“The Road to Better World War Matchmaking” aka Sandbagging!
- Thread starter TimTrain
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Nb4powerup BDS
The addition of a stalemate tiebreaker is going to make sandbagging an even more rewarded strategy than ever before. We've been looking at lowering our time to kill in our recent stalemates, seeing how low we could get it. First of all, the only time we usually ever see a stalemate now is when we face a sandbagging team. In normal wars, they are becoming a very rare occurrence, maybe 1 stalemate in our last 20 wars that was not against a sandbagging team. But, 3-4 against sandbagging teams. I was actually surprised when you noted this addition in the state of the nations, as it didnt seem to be an issue anymore, as long as you somewhat control troop tactics.
Anyhow, below you will see the current sandbagging team we are facing. They are a top 20 team, and can take hundreds of glory from us (there is no noticeable penalty) This team is skilled, they have good designs, good attacks, etc...they do not need to sandbag to get a match due to weight, but its so rewarding, there is no incentive not to. It continues to be the cornerstone strategy of advancing on the glory leaderboard for all but the very top teams. There is no other strategy that pays off like taking undeveloped bases to war. These are not bases that are part of a diverse team. They are there because taking a full team of highly skilled players, is not nearly as rewarded as taking a team of part highly skilled players, and the remainder undeveloped accounts to make sure you have manipulated the matchup better than your opponent. The team we are against has a natural level advantage of 8 against us, and then another 22 level advantage when you take out the sandbags. So, a 30 level advantage. They go from straight atomic at 24, to sandbags at 25-30 that exist only because of the incredibly flawed matching algorithm. Its nearly insurmountable. The only option we ever have against these teams which we now face non-stop because of your inaction, is to aim for a stalemate.
However, with the next update, you are taking away the option to stalemate by introducing the tiebreaker. In our last war we tried hard to lower our time, many of their bottom 5 were under a minute, some were in the 30-40 second range. We still couldnt lower our time enough. The 30 level advantage this team had on the top 25 bases, made any time advantage we had in the bottom 5 simply not matter.
Why do you continue to allow this to be the most important strategy in the only leaderboard you have? It boggles the mind how its not been addressed. And you are now doing things making it even more rewarded? If you dont want to do anything dramatic, just take the bottom 25% of everyones roster out of the matchmaking equation. Combined with the penalty for extreme sandbagging, it will make it much less beneficial. It may also help matchmaking times for other teams, too.
**Edit, to clarify - I actually think a tiebreaker is a good idea. It is just introducing it without fixing sandbagging first that is bad. It would be just as bad as if you had fixed sandbagging, but not stalemates. Both need to be solved or the other gets worse, there is no way around it.
The addition of a stalemate tiebreaker is going to make sandbagging an even more rewarded strategy than ever before. We've been looking at lowering our time to kill in our recent stalemates, seeing how low we could get it. First of all, the only time we usually ever see a stalemate now is when we face a sandbagging team. In normal wars, they are becoming a very rare occurrence, maybe 1 stalemate in our last 20 wars that was not against a sandbagging team. But, 3-4 against sandbagging teams. I was actually surprised when you noted this addition in the state of the nations, as it didnt seem to be an issue anymore, as long as you somewhat control troop tactics.
Anyhow, below you will see the current sandbagging team we are facing. They are a top 20 team, and can take hundreds of glory from us (there is no noticeable penalty) This team is skilled, they have good designs, good attacks, etc...they do not need to sandbag to get a match due to weight, but its so rewarding, there is no incentive not to. It continues to be the cornerstone strategy of advancing on the glory leaderboard for all but the very top teams. There is no other strategy that pays off like taking undeveloped bases to war. These are not bases that are part of a diverse team. They are there because taking a full team of highly skilled players, is not nearly as rewarded as taking a team of part highly skilled players, and the remainder undeveloped accounts to make sure you have manipulated the matchup better than your opponent. The team we are against has a natural level advantage of 8 against us, and then another 22 level advantage when you take out the sandbags. So, a 30 level advantage. They go from straight atomic at 24, to sandbags at 25-30 that exist only because of the incredibly flawed matching algorithm. Its nearly insurmountable. The only option we ever have against these teams which we now face non-stop because of your inaction, is to aim for a stalemate.
