When can we stop pretending GBG is balanced?

[Tony 85 the Generous]

My suggestions reduce the incentive and hinder the mechanism for endlessly trading sectors. And that's the main problem with GBG.

Your suggestions remove the incentive but will not prevent nor stop farming nor pinning. As neither are the root cause of the symptons/effect you describe.

My suggestions reduce the incentive and hinder the mechanism for endlessly trading sectors. And that's the main problem with GBG. Sure, there will still be alliances, but part of the incentive for forming them will be gone, so maybe they won't be as prevalent. In any case, players getting thousands of battles and the resulting pile of personal rewards from them would be cut down to size.

Sure it would. It would cut way down on the farming of endlessly trading sectors. Common sense is your friend.

And common sense, and better yet math, says it won't matter to the stronger guild. You completely skip over the point that diamond guilds don't use traps. Sure get rid of them. They don't use them anyway. Why? Because the top diamond guilds are strong enough to muscle past them. If they are strong enough to muscle past a sector with traps, then they are strong enough to muscle past a sector with no trap support by no SCs.

Let's apply some numbers to your plan: (These are simple numbers, not exactly realistic. It is about the method, not the exact number)
Assume a sector need 100 hits to capture.
Sector with trap has 45% chance of double attrition, you get 145 attrition
Sector supported by 1 SC has 24% chance of no attrition, you get 76 attrition
Sector with neither trap or SC, you get 100 attrition

If the guild can muscle past a sector with a trap with 145 attrition, what would they do to a sector with no SC and no trap where they only get 100 attrition? Yeah, blow right through. Getting rid of SCs (which are used heavily) and traps (which aren't used at all), will have little effect on the top guilds.

So go ahead and get rid of SCs and traps. It won't matter to the top diamond guilds.

Sorry, but how does the gap shrink when the "haves" get in thousands of battles with the resultant rewards and the "have nots" are pinned in their home sector without any chance at battles or rewards? Your theory just doesn't pass the smell test. Of course the gap widens. The same way the gap in Treasury size would widen between a guild with level 80 Arcs and a guild with few low level Arcs. That's just common sense. Saying the gap shrinks is not borne out by the facts of reality.

Wrong again. How would it affect them the same when the "stronger" guilds get tons of personal rewards from endlessly trading sectors and getting in thousands of battles through farming that the "weaker" guilds never get that chance? It would definitely affect the farming guilds more. The rewards would only be reduced on repeated attacks on the same sectors that have been taken multiple times by the same guild. That mechanism wouldn't affect the weaker guilds at all.

Sorry to say, it is the expectation of the effect of your suggestion that is not passing the smell test. You are not factoring in the full effect of your suggestion. If you apply an decreasing chance of rewards to retaking a sector, you must also take into account this applies to the weaker guilds. So you are taking away from guilds than can do 1000s of hit and from guilds that do 100s of hits. Taking into account Algona's point the stronger guilds require more fp per gb level than weaker, a 10 or 20% reduction in fp (from 1000fp to 900fp and 100 to 90fp) won't change the situation. It won't help the weaker catch the stronger. Furthermore as I recently noted on Algona's theory, We are not talking silver league guilds at 100fp and diamond guilds at 1000fp per day. We are working with platinum-diamond guilds capable of 800fp per day competing against (or try to catch or become as strong as) guilds capable of 1000fp per day.

As someone else said, you would need to hobble the stronger guild without effecting the weaker in order for your plan to have a positive and discrete effect on the weaker guild. Based on that, you are left to determine which guild should be hobbled and which should not. If you go through that effort, then why not just apply that same selection criteria and fix the problem at its root. Use this criteria to select the guilds to be on the map which addresses the root cause by having balanaced and more closely competitive guilds on a map in a given season. Poof! equally matched guilds, no can get pinned, farming can still happen but you admitted that would still happen anyway just producing less rewards.

The fact is your suggestions address a symptom and/or an effect and not the root cause. The symptom of the problem is weaker guilds get pinned, and an effect of the problem is farming (though farming is more of an effect of alliances instead of strength). Removing SCs/Trap and the progressive reduction in rewards are applied to the guilds on the map after they are on the map. Keyword; after. If there is an after, there must be a before. What comes before the season starts? Selecting the guilds. Selecting guilds of unequal or unmatched strength to be place on a map is the root cause.

