Why are auto matches are so unbalanced?

[Gambrinus]

I'm getting fed up with my guild being matched against guilds ten times our size. This last battle we didn't even get to enter the battle before it was over. Why can't CA match us to same size guilds?:(

[solkyro]

that's because no guild equivalent to your size hasn't opted at that moment

autobattles match guild who opted to to automatch in that moment

[Purrrrrr]

cos then the guild of 39 currently decimating my guild of 84 would have their battles over in 30 mins? :D In our defense, almost all of them r over lvl 400 & none of ours have hit 500 yet :S Must admit, the lvl 509 I'm nibbling on (nibbling cos we're almost all stunned now lol) is VERY tasty tho, especially as I'm lv 166 <evil kitteh grin>

[Master Gamer]

< sigh > This question has been asked and answered countless times.

The auto match feature is dependent on guilds that consciously opt to participate in battle. Would you be happy if CA put your guild in an indefinite holding pattern until an exact match is found? When you opt in there are a limited number of other guilds available for the auto match - those that have also opted in. Because of the limited number of guilds available at any given time you are sometimes matched up with the best match available at the time you opted in.

How exactly do you want CA to fix this particular problem?

[Gambrinus]

There are a heck of a lot of guilds out there, and they aren't all big. Surely the programming could do better. I wouldn't mind if they took an hour - if we got a fair battle instead of something over in minutes. Especially as they don't seem to support any other guild battles anymore.

[solkyro]

There are a heck of a lot of guilds out there, and they aren't all big. Surely the programming could do better. I wouldn't mind if they took an hour - if we got a fair battle instead of something over in minutes. Especially as they don't seem to support any other guild battles anymore.

a lot of guilds don't participate in the autobattles, so you're bound to wait more than 1 hour if you're not lucky

[Master Gamer]

Waiting an hour would be horrible. Your guild would never know when the battle was initiated and you'd have to check every couple of minutes. Despite what you say I believe you would find this untenable as well. I suspect a good portion of your guild would check for the first 15 minutes and then give up.

I don't believe you have offered a viable solution.

[Captain Ron]

There are 2 things that determine matchups on guild battles.

1) Guild Rank
2) Guild Size


If your guild is ranked in the top 5% and no other small guild that opted in is, then you are going to be matched with a large guild in the top 5%. The reason for this is because there are (believe it or not) small guilds in CA that can easily take down larger guilds. These guilds would not have much fun if they were constantly being matched with small, weaker guilds.

[Gambrinus]

My guild is in the 40 to 60% range. That should not be rare. My suggestion of waiting longer may not be ideal; but, it can't be worse than the present situation. As it is we never get a balanced battle. The closest ones are twice our size, but most are five to twelve times our size. I don't mind losing if we at least have a chance and a long fight; but, we usually don't. As I said, the last battle was over before anyone on our side could even join. What's the point? Then we have to wait a day for another try.

How about a cut off of four times our size? Would that work? It should be easy to program.

[Master Gamer]

My guild is in the 40 to 60% range. That should not be rare. My suggestion of waiting longer may not be ideal; but, it can't be worse than the present situation. As it is we never get a balanced battle. The closest ones are twice our size, but most are five to twelve times our size. I don't mind losing if we at least have a chance and a long fight; but, we usually don't. As I said, the last battle was over before anyone on our side could even join. What's the point? Then we have to wait a day for another try.

How about a cut off of four times our size? Would that work? It should be easy to program.

How is it "easy to program"? If a guild that meet the criteria that you specified above doesn't opt in within 6 hours of when you do ... what then? How can the CA developers possibly code for the pure randomness of when and if guild chose to opt in? And yes I do believe elongating the wait time is worse, certainly for our guild. We are quite pleased when we get a bigger/powerful guild. The solution to your problem is to increase the size of your guild - it isn't really any different than the ability of people with 501+ armies to invade people with much smaller armies in the battle list.

[Captain Ron]

How is it "easy to program"? If a guild that meet the criteria that you specified above doesn't opt in within 6 hours of when you do ... what then? How can the CA developers possibly code for the pure randomness of when and if guild chose to opt in? And yes I do believe elongating the wait time is worse, certainly for our guild. We are quite pleased when we get a bigger/powerful guild. The solution to your problem is to increase the size of your guild - it isn't really any different than the ability of people with 501+ armies to invade people with much smaller armies in the battle list.

I agree with this. There are so many small guilds out there they should merge a few of them together.

[Master Gamer]

I agree with this. There are so many small guilds out there they should merge a few of them together.

Wow ... even though my grammar sucked.

[Defyeler]

If the OPs guild loses that fast to begin with, the size of the opponent isn't the problem.

[Gambrinus]

If there are "so many small guilds out there they should merge a few of them together" then that brings back my original point, there are plenty for us to be matched up against each other!

As far as I am concerned merging would take away the reason to be in a guild, which is to allow friends to play together. Just a bunch of folks you don't know for the sake of numbers wouldn't add anything to the game. (No, I don't think much of these 501 "friend" armies either but that would be another thread).

Whatever the game is programmed in, a simple calculation like a less than 4 to 1 ratio is easy, and they already have some sort of loop or timing in there in order that it doesn't have to be the first search and which could be made a longer period. (supposedly - maybe it is only the first search for all I can tell)

[zserg]

If there are "so many small guilds out there they should merge a few of them together" then that brings back my original point, there are plenty for us to be matched up against each other!

