GAC draw

I literally mentioned this in my initial reply and it’s something you all have repeatedly mentioned, but somehow failed to connect the dots with. It is not something many players will take into account when building their rosters. How many people would think “huh I should not grow my roster just in case of a tie.” Almost nobody. Because if they did, then they would almost certainly start losing very quick. It does not incentivize anything. Most players are going to keep building their rosters because relying on ties to happen would be stupid. This isn’t the same as suggesting GP based matchmaking that would completely overhaul GAC, it’s a minor change that would be nice, but ultimately have little consequence on the game. 

ATM: “But you didnt have more skill. If you did you would have won by 1 and not tied.”

You do realize that goes both ways right? The higher GP didn’t have more “skill” either and yet they get the win. They don’t have to go and get the extra banner, they just get the win with no further consideration. Why? CG is more interested in their profit margins than player experience. You can argue with me all you want about it but it’s true. And yes I am fully aware they are business committed to making profit and there’s nothing wrong with that. The issue is when it comes at the expense of the player base, like it so often does with CG’s decision-making. Regardless, it’s stupid to think that lower gp players aren’t more skilled because they didn’t earn more banners but then let higher gp players off the hook even though they also didn’t earn that banner. 

Also I’d argue in most instances that the player with less GP is usually at a disadvantage. I know it’s not always true, but generally that is the case in a hero collector game like Swgoh. The more stuff you have and the more upgraded it is, then the more likely you are to beat someone who doesn’t have that. So why would the win go to the player with the advantage, when the player with the disadvantage played just as well? Again I know it’s not every time but again MOST. 

ATM: “How do you know the other player didnt work just as hard?”

How do you know they did? You really like picking hypotheticals that only reinforce your point without taking into account the bigger picture. What if a 2 million gp roster ties with an 8 million? Are you really going to tell me that the 8 million deserves it more? Wouldn’t the 2 million have played more skillfully to tie with a roster like that? (Something that is 100% possible btw under the current match-making system, but we already had that debate, so I’ll skip it) We can run hypotheticals all day but the fact of the matter is that it makes more sense to reward the lower gp for ties because they more than likely had to play better for it. 

I can see an argument for making ties not decided by GP at all, though I don’t know what metric would be better. If you have suggestions for that then I would be more than happy to hear them out. 

What you fail to take into account is that LSBs don’t make a character good, they give them relics. There’s still the issue of mods and zetas for them to be good, and that does to investment and skill. This is especially potent for the LSBs that help unlock other toons, because you are NOT getting SK with an unmodded Hondo, see?

GP bloated by LSBs still need skill and investment to beat other teams unless the power difference is massive, in which case they probably shouldn’t be your opponent. That’s why higher GP players are rewarded because, LSBs or not, they have still invested lots of time and resources to make them viable teams, same as you.

Well just as you complain about larger accounts sandbagging in lower leagues if lower gp won in a tie you'd be complaining that they sandbagged their gp to be low. We've been through this before, trust me you'd get smoked by GAC optimized accounts by the end of the year. 

Yes I agree the higher gp didnt have more skill either. Thats why they tied. No one technically did better, but someone has to win. And it shouldnt be a participation trophy for a low gp account. Re: the profit thing you kind of argued against your own point. CG "tries" to make the game as fun as they can but ultimately they're a for profit company. 

Again not sure why you assume lower gp players are more skilled. We have no way of knowing. The higher gp could be a really good player but just doesn't have the time to play gac (i can relate, a k1 gac can take an hour sometimes). And I would argue that whether a lower gp account is at a disadvantage really comes down to the individual rosters. In the other gac thread there was someone with 6 mil gp, no gls or gl ships, and terrible mods. Meanwhile a guy with 3mil gp had leia and exec. Is he really at a disadvantage? Because the 6 mil had no counter for his gl. And the more stuff you have is NOT always an advantage. Theres been plenty of LSB bloated accounts with more relics but less zetas and terrible mods. 

Why do you think the higher gp didnt work as hard? We dont know either way. Maybe that person has been playing for years and not spending. Isn't that work? Again not all gp is equal. It really comes down to specific teams and counters in this game.  I like how you criticize me for picking hypothetical by picking hypotheticals. Maybe, just maybe its because I've been playing for almost a decade and have a lot of experience in this game good and bad. The best solution is just to leave it as is, I bet if we had access to the stats there would not be nearly as many ties as people think there are. 

Couple things:

1. If a lower GP account beat me in a tie, yes I’d be disappointed, but not because the game is broken but because they played better. I genuinely believe that it should be this way and I fully recognize that I may not benefit from it depending on the matchup. I’m not gonna complain if I lose because I believe that in general that player played better than me.

2. Once again no one is going to sandbag their gp for ties. Because if they do they will always lose. Ties are too rare to rely on and most players are not going to be dumb enough to think they need to optimize their rosters for ties. 

3. I criticized you for hypotheticals and then used a hypothetical to demonstrate why they don’t work. In swgoh there a millions of possibilities for player matchups and trying to account for all of them is not possible. But hyper focusing on one particular hypothetical matchup is not a fair assessment of player matchups as a whole. 