 

[MJ Artisan of War]

After over 500 replies... When will we stop pretending that this thread matters?

 

[RazorbackPirate]

After over 500 replies... When will we stop pretending that this thread matters?

The winner!

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

As neither are the root cause of the symptons/effect you describe.

And the root cause is...? Easy to dismiss an argument "just because". What is the root cause if it isn't the lack of attrition due to Siege Camps and the amount of personal rewards from thousands of battles?

And common sense, and better yet math, says it won't matter to the stronger guild. You completely skip over the point that diamond guilds don't use traps. Sure get rid of them. They don't use them anyway. Why? Because the top diamond guilds are strong enough to muscle past them. If they are strong enough to muscle past a sector with traps, then they are strong enough to muscle past a sector with no trap support by no SCs.

So forget about Traps. Siege Camps are the main problem anyway. And you're also ignoring the fact that my suggestions are designed to hinder farming, or repeated trading of sectors by the same guilds. How will my suggestions fall short of that goal? Yes, top guilds will still dominate the map, but they wouldn't be able to endlessly trade the same sectors if my suggestions were implemented, nor would they want to with the ever lessening chance of personal rewards.

If you apply an decreasing chance of rewards to retaking a sector, you must also take into account this applies to the weaker guilds.

That's so ridiculous. Try to stay with reality. Weaker guilds don't trade sectors, so the decreasing chance of rewards would not affect them at all. Weaker guilds don't take the same sector a dozen or more times in the same GBG session. They're lucky to take any sectors when the top guilds ally. Talk about an argument that smells.

As someone else said, you would need to hobble the stronger guild without effecting the weaker in order for your plan to have a positive and discrete effect on the weaker guild.

If you'd quit defending the present system and actually think about my suggestions, this is exactly what they do.

Selecting guilds of unequal or unmatched strength to be place on a map is the root cause.

That is also a laughable stance. When top guilds ally and trade/farm sectors under the present system, an individual guild of whatever strength has little to no chance to compete. Period. GBG is a farmfest at the top levels because it is low cost and high return. The only way to change that is to increase the cost, which my suggestion would do, and decrease the return, which my suggestion would also do. It wouldn't eliminate farming, because it would still be cost effective the first several times guilds trade the same sector, but they wouldn't be able to keep it up for a full session like they do now because eventually the higher cost and lower rewards would stop them. Unless they're just stupid.

 

[Emberguard]

nor would they want to with the ever lessening chance of personal rewards.

As long as the lessening rewards are on a per player basis that could work so one player gaining rewards doesn't take away from another players ability to gain rewards. If it's on a per province or per guild basis it could result in no rewards for the weaker guilds or weaker players

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

As long as the lessening rewards are on a per player basis that could work so one player gaining rewards doesn't take away from another players ability to gain rewards. If it's on a per province or per guild basis it could result in no rewards for the weaker guilds or weaker players

It would be on a per guild basis. So for example, if the same guild took the same sector multiple times, the % chance of personal rewards for that guild's members would be reduced with each progressive taking of that sector. The first time a weaker guild takes that sector, their members would get the full % chance of personal rewards no matter how many times another guild or guilds have taken that sector.

 

[Taipanium]

And common sense, and better yet math, says it won't matter to the stronger guild. You completely skip over the point that diamond guilds don't use traps. Sure get rid of them. They don't use them anyway. Why? Because the top diamond guilds are strong enough to muscle past them. If they are strong enough to muscle past a sector with traps, then they are strong enough to muscle past a sector with no trap support by no SCs.

One thing you missed there: Strong guilds don't 'muscle past' traps because they have way more firepower they bring to bear. They neutralize traps entirely by surrounding the target sector with sufficient siege camps, and capture the sector for free (attrition wise) with the same effect of whether the traps were there or not. So top guilds stopped using them as they are a waste of treasury goods.

 

[Emberguard]

It would be on a per guild basis. So for example, if the same guild took the same sector multiple times, the % chance of personal rewards for that guild's members would be reduced with each progressive taking of that sector. The first time a weaker guild takes that sector, their members would get the full % chance of personal rewards no matter how many times another guild or guilds have taken that sector.

In my personal opinion, that would harm the little guy enormously. Both the weaker guilds and the weaker players

 

[RazorbackPirate]

In my personal opinion, that would harm the little guy enormously. Both the weaker guilds and the weaker players

If it applied per guild then it would definitely hurt the smaller players in that guild.