However, with the next update, you are taking away the option to stalemate by introducing the tiebreaker. In our last war we tried hard to lower our time, many of their bottom 5 were under a minute, some were in the 30-40 second range. We still couldnt lower our time enough. The 30 level advantage this team had on the top 25 bases, made any time advantage we had in the bottom 5 simply not matter.
Why do you continue to allow this to be the most important strategy in the only leaderboard you have? It boggles the mind how its not been addressed. And you are now doing things making it even more rewarded? If you dont want to do anything dramatic, just take the bottom 25% of everyones roster out of the matchmaking equation. Combined with the penalty for extreme sandbagging, it will make it much less beneficial. It may also help matchmaking times for other teams, too.
**Edit, to clarify - I actually think a tiebreaker is a good idea. It is just introducing it without fixing sandbagging first that is bad. It would be just as bad as if you had fixed sandbagging, but not stalemates. Both need to be solved or the other gets worse, there is no way around it.
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jogomo07
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Dominations, soy el líder de Barcelona Élite, este es el resultado de vuestro cambio meses después, NINGUNO! Emparejáis a una alianza con sacos de arena, la 30 en el ránking mundial, contra una alianza con 16800 de gloria cómo la nuestra.
Jugamos war siempre, normalmente contra rivales más fuertes, y ganemos o perdamos lo hacemos por poco, pero contra una alianza así es imposible.
NEXON estamos HARTOS!! HACED ALGO Y HACEDLO YA o me veo fuera de war por bastante tiempo.
Dominations, soy el líder de Barcelona Élite, este es el resultado de vuestro cambio meses después, NINGUNO! Emparejáis a una alianza con sacos de arena, la 30 en el ránking mundial, contra una alianza con 16800 de gloria cómo la nuestra.
Jugamos war siempre, normalmente contra rivales más fuertes, y ganemos o perdamos lo hacemos por poco, pero contra una alianza así es imposible.
NEXON estamos HARTOS!! HACED ALGO Y HACEDLO YA o me veo fuera de war por bastante tiempo.
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Doc__is_my_username
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I think a possible way to prevent sandbagging is to weight scores so that a player's second-best score counts for less than their best score. For example, if a player scores 5 stars in one attack and 4 stars in another, count 2 stars for that lower attack. Similarly, if a player gets 5 and 5, count 5 and 3. This way, a perfect score comes only when each player on the team make at least one 5-star attack. The team that brings 20 "players" but actually has only 15 players making the attacks will get lower credit for those added 5 attacks. The team might still have an advantage at the high end (top players stronger than the nonsandbagged team's top players) but the nonsandbag team probably has an advantage at the lower end.
I also think that breadth of success (what percentage of the players got 5 stars) is a more meaningful scoring attribute than speed of victory. If we need to break ties between strong teams somehow, I think this is a better way.
I also think that breadth of success (what percentage of the players got 5 stars) is a more meaningful scoring attribute than speed of victory. If we need to break ties between strong teams somehow, I think this is a better way.
It seems to me that there is a pretty simple
solution to this. (I apologize, but I'm going to get a little wonky here.) Right now, players are given a score based on level of development, and then, the sum total of the players establishes the matching criteria. In essence, it's matching based on average player strength, something which is skewed by players on the extreme ends of the spectrum. If the standard deviation of the players (in other words, to what degree the alliances players' strengths differ from their average strength) were calculated and considered, it'd fix the problem. If matches were based on both variables (mean, and standard deviation), sandbaggers would only be matched with sandbaggers, and solid teams would get fair fights. The math to do this should be in the first few chapters of any introductory textbook on statistics.
Just my thoughts.
solution to this. (I apologize, but I'm going to get a little wonky here.) Right now, players are given a score based on level of development, and then, the sum total of the players establishes the matching criteria. In essence, it's matching based on average player strength, something which is skewed by players on the extreme ends of the spectrum. If the standard deviation of the players (in other words, to what degree the alliances players' strengths differ from their average strength) were calculated and considered, it'd fix the problem. If matches were based on both variables (mean, and standard deviation), sandbaggers would only be matched with sandbaggers, and solid teams would get fair fights. The math to do this should be in the first few chapters of any introductory textbook on statistics.
Just my thoughts.
