“The Road to Better World War Matchmaking” aka Sandbagging!

[Equal]

so it was a cold 23rd of september morning. about 04 am in europe. a unknown moderator, who never replies started a topic called 'the road to better matchmaking bla bla bla' with high hope for everyone. but father time has past, hope has fallen. today only few survivors remaining in this unfair fight. the rest are destroyed by a countless missmatches and sandbagging in one of the greatest online war strategy games.. hope is somewhere..

 

[kennynguyen]

What's problem with double/triple accounts if they also hv to start from Dawn Age and you hv to spend much time to grown up? Believe many, if not all, wl want to play with 2nd account when moving to higher age bcos it takes almost 1/2 month to finish an upgrade.

 

[Tower]

Its true - Sandbagging is worse than ever. At least all of the top 5 is using it to certain degree and we recently faced an alliance who had 3 Iron Age and 6 low level classical.

 

[DUSTY1]

Again Thank you for addressing this issue. There are many great alliances out there that are doing the right thing and are not trying to manipulate the system but they are getting taken down by these Sandbag alliances. I am one of the leaders of The Borg Family and The Borg 2.0 has just been matched up with their first major sandbag alliance. We are doing our best but our well rounded allilance with great players are even having difficulties against a strong Global and IA team who padded the bottom 15 with Iron Age players

I hear ya. I'm having that same fun against a TEN player team! Even if they do 0 attacks, and we win against them, we get 17 glory points. How can a team with global/ industrials at the top stand to gain 453 glory against a team of evenly dispersed classical through enlightenment age players?

I've been playing with algorithms, and I believe it can be made fairer... MUCH fairer... from both a matchup view, and a glory view. Just saying... you need more than computer geeks. Grab you a few actuarial dudes and the problem is far easier than you might imagine.

 

[S_How]

We are now facing more sandbagging teams than ever. 8/10 wars and 5 straight. Nexon please fix this, it cannot be the way you want people to have to play your game.

In this example, the 20% sandbag drops the average level of our opponent by 30. They go straight from atomic at 24, to Iron Age at 25. They are a top 50 team and only on your leaderboard because they feast off of your matchmaking algorithm that allows such horrid manipulation. There is zero sandbagging penalty as they can gain 300 glory by beating us.

Your definition of sandbagging is wrong, if you don't consider this sandbagging. Having someone log in occasionally to make an account appear active shouldn't shield this strategy. These accounts exist only to manipulate matchups. Don't do such disservice to yourself and your customers.

The only critical strategy in this game currently to climb the leaderboard is to mix undeveloped accounts with high level bases to artificially lower your war weight to get competition that cannot beat your top bases.

 

[Bowmore]

Nothing is being to done to address sandbagging, and over the last few months there has been an increasing disparity in war matchups. I suspect the reason behind this is the active population in Dominations is on the decline. Nexon would rather have us fighting unbalanced wars than sitting around waiting for matchups, since they believe that's the way to drive revenue.

 

[Fabien]

Almost 6 months on and we haven't seen any changes...... doesn't take Nexon 6 months to charge us for crowns though .

 

[Mebbwebb]

The alliance I have been in have had better WWs that are more equally matched since the last update. I cant speak on behalf of everyone else though.

So far im quite content. Now if only the AI would get improved.

 

[S_How]

Just to provide a counter point, our alliance has probably never met more sandbagging teams in a 10-15 war streak than we are in right now. Matchmaking may be better, but sandbagging circumvents any improvements to it and is horrible.

 

[S_How]

Nb4powerup Since the state of the nations proclaiming success against removing sandbaggers from the top of the leaderboard, we have basically ceased meeting any team at all that does not sandbag. ALL of our wars are now against sandbagging teams. What is BHG's stance on this? Will there be further action (please something more than 'we are constantly monitoring and looking to improve'. For my team, this is getting worse and worse and ruining the game. The ONLY way to climb the leaderboard at the moment is to mix high atomic with undeveloped accounts that exist only to lower war weight. Or, avoid allowing atomics in your alliance entirely and forever stay at low ages. Both of these have to be bad for the game?

