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Post by borachon on Feb 28, 2017 16:04:05 GMT -5
First, can I just say I'm not having a go at the developers, because they have introduced something new, and are trying to sort the skewed matchmaking. So fair play to them for listening.
However, I think all that was needed to make me happy would have been to add up the levels of your robots and weapons in your hanger and match you against people with similar totals. That way I wouldn't as all 6's robots and mostly 7's and 8's with the odd 9 or 10 weapon been destroyed within seconds half the time.
The new league system has spoiled it for me in two main ways though. 1) Tactics have more or less been removed, apart from rush the beacons or fill your hanger with long range weapons like trebuchets ramped up to level 10+, and just spoil the game from afar. and 2)The points system has killed teamwork by punishing you for playing unselfishly for the team.
So as an example, today I played about ten games. I'm in Silver III. Most of the games were fairly close, but I won more than I lost meaning I was up about 15 points. Then I played one more game, and it was really close but we lost after battling for the full timer and my whole team was 400k points and above, and were all only separated by about 50k apart from the guy who was first who had 700k. Unfortunately, I finished last, with just over 400k. During the game, I had seen one of my teammates going for a beacon and noticed two Reds moving towards him in the distance, about 700m away. Now, I had hydras and spirals, and I had Reds within range, but unselfishly I moved to help my teammate and help defend the beacon he/she had just turned blue. So I moved into ranged and started firing my missiles, and I pinned one against a wall, allowing my teammate to take on and beat the other enemy, and we held the beacon. Teamwork.
My reward however, for giving up cheap damage nearby and helping the team, was last place and minus 15 points or whatever. Back to square one, hard fought progress wiped out. I had more damage and beacons than 3 players on the winning team. They get points for nothing, I get hammered for being 50k behind 2nd place.
So basically it rewards you to be selfish. Just ignore your teammates and try and rack up the damage. If you finish top 2 in the losing team, who cares if the team lost anyway? You got points, and that's all that counts, eh?
Am I the only one who played this game unselfishly and feels the game has lost something?
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[AurN] perfectlyGoodInk
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Post by [AurN] perfectlyGoodInk on Feb 28, 2017 16:09:49 GMT -5
No, I played a match at Yamantau where we were down pretty far on the beacon bar but up on bots, with 3 remaining on our side and they had two. We took center, and my two teammates were on the right side but totally ignored the Red right beacon to instead go try and max their damage at spawn. We came close, killing both of them, but one of them had another slot left.
Suffice to say we lost on beacons, and I bet they would do the same thing all over again, as the player who did bother to take the beacon would lose out in damage ranking to the one who did go to spawn, while I lose out to both because I was further away due to defending the beacon. To top it all off, one of the teammates was in a Gepard.
I don't intend to play the game any differently. My play is not the broken part. It's Leagues. But since the rewards for Leagues is so small, it doesn't even matter much anyway. Playing selflessly and getting placed in a lower league as a result is what tankers would consider a reward.
I've always pretty much tried to ignore gold as much as possible, figuring it'll even out over time as long as I play well. I plan to do the exact same thing and ignore Leagues as much as possible. I was, actually, hoping to increase my Google Play review of this game for "fixing" seal clubbing, but given how hyped Leagues were and how big a disappointment it has been and seeing no fix for tanking, I'm leaving it at 2 stars.
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Post by Dredd77 on Feb 28, 2017 16:11:17 GMT -5
Am I the only one who played this game unselfishly and feels the game has lost something? I guess my question is, when did it ever have it? Those who go for beacons have always gotten the short end of the stick in relation to the impact they have on the outcome of a game. It's never stopped me from making them a priority, but there you go.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2017 16:12:04 GMT -5
Your example is a valid concern, and I think posters here are understanding that the current rewards/ranking system is pushing people to do damage and focus less on teamwork and winning. I am not here to disagree with any of that, and I do wish there were better methods used to rank players.
In the current environment, one temporary solution that might give you a better gameplay experience is to clan/squad rather than play solo, if you can. You basically split the league points with anyone you are teamed with, so everyone gets the same result when banded together.