As far as I am concerned merging would take away the reason to be in a guild, which is to allow friends to play together. Just a bunch of folks you don't know for the sake of numbers wouldn't add anything to the game. (No, I don't think much of these 501 "friend" armies either but that would be another thread).

Whatever the game is programmed in, a simple calculation like a less than 4 to 1 ratio is easy, and they already have some sort of loop or timing in there in order that it doesn't have to be the first search and which could be made a longer period. (supposedly - maybe it is only the first search for all I can tell)

Most don't participate into guild wars at all.

From what I've seen the 5% in monsters is much larger than the 5% in guild battles, which imo would mean, that guilds with 0 points don't count, otherwise the top 5% would be just as big on both sides. Which in turn means that way less guilds do guild battles. I think most large guilds do battles, so that means most small guilds don't.


So as you can see, there isn't a ton of guilds to choose from ;)

[solkyro]

If there are "so many small guilds out there they should merge a few of them together" then that brings back my original point, there are plenty for us to be matched up against each other!

Whatever the game is programmed in, a simple calculation like a less than 4 to 1 ratio is easy, and they already have some sort of loop or timing in there in order that it doesn't have to be the first search and which could be made a longer period. (supposedly - maybe it is only the first search for all I can tell)

did you even understand what was said earlier ? a lot of the small guilds don't participate in autobattles.. what do you want the system to do ? pick-up a random small guild near your guild size that didn't participate in the autobattles ?!

talk about not understand participation in autobattle

[The Flirt]

Small Guilds, Stop doing so well, and you won't have to fight harder guilds :)

Problem solved!

[Skeggy553]

Crazy new plan: The CA devs create a 'training match'. it's a guild made of 50 straw dummies all at level one for 100 battle activity points per hit. Any guild with less than 10 members gets put into a training match and they can spend 5 happy hours hacking away at unresponsive dummies that won't fight back or offer a challenge.

Small guilds stop moaning, AND it takes them out of circulation so big builds won't get them.

No it's not meant to be serious.

[Strider the Rogue]

Well this kind of thing also bugs the bigger guilds... having an opponent guild so small they can get much BAP.

I've read in a similar complain not so long a go, and someone suggest that to click the auto-match the guild need to have at least 30 member... and I think that is a briliant suggestion.

[wraith]

Well this kind of thing also bugs the bigger guilds... having an opponent guild so small they can get much BAP.

I've read in a similar complain not so long a go, and someone suggest that to click the auto-match the guild need to have at least 30 member... and I think that is a briliant suggestion.
100-member guilds do not always win against 20-member guilds. I don't see why you should take auto-battle away from smaller guilds.

[Strider the Rogue]

100-member guilds do not always win against 20-member guilds. I don't see why you should take auto-battle away from smaller guilds.

True... a 100 member of monster hunters probably will fall in the presence of a 20 member PvP guild.

So what's your suggestion then?

[BillSF49]

It is just like almost every other aspect of PvP. Half hearted effort. Put the time and effort into the guild matches that is put into monsters and it would probably be pretty sweet. PvP doesn't pay the bills though, monster killing does. That is too bad, PvP could be much better if they did put time and effort in it.

[Gambrinus]

If small guilds don't join guild battles much, maybe it's because they keep getting matched vs much larger guilds until they give up. I still think that the problem is with the algorithm. It's not giving enough weight (if any) to guild size.

I understood the claim that there are few small guilds fighting guild battles; but, my point in a post above is that such a claim is not consistent with the complaint that there are too many small guilds. If there are lots of small guilds there should be a way to match them up.

[solkyro]

If small guilds don't join guild battles much, maybe it's because they keep getting matched vs much larger guilds until they give up. I still think that the problem is with the algorithm. It's not giving enough weight (if any) to guild size.

I understood the claim that there are few small guilds fighting guild battles; but, my point in a post above is that such a claim is not consistent with the complaint that there are too many small guilds. If there are lots of small guilds there should be a way to match them up.

do you even know how the automatch works ? cause if you do, you wouldn't be saying what you said above.

guilds need to opt in the automatch. then the system matches the guilds who opted within that time.

there are too many small guilds that are opting the offensive battles, that's for sure.

[Moi]

Did someone say twelve times their numbers? Considering 100 is the max ammount, you got only 8 members in your guild? You'd have wasted our time with your crappy ammount of member guild. Lucky there's none of you in the top 0-5%.

8 players to kill, 5-10 minute battle, 15-20 coins? You should join a bigger guild to battle with. Any battle that doesnt last at least 3 hours is kind of wasted, not enough coins. I want my daily 100-120 coins.

Yes it would be fun if they took into account the number of players in a guild, but I also recall a guild of 40 members (heavily pvp oriented) killing our guild of 80 players (some pvp, some hybrid, some levelers). Lasted 5 hours, while some 80 vs 80 battles last only 3 hours.

Increasing the waiting time to find a better match up, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO and NO. Our guild got a battle schedule and people show up at the right time. I wouldnt want to make them wait (and wait myself) for the game to find me a best case scenario battle. I want a battle when I click on automatch.

