I guess I understand from a coding perspective to do it by just replacing real teams with sharks. I just thought they would be premades, it's a bit annoying.. but not the end of the world.
The Sandbagging in general needs to be curtailed in arena. It seems to be more and more and I've seen cases when my 1st round battle was 3 sandbag teams.
At higher levels, we are already outclassed by opponent teams, do we really need to add this on top?
The coding should be changed to guarantee at least one balanced opponent team.
The Sandbagging in general needs to be curtailed in arena. It seems to be more and more and I've seen cases when my 1st round battle was 3 sandbag teams.
At higher levels, we are already outclassed by opponent teams, do we really need to add this on top?
The coding should be changed to guarantee at least one balanced opponent team.
I do agree with the statement, cool idea.
But I am amazed how many people hate sandbagging. The goal in arena is to earn points. There isn’t a rule stating how.
No we just hate being 3-way sandbagged....
Well I find it Ok since I have a lot of maxed 3* to sandbag my 6-15th fights. Beyond that it will be full 4* harvest time. I dunno why ppl make sandbag team of two r4 4*'s, I never needed that. maybe they don't keep any 3*'s.
No we just hate being 3-way sandbagged....
Well I find it Ok since I have a lot of maxed 3* to sandbag my 6-15th fights. Beyond that it will be full 4* harvest time. I dunno why ppl make sandbag team of two r4 4*'s, I never needed that. maybe they don't keep any 3*'s.
Yeah, I’m with you about when the only choice is a sandbag team it isn’t ideal.
And your your right about the 3s. I know I carry hardly any 3s. My arena score is almost always 1-2%
Just asked the team about this, and you're all correct! The Shark Attack teams are based on real player teams, but the bots are replaced by Sharkticons.
I'm also taking your feedback on Sandbagging in general to the team.
I think too much is being made of this sandbagging "issue".
It's a legit tactic, I don't see anything wrong with it. We fight bots 2-3x our bot pi across many different game modes, and win.
I think people just need to put their big boy pants on and fight sharp, focus on best matchups to take down 2/3 of the battle in arena to keep the win streak alive when encountering a sandbag squad.
If you can take down the death squads for your 14/15 win streak regularly, then the sandbag team is no different.
yeah, it might be a legit player tactic, but the enemies are chosen based on pi totals, sand bag vs balance is wildly different bot levels. This produces an inconsistent experience and makes it several times harder than what it should be if you're using a balanced team.
It basically forces people to sandbag to not be disadvantaged, warping arena even further in to a state I'm sure was never intended. Optimus/Megatron teams never sandbagged.
I don't care if players do it, it's risk/reward scenario tactic.. but for ai to do it, it imbalances the design of scaling pi against your team as your streak increases, because if you don't sandbag, you get punished.
I don’t really face any death squads for my 14-15 streak though. I don’t sandbag and usually just start from the bottom of my roster, trying to pick teams with synergy. By the time it reaches the 13-15 streak, I reach my top bots of R5s and R4s. Somehow I get easy streaks with those.
I don’t really face any death squads for my 14-15 streak though. I don’t sandbag and usually just start from the bottom of my roster, trying to pick teams with synergy. By the time it reaches the 13-15 streak, I reach my top bots of R5s and R4s. Somehow I get easy streaks with those.
This is true for high-end players only. Those who can't afford a 8000+ team still struggle.
@Faithz17 you only get easy because your pi is so high it breaks the match maker and it can't find any team of the multiplied pi level (about double), so it defaults to easy.
Here is what it normally looks like: the sandbag one is obvious, sometimes all 3 are sandbagging though.
@Terminal you are brave to use 3* R3s for streak 13. I did notice “hard” matchups appeared at streak 9 when I was using R2 4* but enemy pi was about 1.5 times. I used R4 3* when I was at streak 13 but enemy pi was still less than double. I didn’t notice any sandbag teams yesterday though. Personally it depends on the bot rather than the pi. For example if I see a BC and I have no MV, I’d try to avoid that.
@KillMasterC you don’t need a 8k+ team to get through arena. Highest opponent team I’ve seen in arena so far is 10k. As long you have a 5-6k team, you should be able to get through that.
Sometimes if I do come across a sandbag team, I put my weakest bot against the strongest bot just to try and see if I could win. I was pleasantly surprised when my usually useless R2 4* Hot Rod managed to win a R4 4* MM. Sometimes you might surprise yourself.
I've had sandbag teams drop on me at only a 5 win streak, and Hard matches show up right after that. I'm kinda in the middle on this issue. Its annoying when it happens, but I just power through the best I can. Still, it does make arenas less enjoyable, especially when all three team choices are sandbags.
I find fighting sandbagged teams to be a challenge I embrace. I complained about it at first, but now I will take those teams on just to prove a point to myself.
Just asked the team about this, and you're all correct! The Shark Attack teams are based on real player teams, but the bots are replaced by Sharkticons.
