February 14th 2017 PVP Arena Update Discussion

[CanyptianFit]

Saw your post. ❤.

[Sparton_LOTB]

I was actually speaking of defensive holds. It changes as you progess through the rankings. I noticed this last week when I didn't have much time to play. When you are in the middle, you get attacked by the hardcore players as well as the newcomers. When you stay at the bottom, you get attacked by newcomers or casual players most of the time. If a player focuses on clearing the list, they may lose 7 or 8 times in a row before getting a win and moving forward. Players at the top don't lose twice in a row too often. This skews the data a bit

Yeah, I've noticed that as well (as have other developers). I suppose it's debateable where "the middle" of the rankings is, but I generally feel it's just before the major point that becomes difficult to get to higher divisions (1700-2100), which is where I see I get most of my defensive attacks. Much lower than 1700 and there's so many people that attacks are much more spread out, because the matchmaking puts you against people around your rank primarily.

Think of the spread of players based on VP like a pyramid... there's much less people at the top, so they see more of the same names and get more of the attacks, but the lower in the pyramid you go, the more people there are, and the more diffuse it is.

Sparton - please see

http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/sh...2331#post32331

No worries mate, I've been following your threads very closely.

There are players who are attacking other players a similar amount - yet have difference of over FOUR HUNDRED in the number of attacks they receive

I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but there could be plenty of legitimate reasons for that. I'm personally diving into a lot of our leaderboard information to divine all these weird idiosyncrasies in the time where I'm not working on Sacrifice, and I will share whatever information I can with the community (potentially after we've made adjustments if people could exploit the system).

Dont you think it would be fair to issue a pop-up screen that says if you wish to compete in PvP you may have to spend significantly more resources - both time and possibly financial - to get to the same place as other players - and that you can't predict at this point who will require more or less resources? At least until this is resolved.

Each feature has it's own demands for time and expertise, and while it seems jarring in retrospect, the feature itself seems to make itself very clear what it demands of you if you want to climb, and how much harder it is to get the higher rewards the more you want to climb. The feature hasn't been out for two weeks and both old guard mobile players and people new to asynchronous PVP already have a pretty clear picture of the demands.

I absolutely believe this is unintentional and you want this to be fair. But it's also a significant issue because frankly - people are paying to compete under the assumption their chances of winning prizes is based strictly on how well their team performs - and that is far from the case. Number of times attacked/losses -due to the structure of the point system - has a HUGE influence on ranking. If losses didn't cost points this would be a non issue. But at this point they are just as important as winning at attacks.

Minor variations of 50-100-maybe even 150 ok. This is a game of chance.

Lets consider some hypothetical scenarios (with some somewhat simplified math, but nonetheless numbers close to what people are reporting)...

Lets assume you get attacked 50 times a day on average if you're ranked highly on the leaderboard. That creates a baseline of 350 defenses per week. If we only care about everyone is ranked highly on the leaderboard, then that's fine, and realistically that's what the vast majority of top players have reported both weeks.

But what about people lower on the leaderboard? Is it fair that the game forces them to matchmake against people that could be far out of their league (either strength or ranking) just because they haven't been "attacked enough" on a given day?

What about someone who just started playing mid-week? Maybe they avoided playing PVP for a long time, so they sit around 1000 VP (with thousands of other players who aren't competing). Should they be attacked 350 times per week, just because? Even if we spread the attacks out as evenly as possible, and the average across the entire playerbase (from the top dedicated players doing 300-800 attacks to the literal hundreds of less interested people doing less than 10 a week)... should they be attacked hundreds of times just because?

There's a lot of factors that have gone into the matchmaking, and as I've already noted, we're definitely aware that there's room for improvement. But I don't agree that everyone being attacked as much as everyone else is a logical conclusion, because the results you're looking at is the summary at the end of the week, and a lot of the story in the middle is being left out.

But just to be crystal clear, I definitely agree that improvements can and will be made. Outliers existing at the top of the leaderboard is definitely not intended, and even though they're a minority of top players, I'm nonetheless working on ensuring the spread is more event for the people who are competing at the top.

Specifically on the impact of defenses, though...

If losses didn't cost points this would be a non issue. But at this point they are just as important as winning at attacks.

(Emphasis mine.)

As I've brought up in the past, we don't want your defense to be a non issue. Maintaining a quality attack record and defense record is something we feel is important to how we want players to approach PVP, and how you as a player approach that (either by staying low then climbing rapidly at the end of the week and/or finding defensive teams that are more likely to confound opponents) is something we want all players to consider, as many already have in various ways. Hell, take people like Gmac, who have pointed out you can creatively spend ironite to compete and get into the top divisions if competing in PVP is more important to you than spending ironite you've earned throughout the week on other features and you've shown a clear mastery for competing. That's why things like secret locations and daily challenges (and now PVP) give you so much each week!

[Chaosego888]

Saw your post. ❤.