[zserg]

If small guilds don't join guild battles much, maybe it's because they keep getting matched vs much larger guilds until they give up. I still think that the problem is with the algorithm. It's not giving enough weight (if any) to guild size.

I understood the claim that there are few small guilds fighting guild battles; but, my point in a post above is that such a claim is not consistent with the complaint that there are too many small guilds. If there are lots of small guilds there should be a way to match them up.

I bet they don't opt in cuz they are not interested in battles. If they are interested they would opt in, just like your guild. Also I bet many of them, which are serious about battles, after seeing how numbers make a difference do their best to raise their numbers, so in the end they become yet another big guild

The only solution I see is for people to stop complaining and do something about the problem(i.e recruit more people.)

[Jain Zar]

I bet they don't opt in cuz they are not interested in battles. If they are interested they would opt in, just like your guild. Also I bet many of them, which are serious about battles, after seeing how numbers make a difference do their best to raise their numbers, so in the end they become yet another big guild

The only solution I see is for people to stop complaining and do something about the problem(i.e recruit more people.)

This goes for my guild. 21 members and no interest in guild battles. If I really wanted to get into the auto battles, I'd post in the recruitment section for more active fighting members.

[BobbyK]

do you even know how the automatch works ? cause if you do, you wouldn't be saying what you said above.

guilds need to opt in the automatch. then the system matches the guilds who opted within that time.

there are too many small guilds that are opting the offensive battles, that's for sure.

Actually, Gambrinos is completely right. There must be a problem with the algorithm. Right now my guild of 97 is fighting another of 49 members, with a fraction of our battle points. It's absolutely no fun to wait all day for a guild battle and have a match like the one i'm currently in.

Solkyro, next time before you run your mouth acting like a condescending know-it-all to someone with fewer posts than you, you just might want to do a little bit of reading first and less typing. Here is the description from game:

Each Guild matchup will be based on both Guild Size and Guild Pts. If your guild does not find a match within the 5-minute period, it will be submitted to be matched up in the next 5-minute interval.

If there are too many small guilds opting into automatches as you claim, it shouldn't be a problem pairing them up against each other, right?

[BobbyK]

Much of this grief is due to the fact that we are allowed only 1 battle and have to wait 9 hours before the next one. They abandoned the regular battles, but haven't done anything to increase the amount of times we can battle in a day. In an international guild like the one i'm in, many players miss the chance to battle simply because they are in the minority (tho we try to rotate our schedules occasionally).

Simply allow us to have more battles, and set a simple 'algorithm' that weighs guild sizes over guild points. To have more battles, either allow another one to be initiated while the previous one is still in it's 'collect loot' phase, or reduce the battle times (and token cooldowns at the same ratio) to a shorter period.

[Skeggy553]

Each Guild matchup will be based on both Guild Size and Guild Pts. If your guild does not find a match within the 5-minute period, it will be submitted to be matched up in the next 5-minute interval.

The reason you got a 40 man guild was because there was no better option for you. Your guild and the 40 man guild both opted in the same time. right? So the automatch has two guilds left and matched them rather than put them into the next 5 minute interval.

What you seem to want is an algorithm that can read minds and decide what the guilds want. Some in your position would want to wait for a better match, some would want to fight the 40 man guild and not have to wait.

Guess what. It ain't gonna please everyone, but until you invent psychic computer programs, what you want will not happen.

[Jain Zar]

Here is the description from game:...

lol. There are many cases where the game description says one thing, but actually means another. The devs are not known for their great language/spelling/grammer skills. However, people like Solkyro have been playing long enough to see how the game works, regardless of number of forum posts.

[BobbyK]

lol. There are many cases where the game description says one thing, but actually means another. The devs are not known for their great language/spelling/grammer skills. However, people like Solkyro have been playing long enough to see how the game works, regardless of number of forum posts.

This wouldn't be a case of bad language, it would be an outright misrepresentation. Regardless, the fact remains that something should be done to improve the way guilds are matched against each other since we are allowed so few battles.

[zserg]

By that the devs mean if you're the only guild that opted in at that time, you're gonna have to wait another 5 minutes.


I think Kori explained once that auto-match program thing searches a guild that is perfectly matched, and if it doesn't find one, it simply expands the search terms until it finally finds a guild. This should get you a good match if enough guilds opt-in, but many times that's not the case and instead of just letting you wait for hours, they give you a not-so-balanced guild to fight.

[Jain Zar]

but many times that's not the case and instead of just letting you wait for hours, they give you a not-so-balanced guild to fight.

I wonder how many people would complain if they did have to wait days or weeks to be matched with the "perfect" guild.

[zserg]

I wonder how many people would complain if they did have to wait days or weeks to be matched with the "perfect" guild.

If we had to wait that much, I'd complain :p

[BobbyK]

The reason you got a 40 man guild was because there was no better option for you. Your guild and the 40 man guild both opted in the same time. right? So the automatch has two guilds left and matched them rather than put them into the next 5 minute interval.

What you seem to want is an algorithm that can read minds and decide what the guilds want. Some in your position would want to wait for a better match, some would want to fight the 40 man guild and not have to wait.

Guess what. It ain't gonna please everyone, but until you invent psychic computer programs, what you want will not happen.

A 'psychic' program would be unnecessary, when it would appear that simple common sense dictates an extra 5 minute wait for a better match would be preferred by the vast majority of guilds, since those who opt in for a match expect to have to spend up to 5 hours fighting....