I'm also taking your feedback on Sandbagging in general to the team.
Might have to go back to having a 1 & 2* arena and then one for the 3 & 4* bots, only way to solve it I think.
Why bother with going back, then you can't sandbag yourself. Which isn't the end of the world, but unless you have 20 R3 4* teams, you can't escape with all easy matches. Looking at PI ratings for an eternity of two seconds (to easily avoid the AI selected sandbag) is a lot less inconvenient than footballing it through fight 20 with just whomever. Sure you can do it, but if it is what you do anyway and you do not consider this an inconvenience, there's REALLY no reason you should be complaining about a 2 second inconvenience. Lol. It's really one of the pettier gaming complaints ever imo, no offense to anyone.
In the case of specifically sharkticon sandbagging that's a bit more legitimate, since you have to pick the Sharkticon fight and aren't presented with three sharkticon teams, but even then... you still almost can't lose, because only the S1000 has S3 enabled, so it's two auto wins regardless.
The first two fights are meaningless, only S1000 gives shark shards on defeat.
Anyway, it's super easy to fix, just remove sandbag teams from the pool.
The whole thing can also be made up with fixed PI, it just uses names and players to make it seem more interesting.. the fact shark attack teams exist means it's extremely easy to do.
Filter the pool so there's no 1000-2000 pi gap between bots from ai teams, then randomise the bots and name if it needs more in that range, done.
As I've said before, it's impossible to really define a sandbagging team, two 2k bot with a raw 1* is sandbagging, sure. But what about two 1k with a raw 4* bot? This 'gap' is a subjective thing because it depends on whether you can beat that team. Early in the game I will spend energon to refresh when I see 1:1.5 fight, now I would not shy away against a sandbagging team when myself is sandbagging, and the ratio can be 1:2 or more. See? I actually improved fighting this way.
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Now, I still won.. I just don't like the ai being cheesy.
Agree. Seems like some real teams just got sharkified.
Haven’t met any shark attack teams myself yet
At higher levels, we are already outclassed by opponent teams, do we really need to add this on top?
The coding should be changed to guarantee at least one balanced opponent team.
I do agree with the statement, cool idea.
But I am amazed how many people hate sandbagging. The goal in arena is to earn points. There isn’t a rule stating how.
Well I find it Ok since I have a lot of maxed 3* to sandbag my 6-15th fights. Beyond that it will be full 4* harvest time. I dunno why ppl make sandbag team of two r4 4*'s, I never needed that. maybe they don't keep any 3*'s.
Yeah, I’m with you about when the only choice is a sandbag team it isn’t ideal.
And your your right about the 3s. I know I carry hardly any 3s. My arena score is almost always 1-2%
I'm also taking your feedback on Sandbagging in general to the team.
You can't at this point in time, this question was asked and answered in another thread.
It's a legit tactic, I don't see anything wrong with it. We fight bots 2-3x our bot pi across many different game modes, and win.
I think people just need to put their big boy pants on and fight sharp, focus on best matchups to take down 2/3 of the battle in arena to keep the win streak alive when encountering a sandbag squad.
If you can take down the death squads for your 14/15 win streak regularly, then the sandbag team is no different.
It basically forces people to sandbag to not be disadvantaged, warping arena even further in to a state I'm sure was never intended. Optimus/Megatron teams never sandbagged.
I don't care if players do it, it's risk/reward scenario tactic.. but for ai to do it, it imbalances the design of scaling pi against your team as your streak increases, because if you don't sandbag, you get punished.
This is true for high-end players only. Those who can't afford a 8000+ team still struggle.
Here is what it normally looks like: the sandbag one is obvious, sometimes all 3 are sandbagging though.
@KillMasterC you don’t need a 8k+ team to get through arena. Highest opponent team I’ve seen in arena so far is 10k. As long you have a 5-6k team, you should be able to get through that.
Sometimes if I do come across a sandbag team, I put my weakest bot against the strongest bot just to try and see if I could win. I was pleasantly surprised when my usually useless R2 4* Hot Rod managed to win a R4 4* MM. Sometimes you might surprise yourself.
Might have to go back to having a 1 & 2* arena and then one for the 3 & 4* bots, only way to solve it I think.
In the case of specifically sharkticon sandbagging that's a bit more legitimate, since you have to pick the Sharkticon fight and aren't presented with three sharkticon teams, but even then... you still almost can't lose, because only the S1000 has S3 enabled, so it's two auto wins regardless.
Anyway, it's super easy to fix, just remove sandbag teams from the pool.
The whole thing can also be made up with fixed PI, it just uses names and players to make it seem more interesting.. the fact shark attack teams exist means it's extremely easy to do.
Filter the pool so there's no 1000-2000 pi gap between bots from ai teams, then randomise the bots and name if it needs more in that range, done.
Yeah, the "attack" rate is terrible