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How is the new raid match maker better?

Genuine question.

We have an ELO medal system. Matching was (and still appears to be) based on ELO.

People gain medals based on the strength of their attackers, climbing medals from defense is not really a thing and not good because it can push you into a bracket that your attacking team can't handle forcing you to take a loss and lose tickets.

So how does changing it from 3 choices to 1 choice fix anything? It's the same opponents but just less choice. All it does is add a cost to refresh.
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Comments

  • KillMasterCKillMasterC Posts: 3,105
    I really don't give a whiff about Featured Chips, not when there were all those 2* featured bots, not when you put 3* at an insane price either. I care about getting alpha sparks, now the system just won't pay for our normal Raid chips and putting alpha at 500 essence per purchase can't help, because you can't possibly win.
  • KillMasterCKillMasterC Posts: 3,105
    I tried two raids, first a 7000+, then a 2000+ :o , with comparable rewards. It sucks. Maybe within a month, the ladder will get smoothed out.
  • ZapperZapper Posts: 186
    I really don't give a whiff about Featured Chips, not when there were all those 2* featured bots, not when you put 3* at an insane price either. I care about getting alpha sparks, now the system just won't pay for our normal Raid chips and putting alpha at 500 essence per purchase can't help, because you can't possibly win.

    I 100% agree on that. You now get less rewards for the same effort. The only reason to do raids was for the alpha shards (at least those are increased now) and now it's totally uncontrollable how many chips you get.

    Other then what Miike said I chose my opponents before not on base strenght but simply on the person with the most chips since there is hardly any raid I ever loose.

    The also removed the "fun" part of getting to spin a few featured crystals. Right of now raids suck even more then before, and I thought that would be impossible to do. Never underestimate the power of Kabam.
  • Completely agree with all that you guys said, a nonsense overpriced 3* bot don't give you any advantages
  • Yeah you would think that Kabam would have learned by now that trying to force users into buying things with real money doesn't work- instead they just go and play different games.

    The way to make money with microtransactions is to give people a game they want to play for free, but the offer either slight advantages or bonus content for money. However every decision I have seen so far seems to try to push people away rather than encourage! It's bizarre!
  • lilbeastie wrote: »
    Yeah you would think that Kabam would have learned by now that trying to force users into buying things with real money doesn't work- instead they just go and play different games.

    The way to make money with microtransactions is to give people a game they want to play for free, but the offer either slight advantages or bonus content for money. However every decision I have seen so far seems to try to push people away rather than encourage! It's bizarre!

    To add to this, they also need to make prices of in-game items fair. As the way it is now, it is way too overpriced for what they do(as with all "free" to play games :/).
  • Hey All,

    How this improves match making is by making Medal Count into a performance based metric.Before, it could not truly be performance based because the tiers were broken, and it was possible for compeltely underpowered Commanders to climb the ranks thanks to only fighting other underpowered Commanders. Now, you will only be able to move up and earn more medals and Raid Chips by doing well. This is how the system is meant to function.

    This will take some time to normalize, and a lot of people are going to find that their position was inflated more than it should have been, and that they'll be losing some Raids to begin with and they fall back to a place that they should have been in.

    Furthermore, changing the refresh cost to Energon from a raid ticket is meant to make it more affordable, since you only had 3 Raid tickets at a time, and the cost to start a raid without one of those tickets was 10 Energon.
  • TotherkinsTotherkins Posts: 299
    It still costs 10 energon to start a raid without tickets....is this a bug? Or did I mis read what you said @Kabam Miike
  • ManthroManthro Posts: 2,752
    You misread. To simply refresh a new opponent without using a ticket costs 2 energon and scales up by 2 energon each time to a maximum of 10.

    To run an extra raid without an actual ticket still costs 10 energon.
  • TerminalTerminal Posts: 789
    Hey All,

    How this improves match making is by making Medal Count into a performance based metric... ...Now, you will only be able to move up and earn more medals and Raid Chips by doing well. This is how the system is meant to function.

    @Kabam Miike my question was how is the match maker better. It looks like the exact same algorithm, the only difference is no choices. The match maker is restricted to opponents within medal range. So how is it better than before? It's still doing the same thing.

    Additionally, I don't understand how it can be a performance based metric when base defense influences your medal count.

    Base defense is not performance, it's just resources spent upgrading. It's the AI performance in combat and the resources spent upgrading that effects a base defense win/loss in combination with the opposing players perfomance.

    Medals can never be a performance based metric when non-performance events change your medals up and down.

    Base performance and fighting performance are so dramatically different it's absurd to try and roll them together into one metric.
  • @Kabam Miike I disagree. It was the change to the original raid system that incentivized the behavior you're trying to combat. When I got good rewards for every bot I beat, raids were fun. I'd pick the hardest fight just to see if I could do it.

