Match-up system change - here's your starting point

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

If you really want to get back to normal faction sizes and have competitive battles while maintaining the streak aspect then:

Dump the current matching system, it was never designed for matching small streak teams.

Replace it with and average strength system.

If your 5 person team has an average strength of X stats, then it can be matched to a full team (or any sized team) with an average of the same. Position doesn't mean a lot nor does anything else.

Just match average strength with average strength.

Oh, and keep the + or - tight. Don't be cute with it.

Small streak teams staying low will be virtually pointless. Staying low will be pointless. Small teams will be yesterday's.

It will return to what I assume the developers had in mind.

If the only point generator for teams is hitting a wall, then that's the quickest turn-off you will have in this game.

If the small team streak teams full of medium to big dogs want to play in the little guys league, then the above system will send them up with us, their own kind. It will only take one war to sort them out.

Let the little guys in those great teams down the bottom have fun in their own league. We should stay out of their patch altogether.

Ps, we should be seeing a spattering of FULL teams right through the ranks finishing the streak. Why?, because thats what its designed to do. Instead, we the players (some of us) have blown that idea out of the water. Some of us medium/big dogs have decided to play cute and play in the little guys area. That is grossly unfair and effectively a wrought. I want to see the little guys in FULL teams, who play just as hard, finish streaks. A fair distribution of streak winners right down through the ranks and not as they are now.

For big dogs, there is no right to playing down there, no smart and no strategy to it. It's actually pitiful to read some of their chest beating posts.

Creating a hand full of minis to reduce your team average won't help too much either, they will need to be low powered and almost half the team to have any real effect. That idea won't 'fly' for long.

The point is, get this back to roughly even FULL teams having reasonable battles where all have targets so everyone can have some fun again.

How this potential issue wasn't raised at the meetings before the streak system was deployed is beyond me.

[Birmingham171]

thumbs up =D

[Hakim]

Thank you sir...it is killing the fun for us in the little leagues.

[free play]

Best post on the subject for a long time. Plus 1, and a big 1 at that

[Dutchie]

This change has already been suggested quite a few WD events back by many including myself and repeated after every WD event since streaker prizes were released, yet it has fallen on deaf ears. The reason for not making this change is that SUP1 and 2 average is way more than any other faction. They already have to wait 20 mins or so to match someone in battle and by making this change, they would never get matched. So they would have to widen the average for matching purposes which would defeat the point of making the change in the first place.

I am sure that GREE will have had many meetings on this subject and they would have changed it if they thought it would improve the matching system, but the fact is that they haven't made this change.

Like I said in the other thread, adapt your gameplay. I understand how frustrating it is not being able to hit targets leaving just the CC for people to hit which is boring and no fun at all... I have been there and why I decided to turn from poacher to gamekeeper.

[free play]

There's more than 2 teams playing the game, take the streak rewards out and have more and better rewards on the ranking, problem solved, gree make money and no more streak teams, simple, win win for everyone but the streak teams.

[Dutchie]

There's more than 2 teams playing the game, take the streak rewards out and have more and better rewards on the ranking, problem solved, gree make money and no more streak teams, simple, win win for everyone but the streak teams.

Take things away from a game? Many will complain if they were to do that. Again, this is a change I doubt they will go ahead with...

[free play]

Take things away from a game? Many will complain if they were to do that. Again, this is a change I doubt they will go ahead with...

They have taken so much from the game already and we play on, they have stopped the PvP event and the FLTQs, we still play, we completed those FLTQs with very little or no gold, they stopped them because I'd say they where not making money on them, yes they are still making money from the top 25 teams but a large lump is gone from the rest of us, when that shows up on there graphs, streaks rewards will go and some thing else will be added, you said it urself streak team use very little gold, gree won't like that, now that there seems to be an overload of streak teams.

[Asto]

Great idea. GREE, please take notice

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

I agree, this matching system would have been on the discussion table for a long time.

It's been tweaked time after time with no discernible positive results. The Gree 'Brains Trust' hasn't come through and also didn't see this coming before deployment.

Now on to us top teams. Here is my personal view which is mine alone:

This game involves everybody. I would like every team to be considered with as much gusto as the top handful.

Sometimes we over-complicate things and further complicate them by minor tweaks to an already over-complicated system.

There is NO justification for delays longer than 3-5 minutes for any team. That is the result of the over-complicated system.

I would be happy if the scoreboard was delayed by several minutes. It is already frozen in the last hour remember.

If any team that is so far above everyone in their pools average (nowhere near that yet), then THEY have weighted themselves out of the market. What I am saying is there is a strategy to be used for any team that ever gets close to that. The strategy will involve much more that having all the heavyweights in one team. Now that takes a bit more brain power to work through and should be a feature of good management. If it's NOT done well then we become the victims of ourselves and no one else.

As mentioned in the heading. This is the starting point to the resolution discussion. Try not to 'throw the baby out with the bath water' and PLEASE keep it simple.

[Big C]

@Ysae I applaud you comment that all should be considered. So often when I read the posts all that ever seem to be mentioned are the multimillion stat, vault buying, members of top 10-100 factions. There are those of us in top 4000 factions who do read these boards and play the game. Gree please pay attention to that last sentence: there are a lot of others who play this game.

[killerm2]

how the heck does a 800 ranked team get a top 10 team??make no sense.gree is sitting there grinning ear to ear.

[Bravo Zulu]

The thing is this. They might be matching based on average. I've kept track of the streak teams we have met. My 34 person team had the same stats as the 5 person team. And the 14 person team. And the 7 person team. And the four person team.

It's gotten to the point that when we see a team with 15 or less we know what is going to happen. We take down the wall and PA the DL just in case- but it proves the same. We can have a team average of 100 million and we met a faction of 4 with that average. That means we cannot hit them at all.

So for the matchup to take straight stat averages isn't going to work.

A ratio of stats to team members would. Take two teams with a 100 million stat average. Use the product of the ratio as the "average" and then match accordingly. That way if we had, say, two teams, one with 4 players and one with 34 players Gree would use 100/4= 25 and 100/34= 2.94. The 25 and the 2.94 team ratio averages would never match.

At the same time the four man team would never match with a team of 60 all sporting stats that could beat them. Using the final product of the ratio (25) and giving a margin say of +5 up and -5 , the ratio of overall stats to team members means that four person team could match a team of 3 people minimum and 5 people maximum.

[Cow]

Good point. Also stat inflation is throwing some of the original set up out of whack.

For example-the losses to players with lower stats has grown worse on a total amount, not on a percentage. so before at 1 m u might lose to a player at 800k, now u loose to a player at 16m if you r 20m.

Same idea on WD matchup. I bet if they would lower the % difference when attacking or in wd match ups it would help

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

The thing is this. They might be matching based on average. I've kept track of the streak teams we have met. My 34 person team had the same stats as the 5 person team. And the 14 person team. And the 7 person team. And the four person team.

It's gotten to the point that when we see a team with 15 or less we know what is going to happen. We take down the wall and PA the DL just in case- but it proves the same. We can have a team average of 100 million and we met a faction of 4 with that average. That means we cannot hit them at all.

So for the matchup to take straight stat averages isn't going to work.

A ratio of stats to team members would. Take two teams with a 100 million stat average. Use the product of the ratio as the "average" and then match accordingly. That way if we had, say, two teams, one with 4 players and one with 34 players Gree would use 100/4= 25 and 100/34= 2.94. The 25 and the 2.94 team ratio averages would never match.

At the same time the four man team would never match with a team of 60 all sporting stats that could beat them. Using the final product of the ratio (25) and giving a margin say of +5 up and -5 , the ratio of overall stats to team members means that four person team could match a team of 3 people minimum and 5 people maximum.

You may misunderstand me as I may not have been very clear. You seem to have divided the average a second time. What I mean is to add up the sum of the power, then divide by the total players to obtain an average team power, not the average divided by sum of players again. I think that's what you are doing, I'm not sure. You might be talking about the team SUM & not the team AVERAGE. If I'm wrong please correct.

Not certain you would have a team of 34+ with a 100M stat average (certainly in total you would). I could be wrong, but I have never seen one with an average anywhere near that.

I think what we are seeing written about here is something like this:

Team of 40 (low ranked) all around 1M versus a team of 4 (streak team and ranking deliberately low) all around 10M. The SUM for both teams is around 40M. They are in the same pool under this system.

If it was by way of average then the first team would have a team average of 1M and are pooled with teams (large or small) of a similar average.

Equally, the team with the 10M average are pooled with teams (large or small) of a similar average of 10M.

