Under Cover in Bronze League - And Some Questions For Pixonic
Fellow Pilots,
My three (3) human children are of the age to enjoy video games, and two (2) have War Robots on their devices. They seem to prefer much simpler games, but they were playing WR every now and then to see what interested Dad so much. When one of my Aurora Nova clan mates said that he revived a very old account to find that Pixonic had gifted him a large sum of gold "to catch up," I figured I'd check the kids' accounts.
In case you've never been off the game for an extended period, the U can now estimate that Pix provides somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 Au/month of inactivity when you log in. Of course, there isn't a whole lot you can do with gold these days. Now, if they provided about thirty thousand HeyChee components ...
Anyway, I figured it would be of interest to the readers of this blog to play a few games in the lowest leagues, so I started a new account in the name "Prof. Longhair." Even the casual reader will know that I'm from New Orleans, LA, but you probably don't know 'Fess. He was the patron saint of Mardi Gras music, and like the Native American code talkers, spoke one of the most unique languages on the planet.
When I go under cover, I go DEEP. Thus donning a disguise in the name of science, I went back to the days of the Cossack:
If you haven't flown one of the little guys since the first time you beheld a Trebuchet, it is So. Much. Fun.
One thing I learned is that newbies don't understand the game very well. Eight out of twelve skipped the beacons entirely in this one, with only two spending any time near a light (and one of those was me). This was "King Of the Hill" mode - only one beacon at a time! Along with Dr. Werdna, I'm working on a guide for this mode.
Anyway, I was surprised to see how quickly the HeyCheese ruined the party. I thought I was the clubber around here!
This jerk alternates between two hangars to get wins (8441 and counting) and gold. Here's the clubber group:
And here's the tanker group, which I saw in the next match:
If you are wondering how prevalent tankers and clubbers are in the game's lower leagues (Bronze and Silver), they are present in almost every match. I didn't see any in my first 10 battles, but they had infested the whole enterprise by the time I had reached level 20 with about 35 wins. This only took about fifty battles. Pixonic, take note! The U has a question - as a percentage, how many people download and play War Robots but never reach 200 games? What is the rate at which new players quit? Does Pixonic possess any data about mismatches in the first leagues pilots experience?
Clubbers hit all the popular spots, winding up on my team too. I fired only at them in this one, after realizing what was going on:
Tanker/clubbers even throw their battles to go downward from Silver league, which was a revelation for me. I was under the impression that they tanked down but then fought all the way back up to the league they belong in, but the evidence above suggests that many tankers stay in the low leagues 100% of the time.
For instance, here's "Gaius Tiberius," approaching 3000 wins, with a current Silver League rating of 1156. But he's blowing up all his robots to go even lower.
War Robots University has been asked why we care so much about tankers and clubbers, and it probably took us longer than it should have to figure out. The University's faculty cares because we want the game to survive, and we are concerned these assh*les will kill War Robots by ruining the experience for new players. We've been working on a much bigger post about this dynamic (and what we might do about it). Coming soon.
Until then, I remain your humble servant,
Dr. Yat
Faculty Notes
My three (3) human children are of the age to enjoy video games, and two (2) have War Robots on their devices. They seem to prefer much simpler games, but they were playing WR every now and then to see what interested Dad so much. When one of my Aurora Nova clan mates said that he revived a very old account to find that Pixonic had gifted him a large sum of gold "to catch up," I figured I'd check the kids' accounts.
In case you've never been off the game for an extended period, the U can now estimate that Pix provides somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 Au/month of inactivity when you log in. Of course, there isn't a whole lot you can do with gold these days. Now, if they provided about thirty thousand HeyChee components ...
Anyway, I figured it would be of interest to the readers of this blog to play a few games in the lowest leagues, so I started a new account in the name "Prof. Longhair." Even the casual reader will know that I'm from New Orleans, LA, but you probably don't know 'Fess. He was the patron saint of Mardi Gras music, and like the Native American code talkers, spoke one of the most unique languages on the planet.
When I go under cover, I go DEEP. Thus donning a disguise in the name of science, I went back to the days of the Cossack:
If you haven't flown one of the little guys since the first time you beheld a Trebuchet, it is So. Much. Fun.
One thing I learned is that newbies don't understand the game very well. Eight out of twelve skipped the beacons entirely in this one, with only two spending any time near a light (and one of those was me). This was "King Of the Hill" mode - only one beacon at a time! Along with Dr. Werdna, I'm working on a guide for this mode.
Anyway, I was surprised to see how quickly the HeyCheese ruined the party. I thought I was the clubber around here!
This jerk alternates between two hangars to get wins (8441 and counting) and gold. Here's the clubber group:
And here's the tanker group, which I saw in the next match:
If you are wondering how prevalent tankers and clubbers are in the game's lower leagues (Bronze and Silver), they are present in almost every match. I didn't see any in my first 10 battles, but they had infested the whole enterprise by the time I had reached level 20 with about 35 wins. This only took about fifty battles. Pixonic, take note! The U has a question - as a percentage, how many people download and play War Robots but never reach 200 games? What is the rate at which new players quit? Does Pixonic possess any data about mismatches in the first leagues pilots experience?
Clubbers hit all the popular spots, winding up on my team too. I fired only at them in this one, after realizing what was going on:
Tanker/clubbers even throw their battles to go downward from Silver league, which was a revelation for me. I was under the impression that they tanked down but then fought all the way back up to the league they belong in, but the evidence above suggests that many tankers stay in the low leagues 100% of the time.
For instance, here's "Gaius Tiberius," approaching 3000 wins, with a current Silver League rating of 1156. But he's blowing up all his robots to go even lower.
War Robots University has been asked why we care so much about tankers and clubbers, and it probably took us longer than it should have to figure out. The University's faculty cares because we want the game to survive, and we are concerned these assh*les will kill War Robots by ruining the experience for new players. We've been working on a much bigger post about this dynamic (and what we might do about it). Coming soon.
Until then, I remain your humble servant,
Dr. Yat
Faculty Notes
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The U is not just a blog ... we are also iOS clans #48669 [theU] for Masters/Champs and #139479 [U-2] for Diamond/Expert. We welcome skilled communicators from around the world.
The U is not just a blog ... we are also iOS clans #48669 [theU] for Masters/Champs and #139479 [U-2] for Diamond/Expert. We welcome skilled communicators from around the world.
What will you do with the account once it ranks too high to stay undercover in bronze? Are you going to keep your bots at them same level to prevent progression beyond a certain point, or examine every lower league on your way up?
ReplyDeleteI will probably post about it, but I'll let the accounts sit for a long time before deciding. I do this to pick up a gold "catch up" bonus Pix provides accounts that are reactivated after a long time dormant (around 1200Au/month). I donate the proceeds to clan strength as we seek our 39th spot.
DeleteYou are not the only one who knows this is bad for the game. I wrote a couple paragraphs to pixo a few months back about this exact problem. Any new players in my clan complain about the tankers. It’s terrible. I cannot play their games for them, but I can teach them how to beat a tanker...
ReplyDeleteIf I was to comment on the actual percentage of lost new players pixonic sees, I’d venture to guess its close to 80% are quitting. This is terrible.
Now how did suggest pixonic should fix the tanking problem? They just need a simple script to force all players using level 12 Weapons in to at least expert level matches. The game already experiences too few competition at the top and too much at the bottom. It’s an easy fix, they just haven’t listened very well. Maybe it’s a problem with the English to Russian translation.