Q&A: Sandbagging Response

"Obi1_son;c-2023813" wrote:

"Nikoms565;c-2023739" wrote:

"StarSon;c-2023695" wrote:

"Kyno;c-2023687" wrote:
Sandbagging is not losing to a stronger opponent. Sandbagging is an intentional act to try and force a favorable match.

What you are talking about is an issue with matchmaking that should be addressed.

What he was asking for is information to look at a guild to see if they did this intentionally.

These are 2 different things.

Disagree here. His response clearly indicates he doesn't think intentionally sandbagging is possible. We know that it is. And we know that it's not always intentional.

Just to be clear - by definition, there is no such thing as "unintentional sandbagging". If it's unintentional (i.e. players are busy IRL so choose not to sign up, people forgot to sign up, people have left the guild, etc.) that's not sandbagging.

I only make that differentiation because I think guilds are shorthanded unintentionally much more often than they are sandbagging. Think about it. If you were in a 200+ million GP guild and you were asked/forced to sit out of TW and not got any rewards, how long would you stay in that guild?

Bingo!!!!

But it does happen, and it can make sense.

Start with the extreme end, as it makes for easy math.

(Assume a perfect world here, where you are in a uniform guild of 50 players at 5M GP each for 250M GP)

You sit out 10 players in rotation every TW for 200M active GP and 20 defensive slots.

You get matched against a guild with 200M active GP (if they are a full 50, that means they have an average GP of only 4M - you can bring roster bloat into it all you want, but by the time you are hitting 5M GP, your roster bloat isn’t going to be much more than 500K), leaving you at least another 500k (or the equivalent of 4 fully relic 7 teams to 5 g12+ teams or some combination there of) PER PLAYER of high end teams.

Your team is the one setting the ‘pace’, as the number of available slots is based on your guild only having to set and defeat the ‘normal’ 4 squads and 1 fleet per player (but each player has 500K or better worth of quality toons to do so with). This makes it extremely more likely that you (as a guild) are going to get high efficiency first round wins, and lowers the opposing guilds chance to do so - it doesn’t matter if the other guild has ‘more meta’ teams if they are overall weaker from squad to squad and don’t get to bring them all to bear because of the size of the battlefield.

But why do this?
Sitting out 10 players means you still get to participate in 8 out 10 TW.
(And this does presume a 100% Win rate here, but really, the worst case scenario is that you draw another sandbagging guild - which the math is against, because there are a whole lot more 200M guilds than 250M guilds - so you have to play a mirror match, it seems a pretty fair gamble)

Winning 5 out of 10 at near equivalent GP and you take home 25 Zeta Mats (3 x 5 for wins, 2 x 5 for losses) and 35 Omegas.
Winning 10 of 10 TW’s (that any given player participates in 8 of 10 of) and you take home 24 zeta mats and 32 Omegas in the same time frame.

Which doesn’t make sense from a rewards standpoint and is why you don’t typically see that large of a gap any more (and if you do, it is almost certainly not intentional). But if you drop it to 5 members sitting out, (participating in 9 out of 10) the math changes.
You now have a 600K per player advantage (and again, assuming half of that is ‘bloat’), leaving a per player advantage of around 3 high quality teams. The reward structure looks a bit different too, as now you are sitting on a very probable 27 zeta mats and 36 Omegas, as well as about 10% higher quantity of salvage rewards.

Now, if your guild is a lean mean PVP focused fighting machine, it doesn’t make much sense, as you are likely already winning higher than 50% of your TW.

But if you are an ‘Everyman’ guild with a mix of collectors, raid specialists, PVP kings and everything in between, it can actually be a pretty easy method of squeaking out slightly better rewards with a whole lot less work.
Do I agree with it? Absolutely not, it is gaming the system in the worst possible way... but it is out there.

EDIT: Dog decided to jump in my lap and I accidentally posted original with about 70% of text and incorrect reward numbers posted...

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2023806" wrote:


I think your the one who doesn't understand matchmaking...

Matchmaking is based on the gp of players who have signed up for the war.