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Post by blognio on Feb 28, 2017 16:14:05 GMT -5
Its worse for people to drop
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Post by mijapi300 on Feb 28, 2017 16:17:53 GMT -5
I've always believed that tiers and rewards should be performance-based, taking every aspect of the game into consideration. Yes, all FOUR aspects (the horror). You should get one trophy for each kill, one trophy for each 100k damage(starting at 50k), and one trophy for each beacon capture. In addition, you should get a trophy for MoC and MoD, as well as one trophy for each member of the winning team.
I have never understand why, in such a complete and complex game, that the reward system is solely based on one thing, and that one thing discourages actually trying to win games.
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[AurN] perfectlyGoodInk
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Post by [AurN] perfectlyGoodInk on Feb 28, 2017 16:20:27 GMT -5
Am I the only one who played this game unselfishly and feels the game has lost something? I guess my question is, when did it ever have it? Those who go for beacons have always gotten the short end of the stick in relation to the impact they have on the outcome of a game. It's never stopped me from making them a priority, but there you go. The perverse incentive has always been there due to 3 medals for damage and 1 for beacons. It has been exacerbated further by Leagues punishing players for prioritizing beacons. The previous system didn't punish you; it merely failed to reward you enough.
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Post by Dredd77 on Feb 28, 2017 16:24:12 GMT -5
I guess my question is, when did it ever have it? Those who go for beacons have always gotten the short end of the stick in relation to the impact they have on the outcome of a game. It's never stopped me from making them a priority, but there you go. The perverse incentive has always been there due to 3 medals for damage and 1 for beacon. It has been exacerbated further by Leagues punishing players for prioritizing beacons. The previous system merely failed to reward you enough. Is advancing more slowly really a punishment, though? Worth noting this is a system that seems to employ the Peter principle...
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[AurN] perfectlyGoodInk
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Post by [AurN] perfectlyGoodInk on Feb 28, 2017 16:27:17 GMT -5
The perverse incentive has always been there due to 3 medals for damage and 1 for beacon. It has been exacerbated further by Leagues punishing players for prioritizing beacons. The previous system merely failed to reward you enough. Is advancing more slowly really a punishment, though? Worth noting this is a system that seems to employ the Peter principle... Good question. Time will tell. Of course, if it isn't, then Leagues faces an even bigger problem than this, because players are supposed to want to move up. The lack of larger rewards per match in higher leagues seems to have effectively neutered it, though, which is probably why tanking is still a thing.
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Post by borachon on Feb 28, 2017 16:36:22 GMT -5
I suppose it does depend on whether or not you're bothered about progressing up the leagues. The game railroads you toward that though with the 5 game challenge. I've been near the top of my silver III league all day, and currently on my 3rd challenge. The last challenge was scuppered in game 4 when two of my team tanked and the game was over in two minutes. I was engaged in a pin battle with some guy from behind pillars 400m apart and didn't notice quickly enough that our beacon bar was almost gone. By the time I killed my robot it was all over and I finished 4th. And that's the sort of thing I'm talking about... I knew I had to finish top 2 and ditched my duel, which had been tense, then had no satisfying conclusion for either of us. Just to chase damage.
Maybe I just imagined there was more teamwork before.
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Post by SlowReflexes on Feb 28, 2017 17:25:10 GMT -5
Is advancing more slowly really a punishment, though? Worth noting this is a system that seems to employ the Peter principle... Good question. Time will tell. Of course, if it isn't, then Leagues faces an even bigger problem than this, because players are supposed to want to move up. The lack of larger rewards per match in higher leagues seems to have effectively neutered it, though, which is probably why tanking is still a thing. Indeed. It appears that the increase in rewards you get from playing easier matches far exceeds the increase in rewards you get from playing in a higher league. Which is definitely why tanking is a thing. Oh and matches where you have comparable equipment to everyone else are considerably more fun than matches where your gear is 2 or more levels lower than everyone else's.
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Post by BooBooKitty on Feb 28, 2017 17:30:04 GMT -5
Are we gonna see an influx of "pumpers" as opposed to "tankers" now? People who go after damage only and intentionally avoid beacons to ensure they don't lose league points? Lol
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Post by Kid Nikon on Feb 28, 2017 17:34:48 GMT -5
It occurs to me that with the addition of gold rewards for advancing in the leagues and the reward of rating points for damage done, that perhaps the gold reward for medals of valor could be nerfed (3,2,1) or better yet, converted to silver (100k-70k-50k?). The gold reward for medal of capture could be increased. This might provide incentives for people to play the "right" way. Thus folks motivated to earn gold would be capping beacons and folks motivated by silver/damage could get a silver bonus and league points. I don't know if it would change the strategic flow of the game, but I'd be curious. I'm sure as with any incentive system unintended consequences may and probably would result.
