|
Post by Replicant on Oct 15, 2017 16:09:00 GMT -5
If the advice leads to a bad play experience, it's the community's job to ammend it. No one has been more vocal about Pix for as long as I have, and very few have gone into such detail as I have. We should be giving people advice NOT to rush ahead with slots and individual "meta" sets, and should be encouraging a more organic experience. I think telling the community to start offering certain advice in place of another is missing the point. There is no ‘one size fits all’. The community needs to ask the right questions to get to know the poster in order to tailor advice suitable to the individual in question. But then again, there are forum members who are doing this so well already, I find it a bit condescending to even say this. The tips and advice section could use a stickied post giving new-comers some context. They can't ask the right questions if they don't know anything about the subject. A basic FAQ on how the MM works, how long it takes to upgrade a bot and its guns, relative value of the different currencies, etc. "What should I do?" should be followed up with "Where are you trying to go?"
|
|
tsunkai
Destrier
Posts: 82
Karma: 32
|
Post by tsunkai on Oct 15, 2017 16:13:29 GMT -5
I guess I am the poster child for the op. I am in the diamond league with 6/8 hangar for the most part. I got the griffins 3 and won a Leo and boa. And up I went even when I lost I went up eventually I started seeing hangars close to or max and I could not compare unless I was very crafty and lucky even then sometimes the DB ate me. Now I am trapped here I have been trying new gear and mechs but none really compare to heavies. Mediums are just as slow and fragile. I don't have gold or wsp cause I won't spend until I know this new system they are pushing. I have seen the new op content and really given a choice between a golem/vityaz and haichi? Hydra versus ember? Scourge versus gecko? Tempest versus nashorn? No I am stuck unless I try to lose I ride the rubber band lose versus higher win versus gold go no where get 4-6 rank minimum tickets and no gold but dailies. Going to bronze and getting ten gold a win and 5 tickets looks more and more necessary cause of the grind to get any thing. I posted this before the math is simple 50 wins at 5 tickets versus 50 at 2 tickets. Pix rewards lavishly the tanker and penalizes the climber. Now that I have a ancilot I won I moved up to diamond two but no further. I have one piece of advice for you: go for beacons. After you figure it out, you get 5 Au on wins, and will not be top 2 on losses. Good silver bots are Cossack and Griffin. For WSP you can use Stalker or Rhino. For Au there is Gepard, Gareth and Rog. Get the Rog (Gareth and Gepard are almost wasted Au today, sad as it is). Cap beacons with it. Arm it, in order of progression, with Tulus, Tarans and finally Orkans. And remeber, your goal is to get 5 Au for beacons. Play like nothing else really matters. You gotta get most beacons in your team, and then hopefully achieve victory, probably through this beacon control, because you will not contribute decisive damage. Hmm Edit cause I can't post Thank you for advice but I am in diamond 2 rogs barely last a beacon and Cossacks sigh even with a ecu not good. Light robots can't play in beacon rush and domination is campers. I do not have a rog any way. I used to play that way in gold and guess I could buy Cossacks and go beacon die in domi mode but this will not work in BR with any consistency. Ole tarancilot or DB will drop dead you. In d2 they farm the easy kill and they will let you walk right up and boom your dead. I may get one rog for first beacon but most the time that is all it will last and the Cossack let's just crispy fried from trees. I know what are silver bots have 3 griffins use 2 and a Leo and a boa and a tarancilot. But at 6/8 versus 10/11-12 if they play half decent I die a lot. I will take one ticket/key and go now.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Karma:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2017 17:06:29 GMT -5
Alrighty. Rush ahead, buy Griffins and meta sets asap, put really low level bots in slots to drop leagues and fade when you can't compete. As opposed to play what you want, don't add extra bots to your hangar until the ones you have are a decent level so you DON'T NEED to fade. Got it. Anything else oh wise one? Fade? You realize that it is entirely possible to play your way DOWN the league system as well as you can play up. I went from D2 to G1 with a 62% win rate (or better), I went back to D2 with %50 --- Now? I'm back in Gold with a horrid win rate --- because I literally decided to play level 6 gear, and/or bad capping setups or what ever I chose. You literally have no idea what your talking about. Your examples are nonsense, your advice is even worse. Not only are you making suggestions that will provide little satisfaction but won't do the player who takes them any good in the long run. Your limiting their flexibility. You had a small meltdown, one that had you deleting your own account because for what ever reason you couldn't deal with it. Now your back and more bitter than ever to the point where your posts are rambling nonsense and your retorts are now childish rants. If you want to have a coherent conversation about this topic, Im happy to oblige you but take a deep breath and think before you type. Alright dude. This is all coming from the person that thought my win % was from doing nothing but capping the first time they ever replied to anything I've ever said. Anyway, fine, instead of speaking, because I obviously don't know squat, riddle me this: Why do the majority of sandbaggers go down to Silver/gold if not for keys, Au and Ag? Ag:Damage/kills/beacons-repair costs(match length, bot levels, items destroyed) so wouldnt that make the only reason they're even getting decent Ag out of it, is the lower skill/weapon levels across several bots of the actual newbies? If you're going to manipulate your league score down, why climb in the first place? Why not just float up while playing casually on whatever gear you want to play instead? If you're trying to play meta, or work towards an endgame hangar, why are you dropping back in leagues? Why wouldn't it be more effective to stay low, gather high level gear,with MINIMAL variation of league score by not opening slots as soon as you have the ability to?* *I'm not advocating blowing your Au, just not spending it immediately as a weaker bot in a fresh slot will still cause a spike in league score with any sort ofdecent play. When you hit the bottom of where you want to be with your league score, and climb back up with your other hangar, are you making better matches for anyone else? What is differentiating you from the people that are sandbagging with Trebs/Noricums, then climbing with DB/PDBS? If you want to play a bunch of different things within the first year of playing, why not diversify early? What's the difference between working your way up, then waiting a week or two for your new set to get up to par(or get oblitetated for swapping in low level gear), and having a healthy selection of weapons around 7/9 before advancing anywhere significant with the 3rd or 4th slot?