4. By far your best point was LSB. Yes, there are plenty of terrible LSB rosters where it looks like people just threw their money out randomly. But this does account for everybody. And in the event they tie with a lower gp player, why is it fair that they get the edge?  They already have the edge with the money they spent. It doesn’t matter if they’re bad at the game, getting a relic character instantly is in itself an advantage comparing to farming one free to play because it takes so much longer f2p. 

5. You said something that stuck out to me “we have no way of knowing” who is more skilled and who isn’t. Then like I said at the end of my reply, shouldn’t we start considering alternatives to GP based ties? So far I haven’t seen a valid point from you that says why it should remain higher GP, only just that lower GP doesn’t work. In other words, maybe GP determining ties is flawed. I always thought it would be cool for a tiebreaker round to be implemented, like each players get one territory and one shot to beat that territory or something. I understand though that would be logistically difficult to accomplish under the current system of GAC. I know you think that keeping everything the same works and maybe it does, but I thought the point of forums like these was to suggest alternatives that may make it BETTER. This is all hypothetical btw, it’s not like CG is closely monitoring us and taking our suggestions seriously. All I’m saying is the system could be better and why I think that. 

1.) But that lower gp player DIDN'T play better. If they did they would have won not tied. Now did they do better with that they had? Probably. But you dont get crystals for participation trophies. Tough cookies. 

2.) But people DID sandbag their gp when that was how the matchmaking was done. Not necessarily for ties per se. But look up videos of "the greatest FTP player ever" he a lot of r0s and low relics to game the matchmaking and get easier matchups. Trust me if CG makes a drastic change like that people will figure out ways to game it. 

3.) If focusing on one matchup isn't representative of the player base as a whole then why are you focusing on OP's ties? Hes had 4 ties in 8 months of gac with 3 coming in one round which is clearly an outlier. 

4.) How can you say in sentence that theres a lot of LSB buyers that are terrible and then yet say they got an advantage because they spent? Which is it? LSBs definitely can help as most lead to gls or journey characters. But theres been plenty of high functioning FTP accounts in the decade the game has existed. And at some level of youre aren't going to spend (which is perfectly ok), you just have to accept that you won't get stuff at the same rate or maybe win at the same rate. If there was zero advantage to spending money, no one would do it. 

5.) Well what would you suggest to break a tie? Rock paper scissors? Flip a coin? A tiebreaker round is a terrible idea because then what if people are busy? You cant have it delay the next match. Ive been on both sides of ties and it sucks to lose but if nothing else should reward the person who put more into their roster. Be that some combination of time money, etc. I know in the ties whether I won or lost I can look back and see where I should have played better and gotten better banners. None of us can say without the data but I really doubt that ties are such a huge problem over all the years and rounds of gac someone plays. I don't think the system is great but no one ever provides an actual reasonable solution. Including you. 

This happened to my guild in TW too, looks like they need to change the basic arithmetic and aware BOTH players or Guilds the win. Sorry this happened to you

Cheese Emperor, how many ppl do you think are quitting the game because of GAC ties? If you do, you could very possibly be the first. 

You say that no one would minimize GP for an advantage in the rare GAC tie, but that's misunderstanding or ignoring what CG said. It is a fundamental game design decision that improving your roster NEVER gives a disadvantage. 

It's easy to imagine 2 ppl with identical rosters save that one boosted some useless toon like Bodhi Rook or CUP to level 50. They even had credits sitting around to bring it up more, but they just wanted to open up more space to hold mod inventory. Meanwhile the other player left Bodhi at level 1. 

Should those players tie in GAC, it is fundamental to the CG philosophy that the player that improved their roster not receive a disadvantage. So ties work the way that they work, but ALSO they tried to design the GAC system so that ties were rare. 

We understand that you disagree with this fundamental design philosophy, but they will never, ever vary from it. The issue of GAC and TW ties has been discussed before, and the answer has always been the same: improving rosters will never result in a disadvantage. 

Since the philosophy isn't going to change, at this point you need to make a decision about whether you can be happy continuing to play a game that handles GAC ties in the way that it does. 

If you can't, it's sad that you're missing out on a game you otherwise like. 

If you can, that's great. 

Either way typing more words will not help. We understand what your issue is. Some of us disagree with you, others agree with you and are just trying to explain CG's point of view, not actually supporting CG's decision. There's nothing more to clear up, and you can't change CG's mind, so all that's left is finding peace or not. 

For ATM:

1. What? Yes you do get crystals for participation. Did you forget that you only needed to try a battle and get 10 banners to qualify? You don’t even have to win so what are talking about? Also what do you think “doing better with what they had” means? It’s another way of saying they played better. Or how would you define skill in this game? If someone playing better with less resources is not it, then idk what is

2. I’m not taking about GP based matchmaking. I’m taking about ties. Holy crap dude. I agree with you on matchmaking, we’ve already been through this. But for ties? No. Because again you would have to have sludge in place of your brain to think that “I should sandbag my roster in case of ties.” Just ties. I’m not talking about GAC as a whole. So stop trying to exaggerate what changing ties would do.