    Kabam took that away and spat all over it with the win or get hosed mechanic. Why am I going to waste my time fighting an 11k base when there is a 5k base I know I can beat and that gives more medals/chips?

    Rather than fix the actual issue causing the situation you see as undesirable, you simply take away from us the ability to choose our opponent (unless we pay, grab that credit card!).

    Here's a really radical suggestion: keep losses from being raided low, but go back to giving higher rewards per bot defeated. That incentivizes players to take risks on tough bases. It also pretty much ensures that unless a commander is sitting on a huge amount of chips, the rewards for hard bases will nearly always be better than rewards for weak bases.

    Additional suggestion for preventing inflation of medals:
    Current raid vulnerability is based on using an attempt. This means if you don't raid often and generally pick easy fights when you do raid, then your medallions will grow more than your skill. Instead. Make players always vulnerable to raids with a 2 hour immunity after they get hit. To reward strong defense, you get that immunity even when the attacker fails. This ensures that if you don't keep raiding, you will steadily lose medals.
    An additional measure would be that once something is unlocked in raid shop, it stays unlocked. That would benefit both players and kabam. It gives good reason to buy those shields to push to the next tier without overly penalizing players who cannot be on here playing 24/7.
  • TerminalTerminal Posts: 789
    @Fyrintenimar that's a good point. Putting all the emphasis on completion to get chips and getting basically nothing for a fail incentivised people to not take risks and go for guaranteed wins so as not to waste their ticket.

    Removing the 3 choices is just forcing people to take a risk. The matchmaker hasn't changed at all, we just have to choose the first choice now, which was sometimes high and sometimes low.
  • KillMasterCKillMasterC Posts: 3,105
    edited August 2017
    Agree with all. "Underpower Commander" is an invented term when the base rating, the medal and the attack rating are uncorrelated in the first place. There's no "underpower commander" high in the ladder, those are "skilled attacker and sly defender" who deliberately lower their base rating for the sake of getting kicked down the ladder when there's hardly any chips at hand. And no, they don't climb up by hitting the low rated defenders, they choose somebody between 1.5~2.5 times of their attack squad.

    I miss the pre-2.0 raiding system as well.

    --Edit
    The only reasonable change in this new system is that you get Raid chips from successful defense. I don't know it's the attacker or the system who paid, but that's at least a good way to promote fighting to the end. Or, in the case the sum is paid by the attacker, if I give up early, will I pay more to the defender?
  • ManthroManthro Posts: 2,752
    The sum of the chips you earn for a successful defense seems to be about what you would get for defeating all three of their bots if they were defending a base.
  • We still get targets in our own alliance AND now if we don't want to raid our own alliance-mates, we have to pay energon to refresh opponent. That is total manure.

    Additionally, I raid once, don't have time to do more raids. Log back in, see I was raided 3x. Seems the only mechanic that was changed is no choice in opponent. I still get punished if I don't have time to use all 3 attempts. I'm not seeing an increase in successful defense.

    So far, harm from this change far outweighs benefit.
  • Slibby8803Slibby8803 Posts: 115
    @Kabam Miike I disagree. It was the change to the original raid system that incentivized the behavior you're trying to combat. When I got good rewards for every bot I beat, raids were fun. I'd pick the hardest fight just to see if I could do it.

    Kabam took that away and spat all over it with the win or get hosed mechanic. Why am I going to waste my time fighting an 11k base when there is a 5k base I know I can beat and that gives more medals/chips?

    Rather than fix the actual issue causing the situation you see as undesirable, you simply take away from us the ability to choose our opponent (unless we pay, grab that credit card!).

    Here's a really radical suggestion: keep losses from being raided low, but go back to giving higher rewards per bot defeated. That incentivizes players to take risks on tough bases. It also pretty much ensures that unless a commander is sitting on a huge amount of chips, the rewards for hard bases will nearly always be better than rewards for weak bases.

    Additional suggestion for preventing inflation of medals:
    Current raid vulnerability is based on using an attempt. This means if you don't raid often and generally pick easy fights when you do raid, then your medallions will grow more than your skill. Instead. Make players always vulnerable to raids with a 2 hour immunity after they get hit. To reward strong defense, you get that immunity even when the attacker fails. This ensures that if you don't keep raiding, you will steadily lose medals.
    An additional measure would be that once something is unlocked in raid shop, it stays unlocked. That would benefit both players and kabam. It gives good reason to buy those shields to push to the next tier without overly penalizing players who cannot be on here playing 24/7.