|
|
|
Post by Replicant on Oct 15, 2017 17:07:29 GMT -5
zer00eyz [Fewer Slots is...?] a faster and more effective way of controlling ones league score than sandbagging in one form or another to "control" your league score. Leveling up weapons has yet to be proven a waste, all I see is a bunch of ?female dog?ing from people that think they should always be right, and consistently talk down on others because of their self righteous attitudes, regardless of the changes in the state of the game. I'm hoping I followed your point here correctly (delay purchase of the extra slots). Here's a counter argument: spending gold to expand your hanger vs. spending silver to upgrade your hanger - the net effect is the same. But an expanded hanger gives you more strategic flexibility, and the Au is ultimately easier to come by than the Ag. Leveling Weapons to 5 doesn't take too long and can give you a reasonable base-line to help you decided what kinds of weapons you prefer. There's no sandbagging here. Regardless of your choice, MM will promote you until you are out gunned, or until you're 12/12 and $$ capped. If you take tanking off the table (I still don't get why people tank...), and you take spending stupid amounts of money off the table, this your destiny. Personally, I'd rather be outgunned in a league where beacon running is possible and non-meta mechs can be upgraded to relevancy.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Karma:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2017 17:28:34 GMT -5
zer00eyz [Fewer Slots is...?] a faster and more effective way of controlling ones league score than sandbagging in one form or another to "control" your league score. Leveling up weapons has yet to be proven a waste, all I see is a bunch of ?female dog?ing from people that think they should always be right, and consistently talk down on others because of their self righteous attitudes, regardless of the changes in the state of the game. I'm hoping I followed your point here correctly (delay purchase of the extra slots). Here's a counter argument: spending gold to expand your hanger vs. spending silver to upgrade your hanger - the net effect is the same. But an expanded hanger gives you more strategic flexibility, and the Au is ultimately easier to come by than the Ag. Leveling Weapons to 5 doesn't take too long and can give you a reasonable base-line to help you decided what kinds of weapons you prefer. There's no sandbagging here. Regardless of your choice, MM will promote you until you are out gunned, or until you're 12/12 and $$ capped. If you take tanking off the table (I still don't get why people tank...), and you take spending stupid amounts of money off the table, this your destiny. Personally, I'd rather be outgunned in a league where beacon running is possible and non-meta mechs can be upgraded to relevancy. Immediately expanding your hangar has a much larger impact on your league rating than "overleveling" your weapons in a hangar with fewer slots. Along the lines of: leveling a Griffin from 6-9 (max speed, health negligible thereafter), with their weapons being leveled from 5-9(threshold where weapon damage vs bot health ratio flips) will cost the same Ag/time at any stage of the game in total. Health increases by 22k(110k to 132k), and speed by 3 (32 to 35), firepower is increased by 44% of the level 5 value in total. Leveling two bots from 6/5 to 9/9 increases hangar total health by the same percentages of 20% health total, 44% firepower total. Minimal spike in league rating across the upgrades, minimal shock to adding another hangar slot at a lower level and then focusing on bringing it up to par (5 items to upgrade from 5/6 to 9). Slower startup, but every expansion is a signifcantly lower impact add on. Adding another Griffin + 4 lv 5 weapons to a hangar of two other 6/5 Griffins is an immediate increase of 50% hangar health(220k+110k) and 50% hangar potential firepower(4L, 4M+ 2L,2M). This spreads individual uprades further apart, so while it will immediately increase your hangar power/League points, it will also increase your repair costs, and the amount of Ag sandbaggers are farming off of you. Au gains per match also become harder to come by, as your effective hangar strength has increased, while the individual performance of the bots has not, leading to more matches with baddies on top of sandbaggers with 3+ average levels on you, just because they played longer (not better).
|
|
|
Post by Replicant on Oct 15, 2017 18:09:38 GMT -5
Immediately expanding your hangar has a much larger impact on your league rating than "overleveling" your weapons in a hangar with fewer slots. Along the lines of: leveling a Patton from 1-9, or a Griffin from 6-9 (max speed, health negligible thereafter), with their weapons being leveled from 5-9 will cost the same Ag/time at any stage of the game. Health increases by 14k, and speed by 3 (Griffin), firepower is increased by 44% of the level 5 value in total. Leveling two bots from 6/5 to 9/9 increases hangar total health by the same percentages of 20% health total, 44% firepower total. Minimal spike in league rating across the upgrades, minimal shock to adding another hangar slot at a lower level and then focusing on bringing it up to par (5 items to upgrade from 5/6 to 9). Slower startup, but every expansion is a signifcantly lower impact add on. Adding another Griffin + 4 lv 5 weapons to a hangar with two other bots of the same level is an immediate increase of 50% hangar health and 50% hangar power. This spreads individual uprades further apart, so while it will immediately increase your hangar power/League points, it will also increase your repair costs, and the amount of Ag sandbaggers are farming off of you. The fact that you can math out the trade-offs points to the fact that there's a point where the lines intersect. No argument that adding a hangar slot creates a spike, but that's true no-matter when you add the slot. It also matters what kind of bot you add in the slot. For me, the extra slots allow me to carry one Beacon-Capper and one Long range specialist. The actual impact on my total hanger strength is markedly less than your (perfectly reasonable) math. The other thing I'll point out is that (for me) the lower level but larger hanger does fine against peers. Against the champion bork-ups I tend to die in fiery explosions (finish in the bottom 2). I consider this a natural and desirable outcome. The biggest Au impact I'm seeing is the presence or absence of champions, enough that an Au maximizing strategy is anything that minimizes the odds of getting a Champion match-up. Over-all, I think we're just disagreeing over what kind of experience between Bronze and Gold is desirable. I'm curious to see how far I can push a 5-slot hanger with a level-5 cap on guns.
|
|
|
Post by Domino on Oct 15, 2017 21:38:20 GMT -5
I didn't read most of page 2. So I apologize if what I say was a said.
