When can we stop pretending GBG is balanced?

[Kranyar the Mysterious]

No there are 4 diamond winners per season per world I believe.

Not true. Currently in Mt. Killmore there are 55 guilds in Diamond league, that equates to 7 battlefields, and therefore 7 diamond league winners each season. That number will probably continue to increase with time to more than 8 battlefields, at which point this idea wouldn't work.

 

[Dover 112]

Really, now that the GT has helped those players complaining about plundering now we have players complaining about battleground. Lets just make this a game where everyone gets the same prize.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

Not true. Currently in Mt. Killmore there are 55 guilds in Diamond league, that equates to 7 battlefields, and therefore 7 diamond league winners each season. That number will probably continue to increase with time to more than 8 battlefields, at which point this idea wouldn't work.

The number of diamond guilds won't increase. It will vary between an upper and lower limit (between x and y guilds will be in platinum) due to how Inno started GBG and how the LP point system is setup. The only league that will accrue new members is copper.
I did a series of simulations just using platinum and diamond league. There was no way to get all the guilds into diamond. Some win, some loss. Some go up, some stay, some go down.
I also did a simulations with three maps of 8 guilds, Copper through Diamond, where I forced one copper guild to win every season. Again the number guilds did not increase.

 

[Kranyar the Mysterious]

Really, now that the GT has helped those players complaining about plundering now we have players complaining about battleground. Lets just make this a game where everyone gets the same prize.

This thread and discussion started WAAAAAAYYYYYYYY before GT was even rumored...

 

[Kranyar the Mysterious]

The number of diamond guilds won't increase. It will vary between an upper and lower limit (between x and y guilds will be in platinum) due to how Inno started GBG and how the LP point system is setup. The only league that will accrue new members is copper.
I did a series of simulations just using platinum and diamond league. There was no way to get all the guilds into diamond. Some win, some loss. Some go up, some stay, some go down.
I also did a simulations with three maps of 8 guilds, Copper through Diamond, where I forced one copper guild to win every season. Again the number guilds did not increase.

And that upper and lower limit will change with the number of guilds in a given world. So it is untrue to say that the number of diamond guilds won't increase. In some worlds they will, in some they will decrease. And since there are more diamond guilds this week than last week in my world, there are two possibilities... either we haven't hit the stabilization point yet, or else there are more lower guilds pushing upwards.

Besides, my post was to contradict the statement that there are only 4 diamond winners per week in a given world, not to debate statistical analysis in an open loop system.

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

My experience with GBG is very simple. I enjoy it. I don't analyze it to death and i don't particularly care if it's balanced. It's fun. I suggest you play for the fun and forget the odds.

yep

 

[Algona]

Well, I can fill in anything I want for X, Y, Z and post it here.

You could. If you did I know I'd laugh my ass off sooner or later.

Some will look at that data and be able to judge some validity elements within minutes, and others might try to duplicate the sampling to see if your data is accurate, and others might accept it and start modeling with it, and others might accept it and go on their merry way.

As noted earlier, discussions of this sort the poster's reliability is a concern.

Not posting data protects you from others discovering if your data or methodology is bs. It also means any conclusions, recommendations, criticisms you make based on that data have no visible foundation.

Like the RNG not working.

Ace, ya ain't the first to make that claim, nor the last.

Not one person making that claim has ever presented reliable data.

Every person who has done a reasonable amount of testing has always found the RNG to work.

Again, my data is relevant to me and my experience.

Then why send it to INNO, the only group with access to the actual data?

You posted conclusions and recommendations and critiques based on data you claim to have.

You made that data the business of everyone who reads what you said.

 

[Wishful Sinful]

Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not looking to become a wise and consistent thought leader of the forum. I don’t care who makes a post and don’t plan to track my favorite commenters and hang on their every insight as gospel. If a post is interesting enough, I‘d do my own due diligence and not rely on second hand data or experience. If you think everything is working optimally, then by all means, please keep enjoying the game. You’ll either be avoiding a waste of your time or living in blissful ignorance. Either way, it doesn’t impact me a bit. I only joined this forum in my twilight months/weeks/days of playing to provide feedback to Inno on how I feel about GBG, my experience with it, and what a joke the game has become (Which is disappointing given the amount of fun it used to be). Convincing you or anyone else here isn’t on my goal list, unless it adds to a chorus calling for change. It has become apparent, though, that the vast majority of players prefer the watered down version. It’s probably a glaring sign that I should find a new place to waste time and money.

