[Guide] ROI BASED SWAP TEAM/GROUP METHOD by THESHOWPRO

[DeletedUser39526]

This method is designed using an ROI (Return on Investment) calculation rather than a 1:1 traditional swap calculation for the means of maintaining parity and fairness across the team members throughout the life of the swap. It allows for easier control, management, flexibility, adaptability and application in my experience.

The ROI is determined by dividing the amount of FP a player donates by the amount of FP the player receives in rewards, including any Arc bonus.
Example: 100 FP donated and 25 FP rewarded is a ROI of 4.00. 100 divided by 25 is 4.

The use of the ROI was arrived at after working personal 1:1 swaps with a group of other players, all of which were active Snipers like myself. We found the 1:1 swap metric to be problematic, and my Sniper mind told me the ROI was a better metric to use. It was the basis of how I valued targets for Sniping and when I examined how it could work in swaps and especially a Swap Team I was convinced it was the better way. After all, the goals we wanted for our Swap Team were consistent leveling, predictable rewards and BP access. As long as these goals were met in as fair and equitable a way as possible maintaining a strict 1:1 swap was not a concern. My fellow players agreed with my conclusions and rationale about the ROI as the basis for how we would proceed so we began our first Swap Team based upon it over a year ago and it is still going strong.

Using the ROI Method you can manage almost any mix of GBs or GB levels, almost any mix of player advancement or FP income flow, and have a swap with a well defined beginning and end point. Even with variations in the total amount of FP donated across the team in a round, each team member knows that they got essentially the same ROI as everyone else, so no single member fares better than another in this respect. The GBs get leveled, the rewards are predictable and BPs are accessed. The goals of the team are achieved and parity is maintained across the team as closely as possible.

There are players for whom a 1:1 swap is mandatory in all cases and if you, the reader, are one of these players this method is not for you. Players who are fixated on 1:1 as the basis for fairness in a swap will have problems potentially with this method as a 1:1 is never achieved dead on, and there will always be variations in the total amount of FP donated across a team no matter how closely the team manager maintains a balance on this over time. If you cannot see ROI, as I use it in the Method, as a solid measure of fairness and parity, then this is not your cup of tea.

 

[DeletedUser39526]

HOW TO SETUP AN ROI BASED TEAM:

We do teams of between 4 and 6 members. For this discussion I will assume a 4 member team.

At the end of this forum posting I will attach a sample spreadsheet for reference. I use Exel for my Teams since it is a very universally accessible spreadsheet app.
One side of the spreadsheet (the right side) is where I do the team setup, and the other side (the left side) is where I track it round to round so I can always see the overall ROI parity and balance and make adjustments in subsequent rounds to compensate for deviations.

STEP 1:
In a 4 person team each member selects a GB of theirs to use in the round. They can change this round to round if they like or keep the same one. A Team can be an All Arc Team for example or a mix of different GBs, whatever the team members want to do and is best for them.

STEP 2:
I make a spreadsheet section that has each GB along with its leveling info laid out in columns and rows and the owners name and what Arc bonus they have if any. The info includes the amount needed to level, and donations that already exist ( and we prefer there be none or very few), along with each of the 5 reward positions and what they payout for each GB. I end up with 6 rows for each GB and 8 columns.

The top row is just the owner name, amount needed to level, the level of the GB currently, any pre-existing donation amount and the Arc bonus percentage if any. This is my main reference row.

The rows below correspond to the 5 reward positions, 1-5. The columns in order left to right are:
1 - Team member name who will donate for that position
2 - The normal FP reward for the position
3 - The FP reward with Arc bonus of the donating member (if no Arc bonus the normal number is used, leave blank for now)
4 - The normal medal reward
5 - The medal reward with Arc bonus (same as #3 above)
6 - The normal BP reward
7 - The BP rewards with Arc bonus (same as #3 above)
8 - The amount the member will donate for the position. This column I color in light gray so it is easy to differentiate.

Once I have this laid out, and when you do this often you can get pretty fast at doing it with copy paste, I lay out the plan for the round.

 

[DeletedUser39526]

STEP 3:
Each member is assigned a 1st place position on one of the other GBs, and each member is assigned a 2nd place and each one a 3rd place. This way the team as a whole captures all of the top 3 spots on all of the GBs in the team, and each member will get a 1st, 2nd and a 3rd.