I don't think we should give advice to help with the MM issue.
Encourage people to save thier AU maybe don't spend it right away on a slot but don't spend it on a gekko might be good advice. There are a few ways to approach this. A flow chart based on user questions/ansaer might be ideal
|
|
|
Post by shakingrabbit on Oct 15, 2017 22:34:27 GMT -5
Here's another perspective:
Instead of bots vs slots the debate should be bots vs weapons. The whole weapons 2+ levels above bot levels seem to be a carryover from yhe old MM. Since the MM/leagues/payouts is so heavily dependent on damage the best way to control that is by limiting a players damage output which is best done by limiting weapon levels.
Increasing bot levels over weapon levels has a number of benefits:
1) a player does not climb the leagues as fast 2) the increased bot speed 3) the increased bot health increases survivability 4) playing underpowered weapons forces development of skills faster than playing overpowered ones 5) higher leveled bots at the lower ranks gives some cushion for noob mistakes 6) it is much faster and cheaper to level up 3/4/5 bots than 10+ weapons
The challenge is that Ag is (somewhat) dependent on damage so players THINK they need to have high damage output to keep up with the joneses.
BUT we don't even know for sure how exactly Ag generation is figured out so that's a "myth" we need to debunk for players.
|
|
|
Post by imnobody on Oct 15, 2017 22:42:43 GMT -5
With the vitriol on the forums, and the genuine unfun I've been having on my Gold 1 account, I needed to step away for a bit and reevaluate why I stay on these forums and whether I really find enjoyment in this game anymore. Unfortunately that meant deleting TinTheFiend, as I do have an addictive personality type (thank goodness I'm a cheap basted) and it was the only way I was going to be able to do so. I am also staying away from my Gold league account, as without sandbagging(or spending hundreds in RM), there is no positive outlook for it. Earlier this year I swung for the 5th slot, and loaded them up with the only non-premium meta bot (Griffin) with meta Sets (DB/PDB/Punisher). Au production came to a screeching halt. Ag earnings were lower than they were in bronze league. Matches became generally un-fun. It felt like, as a player, I'd have no impact on the match outcomes whatsoever. Every match made me feel woefully underpowered, just to see my name at the top of the charts at the end of the round. That, in turn, just made it gradually worse, it would literally take two days worth of casual play time to get enough Ag to level something from 6 to 7. Even then, the competition would get stiffer with every match, while it takes weeks of grinding to see a marginal improvement in my own hangar. It locks one into said hangar too, as trying anything lighter is met with Max Treb fire. Here is a match to exemplify. The ENTIRE TEAM was Griffins on spawn. Everything I did felt low impact. A full DB out DPS'd by an Ork Rog. Having 0 push power because my weapons are barely chewing into my opponents, while theirs evaporate my bots. A game which felt utterly terrible, but which is the average result in me VS MM. I can't embrace the suck, because gameplay like this IS WHAT I CONSTITUTE AS SUCKING. Moral of the story: We as a community need to promote the fun aspects of the game to people that seek our guidance. Rushing to meta status to try to compete with people that have been around for years/spent thousands of dollars is toxic to the experience and creates more hostilities throughout the community. People listen to us, and the youtubers, but rarely is there any mention of the months or money, we, as role models for the community, have already put into our accounts. Many of these people have been in the game for no more than a couple of weeks, we are NOT making their experience better by rushing them into the upper echelons. the MM is rigged the team is stacked against you (because you didn't upgrade). You can measure and wager how strong your team is just by looking at the power bar and the beacons captured itself . So you were thrown in a tougher match. At least you tryed to win. Next season I'm tanking into bronze. If pix want to play game fine, I'll play the game too.
|
|
|
Post by hyderier on Oct 16, 2017 0:40:11 GMT -5
I have one piece of advice for you: go for beacons. After you figure it out, you get 5 Au on wins, and will not be top 2 on losses. Good silver bots are Cossack and Griffin. For WSP you can use Stalker or Rhino. For Au there is Gepard, Gareth and Rog. Get the Rog (Gareth and Gepard are almost wasted Au today, sad as it is). Cap beacons with it. Arm it, in order of progression, with Tulus, Tarans and finally Orkans. And remeber, your goal is to get 5 Au for beacons. Play like nothing else really matters. You gotta get most beacons in your team, and then hopefully achieve victory, probably through this beacon control, because you will not contribute decisive damage. Hmm Edit cause I can't post Thank you for advice but I am in diamond 2 rogs barely last a beacon and Cossacks sigh even with a ecu not good. Light robots can't play in beacon rush and domination is campers. I do not have a rog any way. I used to play that way in gold and guess I could buy Cossacks and go beacon die in domi mode but this will not work in BR with any consistency. Ole tarancilot or DB will drop dead you. In d2 they farm the easy kill and they will let you walk right up and boom your dead. I may get one rog for first beacon but most the time that is all it will last and the Cossack let's just crispy fried from trees. I know what are silver bots have 3 griffins use 2 and a Leo and a boa and a tarancilot. But at 6/8 versus 10/11-12 if they play half decent I die a lot. I will take one ticket/key and go now. I am in Android Expert, and I consider Orkan Rog 10/10 to be my best bot (not most damaging, which is why I have only 1, but overall best). The "cap beacons" advice above is good for players who want Au, and who don't want to rise in leagues yet. Also, it will teach a player a lot of vsluable skills, which they will not learn if just going head to head with heavies.