 

[icarusethan]

Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not looking to become a wise and consistent thought leader of the forum. I don’t care who makes a post and don’t plan to track my favorite commenters and hang on their every insight as gospel. If a post is interesting enough, I‘d do my own due diligence and not rely on second hand data or experience. If you think everything is working optimally, then by all means, please keep enjoying the game. You’ll either be avoiding a waste of your time or living in blissful ignorance. Either way, it doesn’t impact me a bit. I only joined this forum in my twilight months/weeks/days of playing to provide feedback to Inno on how I feel about GBG, my experience with it, and what a joke the game has become (Which is disappointing given the amount of fun it used to be). Convincing you or anyone else here isn’t on my goal list, unless it adds to a chorus calling for change. It has become apparent, though, that the vast majority of players prefer the watered down version. It’s probably a glaring sign that I should find a new place to waste time and money.

so at the end of the day, you made up a data collection and don't want to own up to it. got it

 

[Wishful Sinful]

so at the end of the day, you made up a data collection and don't want to own up to it. got it

Yep, you’ve uncovered my master plan. I made up a very specific example that anyone could validate/invalidate in minutes just to get your attention. You win the prize.

 

[icarusethan]

I made up a very specific example that anyone could validate/invalidate in minutes

I made a cure to cancer 2 years ago too. just didn't save the product so i cant show it to you.

 

[Graviton]

Yep, you’ve uncovered my master plan. I made up a very specific example that anyone could validate/invalidate in minutes just to get your attention. You win the prize.

Can't validate data that isn't posted. I mean...numbers are objective. If you have numbers that prove the RNG is askew, that's not opinion, that's fact. Unless the sample size is too small, as @Algona alluded to. When he collected data (over a span of months, as I recall), he posted all of it for everyone to see. You sound sure of your numbers, so post them and let's all have a look. It's not everybody else's fault that they won't take your word for it. And frankly, if it would only take somebody else "minutes" to validate with their own experiment then your sample size is too small.

 

[Algona]

It has become apparent, though, that the vast majority of players prefer the watered down version.

If you had read this thread you'd have realized that immediately.

Over half the complaints in this thread are from players who want Diamond limited or divided into relatively same power divisions so they can dance as much and as fast as they want.

Or you could have saved a year by watching the top 100 Guilds in your world and seen thousands playing a lot of GBG. Maybe you should have been tracking that data?

Sorry to disappoint,

Disappointing? Nah. Just predictable. You're following the same script so many of your predecessors did when they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Either way, it doesn’t impact me a bit

And yet you took a couple hundred words to say that.

It’s probably a glaring sign that I should find a new place to waste time and money.

kan i haz ur Diamonds?

Better yet, can I read the message you'll send your Guild?

"I'm quitting the game because some people who don't impact me asked me for data on the game forum and made me realize that most players like GBG the way it is."

If I start a city on your world will you include me in the message to your Guildies? Please???

 

[Wishful Sinful]

If I start a city on your world will you include me in the message to your Guildies? Please???

Please do. Maybe you can have some of my models that are actually grounded in mathematics and not bluster. I love that the guy saying “don’t trust strangers on the internet, research things for yourself” is the shady one. I’ll let you get back to telling noobs how the game is perfectly designed/balanced and any changes are unnecessary (Oh, and how dumb they are for suggesting them). Toodles.

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

A wise General once told me, "Never let your ego be tied to your position. Every criticism will seem like a personal attack."

 

[Lady Gato]

Please do. Maybe you can have some of my models that are actually grounded in mathematics and not bluster. I love that the guy saying “don’t trust strangers on the internet, research things for yourself” is the shady one. I’ll let you get back to telling noobs how the game is perfectly designed/balanced and any changes are unnecessary (Oh, and how dumb they are for suggesting them). Toodles.

You just don't realize who you are talking to -- Algona was serious when he said post the data. That's part of testing your theory -- can anyone else duplicate it themselves. Is your theory correct (involves looking at your data).

And so you know -- it wouldn't be Algona telling the noobs that the game is balanced or fair. He's the one testing new theories and stating what he finds and helping noobs how to progress despite the game's limitations.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Maybe you can have some of my models that are actually grounded in mathematics and not bluster.

I like this line. Pretending that the data from one player in a game that is played by many, many thousands around the world is grounded in mathematics. Classic. Don't give us the actual numbers, but could you please tell us how many cities you have that you included in your data, along with what age each one is in. Actually, never mind, I see that you have only one city. Yet you believe that you can provide data to Inno that they don't already have times many thousands? Data that you won't deign to share with us peons. Could it be because there is no such data? Hmm? Or that you're ashamed of your small sample size? Probably the latter. Bluster, anyone?

 

[Kranyar the Mysterious]

Since BJ won't give his numbers and data I thought I might take a quick swing... So based on a few fairly reasonable assumptions, lets see if diamonds could be self sustaining in GBG...