Any time man. I looked at the rankings after I took a 2 hour nap yesterday morning and took note of where you, gmac and a couple others were. I knew you two were going to be making a run so I just skipped your names when they showed up on my list. The funny thing is there was probably 6 times that your name was on my list together with both Chillster and Basrog so I just attacked them and moved on

[Nicko]

Sparton - as always - thanks for participating in this dialogue. Always appreciated and your points are solid. Just hearing you're working on Sacrifice is great to hear

I understand that different dynamics will come into play with PvP and number of attacks. And of course if someone is not participating I don't want them to get "beat up" (though is there something preventing that?)

But I'm talking about situations like this



I have friends with MUCH better percentages on both offense and defense. They were not top 25. The sheer number of attacks worked against them. 37 attacks on this player! Versus over 400 on many! And this player has nothing to feel guilty about - he benefited from a bug. Pure and simple.

You have emphasized the importance of building a better defense - but in this case a single untalismaned RTTH Eddie that lost every battle would have fared better here than a well thought-out defense attacked 450 times with a very admirable 35% win percentage. That's not right.

Somewhere there is a bug. And our sample size from my thread is small. So we really don't know how many of these "outliers" are there. I'm going to stop complaining because - like I said in the other thread - the awareness is now there. It's my choice whether I participate or not - just like those complaining about the Prisoner - knowing the situation. And I still enjoy this game a lot. But I just don't believe "strategy" is leading to a discrepancy this big. Something internal is going on with the matchmaking.

[Sparton_LOTB]

And of course if someone is not participating I don't want them to get "beat up" (though is there something preventing that?)

If someone hasn't played the game in a while, we try to take them out of matchmaking, but in general the main thing that'll stop such people from being attacked is their points naturally floating to a place where there's lots more people and therefore the odds of being in someone's attack list around your ranking is low.

Somewhere there is a bug. And our sample size from my thread is small. So we really don't know how many of these "outliers" are there. I'm going to stop complaining because - like I said in the other thread - the awareness is now there. It's my choice whether I participate or not - just like those complaining about the Prisoner - knowing the situation. And I still enjoy this game a lot. But I just don't believe "strategy" is leading to a discrepancy this big. Something internal is going on with the matchmaking.

Yeah, the sample size from your threads are small, but it's gotten a surprisingly high amount of people from the top 25... and there's only 25 of those each week, so it does shine a light on a decent percentage of those top players.

But to be clear, I still agree that the matchmaking needs improvement, and I can only think of one or two "legitimate" ways someone could have a defense count that low and rank that high, which still shouldn't be that likely.

[Nine]

As I've brought up in the past, we don't want your defense to be a non issue. Maintaining a quality attack record and defense record is something we feel is important to how we want players to approach PVP, and how you as a player approach that (either by staying low then climbing rapidly at the end of the week and/or finding defensive teams that are more likely to confound opponents) is something we want all players to consider, as many already have in various ways.

Hey Sparton, thanks for keeping the communication up. I don't want to quote myself here, but since it might have eben overlooked two pages ago:

How about you don't lose any points by being attacked but you still lose points when revenged?

Of course you shouldn't be able to win any points when attacked then neither, because otherwise people who get attacked a alot would gain more points, which makes people chose their defense in a way they get attacked more and the system collapses.

But since your defense is still valuable, because you win and lose points from it, you have the incentive to chose a decent one - I think in this regard nothing will change. The system is only slightly adjusted in way that makes your own actions count much more compared to those around you - which is a good thing for basically everyone and even encourages spending Ironite.

[scott-5496]

Sparton - as always - thanks for participating in this dialogue. Always appreciated and your points are solid. Just hearing you're working on Sacrifice is great to hear

I understand that different dynamics will come into play with PvP and number of attacks. And of course if someone is not participating I don't want them to get "beat up" (though is there something preventing that?)

But I'm talking about situations like this



I have friends with MUCH better percentages on both offense and defense. They were not top 25. The sheer number of attacks worked against them. 37 attacks on this player! Versus over 400 on many! And this player has nothing to feel guilty about - he benefited from a bug. Pure and simple.

You have emphasized the importance of building a better defense - but in this case a single untalismaned RTTH Eddie that lost every battle would have fared better here than a well thought-out defense attacked 450 times with a very admirable 35% win percentage. That's not right.

Somewhere there is a bug. And our sample size from my thread is small. So we really don't know how many of these "outliers" are there. I'm going to stop complaining because - like I said in the other thread - the awareness is now there. It's my choice whether I participate or not - just like those complaining about the Prisoner - knowing the situation. And I still enjoy this game a lot. But I just don't believe "strategy" is leading to a discrepancy this big. Something internal is going on with the matchmaking.

Those figures are crazy and they don't seem right/fair to me either Nicko. How can you only do 193 attacks get hit only 37 times and get to 16? That is nuts - the attack and defence stats are not even that good.......the system must be a bit broken somewhere for this to happen surely - if you advertised this people would not bother playing in their droves I think?