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Post by KaneoheGrown on Feb 28, 2017 17:47:07 GMT -5
Are we gonna see an influx of "pumpers" as opposed to "tankers" now? People who go after damage only and intentionally avoid beacons to ensure they don't lose league points? Lol True, but one is actively helping the team while one is actively working to sabotage the team. If someone does 1.2 mil in a match with no beacons, they're still helping win the match... *Edit: by "intentionally ignore beacons", I take it you mean they're not actively seeking beacons and are simply concnentrating on dealing damage (eg, Tri Fury).
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Post by BooBooKitty on Feb 28, 2017 17:53:25 GMT -5
Are we gonna see an influx of "pumpers" as opposed to "tankers" now? People who go after damage only and intentionally avoid beacons to ensure they don't lose league points? Lol True, but one is actively helping the team while one is actively working to sabotage the team. If someone does 1.2 mil in a match with no beacons, they're still helping win the match... *Edit: by "intentionally ignore beacons", I take it you mean they're not actively seeking beacons and are simply concnentrating on dealing damage (eg, Tri Fury). I mean focusing on dealing damage even when grabbing a beacon would be much more advantageous, so as to make sure you place top 2 in the event of a loss.
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Post by mijapi300 on Feb 28, 2017 18:05:21 GMT -5
It's hard to incentivize people to move up the leagues without creating awful disparity in the game. I've seen many games that have that sort of reward systems, where the better players get higher rewards per game. This causes the top players to advance quicker then the lower players, creating an infinitely growing gap between the two.
I wish they would do something to incentivize honest play and balance, but it's really hard to find a system people won't take advantage of that doesn't ruin some other aspect of the game.
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Post by Neg0Pander on Feb 28, 2017 18:13:20 GMT -5
Considering beacons & teammates, has it really changed that much? People have ALWAYS ignored beacons. Tell me a day in your life of this game when you weren't silently fuming about your dumb「bum-bum」 teammates? Only 2 players get points for top damage on losing team now and nobody gets gold. So are you punished for capping beacons? Nope. You still need to win if you want any Gold and beacons win games.
I do think there should be more incentive for beacons capping, as I always have, but unless I'm missing something I don't see how this issue has changed any with the new format.
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Post by BooBooKitty on Feb 28, 2017 18:22:48 GMT -5
Considering beacons & teammates, has it really changed that much? People have ALWAYS ignored beacons. Tell me a day in your life of this game when you weren't silently fuming about your dumb「bum-bum」 teammates? Only 2 players get points for top damage on losing team now and nobody gets gold. So are you punished for capping beacons? Nope. You still need to win if you want any Gold and beacons win games. I do think there should be more incentive for beacons capping, as I always have, but unless I'm missing something I don't see how this issue has changed any with the new format. I think you're just going to be fuming a little more often than normal.
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[AurN] perfectlyGoodInk
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Post by [AurN] perfectlyGoodInk on Feb 28, 2017 18:24:51 GMT -5
Considering beacons & teammates, has it really changed that much? People have ALWAYS ignored beacons. Tell me a day in your life of this game when you weren't silently fuming about your dumb「bum-bum」 teammates? Only 2 players get points for top damage on losing team now and nobody gets gold. So are you punished for capping beacons? Nope. You still need to win if you want any Gold and beacons win games. I do think there should be more incentive for beacons capping, as I always have, but unless I'm missing something I don't see how this issue has changed any with the new format. Beacons win games, but players are rewarded for ignoring beacons and maxing damage, free-riding on teammates that do beacon-cap. Even if they lose games, they'll still get league points for being 1st or 2nd in damage. The difference is that in the previous system, dedicated light-bot beacon-cappers were rewarded as much as the top damager while it was just knife-fighting beacon-cappers that were not rewarded. But there was no punishment. They merely missed out on damage rewards, that's all. Now, all beacon-cappers are punished for failing to focus solely on damage like their teammates hoping to free-ride on their beacon-capping to the win.