3. I am not hyper focusing on OP’s post at all. Believe it or not I have my own experiences in this game and I just happened to agree with OP’s post. My conclusions are not at all based on their post, rather my general opinion. And at no point have I specifically mentioned their post as evidence. Maybe try reading my replies more carefully.

4. So you just missed the entire point what I was saying there. I’m saying it doesn’t make sense that game modes also cave to these players when they already have an advantage from simply buying what they bought. You can disagree but higher GP winning with no further consideration is blatantly favoring these players. 

5. You know what fine. Valid criticism. I even admitted that my solution would have logistical issues. But you know what? Rock, paper, scissors would be fairer than just higher GP wins. It ain’t like CG is against doing something that lazy anyway. Look no further than the GL Rey and Kyle event. Jokes aside, I’m not a coder but maybe it can go to who wins against the better team. Like if a GL is on defense and someone wins against that when there is no GL on the other person’s defense, then the more “skilled” player might be considered the person who beat the harder team? Idk I’m just spitballing here. 

For MasterSeedy:

What are you yapping about? You are acting like I’m having a mental breakdown over this. I might be typing a lot, but it’s genuinely because I’m trying to make arguments clear and not because I’m raging. I also never mentioned that I thought people were quitting or that I was going to quit over this. I am having fun with the game and I am merely suggesting a change I think would improve it. I’m perfectly at peace with the fact that this will fall on deaf ears and this change will never be implemented. That’s fine. I just wanted to make my point clear is all. I may be passionate about it, but I’m not going to quit the game over this. Though I may have sunk too much time into this post. ATM write what you’re going to write, I ain’t gonna respond. We’ll agree to disagree and leave it at that because at this point I don’t think we’re getting anywhere with this back and forth. 

1.) By participation trophy I mean the entitlement that you deserve to win just for trying. Sorry life's tough all over. Again your assuming the lower player is more skilled. If they were so skilled why didnt they underman or set a more banner sniping defense? But they didnt and so they lost. And at least this game specific roster construction matters more than just raw gp. Someone with a gl or two and exec vs a scattered account with more gp will probably win because the larger account doesn't have the counters. 

2.) If CG changed it to lower gp wins People WOULD sandbag their gp, if not necessarily for ties then to try and game the system. You know how I know? Because we've been through this before in the old system. Stop trying to pretend you have a lot of gac experience when you've played this game for probably a year or two at most. 

3.) Well looking at your experience you've had 1 tie in your last 63 matches (about 1.5%). So while you did lose it, it just doesn't seem like a statistically significant issue CG should focus on. I also had one. So between me you and OP thats 6 ties in 189 matches or about 3%. So youre complaining about maybe 1-3 matches in a 100. 

4.) Well why would CG cater to non spenders? And again just because people spend doesn't mean they win. Plenty of spenders who are terrible at the game and ftp who are good. And everything in between. And every other game mode encourages growing your gp whether it's through spending or not. So why would gac reward the opposite? That was the big complaint about the old system. 

5.) Jesus those ideas are even worse than higher gp wins. What if one person doesn't have a gl but has a gl ships, does that count? What if the only gl on defense is a bad defensive one? If you set a hard defense and only clear one sector are you really more skilled or did you just get lucky? Thats the main critism of all these solutions, in that they all have the same or more issues. Though the best solution may be a Fog of War so that no one can see scores till the end of the round. 

You dont have to respond because most people realize that its not a big an issue as forum whiners make it out to be, and there really isn't a great solution that isn't unfair to someone. 

I’ve seen repeated reference to the OP having 3 ties in a row. I’ve read their post and don’t see why anyone thinks that’s what they are saying. 

CheeseEmperor0​ it probably would be best to move on. Forum veterans have heard all of your arguments dozens and dozens of times before from other forumers. Many agree with you, many don’t. People aren’t being pig-headed here. They just don’t agree and aren’t hearing anything that changes their mind. You can claim that it’s common sense for lower GP to win a tie, but lots just don’t agree with you. 

For what it’s worth, I also agree that higher GP winning ties is fine - and trust me, I’ve had several ties, winning just as many as I’ve lost. 

We need an arbitrary and transparent method to resolve ties and we’ve got one. We’ve got one that’s in keeping with the general principle of the game, too. 

As a wider point, there is a constant risk of seasoned forumers seeming dismissive to newcomers because 95% (made up stat) of forum suggestions are things we’ve seen time and time again.

Raised mod caps, increased loadouts, sandbox mode, TB review period, TW anti-sandbag, GAC matchmaking, GAC advantage to those who can attack last, longer windows for collecting free energy, additional payout time changes… I’ve read so many threads on all of these things that they all start to look the same, and I have, in the past, slipped into responding to a new poster as if they personally wrote the previous 50 threads on these things. GAC tie-break is very near the top of that list, I’m afraid.