So... Guild rivalries and the match making... Broken?

Rovio has determined that that you are allowed to lose 800 infamy(approx) without punishment. So lets say 5 guys in a top guild lose 800 infamy on purpose. So their guild would go from rank 100 to rank 125. Currently you have guilds rivalries with guild ranks that range from 20 to 1000 (all because they complete the same number of quests in one of the two prior weeks). The # 100 ranked guild falling to rank 125 isn't as big a deal as the #900 ranked guild having to face the #50 ranked guild.
You can argue that some guilds are so militant that ALL 25 guys would lose 800 infamy on purpose. Those are the guilds that take every advantage they can, and right now are guild hopping because they have two or three shell guilds, so they can basically get 1st place 2 out of every 3 weeks.
There are so many simple fixes to the guild rivalry matchmaking that have been laid out on these forums.(ex. change end of season rewards to # of quests completed, increase guild rivalry league sizes to create less randomness, go back to infamy system and use AVERAGE infamy from prior 3 weeks for matchmaking).
From Rovio's standpoint, i'm sure the current system has improved Pearl/Boost spending, so they will deal with the few of us that complain on the forums.
I believe Rovio has every right to maximize customer revenue, but there are ideas that could make the matchmaking more fair and also keep revenue the same. I believe that increasing guild rivalry league size to 25 or 50 guilds, instead of 6 would actually INCREASE the amount of pearls spent on boosts. Since your boosts could actually have a tangible effect on the outcome. But the rewards would have to be tiered effectively. You can't have the top 3 get most of the rewards and the bottom 22 get peanuts. There has to be motivation for the last place guild to continue spending boosts.

 

There is also point of diminishing returns in the Guild Quests... by the time you get to Very Hard and Impossible the quests can take days, so the pearl cost in boosts for any quest is likely worth more than the fraction of a Raffle spin you get in return.

 

Like I've said, I'm all for changing it up ..

But, guild ranking is way too easy to manipulate to be the deciding factor. 99.99% of players probably couldn't even tell you their current guild ranking.

You wouldn't need to go to the extreme of dropping infamy to lower your guild ranking. You could simply take your five to ten best and start a new guild - then toss in a few new players or mk6 500 infamy-tanking seal-clubbers to help out, or just close the guild. Automatic easy matchups.

 

Part of the issue is that Guild Hopping is happening right now. Shell guilds are created by guild members(mini-accounts) one or two weeks in advance and they complete a few quests with their mini account. When that shell guild is ready, the members of the MAIN guild jump over to the shell guild and get easy matchups for that week or possibly two weeks. On the third week, they return to their original guild, which has since barely completed any quests and have easy matchups again. One out of every 3 weeeks you won't get end of season rewards, but the other two weeks you have a good shot at first place rewards. The solution is to make shell guild hopping to be pointless, by giving everyone a fair shot every week, and to make end of season rewards balanced to the number of quests completed.
In a top tier rivalry, the 6th place guild may have completed 48 quests and is rewarded with 1000 raffle tokens.
In a low tier rivalry, the 1st place guild may have completed 30 quests and is rewarded with 42,000 raffle tokens.

Exactly, this is another solution. Improve those board 3, 4 and 5 rewards. Improving those board rewards, at least it wouldn't be as demoralizing to guild members to finish in last place every week.

 

The first guild made 30 quests last rivalry, 2h after the start of the new rivalry they have already made 30 quests....

 

Yeah, I'm aware of the guild hopping.. but let's run some numbers real quick.

Guild Hoppers: 3-week cycle
Wk 1 - 36 quests / 81k tkns / 1st place 42k
Wk 2 - 48 quests / 114k tkns / 1st place 42k
Wk 3 - 48 quests / 114k tkns / guild hop 0k

3 week total: 391k tokens
*First week, they take it easy for an easy 2nd match*


Traditional Guild:
Wk 1-3 - 48 quests / 114k tkns / 3rd place 10k
3 week total: 372k tokens


Difference over the course of 3 weeks: 19k tokens or 5 spins or 1.6 spins per week.


The point being is 1.6 extra spins a week the biggest issue right now? Is it even in the top 10?


