Participation Is the Problem Get It Straight I am here to address to issues facing the Estoc Trials match making To all that are complaining about being withdrawn from war or not getting a match-up I can sympathize because I myself have had a similar view. When the withdrawn initiative was first put into place I did not get a match, I was furious!(since then I have gotten various other 'no matches') I planned to be warring for 4hrs and this meant taking time out of my ‘real’ life in order for me to war (call it basing your life around a game but everyone who wars does it, you always make sure you have nothing extremely important to do for the amount of time needed for war). So when I found out I wasn’t warring I became mad. I posted on complaint threads and just complained, complained, and complained. I began to realize that complaining doesn’t do much to FIX the issue. Proposing solutions and possible fixes FIX the issue. So I began to investigate what the root problem was. I looked at the problem at hand, the community voted to put in the ‘no match found’ feature in for a reason. The reason it was put into place was to prevent any mis-matches and un-winnable wars from happening. I then asked why was there even these terrible match ups to begin with? First person to blame is always the developer isn’t it? Well I did that at first but I realized that their algorithm wasn’t the main factor contributing to the mis-matches. The problem was that there were not enough clans signing up for war in the first place. When there is not a lot of clans warring that means that there is gaps of similarity between clans. So even if the developers had the best algorithm in the world it could not work if there weren’t similar clans to match. So to all the people complaining about mis-matches, by merely going back to before this feature was implemented would not help with the ultimate goal. The goal of the algorithm and match making is to make the match-ups as fair as possible. I understand that having this ‘no-match’ feature is a pain since it can lead to a clan having no match-ups but ultimately it doesn’t even have to mean that ‘no-matches’ have to even be given. In theory, if every clan that signed up had an equal opponent than this message would never appear to anyone. However you might say that “I don’t even care about fair matches just give me a match” but in reality to most people that isn’t the case. I have been on both sides of the spectrum, I have be matched extremely terribly when I was on the weaker side and I have be matched extremely terribly when I was on the stronger side and I have to say that both sides aren’t nearly as fun as a fair match. You either waste mith, pots and xstals or you spend your time roaming the enemies roster waiting for the minute they get out of ko so you can hit them once (twice if your lucky) as everyone just spams one person. And to those that say that “I have beaten a clan that was stronger and had more players than me” I say “Should we base the system on a minority of the outcomes that occur in mis-matches?” Well like in a democracy majority rules. So I found it better to embrace the no-match system rather than complain about it. I believe it was a step in the right direction but the journey isn’t fully complete. Now that there is a system or template for success, it is only good if it can be used. To use this ‘no-match’ template correctly there must be a fair enemy for everyone that signs up. However this is basically impossible to do every single time so there will (for the majority) always be a clan that has “no match”. The problem with this is when the pickings is extremely small this message that should only appears a majority (or an extremely significant amount) of clans rather than a small minority (like it should). Now how does one fix this issue? Well the next goal is to have more participation. Now this is an extremely tricky goal to accomplish because there is no finite way to do it. There is no exact answer that can completely satisfy this goal. Although, I have broken it down to two parts: Encouraging and Enabling Encouraging simply means providing incentives and giving players a big reason to war. I personally think that this part is basically fulfilled, I mean the reward of mith/rancor armor is an extremely awesome reward that is has great benefits to it. However if any of you ever have taken even basic economics class before you’d know that no matter how high the reward is, if a player feels that the cost isn’t worth it than players won’t even participate (cost-benefit analysis) This brings me to the second part which is enabling Enabling simply means making it easier for players to war and by doing so it lowers the ‘cost’ of warring. Right now it isn’t exactly easy to war in the Estoc Trials. Not many clans will accept noobs and there aren’t many clans warring (so even if you have experience they won’t let u in). But I believe that this is ultimately a consequence of another issue (because we can’t just force people to make more warring clans). Players also need pots, mith, and xstals. So how does one make it easier to war? Well that question can be solved through a multiple ways. One issue I didn’t mention (because it is basically fixed) is that one problem that arose during the early stages of EE was war times. However by devs fixing this it ENABLED more people to war because it made warring EASIER to do. This is a good step but there is also more that can be done (obviously). So what can be done to enable players to war by making it easier? This is a question I ask to you the reader. I have suggested the “war crystal” idea (which I will link at the bottom) which makes it easier to have player obtain xstals which are needed to war. However this doesn’t have to be the end-all be all. There are other ways of solving this that I have not thought of and I’d like to see what you, the reader, can develop. What is a way that would make it easier to war for a player yet still be profitable to the company developing the game? War Crystal Idea: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=131639&start=0
Wow, wall of text. You've hit the nail on the head though, the best match up system possible still can't find good matches if all the clans are too far apart, and the less clans sign up, the further apart each is from the other. The main thing this leads me to query though is, do we really need 12 wars a week? Having so many wars each week seems to me to be the developers solution to people complaining about bad time slots. Have enough different time slots, and there must be at least some to suit everyone. The problem is though that it thins the pool of available players. Even if more players take part over the course of a week, it's highly likely that less players take part in any given war. I would like to see around 5 wars per week rather than 12, but with the war times changing each week to allow different players equal opportunity to war.
