"BG is a competition" & other forum charades
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Member Posts: 428 ★★★
TL;DR - Forum regulars simply use "BG is a competition" when it serves their purpose of easy rewards and easy opponents. Otherwise they are happy to take any buggy advantage, integrity of the competition be damned.
Context - Throughout this season, there have been multiple threads by people highlighting that they are locked into picking their deck first and placing defense first in battlegrounds. Personally, I am one of the affected players, having picked second only once in close to 100 matches. Some of the threads are here:
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3
These threads have either moved to the purgatory of bugs section and have received no real interest from anyone on the forums. One of the threads includes the response from the game support that the order of picking first is purely random. It is almost impossible for this to be true and players to have sequences like mine and others.
Why now - I have cleared all solo milestones and am almost at GC, which I'll probably get to despite this handicap. I thought it best to wait till now before posting, from a view of minimising accusations of bias. I don't expect any fix for this or compensation for all the wasted elder marks.
Irrespective of one's view on how much of a disadvantage picking first is, there is little argument that it is a clear disadvantage since the person picking second gets to select counters for the opposite deck and then also gets to place the defense second in direct response to their opponents moves. For closely matched players, this can be a decisive advantage, especially in matches which go to the third round.
I get the devs interest to simply bury this issue. I doubt they have a lot of freedom to respond with transparency given that elder marks can be purchased. I didn't really expect much from them other than may be a comment that they are looking into it or that this isn't intended but they don't know what is causing it. It is a bit disappointing that they failed to clear this fairly low bar.
What is really disheartening is that there was almost no reaction from the forums this. Every time someone complains about matchmaking on the forums, a bunch of regulars chip in to remind those players that "BG is a competition", "everyone is playing for the same rewards" and no one is entitled to preferential treatment apart from the advantages they can build in terms of roster and skill. Every other aspect of BG gets a lot of reactions, a hypothetical to roll back BG scoring got tons of responses, another forum user created a mathematical model to prove weaker players should be grateful to stronger players who farm in lower tiers.
So, when there was actual evidence of systematic advantages being provided to select players and permanent disadvantages for others, I assumed these players would be up in arms. There was absolutely nothing, only notable comments were one user suggesting these players accept their fate, couple of other equating this to other seemingly improbable events (these sequences are orders of magnitude more improbable) and someone else pulling out the wikipedia page for frequency illusion. Not one of the "BG is a competition" warriors stepped in to ask why there are elements of match fixing in a competitive PVP mode. I don't know if they were happy to benefit either directly from better ordering odds for them or indirectly from a few accounts ranking lower in ranked rewards, or just didn't care. I'm not suggesting any of this is wrong, people are always expected to do what is best for their account. I just hope they remember their behaviour next time they want to pile on a relatively new player struggling with progression in BG.
Context - Throughout this season, there have been multiple threads by people highlighting that they are locked into picking their deck first and placing defense first in battlegrounds. Personally, I am one of the affected players, having picked second only once in close to 100 matches. Some of the threads are here:
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3
These threads have either moved to the purgatory of bugs section and have received no real interest from anyone on the forums. One of the threads includes the response from the game support that the order of picking first is purely random. It is almost impossible for this to be true and players to have sequences like mine and others.
Why now - I have cleared all solo milestones and am almost at GC, which I'll probably get to despite this handicap. I thought it best to wait till now before posting, from a view of minimising accusations of bias. I don't expect any fix for this or compensation for all the wasted elder marks.
Irrespective of one's view on how much of a disadvantage picking first is, there is little argument that it is a clear disadvantage since the person picking second gets to select counters for the opposite deck and then also gets to place the defense second in direct response to their opponents moves. For closely matched players, this can be a decisive advantage, especially in matches which go to the third round.
I get the devs interest to simply bury this issue. I doubt they have a lot of freedom to respond with transparency given that elder marks can be purchased. I didn't really expect much from them other than may be a comment that they are looking into it or that this isn't intended but they don't know what is causing it. It is a bit disappointing that they failed to clear this fairly low bar.
What is really disheartening is that there was almost no reaction from the forums this. Every time someone complains about matchmaking on the forums, a bunch of regulars chip in to remind those players that "BG is a competition", "everyone is playing for the same rewards" and no one is entitled to preferential treatment apart from the advantages they can build in terms of roster and skill. Every other aspect of BG gets a lot of reactions, a hypothetical to roll back BG scoring got tons of responses, another forum user created a mathematical model to prove weaker players should be grateful to stronger players who farm in lower tiers.
So, when there was actual evidence of systematic advantages being provided to select players and permanent disadvantages for others, I assumed these players would be up in arms. There was absolutely nothing, only notable comments were one user suggesting these players accept their fate, couple of other equating this to other seemingly improbable events (these sequences are orders of magnitude more improbable) and someone else pulling out the wikipedia page for frequency illusion. Not one of the "BG is a competition" warriors stepped in to ask why there are elements of match fixing in a competitive PVP mode. I don't know if they were happy to benefit either directly from better ordering odds for them or indirectly from a few accounts ranking lower in ranked rewards, or just didn't care. I'm not suggesting any of this is wrong, people are always expected to do what is best for their account. I just hope they remember their behaviour next time they want to pile on a relatively new player struggling with progression in BG.
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Comments
You are a regular "chip in" too
That’s the root of the problem that fuels those matchmaking complain posts.
A relative new player is expected to struggle with progression in BGs, and realistically shouldn’t expect to make it very far, since it’s intended design to be that way.
Why?