To put it another way, think of drawing 6 random numbers out of a hat to determine order. Over time, one out of six you'll be first, and five out of six you won't. Would people be happy with evenly matched guilds - with equal chances of winning - if they only won 16.6% of the time? No.

What you want is to win every week, or most every week. So, why not just ask for that?


Oh, and too questing guilds are doing 70-80+ quests a week .. A lot of guilds do 48 without trying.

 

Top* not too .. won't let me edit

 

I am going to chime in here having not had time to read the whole post so apologies if someone else has pointed this out:

My logic is the system that should be used is the 1 that can be manipulated the least and which punishes when manipulated

1) If infamy is used this will mean lots of seal clubbers very quickly

2) If gearscore is used I can foresee lots of guilds who only have 1 set of weapons each to reduce their score, if you did it on the max gear score per player than this has a chance to work but not sure if that can be done easily as often the weapons are kept in inventory not on the ship.

3) Quest wins works well as it puts you with equal guilds mostly, yes this has been manipulated by guilds by not working for 1 week in order to get easier opponents the next week but this in turn costs the 'unethical' guild on their week off as they receive very little. Guild hopping is also another tactic but as the post above points out this too punishes people.

Now I am not saying the system is perfect as I think they should maybe extend the period they use to calculate the average and I am aware that those who get matched to 'unethical' guilds are at a disadvantage as I have been on several occasions and moaned about but I believe that this system has the least disadvantages of all 3 when using a level head!

 

I agree, it's not a big issue. I was only responding to your comment that made which made it sound like shell guild hopping was so prevalent in "infamy-based guild matchmaking". It was just to make the point that shell guild hopping happens right now. It doesn't give that big of an advantage, but the fact is that guilds STILL DO IT, and it diminishes the effort of the other 5 guilds in the same rivalry.

I would say a lot of guilds now use the OFF OFF ON method of questing. So really the finish position you get is based upon how many guilds in your rivalry are on their "ON" week.

 

Yeah, I think we agree that manipulation is happening now, but for what? To preserve their record, maybe. But, it's not for the tokens, especially if they go 2-off-1-on.

With infamy based MM, there would be no penalty for manipulating your matchups. No need for shell guilds. Every week would be an easy matchup.

 

I don't know how it works lots of algorithm and facts. Too complicate for me to understand. But by reading all these comments now I got a bit of knowledge. Thanks all. Happy sailing.

 

Third place is optimistic... it will be 3-4th place as the median finish, the difference between 21k and 10k tokens. Either way it's a difference of a handful of scappable perks, power cells and uncommon parts.

 

I agree. But it still seems a pointless exercise in that regard. What is the point of dropping infamy indefinitely, when the reason for dropping infamy is to gain rewards which will increase your infamy?
I could see doing it for a week or two, but why even play BattleBay if you will always be keeping your infamy artificially low?

The Conundrum:
Drop Infamy to improve Rivalry Matchup
Better matchup means more tokens
More tokens means more perks and parts/pieces/weapons/etc.
More parts/pieces/weapons/etc means a stronger ship
A stronger ship results in higher infamy

I think we both agree that Rovio could just make small tweaks to fix either matchmaking method, neither are perfect.

 

2nd place is 21k, 3rd place is 10k, 4th place is 5k

 

I meant guild infamy, not individual infamy. Guilds of five 4k players will have a lower ranking than guilds with twenty 4k players.

 

And if you could believe it we went against the Dream Team last week and we even took the week off and to no surprise paired against the number one Guild 2 weeks in a row this is the straw that broke the camel's back man I'm not sure if any developers even commented on this but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't... I would be more surprised if they did.

You would think the number one Guild based off of infamy would be going against other Guilds of comparable gear and infamy.... such as the Rebellion....

 

Facing off against the damn best Guild in the game based off of infamy two weeks in a row shouldn't be something that ever occurs let alone twice it's just absolutely ridiculous

 

Infamy has nothing to do with guild matchmaking, and less about production... It's all in how many quests you complete

 

Their ability... To complete them... (Quests) Being their gear.. Is better than most of everyone in game... It is just silly& makes me want to not even play