But the smaller player gets hurt in the top guilds anyway. I think one aspect that's been missed by @Tony 85 the Generous is the fact that it's generally the top 20% of players in the guild doing 80% of the battles. The rest are locked out of the map as well, staring at a map filled with locked or soft locked provinces.

In many of those guilds, the only provinces for the small player to hit are the ones with all the attrition. That's how the big kids in the guild get thousands of advances per season. 4 or more Siege Camps, or they're not touching it. "Attrition free or not for me."

Anyway, I don't think @Tony 85 the Generous knows what he wants, never mind how to get there. I've yet to hear any coherent 'end state' that all his math is supposed to get us to.

 

[Emberguard]

But the smaller player gets hurt in the top guilds anyway

Yeah but at least the smaller player can still get rewards throughout the season. If Stephens idea were implemented it’d potentially outright prevent the weaker players from getting rewards outside the first few hours of each season

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

And the root cause is...? Easy to dismiss an argument "just because". What is the root cause if it isn't the lack of attrition due to Siege Camps and the amount of personal rewards from thousands of battles?

Read the post again. I will quote it for you.

The fact is your suggestions address a symptom and/or an effect and not the root cause. The symptom of the problem is weaker guilds get pinned, and an effect of the problem is farming (though farming is more of an effect of alliances instead of strength). Removing SCs/Trap and the progressive reduction in rewards are applied to the guilds on the map after they are on the map. Keyword; after. If there is an after, there must be a before. What comes before the season starts? Selecting the guilds. Selecting guilds of unequal or unmatched strength to be place on a map is the root cause.

So forget about Traps. Siege Camps are the main problem anyway. And you're also ignoring the fact that my suggestions are designed to hinder farming, or repeated trading of sectors by the same guilds. How will my suggestions fall short of that goal? Yes, top guilds will still dominate the map, but they wouldn't be able to endlessly trade the same sectors if my suggestions were implemented, nor would they want to with the ever lessening chance of personal rewards.

That's so ridiculous. Try to stay with reality. Weaker guilds don't trade sectors, so the decreasing chance of rewards would not affect them at all. Weaker guilds don't take the same sector a dozen or more times in the same GBG session. They're lucky to take any sectors when the top guilds ally.

The reality is you suggestion will apply to and effect all guilds on the map. It applies to the weaker guild as I have described previously such that when a guild gets pinned in their base, they must repeatedly take the three surrounding sectors. Notice the word 'repeatedly'. I will give you the pinned guild is not farming. But they are in fact taking the same sector over and over. There is no way the computer program can differentiate between farming and trying to break out. Therefore the pinned guild, the weaker guild will get less rewards as the season goes one.

If you'd quit defending the present system and actually think about my suggestions, this is exactly what they do.

Absolutely NOT defending the current system.

Furthermore

As someone else said, you would need to hobble the stronger guild without effecting the weaker in order for your plan to have a positive and discrete effect on the weaker guild.

is not the current system.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

Anyway, I don't think @Tony 85 the Generous knows what he wants, never mind how to get there. I've yet to hear any coherent 'end state' that all his math is supposed to get us to.

Then feel free to flip back through my posts to find it. My proposed solutions and the root causes has not changed.

Hold on. I will do it for you.

So what are the root causes making GBG unbalanced, especially in the diamond and platinum leagues?
I have offered mine. First, the ability to ally. Second, win-to-advance.

You have all helped me to refine the possible solutions.
For the ability to ally:
1. Apply a fog-of-war (command and conquer style), such that you can only see the sectors you are adjacent
2. Do not list the opposing guild names on the leaderboard until the final ranking is determined at the close of GBG on Thursday
3. Reverse the colors. Your guild is displayed in color, all others displayed in gray

In this way, you cannot see more of the map than you can attack and you cannot see by color what guild you are attacking. Not knowing the other guilds on the map prevents cross-guild communication and forming alliances. This will cut down on softlocks, farming, and guilds being pinned. The most affective method to pin a guild to the base, is two layers of softlocks which requires a team of at least two guilds. Instead of 1v2+ to pin a guild into their base, it will now be 1v1.