Here is our current matchup. This is a top tier team, very skilled, so I dont want to imply that they dont deserve to be ranked.....my problem is the experience you deliver to your players with matches like this. Our average level is 165. Their average is 178. They are for sure at the high end of the matchmaking range, but thats fine, we like hard matches its how you learn. However, take out their 15% sandbag, and their average level is 200. So, because BHG allows and encourages this behaviors, you have a match where the average level difference is 35 levels. In the IA-AA range, 35 levels is probably the difference of 150+ building, researches, etc upgrades. You run into ridiculous situations like their #28 being 50 levels higher than our highest level player, and 97 levels higher than his mirror on our team. Things like skill, planning, and strategy have absolutely nothing to do with how this war will end up. The war was decided by the fact that the best strategy in Dominations, on the only leaderboard alliances can strive to climb, is to sandbag. There is also no glory penalty in this matchup, or it is so insignificant it cannot be noticed, they are a top 25 team and can gain 200 glory for beating us, a substantial amount for their place on the leaderboard.

You give no incentive for heavyweight teams to go in at full weight. Since their peers dont do it, they wont get a match unless everyone goes in full weight. If they do go in full weight, all but the top 5 or so teams in the game risk a loss, so why would they ever choose to go in full weight when sandbagging is so rewarded? The best way to gain glory for all but the top 1% of teams is to ensure that you have manipulated the matchup more effectively than your opponent. I dont know why I post these anymore lol. But, I figure maybe seeing examples of it over and over again will show you how bad it is.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

Keep fighting the good fight S. There have been dozens of suggestions on how to curb this nonsense. Yet here we are nearly six months later and nothing has been done, nor has there been another word from the OP. It's so pervasive that the sandbagging begins in earnest around 17,000 glory which is not even in the top 250 by my estimate.

 

[GailWho]

Don't worry Mebbwebb sandbagging will eventually come to you. We had a run of fair matchups but we're are back being the sandbag magnet again

 

[Vixen]

Yes keep posting them...I believe in what you are saying!

 

[Nb4powerup]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[S_How]

I wish it were possible to get a more detailed response.

 

[S_How]

Nb4powerup And again the next war, met them twice now, this time at 30v30. They've changed their roster a bit, but have a higher sandbag %. Again it goes from high AA at 25, to completely undeveloped iron age at 26. The iron age accounts probably have logged in and show active after the great post explaining what sandbags are and how they are not used to climb the leaderboard, but they will never make a hit and even if they did they exist for only one reason, to manipulate matchups.

Our avg level is about 165 again, theirs is about 179, so its already pretty difficult, which is fine. But, take out their sandbags and they are at 204 average, so its a nearly 40 level difference between actual players. These odds, no matter what, are entirely insurmountable under any circumstance - especially considering the uneven leap in defense strength from GA to AA How can you let this happen BHG? There may as well be no war at all if you're going to make it an experience like this, and allow your game to be manipulated so badly.

This is a team that could easily queue at max strength and get a match I'd guess. There are for sure many way heavier teams than them. But why would they, when they might face a team that offers them a potentially difficult match?

 

[Centurion96]

IMHO, there is no solution for sandbagging besides BHG would change the world war rules. No matchmaking algorythm can realy compensate for "one player scores twice" scenario.

I have an idea how world war could possibly work. You can learn more about it at the attached thread.

 

[S_How]

I agree, it requires a rule change to drive behavior. There have been many good suggestions. Its just up to BHG if they care or not.

 

[Wendy]

It's so sad to see it happens to one of the greatest teams in the game.
But hey, sandbagging has been resolved and it's disappeard from the leaderboard, so what are we talking about?
Seriously nexon, i don't know what you had in mind when you wrote that single sentence, it was worst than any lack of response by cs or lack of action about sandbagging, and honestly it offended us all.

 

[Vixen]

it was the defining moment that proved Nexon is completely out of touch with it's player base