This would be at least an improvement in battles against like players/teams and not the real imbalance we currently have. It's the closeness of the battles with targets for most/all that creates the strategy and the fun.

Further, the strength & longevity of this game lies with its social aspect (having read the boards). Streak teams add nothing to the social or the games longevity whereas large faction have.

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

Good point. Also stat inflation is throwing some of the original set up out of whack.

For example-the losses to players with lower stats has grown worse on a total amount, not on a percentage. so before at 1 m u might lose to a player at 800k, now u loose to a player at 16m if you r 20m.

Same idea on WD matchup. I bet if they would lower the % difference when attacking or in wd match ups it would help

That's just another tweak in the complex maze of tweaks required to try and level things. We can't keep tweaking it anymore.

Stat inflation should not be the massive issue it's developed into and will continue to get worse unless we change the matching system and just kept it simple rather than over-think it. Levels and matching is heading in the same direction but that's a separate topic altogether for another thread.

[Chesty usmc]

Let's get one thing straight here gree. SUP isn't the only damn team here! Tuff crap if they have to wait for a match up. Oh no they couldn't Finnish the mission bc of wait time?? You won't be hearing hundreds or thousands of people complaining. How about the masses of other teams who can't Finnish or come close to completing these missions because your match system is beyond flawed! It's down right criminal!! We as loyal customers demand that this problem that affect the masses of your customers and not just a few players be resolved by next war! Majority of the people here just would like a fair fight the way the game was more than likely designed in the first place. Pull your heads out of sups butts and get cracking. Sick of how this problem just goes on deaf ears.

[2MblaZ]

oh and we as small team is boring to hit CC when two-three player team all are over 10M defense each, how is it fun?...

[HGF69]

If you really want to get back to normal faction sizes and have competitive battles while maintaining the streak aspect then:

Dump the current matching system, it was never designed for matching small streak teams.

Replace it with and average strength system.

If your 5 person team has an average strength of X stats, then it can be matched to a full team (or any sized team) with an average of the same. Position doesn't mean a lot nor does anything else.

Just match average strength with average strength.

Oh, and keep the + or - tight. Don't be cute with it.

Small streak teams staying low will be virtually pointless. Staying low will be pointless. Small teams will be yesterday's.

It will return to what I assume the developers had in mind.

If the only point generator for teams is hitting a wall, then that's the quickest turn-off you will have in this game.

If the small team streak teams full of medium to big dogs want to play in the little guys league, then the above system will send them up with us, their own kind. It will only take one war to sort them out.

Let the little guys in those great teams down the bottom have fun in their own league. We should stay out of their patch altogether.

Ps, we should be seeing a spattering of FULL teams right through the ranks finishing the streak. Why?, because thats what its designed to do. Instead, we the players (some of us) have blown that idea out of the water. Some of us medium/big dogs have decided to play cute and play in the little guys area. That is grossly unfair and effectively a wrought. I want to see the little guys in FULL teams, who play just as hard, finish streaks. A fair distribution of streak winners right down through the ranks and not as they are now.

For big dogs, there is no right to playing down there, no smart and no strategy to it. It's actually pitiful to read some of their chest beating posts.

Creating a hand full of minis to reduce your team average won't help too much either, they will need to be low powered and almost half the team to have any real effect. That idea won't 'fly' for long.

The point is, get this back to roughly even FULL teams having reasonable battles where all have targets so everyone can have some fun again.

How this potential issue wasn't raised at the meetings before the streak system was deployed is beyond me.

Excellent post but a few things to add.

You do know that the match up system is rigged? See my previous post for how we know and have proved this.

If gree claim it's not then let them post the algorithm here! Gauntlet laid down gree.

The other things that it needs to take account of is that during war we should only ever match a team twice, three times max and never within 5 battles again.

The average system I propose is good and ill post my own simplified one later but because of rogue high/low players, the top 3 and bottom 3 should not contribute to the average, these are known as rogues and it's legitimate for all faction to have such players.

Oh, that assumes there is more than 3 in a team. So how do you deal with these win streak teams?

Simple, you let them queue til there's an appropriate pair.

What if that means they wait hours though?

Tough sh@t.

Let's make this easy fir everyone to understand.

Oh and final thing gree, stop rigging the last match of a win streak! You know what I'm talking about.

[HGF69]

Also battles need to be paired and tiered according to faction size.

Less than 5
6-10
11-15 etc

[Dutchie]

Also battles need to be paired and tiered according to faction size.

Less than 5
6-10
11-15 etc

This will shrink the pool of factions that one can be matched against. This will in turn increase waiting times for ALL factions to be matched. Players will complain that they have to wait a long time after hitting the declare button, which in itself is very frustrating.

It is the same for using the average faction strength as this will severely affect SUP1, SUP2 and TKO as their stats are above and beyond all other factions. GREE will not make changes that will have such adverse effects on the biggest spenders in this game within the top factions.

The matching system can be very frustrating but this is one of the side effects of huge stats inflation as the gap between players widen and so the gap between factions widen too with each event, hence there are more mismatches.

The issue will only worsen over time and I don't think there is a solution to this problem without affecting matching times, which has been a major complaint in the past which they fixed by widening the net.

Calls for changing the matching system has been there for many months now during and after each WD event, yet nothing obvious seems to have changed. I am trying to provide logical reasoning as to why they haven't made these changes.

The WD event is the only event where ALL factions are pitted against one another using certain parameters. It is difficult to incorporate a system that caters for the top factions with players that have stats over 100m and factions whose players have stats around 1m.

For sure they can remove the streaking prizes which will probably stop streaking factions. However, this will not solve the problem of mismatches for the top 250 teams, however lower teams will benefit as they won't face streaker factions but players in top factions will still complain about mismatches.

Nor will using the average strength of a faction fix the issue. Indeed more factions will face other similar strength factions, but this will have an adverse effect on the top 50 factions maybe even top 100 factions as they will have to wait considerably longer to get matched and then those complaints will come rolling in.

So, we have what GREE have given us. You are either in a faction which goes for rank, get mismatched 50% or more of the time, but you are then able to score the big points in the other 50% of matches to get the highest rank possible. All top ranking factions will use gold and in some cases lots of gold to get as high as possible in the ranking.

Or you are in a faction that goes for streaks and rank is not important, so the best tactic is to have a small group of strong players to achieve these goals.

Only SUP1, SUP2 and TKO have the ability to achieve both. So make your choice... I have.

[HGF69]

It will stop low level teams getting paired with win streak teams, if it's based on averages.

Widen the tiers if it's too narrow.

[Bobar]

Team with 3 members should not be considered to be a faction. I like the idea of tiers regarding faction size. And if it´s 5 Minutes to be paired for everyone, thats ok. Maybe even a countdown. Declaring war and then counting down 5 Minutes, no matter if an Opponent is found within seconds. Why not taking some time but matching properly

[HGF69]

It is the same for using the average faction strength as this will severely affect SUP1, SUP2 and TKO as their stats are above and beyond all other factions. GREE will not make changes that will have such adverse effects on the biggest spenders in this game within the top factions.



And that my friend is the issue in a nutshell.

Gree is too focused on the big 3 that it's killing it's own game. It'll milk those top 10 til people get bored and shutdown the game when the profits fall.

That's not too far off either!

With less new players coming in the game is in a downward spiral. Gree's answer is to fast track them by making them stronger quickly which just makes long time players mad and leave.

There is no game strategy here, it's firefighting issues and patching over others.

The solution to this is to listen to those who play the game but we've tried that and failed.

CJ can't handle all the issues here's he's the face/voice on the forum but I'll bet he doesn't get listened to by the head developers/profit greedy strategists when he tries to put our point over. I'm not sure he would tell anyway as those are private matters and I respect that he can't say in public.

What I would say is that an ex employee did speak out once and it was very revealing just how money orientated every part of this game is to the extent that the fun is no longer here and people are going elsewhere.

[Dutchie]

Team with 3 members should not be considered to be a faction. I like the idea of tiers regarding faction size. And if it´s 5 Minutes to be paired for everyone, thats ok. Maybe even a countdown. Declaring war and then counting down 5 Minutes, no matter if an Opponent is found within seconds. Why not taking some time but matching properly

Sometimes it can already take 5 mins to get matched... What you are asking with this 5 mins countdown, no matter if an opponent is found within seconds is basically a logistical nightmare to program in code and I somehow doubt that the current coding logic can handle making such a change.

It is all very well asking for the matching system to do certain things, but then this has to be translated into code... I can assure you it is easier said than done!

[Dutchie]

And that my friend is the issue in a nutshell.