|
|
|
Post by WilsonK on Oct 16, 2017 1:39:29 GMT -5
Welcome back RedfiendMatchups are pretty crap indeed. Especially for the lower tiers filled with tankers and clubbers.
|
|
|
Post by jhonsnow on Oct 16, 2017 1:54:21 GMT -5
With the vitriol on the forums, and the genuine unfun I've been having on my Gold 1 account, I needed to step away for a bit and reevaluate why I stay on these forums and whether I really find enjoyment in this game anymore. Unfortunately that meant deleting TinTheFiend, as I do have an addictive personality type (thank goodness I'm a cheap basted) and it was the only way I was going to be able to do so. I am also staying away from my Gold league account, as without sandbagging(or spending hundreds in RM), there is no positive outlook for it. Earlier this year I swung for the 5th slot, and loaded them up with the only non-premium meta bot (Griffin) with meta Sets (DB/PDB/Punisher). Au production came to a screeching halt. Ag earnings were lower than they were in bronze league. Matches became generally un-fun. It felt like, as a player, I'd have no impact on the match outcomes whatsoever. Every match made me feel woefully underpowered, just to see my name at the top of the charts at the end of the round. That, in turn, just made it gradually worse, it would literally take two days worth of casual play time to get enough Ag to level something from 6 to 7. Even then, the competition would get stiffer with every match, while it takes weeks of grinding to see a marginal improvement in my own hangar. It locks one into said hangar too, as trying anything lighter is met with Max Treb fire. Here is a match to exemplify. The ENTIRE TEAM was Griffins on spawn. Everything I did felt low impact. A full DB out DPS'd by an Ork Rog. Having 0 push power because my weapons are barely chewing into my opponents, while theirs evaporate my bots. A game which felt utterly terrible, but which is the average result in me VS MM. I can't embrace the suck, because gameplay like this IS WHAT I CONSTITUTE AS SUCKING. Moral of the story: We as a community need to promote the fun aspects of the game to people that seek our guidance. Rushing to meta status to try to compete with people that have been around for years/spent thousands of dollars is toxic to the experience and creates more hostilities throughout the community. People listen to us, and the youtubers, but rarely is there any mention of the months or money, we, as role models for the community, have already put into our accounts. Many of these people have been in the game for no more than a couple of weeks, we are NOT making their experience better by rushing them into the upper echelons. Completely agree bud. I too feel that whoever makes a true statement about the current game status are treated negatively on this forum. If you say anything bad about pixo or the current status of game (which is actually true) than you are treated like an imposter.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Karma:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2017 2:30:53 GMT -5
ReplicantYes, it's just an alternate means to the same ends. I'm of the personal belief, with all of the great and many stacked matches I've played, that minimizing costs and progressing as slowly as plausible for one's own enjoyment is a better route. Less slots just means getting blown out of the water to start the next game faster when you're facing teams full of Carnage 6/6-8/8 (13k wsp= 23 days), Plasma Griffs (20k wsp= 36 days) and the like, before a player has access to any effective counters to such. Leveling a few bots also gives one sturdier performance on an individual bot faster, while putting out a learning curve for do's and don'ts while the water is still relatively tame. I think of it as such: Pre leagues you could keep 4/6 thunder Shutzes/Maggeps and not advance in the MM. You'd just at that bracket and clean house if you had 5 slots. Post leagues however, stretching the most performance/profit out of the least resources keeps your placement low, with the same 50% win rate you're going to eventually have anywhere except TT. shakingrabbitI thought of that to, but no matter how I tried to slice it, just avoiding adding new bots to a hangar altogether as long as it's bearable just seemed more effective at slowing progression. Like imnobody and WilsonK said, the MM is always going to be stacked against you. We know for certain that match length and bot health are two of the biggest determining factors for Ag calculation, I'm sure high level bots will grind out more damage from attrition, even if they're doing less overall DPS due to weapon level, but that might not be enough to mitigate the Ag penalties in any profitable manner. And as for the MM being stacked, the whole point of all of this is for the work around. If catastrophe is the only state that we may inhabit, limiting personal loss is the name of the game when playing casually. Manipulating league scores down, in any way, shape or form, is just as bad as sandbagging/tanking the moment one loads up the hangar that carried one as far/high as one could climb. Newer folks should have options other than pushing until they hit the wall that warrants that behavior. Pushing off meta, early diversity, getting weapons up to their 2/3rd's threshold (lv9) before significantly advancing, or at least identifying actions that will ALWAYS give one a significant push up in ranking, are all things we should explore here. Pix is obviously dragging their feet about it, and yes, it's creating a somewhat toxic environment for the players that are taking it too seriously, but that doesn't mean we should propogate the things that are making it that way.