[mjmxiii]

Yeah thanks for the communication Sparton, much appreciated. The one post from Nickos thread that gets me thinking there may be a pattern that can potentially be exploited is this one... (no disrespect to Askora as I'm not calling him or her out, just using the numbers as an example)

I'll throw mine in here, even though I'm in a little lower league.

My second week stats are:

Askora (GRE, CG, AGS, SGS)

Attack Wins: 75% (128/170)

Defense Wins: 9% (4/47)

Finishing rank was 74....

It seems like a vet player with a solid lineup could potentially mill around in the lower ranks facing weaker attack teams, less attacks in general and then hit it hard close to reset and climb rather quickly into the top 100 because of a lower number of DEF matches mixed with a high DEF win %.

While it might never work to get one into the top 25, it still seems broken and unfair to those trying so hard to climb the ranks and getting bogged down in that 1700-2100 traffic jam where everyone is attacking everyone, if this scenario is a possibility.

As I mentioned before, I do enjoy PvP and appreciate a new challenge despite the bumps we all have to work through and even though there's no plans of an Eternal run in my immediate future, I'm just wondering... Is this a possible scenario? And if it isn't, how can these numbers be explained?

Edit: I ask because it seems the less I attack and revenge DEF holds insted, the less I am attacked. Of course I could be wrong and will need this week to be sure. Just seems a bit suspect to me.

[Sparton_LOTB]

Hey Sparton, thanks for keeping the communication up. I don't want to quote myself here, but since it might have eben overlooked two pages ago:

How about you don't lose any points by being attacked but you still lose points when revenged?

To me, it just seems like it's arbitrarily reducing the amount of your defenses that cost you points. At that point I'd rather just reduce the amount of points you lose in general, but I'm still not sure that's the best solution to begin with, and it wouldn't solve the underlying issue of potential outliers at the top of the leaderboard with many less attacks than others (if anything they'd be attacked even less, potentially compounding the problem).

It seems like a vet player with a solid lineup could potentially mill around in the lower ranks facing weaker attack teams, less attacks in general and then hit it hard close to reset and climb rather quickly into the top 100 because of a lower number of DEF matches mixed with a high DEF win %.

While it might never work to get one into the top 25, it still seems broken and unfair to those trying so hard to climb the ranks and getting bogged down in that 1700-2100 traffic jam where everyone is attacking everyone, if this scenario is a possibility.

Possibly, but what good is milling around 1300 and being attacked very infrequently to try and climb to 2300+ in the last 24 hours compared to fighting to stay at 1900 then trying to climb to 2300+ in the last 24 hours? The former player is probably attacked way less throughout the week, but has to spend way more ironite and time to climb up in the last day (the day most relevant to getting end of week rewards), and they're probably getting way less Iron Coins in a given week (and yes a lot of top players don't care about Iron Coins right now, but maximizing income will become very relevant for most people soon).

Edit: I ask because it seems the less I attack and revenge DEF holds insted, the less I am attacked. Of course I could be wrong and will need this week to be sure. Just seems a bit suspect to me.

Well, you as a player have more control over who attacks you based on revenging than who attacks you based on matchmaking, so I would say trying to only fight people you think won't fight back/will lose when retaliating seems like an entirely legitimate strategy, as it focuses on you having a capable attack and defense team and reading the intent/capabilities of your opponent. You risk climbing slower, but it's potentially a positive trade-off.

(I do a fair bit of this myself when my defense list is reasonably populated and I don't think I can do a full 10 sand sweep of my attack list.)

[mjmxiii]

Possibly, but what good is milling around 1300 and being attacked very infrequently to try and climb to 2300+ in the last 24 hours compared to fighting to stay at 1900 then trying to climb to 2300+ in the last 24 hours?

Well, you as a player have more control over who attacks you based on revenging than who attacks you based on matchmaking, so I would say trying to only fight people you think won't fight back/will lose when retaliating seems like an entirely legitimate strategy, as it focuses on you having a capable attack and defense team and reading the intent/capabilities of your opponent. You risk climbing slower, but it's potentially a positive trade-off.

So then it is possible for this type of scenario to happen? Seems to me like it would be more ironite spent to stay in the 1900 VP range throughout the week than it would be going all-in at the end of it (it has been mentioned by others that this is more accurate). Again, how can Askoras final rank at 74 and others mentioned by Nicko be possible (playing less and climbing higher in the ranks)?

I notice it is quite difficult without consistently buying ironite to keep your head above water at 1700 VP but I have not put in the effort that others have to know for sure what would use up more ironite.

I was just reading where you stated that you guys were researching possible ways where people could abuse the system.. this seems like one potential way to bypass the players who are grinding PvP all week and again, somewhat unfair to them.

Thanks again for being so accessible as I think we all just want to keep it fun while keeping it fair and most of us forum lifers are willing to be patient and work with you guys on this thing.

Cheers