Gree is too focused on the big 3 that it's killing it's own game. It'll milk those top 10 til people get bored and shutdown the game when the profits fall.

That's not too far off either!

With less new players coming in the game is in a downward spiral. Gree's answer is to fast track them by making them stronger quickly which just makes long time players mad and leave.

There is no game strategy here, it's firefighting issues and patching over others.

The solution to this is to listen to those who play the game but we've tried that and failed.

CJ can't handle all the issues here's he's the face/voice on the forum but I'll bet he doesn't get listened to by the head developers/profit greedy strategists when he tries to put our point over. I'm not sure he would tell anyway as those are private matters and I respect that he can't say in public.

What I would say is that an ex employee did speak out once and it was very revealing just how money orientated every part of this game is to the extent that the fun is no longer here and people are going elsewhere.

If your business was getting 80% of revenue from 20% of your customers, who would you focus on?

In the long run, the stats inflation will do more damage to the product than what it was intended for... bringing in new players to the game that can become part competitive, but then again, every product has a lifespan...

Like I said... I am not trying to argue for GREE or not wanting to make changes to the matching system, but I am trying to be realistic and understand why GREE have not implemented any changes to the system using logical reasoning to your arguments.

I'm sorry to be such a party pooper :D

[FYV]

Why not make the matching completely random and increase the WD points players get for beating higher level players (and vice versa)? Then everyone is in the same boat, some you'll win, some you'll lose. If a super faction comes up against a really weak low level faction, they'd struggle to score many points, so whilst little faction takes a hammering, super faction still loses out on opportunity to score a ton of points.

Btw I have a faction of 2 with 1 player at level 230/3m def and 1 at level 50/300k def, and I think all the suggestions above still all work in my favour as they do today, in terms of streaking wins.

[Dutchie]

Why not make the matching completely random and increase the WD points players get for beating higher level players (and vice versa)? Then everyone is in the same boat, some you'll win, some you'll lose. If a super faction comes up against a really weak low level faction, they'd struggle to score many points, so whilst little faction takes a hammering, super faction still loses out on opportunity to score a ton of points.

Btw I have a faction of 2 with 1 player at level 230/3m def and 1 at level 50/300k def, and I think all the suggestions above still all work in my favour as they do today, in terms of streaking wins.

Unless they remove the streaking prizes ;) - but yeah... maybe if they changed the points distribution....

[Plutorules]

I really second this motion. Sick and tired of meating smaller faction that are the same overall atk/def as us. I some cases we win but it really give nothing in points. Would like to expand by having the war spread out over longer time but with breaks inbetween. I.e. Every day during the overall event 2 or 3 time slots that you can sign up for or not. Closes sign up 3 hours before the time slot opens. Then there should be ample time to match up fairly. As it is at the moment we have much fun friday and later on the fun seams to disappear and be replaced by "work"

A small extra Idea: I would love a cup systemt where you are out when you loose and winner meats another winner. It needs a little tweek to make it possible.


Just my 2 cents of the day.

Best wishes Pluto

[HGF69]

If your business was getting 80% of revenue from 20% of your customers, who would you focus on?


This isn't the only business model in life!

You can be customer focused and still make tidy profits. Most successful companies operate this way and are huge because they realise the importance of their customers and treat them well, gree doesn't.

I'm not suggesting they now down to us and implement everything we ask for but what's the most important thing you can do for your stakeholders????

Listen.

Herein I rest my case.

[Dutchie]

This isn't the only business model in life!

You can be customer focused and still make tidy profits. Most successful companies operate this way and are huge because they realise the importance of their customers and treat them well, gree doesn't.

I'm not suggesting they now down to us and implement everything we ask for but what's the most important thing you can do for your stakeholders????

Listen.

Herein I rest my case.

GREE is a public company and shareholders demand increased revenues and profits year on year. If it were a private company, maybe so, but it is not the case. It is the shareholders who are the true stakeholders. In this industry, customers come and go... the entertainment industry is a very fickle business...

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

If your business was getting 80% of revenue from 20% of your customers, who would you focus on?

Like I said... I am not trying to argue for GREE or not wanting to make changes to the matching system, but I am trying to be realistic and understand why GREE have not implemented any changes to the system using logical reasoning to your arguments.

The 80/20 (Pareto's Law - Late 19th century economics) is known to be a misleading simplification of our century. The mobile gaming industry is not mature enough to have any reliable research on buyer share metric.

Usually Pareto's Law is used to justify a strategy that concentrates on the brand's heaviest buyers (e.g. Koch 1999). This strategy has some merit. However making them the dominant focus of business and marketing is not wise. Ignoring the light and non-buyers of a brand or its product is no recipe for growth.

[Dutchie]

The 80/20 (Pareto's Law - Late 19th century economics) is known to be a misleading simplification of our century. The mobile gaming industry is not mature enough enough to have any reliable research on buyer share metric.

Usually Pareto's Law is used to justify a strategy that concentrates on the brand's heaviest buyers (e.g. Koch 1999). This strategy has some merit. However making them the dominant focus of business and marketing is not wise. Ignoring the light and non-buyers of a brand or its product is no recipe for growth.

But what value do non-buyers add to a company? The hope that they will eventually become buyers? In my eyes, the freemium model is flawed. It was introduced as a business model in Asia to stop piracy in gaming... however, it hasn't prevented hackers, nor will it. It also means that gaming companies can use underhand tactics to get the buyers to purchase more than intended and the overall cost of gaming to the average buyer of freemium type games has gone up considerably and certainly does not lend itself to value for money, certainly when you compare it to the older model of paying once up front.

[Plutorules]

The 80/20 (Pareto's Law - Late 19th century economics) is known to be a misleading simplification of our century. The mobile gaming industry is not mature enough to have any reliable research on buyer share metric.

Usually Pareto's Law is used to justify a strategy that concentrates on the brand's heaviest buyers (e.g. Koch 1999). This strategy has some merit. However making them the dominant focus of business and marketing is not wise. Ignoring the light and non-buyers of a brand or its product is no recipe for growth.

The 80/20 can to some extend be apllied to Gree but not this way. 20% of their games will generate 80 % of their revenue. Not 20 % of their customers.

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

The 80/20 can to some extend be apllied to Gree but not this way. 20% of their games will generate 80 % of their revenue. Not 20 % of their customers.

That may of course follow Plutorules, but that's a different measurement to that of Pareto's. Only Gree will know that. Pareto deals strictly with buyers of a particular type of product within a sector over a given period. Its important to measure mobile games (not just Gree) over a lengthy period to really gain any reliable data.

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

But what value do non-buyers add to a company? The hope that they will eventually become buyers? In my eyes, the freemium model is flawed.....

Hi Dutchie, (sorry I missed the post)

Non-buyers can be those you mentioned and also those that fall outside the measurement period.

An interesting example of that is found in a 2 year analysis of a leading brand of Tomato Ketchup (sauce) in the US using IRI and AC Neilsen panel data. The brand was very stable. To cut a long story short, it showed in the first year people that were considered non-buyers. In the second year those non-buyers made a purchase(s). In the second year those non-buyers of the previous 12 months amounted for 14% of the sales volume. Between the 1st years light and non-buyers, their second year purchasing accounted for 30% of the sales volume.

That top 20% in Pareto's was actually 9% who accounted for 34% of the volume. Which leads to the 'buyer moderation law'. You won't hear too much about that from those that it undermines, with their marketing/business strategies. Simply put, those current heavy buyers will become lighter over time and the light and non-buyers will become heavier (Anschuetz 2002).

Sale's growth based on the NDB - Dirichlet distribution dictates that sales growth will not come from relentlessly targeting a particular segment of buyers, while this targeting fantasy continues to pervade business behaviour (e.g. Loyalty cards/ladders & the Conversion Model). When successful, buying increases across the board and in particular the light and non-buyers. Serious reliable academic studies of the real environment show that loyalty type programs have little to no effect on buyer incremental volume. In contrast, price promotions do increase sales but are skewed towards the heaviest buyers. In spite of a lot of volume during the promotional period, sales quickly collapse at or below normal levels before stabilising.

What does this all mean (that's probably as clear as mud). Putting all your eggs in one segment basket, does not work.

The demographics: in a recent commissioned study paper released about 2 weeks ago, the demographics of mobile gaming is much older than what marketing and business decisions has been based upon previously. There is a significant and growing 55+ years age bracket.

Oh, the freemium model. I make no comment on the reasons for the model except to say that all models have their flaws and are still evolving. This industry is, in real terms 'brand new' and no different.

