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When can we stop pretending GBG is balanced?

DeletedUser

So you cannot even tell YOUR OWN GUILD what sector to take LOL it would be ridiculous and funny like a old Keystone Cops routine

No lol. You make the sector numbers only show up on your color , not the opponents. You can direct yours to 1 sector north of B1O , try doing that from the other end though when a rival is attacking and you have 25-40 seconds to counter the attack.
 
While I can agree FP farming may not have been what Inno anticipated, it likely also resulted in diamonds being spent at a rate beyond what Inno anticipated.

Are you referring to diamonds for those needing extra Negs? I’m not sure the camps are generating much in diamond sales, even if they are generating use. In Diamond League, the diamond rewards mostly covers one of the slot rushes. Their crappy RNG system doesn’t do many things with mathematical accuracy, but it should cover a second slot if farming, through building retention/carryover. Add in the weekly freebies from GE, and most guilds should be diamond neutral, even those that are Monsanto Level farming.

What I imagine they had envisioned was intense competition leading to not just camps, but also traps and palaces to both consume diamonds and guild goods (4-6 rushes for every sector turnover). However, people have figured out that there is no personal return for any building that doesn’t reduce attrition and I don’t imagine they are seeing much activity on any other buildings. I think there is still (financial) incentive for them to tweak and improve the system, beyond the fact that the game difficulty is laughable now. At a minimum it would be a good start to Make Attrition Grow Again.......then maybe move rewards away from individual battles and into the guild prize chests. Give guilds a reason to compete and not rest on the participation ribbons of unthinkable quantities of individual rewards.
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
Are you referring to diamonds for those needing extra Negs? I’m not sure the camps are generating much in diamond sales, even if they are generating use. In Diamond League, the diamond rewards mostly covers one of the slot rushes. Their crappy RNG system doesn’t do many things with mathematical accuracy, but it should cover a second slot if farming, through building retention/carryover. Add in the weekly freebies from GE, and most guilds should be diamond neutral, even those that are Monsanto Level farming.

What I imagine they had envisioned was intense competition leading to not just camps, but also traps and palaces to both consume diamonds and guild goods (4-6 rushes for every sector turnover). However, people have figured out that there is no personal return for any building that doesn’t reduce attrition and I don’t imagine they are seeing much activity on any other buildings. I think there is still (financial) incentive for them to tweak and improve the system, beyond the fact that the game difficulty is laughable now. At a minimum it would be a good start to Make Attrition Grow Again.......then maybe move rewards away from individual battles and into the guild prize chests. Give guilds a reason to compete and not rest on the participation ribbons of unthinkable quantities of individual rewards.
No. I'm talking about the diamonds spent to speed build Siege Camps.

What I imagine is that they projected a certain amount of diamond use to provide the return on their investment. What you describe above is a conquer and hold strategy with much lower province turnover than we see with farming, which consistently turns over provinces every 4-6 hours. With 50% of the Siege Camps lost (on average) each turnover, that means 50% of the camps needing replacement every 4-6 hours, many of them speed built to keep the rewards flowing.

Inno doesn't care what building diamonds are being spent on, just that diamonds are being spent. With a turnover rate that likely exceeds their projections, diamond usage also likely exceeds their projections. Why mess with a winning formula that exceeds expectations?

Every proposal I read would result in lower province turnover and lower diamond usage regardless of the blah, blah, blah, used to support the argument. You think your proposed changes will increase diamond usage, give us the math to support it.

BTW - The ONLY reason to participate in GBG is the unthinkable quantities of personal rewards. While I like my guild, I could care less about their bragging rights. I play to move the needle on my city, which the rewards do. Bragging rights? Not at all.
 

Tony 85 the Generous

Well-Known Member
So you cannot even tell YOUR OWN GUILD what sector to take LOL it would be ridiculous and funny like a old Keystone Cops routine
If we can get our guilds to hit the right sector with the numbers, we have no prayer of doing it without sector numbers.
A map could be published to a website for a single point of reference. So we could one up it by changing the sector sizes/counts/etc.

If you want to go all out (and I am for it), apply the GE fog over any sector that is not adjacent to a sector you have conquered. (think command and conquer)
 
No. I'm talking about the diamonds spent to speed build Siege Camps.

Every proposal I read would result in lower province turnover and lower diamond usage regardless of the blah, blah, blah, used to support the argument. You think your proposed changes will increase diamond usage, give us the math to support it.

BTW - The ONLY reason to participate in GBG is the unthinkable quantities of personal rewards. While I like my guild, I could care less about their bragging rights. I play to move the needle on my city, which the rewards do. Bragging rights? Not at all.