[Skeggy553]

A 'psychic' program would be unnecessary, when it would appear that simple common sense dictates an extra 5 minute wait for a better match would be preferred by the vast majority of guilds, since those who opt in for a match expect to have to spend up to 5 hours fighting....

And what about the 40 man guild? what if they wanted a 90 man guild to fight? what if they were a stronger guild? how do you decide who should fight who?

[BobbyK]

And what about the 40 man guild? what if they wanted a 90 man guild to fight? what if they were a stronger guild? how do you decide who should fight who?

The 'strength' of the guild (calculated by accumulated battle points, i presume) should also be weighed in the algorithm, just not as heavily as guild size. But if the smaller guild has a comparable leaderboard ranking to the larger guild they would potentially be pitted against, the game should certainly pair the two.

[Amanojaku]

Activity... i'm sure it's been posted already 10+ times.. but the greatest strength of a guild lies in how many people are actually actively playing!

[solkyro]

Actually, Gambrinos is completely right. There must be a problem with the algorithm. Right now my guild of 97 is fighting another of 49 members, with a fraction of our battle points. It's absolutely no fun to wait all day for a guild battle and have a match like the one i'm currently in.

Solkyro, next time before you run your mouth acting like a condescending know-it-all to someone with fewer posts than you, you just might want to do a little bit of reading first and less typing. Here is the description from game:

Each Guild matchup will be based on both Guild Size and Guild Pts. If your guild does not find a match within the 5-minute period, it will be submitted to be matched up in the next 5-minute interval.

If there are too many small guilds opting into automatches as you claim, it shouldn't be a problem pairing them up against each other, right?

and at the risk of being more condescending, do you even understand what you are saying ?

10 minutes is not enough to find a suitable guild to match, considering the majority of guilds that do opt in are big or strong guilds and they have different schedules. the system matches your guild to the guild that opted at the same time as yours. it may only be 1 or 2 at that time but the system will definitely match you to that guild that actually opted at that timeframe, the system will never deny you a match

you seem to be confused of what i am saying. i am saying that most small guilds don't opt the automatches and would rather go the offensive battles which gives a battlelist of guilds (all of which inactive at some point) since it's easier for them to fight such guilds. those small guilds that do opt run the risk of being slaughtered at once and there are certainly few that do opt the autobattles. because of that reason, most small guilds should either increase their army or merge with other small guilds to be strong in autobattles

also, how will the system match guilds if there are only 2 that opted at that time ? the system wouldn't waste time on waiting for the right guild to appear (which will or will not appear )

you seem to have an impression that there are many guild of various sizes that join the automatch every moment, where in reality not a lot of them join (majority of the joiners are guilds more than 60 people above) and they join on various times depending on their last battle and cooldown

[Master Gamer]

A 'psychic' program would be unnecessary, when it would appear that simple common sense dictates an extra 5 minute wait for a better match would be preferred by the vast majority of guilds, since those who opt in for a match expect to have to spend up to 5 hours fighting....

And if one isn't available in the next 5 minutes, what then? Wait another 5 minutes and if one isn't available again continue to wait? So you could wait indefinitely - no that is not a solution.

And your assumption that "a vast majority of guilds would prefer to wait" is certainly NOT true for my guild. My guild has 75 members and it is very rare that we are paired with a guild that has less than 85 members and more often than not we are paired against guilds with 99 and 100 members (yesterday's battle was vs 99). We want the battle to last the full 5 hours so we can gather a full measure of coins.

You guys still don't seem to understand that the programming can only work with the guilds that have actually chosen to opt in.

[solkyro]

The 'strength' of the guild (calculated by accumulated battle points, i presume) should also be weighed in the algorithm, just not as heavily as guild size. But if the smaller guild has a comparable leaderboard ranking to the larger guild they would potentially be pitted against, the game should certainly pair the two.

that's useless if you are matching 2 guilds that opted at that time and next guild opting in would appear an hour later

[gorzoth]

Can we even start a guild battle anymore that's not an "auto battle"?

[The Flirt]

Can we even start a guild battle anymore that's not an "auto battle"?

No.

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.

[FancyNancy]

I like Captain Ron's answer :o) I'm in guild of 35 and we use STRATEGY to make a battle last longer. Also, you might try to increase the size of your guild. There are a lot of folks looking for guilds. I know that for a fact, as I reject them daily as our guild is happy to stay at 35...BTW we haven't lost a fight (yet) and we don't care if we do, it is about getting those "coins" to buy the items we need for continuing our strategy planning. We fight teams of 85-100 players everyday. Our level players are 38- and up. But I'm telling ya, it's not the "power" that wins etc, use a good strategy .

[loudestchick]

As a member of a 100 member guild ranging in lvls from 30-417 where only 20 members participate in guild battles, I find myself BEGGING the other guild (in chat) to prolong our slaughter to maximize coins. Sure, I like winning...who doesn't?

But the fun is in chatting with my guild about strategy...joking about clerics raising a zombie army...finding that player that gives me 240 pts/hit...