|
|
|
Post by imnobody on Oct 16, 2017 3:05:46 GMT -5
ReplicantYes, it's just an alternate means to the same ends. Im of the personal belief, with all of the great and many stacked matches I've played, that minimizing costs and progressing as slowly as plausible for one's own enjoyment is a better route. Less slots just means getting blown out of the water to start the next game faster when you're facing teams full of Carnage 6/6-8/8 (13k wsp= 23 days), Plasma Griffs (20k wsp= 36 days) and the like, before a player has access to any effective counters to such. Leveling a few bots also gives one sturdier performance on an individual bot faster, while putting out a learning curve for do's and don'ts while the water is still relatively tame. I think of it as such: Pre leagues you could keep 4/6 thunder Shutzes/Maggeps and not advance in the MM. You'd just at that bracket and clean house if you had 5 slots. Post leagues however, stretching the most performance/profit out of the least resources keeps your placement low, with the same 50% win rate you're going to eventually have anywhere except TT. shakingrabbitI thought of that to, but no matter how I tried to slice it, just avoiding adding new bots to a hangar altogether as long as it's bearable just seemed more effective at slowing progression. Like imnobody and WilsonK said, the MM is always going to be stacked against you. We know for certain that match length and bot health are two of the biggest determining factors, I'm sure high level bots will grind out more damage from attrition, even if they're doing less overall from level, but that might not be enough to mitigate the Ag penalties in any profitable manner. And as for the MM being stacked, the whole point of all of this is for the work around. If catastrophe is the only state that we may inhabit, limiting personal loss is the name of the game when playing casually. Manipulating league scores down, in any way, shape or form, is just as bad as sandbagging/tanking the moment one load up the hangar that carried one as far/high as one could climb. Newer folks should have options other than pushing until they hit the wall that warrants that behavior. Pushing off meta, early diversity, getting weapons up to their 2/3rd's threshold (lv9) before significantly advancing, or at least identifying actions that will ALWAYS give one a significant push up in ranking, are all things we should explore here. Pix is obviously dragging their feet about it, and yes, it's creating a somewhat toxic environment for the players that are taking it too seriously, but that doesn't mean we should propogate the things that are making it that way. I have watched some Adrian Chong matches with an obvious maxed out hangar and still loses. We can exlude the idea of stacked team at this point. To win or lose is really those split moment when making those decision, like a game of chess. In lower league is another ball park story .
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Karma:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2017 3:14:35 GMT -5
TT is different, it's the only level of play that is pure decision making. At that point everything is assumed at max values, and players on both sides act as such. When those players get bleed ins from Diamond-Expert, bad things happen. Unless Adrian starts going through profiles on the results screen(which he doesn't), or he is squadding with Vox against another high end clan squad, there is no guarantee that all players in the match are maxed. Most of Adrian's vids are solo pubs, so there is no telling what specifics led to the win/loss, as he,personally as a player, is usually making solid plays, even with suboptimal bots, and the scoreboards show it.
|
|
|
Post by Replicant on Oct 16, 2017 12:03:51 GMT -5
Replicant Yes, it's just an alternate means to the same ends. I'm of the personal belief, with all of the great and many stacked matches I've played, that minimizing costs and progressing as slowly as plausible for one's own enjoyment is a better route. Less slots just means getting blown out of the water to start the next game faster when you're facing teams full of Carnage 6/6-8/8 (13k wsp= 23 days), Plasma Griffs (20k wsp= 36 days) and the like, before a player has access to any effective counters to such. Leveling a few bots also gives one sturdier performance on an individual bot faster, while putting out a learning curve for do's and don'ts while the water is still relatively tame. I think of it as such: Pre leagues you could keep 4/6 thunder Shutzes/Maggeps and not advance in the MM. You'd just at that bracket and clean house if you had 5 slots. Post leagues however, stretching the most performance/profit out of the least resources keeps your placement low, with the same 50% win rate you're going to eventually have anywhere except TT. shakingrabbit I thought of that to, but no matter how I tried to slice it, just avoiding adding new bots to a hangar altogether as long as it's bearable just seemed more effective at slowing progression. Like imnobody and WilsonK said, the MM is always going to be stacked against you. We know for certain that match length and bot health are two of the biggest determining factors for Ag calculation, I'm sure high level bots will grind out more damage from attrition, even if they're doing less overall DPS due to weapon level, but that might not be enough to mitigate the Ag penalties in any profitable manner. And as for the MM being stacked, the whole point of all of this is for the work around. If catastrophe is the only state that we may inhabit, limiting personal loss is the name of the game when playing casually. Manipulating league scores down, in any way, shape or form, is just as bad as sandbagging/tanking the moment one loads up the hangar that carried one as far/high as one could climb. Newer folks should have options other than pushing until they hit the wall that warrants that behavior. Pushing off meta, early diversity, getting weapons up to their 2/3rd's threshold (lv9) before significantly advancing, or at least identifying actions that will ALWAYS give one a significant push up in ranking, are all things we should explore here. Pix is obviously dragging their feet about it, and yes, it's creating a somewhat toxic environment for the players that are taking it too seriously, but that doesn't mean we should propogate the things that are making it that way. Agreed. Something I'm noticing though: I'm not sure the MM actually forces you towards a 50/50 win loss. If MM was working correctly, this should be the outcome until you hit TT, but the way league points are assigned, and the occasional Champion sponsored culling matches skews things in the lower leagues. A "stable" league score is not a naturally occurring thing. The loss-point distribution forces an oscillation between matches where you should have the advantage and matches where you finish bottom 2 on the losing side. Dark irony if the way it plays out is say a 60% win rate in matches where you're consistently finishing in the bottom three - which is ball-park the kind of win rate you would need to "stabilize" your league score. Being told I'm "winning" in matches where I'm not relevant would not feel good.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Karma:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2017 12:31:53 GMT -5