Yes, I am specifically talking about the constant turnover model. I’m stating that the cost of camp rushes is mostly self-sustainable due to the camp carryover plus the diamond rewards granted while capturing/filling a sector. So while diamonds are being used, they are largely being generated by the GBG itself and not through sales. I don’t think that was their intention, as they had anticipated more usage of other buildings which didn’t happen. I don’t need to supply much math to show that if guilds were more vested in winning the BG to gain their rewards, they would be more likely to trap/palace/etc sectors and rush those buildings which aren’t generating diamonds to self fund the welfare. More building use is good for Inno.

99% of players do GBG for their own benefit. Seems like if they could tie the personal rewards with guild success, they’d get broader use of the GBG toolbox they built where the result is more important than the amount of number of times a player can hit Autobattle during the 11 Days. I’m not sure it has to carry bragging rights for guilds to want to do well, if it was properly rewarded.
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
I don’t need to supply much math to show that if guilds were more vested in winning the BG to gain their rewards, they would be more likely to trap/palace/etc sectors and rush those buildings which aren’t generating diamonds to self fund the welfare. More building use is good for Inno.
And you didn't supply any math. Not even the 'not much' you claim is all that's needed.

I also don't believe that the diamonds are self sustaining from GBG alone. At least they've never been in any of the diamond league guilds I've been a member of. The turnover of provinces and number of Siege Camps being insta-built are too great.

Two things I know for certain. Inno has access to much more information than you or me and if Inno felt the changes being suggested (all made before both here and on Beta) had any possibility of increasing diamond usage they'd make them.

That Inno has not made any changes, even on Beta to test these different scenarios speaks volumes. They're more than satisfied with their investment and the returns that investment is giving them. No need to fix what's not broken.
 

Graviton

Well-Known Member
... if Inno felt the changes being suggested (all made before both here and on Beta) had any possibility of increasing diamond usage they'd make them.

See, every time I read speculation about how Inno intended GBG to work, I think, "they tested it in beta, and I'd wager most of those who participate in beta testing are more savvy than the general player populace, so I'm sure they figured out how to make guild alliances and farm GBG long before it went live." So I figure GBG is working pretty close to the way they intended.

That's not to say they'll never tweak it, but the wholesale redesign some of these people are clamoring for ain't gonna happen. And the claims that it is broken or unbalanced are really nothing but sour grapes.
 
And you didn't supply any math. Not even the 'not much' you claim is all that's needed.

How much math do you need? More buildings being rushed, means more diamonds being spent. I can’t spell it out any more clearly.

If someone is doing 4K fights in a session, that’s approx. 1K in diamond rewards, or 20 rushes covered by a single person. Add in a couple hundred from GE, and that person can more than cover their fair share (after carryover). Anyone here bought a diamond package recently to support GBG?

You give them too much credit. There are many reasons why things don’t get changed. They could fix their garbage RNG to be even relatively accurate, but they haven’t. They haven’t even been able to fix their 4-camp attrition calculation in 3+ months and it is a known false advertisement of probabilities. They can take their time with this topic since the junkies are all plenty satisfied with their handouts. There’s no shame in it, but that can’t be what they envisioned, and can’t present anyone with any real sense of challenge or accomplishment. They built way too many elements into GBG for it to just be the watered down candy crush game it has become. You do yourselves a disservice to just take the game for what it is and not try to continually improve it. Also remember, this is the same team that brought you The Advent Calendar.
 

Algona

Well-Known Member
You give them too much credit. There are many reasons why things don’t get changed. They could fix their garbage RNG to be even relatively accurate, but they haven’t.

I'm sure you give them too little.

Every time anyone has mafe an effort to gather a reliable sample size the RNG has been shown to be reliable.

The few times that 'doubters' decided to track data they always gave up in days or weeks, whether too lazy or because they didn't like what they were finding we never find out.
How much math do you need? More buildings being rushed, means more diamonds being spent. I can’t spell it out any more clearly.

If someone is doing 4K fights in a session, that’s approx. 1K in diamond rewards, or 20 rushes covered by a single person. Add in a couple hundred from GE, and that person can more than cover their fair share (after carryover). Anyone here bought a diamond package recently to support GBG?

Too much unknown information to make any estimate of whether Diamond League GBG is Diamond profitable.

That question can be best stated as:

Is the Diamond cost of the average number of rushed SCs required per Province taken less then, equal to, or greater then the average Diamonds won per Province?

We don't know the percentage of Diamonds won in GBG that are cycled back into GBG. For purposes of the calculation I'll make later I assume 100%, which I believe is unrealistic based on the Greed I see in game and posted here.