SebQuattro
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I've already suggested this here: https://forum.nexonm.com/forum/nexo...o-matchmaking-sandbagging?p=579574#post579574
But even if all sandbags were removed, it doesn't solve the matchmaking issues. This war my alliance is matched against an alliance miles weaker than ourselves. We need more transparency.
But even if all sandbags were removed, it doesn't solve the matchmaking issues. This war my alliance is matched against an alliance miles weaker than ourselves. We need more transparency.
Nb4powerup BDS DomiNationsVigiles
I keep forgetting to post, now I have a backlog of sandbagging examples.
Sandbagging, unfortunately with the latest update and future fixes to the latest update, is now more critical than ever. Sandbagging is without question the most important strategy in the entire game if a team wants to advance on the leaderboard, for all but the very few top teams who will beat anyone no matter the matchup (maybe 5-10 teams). As BHG continues to make it an even more important strategy with their design choices, we are seeing it more than ever before.
None of these teams are bad. Especially USAE/Anzac, and 1st Nemesis. They are full of talented people and great players. But, if they were to bring their most talented prepared and skilled players, it would not be the best way to gain glory in the current system. Because of BHGs easily manipulated matching system, the absolute best way to gain glory is to improve your chance of getting a team that is not competitive, by lowering your war weight with a few undeveloped accounts that exist for no other reason other than manipulating matches. There is no sort of strategic planning, base design, even spending, that can compensate for the advantages given by sandbagging. Why would I spend money on troop tactics to use in war, if I could just avoid most difficult wars entirely?
In the USAE/Anzac war, they have a 13 level natural advantage (mostly due to incorrect war weight base glitch, which is completely out of their control). Then, by using only 3 sandbags, a 10% sandbag well under BHG's incorrect definition of sandbagging, they are able to lower their average level by almost another 20. Their standard deviation is 60 compared to our 30, and we are now yet again in a war where the average level difference is 32, pretty much insurmountable odds (excluding bottom 3 their average level is 203, compared to our 171). Its doubtful we can get a stalemate with that bad of a mismatch (30 levels, at 4 off/def buildings per level estimate, equates to a 120 building level advantage for every person), especially with reduced tactics. But, even if we did, it will soon not matter because of the elapsed time tiebreaker. Even if we mowed down each of the bottom 3 in 30 seconds (maybe a 60 second faster than normal time), it would give us about a 5 second overall benefit. That 5 seconds is nothing compared to how much of a disadvantage we are with the other 90% of bases in the war.
But, it all goes back to the fact that no team is rewarded for bringing their best roster to war. In nearly 100% of scenarios, it is better to bring an iron age alt I made yesterday, compared to a real person that plays and invests in the game. And, the ownership of this is on BHG, because it is their design that promotes this. There is no incentive for a team to go in full weight, no reason for heavyweights to want to battle each other, and there is the easiest of easy ways to avoid these matches.
Im fine with the overall balance changes that happened recently, I think its pretty reasonable in most aspects. But not in the context of horrible war matches, which are 100% due to either BHG glitches with war weight, or the consistent practice of game changes that promote sandbagging, and the complete apathy and indifference BHG has shown to any sort of sandbagging fix. There have been so many suggestions, taking the bottom 25% off war matching calculations, considering high standard deviations, etc....it just makes no sense why they are afraid to confront the issue with their game.
I keep forgetting to post, now I have a backlog of sandbagging examples.
Sandbagging, unfortunately with the latest update and future fixes to the latest update, is now more critical than ever. Sandbagging is without question the most important strategy in the entire game if a team wants to advance on the leaderboard, for all but the very few top teams who will beat anyone no matter the matchup (maybe 5-10 teams). As BHG continues to make it an even more important strategy with their design choices, we are seeing it more than ever before.
None of these teams are bad. Especially USAE/Anzac, and 1st Nemesis. They are full of talented people and great players. But, if they were to bring their most talented prepared and skilled players, it would not be the best way to gain glory in the current system. Because of BHGs easily manipulated matching system, the absolute best way to gain glory is to improve your chance of getting a team that is not competitive, by lowering your war weight with a few undeveloped accounts that exist for no other reason other than manipulating matches. There is no sort of strategic planning, base design, even spending, that can compensate for the advantages given by sandbagging. Why would I spend money on troop tactics to use in war, if I could just avoid most difficult wars entirely?