Replicant: The latest M*S analysis came to a conclusion that around 25% of games are going to be unwinnable in solo. My personal experience thus far with the utmost extreme of minimal slots and upgrading has been this: Games where my team will get dominated (8/8s vs sub-optimal low level gear) are over quickly for me. When something can do 80-100k damage in 10 seconds from 500M in silver league, that's a pretty clear indicator. Ancilots and full DBs, also clear indicators. Games won range from 1st to 4th,with the two bots lasting 80-100% of the match. The only time I rank below 4th is if there are more sandbaggers on my team (see:5 bot 10/10 hangar in S1). Win rate fluctuates between 48% and 60%, with league score between the extremes only 100 points maximum(1100-1200: Bottom S1) with that 100 point range slowly shifting up (and I mean SLOWLY) with each upgrade. 10 Au matches happen often on the way up from a 48% win rate, 6-8 Au happens often in the 50-55% range, 1-0 is more common at 55% and above. Get too high,que in against too many tankers or games where the MM is going to hand me my arse no matter what, last 4 minutes at the very most (playing conservatively) Only 4 consecutive losses or an occasional loss in this manner every few games, is enough to keep Legendary Pilot down, wasting minimal time in losing battles, with the winnable battles being engaging and fair. At this rate I'll have the Au for slots 4 and 5 by the time I get these bots to 12 said (which is where the "extreme" part of the trial is from), and might have an additional 3-5k Au laying around to fill one of the last two slots with something neat by the time the third bot(Going to be a Pun Griff) hits 12/12. The variance(Maximum DPM vs Average DPM vs maps) in the performance of the hangar is reduced by the small item count, which makes it so that my performance averages out very consisently across all maps with all competition. Whether or not that performance is enough to win depends on the other players, which is how MM acts at every level regardless of whether you're running 3 1/1 bots or 5 12/12 bots unless you actively tried to lower your Legendary Pilot/MMR to overpower lesser competition. When the only thing that dips is a few win% and league points, and performance is satisfying, or brief when not satisfying, it feels a lot better than topping the damage charts enough to have to "control your league score down the ladder", or fighting for 7 minutes against stronger gear, with garbage teammates, just to lose and get pushed further up. The low variance between 2-3 high level bots keeps match variance low, even if, by the numbers, it is the same numerical increase in value to adding another bot to the hangar while the standing average of item levels is 3-4 levels lower.
|
|
|
Post by zer00eyz on Oct 16, 2017 13:13:08 GMT -5
Replicant Yes, it's just an alternate means to the same ends. I'm of the personal belief, with all of the great and many stacked matches I've played, that minimizing costs and progressing as slowly as plausible for one's own enjoyment is a better route. Less slots just means getting blown out of the water to start the next game faster when you're facing teams full of Carnage 6/6-8/8 (13k wsp= 23 days), Plasma Griffs (20k wsp= 36 days) and the like, before a player has access to any effective counters to such. Leveling a few bots also gives one sturdier performance on an individual bot faster, while putting out a learning curve for do's and don'ts while the water is still relatively tame. I think of it as such: Pre leagues you could keep 4/6 thunder Shutzes/Maggeps and not advance in the MM. You'd just at that bracket and clean house if you had 5 slots. Post leagues however, stretching the most performance/profit out of the least resources keeps your placement low, with the same 50% win rate you're going to eventually have anywhere except TT. shakingrabbit I thought of that to, but no matter how I tried to slice it, just avoiding adding new bots to a hangar altogether as long as it's bearable just seemed more effective at slowing progression. Like imnobody and WilsonK said, the MM is always going to be stacked against you. We know for certain that match length and bot health are two of the biggest determining factors for Ag calculation, I'm sure high level bots will grind out more damage from attrition, even if they're doing less overall DPS due to weapon level, but that might not be enough to mitigate the Ag penalties in any profitable manner. And as for the MM being stacked, the whole point of all of this is for the work around. If catastrophe is the only state that we may inhabit, limiting personal loss is the name of the game when playing casually. Manipulating league scores down, in any way, shape or form, is just as bad as sandbagging/tanking the moment one loads up the hangar that carried one as far/high as one could climb. Newer folks should have options other than pushing until they hit the wall that warrants that behavior. Pushing off meta, early diversity, getting weapons up to their 2/3rd's threshold (lv9) before significantly advancing, or at least identifying actions that will ALWAYS give one a significant push up in ranking, are all things we should explore here. Pix is obviously dragging their feet about it, and yes, it's creating a somewhat toxic environment for the players that are taking it too seriously, but that doesn't mean we should propogate the things that are making it that way. Agreed. Something I'm noticing though: I'm not sure the MM actually forces you towards a 50/50 win loss. If MM was working correctly, this should be the outcome until you hit TT, but the way league points are assigned, and the occasional Champion sponsored culling matches skews things in the lower leagues. A "stable" league score is not a naturally occurring thing. The loss-point distribution forces an oscillation between matches where you should have the advantage and matches where you finish bottom 2 on the losing side. Dark irony if the way it plays out is say a 60% win rate in matches where you're consistently finishing in the bottom three - which is ball-park the kind of win rate you would need to "stabilize" your league score. Being told I'm "winning" in matches where I'm not relevant would not feel good. So were getting into strange territory here, because "by the numbers" that %60 win rate is the achievable one, the mathematical possibility is MUCH higher than that 80% is a theoretical maximum, and for periods I have held on to %70. Was that %70 satisfying? Yes it was, because a capping hanger (with a stack of gold bots and weapons) is rather rewarding. However, getting to an %80 win rate is almost certainly unattainable without exploiting the system. The reason is that matches often mix leagues/levels. As a diamond III player I'm as likely to see experts as I am silver players (on android) without squads. I have had games where I ended up top damage dealer and top beacon capper because I was the sole diamond player in a cluster of gold and sliver players, I have had games where I ended up at the bottom because I was the sole diamond III player mixed in with experts diamond I players. So why is this mixing going on? There are a host of possible reasons: - Split player pool (BR and DOM)
- Managing win rates
- Managing league progression
- Managing gold distribution
- Offsetting fading (casual or accidental)
- Managing player expectation (giving you a shot at top spot vs finishing last)
- Power display (showing you WHY upgrading is worth it --- clubbing lead to lots of geppard sales)
- Performance due to one or more of the above impacting the system.