    You forget how easy it was when it was like that never to get raided. By having one weak bot in your base. I for one don't want to go back to that at all. Honestly I am on the fence about the update. But currently I am still getting my alpha everyday so I won't complain.
  • TerminalTerminal Posts: 789
    I tried having one weak bot and it didn't stop me from getting raided at all. Even when I had 0 chips. No decrease in attacks on my base.

    That's the kind of issue Kabam was referring to that they've used as a reason for the current change, although everyone knows it's just a farce and a scapegoat to try and monetise raids more.

    It doesn't fix the issue at all because the match maker is exactly the same, it pairs based on medals, you're just forced to pick the 1st of the 3 that it would normally present, which was randomly ordered. It's not like the first was harder.

  • RoyFocker wrote: »
    Hey All,

    How this improves match making is by making Medal Count into a performance based metric.Before, it could not truly be performance based because the tiers were broken, and it was possible for compeltely underpowered Commanders to climb the ranks thanks to only fighting other underpowered Commanders. Now, you will only be able to move up and earn more medals and Raid Chips by doing well. This is how the system is meant to function.

    This will take some time to normalize, and a lot of people are going to find that their position was inflated more than it should have been, and that they'll be losing some Raids to begin with and they fall back to a place that they should have been in.

    Furthermore, changing the refresh cost to Energon from a raid ticket is meant to make it more affordable, since you only had 3 Raid tickets at a time, and the cost to start a raid without one of those tickets was 10 Energon.

    Argh. When 90% of the posters are saying the same thing, you should really try to listen. We are not just spouting just for the sake of having something to say. We love the game, we want it to improve and succeed. But for that to happen, you should be willing to listen your playerbase.

    I assume what you meant by "underpowered commanders" are players having high medal counts but have **** base defense am I correct? If that's the case, then I am one of those "underpowered commanders". And here is where you are wrong in your post. I did not climb the ranks by only fighting other "underpowered commanders". Maybe one out of 8 raids yes, but mostly its is my 3100 bot rating attackers going up against 6k to 8k base defenses with a few 5ks mixed in to the mix. Before the recent change, my choice for opponents was based on reward and risk balance. More often than not, I did not go for the easiest choice. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MEDALS AND CLIMBING THE LADDER BECAUSE THERE IS NO REWARD IN HAVING HIGH MEDAL COUNT. The only thing I care about when raiding is the amount of chips I gain on a successful attack which is why the 3 choices for raid opponent was a good feature. This is also the main reason why other players are purposely losing raids so they can get back to low medal count .... because there is no incentive whatsoever for reaching higher in the ladder.

    The reason why there are "underpowered commanders" you see in raids is because we spent all our upgrades on our top 3 bots so we can raid for the raid chips in order to gain alpha sparks. That leaves the rest of our bots such as those on defense duty to be underpowered. So many things need to be worked out for raids, and you did not address any of those. Instead, you made a cash grab move for choosing opponents.


    I agree and I'm the same I don't give a rip about the medals or being on that damn leader board my main reason to raid is Alpha chips/shards. Beyond that I wouldn't bother, sometimes I switch out my base with lower bots to take them on a story mission or special mission and leave them off base for a few days so I don't have to do all that stupid switching.

    I would really like to see character chips awarded for a successful defense it might push me to switch out my bots more often.
  • juliusjulius Posts: 66
    Completely agree
    I have switched my base bots into low rating ones. Defense success brings almost nothing serious,not to mention that a successful defense always quickly followed by another unsuccessful one.
    The 3 * shockwave at that ridiculous price? Give me a break. Anyone who can get that amount of chips will find a 3* bot useless.
    Manthro wrote: »
    It is better because it makes players spend more energon... In theory.

    The problem is, they've removed my motivation for raiding, which was feature crystals so I won't spend energon on refreshes to get those better matchups. I also won't spend energon on extra raids to get more bot chips.

    I don't think many other players will either. It's obvious they haven't changed a damn thing in matchmaking. The big difference is you don't get to choose the big raid chip payout over the small ones.

    The 3* bot is also pretty much out of reach without spending energon. So now, instead of having 4 FREE chances minimum at getting a 3* bot or better, we have a guaranteed 3* bot in the store that is not free to obtain for the vast majority of the player base.

    So while it seems better on paper as a money grab to kabam, I believe players will see right through this tactic and it will actually earn them less profit than the previous system. Players will only spend their energon when the math makes sense.

    The math is terrible on this one. Its also obvious this wasn't a QoL a change for the players.. Kabam keeps on insulting our intelligence.

    I would expect most players to have to buy 15-30 raids to make 10k chips. That's assuming you are raiding until your eyes bleed every day.

    More than that if you don't want to be chained to your phone, or if you lose a lot.

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