That is what I like about guild battles. Yes, they are often miserably unequal~ but 20 stam isn't a huge investment is it?
:rolleyes:

[Strider the Rogue]

I'm getting fed up with my guild being matched against guilds ten times our size. This last battle we didn't even get to enter the battle before it was over. Why can't CA match us to same size guilds?:(

Here lies the problem... as the max guild member is 100... that means OP's guild members is in the max of 10? Or maybe ten-ish?
So unless they're all a decent level PvP build... of course the fight won't last long.

Each Guild matchup will be based on both Guild Size and Guild Pts. If your guild does not find a match within the 5-minute period, it will be submitted to be matched up in the next 5-minute interval.

I have to agree with Solkyro here, I'm an officer and when we get a match under 5 minutes after I clicked auto-match we usually get an opponent that is close to our guild size, but if longer than 5 minutes... we usually got those that is highly bigger member or the totally smaller member guild.

Activity... i'm sure it's been posted already 10+ times.. but the greatest strength of a guild lies in how many people are actually actively playing!

I don;t think it's not the problem with OP... because he said it, the battle was over before any member of his guild could join.

I like Captain Ron's answer :o) I'm in guild of 35 and we use STRATEGY to make a battle last longer. Also, you might try to increase the size of your guild. There are a lot of folks looking for guilds. I know that for a fact, as I reject them daily as our guild is happy to stay at 35...BTW we haven't lost a fight (yet) and we don't care if we do, it is about getting those "coins" to buy the items we need for continuing our strategy planning. We fight teams of 85-100 players everyday. Our level players are 38- and up. But I'm telling ya, it's not the "power" that wins etc, use a good strategy .

It's not strategy either... my guess is OP's guild is a monster hunter guild that has maybe under 15 members... and if met with a PvP guild even with the same size members, of course his guild will be wiped out fast.

So for the curent time, as "guild" is still in it's beta phase maybe in the future there will be an opt to choose opponent size.
But for the time being, for OP, I suggest to grow the size of his guild or merge his/her guild with other guild.

[Gambrinus]

Since it has been asked, I'm in an 8 player guild. We beat a 32 player guild tonight in a 5 hour battle that went down to the wire. But most of the the time we are getting 50 to 100 player guilds and the battle is over before it begins. Either the algorithm is not weighing guild size properly, or else the program could be improved by taking longer to make a matchup. It doesn't have to be a week. Right now it seems to be five minutes, so of course the selection is limited. For a battle that can last five hours, surely an hour or so would be enough to find a better matchup?
From the sound of it there are lots of small guilds in our position, and there are lots of big guilds who don't like such matchups either. Once we were matched up against a one man guild, and that wasn't much of a battle either. The dev's probably can't factor for that, but they still could improve things for most small and large guilds.

[solkyro]

For a battle that can last five hours, surely an hour or so would be enough to find a better matchup?


waiting for an hour is impossible especially if you have an international guild

[Master Gamer]

Since it has been asked, I'm in an 8 player guild. We beat a 32 player guild tonight in a 5 hour battle that went down to the wire. But most of the the time we are getting 50 to 100 player guilds and the battle is over before it begins. Either the algorithm is not weighing guild size properly, or else the program could be improved by taking longer to make a matchup. It doesn't have to be a week. Right now it seems to be five minutes, so of course the selection is limited. For a battle that can last five hours, surely an hour or so would be enough to find a better matchup?
From the sound of it there are lots of small guilds in our position, and there are lots of big guilds who don't like such matchups either. Once we were matched up against a one man guild, and that wasn't much of a battle either. The dev's probably can't factor for that, but they still could improve things for most small and large guilds.

I find it highly unlikely that with only 8 members in your guild that you will EVER find a balanced battle. Changing the algorithm so that guilds have to wait up to an hour prior to adjusting the match parameters so that your 8 member guild MIGHT have a chance at matching with another smaller guild is NOT a solution that works for a majority of the player base (if ANY). It is highly likely that you will wait an hour only to get a battle that looks just like the one you would have gotten had you waited only 5 minutes. Under NO circumstances do I want to put my guild in an hour holding pattern never knowing when a guild battle might actually happen - talk about scheduling nightmares.

Again - just as you have no protection against bigger armies that invade you in the battle list there is no protection for you against bigger guilds. That is just the way it is ... don't like it then you have to build your army/guild (which is what CA wants in the end).

[Gambrinus]

I'm not asking for 8 vs 8, just a more reasonable ratio. If you have 100 members you would probably find another guild with at least 1/2 as many folks within five minutes. But do you really prefer to fight an 8 member guild just to get faster matchup? The algorithm could be improved, and the conditions for wait improved, without requiring that an easy-to-match guild had to wait extra. It's the smaller guilds that need better matching, and they would be glad to wait, and the larger guilds would benefit by not having to waste their day's battle on a guild that gave few points.

[Master Gamer]

I'm not asking for 8 vs 8, just a more reasonable ratio. If you have 100 members you would probably find another guild with at least 1/2 as many folks within five minutes. But do you really prefer to fight an 8 member guild just to get faster matchup? The algorithm could be improved, and the conditions for wait improved, without requiring that an easy-to-match guild had to wait extra. It's the smaller guilds that need better matching, and they would be glad to wait, and the larger guilds would benefit by not having to waste their day's battle on a guild that gave few points.

