'll take whatever credits I can get and hope they make this right credit-wise when they eventually fix it.

    -Capin5556
Sign In or Register to comment.