Support. Said it about week ago in complaint thread. The community needs to want these competitions to happen.
I dont really think this is a petition or idea so dont need support (put agree if u'd like). This thread is basically to outline the issue revolving EE wars and explain what the real issue is. Oh and sry for wall of text, it is just hard to condense the info and i wanted to make sure i get my point across
Oh and jezza u bring up a good topic. By fixing times and offering more wars did it just fix an area and then create another problem. Thus netting no positive change, could be so...
Fully agree, participation should be encouraged, not discouraged. Reducing it to 25 and changing it to opt in has helped for sure, still, So many smaller clans struggling to get the numbers to war, for various reasons: Attachment to clan, and unwillingness to move to a new environment to war. Okay, devs can't do anything about this. But there are other things they still can. Award players for participation, not just winning. This doesn't necessarily be to the detriment of rewarding winners. Need a loser for every winner, so create more losers so more can win every time too. 12 wars a week makes it hard for any clans who don't already have enough people to for one war to recruit just to fill out one, cos every time recruiting is tried 'doing only one war?' I can and want to do every war except that one war. Sure there is consolidation and the forming of sub clans of adding clans now, but I think the warring scene can and should be made much more vibrant than it is now.
I agree that participation is the key to getting better matchups. But to get participation we need a way to allow newer clans to learn how to war without getting crushed by more experienced clans (IMHO) and then walking away from war. I posted a thread called "Regulated v. Unregulated EE Wars - A Modest Proposal" in the feedback forum. I suggest a few ideas for increasing participation, but welcome any ideas you may have. The OPs idea of decreasing the cost of war, would lower one of the barriers to entry for some clans. That idea is worth consideration. Fundamentally, it is the question of HOW to get that increased participation I believe the community needs to focus on.
This needs to be recognized. Devs are trying to make players sell their allies and lower bfa just to war. Plus they are suggesting for people to build more buildings, I find this ridiculous I am haven't warred all this week. That is partially why, the clans are rejecting there own member from warring because they aren't the right build or not right bfa.
haha, I find this post extremely relevant to all of those complaining about EE. Remember the times where there weren't any no matches and the wars weren't saturated with GH/SH's? Lol, to all who complain please understand the underlining issue and try fixing it.
Been saying this for some time now. Glad someone made a thread about it hopefully the tears will stop (doubtful)
THANK YOU! We aren't implementing 'War Crystals' but we are working specifically on making wars less costly AND more rewards.
I disagree that the reason is why not enough, in fact i think the limited particapation is highly symbolic of the matches people are getting! You cant run a " normal roster with small and middle size accts with the huge disparity in plunder per hit you get guild/sh ****** pay per hit on All builds seriously needs to be addressed ! THAT IS THE KEY
90 percent of wars you can look at LB AND GH NUMBERS AND PREDICT THE WINNER , so people keep getting hammered with " bad matches and give up"
I agree with all except war times. A everyone knows, one of the biggest issues is how rosters at built now. The wars havehave varying styles so why not have have a min & a max CS limit that can sign up foot each war. Example: war 1 players must be between 10mil-18mil cs. War 2 players must be between 3mil-10mil cs to participate. War 3 players must be over 18mil cs. Then alternate times around so different times fall under each category. You make matches more fair & help avoid roster stacking all at once.
You are right, more participation, especially of new EE players, would to some extent solve a lot of actual problems concerning matchmaking. Today EE wars feel like being elitist, the cost for new entrants is extremely high (except if you happen to be a gh around hlbc) and 99% of the player base isn't ready to pay the price. Sure, the EE reward gear is awesome but if you tried to enter S3 with your normal clan roster (lucky to find 25 participants first...) you pretty fast learned that the chances to get any equip was very slim. After getting hammered a few times by stacked roster clans, you ended up with nothing except costs and a sense of having lost your time. Complaining about not being able to compete against the top clans, you'll get told to adapt, change your build, increase your BFA... basically to come back in 2 years. A bit like a 3rd league football team competing in the premier league and getting told to train harder. I do think that the roster size reduction could help increase the number of teams and with it the number of newer or casual teams competing on another level. Chaos wars didn't seem as elitist as S3 to me, at least I found them much more enjoyable. Increasing rewards for participating is a double edged sword. It seems that every time you may get an easy reward, people are finding a way to abuse the system to get them with zero effort at all. Decreasing the costs sounds not bad. But what exactly are the costs? Building costs, for towers for example. I don't see those getting lowered (they shouldn't). The sacrifice of growth or growing much slower is also a cost. Pots, though I find those costs negligible. Mithril costs are pretty high though. Could those mithril spells not be free and time limited during EE wars? Are xtals really one factor limiting participation? I am not sure about it, tell me your opinion. Just a few random thoughts about EE wars and how to move on with them.