In the USAE/Anzac war, they have a 13 level natural advantage (mostly due to incorrect war weight base glitch, which is completely out of their control). Then, by using only 3 sandbags, a 10% sandbag well under BHG's incorrect definition of sandbagging, they are able to lower their average level by almost another 20. Their standard deviation is 60 compared to our 30, and we are now yet again in a war where the average level difference is 32, pretty much insurmountable odds (excluding bottom 3 their average level is 203, compared to our 171). Its doubtful we can get a stalemate with that bad of a mismatch (30 levels, at 4 off/def buildings per level estimate, equates to a 120 building level advantage for every person), especially with reduced tactics. But, even if we did, it will soon not matter because of the elapsed time tiebreaker. Even if we mowed down each of the bottom 3 in 30 seconds (maybe a 60 second faster than normal time), it would give us about a 5 second overall benefit. That 5 seconds is nothing compared to how much of a disadvantage we are with the other 90% of bases in the war.
But, it all goes back to the fact that no team is rewarded for bringing their best roster to war. In nearly 100% of scenarios, it is better to bring an iron age alt I made yesterday, compared to a real person that plays and invests in the game. And, the ownership of this is on BHG, because it is their design that promotes this. There is no incentive for a team to go in full weight, no reason for heavyweights to want to battle each other, and there is the easiest of easy ways to avoid these matches.
Im fine with the overall balance changes that happened recently, I think its pretty reasonable in most aspects. But not in the context of horrible war matches, which are 100% due to either BHG glitches with war weight, or the consistent practice of game changes that promote sandbagging, and the complete apathy and indifference BHG has shown to any sort of sandbagging fix. There have been so many suggestions, taking the bottom 25% off war matching calculations, considering high standard deviations, etc....it just makes no sense why they are afraid to confront the issue with their game.
Its going to get significantly worse if not addressed. Here's the thing, as the ceiling for a maxed base gets higher and higher, the reduction in weight from undeveloped sandbag accounts gets bigger and bigger.
Want to know why most remaining EA and IA teams dont really see sandbagging? Its because at their level the reduction with a few sandbags isnt too catastrophic. Its why you hear mostly Global/emerging AA teams getting hit by it the worse.
Here is a 16% sandbag at various levels:
25x Lvl 80 EA/IA bases, mixed with 5x Lvl10 Iron age bases: Drops the average of the team from 80 to 68, a 12 level difference. Annoying, but not catastrophic imo.
25x Lvl 200 Atomic bases, mixed with 5x Lvl10 Iron age bases: Drops the average of the team from 200 to 168, a 32 level difference, already completely destroys any hope of decent matchmaking, this is what its like now.
Whats around the corner?
25x Lvl 300 CWA basses, mixed with 5x Lvl10 Iron age bases: Drops the average of the team from 300 to 252, a 48+ level difference, it will make the problem WAY worse than it already is, which seems impossible but it is reality
And, this this example is using a pretty minor sandbag %, we see plenty of teams using more than this.
If I am a team that wants to climb the glory leaderboard, sandbagging is so much more effective compared to buying troop cards to win hard wars, crowning buildings to get a maxed base, planning a good war strategy, etc. Its easiest just to avoid my peers and farm glory from noncompetitive matches.
Want to know why most remaining EA and IA teams dont really see sandbagging? Its because at their level the reduction with a few sandbags isnt too catastrophic. Its why you hear mostly Global/emerging AA teams getting hit by it the worse.
Here is a 16% sandbag at various levels:
25x Lvl 80 EA/IA bases, mixed with 5x Lvl10 Iron age bases: Drops the average of the team from 80 to 68, a 12 level difference. Annoying, but not catastrophic imo.
25x Lvl 200 Atomic bases, mixed with 5x Lvl10 Iron age bases: Drops the average of the team from 200 to 168, a 32 level difference, already completely destroys any hope of decent matchmaking, this is what its like now.
Whats around the corner?
25x Lvl 300 CWA basses, mixed with 5x Lvl10 Iron age bases: Drops the average of the team from 300 to 252, a 48+ level difference, it will make the problem WAY worse than it already is, which seems impossible but it is reality
And, this this example is using a pretty minor sandbag %, we see plenty of teams using more than this.