For the win to advance the solution is not so direct.
- Select guilds for a map not solely on the basis of the previous season's success. In short, the league points is the output of the season and not used as the only input to the next season.
Algona has a nice list of factors to be considered to make a Guild GBG MMR-like number for use as the input to selecting guilds per map.

A Guild's potential in GBG is based on 5 factors. Size of Guild, Guild Treasury, Guild Leadership skill, individual player capability, and individual player willingness to participate.

Three of five factors are easily measured,and were used for the iniitial seeding that so many folk objected to. Individual participation can only be based on past performance. Guild Leadership is at best inferred by the relative success of the Guild compared to the expected ability based on the other factors.

Guild Leadership and individual participation can't be measured except by the general trends of past GBG performance.

In other words, past performance, has to be taken into account for any chance of a prediction algo(na)rhythm to work on how a Guild will do in GBG.

The options to stop alliances (and therefore to reduce or eliminate farming and guilds being pinned) are easy to implement. Providing an alternate metric for selecting guilds, no so much.

 

[Lucky Delilah]

To make matters worse, the ability of two major guilds on the same world to organize amiable “sector swaps” allows them to lock all six of the other guilds into their starting sector with so little access that they can’t even burn their attrition. It creates a bully environment which absolutely ruins gameplay experience. Too bad this can’t be run crossworld so these guilds couldn’t use a game to exorcize their real life angers.

Agreed. We see a lot of the same Titan guilds pairing up and then eating the entire map, making it impossible for the other 6 guilds to get past their doorsteps. When they do manage to break through, the two Titans camp on sectors for hours so they can manipulate the timers to force the smaller guild back into their HQ sector. Telling people to drop down to Platinum isn't an answer when you have 6 guilds all trying to take the last three places so they CAN drop down to Platinum.

I think it would be good if Inno operated BG like GE with the competing guilds coming together from other worlds. I'd also like to see a sector automatically forfeited and up for grabs once a guild has been sitting on it for over 4.25 hours. Forcing a tile to open every 4 hours is terrific, but now they need to make it impossible to camp out longer than 15 minutes after your 4 hours are up. Finally - and I probably will catch heat for this - I'd really like to explore what would happen if guilds were limited in the number of sectors they were allowed to have at one time. This would prevent the Titans from monopolizing the map, and it would become an element of strategy to work within this restriction. (And if anybody wants to carry on about the glory of capitalism, even capitalism has limits: It's illegal to have a monopoly.)

 

[Lucky Delilah]

I'm not in the highest ranking guild. We've been as low as #37. I love my rewards and don't see any difference between being higher ranked or not.

The only time your scenario occurs is if the two guilds take turns blocking out every smaller guild. Yes that can happen but I find it very rare. One, because there are too many guilds and two it aint easy to coordinate something like that. Three, guilds don't want to block anyone intentionally, unless there is some type of animosity. Blocking other guilds means the blocking guild gets less rewards.

What you have not considered is that any two guilds in any league are free to conspire. Crossworld does not change that.

I don't know what world you're on, but in Z world, we have about 8 Titan guilds - and there are almost always two of them in every season on our map. They know who they are, and they pair up from the minute the season starts, owning the entire map by lunchtime and manipulating the timers so the other 6 can't get out of their HQ and/or the 4th ring. Personal rewards are very limited when you can't take any sectors because you're being tag-teamed by Titans. If you can't get out, you also can't build siege camps. The Titan partners can, though, so they can literally fight all day long with minimal attrition. Those teams who are pinned in their HQs have no opportunity to reduce their attrition. So like everything else in this world, the greedy, left to their own devices, gobble up everything and starve the rest of us. They become bullies and poor sports and it ruins the game. So 6 guilds are trapped and unable to compete while 2 guilds take everything. Season after season. It's a real drag and I can't imagine why Inno would allow this when there are potential solutions available. (For example, how come these eight guilds are never ALL on the same map with one another? Now THAT'S something I'd like to see.)

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't know what world you're on, but in Z world, we have about 8 Titan guilds - and there are almost always two of them in every season on our map. They know who they are, and they pair up from the minute the season starts, owning the entire map by lunchtime and manipulating the timers so the other 6 can't get out of their HQ and/or the 4th ring. Personal rewards are very limited when you can't take any sectors because you're being tag-teamed by Titans. If you can't get out, you also can't build siege camps. The Titan partners can, though, so they can literally fight all day long with minimal attrition. Those teams who are pinned in their HQs have no opportunity to reduce their attrition. So like everything else in this world, the greedy, left to their own devices, gobble up everything and starve the rest of us. They become bullies and poor sports and it ruins the game. So 6 guilds are trapped and unable to compete while 2 guilds take everything. Season after season. It's a real drag and I can't imagine why Inno would allow this when there are potential solutions available. (For example, how come these eight guilds are never ALL on the same map with one another? Now THAT'S something I'd like to see.)