Because, as annoying as it sounds BGs is a competition, and as any other competition that exists, the stronger participants will place higher than the weaker ones.
As for the placing first observation many people have reported, It’s seems to be a bug that affects all players, not only weaker but stronger too.
Placing first is a disadvantage.
Very strong players will overcome that obstacle and win the match despite placing first.
But, because this affect all players it needs to be solved.
In my opinion, blindly selecting defenders simultaneously is a good approach on solving the problem.
No advantage or disadvantage for anyone.
Kabam should fix this on upcoming seasons 🙂
Yes i believe the system could be broken, that maybe it is slanted go figure for what reason, but EVERYONE who agreed or wrote on those post have a really high percentage, it takes 2 people for a match, where are the people who have picked 2nd 90-95% of the time?
It could be an issue but I believe the numbers are over inflated to make it more dramatic and some are even claiming high numbers due to mass hysteria.
Is matchmaking sometimes borked? Yes. But does that mean you have to be handheld all the way? No.
The people who are picking second are probably already in decent tiers in GC and are hoping this doesn't get any attention. This is what I mean by "BG is a competition" only being relevant when it serves them.
Picking first has a disadvantage but its not a match decider. The fact that you were able to get 450k points and close to GC is proof that picking first is not an instant loss either. Not saying you said that; but there are some people that will blame EVERYTHING, on everything else before their shortcomings. They will blame matchmaking, f2p vs P2P, input issues, AI, point scoring system, picking first 12 out of 10 matches before they accept where they are in the game.
Out of those 75 matches, there were only two times where placing first actually seemed to make it harder, one of which I barely won in the end. I also noticed that my win percentage when I placed second mirrors when I picked first. Some people may feel the impact more, but my own experience indicates it's not a big deal for my performance
As to your complaint that people remind you that BG is a competition when you complain about matchmaking -- sorry if that message has been delivered in a non-supportive way, but the forum is constantly littered by people posting the same exact thing that someone else posted, and it is frustrating that so many people choose to create repetitive posts rather than comment on existing ones. I mean, here we are again, nothing new, just the same old complaints of which Kabam is clearly aware.
Make the 3rd round blind. What does that mean? You cannot see who the opponent is picking for offense or defense & you just take the chance at placing defender and picking an appropriate attacker out of the 3 champs left.
Spices up that 3rd match bit 🤘🏼
I'm in Vibranium, picking first all the time this entire season. Would I have had 5 more wins if I had picked first all the time, of course. I would easily be in GC then. So yeah, if anyone who has a comparable roster and game skills as me, they would easily get into GC if they were picking second all the time. I'll get to GC even with this handicap, it'll cost me 1,000-2,000 elder marks more, in fact now that I'm beyond 450K, I'll probably just do it with energy.
That said, this has still set me back. Every extra loss I've had, I needed two more matches to make up that progress. I've played more matches than I should have, consumed my EM stash and ceded the opportunity cost of doing arenas or something else. It will cost me points in the rank rewards, since for the same amount of matches I would have more points even with one more win. It will cost my alliance points in the event. This also means some other player and alliance has benefited from free points on the other side of this issue. Eventually, this will also impact your solo rank rewards and alliance rank rewards.
The issue is not if I am skillful enough to get past this disadvantage. The question is why is it ok for the game to apply this disadvantage selectively, if BG is meant to be a competition.
Its hard to sympathize with a post that claims that everyone else who picked second is already in GC and hoping that this doesn't get revealed.
I dunno open a ticket with a screenshot of every match you pick first, it will raise a flag if its a bug. Doubt they tag your account as a 1st picker for the season though.
These are the other factors
* I won 80%+ of my matches
* My match making time is generally 10-12 seconds
* I'm in Australia
* When I picked second my wait time was ~5 seconds
I don't know what determines the pick order but
* I've seen it claimed the longer you wait the more likely you are to pick first
* It is NOT random
I don't think there are any conspiracy theories or the like.
I think their is a weighting algorithm involved and its bugged.
In any event, I don't agree that it's such a disadvantage. The point in drafting is to choose Attack and Defense, and to be as prepared as possible. Which means keeping in mind having counters to as much as possible. Either way, first or second, we still have to counter what they choose to use.
The problem is if you are picking first 80% of the time, there is no good way for you to track this. No one plays 100's of BG matches in a day to notice it. A streak of 5-10 first picks will be deemed as bad luck as long as there is 1-2 second picks occasionally. I only started paying attention after I realised I was only picking first. Even if I had 10 matches where I picked second in the 100, I would have ignored the pattern, because I wouldn't have a long enough stretch of picking first.
On the flip side, I have an alliance mate who always picks second... So those exists as well.
I dont believe in comparing similar rosters or skill is redundant at all, unless you can watch everyone play next to you. Similarity of roster? Based on what? Prestige? Rating? You only get to see 4 champs out of someone else's profile. 10 out of my 30 champs in deck are decay, I won matched just by banning the opponents. I will be as skeptical as I can be when you use skill and roster as a comparing factor, specially when you claim 60~ wins out of 100~ matches, most people that get to GC earlier don't even play 100+ matches to get there.
Can you provide screenshot evidence that you have picked 1st in BGs 99 out of 100 times? And if you have over 450k points picking first 99% of the time you can't be at that much of a disadvantage. I mean, I alternate between picking first and second with notable streaks in each and I'm only over half way to 450k and have maybe a 55-60% winning percentage.
That said, I think 5% is a conservative estimate of how much win rates differ for people picking first over second. All that means is people picking second win 52.5% of the matches overall.