Again ... I think even if you waited 1 hour you are still likely to get a battle just like the one had you only waited 5 minutes. I see no need to penalize the whole user base just so you can get the same battle 1 hour later. You also continue to make the assumption that ALL small guilds feel the same way as you do ... there are quite a few smaller guilds that are VERY strong and want the big guilds.

[Defyeler]

We, a 28 player guild, want only 100 member guilds to fight. Same goes for Ronins probably, who are smaller than we are last I checked.

[Ser Barristan Selmy]

< sigh > This question has been asked and answered countless times.

The auto match feature is dependent on guilds that consciously opt to participate in battle. Would you be happy if CA put your guild in an indefinite holding pattern until an exact match is found? When you opt in there are a limited number of other guilds available for the auto match - those that have also opted in. Because of the limited number of guilds available at any given time you are sometimes matched up with the best match available at the time you opted in.

How exactly do you want CA to fix this particular problem?

An "exact match" may be unfeasible as the time lag would be too long. I think Guilds should be matched against others on their current "achievement" status (0-5%, 6-20%, etc). This may be the way it is already, but I have some doubts considering the number of times my Guild has been matched against far superior Guilds. If so, then the level of guild members should be taken into account to bring about more equal battles. Perhaps average the top 16 and bottom 16 member levels, if feasible within the program. Or average the top 10 for a simpler function.

At the least, the number of auto-battles allowed in a given time should be doubled, or bring back one Offensive/Defensive Battle in addition to the Auto Battle for a given amount of time - at least then you have some idea of what you are getting into then.

Thank you for your consideration, Ser Barristan Selmy of the Great Lions

[solkyro]

An "exact match" may be unfeasible as the time lag would be too long. I think Guilds should be matched against others on their current "achievement" status (0-5%, 6-20%, etc). This may be the way it is already, but I have some doubts considering the number of times my Guild has been matched against far superior Guilds. If so, then the level of guild members should be taken into account to bring about more equal battles. Perhaps average the top 16 and bottom 16 member levels, if feasible within the program. Or average the top 10 for a simpler function.



that's useless if you only have 2 guilds opting to automatch at that time

[Ser Barristan Selmy]

An "exact match" may be unfeasible as the time lag would be too long. I think Guilds should be matched against others on their current "achievement" status (0-5%, 6-20%, etc). This may be the way it is already, but I have some doubts considering the number of times my Guild has been matched against far superior Guilds. If so, then the level of guild members should be taken into account to bring about more equal battles. Perhaps average the top 16 and bottom 16 member levels, if feasible within the program. Or average the top 10 for a simpler function.

At the least, the number of auto-battles allowed in a given time should be doubled, or bring back one Offensive/Defensive Battle in addition to the Auto Battle for a given amount of time - at least then you have some idea of what you are getting into then.

Thank you for your consideration, Ser Barristan Selmy of the Great Lions

Although if the game's program matches guilds on their achievment status, an easy solution would be to double the 'time to battle' to 10 minutes. This should double the number of available guilds in the pool and and allow more equal matches. And since 10 minutes is what we waited for under the Offensive/Defensive battles, we can certainly deal with it! Although the number of guild battles in the time frame should be doubled regardless.

-Ser Barristan Selmy

[solkyro]

Although if the game's program matches guilds on their achievment status, an easy solution would be to double the 'time to battle' to 10 minutes. This should double the number of available guilds in the pool and and allow more equal matches. And since 10 minutes is what we waited for under the Offensive/Defensive battles, we can certainly deal with it! Although the number of guild battles in the time frame should be doubled regardless.


you can deal with that. many others wouldn't want to wait that long to fight

and my statement above is still true

[Ser Barristan Selmy]

you can deal with that. many others wouldn't want to wait that long to fight

and my statement above is still true

First: Of the thousands of Guilds out there, more than 2 will elect to auto-battle at any given time. If you doubt that, ask the admins about their problems with the servers keeping up with demand.

Second: Most of my Guild who choose to fight will wait. I KNOW that is the same for the guilds we fight. At least for the amounts of time I am considering. And a Guild cannot rely upon members who will only wait a minute or two to fight - after all, a guild battle can last for hours. This concerns finding the best battles possible, not simply who can join and use their points in a minute and then disregard said battle.

Thank you,
Ser Barristan Selmy

[Strider the Rogue]

that's useless if you only have 2 guilds opting to automatch at that time

I would like to think that is highly unpropable judging on the numbers of guild.
BUT as to matching guilds with those that has the closest numbers of members... maybe a couple of guild won't find a "matching" opponent.

Although if the game's program matches guilds on their achievment status, an easy solution would be to double the 'time to battle' to 10 minutes. This should double the number of available guilds in the pool and and allow more equal matches. And since 10 minutes is what we waited for under the Offensive/Defensive battles, we can certainly deal with it! Although the number of guild battles in the time frame should be doubled regardless.

-Ser Barristan Selmy

10 minutes... that could be good.


Anyway at the current automatch setting, there is a 5 minutes window where the system will match you with the closest number of members.
The problem is... it seems if within this 5 minutes window you don't find any "matching" opponent guild, your guild will be match with others that didn't find any match also, and that could mean highly different number of members.
And seeing the guild list... I think if you want to find a "balance" (in terms of numbers of guild member) you might want to up your members to at least 50.

Now after saying that, I would think all of this will be any problem if your guild is compossed mainly of PvPers.

