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Poll
Do you de- / not activate if only 4 player draw
Yes
4%
 4%  [ 3 ]
No
89%
 89%  [ 67 ]
Yes unless desperate to play
6%
 6%  [ 5 ]
Total Votes : 75


smallman



Joined: Sep 24, 2007

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 04:52 Reply with quote Back to top

The absolute maximum TV gap in a box game should be whatever Morg costs. I have finished my trophy games, but I generally activate 4 teams still, but VERY close to going back to just playing with my pact team that have a chance with such insane TV gaps.

My pro elves just got matched up vs mono activated Dwarves with full StandFirm and tackle at a 920k TV gap. And to no suprise such imbalance meant 2 of my best players dead quite early.

Just as I predicted, the % of box trophy teams being played now has drastically reduced. I am baffled that we still have 15min activations, especially in off peak times when NO games get played. Even in peak times 30mins would be better to get a nice pool of activations for fun fair matchups. I'm sure we all have other stuff we are happy to do outside of fumbbl until activation time.

Some or all these changes should at the very least be trialed.
SzieberthAdam



Joined: Aug 31, 2008

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 12:50 Reply with quote Back to top

It was me with the Dwarves and I also keep saying for a long time that the nominal TV difference cap should be 430k (Morg price). As I see, very few matchups would be dropped because of this and those are usually indeed frustrating for the lowdog. Because of this match I went trough the sustainability calculation. I was not able to reproduce its working but I got some sight.

During the process, the nominal TV difference goes through multiple adjustment phases and at a point it transforms to a win probability value which gives the base of the sustainability value for the scheduler. As I know that recent machine learning analysis made by Christer showed little effect of TV difference to the win probability over the TV dependent racial matchup factor. I understand that the aim is to maximize gaming experience by trying to schedule matchups where both party has chance to win.

Having one extra matchup be that the lowest possible sustainability is preferred so much by the scheduler that it is almost unbeatable by fewer matchups with good sustainability scores.

Here is the referred draw:
https://fumbbl.com/p/blackbox?op=scheduler&r=2019-02-08+01%3A30
Note that it was a 6 player draw.

The scheduler knows that the Dwarf-Elf is almost the worst ever matchup with @510 (the lower bound is 500) yet it draws that just to have three matches instead of two.

Old low AV teams which are destroyed can go to subsequent massacres because of this by matched against 2200+ basher teams. Regardless of win probability, they will understandably hate that and feel that unfair.

I do not think the problem is with mono activation. As I told to smallman in the game chat, I played uncompetitively for about 10 years here having weak and funny teams. Now I can not play as much as before and some months ago I felt I finally make a competitive team and I picked dwarves which is similar to my all zombie team which I played hundreds of games, but better in every aspect.

I had the concept of a mass SF/Guard dwarf and I made it and currently it is around 2500TV and do not seem to go lower rather towards 3000k in long term.And I want them to be 3000k, Travelling Clinic is intentionally made to get maxmaxed.

The only problem is that I play badly in the last months, yet they made to the WO qualifier final. If I would be able to place my three guards well around my ballcarrier against the possibe gaze by Eldril and the upcoming blitz, they would probably be in the main event.

Yesterday we made love with my beautiful wife and it was great and after some rest I felt that hey lets prepare this team for the next major as what it lacks is mainly some Diving Tackles because fast agi teams can still make fool of my boys. I completely forgot about the lottery and everything and activated them. After the match was scheduled the lottery came into my mind but whatever, I thought, better to do some preparation now as I can't play often anyway.

I played two games, both were with huge TV gaps, I played terribly yet they won both. Seriously I played like a rookie with miscounted block dices, wasted apothecary and anything you can imagine. The team is great and they still won these matches despite their fool coach.

Would they never got scheduled would have been better as you can imagine how frustrating this was to my opponents. No stars/cards can help on that, I have 10 stand firm guards on the pitch, some with plus strengths, dauntless, many mighty blows.

My dilemma is: How should I prepare my team and also avoid to make my opponent frustrated and disappointed? Well, give me the high TV bashers, I will wait for that patiently. I work at my PC and can play in every 2-3 days a match during the night and I am fine, be it drawn in every 20th activation. Better, I wont waste many of my time playing Blood Bowl.

If you read me Christer please set that nominal TV difference cap to 430k.

Thanks for anyone who managed to read my words!

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Last edited by SzieberthAdam on Feb 08, 2019 - 16:36; edited 2 times in total
Harad



Joined: May 11, 2014

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 13:22 Reply with quote Back to top

But, but I like the games as the underdog...

https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=3767300

Sorry, any chance to share that Wink
Kzarik



Joined: Sep 25, 2016

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 13:55 Reply with quote Back to top

Oh, we're posting those? https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=3975173
Harad



Joined: May 11, 2014

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 13:57 Reply with quote Back to top

Kzarik wrote:
Oh, we're posting those? https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=3975173


Love it! But to make sure we're not stealing the OP's thread, my point was that I find some of the horrible games that the box scheduler throws a good challenge.
MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 13:57 Reply with quote Back to top

I endorse the implementation of a TV gap cap for the Black Box (I already suggested it in the past, by the way).
A 430 TV gap cap seems ok to me.