[General Nu]

I agree with the original post but... it`s all irrelevant. Gree has taken the focus off of war weekend and have created all these side shows with better units. The results of these side shows are not posted or official and there are recruiters out there that will say anything. I run a top 250 faction and that is verifiable by the winners list. Now I`m recruiting and all I hear is ``how many bosses did you get?`` Like a sucker I tell them the truth. I`m not going to lie. Mean while joe blow running a top 1000 faction is going around claiming to get all bosses and all fltq. I saw a faction that placed low 400`s claiming they got all the consecutive wins. You would be a lot higher in the rankings! New players need to get a clue and Gree needs to lower the reward units for these side shows OR post the results.

And btw... Guess how many players asked about the raid boss event where everyone on my team gained over half a million stat... Zero. New players just don`t have the fundamental game knowledge anymore. It`s just one circus to the next for them.

[free play]

I agree with the original post but... it`s all irrelevant. Gree has taken the focus off of war weekend and have created all these side shows with better units. The results of these side shows are not posted or official and there are recruiters out there that will say anything. I run a top 250 faction and that is verifiable by the winners list. Now I`m recruiting and all I hear is ``how many bosses did you get?`` Like a sucker I tell them the truth. I`m not going to lie. Mean while joe blow running a top 1000 faction is going around claiming to get all bosses and all fltq. I saw a faction that placed low 400`s claiming they got all the consecutive wins. You would be a lot higher in the rankings! New players need to get a clue and Gree needs to lower the reward units for these side shows OR post the results.

And btw... Guess how many players asked about the raid boss event where everyone on my team gained over half a million stat... Zero. New players just don`t have the fundamental game knowledge anymore. It`s just one circus to the next for them.

Your so right, everything has changed, so how are yourselfs finding the matchups, we where a 250 faction until the streak teams came along, now we are pushed out to 1000 because we can't hit anything other than the cc,

Here's a thought, keep the streak rewards but tie them in with the medals and put the last medal in the top 150 reward, now that will make things interesting

[free play]

I agree with the original post but... it`s all irrelevant. Gree has taken the focus off of war weekend and have created all these side shows with better units. The results of these side shows are not posted or official and there are recruiters out there that will say anything. I run a top 250 faction and that is verifiable by the winners list. Now I`m recruiting and all I hear is ``how many bosses did you get?`` Like a sucker I tell them the truth. I`m not going to lie. Mean while joe blow running a top 1000 faction is going around claiming to get all bosses and all fltq. I saw a faction that placed low 400`s claiming they got all the consecutive wins. You would be a lot higher in the rankings! New players need to get a clue and Gree needs to lower the reward units for these side shows OR post the results.

And btw... Guess how many players asked about the raid boss event where everyone on my team gained over half a million stat... Zero. New players just don`t have the fundamental game knowledge anymore. It`s just one circus to the next for them.

Your so right, everything has changed, so how are yourselfs finding the matchups, we where a 250 faction until the streak teams came along, now we are pushed out to 1000 because we can't hit anything other than the cc,

Here's a thought, keep the streak rewards but tie them in with the medals and put the last medal in the top 150 reward, now that will make things interesting

[free play]

I agree with the original post but... it`s all irrelevant. Gree has taken the focus off of war weekend and have created all these side shows with better units. The results of these side shows are not posted or official and there are recruiters out there that will say anything. I run a top 250 faction and that is verifiable by the winners list. Now I`m recruiting and all I hear is ``how many bosses did you get?`` Like a sucker I tell them the truth. I`m not going to lie. Mean while joe blow running a top 1000 faction is going around claiming to get all bosses and all fltq. I saw a faction that placed low 400`s claiming they got all the consecutive wins. You would be a lot higher in the rankings! New players need to get a clue and Gree needs to lower the reward units for these side shows OR post the results.

And btw... Guess how many players asked about the raid boss event where everyone on my team gained over half a million stat... Zero. New players just don`t have the fundamental game knowledge anymore. It`s just one circus to the next for them.

Your so right, everything has changed, so how are yourselfs finding the matchups, we where a 250 faction until the streak teams came along, now we are pushed out to 1000 because we can't hit anything other than the cc,

Here's a thought, keep the streak rewards but tie them in with the medals and put the last medal in the top 150 reward, now that will make things interesting

[Bravo Zulu]

You may misunderstand me as I may not have been very clear. You seem to have divided the average a second time. What I mean is to add up the sum of the power, then divide by the total players to obtain an average team power, not the average divided by sum of players again. I think that's what you are doing, I'm not sure. You might be talking about the team SUM & not the team AVERAGE. If I'm wrong please correct.

Not certain you would have a team of 34+ with a 100M stat average (certainly in total you would). I could be wrong, but I have never seen one with an average anywhere near that.

I think what we are seeing written about here is something like this:

Team of 40 (low ranked) all around 1M versus a team of 4 (streak team and ranking deliberately low) all around 10M. The SUM for both teams is around 40M. They are in the same pool under this system.

If it was by way of average then the first team would have a team average of 1M and are pooled with teams (large or small) of a similar average.

Equally, the team with the 10M average are pooled with teams (large or small) of a similar average of 10M.

This would be at least an improvement in battles against like players/teams and not the real imbalance we currently have. It's the closeness of the battles with targets for most/all that creates the strategy and the fun.

Further, the strength & longevity of this game lies with its social aspect (having read the boards). Streak teams add nothing to the social or the games longevity whereas large faction have.

I'm pretty sure it was just a language glitch and we are saying the same thing. I agree that the thing that matters most is the average of the members of the team- not the team total.

Yes I was talking about in total my faction has 121 million def stats actually. Which works out to about 3.5 million per team member on average, although our def range is 13 mil to 335k. And we have actually hit 5 and 6 person teams with the same total def stats. They had way less of a range, generally between 16-30 mil, and we couldn't touch them.

The irony is we had thought it best to get rid of dead stat weight so we could stop getting matched with the 60 person teams that out gunned us. But that dropped us squarely in the lap of these monster small teams. Lol. Back to the mathematics drawing board for us.

I think in the end the matching system just can't achieve perfect matches. Any way we cut it, sometimes we blow the other team out of the water or are sitting ducks ourselves. And that happens almost as often. Rarely do we have a good competitive matchup were we are well suited and give each other a run for our money.

On the whole, I think streaks were a good idea to help teams that couldn't make it into the top "whatever" get good prizes. But it turned out to give the big fish a way to be free of the big factions and still do well. Meanwhile, those of us average joe players are still finding it hard to swim in our own tiers.

With time and the ability to get better prizes, though, those small teams will enter the top fray again. There stats will continue to gain exponentially compared to my faction's stats. I guess we just wait it out until those same tiny teams are too high to match with us.

The only problem is keeping people interested until that happens. We have lost many good players over the past few months, it's a shame.

[Dutchie]

Hi Dutchie, (sorry I missed the post)

Non-buyers can be those you mentioned and also those that fall outside the measurement period.

An interesting example of that is found in a 2 year analysis of a leading brand of Tomato Ketchup (sauce) in the US using IRI and AC Neilsen panel data. The brand was very stable. To cut a long story short, it showed in the first year people that were considered non-buyers. In the second year those non-buyers made a purchase(s). In the second year those non-buyers of the previous 12 months amounted for 14% of the sales volume. Between the 1st years light and non-buyers, their second year purchasing accounted for 30% of the sales volume.

That top 20% in Pareto's was actually 9% who accounted for 34% of the volume. Which leads to the 'buyer moderation law'. You won't hear too much about that from those that it undermines, with their marketing/business strategies. Simply put, those current heavy buyers will become lighter over time and the light and non-buyers will become heavier (Anschuetz 2002).

Sale's growth based on the NDB - Dirichlet distribution dictates that sales growth will not come from relentlessly targeting a particular segment of buyers, while this targeting fantasy continues to pervade business behaviour (e.g. Loyalty cards/ladders & the Conversion Model). When successful, buying increases across the board and in particular the light and non-buyers. Serious reliable academic studies of the real environment show that loyalty type programs have little to no effect on buyer incremental volume. In contrast, price promotions do increase sales but are skewed towards the heaviest buyers. In spite of a lot of volume during the promotional period, sales quickly collapse at or below normal levels before stabilising.

What does this all mean (that's probably as clear as mud). Putting all your eggs in one segment basket, does not work.

The demographics: in a recent commissioned study paper released about 2 weeks ago, the demographics of mobile gaming is much older than what marketing and business decisions has been based upon previously. There is a significant and growing 55+ years age bracket.

Oh, the freemium model. I make no comment on the reasons for the model except to say that all models have their flaws and are still evolving. This industry is, in real terms 'brand new' and no different.