EXAMPLE:

Member 1 GB - 1st is Member 2, 2nd is Member 3, 3rd is Member 4
Member 2 GB - 1st is Member 3, 2nd is Member 4, 3rd is Member 1
Member 3 GB - 1st is Member 4, 2nd is Member 1, 3rd is Member 2
Member 4 GB - 1st is Member 1, 2nd is Member 2, 3rd is Member 3

This is what I call the “Targets”, each member has their Target GBs and the positions they will take on them.

This also constitutes a “Round” for the Team. Completing all the Target donations levels all the GBs and the Round is over. You reset and go again.

STEP 4:
When the targets are set I fill in the Arc Bonus FP reward column and use that number as my payout number for each of the positions. My handy desk calculator makes this easy and fast.

STEP 5:
Now I calculate what I call the “Assigns”. Hence my terminology of “Target Assigns” in the process.

The Assigns are based on the ROI (return on investment). This is the FP donated divided by the FP rewarded (including any Arc Bonus). So a 100 FP donated with 25 rewarded is a ROI of 4.0.

I do one GB at a time and find the best ROI that works for all the positions (each GB can have a different ROI that works) and still leaves a reasonable amount left over so others can get 4 and 5 positions without much fuss. The idea for me is to make the lower positions attractive so the GB owner will have as little as possible to self donate at the end to flip it.

Finding this sweet spot for the ROI on each GB takes some practice and several attempts sometimes, but as you do it more and more you get better at finding it quickly.

I round the Assigns up or down to make them easy for the team, always making the assigns on the 10 or 5 mark. This variation off the actual ROI is easy to deal with later as I will explain.

 

[DeletedUser39526]

STEP 6:
I grab my notepad and do some quick overall totals for the team. I list each member, the total they will be donating and the total FP they will be rewarded and I calculate what their overall ROI will be for the Round. An Exel wiz could probably do this in the spreadsheet but I am old and like the analog way.

If this overall tally shows a sizable difference in the ROI or total FP donated, I may have to rethink the Targets for each member to find a better balance and redo Steps 3, 4 ,and 5. I haven't had to do that for some time as I am pretty good these days at seeing the right Targets for the right members the first time but it can and will happen

If the balance is acceptable but the ROI is not as close as I might like from member to member, then I can make some adjustments by just shifting donation amounts in the Assigns from one member to another until I get them all as close as possible. Just be sure to do these donation shifts within the same Target GB or you will throw off the Assigns across the board.

The ROI from member to member will never be exactly the same, but if I can keep them within .2 of each other then I can live with that and keep making Assign adjustments round to round to further refine the balance over time.

STEP 7:
When I have the Target Assigns done and they are acceptable, I fill out the rest of the columns including Arc bonuses where applicable.

STEP 8:
Then I transfer all the Target Assign info to the other half of the spreadsheet for tracking.

I track it all....medals, BPs, all of it so I can see and work to maintain as high a degree of parity and balance over time as I can.

STEP 9:
Then I post the new round info and off we go. I post 2 threads when I do a team, one for team communication and one for the Target Assigns as a reference thread.

STEP 10:
I manage the Team as the Round progresses. There will always be disruptions from outside donors/snipers, and unforeseen situations in a round and I do my best to stay on top of the Round as it progresses and help the team to work through any mishaps.

 

[DeletedUser39526]

IN CLOSING:
That is the basic Method in a nutshell. There are of course many unique situations that you can handle in this Method that would need additional clarification in another post but some of them are:

How to deal with mixed GBs with substantially different levels? You levelup the inferior GBs more than once in the round. This requires a technique we call “pivoting” in the donation process.

How do you accommodate a player with a need to keep his FP spend down for some reason? You give that member the lowest Target Assigns in the round. So long as the ROI is okay, this is not a problem. The reverse is true for a member with a high FP income comparatively.

How do you deal with outsider/sniper donations? Several ways. If you are sniped that is it, you left a window of opportunity open and you paid for it. Nothing you can do but mitigate the position loss as best you can and roll with it. Non locked outsider donations
we try to spot asap, and we contact the player(s). The majority of the time a polite informative message will get a player to work with you and not against you. In the case of what we call a belligerent player, we can either act quickly to flip the GB and badly bump the belligerent or try to entice the player to keep donating to make our positions have a better ROI, or whatever the team decides it wants to do.

There are more unique situations but these 3 are the most common.

As a Team we always keep in mind the process is not a race or a competition. It is a leveling process and as such we work at a pace of donating that allows all the GBs in a round to flip at approximately the same time. Since we have no rigid rule on how much to donate daily in our teams, this is not always the case. However, we have become experienced enough with each other over time that our pacing is pretty consistent round to round.

We have found the Method very good at “seeding” BPs around the team. This is very helpful for Arcs and other exotic GBs to get those BPs in the hands of team members that are in need of them in the course of the process.

