Grand Arena Championships – GP Divisions [MEGA]

"cannonfodder_iv;c-1900308" wrote:

"UncleOnceler;c-1900046" wrote:

"333freeman;c-1898342" wrote:

"Saada;c-1898278" wrote:
All my opponents have far greater character gp and overall gp and from div 4 while I'm in div5 but guess what they're all gunna get smashed cause I built strong squads while they're all over the place so get over it guys. You could get matched with me since we would have the same character gp and get smashed anyway.

I would be happy to be placed against you and it would be a good battle. At least I would be fighting in my division so we could figure out who is the best in our division. Isn't the point is to move up thru the ranks within your division to become the best. Why should we be punished for farming the right squads.

And why should I be punished for having played the game longer, so I have all your squads and teams like the jawa meta, so my GP far exceeds yours.

you shouldn't. you should be matched with players like you. current matchmaking only looks at the top X characters and seems to have added 2 defensive placements, at least at my GP. what that fails to take into account is that some of my G12s might be fleet or raid specific (e.g., my G12 FOTP to go along with a bunch of G8 FO). While you might have useful toons that don't show up in the algorithm (your G12 KRU and FOTP which do and G11 Fox FOST Kylo which don't). You have a squad to place or use. I don't, but the algorithm doesn't see that.

Matchmaking has seemingly gone from one extreme - very dumb looking at only GP - to the other - looking at the minimum number of toons required to field the defensive placement requirement. You could argue that it's picking winners and losers either way. I thought that the concept of Leagues within a division was intended to be the sorting hat, and under the old algorithm this was true. As you progressed through leagues you would face tougher competition.

I'm taking part in 4 GAs (I know, right?) and I've won the first round in 3 of the 4. The only one in which I had no shot? The best roster among the group, because it was matched up against an account that was 40% older (read better mods), had 350k more toon GP, was asked to place 8 teams instead of 6 (and here I've been building my roster focusing on 12 solid squads, not 16), and highly effective low gear toons under the right leads don't show up in matchmaking (I mean you GR and especially Sep Droids).

Now, the less effective, lower ranked, worse modded account at a slightly higher GP in the same division is going to be 20,000 ranks ahead because of the matchmaking changes in conjunction with unannounced placement count changes.

It doesn't make a lot of sense. I thought as we progressed through the championship, we would enter new leagues which would put us in competition with "rosters that looked more like ours". This matchmaking does no such thing. It matches me against rosters that look partially like mine at the top, and a boat load better the further down you go. It does do a really good job of preventing me from getting to a higher league. Essentially, leagues are just a lifetime achievement award, much like character levels. Play long enough and you'll earn enough "points" to get there.

I understand CG is trying to rectify a strategic error (and that is, creating a game mode which incentivized you NOT to take part in the activity that most directly reflects on revenue - adding GP to your roster), and maybe this ultimately does that. What it appears to do more than anything is reward mediocrity.

Thanks for pulling the problem out of dichotomical which one is good/lean-fluff debacle which won't ever lead anyone anywhere. I agree with your points. Both of these algos won't work. They are both brute force GP oriented approaches and will fall prey to their inherent logic just by this fact. GP means nothing no matter from where you slice it. CG needs to go back to their premise -improved matchmaking- announcement and make the algo dependant on multiple factors, instead of something very visible which players will always try to take advantage of. Both algos causes players to act in one way or the other just to have the upper hand on the algo instead of just trying to develop their rosters to the best state possible on all fronts (i.e. mods, zetas etc.).