Interesting study and is it that the non-buyers start buying because of advertising or how else do they suddenly choose to start buying the product? Maybe through promotions that make it cheaper or price equivalent to the non-branded product?

As you state, the mobile gaming industry is still in its infancy, so how does that relate to the example you have given considering one is a tangible product albeit consumed whereas the other is a non-tangible product for entertainment purposes. Wouldn't customer behaviour differ between the two types of product?

I agree that the demographics in gaming, especially mobile gaming has a much older audience compared to dedicated gaming platforms mainly because of easy access with the ubiquitous mobile phone platform and games that also cater for very short periods of play, minutes rather than hours which has opened up gaming to a bigger audience.

However, GREE have many reports that show exactly what is spent on their games and where. They use these reports to "tinker" with the game to hopefully increase spending. Sometimes it has worked and sometimes it hasn't. The stats inflation is a good example of trying to entice the non-buyers and light buyers to start purchasing more as they see a rapid increase in their stats. Although in reality it is just false economy because they will never be able to catch up the established players who continue to spend, and at the same time it alienates the existing customers that have already heavily spent their hard earned cash on the product only to see their previous expenditure become literally valueless, unless of course they continue to spend. It is a vicious circle.

Certain products have a very long life, but technology products are life limited. In the context of games, newer versions or different types of the same genre are released and the gaming companies try to entice the existing customer base to move to the newer version or new game.

GREE have released other games but in my eyes with the poor player experience, not the matching system per se, but other requested functionality like the sorting of our units, have been ignored as they don't increase GREE revenues, it shows that they don't have the customer's best interest at heart and why I will not choose to play another GREE game in the future once this game comes to an end. My perception of GREE is of a company that tries to milk their customers for what they can get, but in the long run this will hurt their bottom line.

I recommend GTA Online... I am having a blast playing this game and I have yet to make an in-app purchase as this is not needed to progress or to be the best within the game.

I need to tend to my Sunday Roast :)

Have a great day!

[Kill Joy]

even before streak teams came into the picture, players have wanted matching to be based on average.

[Bravo Zulu]

Hi Dutchie, (sorry I missed the post)

Non-buyers can be those you mentioned and also those that fall outside the measurement period.

An interesting example of that is found in a 2 year analysis of a leading brand of Tomato Ketchup (sauce) in the US using IRI and AC Neilsen panel data. The brand was very stable. To cut a long story short, it showed in the first year people that were considered non-buyers. In the second year those non-buyers made a purchase(s). In the second year those non-buyers of the previous 12 months amounted for 14% of the sales volume. Between the 1st years light and non-buyers, their second year purchasing accounted for 30% of the sales volume.

That top 20% in Pareto's was actually 9% who accounted for 34% of the volume. Which leads to the 'buyer moderation law'. You won't hear too much about that from those that it undermines, with their marketing/business strategies. Simply put, those current heavy buyers will become lighter over time and the light and non-buyers will become heavier (Anschuetz 2002).

Sale's growth based on the NDB - Dirichlet distribution dictates that sales growth will not come from relentlessly targeting a particular segment of buyers, while this targeting fantasy continues to pervade business behaviour (e.g. Loyalty cards/ladders & the Conversion Model). When successful, buying increases across the board and in particular the light and non-buyers. Serious reliable academic studies of the real environment show that loyalty type programs have little to no effect on buyer incremental volume. In contrast, price promotions do increase sales but are skewed towards the heaviest buyers. In spite of a lot of volume during the promotional period, sales quickly collapse at or below normal levels before stabilising.

What does this all mean (that's probably as clear as mud). Putting all your eggs in one segment basket, does not work.

The demographics: in a recent commissioned study paper released about 2 weeks ago, the demographics of mobile gaming is much older than what marketing and business decisions has been based upon previously. There is a significant and growing 55+ years age bracket.

Oh, the freemium model. I make no comment on the reasons for the model except to say that all models have their flaws and are still evolving. This industry is, in real terms 'brand new' and no different.

I love that you cite.

I also see this trend. Everyone should see it. Everywhere people are spending less and less, looking for ways to keep the stats without spending. That's why the streak teams. Almost without exception every person I know spends less than a year ago when wars started. We used to be a heavy gold spending faction, but now we find no fun in spending our real money. The longer we play the game, certainly the less money we spend. Gree needs to focus on the newbies, who might be willing to spend who haven't seen the devaluation of their units yet. That's not a complaint, it's just a fact. It has to keep going. But for most of us now, spending is throwing good money after bad. We can't spend enough anymore.

[ploop]

post #'s 36 and 42

TL;DR extras

[hoho]

Hi Dutchie, (sorry I missed the post)

Non-buyers can be those you mentioned and also those that fall outside the measurement period.

An interesting example of that is found in a 2 year analysis of a leading brand of Tomato Ketchup (sauce) in the US using IRI and AC Neilsen panel data. The brand was very stable. To cut a long story short, it showed in the first year people that were considered non-buyers. In the second year those non-buyers made a purchase(s). In the second year those non-buyers of the previous 12 months amounted for 14% of the sales volume. Between the 1st years light and non-buyers, their second year purchasing accounted for 30% of the sales volume.

That top 20% in Pareto's was actually 9% who accounted for 34% of the volume. Which leads to the 'buyer moderation law'. You won't hear too much about that from those that it undermines, with their marketing/business strategies. Simply put, those current heavy buyers will become lighter over time and the light and non-buyers will become heavier (Anschuetz 2002).

Sale's growth based on the NDB - Dirichlet distribution dictates that sales growth will not come from relentlessly targeting a particular segment of buyers, while this targeting fantasy continues to pervade business behaviour (e.g. Loyalty cards/ladders & the Conversion Model). When successful, buying increases across the board and in particular the light and non-buyers. Serious reliable academic studies of the real environment show that loyalty type programs have little to no effect on buyer incremental volume. In contrast, price promotions do increase sales but are skewed towards the heaviest buyers. In spite of a lot of volume during the promotional period, sales quickly collapse at or below normal levels before stabilising.

What does this all mean (that's probably as clear as mud). Putting all your eggs in one segment basket, does not work.

The demographics: in a recent commissioned study paper released about 2 weeks ago, the demographics of mobile gaming is much older than what marketing and business decisions has been based upon previously. There is a significant and growing 55+ years age bracket.

Oh, the freemium model. I make no comment on the reasons for the model except to say that all models have their flaws and are still evolving. This industry is, in real terms 'brand new' and no different.

Like +1 .

[free play]

This post should be bumped up to the top again for all to read

[Eduard]

I made already made such a statement in a new post, but I fully agree.
This post should stay at the top.

Lets hope something is gonna change, because players are not happy, only a few goldspenders.

Thanks for the post, great work

[free play]

Bump it up

[Luuzer]

But what value do non-buyers add to a company? The hope that they will eventually become buyers? In my eyes, the freemium model is flawed. It was introduced as a business model in Asia to stop piracy in gaming... however, it hasn't prevented hackers, nor will it. It also means that gaming companies can use underhand tactics to get the buyers to purchase more than intended and the overall cost of gaming to the average buyer of freemium type games has gone up considerably and certainly does not lend itself to value for money, certainly when you compare it to the older model of paying once up front.

let me put it simply this way....if there are NO free players, then there wouldnt be gold players either. We, the free players, are the "meat" for the gold players. Gold players would get tired if they where only by themselves.....

[Arc Burn]

Just playing Devils advocate. Streakers will streak regardless.

If its based on average you will then see teams with 10 guys 20m+ and 30 lvl5 players with sub 1000 stats. Sure those guys are targets, but the CC would prob give more points.

It is a good idea. I'm just saying there is a loophole. However, this solution might solve the majority of people's complaints.

[jester1989]

lol........................

[TheOracle]

Thanks for all the feedback. Our World Domination team is constantly looking at data and tweaking the algorithms to try to make matchups fair while not taking ages to match up factions. It's not an easy job at all with thousands of factions of all different sizes, strengths, and spend-levels. There's a human bias that makes you notice when you're in negative situations more than when you're in positive situations. You might submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction you can't beat, but you don't submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction who can't beat you.

What I will tell you is this:

We receive complaints from the strongest factions about long match-up times.
We receive complaints from the strongest players about not getting enough points from weaker players.
We receive complaints from the weaker factions about getting matched up with strong factions.
We receive complaints from the weaker players about not being able to beat stronger players.

It's all been a balancing act where no one is happy because both stronger and weaker factions face their own advantages and disadvantages. It's not ideal, but we haven't come up with any tweaks that can make match-ups perfect for all factions. The upside is that we're not going to forsake any group and only cater to weaker or stronger factions.