Now... my suggestion is for any guild that opted for GvG please do so with discretion. Any guild that have under 30 members that is compossed mainly of monster hunters could probably find themselves pitted against 100 member guild that have some decent PvP builds and could be defeated in a very short time, because as been said before, not many guilds under 30 members opted for automatch, so be prepared...

[solkyro]

First: Of the thousands of Guilds out there, more than 2 will elect to auto-battle at any given time. If you doubt that, ask the admins about their problems with the servers keeping up with demand.

Second: Most of my Guild who choose to fight will wait. I KNOW that is the same for the guilds we fight. At least for the amounts of time I am considering. And a Guild cannot rely upon members who will only wait a minute or two to fight - after all, a guild battle can last for hours. This concerns finding the best battles possible, not simply who can join and use their points in a minute and then disregard said battle.


you are hoping and that's cute but the reality is that not a lot of them opt to automatch and most are only doing offensive battles. the reality is that only it's mostly top guild choose to join the battles since a guild can fight the same guild three times in a row if you happen to opt in at the same time. one can also fight that same guild in another time. that alone says the low number of guilds participating in automatch

waiting for 10 minutes is not an option since in an international guild, waiting for that long is going to tire any player wanting to do something else for a change. a longer waiting time = a faster boredom

[Strider the Rogue]

you are hoping and that's cute but the reality is that not a lot of them opt to automatch and most are only doing offensive battles. the reality is that only it's mostly top guild choose to join the battles since a guild can fight the same guild three times in a row if you happen to opt in at the same time. one can also fight that same guild in another time. that alone says the low number of guilds participating in automatch

Sorry to interupt the debate... but are you saying that most guild use direct link? As we all know, that offensive battle is broken... or at least for my guild.

[solkyro]

Sorry to interupt the debate... but are you saying that most guild use direct link? As we all know, that offensive battle is broken... or at least for my guild.

i'd say that it's buggy on everyone. offensive battle work, don't work and cheated by some and kori hasn't fully clarified offensive battles

[Strider the Rogue]

well that is new to me...

So then this debate is useless as we all make our argument under the perception of GvG are only available through automatch... if what you say is true, than the solution to the problem would be to shut down offensive/defensive battle totally.

[zserg]

My guilds get so few offensive matches, that the points from those battles are irrelevant for us.

Maybe one per week. And we have officers that check the list pretty often, but if the same guild stays there for 20 hours+ there is little chances we can get a battle.

[Ser Barristan Selmy]

you are hoping and that's cute but the reality is that not a lot of them opt to automatch and most are only doing offensive battles. the reality is that only it's mostly top guild choose to join the battles since a guild can fight the same guild three times in a row if you happen to opt in at the same time. one can also fight that same guild in another time. that alone says the low number of guilds participating in automatch

waiting for 10 minutes is not an option since in an international guild, waiting for that long is going to tire any player wanting to do something else for a change. a longer waiting time = a faster boredom

That's interesting. None of my people have been able to initiate an Offensive Battle in 2 months. I tried once for 2 hours straight (and failed), so I didn't think it was possible anymore - except for whoever was lucky enough to hit the one available guild at the immediately available time. So I figured the other thousands of guilds had to do an auto-battle. If the Offensive/Defensive Battles are still totally active, then the system is really messed up!

Though I do think a 10+ minute wait period is entirely feasible. At least for those who are at their computers doing other things. I can understand it for those who check in for a minute-or-so. And most of the people I know who are active can wait (do something else for 10 minutes or so) and come back to their computer when a battle is happening. Perhaps this is different for your people (they may have lives), and if so, you have my apologies.

Thank you,
Ser Barristan Selmy

[Skeggy553]

I don't think it matters if the waiting period is doubled if this happens:

Say 4 guilds enter into the automatch

A. 95 members, rank 21-40%
B. 93 members, rank 21-40%
C. 80 members, rank 21-40%
D. 15 members, rank 61-80%

I think the automatch would place guilds A and B into a battle. Does that seem right to everyone? But what about C and D? C gets a crappy battle.
But no matter how you match those 4 guilds SOMEONE gets a crappy battle. You could double the time as much as you want. if you have an this kind of 'odd guild out' situation, eventually someone has to have an auto-match that won't please them. There is no perfect sorting algorithm that will solve this problem for everyone.

So for all those complaining how do you solve that? Do you just refuse to match guild D with anyone? just pass them from interval to interval? How long before they feel let down by the system?

[zserg]

I don't think it matters if the waiting period is doubled if this happens:

Say 4 guilds enter into the automatch

A. 95 members, rank 21-40%
B. 93 members, rank 21-40%
C. 80 members, rank 21-40%
D. 15 members, rank 61-80%

I think the automatch would place guilds A and B into a battle. Does that seem right to everyone? But what about C and D? C gets a crappy battle.
But no matter how you match those 4 guilds SOMEONE gets a crappy battle. You could double the time as much as you want. if you have an this kind of 'odd guild out' situation, eventually someone has to have an auto-match that won't please them. There is no perfect sorting algorithm that will solve this problem for everyone.

So for all those complaining how do you solve that? Do you just refuse to match guild D with anyone? just pass them from interval to interval? How long before they feel let down by the system?