We don't now how many rushed SCs on average are needed to take a Province. Nobody gas published numbers on this and I;ve never counted.

We don't know the exact Diamond drop rate per fight. I'm OK with your assumption of 1%, I think it's a reasonable estimate and makes for easy math.

While we don't know a lot of stuff we can calculate a theoretical best case scenario of a break even point:

.8 rushed SCs per Province taken.

that assumes 100% of Disomnds won in GBG are recycled into GBG and 1% Diamond drop rate.

50 Diamonds to rush an SC, 160 fights per Province. .01 drop rate, 25 diamonds per drop.

Drop the numbers in a blender and we get an average yield of 40 Diamonds per Province.

40 Yield / 50 Cost = .8 rushed SCs as the break even point.

Any more then .8 rushed SCs per Province Taken and the Guild loses Diamonds in GBG.

There's three different numbers to use when modeling, total number of fights the Guild does, what percentage of Diamonds won get recycled, average SCs rushed per Province taken.

8000 Guild Fights at 50% GBG Diamonds recycled with a 1 rushed SC average per Province taken will mean a net loss of 1500 Diamonds for the Guild for that GBG season.
 
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@Algona, Fully agreed with your best case scenario above, and yes there are many factors. But the result above is a pittance of diamonds when spread around a guild (easily covered by 2 GE’s, Crow’s, SV, WW’s, etc) and isn’t the level of consumption that necessitates someone to buy a $100 diamond package to support, versus say an extra event building which runs about 10-15K each.

I sent Inno all of my data from the last GBG round, which showed with mathematical certainty that their 4-camp calculus is beyond any plausible “bad luck”. I’d encourage others to track this specific scenario as well. My ticket response was vague, but seemed to indicate it was known but not immediately being fixed. In events, I often find the RNG heavily in my favor, which I find equally worrisome. What concerns me most is how the same tool can have situational gaps, unless they load in the wrong variables, which would be quick fixes.
 

Algona

Well-Known Member
I sent Inno all of my data from the last GBG round, which showed with mathematical certainty that their 4-camp calculus is beyond any plausible “bad luck”.

Please share the raw data?

Fully agreed with your best case scenario above, and yes there are many factors. But the result above is a pittance of diamonds when spread around a guild (easily covered by 2 GE’s, Crow’s, SV, WW’s, etc)

I'm not sure what you mean by fully agree then follow up with statements that indicate you didn't read it.

Not sure how you get earning 1500 Diamonds with 2 GEs or a couple SBs, maybe you meant for the Guild in total each member donating their own Diamonds ro make up the loss?

There aren't many factors, there are three that are variable.

Because there are three factors that multiply meaning wildly different amounts, it's obvious you didn't do any modeling. If you did you would have realized that the one example I used getting a 1500 Diamond cost for the GBG was conservative.

The average for taking one Province ranges from a profit of 40 Diamonds to a loss of 200 Diamonds. This is dependent on the twin factors of recycled Diamonds and rushed SCs average per Province.

-200 to +40 Diamond per Province.

If a Guild did 16000 (there is a rabbit in the hat with that number) total fights they possible range is 4000 Diamonds profit to 20,000 Diamonds loss for the entire GBG.

I often find the RNG heavily in my favor, which I find equally worrisome. What concerns me most is how the same tool can have situational gaps,

That is exactly what an RNG will look like to someone who isn't recording enough data.

----------

Not liking an aspect of the game is reasonable and not worth arguing about.

Personal dislike of a game aspect does not equate to there being a flaw in the design or implementation of that aspect.
 
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RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
Diamonds spent on building rushes are no where near the only diamonds being spent in GBG. We've seen many requests for the extra turn tavern boost be active in GBG cause without it, 'Negotiations are a big diamond grab!' Then there's the diamonds being spent to heal units.

I do neither of these things, but many do. The thing about diamonds for people who buy them regularly, is that they're there to be spent. Although mentioned, you're also not considering the diamonds spent on those extra event buildings which give attack or defense to attack. People buy extra just so they can eek out a few more fights in GBG.

I agree with @Algona, I think you give Inno too little credit. I'll also add you give players too much. Very few players get 4k fights per season. That's some pretty rare air you're talking about. The time it takes to do that alone is far more than most players care to spend. I know lots that do, but even in the top of the top, top guilds, it's 10-15 players. In those guilds, it's 20% of the top players sucking up 80% of the rewards. The rest get the scraps and are there to provide goods from their GBs to build Camps.

I'll grant the FP farming dynamic is not what Inno intended or expected, but the diamond sales are meeting if not exceeding expectations regardless. The fact that they've not changed anything is proof enough, you don't mess with what's working. That Inno is more profitable than ever is the final proof.