So please keep giving us your feedback and we'll keep working on tweaking the algorithms, but any suggestions that only help factions of your strength and hurt factions of other strength are not considered at all.

[free play]

Thanks for all the feedback. Our World Domination team is constantly looking at data and tweaking the algorithms to try to make matchups fair while not taking ages to match up factions. It's not an easy job at all with thousands of factions of all different sizes, strengths, and spend-levels. There's a human bias that makes you notice when you're in negative situations more than when you're in positive situations. You might submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction you can't beat, but you don't submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction who can't beat you.

What I will tell you is this:

We receive complaints from the strongest factions about long match-up times.
We receive complaints from the strongest players about not getting enough points from weaker players.
We receive complaints from the weaker factions about getting matched up with strong factions.
We receive complaints from the weaker players about not being able to beat stronger players.

It's all been a balancing act where no one is happy because both stronger and weaker factions face their own advantages and disadvantages. It's not ideal, but we haven't come up with any tweaks that can make match-ups perfect for all factions. The upside is that we're not going to forsake any group and only cater to weaker or stronger factions.

So please keep giving us your feedback and we'll keep working on tweaking the algorithms, but any suggestions that only help factions of your strength and hurt factions of other strength are not considered at all.

Thanks for the reply, not sure what your going to do to fix the problem, it's the big streak tesms that are the problem, there untouchable, but maybe havering much better rewards in the ranking and lesser rewards for the streaks mite help,

Also how do you explain going up against some one 700 place above you in he ranking, it seems that the main method that's used for match ups is total faction strength,

Some thing has to change, every one is but the streak and top teams are loosing interest in the WD event, which means loss of earnings for gree. We want the fun and competition back in the game

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

We want the fun and competition back in the game

Well said Free Play. You have identified the real issue here with a significant % of players (based upon my reading of the boards).

+1

[U Mad?]

For Sure somthing has to happen. We were ranked in the top 100 when we matched SUP 2 when they were ranked 2 fair? I guess if they have to face someone wish it was not us 5519 to 1202189. Followed that one with a TKO steak faction then Sup steak faction. Then a good mach followed by more streak factions. Point is We non free players and free players are kind of getting shafted here.
What they say above sounds good is it??? hell if I know butni dont really know all the inter workings of the game.

[Ubnvs2]

It there any reason that it couldn't be based on the WD points at the time of the declaration? If we declare war the match up based on the 20 teams above and below you on the WD point table at the time?

[DFI]

Thanks for all the feedback. Our World Domination team is constantly looking at data and tweaking the algorithms to try to make matchups fair while not taking ages to match up factions. It's not an easy job at all with thousands of factions of all different sizes, strengths, and spend-levels. There's a human bias that makes you notice when you're in negative situations more than when you're in positive situations. You might submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction you can't beat, but you don't submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction who can't beat you.

What I will tell you is this:

We receive complaints from the strongest factions about long match-up times.
We receive complaints from the strongest players about not getting enough points from weaker players.
We receive complaints from the weaker factions about getting matched up with strong factions.
We receive complaints from the weaker players about not being able to beat stronger players.

It's all been a balancing act where no one is happy because both stronger and weaker factions face their own advantages and disadvantages. It's not ideal, but we haven't come up with any tweaks that can make match-ups perfect for all factions. The upside is that we're not going to forsake any group and only cater to weaker or stronger factions.

So please keep giving us your feedback and we'll keep working on tweaking the algorithms, but any suggestions that only help factions of your strength and hurt factions of other strength are not considered at all.

Here's a few suggestions: (1) get rid of the streak, if you can't fix the matchup situation, at least you can reduce the number of complaints about being matched up with sup at the end of a streak, or eliminate the unit boost; (2) make the boss event the last event before the WD event and lock in teams prior to the boss event; (3) make teams a min of 20 to participate in the WD event; (4) raise the lv cap to 600, while high lv players complain about points, they can do events without worrying about leveling up; (5) reduce the benefit of points due to level difference, make it based on strength only; (6) run a parallel game, call it MW2. Everyone starts over by creating a new profile. If you want, gree can allow gold transfers one way just once. Then slowly kill off the current game by introducing more glitches and doing no quality assurance. This game needs a major reset, I hope everyone, players and the developers have learned something and we all start over.

[krabbie]

Totally agree with this thread, we encountered just 2 normal teams on the last day and fell out of the top 150 because there just weren't any targets we could hit. That took away all the fun from WD. Matching factions should be based on average strength of faction members!

[busted]

I have read through this entire post and have seen many good suggestions and arguments for the change they desire. I just wanna throw my 2 cents to try and get some changes made.

I agree that matchups should be done on the faction average strength vs total strength. During the last war we finished in the top 150 and had multiple stretches where we faced streak teams and no one in our faction could beat the other team. It is hard to get people to come back hour after hour in hopes we might catch a break and get a matchup with someone we could beat. I believe 1 weekend were streak teams had to match agianst factions who can beat them every battle instead of just on the battle to complete a streak and they will be no more. I also saw someone post that making matchups based on average would make SUPs matchups even slower. To that I say, they are SUP, you could do matchups based on any stat in the game and I would imagine they would have a hard time finding fair matchups. I actually pushed the botton that matched us agianst SUP when we were ranked 203 and they were 20. Our whole faction just laughed and we made bets on who would be at 1k losses after the matchup.

On a side note. I would really like to see gree make it so the top 5 teams from the previous war fight each other at least once. I have never been in a top 10 faction but I read alot on the forum and it seems some top factions are able to avoid each other. I understand this might make an issue, it wojld just be nice to see

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

During the last war we finished in the top 150 and had multiple stretches where we faced streak teams and no one in our faction could beat the other team. It is hard to get people to come back hour after hour in hopes we might catch a break and get a matchup with someone we could beat.......

That's the point that's been made time and time again by mid and lower ranked teams.

People used to go without some sleep to be ready for a great battle. A great battle is now becoming rare. Why bother coming back hour after hour.

No different in the tops teams (see below for some of the reasons). Hardly have a real battle! The guys in the middle and lower ranks have REAL battles. Mid ranks strategy would eat any high ranked team if that high ranked team was placed against you at your level and was a mirror image of your stats and low gold. Don't be fooled.

Why do the mid and lower ranked teams even bother with large factions. That will definitely assist in killing the event if they all decide enough is enough and split.


....it seems some top factions are able to avoid each other.

Another good point. We (the players) should not be able to watch a near 'live' scoreboard to time the battle. The scoreboard is frozen in the final hour. So why is there a need to have a near live scoreboard at other times. DELAY IT so we still get the effect of it being live when its actually delayed.

Some of our top (a small) handful of teams complain to authorities about matching times. There are two things we need to do for ourselves.

1. Stop delaying the push of the button until the teams we don't want to face are active. These are our direct rivals. The strongest teams should battle against each other. If we are playing with the big dogs THEN LET'S PLAY WITH THEM and not manipulate a dream run for all of us. Manipulating the declaration significantly reduces the available teams in our grouping. How can any of us complain when we do that and also when we communicate between our own teams so we don't ever meet each other. I believe that if we play with the big dogs then that's what we MUST do and stop running scared with our tails between our legs. Let's be as bold as the lower ranked teams and just take on all comers. Matching top teams would be far easier and quicker if those teams stopped the manipulation. The very top teams are the victims of themselves and not the matching system that has been changed for us because of our complaints. Now everyone is effected.

2. If we stopped sending out streak teams, that would assist the remaining 90% of the factions by allowing them reasonable game play. We are the fun killers of this game and if Gree placed a cap on faction power then I would vote for it, albeit reluctantly. We should be the trustees of fair & good gameplay. All we have done is totally abuse that position of trust.

Lastly, go through your records and see what obvious alliance teams don't ever battle against each other. Make sure they do.

[ardiamonds]

gree has destroyed the game, I wonder if they even care or listen to us. From the events to war they have "tweaked" the system so much I doubt if they would know where to begin. the newest event with the folders is a good clue. I spent 8000 energy for two folders! in war, we came across 10mil defense with our average attack of 1.5 mil. gree seems to just cater to the rich or the ones who think they are rich by spending thousands of dollars for a few things that do not exist. I am sure I am close to the point of retiring from a lopsided game that at best have given me a couple of "friends" out of it. such a sad state that this company does not understand the first rule of business, keep the customer happy.

[Dixie_Boy]

It is the same for using the average faction strength as this will severely affect SUP1, SUP2 and TKO as their stats are above and beyond all other factions. GREE will not make changes that will have such adverse effects on the biggest spenders in this game within the top factions.