1. A guild of 250m gp at 5 m each player has 40 sign up. This reduces gp by 50m so they are matched against a guild with about 200m gp. It could be a guild of 25, 30, 40, even 50 players but the total registered gp will be equal at 200m. This is fair but feel free to suggest how to make it more fair if u see a way.

Edit: Massively long btw I'll try and make a TL:DR haha

I'd just like to point out that I don't think your considering the difference that can come with this scenario in it easily being not fair...

Consider that situation where 40 sign up and they are matched respectfully to 200 million GP, your example says it can be any number of people in the opposite guild but let's say it is 50 people making up that 200 million GP, their power overall per team could almost certainly be less on average when comparing the top team of each individual player it's not hard to believe there's potential for multiple collectors in the 2nd guild who have spread power.

They don't get a fair and fun match up based on this, simple example, the guild of 40 all have top tier NS or even just gear 12 nightsister with pretty fast mods, the 50 people might have a handful whose top team is empire but this is not garunteed to be their team the invested the most in, even if they have 1 or 2 gear 12 empire all it needs is that speed boost NS have to stun lock an waste the team.

NS don't even require much power to become a troublesome team, it's a team you can't just use all 50 members for and chuck enough at to solve the slight power difference between the individual teams you need specific counters. A slight difference in power in top teams isn't as closely matched as it ought to be, there is issue in not taking the top team into consideration in matchmaking.

If you put a guild with alot of NS geared up against a guild that for some reason has starred empire but not invested in them. Which happens since bounty hunters and could be preferred yet not focused on enough or even just a guild that has leant more towards building a good LS roster then you have no even matchup there. I know that's an extreme example but when the game has teams only beatable by hard counters it creates the problem that a match up needs to consider those counters to some degree for a fair match up...

TL:DR

There are teams in this game that don't take much difference in GP to be scales much larger in overwhelming power against other teams. My main example NS, without an AoE team you are almost surely screwed. Even with an empire team if the NS have more speed and slightly more GP they can stun lock the empire and make them wasted.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's wrong to not consider the top 5 or even 10 toons in a roster, since this matching GP of active players in a guild does not account for if one guild is mostly full of collectors and badly spread their power among toons. That is a big issue with assuming it's fair alongside the teams in the game that effectively been made to only have hard counters, if the other guild has no counters then there's no number of extra players that can throw enough to beat a NS team.

Guilds that are sandbagging are only doing themselves a disservice. The difference between a win and a loss in TW is not that much. The difference between not participating and a loss is much larger. So if 20% of a guild is regularly missing those rewards just so 80% can get slightly better rewards, they'll be hurting themselves in the long run.
If guilds are padding with alts to make 600 tokens, then they're going to be hurting for TBs. But I suspect this is more due to the fact that high end guilds are losing players due to game quits without being able to replace them, than any sort of grand TW strategy.
We've accepted quite a few low gp players because long term vets called it quits, and an active, enthusiastic player with <1M gp is better than an empty slot. So I'm quite glad to see the hyperdrive bundle developed -- hope this improves the guild recruitment situation so that "false sandbagging" becomes a thing of swgoh history.

What player would want to degrade themselves by staying in a guild that treats you like trash by asking you not to join TW?

To such guilds, you're basically cattle for raid tickets, nothing more. I rather be in a guild that provides me with lesser rewards and keep me engaged than one that belittles you. This is a game, not a chore / work. If you don't treat this like a game, why else do it at all?

PS. Yes, Youtubers can treat this like work, by all means, but in order to create engaging content, they gotta love what they do in the first place or that vibe will just not work.

"TheJEFFtm;c-2023958" wrote:

"Obi1_son;c-2023813" wrote:

"Nikoms565;c-2023739" wrote:

"StarSon;c-2023695" wrote:

"Kyno;c-2023687" wrote:
Sandbagging is not losing to a stronger opponent. Sandbagging is an intentional act to try and force a favorable match.

What you are talking about is an issue with matchmaking that should be addressed.

What he was asking for is information to look at a guild to see if they did this intentionally.

These are 2 different things.

