“The Road to Better World War Matchmaking” aka Sandbagging!
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TinSoldier
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DUSTY1
Bringing one Atomic, and one Classical -Aged base is not sandbagging. And while you are the underdog, this match-up looks relatively fair.
The issue at large is using levels and Ages as a direct parallel to determine the strength of an Alliance. Yes, the Age and level is indicative of how strong a base is. No, these do not factor into matchmaking.
I'm working on a longer-form post about what base compositions at different ages/levels could be. I look forward to sharing with you all!
Bringing one Atomic, and one Classical -Aged base is not sandbagging. And while you are the underdog, this match-up looks relatively fair.
The issue at large is using levels and Ages as a direct parallel to determine the strength of an Alliance. Yes, the Age and level is indicative of how strong a base is. No, these do not factor into matchmaking.
I'm working on a longer-form post about what base compositions at different ages/levels could be. I look forward to sharing with you all!
DUSTY1
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Obviously this is a pretty close quartile, but does not reflect the whole lineup. Not sure how the matchmaking is done, and given a fair-seeming matchmaking algorithm we would expect about 1/2 the time to be overmatched by 30 levels in the top quartile and 1/2 the time to be undermatched. If you have been looking at my prior posts, this is the closest match we have had in a month. You will note from my prior posts that often most of their top 5 are global, and on 24 July our opponent exceeded our entire team's firepower by over 400 levels even with the little tykes at the bottom. If I in fact DO see a matchup that puts the other side as the underdog I will surely post it.
All in all, I'm not claiming we are put upon or that this seems to be more or less sandbagging that what you seem to think is correct. I'm documenting observed occurrences over time. Ostensibly you would see more of what you deem to be more or less fairer by whatever rubric you use. However I have done programming in the past, and we always programmed to test cases. In my opinion, the quality of the outcomes was best related to making the right kinds of test cases.
All in all, I'm not claiming we are put upon or that this seems to be more or less sandbagging that what you seem to think is correct. I'm documenting observed occurrences over time. Ostensibly you would see more of what you deem to be more or less fairer by whatever rubric you use. However I have done programming in the past, and we always programmed to test cases. In my opinion, the quality of the outcomes was best related to making the right kinds of test cases.
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Xenno
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TinSoldier . I question what do you consider a sandbag senerio. Because we are seeing it. Some of DUSTY1 may not be as bad as others I have seen. However it got bad enough that I have stopped participating in wars because the chance of a sandbagging opponent is so high that the chances of recouping even half of the amount I spend on wars is slim too none.
DUSTY1
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To Vixen: No, I marked it as not sandbagging in my data file. But the rest of this thread is called -the road to better world war matchmaking- ; and they just did an update last night. I have never seen the order of levels jump around such as this before. In some cases we have a guy that's played for 2 days (level 15) 5 ranks above players who have been in several wars. The kooky ordering for each team is apparent the further down the ranks you go. That level 130 of ours stands a better chance against the level 172 than the level 15 player does against his opposite, a level 62 (at the 21st rank). As I commented earlier I am posting observations, not crying -foul-.
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DUSTY1
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I was only showing the top quartile of my lineups. A sandbag scenario is when you see a level 11 / 12s at the bottom of their lineup, and the top half has you outgunned massively in the top half. The top half just do 2 battles each, guaranteeing 5 stars for every base. Often even with the very low levels at the bottom, the avg total level is above my team by a whole lot. Ignoring the bottom 20% in war matching would have never put them up against our team.
Quali
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We're nearly a year on. BHG have had ample opportunity to try to change things, and have elected not to. That's fine, they are the devs of the game and it's their choice to do that. But can we please stop with the pretense that anything is going to be drastically changed now? The strategy is there for those that want to use it - it actually dovetails with "premium" players too. If you are happy to be part of an alliance that will shell out $$$ every war (and if they enjoy that then fine) you will also want every advantage and edge you can get - you're paying some decent cash to play this, that makes sense.
All this reinforces the need for leagues - there is room for all in the world of war here, but not a lot of sense in having them able to match each other.
Can we start art talking about leagues as a proposal rather than a change to war matchmaking, 'cos we need to be honest here - that's just not going to happen, based on every action to date.
All this reinforces the need for leagues - there is room for all in the world of war here, but not a lot of sense in having them able to match each other.
Can we start art talking about leagues as a proposal rather than a change to war matchmaking, 'cos we need to be honest here - that's just not going to happen, based on every action to date.
Master Contrail Program
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Eleven months on and nothing has changed. Weight the matchmaking for fuck's sake. 40/30/20/10. An example with a 250 atomic and 10 iron.
Current system. 250+10= 130
Weighted system: 250+250+250+250+10= 1010÷5 = 202.
That's a 72 level difference. Yes, I know it's not based on levels. But since you folks guard your esoteric war weight formula tighter than KFC guards the Colonel's original recipe, it's what we have to go by. I assume you don't show us the war weights to prevent their manipulation? What do you consider sandbagging is if not manipulation of your algorithm?
The point being that sandbagging is alive and well in real world terms, regardless of what nonsense way you choose to define it in your quarterly responses to posts such as these.
Nearly one year since this post, nearly six months since that AMA; and what have you really done to fix this issue? Nothing. Kudos on the strides you've made on all other areas of the game (except AI). As Quali said above, I assume your choice not to address this in any meaningful way is a deliberate one. The whales at the very top must love the status quo.
Current system. 250+10= 130
Weighted system: 250+250+250+250+10= 1010÷5 = 202.
That's a 72 level difference. Yes, I know it's not based on levels. But since you folks guard your esoteric war weight formula tighter than KFC guards the Colonel's original recipe, it's what we have to go by. I assume you don't show us the war weights to prevent their manipulation? What do you consider sandbagging is if not manipulation of your algorithm?
The point being that sandbagging is alive and well in real world terms, regardless of what nonsense way you choose to define it in your quarterly responses to posts such as these.
Nearly one year since this post, nearly six months since that AMA; and what have you really done to fix this issue? Nothing. Kudos on the strides you've made on all other areas of the game (except AI). As Quali said above, I assume your choice not to address this in any meaningful way is a deliberate one. The whales at the very top must love the status quo.
QuébecGlory
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The way I see it is that's it's been one year that the same alliances keep complaining and have yet to adapt... mind blown! We are presently in a war against a team who has 5 iron age, and we will demolish them. So before you ask, yes we have participating players from Classical to Atomic.
The sandbagging issue, to me, as it was over a year ago, was a team with 20 maxed atomic and 15 non-active iron age. We don't see this happening anymore, at least we don't, so job done BHG!
The sandbagging issue, to me, as it was over a year ago, was a team with 20 maxed atomic and 15 non-active iron age. We don't see this happening anymore, at least we don't, so job done BHG!
DUSTY1
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With the new XP changes I am beginning to see some changes. Since all my players are active, and playing very defensively since we play high levels all the time, the XP system gives us a benefit. All our donations are at the IA level. Apparently people that expect to be all offense are getting their tushes kicked by medieval and gunpowder players, and they aren't getting automatic 5 stars on the medievals any more. As a result our strategy is to press for the XP and get us all global donations. It's the closest we are gonna get until these game analysts get their thinking chops to par.
Master Contrail Program
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So a sandbagger defends sandbagging and Tin Soldier gives them the thumbs up. That's nice.