What I can tell you for sure: Gold distributions on beacon ties is NOT random at all. There is some OTHER mechanic being used to determine who gets the gold, and I am clearly on the wrong side of it (I won 1 tie in 60 splits stopped tracking and just started again-- I'm back up to three lost ties).
Managing league progression is a distinct possibility -- in fact because of the mixing, pix is back to broken power sorting (the reason for the current points distribution) so they have to have some level of active management going on, broadening the criteria may be a byproduct and an intent.
Unless we agree to collect a truly massive amount of data (100's of games across several players, on several platforms in several leagues) figuring out the nuance of what is going on is going to be HARD.
Here is what I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt. MM isn't Match Maker, it is Match Manipulator, and if it isn't then pix has screwed things up very badly and only by dumb luck has the system held up as long as it has in its current state.
|
|
|
Post by Replicant on Oct 16, 2017 13:23:14 GMT -5
Redfiend, I have more variation in my game to game performance. If I am effective at beacon capping with the Cossack, my damage falls. Likewise if the two griffins get meched early (usually due to being over-matched) and I'm left with the Long-Ranged Patton. I think I probably would have enjoyed things more if I had kept the extra two slots as light or medium, but then this hangar was always destined for Workshop bots (and I knew that from day one). Using Griffins as place-holders seemed reasonable.
|
|
|
Post by Replicant on Oct 16, 2017 13:29:39 GMT -5
Unless we agree to collect a truly massive amount of data (100's of games across several players, on several platforms in several leagues) figuring out the nuance of what is going on is going to be HARD. Does anyone know of a more efficient way of gathering data than clicking through the post-match statistics?
|
|
|
Post by shakingrabbit on Oct 16, 2017 13:33:34 GMT -5
Here is what I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt. MM isn't Match Maker, it is Match Manipulator, and if it isn't then pix has screwed things up very badly and only by dumb luck has the system held up as long as it has in its current state.
yes! yes! yes! I have suspected this for a while now. Glad my tinfoil hat is working, I guess, lol
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Karma:
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2017 13:42:59 GMT -5
Redfiend, I have more variation in my game to game performance. If I am effective at beacon capping with the Cossack, my damage falls. Likewise if the two griffins get meched early (usually due to being over-matched) and I'm left with the Long-Ranged Patton. I think I probably would have enjoyed things more if I had kept the extra two slots as light or medium, but then this hangar was always destined for Workshop bots (and I knew that from day one). Using Griffins as place-holders seemed reasonable. Outside of sandbaggers and state sponsored clubs, that variation seems to be part of a big factor with the part of the MM that isn't disclosed by the league score. The very flexibility of additional slots superficially accelerates performances in maps/situations that a smaller hangar would not, league rating (and the mystery MM factors we can't see) rates you higher on average. Even though each individual set doesn't cause a greater impact on average, the additional bot is still consolidating a role, or doubling down on another one. If you just had two of those bots, how many top losses/bottom wins do you think you would have passed up on your journey up until now? How many League points could that constitute in your ranking or swingy-ness of your games? Pix has always held MM data and match statistics from us. Always. All we've ever had is trial and error, especially when they make changes.
|
|
|
Post by zer00eyz on Oct 16, 2017 13:52:43 GMT -5
Unless we agree to collect a truly massive amount of data (100's of games across several players, on several platforms in several leagues) figuring out the nuance of what is going on is going to be HARD. Does anyone know of a more efficient way of gathering data than clicking through the post-match statistics? It depends on the data. In theory you would still have to "bring up the screens" but we could sit a proxy server in-bettween War Robots and your client to harvest that data as it comes over the wire. In previous versions of the client this was somewhat trial, it seems that the current generation makes this harder (nothing is impossible) but I do not know of a working proxy at the moment, and based on the current state of the game I lack the desire or will to set such a beast up. Also assuming that someone did do such a thing then the person who set it up and every user of it would be violating the TOS.
|
|
|
Post by Domino on Oct 16, 2017 14:23:12 GMT -5
Redfiend , I have more variation in my game to game performance. If I am effective at beacon capping with the Cossack, my damage falls. Likewise if the two griffins get meched early (usually due to being over-matched) and I'm left with the Long-Ranged Patton. I think I probably would have enjoyed things more if I had kept the extra two slots as light or medium, but then this hangar was always destined for Workshop bots (and I knew that from day one). Using Griffins as place-holders seemed reasonable. I think one avenue of advice would be to promote light bots more, which would stop you from getting high dmg and therefore league points. I'm running a stalker in my hanger and i've noticed between 200-300k less dmg on average less vs a PDB or DB Griffin in that role. However it doesn't affect the outcome too much especially when the games is decided on beacon bar remaining vs meched out matches. However i'm making about 100k less Ag as an outcome.
|
|
|
Post by zer00eyz on Oct 16, 2017 14:39:23 GMT -5
Unless we agree to collect a truly massive amount of data (100's of games across several players, on several platforms in several leagues) figuring out the nuance of what is going on is going to be HARD. Does anyone know of a more efficient way of gathering data than clicking through the post-match statistics? After walking away from my last response there might be a fairly efficient way of collecting massive amounts of data, however it would have a cost associated with it. The reality is that it is easy to grab screen shots of the game data we need, the problem is converting that into a useable format. Image to text won't work because people have messed up names (thanks to UTF-8) -- however it should be possible to gather up screen shots and then have them processed by a human -- Mturk, fiver, micro workers would offer a viable way to get screenshots -> data. We would need what? 100 games data over 5 leagues, on two platforms. If we can get them processed for $0.01 to $0.02 each it is 100-300 bucks in labor. Is it enough data and is it worth it.