Disagree here. His response clearly indicates he doesn't think intentionally sandbagging is possible. We know that it is. And we know that it's not always intentional.

Just to be clear - by definition, there is no such thing as "unintentional sandbagging". If it's unintentional (i.e. players are busy IRL so choose not to sign up, people forgot to sign up, people have left the guild, etc.) that's not sandbagging.

I only make that differentiation because I think guilds are shorthanded unintentionally much more often than they are sandbagging. Think about it. If you were in a 200+ million GP guild and you were asked/forced to sit out of TW and not got any rewards, how long would you stay in that guild?

Bingo!!!!

But it does happen, and it makes sense.
(Assume a perfect world here, where you are in a uniform guild of 50 players at 5M GP each for 250M GP)

You sit out 10 players in rotation every TW for 200M active GP and 20 defensive slots.

You get matched against a guild with 200M active GP (if they are a full 50, that means they have an average GP of only 4M - you can bring roster bloat into it all you want, but by the time you are hitting 5M GP, your roster bloat isn’t going to be much more than 500K), leaving you at least another 500k (or the equivalent of 4 fully relic 7 teams to 5 g12+ teams or some combination there of) PER PLAYER of high end teams.

Your team is the one setting the ‘pace’, as the number of available slots is based on your guild only having to set and defeat the ‘normal’ 4 squads and 1 fleet per player (but each player has 500K or better worth of quality toons to do so with). This makes it extremely more likely that you (as a guild) are going to get high efficiency first round wins, and lowers the opposing guilds chance to do so - it doesn’t matter if the other guild has ‘more meta’ teams if they are overall weaker from squad to squad and don’t get to bring them all to bear because of the size of the battlefield.

But why do this?
Sitting out 10 players means you still get to participate in 8 out 10 TW.
(And this does presume a 100% Win rate here, but really, the worst case scenario is that you draw another sandbagging guild - which the math is against, because there are a whole lot more 200M guilds than 250M guilds - so you have to play a mirror match, it seems a pretty fair gamble)

Winning 5 out of 10 at near equivalent GP and you take home 15 Zeta Mats and 20 Omegas.
Winning 10 of 10 TW’s (that any given player participates in 8 of 10 of) and you take home 24 zeta mats and 32 Omegas in the same time frame.

Fake news. No guild purposely sits out 10 players each tw. No one wants to just forfeit rewards like that.

"TheJEFFtm;c-2023958" wrote:

"Obi1_son;c-2023813" wrote:

"Nikoms565;c-2023739" wrote:

"StarSon;c-2023695" wrote:

"Kyno;c-2023687" wrote:
Sandbagging is not losing to a stronger opponent. Sandbagging is an intentional act to try and force a favorable match.

What you are talking about is an issue with matchmaking that should be addressed.

What he was asking for is information to look at a guild to see if they did this intentionally.

These are 2 different things.

Disagree here. His response clearly indicates he doesn't think intentionally sandbagging is possible. We know that it is. And we know that it's not always intentional.

Just to be clear - by definition, there is no such thing as "unintentional sandbagging". If it's unintentional (i.e. players are busy IRL so choose not to sign up, people forgot to sign up, people have left the guild, etc.) that's not sandbagging.

I only make that differentiation because I think guilds are shorthanded unintentionally much more often than they are sandbagging. Think about it. If you were in a 200+ million GP guild and you were asked/forced to sit out of TW and not got any rewards, how long would you stay in that guild?

Bingo!!!!

Winning 5 out of 10 at near equivalent GP and you take home 15 Zeta Mats and 20 Omegas.

Winning 10 of 10 TW’s (that any given player participates in 8 of 10 of) and you take home 24 zeta mats and 32 Omegas in the same time frame.

You forgot winning 10 our of 10 with everyone signed up where you take home 30 zetas and 40 omegas which is the best of all.

This argument that people are cheating / sandbagging to get 8 wins out of 10 because it's better than 5 of 10 is based on a fallacy where those arguing the point conveniently leave out the optimal and most common situation which is where everyone participates and every gets rewards for a win.... this most common scenario JUST HAPPENS TO BE BETTER REWARDS THAN THE METHOD PEOPLE ARE ACCUSING OTHERS OF TRYING TO CHEAT BY SANDBAGGING TO REACH.