If I am a team that wants to climb the glory leaderboard, sandbagging is so much more effective compared to buying troop cards to win hard wars, crowning buildings to get a maxed base, planning a good war strategy, etc. Its easiest just to avoid my peers and farm glory from noncompetitive matches.
DUSTY1
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My alliance has fought quite a few battles but we lack "glory points". Why? Because when we win, we get 15-20 glory points and when we lose, we lose over 500 glory points. Our little group of Iron Age to Industrial age (balanced) just beat a group that had 1 Classical Age, and the rest Gunpowder through Global Age. Yes they were poorly matured, but if we hadn't won, we would have lost more than 30 games worth of points from our wins.
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On second thought:
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All I can tell my players is... It's just for fun right? And stop wasting money on crowns and builds so you don't get too angry eventually.
How's about coming up with ceiling points and floor points. Like 200 points for winning as a minimum. Why? Because why the heck not? Why should I have to fight 30 games to make up for 1 loss when I didn't do the matching, and because every single game seems to think I only deserve 15-20 points glory for a victory. Stop making it look like the house is cheating.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????
On second thought:
??????????????????????????????????????????????????
All I can tell my players is... It's just for fun right? And stop wasting money on crowns and builds so you don't get too angry eventually.
How's about coming up with ceiling points and floor points. Like 200 points for winning as a minimum. Why? Because why the heck not? Why should I have to fight 30 games to make up for 1 loss when I didn't do the matching, and because every single game seems to think I only deserve 15-20 points glory for a victory. Stop making it look like the house is cheating.
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Wendy
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Glory won and loss is related on the glory both teams have. If the matchmaking gives you everytime 15-20 points it means you are facing teams with very little glory. It is not related to the effective strenght of the alliance.
if it was, we wouldn't have been giving thousand of glory to teams much stronger than we are, for the past year.
then, without being judgmental my question is, Dusty: if you have a team of Industrial age and below, and you use iron age accounts (even if they are active and not actual sandbags) what do you expect to face in war? probably low level teams, not very active and not war focused.
if you aim to gig amounts of glory maybe you should consider playing only with the best you have.
You'd probably face teams with higher glory!
if it was, we wouldn't have been giving thousand of glory to teams much stronger than we are, for the past year.
then, without being judgmental my question is, Dusty: if you have a team of Industrial age and below, and you use iron age accounts (even if they are active and not actual sandbags) what do you expect to face in war? probably low level teams, not very active and not war focused.
if you aim to gig amounts of glory maybe you should consider playing only with the best you have.
You'd probably face teams with higher glory!
RottPhiler
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Here's one way to curb sandbagging: reduce resources won when attacking an opponent two ages below you to a minuscule amount. For example if an Atomic Age player attacks an Industrial Age war opponent, then they get say 1,000 food, 1,000 gold, and 0 oil, and so on. In other words, make sandbaggers gain the win (and the glory) at a tremendous personal loss of resources. If you want to take this further, they have to pay 5 crowns to attack an opponent two ages below you. This should get rid of casual sandbaggers since most casual players war for the loot.
SebQuattro
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Do you seriously think this will matter to most sandbag alliances? They aren't doing it for the loot, it already costs an Atomic Age player a substantial amount of resources.
RottPhiler
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I did use the term 'casual sandbaggers' and yes, I think this will get rid of most of them. The Atomic Age player still receives ~800K gold and food, and ~5K oil when the war is won, which now wouldn't be the case if they attacked lower. Therefore it would be even less profitable.
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DUSTY1
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Wendy, my team is the "B" team. We have an open roster and new players coming in to learn all the time. Therefore we are balanced. Lots of the new players have their war parameter turned off until they have walls and such, but my experience is that our top 3 players, 2 IA and 1 EA, tend to be matched against Globals, and our EA - Gunpowders are facing all EA and IA players. Our tough little Iron age - Medievals do battle against all others and do their fair share, even against players 2 ages above, but mostly learning. I don't know what sandbagging is. If it's putting dummy accounts in the bottom -- we don't do that.
If there is some written or unwritten rule that the team should all be within 1 or 2 ages of each other, let me know and I'll tell the leaders to fix the roster. But we do like to train players.
If there is some written or unwritten rule that the team should all be within 1 or 2 ages of each other, let me know and I'll tell the leaders to fix the roster. But we do like to train players.