Few problems are "unsolvable" and at times you have to do "best effort". If you go to average stat matching but remove the +/- factor, then you can simply pick the next average stat team that is waiting to be matched (+/- 1 in sorted list).

That eliminates the wait times (unless no other team is waiting to be matched - unlikely). Will you still get lopsided matches? It's possible...if teams collude to ensure they are not declaring while another team is waiting to be matched (which, allegedly, they already do). But, in general, you get paired with similar strength teams.

The average stats system can also be gamed. Take a team of 20. 10 have 25m and the other 1k...what's the average? Roughly 12.5m. No pit them against against another team where every player on team is about 12.5m. Can they hit someone? Sure those lvl 1 with 1k stats. Are they going to get points? No. And guess what, people complain.

You can't get a perfect matching system, but it can be better. And people will still complain regardless of what system is in place.

[CC1]

I apologize if this idea was already mentioned or shot down. I didn't read every single post.

With that said, it seems to me to discourage streak teams that take the fun out of battle, increase the points for the command center. A team of 30 matched to a 10 person team is ridiculous. To leverage the strength in numbers aspect of a larger team let their CC points count more. After one or two wars, streak teams will realize they're not making the streaks for which they were designed and created. Then there's no incentive to have one.

Someone in here also pointed out they don't use gold for command center hits. We are the same way. The measly points aren't worth it.

[free play]

I apologize if this idea was already mentioned or shot down. I didn't read every single post.

With that said, it seems to me to discourage streak teams that take the fun out of battle, increase the points for the command center. A team of 30 matched to a 10 person team is ridiculous. To leverage the strength in numbers aspect of a larger team let their CC points count more. After one or two wars, streak teams will realize they're not making the streaks for which they were designed and created. Then there's no incentive to have one.

Someone in here also pointed out they don't use gold for command center hits. We are the same way. The measly points aren't worth it.

It's been said, I think at this stage every thug possible gas been suggested and gree will not change the system they use, the only hope we have is that by looking at the rewards for rank positions, they have been the best since the streaks where added so hopfully the streak rewards will not be so enticing,

I think that's all we can hope for from gree on this issue, they need there top 50 fighting, not waiting for long periods of time to get matched, no top 50 fighting means no money so the rest of us will suffer unless you strong enough for a streak team

[DFI]

How about automating the declare function? Every war will be an hour and they will all be back to back. They start at the top of the hour in PST and everyone will play the same number of wars. The system will pick your opponents and factions will not be able to game the system by avoiding each other. Freezing the leaderboard will not help as intel sharing is good enough that factions would be able to recreate the leaderboard real time. Imagine if the system forced sup to fight each other. Ahh, competition.

[Dutchie]

I think people are also forgetting the fact that for every winner in a battle, there is a loser. It seems to me that many are expecting to win many or all of their battles. Hopefully the changes that GREE said that they would implement in the matching algorithm will address the problem to some extent, but don't forget that the problem will never be eradicated as if GREE found a magic solution that enables everyone to get a perfect match all of the time.

[free play]

I think people are also forgetting the fact that for every winner in a battle, there is a loser. It seems to me that many are expecting to win many or all of their battles. Hopefully the changes that GREE said that they would implement in the matching algorithm will address the problem to some extent, but don't forget that the problem will never be eradicated as if GREE found a magic solution that enables everyone to get a perfect match all of the time.

You maybe right Duchie, allot of the posts are about wanting to win, through out all my posts on the subject in the many treads, I have said it's not about winning, it's about having targets to hit and having fun and competition back in WD,

I know you have found fun in WD again but we are all not strong enough for streak teams, I think there will be some small changes and there will be more streak tesms than last war, but we will carry on fighting what ever happens because the 1 in 7 battles we had that we had targets to hit was great fun even though we lost half of them.

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

Anyone seen this before?

It relates to this thread. Looks like we have some trophy winners.

http://omgili.com/thread/jHIAmI4hxg95Sh6QFXssegpwoDYY08QJQO_mrXjbC4NvW4Sf3t za.0v12lUVidIDdntTvU.FLbbkSQlKaE6xEQ--/

[Mr Big C]

My idea to get in more wars in is to have a concede button. You come up against a streak team (which we came across and only 1 person in our faction could beat their weakest person), you should have an option to just concede and look for another war. You know you are going to lose and whats the use in just sitting waiting for that match to be over. In war each side always has the option to wave the white flag, so why not in this game.

[free play]

My idea to get in more wars in is to have a concede button. You come up against a streak team (which we came across and only 1 person in our faction could beat their weakest person), you should have an option to just concede and look for another war. You know you are going to lose and whats the use in just sitting waiting for that match to be over. In war each side always has the option to wave the white flag, so why not in this game.

Good idea but it won't work because every team that you can loose against gets a different tally of points so there would be no way to have a set amount of point to get a bye in a battle

[Luuzer]

Thanks for all the feedback. Our World Domination team is constantly looking at data and tweaking the algorithms to try to make matchups fair while not taking ages to match up factions. It's not an easy job at all with thousands of factions of all different sizes, strengths, and spend-levels. There's a human bias that makes you notice when you're in negative situations more than when you're in positive situations. You might submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction you can't beat, but you don't submit a ticket when you get matched up with a faction who can't beat you.

What I will tell you is this:

We receive complaints from the strongest factions about long match-up times.
We receive complaints from the strongest players about not getting enough points from weaker players.
We receive complaints from the weaker factions about getting matched up with strong factions.
We receive complaints from the weaker players about not being able to beat stronger players.

It's all been a balancing act where no one is happy because both stronger and weaker factions face their own advantages and disadvantages. It's not ideal, but we haven't come up with any tweaks that can make match-ups perfect for all factions. The upside is that we're not going to forsake any group and only cater to weaker or stronger factions.

So please keep giving us your feedback and we'll keep working on tweaking the algorithms, but any suggestions that only help factions of your strength and hurt factions of other strength are not considered at all.

its very simple, lose "kill the streak code" and there will be MUCH less complaints. Right now Ur making everyone mad cause of the kill streak code :(

[spencecm]

yea while im not on a streak team i can say they have made wars exiting after all they do say mw is a game of strategy i have mult accts in multiple factions and nothing is more exhilarating then getting the team together and pounding these streak teams command centers in the last seconds and taking the win. My faction has been able to beat at least 25 streak teams this way and i love to c them cry on groupme forums. dont complain just because ur faction is unorganized and disfunctioal find a new one. ((;

[spencecm]

the only gripe i have about match ups is the clear gree strategy of throwing way overqualified and much higher ranked teams at factions toward the end of streaks this is with most certainty a gold digging strategy by gree and its wrong.
for example if going for a 6in a row streak we c teams ranked somewhere within 100 over or below our ranks for the 1st 5 then the sixth 99% of the time the opponent will be ranked several hundred places higher i have seen this in multiple factions and its bad business!!

[Snow Bunny]

If they change it to average strength, Have ur 15 man streak team with 30m stats a piece have 45 level 2 accounts on the team as well. Ur average attack is prob same as top 100 team and the only people u can beat will give u the same as hitting a CC. Who would have thought of that!!!?

[DFI]

That's why I suggested that teams be locked sooner, so that if you want to play it that way, you are also stuck with a bunch of weak players when you do the bosses, etc. While this may seem draconian, locking up teams a week prior to war can change behavior.

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

If they change it to average strength, Have ur 15 man streak team with 30m stats a piece have 45 level 2 accounts on the team as well. Ur average attack is prob same as top 100 team and the only people u can beat will give u the same as hitting a CC. Who would have thought of that!!!?

A team of 15 together at 30 mil each. I haven't seen one.

plus 45 minis. phew!

If anyone has seen one of these abominable snow man teams let us know.

If they were up against a T100+ team they would get rolled OFTEN ENOUGH.

Their 60 (15 that can score say average 300 each hit) V a standard team of 60 that can all score say 100 per hit) The streak team scores 4,500 at 1 hit from each player. The normal team scores 6,000 from 1 hit from each player. On that scenario the non-streak team is in front. The non-streak team has to average better than 75 points each hit to beat them assuming the streak team CAN actually average 300 every hit.

If they can't then Gree does a simple tweak to the size of the 'peanut' rather than a handful of tweaks on a broken & confused serious mis-matching system that we seem happy to stick with.

The least points for hitting any LLP should always be around 1.5 x CC points. Around 120(ish). Let them try that mini idea and they will get rolled OFTEN ENOUGH over 50+ battles. You will never see them again.