Yeah that's the point we're trying to make. Thanks for giving a practical example :D

[Master Gamer]

It is my belief that the leader board only accounts for auto battles ... offensive and defensive battles don't count except for acquiring guild coins

[Mursilis]

It is my belief that the leader board only accounts for auto battles ... offensive and defensive battles don't count except for acquiring guild coins

Actually I believe Kori mentioned something to that effect when the leaderboards were reset a while back.

[angelwing]

Just how small is your Guild since the max number that a guild can have is 100. Secondly, wins are based on %, so even if you are matched against a larger Guild you can still win. Your members should work on your stats and strategy.

[Gambrinus]

Why expect only 4 guilds? There are over 12,000 guilds 5 or above and only 24 hours in the day. If the match up period (not everyone would wait, but if a guild didn't find a decent match then it would wait another five minutes etc) was up to an hour, say, there would probably be hundreds of potential matches.

(My guild has eight members. We do beat larger guilds sometimes but 50 to 100 is way too many)

[zserg]

Look if there are 100, 97 of them large and 3 of them small, 2 are gonna get bad matches.

The number of guilds is irrelevant.

Ok my math sucks edited that.

[Skeggy553]

Why expect only 4 guilds? There are over 12,000 guilds 5 or above and only 24 hours in the day.

I chose 4 guilds for simplicity but also because I don't think it's too much of a stretch. We know from experience timing the 'opting in' that if 2 guilds of similar size and rank opt in at the same time they have a very very very good chance of meeting up. which implies that there aren't hundreds of guilds opting in at any one moment.

4 might be low but there are not 12000 guilds battling. There are in fact 2500 guilds on the leaderboard which bottoms out at 440 points. 440 points says those guilds are NOT opting into autobattles on a regular basis. so lets say we have 1500 guilds who opt in every 14 hours. There are (I think) 168 '5 minute intervals' during a 14 hour period. (14 hours = 5 hour battle + 9 hour cooldown)

dividing those 1500 guilds up equally the 5 minute intervals and you get...less than 9. There are likely to be at any one point in time less than 9 guilds opted into an auto-battle.

My example of 4 is looking less ridiculous now isn't it? By all means, I admit my maths may be dodgy but I bet any money that under normal circumstances, the autobattle feature has 10 guilds or less to choose from.

Increasing the time up to an hour would cause just as many complaints as there are now AND you'd still get rubbish battles.

[Strider the Rogue]

I don't think it matters if the waiting period is doubled if this happens:

Say 4 guilds enter into the automatch

A. 95 members, rank 21-40%
B. 93 members, rank 21-40%
C. 80 members, rank 21-40%
D. 15 members, rank 61-80%

I think the automatch would place guilds A and B into a battle. Does that seem right to everyone? But what about C and D? C gets a crappy battle.
But no matter how you match those 4 guilds SOMEONE gets a crappy battle. You could double the time as much as you want. if you have an this kind of 'odd guild out' situation, eventually someone has to have an auto-match that won't please them. There is no perfect sorting algorithm that will solve this problem for everyone.

So for all those complaining how do you solve that? Do you just refuse to match guild D with anyone? just pass them from interval to interval? How long before they feel let down by the system?

Why expect only 4 guilds? There are over 12,000 guilds 5 or above and only 24 hours in the day. If the match up period (not everyone would wait, but if a guild didn't find a decent match then it would wait another five minutes etc) was up to an hour, say, there would probably be hundreds of potential matches.

(My guild has eight members. We do beat larger guilds sometimes but 50 to 100 is way too many)

Actually Gambrinus, Skeggy553's logic is true... so no matter how much guild is entered in that equation, some will always get a "bad" match.
And again with your 8 member guild, there juast aren't that much guild with close number that opted in, so you will almost always get the "bad" match, which is a gamble on the opponent's number.

So I guess you have two options right now:
1. accept it as it is
2. grow your guild

[Anderosn]

our guild gets many different opponents, 14 members or 87 or else, we've met one with 57 members and they have over 40 Lv.400+, while our best one is Lv.3xx.

another problem is that i usually get opponents over Lv.900 but I'm just a Lv.31x player in Battle.

what does it mean to me? REFRESH AGAIN AND PRAY FOR A BETTER MATCH!!

what a waste of time?

[Gambrinus]

"what does it mean to me? REFRESH AGAIN AND PRAY FOR A BETTER MATCH!!"

I don't understand this, there is no refresh to autobattle (and the older offense list doesn't work any more)

I don't think my suggestion of a longer period is being understood. If, in the first five minutes, a good match is found, that match would go ahead right away. Common big guilds would have no cause to complain. But the guild without a good match would continue into the next 5 minutes, etc. That way they would have a much bigger chance of a good match. Even if it took an hour, that's still better than having to wait a day, try again, and repeat for 12 days.

[zserg]

"what does it mean to me? REFRESH AGAIN AND PRAY FOR A BETTER MATCH!!"

I don't understand this, there is no refresh to autobattle (and the older offense list doesn't work any more)



He was talking about the battle page, making a simple analogy with another part of the game.

Your second question has been explained to you countless times , yet you refuse to understand.

[Muhoshin]

It's like watching somebody with 10 army complain that the invade button is broken.

Guild battles are simply not designed for the likely <.1% of the population that is interested in guild battles, are composed of weak members, and refuse to grow their guild.

There's also no lane on the highway designed for people who want to go 20 mph.