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Post by [AurN] perfectlyGoodInk on Feb 28, 2017 18:26:24 GMT -5
It's hard to incentivize people to move up the leagues without creating awful disparity in the game. I've seen many games that have that sort of reward systems, where the better players get higher rewards per game. This causes the top players to advance quicker then the lower players, creating an infinitely growing gap between the two. I wish they would do something to incentivize honest play and balance, but it's really hard to find a system people won't take advantage of that doesn't ruin some other aspect of the game. I think the easy solution is to make upgrading high-level gear very, very expensive -- kinda like it is now, actually.
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Post by Neg0Pander on Feb 28, 2017 18:39:17 GMT -5
Beacons win games, but players are rewarded for ignoring beacons and maxing damage, free-riding on teammates that do beacon-cap. Even if they lose games, they'll still get league points for being 1st or 2nd in damage. The difference is that in the previous system, dedicated light-bot beacon-cappers were rewarded as much as the top damager while it was just knife-fighting beacon-cappers that were not rewarded. But there was no punishment. They merely missed out on damage rewards, that's all. Now, all beacon-cappers are punished for failing to focus solely on damage like their teammates hoping to free-ride on their beacon-capping to the win. Do you mean players with hangars optimized just for capping?
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Post by [AurN] perfectlyGoodInk on Feb 28, 2017 18:41:33 GMT -5
Beacons win games, but players are rewarded for ignoring beacons and maxing damage, free-riding on teammates that do beacon-cap. Even if they lose games, they'll still get league points for being 1st or 2nd in damage. The difference is that in the previous system, dedicated light-bot beacon-cappers were rewarded as much as the top damager while it was just knife-fighting beacon-cappers that were not rewarded. But there was no punishment. They merely missed out on damage rewards, that's all. Now, all beacon-cappers are punished for failing to focus solely on damage like their teammates hoping to free-ride on their beacon-capping to the win. Do you mean players with hangars optimized just for capping? Yes, although I guess it would also apply to players with more than zero slots assigned to a light beacon capping bot.
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Post by mijapi300 on Feb 28, 2017 18:42:12 GMT -5
Beacons win games, but players are rewarded for ignoring beacons and maxing damage, free-riding on teammates that do beacon-cap. Even if they lose games, they'll still get league points for being 1st or 2nd in damage. The difference is that in the previous system, dedicated light-bot beacon-cappers were rewarded as much as the top damager while it was just knife-fighting beacon-cappers that were not rewarded. But there was no punishment. They merely missed out on damage rewards, that's all. Now, all beacon-cappers are punished for failing to focus solely on damage like their teammates hoping to free-ride on their beacon-capping to the win. Do you mean players with hangars optimized just for capping? Probably both those and knife-fighter beacon cappers. In either case, a hangar that is optimized for nothing but damage(intentionally not trying to win any games) is rewarded. And someone optimizing their hangar specifically for winning games is punished. It's kind of backwards, but I think both should be equally rewarded. As in, there should be a system that rewards beacon cappers as much as it rewards damagers.
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Post by Neg0Pander on Feb 28, 2017 18:52:28 GMT -5
Probably both those and knife-fighter beacon cappers. In either case, a hangar that is optimized for nothing but damage(intentionally not trying to win any games) is rewarded. And someone optimizing their hangar specifically for winning games is punished. It's kind of backwards, but I think both should be equally rewarded. As in, there should be a system that rewards beacon cappers as much as it rewards damagers. Agreed on the 2nd point. You should get extra cups for capping beacons or something. Also, I feel like placing 3rd on winning team should not net you less cups than winning on the losing team. Winning should get more cups. If you really want to be a pure beacons capper I'm afraid squiding is the only way, but hey, squads are fun. I can't really disagree about the incentive to do damage over capping, especially since I recently removed my Gareth for a Thunder Carney. But I still feel like it's always kinda been this way. My win rate has gone up significantly in the last few days, and I still cap 2-3 beacons per match while doing a lot more damage. Maybe I've been lucky with my teammates.