[Luuzer]

yea while im not on a streak team i can say they have made wars exiting after all they do say mw is a game of strategy i have mult accts in multiple factions and nothing is more exhilarating then getting the team together and pounding these streak teams command centers in the last seconds and taking the win. My faction has been able to beat at least 25 streak teams this way and i love to c them cry on groupme forums. dont complain just because ur faction is unorganized and disfunctioal find a new one. ((;

yeah, U like to spend gold to hit command centre. There are factions like that out there and thats why greedy dont remove the code...cause there are people who will spend hitting command centre instead of rising the issue. Many teams just see noone is beatable and come back for next fight....if they come back. Having NOONE to hit at end of streaks....its no fun WD at all.

[Speed ump]

Ysae has some solid ideas. Those of you who complain that gree is catering to the top teams, I have no idea where you come up with that. We feel the opposite may be true because there are more people down lower. We have no desire at all to match against low level teams, it's not fair to us or to them. I know some of the top ten teams may prefer that, so they don't have to face other top ten teams. Personally we enjoy a good fight. Give us the top teams. it would be funny for the ones saying who cares about our match times, if all of a sudden yours are that long. The crying in here would be loud and long. We've had to deal with that since wd began, didn't matter so much until the streak prizes came out.

[easierlife]

Whichever way they work the matchup system there will be players and factions who will be on here complaining. I have seen it every single WD. The top factions/players will adapt and overcome, resulting in more complaints.

I don't mind coming against streaker factions trying to keep their points low. How many times have we seen posts about how a streaker faction has been defeated solely on CC hits. I've done it to streaker factions before and had it done to me when I streaked. So if WD points affect the match up, both factions are in with a chance. That's all everyone wants, a chance of winning.

[Boarder21]

I like the idea of changing the way that the teams are matched, but I'm sure GREE has already talked about this and doesnt like this idea or hasnt had a way to incorporate it yet. Maybe if we can find another way that would make it so people cant just lower their average with low stat players?

[Luuzer]

Ysae has some solid ideas. Those of you who complain that gree is catering to the top teams, I have no idea where you come up with that. We feel the opposite may be true because there are more people down lower. We have no desire at all to match against low level teams, it's not fair to us or to them. I know some of the top ten teams may prefer that, so they don't have to face other top ten teams. Personally we enjoy a good fight. Give us the top teams. it would be funny for the ones saying who cares about our match times, if all of a sudden yours are that long. The crying in here would be loud and long. We've had to deal with that since wd began, didn't matter so much until the streak prizes came out.

be in lower factions and U will meet up with top faction ;) I'm in top 250 faction and we faced KYS, U know, the top 10 team, to kill our try for streak of 3. We had couple of top 25/50 teams too always on the lineup at the end of the streak :D So luckily we got streak of 3 somehow, but streak of 4 was impossible cause of those high factions bashing lower ones. That ruined the fun. Last 3-4 WD-s it gets more and more pointless to be highly active :(

[Snow Bunny]

A team of 15 together at 30 mil each. I haven't seen one.

plus 45 minis. phew!

If anyone has seen one of these abominable snow man teams let us know.

If they were up against a T100+ team they would get rolled OFTEN ENOUGH.

Their 60 (15 that can score say average 300 each hit) V a standard team of 60 that can all score say 100 per hit) The streak team scores 4,500 at 1 hit from each player. The normal team scores 6,000 from 1 hit from each player. On that scenario the non-streak team is in front. The non-streak team has to average better than 75 points each hit to beat them assuming the streak team CAN actually average 300 every hit.

If they can't then Gree does a simple tweak to the size of the 'peanut' rather than a handful of tweaks on a broken & confused serious mis-matching system that we seem happy to stick with.

The least points for hitting any LLP should always be around 1.5 x CC points. Around 120(ish). Let them try that mini idea and they will get rolled OFTEN ENOUGH over 50+ battles. You will never see them again.

I don't know how to black out names or I'd upload the pic. My friend from war warblers hit me and N got 79 pts with the wall down. So unless u have level 50's on ur team ur not gunna get much for beating a level 2. N u haven't seen a team of 15 with 30m stats? Lol u must fight in low ranking or very lucky.. Last war I fought top 25 n faced some lovely 10 man teams with stats like that and higher. Lots of them. Also 2x in a row too :) Pun old school or whatever DL was 70m and lowest was 40m n they hit me 400x lol pro for low pts to 1500w? Also in ur theory yes the team with 60 people that all can hit the CC will beat the team of 15. Only problem is the team of 15 has about umm, unlimited gold n will hit as long as necceary to win. Only chance of winning is hitting for an hour straight or blitz at end that will most likely end in wasted gold on a CC for crap pts. and the struggling top 100 team has say average 500 gold a player for the whole war n is gunna wanna maximize there pts, they don't have 300 gold a battle to hit on CC to try for wins

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

I don't blame streak teams. That would be misdirected. They are a product of the mismatch system we have.

The only thing I can glean from these boards is the following (generally).

1. There is no one to beat (no targets).

2. No fun hitting a CC, it's boring.

3. We want good battles.

4. We want excitement & fun again.


I couldn't care less what system they adopt, just massively improve it on the current. The demise of the small streak team is a by-product of a good matching system. Leave the streaks to full teams. I think the small streak team has been an unintended consequence. If not, then Gree should try and cater for them as well.

I am reasonably sure teams just want a competition where anyone can win AND have targets (not just the CC).

I used to see congrats to winning teams by the losing team here (and visa versa) claiming it was a great fun & exciting battle. There are less of those now. If you remember back, those were the best times.

I feel sure legitimate T4,000's will have exciting & fun battles amongst their peers in T4,000(ish). They will be wanting more and there would be a reason to aim for the next level again.

I am sure all the top teams will feel the same and will want more.

I personally want to battle ALL my peer teams. I detest avoiding any team for any reason. I will lose and I will win, but I know I won't be bored and I want to test myself against them. Winning solo as a streak (my view only) is just not what this is about. Too easy for someone like me and too boring.

BRING ON THE BATTLES with full teams going for it! And let's congratulate each other for great battles again.

I want those hard fought close wins ALONG with the losses. They are both exhilarating.

[Ysae Kaeps ASU]

.... N u haven't seen a team of 15 with 30m stats? Lol u must fight in low ranking or very lucky.. Last war I fought top 25 n faced some lovely 10 man teams with stats like that and higher. Lots of them. Also 2x in a row too :)....

No need to mock or make assumptions. I can only tell you what I have seen and not seen. I have never seen a 15 person team all at 30M. That goes right from the top down to top 25+. You may have. I don't suggest you are not telling the truth or mock you if you say you have. Bring them on and I will gladly roll them.

I don't care what level you fight at. I just want you to have great & exciting hard fought battles with your peers. Nothing more or less.


....Also in ur theory yes the team with 60 people that all can hit the CC will beat the team of 15. Only problem is the team of 15 has about umm, unlimited gold n will hit as long as necceary to win......

I understand what you are saying, however NO matching system can or should EVER take into account gold use. If a team uses more gold than another, so be it.

[Speed ump]

Ysae, there are a few of those teams around, in fact with much much higher stats even than that.

[Pippette]

I like the idea of changing the way that the teams are matched, but I'm sure GREE has already talked about this and doesnt like this idea or hasnt had a way to incorporate it yet. Maybe if we can find another way that would make it so people cant just lower their average with low stat players?

It should be quite easy for Gree to come up with a way to calculate an average team stat excluding the low stat drones of high stat players aimed at bringing down an average. There's a branch of computationally efficient statistics called robust statistics that serves to ignore 'outliers' in distributions in calculations of means. They could also just average, for example, the top 5 players of a faction and ignore any player less than say 20% of this value in the calculation of the faction average. If this is too slow to compute, Gree only need to calculate this once per war or every few wars as stats only change slowly during the whole event. Even if this is a not totally accurate average, it would be much more equitable than the situation we have now. If Gree also changed the weighting of faction stats to ranking position in the matchup formula, then scoring low to avoid the top teams would be less successful a strategy.

[free play]

We have had 3 wars with the same formula used by gree, only thing that has changed is each time is that there have been bigger and bigger streak teams, the won't change the formula but mite change the rewards, ready there are much better rewards in the ranking places,

[steelhead]

There is another way. I mentioned this before in another thread. Let factions be matched by gree. Without the use of a declare button. That way gree can match as they like. No problems with waiting times and it would be easier for gree to match factions which are close in strenght. The only problem is that factions should be on for 24 hours a day. But then again, they could choose to be active in a certain time fraim when they're on a streak.