Depending on the mix of GBs in a team, you can end up in a round with one member spending more and one less than the others comparatively. This is just a result of a wide disparity of the amount to level of the GBs in the team. No way around it. So long as the ROI is in parity this is not a concern. It will balance out over time.

 

[DeletedUser39526]

The Method is also very good at allowing one to give preference to a member when needed for BPs or medals. You will find this comes up from time to time, and the needs can be easily met.

In situations where a position is lost to a sniper, or due to outsider donations a member pays less for a position than the assign asked for, this is not a catastrophic event. It will happen and a team just has to roll with it. No need to think about rolling the unspent FP to another GB to make up for the loss or into the next round. A round is a complete process and when it ends it ends. No carry over, no carry forward. You simply deal with any deviations with adjustments to the Target Assigns in the next round. In this way a member of a team can choose to step out or in anytime a round ends. No problem.

There are of course many aspects of nuance and experience to using this Method and applying it well. Someone always has to be willing to do the setup and tracking work, and to manage the team as the process works. If you have smart alert team members managing is pretty easy. If you have members that are not so experienced and alert, then it can be more effort. In any case, only take on what you can manage. I manage 6 teams at the same time myself and that is my max. I personally participate in 4 of them as of this posting. 2 are All Arc Teams, and 4 are Mixed GB Teams.

I will post below 2 images of my exel spreadsheets for reference. I am happy to answer questions as I can and help others understand and learn to use my system. It can be a great way to seed BPs and help a new young guild grow internally and start young Arcs on the road to level 80. Thanks and I hope you all find this useful. Your comments, thoughts and ideas are always welcome and appreciated.

 

[DeletedUser41622]

Very interesting strategy. I am curious about the formulations you used in excel. Would you or could you post any examples here?

 

[WolfKingSG]

This method is designed using an ROI (Return on Investment) calculation rather than a 1:1 traditional swap calculation for the means of maintaining parity and fairness across the team members throughout the life of the swap. It allows for easier control, management, flexibility, adaptability and application in my experience.

Very cool, thanks for sharing!! Have you found any variations of your methods since posting? The simple logic to something similar I've been working on is this :
swap partners swap x fp over the rewards, and gb owners take responsibility
WHERE
swap x - reward x = net swap x
EXAMPLE
partner 1 swap amount = 50 fp;
partner 1 reward amount = 20 fp;
partner 2 swap amount = 60 fp;
partner 2 reward amount = 30 fp;
50 - 20 = 60 - 30; #30 fp swapped between partners after rewards
Now, yeah, there could be the considerations of medals and bps, more particularly, bps, but you could simply set say lower age prints at a value of ten fp each, and twenty each for higher age prints, and if the sum of the prints and the reward fp is greater than say 1.9 the reward fp itself, then go with the former for the swap amount. In the case a partner or partners gets bumped by a bp hunter, gb owner responsibility comes into play, where the owner then refunds the rewards not earned by the partners. If the swap amounts are for say, again lets use 1.9 the fp reward ( I like 2.0 for simpler math on the fly, and in the event there happens to be a monster Arc in the hood - level one hundred plus ), the refund amount or amounts will be for less than what the owner received in free fp from the bp hunter. The "targets" you mentioned would be the same. I like the term "Swap Map", and the what I believe is an easier readout and follow along goes something like this:
Partners and their gbs A, B, C, D, E, F
gb A B C D E F
p1 F A B C D E
p2 E F A B C D
p3 D E F A B C
p4 C D E F A B
p5 B C D E F A
for the next level, or the next map, the p5 line becomes the new p1 line, and everything else moves down one. That would be for six partners, but could be scaled down to three partners, each taking a p1 or p2 on their respective gb.
As far as the who earns what based on their respective Arc bonus I would say don't even worry about. Whatever amounts a partner earns or doesn't earn because of the work they either did or didn't put into their Arc is their business.

 

[Plain Red Justice]

This method is indeed good for rare BPs like Obs, Stargazer, Blue Galaxy, Gaea Statues and the like. Equal losses ensure that the swap team with the same interests stays alive

 

[theshowpro]

Hi all...somehow my account was deleted so now I am back...lol. As for Wolfking above, I did try that sort of method...a 1:1 Net Swap method and I still found it lacking the full flexibility of the ROI system I use. As I said, if a 1:1 is what you think is fair versus the ROI then that is your method. The ROI has worked very well for me.....and I still run some for my guild. Thanks for all the views and I hope it has been helpful and thought stimulating.