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Post by jazzykat on Feb 28, 2017 19:04:18 GMT -5
I'm not arguing that the new system dis-incentivizes beacon capping but I remember the flocks of gepards and stalkers all running to the same beacon. In my opinion it is very difficult to get on the top 2 of a battle on the winning or losing side, given this someone needs to cap beacons or risk getting negative league points.
IMO, the incentives are just fine although I would also prefer ranking on all 4 characteristics.
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Post by SGT D00M! on Feb 28, 2017 19:13:48 GMT -5
I have focused on winning, and my Au, cup number, and even average damage have been steadily improving. When I tried for all out damage, I had a short term damage/cup boost (2-3 days) and then hit the wall hard and started moving backwards quickly. Play to win like you always have. Oh and this whole "whats my incentive to improve if I don't make better awards?" nonsense; what was your incentive in the old MM? Hmmmmmmm.
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Post by [AurN] perfectlyGoodInk on Feb 28, 2017 19:28:23 GMT -5
Oh and this whole "whats my incentive to improve if I don't make better awards?" nonsense; what was your incentive in the old MM? Hmmmmmmm. My own incentive remains unchanged, as I've always largely ignored the broken incentive system and played to win. I'm talking about how incentives affect the behavior of random teammates to worsen the gameplay. The old MM had no higher leagues to get to, so Gold and Silver was the only incentive. The Gold reward system is far less broken than Leagues because of the Medal of Capture. The big problem of the new MM is tanking (which I think is a worse problem than clubbing, because with clubbing, nobody was doing anything to sabotage their team's chances). Leagues seemed like an obvious possible way to disincentivize tanking by creating a strong incentive to move up (which should also help Pix gain more premium subscribers), but it fails at that pretty miserably.
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Post by mijapi300 on Feb 28, 2017 19:35:26 GMT -5
I'm not arguing that the new system dis-incentivizes beacon capping but I remember the flocks of gepards and stalkers all running to the same beacon. In my opinion it is very difficult to get on the top 2 of a battle on the winning or losing side, given this someone needs to cap beacons or risk getting negative league points. IMO, the incentives are just fine although I would also prefer ranking on all 4 characteristics. The problem now is that if you try to help your team win by capping beacons, you're almost gauranteeing you will be bottom two in damage. That means best case scenario is +4, and worst case is -20. Assume an average win ratio of 50%, and you're netting -8 per game on average. The way it's set up now, it makes no sense to beacon cap. Not to mention, it further enhances tanking. Once you've received the reward for entering a league, there's no incentive to stay in the league. So after you've reached as high as your hangar can go, you're better off dropping for easier matches and easy gold.
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Post by duckdecoy on Feb 28, 2017 19:40:51 GMT -5
.. it rewards you to be selfish. Just ignore your teammates and try and rack up the damage. If you finish top 2 in the losing team, who cares if the team lost anyway? You got points, and that's all that counts, eh? Some players may envy you for moving down the league (and eventually into easier matches) when losing. They complain about being moved up because they were the heavy hitters in hopeless battles where the other blues were neither fighting effectively nor getting beacons. The game didn't let you down. The team did. The usual distribution I've found is that the #1 and #2 do the fighting , #4 gets the beacons, #5 & #6 are either tanking or navel gazing while #3 could go either way. My wins are from the red team's #3,5, and 6 being more inept.
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Post by jazzykat on Feb 28, 2017 19:43:17 GMT -5
I'm not arguing that the new system dis-incentivizes beacon capping but I remember the flocks of gepards and stalkers all running to the same beacon. In my opinion it is very difficult to get on the top 2 of a battle on the winning or losing side, given this someone needs to cap beacons or risk getting negative league points. IMO, the incentives are just fine although I would also prefer ranking on all 4 characteristics. The problem now is that if you try to help your team win by capping beacons, you're almost gauranteeing you will be bottom two in damage. That means best case scenario is +4, and worst case is -20. Assume an average win ratio of 50%, and you're netting -8 per game on average. The way it's set up now, it makes no sense to beacon cap. Not to mention, it further enhances tanking. Once you've received the reward for entering a league, there's no incentive to stay in the league. So after you've reached as high as your hangar can go, you're better off dropping for easier matches and easy gold. I see what you're saying. I just like to win, maybe now that I am paired against those with similar ability/hangars I am just happier instead of facing the 12/12 hangars.
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