League - Diamond
Diamond reward rate - 1.9% (0.019 is based on over 12,500 samples)
Cost to diamond buildings - 50 diamonds
Average number of slots/sector - 2
Retention of existing buildings - 50%
Average hold time of sectors - 4 hours
Average value of sectors - 100 (center is worth more, edges less, the only example I could find was an average of 102 victory points across the board)
Victory points gained in season - 300k

So with those numbers we can figure that roughly 37,500 diamonds will be needed by a guild in a given season.
That would average out to 535 diamonds per player in a 70 member guild.
A player that does 5,000 battles would gain approximately 2375 diamonds in the course of a season.
A player that does 2,500 battles would gain approximately 1187 diamonds in the course of a season.
A player that does 1,000 battles would gain approximately 475 diamonds in the course of a season.

In a perfect world, 300,000 victory points should mean 750 sectors acquired, meaning 120,000 battles in a season, and would create a hypothetical maximum of 57,000 diamonds won in a season. But not every sector is going to turn over every 4 hours, leading to less battles and hence less diamonds, both won and spent. Every negotiation further reduces the total number of battles by a factor of 2, and so halves the diamond rewards but doesn't change the diamonds spent. Also, not every guild wins with 300k victory points, some win with more, and many with less. The number changes the diamonds won, but also should require more or less diamonds spent relatively as well.

So from those numbers we see that if every player does 1k battles the guild would be 4,250 diamonds short, and in reality no guild is going to have even a majority of players do 1k battles, so at this level any guild is going to be way short of breaking even with GBG diamonds, and that assumed every player put all their diamonds won back into that GBG season.

If 5 players managed 5k, 10 players managed 2.5k, 25 players managed 1k, and the remainder did 100 battles a season, that would total up to 37,045, still a bit short, but close, and I believe that to be too much at the high end of reality.

So anyways, I thought I'd just throw out some numbers for a seat of the pants calculation that shows that it is potentially possible for GBG to be self sustaining, however the reality is that it is almost certainly not going to be. Play with the numbers if you like, the basics are fairly solid, though there are a lot of factors that could change the outcome substantially in number, though I doubt it would change the overall situation enough to make GBG self sustaining for diamond usage.

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

Since BJ won't give his numbers and data I thought I might take a quick swing... So based on a few fairly reasonable assumptions, lets see if diamonds could be self sustaining in GBG...

League - Diamond
Diamond reward rate - 1.9% (0.019 is based on over 12,500 samples)
Cost to diamond buildings - 50 diamonds
Average number of slots/sector - 2
Retention of existing buildings - 50%
Average hold time of sectors - 4 hours
Average value of sectors - 100 (center is worth more, edges less, the only example I could find was an average of 102 victory points across the board)
Victory points gained in season - 300k

So with those numbers we can figure that roughly 37,500 diamonds will be needed by a guild in a given season.
That would average out to 535 diamonds per player in a 70 member guild.
A player that does 5,000 battles would gain approximately 2375 diamonds in the course of a season.
A player that does 2,500 battles would gain approximately 1187 diamonds in the course of a season.
A player that does 1,000 battles would gain approximately 475 diamonds in the course of a season.

In a perfect world, 300,000 victory points should mean 750 sectors acquired, meaning 120,000 battles in a season, and would create a hypothetical maximum of 57,000 diamonds won in a season. But not every sector is going to turn over every 4 hours, leading to less battles and hence less diamonds, both won and spent. Every negotiation further reduces the total number of battles by a factor of 2, and so halves the diamond rewards but doesn't change the diamonds spent. Also, not every guild wins with 300k victory points, some win with more, and many with less. The number changes the diamonds won, but also should require more or less diamonds spent relatively as well.

So from those numbers we see that if every player does 1k battles the guild would be 4,250 diamonds short, and in reality no guild is going to have even a majority of players do 1k battles, so at this level any guild is going to be way short of breaking even with GBG diamonds, and that assumed every player put all their diamonds won back into that GBG season.

If 5 players managed 5k, 10 players managed 2.5k, 25 players managed 1k, and the remainder did 100 battles a season, that would total up to 37,045, still a bit short, but close, and I believe that to be too much at the high end of reality.

So anyways, I thought I'd just throw out some numbers for a seat of the pants calculation that shows that it is potentially possible for GBG to be self sustaining, however the reality is that it is almost certainly not going to be. Play with the numbers if you like, the basics are fairly solid, though there are a lot of factors that could change the outcome substantially in number, though I doubt it would change the overall situation enough to make GBG self sustaining for diamond usage.

Wow. I guess if you are a mathimagcian this analysis would be a great intellectual diversion, but if you divert your energy to this comprehensive complex research, how do you win a thousand battles in 11 days?
I'd rather just play the game and have time to play with my kids.

 

[Woody*]

Wow. I guess if you are a mathimagcian this analysis would be a great intellectual diversion, but if you divert your energy to this comprehensive complex research, how do you win a thousand battles in 11 days?
I'd rather just play the game and have time to play with my kids.

1,000 battles in a season is easy. My guild averaged over 1,000 per member in multiple seasons. Our record was over 11,500 per member and that's with 80 members