I want 30 zetas and 40 omegas for 10 wars and if I lose a war I will accept getting less... i will not volunteer to get less just because someone thinks (without proof) it makes things easier for those registered.
anyone tries to force me to sit out so that others can get a win will need a new guild before their rewards arrive.

That said... tw is optional and we normally have anywhere from 30 to 40 sign up in our 50 man 200m gp plus guild and we usually win.

Sometimes people have a life and cant play they should sit out if they cant play.

The alternative is counting gp for people not registered for the war which is 10x worse that the current matchmaking system (registered gp only) and will lead to huge blowouts and people being kicked from guilds to not count the gp when tw starts.

@BobcatSkywalker @Obi1_son

Sorry guys, I edited my original post and just reposted seeing you have quoted it - it was only partially written when I put it up (I fumble thumbed the post button when 110 pounds of Rotty decide to play lap dog).
Not discounting your points (in fact I agree that nobody intentionally sits out 10, and I also think that far and away the larger percentage of accused sandbagging is really just people living their lives and not joining every game mode every time), just making you aware that you were replying to an ‘unfinished thought’. Thanks

In a post long ago there was some info about match making that was posted. It stated that TW match making was based #1 on the active GP, #2 the roster/GP of the strongest active guild member. After that it was pretty open to "best match available". The truth is , most guilds are bad at placing defences or coordinating attacks or both. GP is a factor but in a more or less even match, better strategy will win 99% of the time.
On a few rare occasions you will meet a guild that is both stronger and more organized than yours. In those cases, you will lose. But if you are well organized and understand basic strategy you will win more wars than you lose, because most people simply don't know what they are doing. My guild beats stronger guilds regularly because we work together to follow a simple strategy that has worked for more than 2 years.

I think the "real" - so to say intentional sandbagging happens mostly in 200+ mil guilds.

Because you cant tell me that in such guilds, there will be 10 players who have a busy rl life and forget to sign up for tw or extra missing it because they dont have time. Lol mostly in such guilds you find players who log in the game multiple times a day regardless of their rl schedule.

Those sandbagging guilds do a rotation.
Mostly leaving out around 8 players.
Now its simple math:
You miss one tw = missing 2 zetas.
Than you play and win 6 tws = gaining 18 zetas
If the same guild would play each of those tws with full members and would loose each one it's just 14 zetas.
Even if they win 3 (9 zetas) and loose 4 (8 zetas) they just net 1 more, but would have a worth record as an guild and those 3 wins are no guarantee.

I think those guilds go for, sure wins, easy wins, less stress in planning and fighting (besides planning the rotation from the members who sit out).

That being said I cant anyway understand why there are guilds who sandbag.
In my guild we enjoy planning, fighting and taking on tougher opponents or sandbaggers. There is no more pleasure in this game than beating such guilds.
Also we win 8-9tws out of 10 with no sandbagging and this nets us, looking at the math above, way more zetas than doing any rotation and leaving out players.

I might want to add an general opinion from me:

Matchmaking (at least in guilds above 200mil) should be determined upon overall guild gp and not logged in gp.
The statement that some players have busy llfes and cant play tw doesn't work for me and guilds can work around that.
In my guild we do have an away zone where such players (1 or 2 each tw) can set their strong teams on defence, allowing other players who have more time to keep more squads for attacking.
So it's just an question how you organise yourself in the guild...

Punishing organised and tw focused guilds with allowing possible sandbagging, if now intentional or out of other reasons, shouldn't be rewarded or make tws more difficult for guilds who play them with full members...

I would like to give one example where we faced a much stronger guild and had to play 21 territories (meaning they played with 42 and we missed 2 players (just had 49 in the guild and 1 didnt join)



The outcome:



In probably 4 out of 5 tws we would have lost this one, because we got heavily outmatched and then the even the best strategy would in the best case get you close in score and that's it.

Another option of making sandbagging less attractive would be to keep the 25 squads/territory mandatory regardless of how many join.