And back to my original point, any changes that slow province turnover will slow diamond expenditures. Any idea that slows diamond expenditures is DOA. A non-starter. You can't ignore the elephant.
 
Please share the raw data?

I'd recommend anyone interested to do their own analysis. I've submitted mine to the people that presumably handle corrections. The net result of the data however was an average of a 300+% deviation from expected result with 0 of those instances occurring in favor of the players. This happening once, twice, three times would be no big deal. Double-Digit occurrence in succession, impossible.

I'm not sure what you mean by fully agree then follow up with statements that indicate you didn't read it.

I did read your post. It wasn't best case scenario, but roughly showed a negligible cost per player for the amount of fights shown. I wasn't on my PC earlier, but since you asked, here is my math based on maximum opportunity at expected odds.

Let's assume optimal sector turn and only 2 guilds competing for the farming. Let's further assume that every time you capture a camp-worthy sector (inner 3 rings) that you fully fill and rush the camps so that attrition is always minimized. The average number of camps in these sectors seems to be around 1.75. We'll assume Guild A takes all 28 of the main sectors to start and initially fills all 49 of the camps at a cost of 2450 Diamonds with 1120 Diamonds coming back to them in rewards while taking those sectors (assuming 1% which are the observed odds on Wiki) for a total net cost of 1330 for the initial build. They are blocked from farming for 8 hours (while Guild B takes it turn and reciprocates) when they will once again be able to sweep the entire campable map. Only this time, 50% of the camps will already be there bringing the rush cost down to 1225 diamonds with the same 1120 Diamond rewards coming back for a net cost of 105 diamonds to sweep each subsequent round. They can do this 32 times over the course of 11 days (if taking sectors were instantaneous), leading to a net cost to guild of about 5K diamonds for 147K fights. Spread that gap out among even 25 members and it's 200 diamonds each which is easily obtainable for each person during 2 GE's. For sure, the odds will vary each sector/day/round, but the in the long term (which is what Inno makes money based on) the cost would fall around this range as the most likely outcome. In reality, the cost will be less for each guild because they won't always be adding in a camp to every slot, they won't get 33 turns of every sector, and other guilds are bound to nose in on the party.


That is exactly what an RNG will look like to someone who isn't recording enough data.

Actually, I calculate my cost and expected outcomes before every event starts. I know exactly what I should be expected to win, how many diamonds I would need to spend to do X, and when the actuality varies from the expectation. I might just be an incredibly lucky person to consistently beat the probabilities but I don't have to speculate as I track everything in this game.
 

Algona

Well-Known Member
I'd recommend anyone interested to do their own analysis.

No, I've already done my time collecting and annotating and presenting data to this forum.

Too bad though it would have been nice. The raw data can be expressed in one sentence 'X attempts with Y SCs giving Z attrits'.
You either got it or you don't.

Funny thing though that reliability of the poster providing data is a factor. Attempts to hide it call your reliability into question.

Let's assume

Sure. You forgot to make some assumption about the return rate of Diamonds won and include that. Do it for 90% and 45% return rate please.

I might just be an incredibly lucky person to consistently beat the probabilities but I don't have to speculate as I track everything in this game.

Uh-huh. But you won't share the data to prove it.
 
No, I've already done my time collecting and annotating and presenting data to this forum.

Too bad though it would have been nice. The raw data can be expressed in one sentence 'X attempts with Y SCs giving Z attrits'.
You either got it or you don't.

Funny thing though that reliability of the poster providing data is a factor. Attempts to hide it call your reliability into question.

Well, I can fill in anything I want for X, Y, Z and post it here. Thus my recommendation for people to gather their own data rather than to rely on a random person. If you don‘t think it’s an issue, don’t do it.

QUOTE="Algona, post: 346029, member: 17103"]
Sure. You forgot to make some assumption about the return rate of Diamonds won and include that. Do it for 90% and 45% return rate please.
[/QUOTE]

Simply take 36,960 * X% (where X is the percent of return reduction you wish to account for) and add it on to the total. As Razor mentioned, the vast majority of these diamonds are going to the most active GBG participants and likely being put back into the fold. Even if you take 50% out from reinvestment, those are still diamonds being generated within the game without purchase. Regardless, the exercise was to show net diamond cost to the Guild at the most extreme turnover scenario, but use as you see fit.

QUOTE="Algona, post: 346029, member: 17103"]
Uh-huh. But you won't share the data to prove it.
[/QUOTE]

Again, my data is relevant to me and my experience. People should assess their own experience to see if it is as advertised. If you don’t think it’s an issue, don‘t do it.
 
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