Since we are posting our TV gap matches, here's my top TV mismatch, 1170 TV difference for people too lazy to check: https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=3629645


Last edited by MattDakka on Feb 08, 2019 - 14:16; edited 1 time in total
Kzarik



Joined: Sep 25, 2016

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 14:12 Reply with quote Back to top

Harad wrote:
Kzarik wrote:
Oh, we're posting those? https://fumbbl.com/p/match?id=3975173


Love it! But to make sure we're not stealing the OP's thread, my point was that I find some of the horrible games that the box scheduler throws a good challenge.


I haven't lived in box enough to have a good opinion on how wide of a gap is okay and I think SzieberthAdam already described how the racial matchup+gap was more indicative of a problem then just a gap.

Just a long way of saying some gaps are more manageable than others. I did recently play in a brawl down around 610 TV Orcs vs. Dark Elves and that felt like an exercise in futility given the matchup. https://www.fumbbl.com/p/match?id=4029580
gamelsetlmatch



Joined: Mar 05, 2013

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 14:18 Reply with quote Back to top

You seem to post these when your team gets beat on..
I am sure every consideration has been made to keep the matchups fair*

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MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 14:29 Reply with quote Back to top

On average, assuming coaches of equal skill and not incredibly lopsided racial match-up (Amazons vs Dwarfs, for example), the massive overdog team tends to win, therefore the match-up is not fair.
Inducements are not meant to fully bridge the TV gap, and, even if they did, the client still lacks many of them.
SzieberthAdam



Joined: Aug 31, 2008

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 14:42 Reply with quote Back to top

As I know Christer's analysis do not support this assumption. My point is that the scheduler should go beyond win probability. Huge TV gaps should not be restricted because one party has less chance but because one party gets frustrated and probably destroyed too.

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MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 14:45 Reply with quote Back to top

Yes, frustration is a factor indeed, but it can't be measured.
Harad



Joined: May 11, 2014

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 15:39 Reply with quote Back to top

https://fumbbl.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=29448&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Just to avoid going over too much of the same ground.
Christer



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 16:05
FUMBBL Staff
Reply with quote Back to top

There are a number of factors that affect the design of the blackbox scheduler. For example:

1. People don't want to play fair games. The scheduler used to take into account CR and it spun out of control. People hated it. Even at extreme TV differences (1 million+), there's on average a 40% win rate for the underdog. This is very difficult to accept.
2. People don't want to play against minmaxed low-tv killer teams.
3. People want to get scheduled as much as possible. There are already complaints about how it's too hard to get a game.

Any feature designed to deal with point 2, and still take point 3 into account means that a low-tv minmaxed team shouldn't play against another low tv team, but at the same time be scheduled against *someone*. This inevitably means either another low-tv minmaxed team or a higher TV one. Not scheduling them isn't an option (see point 3).

The current system does *exactly* this. Having a 33 team old pro elf team at TV 1650 is certainly not far off from being minmaxed (whether that's actively so, or simply an effect of deaths doesn't matter).

On top of this, the other activated teams appear to have been low TV, so the scheduler picked between scheduling 3 matches the way it did or simply not scheduling the match. This is a problem (again, point 3). Had smallman activated a higher TV team at the same time (the dark elves or ogres), that team would likely have been scheduled instead.

This type of match is a natural effect of playing in the Blackbox division, and part of the challenge.

As for changing to a 30 minute schedule, it won't make a difference. I keep suggesting that someone organizes a "thursday night boxing" event or whatever and make an effort to get more people to activate on specific times. It's silly to ask me to change things to fit your schedule and at the same time refuse to do even the tiniest step yourself.
MattDakka



Joined: Oct 09, 2007

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 16:41 Reply with quote Back to top

Well I activated 14 teams (thus doing my best to increase the chance of a fair match-up) and I got unfair match-up (just played one, I tied but got bored to hell).
Not whining, but my opinion is that coaches like me, not monoactivating 1 super high TV team should not be penalized by the scheduler.
One thing is monoactivating a low TV minmax/powerhouse team and complaining when you find a super high TV team (because the minmax team is exploiting the scheduler), another thing is trying to make the Box a fair and varied environment (by activating more than 10 teams every time, every team of a different race and from different TVs) and finding a guy with a 2500 or higher TV who monoactivated, potentially creating an unfair match-up.
A simple workaround could be introducing the requirement of activating a team lower than 1800 or so for each team with TV 2000+.
Not complaining, just trying to providing constructive feedback, please don't get me wrong.
Cloggy



Joined: Sep 23, 2004

Post   Posted: Feb 08, 2019 - 16:43 Reply with quote Back to top

Am I the only one who finds it totally hilarious to have the OP complaining about being in a matchup he doesn't find fun?

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