Two large guilds that buy camps 24/7 and spend diamonds to build them faster many times as opposed to the lower guilds that would do it at a fraction of the time. Present a business model that would make what you are proposing attractive to Inno.

 

[85gt]

26 pages of silly suggestions, if your stuck in a little guild go join a bigger guild or spend some time with your own guild like the big guilds did, or get squashed, its your choice. All this nonsense about how to take from the big guild and give to the little guild, lol simply MAKE IT HARDER TO GET TO TO AND STAY in diamond.
Gold, Silver and Bronze looks like the place for the not so strong guilds.
Its like your all looking for Inno to give you a hand out so you don`t have to spend the time needed to make your guild as strong as those bigger guilds
And the only way to stop the farming is to remove the rewards, and we all know what that will do to GbG. Personally GbG sucks in my opinion and should be removed from the game as its way to time consuming, its like Inno thinks we all have nothing to do with our time but to be on this game 24hrs a day add a few rewards to GvG and get rid of GbG.

 

[RazorbackPirate]

26 pages of silly suggestions, if your stuck in a little guild go join a bigger guild or spend some time with your own guild like the big guilds did, or get squashed, its your choice. All this nonsense about how to take from the big guild and give to the little guild, lol simply MAKE IT HARDER TO GET TO TO AND STAY in diamond.
Gold, Silver and Bronze looks like the place for the not so strong guilds.
Its like your all looking for Inno to give you a hand out so you don`t have to spend the time needed to make your guild as strong as those bigger guilds
And the only way to stop the farming is to remove the rewards, and we all know what that will do to GbG.

Hey, stop with that voice of reason nonsense. This is not the place for that.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

Gold, Silver and Bronze looks like the place for the not so strong guilds.

Not quite. If you are a "not so strong guild" but manage to win you will find your way to platinum or diamond. Hence the title of the thread in which you are posting.

Its like your all looking for Inno to give you a hand out so you don`t have to spend the time needed to make your guild as strong as those bigger guilds

Not here. I'm just looking for an even playing field. I do not want, and have never asked for, a free boost to compete with the big boys. I don't want to be a David in a room full of Goliaths, when there are ways to make rooms full of only Davids and rooms full of only Goliaths.

And the only way to stop the farming is to remove the rewards, and we all know what that will do to GbG. Personally GbG sucks in my opinion and should be removed from the game as its way to time consuming, its like Inno thinks we all have nothing to do with our time but to be on this game 24hrs a day add a few rewards to GvG and get rid of GbG.

Amen to that. (other than the GvG part since it is PC only)

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

You have an even playing field you simply can't keep up. Some seasons the guild i'm in dominate, some we're crushed, and some we do ok in diamond. You've already admitted you can't compete the way it is and so call it unfair when it is fair (as much as anything in this game is). You get advantages by being here longer.

 

[Taipanium]

Just to add something:
Quoting Algona from earlier:
"A Guild's potential in GBG is based on 5 factors. Size of Guild, Guild Treasury, Guild Leadership skill, individual player capability, and individual player willingness to participate. "

I would argue that the last variable can also be measured. Or at least, a good proxy for it is something like, # of hits output by an individual player in the previous season. Related variables are Total hits per season per guild (80k plus at high end), divided by guildsize. And yes I know that the top 20% of the players in a top guild do 80% of the output cause they are obsessed enough (and are tolerated?) that they wont touch anything that doesn't have at least 3 siege camps aimed at it.

Matchmaking should, only at the top end of diamond, use a second variable in addition to league points, because league points are a meaningless differentiator when you have dozens of guilds stuck at the 1000 LP ceiling. It doesn't say anything anymore about that guild's capability.
In Platinum and below, the system is okay for me, as strong result = more LP accumulated.

Solution, as I suggested before, is to use the total victory points from last season as a second variable in matchmaking at the 1000 LP level (which is *not* the entire diamond league !)