|
|
|
Post by Replicant on Oct 16, 2017 15:42:08 GMT -5
If you just had two of those bots, how many top losses/bottom wins do you think you would have passed up on your journey up until now? How many League points could that constitute in your ranking or swingy-ness of your games? Pix has always held MM data and match statistics from us. Always. All we've ever had is trial and error, especially when they make changes. I don't think I could comfortably play with less than a three-bot hanger: One to cap, one to risk, and one to endure. But your point remains. The beacon capper alone definitely has the largest impact in my win/loss rate, and the ability to "risk" the all-punisher Griffin is certainly the major contributor to high damage rankings.
|
|
|
Post by hon_shu on Oct 17, 2017 3:48:24 GMT -5
Were not talking about the elephant in the room: Ah yeah, this. I'm a two month old player. I've read your guides and many others. It's not the relentless progression pushing me to a pit of despair its the constant clubbing by maxed hangars that starts in silver 3. I've just about hit 9/10 with my hanger and after hitting expert I shamelessly tanked all the way to gold 3 to see if I could farm more silver (having hit that silver wall) my levels were below average in gold in fact I feel diamond is where things have become the most balanced I've seen them and also because of the prolific tanking actually where I earn most Ag as fights aren't ending in 2m because a maxed hangar is destroying everyone. If I hadn't followed some guides (and spent a not insignificant amount of cash on Au for some premium bots and speed levelling) I would have quit in silver. The honest advice for this game is "Welcome to pay2win, where we have win ratios to match any budget!" diamond and expert III are indeed good places to be on Android. Below it's too much tankers and above the are too many matchups against maxed champs.
|
|
|
Post by Domino on Oct 17, 2017 6:09:32 GMT -5
Ah yeah, this. I'm a two month old player. I've read your guides and many others. It's not the relentless progression pushing me to a pit of despair its the constant clubbing by maxed hangars that starts in silver 3. I've just about hit 9/10 with my hanger and after hitting expert I shamelessly tanked all the way to gold 3 to see if I could farm more silver (having hit that silver wall) my levels were below average in gold in fact I feel diamond is where things have become the most balanced I've seen them and also because of the prolific tanking actually where I earn most Ag as fights aren't ending in 2m because a maxed hangar is destroying everyone. If I hadn't followed some guides (and spent a not insignificant amount of cash on Au for some premium bots and speed levelling) I would have quit in silver. The honest advice for this game is "Welcome to pay2win, where we have win ratios to match any budget!" diamond and expert III are indeed good places to be on Android. Below it's too much tankers and above the are too many matchups against maxed champs. Agreed however Diamond 2 -Expert 3 has a unusual amount of level 10/11 Hangers. Hangers that belong in Master. However this is nothing compared to what happens in Expert 1+
|
|
|
Post by kevmac on Dec 7, 2017 16:05:18 GMT -5
With the vitriol on the forums, and the genuine unfun I've been having on my Gold 1 account, I needed to step away for a bit and reevaluate why I stay on these forums and whether I really find enjoyment in this game anymore. Unfortunately that meant deleting TinTheFiend, as I do have an addictive personality type (thank goodness I'm a cheap basted) and it was the only way I was going to be able to do so. I am also staying away from my Gold league account, as without sandbagging(or spending hundreds in RM), there is no positive outlook for it. Earlier this year I swung for the 5th slot, and loaded them up with the only non-premium meta bot (Griffin) with meta Sets (DB/PDB/Punisher). Au production came to a screeching halt. Ag earnings were lower than they were in bronze league. Matches became generally un-fun. It felt like, as a player, I'd have no impact on the match outcomes whatsoever. Every match made me feel woefully underpowered, just to see my name at the top of the charts at the end of the round. That, in turn, just made it gradually worse, it would literally take two days worth of casual play time to get enough Ag to level something from 6 to 7. Even then, the competition would get stiffer with every match, while it takes weeks of grinding to see a marginal improvement in my own hangar. It locks one into said hangar too, as trying anything lighter is met with Max Treb fire. Here is a match to exemplify. The ENTIRE TEAM was Griffins on spawn. Everything I did felt low impact. A full DB out DPS'd by an Ork Rog. Having 0 push power because my weapons are barely chewing into my opponents, while theirs evaporate my bots. A game which felt utterly terrible, but which is the average result in me VS MM. I can't embrace the suck, because gameplay like this IS WHAT I CONSTITUTE AS SUCKING. Moral of the story: We as a community need to promote the fun aspects of the game to people that seek our guidance. Rushing to meta status to try to compete with people that have been around for years/spent thousands of dollars is toxic to the experience and creates more hostilities throughout the community. People listen to us, and the youtubers, but rarely is there any mention of the months or money, we, as role models for the community, have already put into our accounts. Many of these people have been in the game for no more than a couple of weeks, we are NOT making their experience better by rushing them into the upper echelons.
|
|
|
Post by kevmac on Dec 7, 2017 16:12:18 GMT -5
I agree, the higher I go the less fun it becomes Like you have stated it is tiresome being fried in 2 secs.while my level 6 weapons don't touchthe reds.If I could remain in the high bronze or low silver I'd be having more fun.The best matches now seem to be interested clan matches.Since reaching level 24 it's become the no fun league.
|
|