Making the Whole Team Better
Fellow Pilots,
At War Robots University, we sometimes study other fields, like economics and history. One of our favorites is basketball, but it can get a little contentious. Just so you know, Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time, and don't even say "Kobe," because there have been detailed studies debunking that!
Why was Jordan the best? Shaquille O'Neal was a MUCH bigger man, who could (and did) dunk over the 6' 6" "little" guy's head:
The taller and stronger LeBron James would probably beat him one on one:
A far better shooter than Jordan, Stephan Curry shoots 67% from 30 feet away. That's a better percentage than a dunker like Dwight Howard from inside five feet.
If you check out the links above regarding Michael Jordan, you will discover that statisticians have made a life's work of proving the premise that Jordan is indeed the G(reatest) O(f) A(ll) T(ime). In case you aren't mathematically inclined, I'll summarize: Michael Jordan caused his team to play better than their opponents. In fact, Jordan made his team win more efficiently and regularly than any other player in this history of his game (and it wouldn't surprise me if this were true for all professional team sports).
With that said, THIS blog is about War Robots - also a team game. It bugs me a little when people describe playing without a squad as "solo." Unless you're playing Free-For-All, you aren't solo. You are part of a randomly selected six-person team. You're deaf/mute with regard to communications from your fellow blues, but you sure as hell aren't "solo."
Why are we talking about basketball and War Robots? I ran across a ridiculous post on Reddit which exhorted players to quit when facing a squad in champion league:
But not always.
Here, their sixth man didn't show (neither did ours, but that's OK):
Here, their random didn't show. On blue, everybody fought hard, even though it looked bad at the beginning.
Did you know clan mates were time dropping in order to get on the same team and try to beat up on randoms? Here's documented cheaters (remember the Descend bug?) France Pro losing to randoms:
Of course, it can be hard to tell if a squad on your side will help you to the win!
Random teams can work together just as well as squads on comms (as TB was in the above loss). It's just harder to do. It's impossible if you quit ... but if you are resolved to capture territory and destroy robots, you make the whole team better. Give it a shot. Be like Mike.
Your humble servant,
Dr. Yat
Faculty Notes
At War Robots University, we sometimes study other fields, like economics and history. One of our favorites is basketball, but it can get a little contentious. Just so you know, Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time, and don't even say "Kobe," because there have been detailed studies debunking that!
Why was Jordan the best? Shaquille O'Neal was a MUCH bigger man, who could (and did) dunk over the 6' 6" "little" guy's head:
The taller and stronger LeBron James would probably beat him one on one:
A far better shooter than Jordan, Stephan Curry shoots 67% from 30 feet away. That's a better percentage than a dunker like Dwight Howard from inside five feet.
If you check out the links above regarding Michael Jordan, you will discover that statisticians have made a life's work of proving the premise that Jordan is indeed the G(reatest) O(f) A(ll) T(ime). In case you aren't mathematically inclined, I'll summarize: Michael Jordan caused his team to play better than their opponents. In fact, Jordan made his team win more efficiently and regularly than any other player in this history of his game (and it wouldn't surprise me if this were true for all professional team sports).
With that said, THIS blog is about War Robots - also a team game. It bugs me a little when people describe playing without a squad as "solo." Unless you're playing Free-For-All, you aren't solo. You are part of a randomly selected six-person team. You're deaf/mute with regard to communications from your fellow blues, but you sure as hell aren't "solo."
Why are we talking about basketball and War Robots? I ran across a ridiculous post on Reddit which exhorted players to quit when facing a squad in champion league:
"The only sensible thing one can do is the following: Fight till your first robot dies, then do not respawn any new bots ... perfect team play by a random team would be the case where they spawn only 6 robots, 1 per each pilot and do not respawn any new robots after that. This is the smartest tactic one can use."Yup. This "baller" looks for another court every time he sees stiff opposition. Look, I know playing NEXT, Exodus, Omega and Imperial isn't always fun. Even "little" champ clans like mine get stomped regularly by these squads.
But not always.
Here, their sixth man didn't show (neither did ours, but that's OK):
Here, their random didn't show. On blue, everybody fought hard, even though it looked bad at the beginning.
Did you know clan mates were time dropping in order to get on the same team and try to beat up on randoms? Here's documented cheaters (remember the Descend bug?) France Pro losing to randoms:
Of course, it can be hard to tell if a squad on your side will help you to the win!
Random teams can work together just as well as squads on comms (as TB was in the above loss). It's just harder to do. It's impossible if you quit ... but if you are resolved to capture territory and destroy robots, you make the whole team better. Give it a shot. Be like Mike.
Your humble servant,
Dr. Yat
Faculty Notes
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The U is not just a blog ... we are also iOS clans #48669, #141459, and #139479. We are always looking for champion-league pilots, and welcome skilled communicators from around the world.
The U is not just a blog ... we are also iOS clans #48669, #141459, and #139479. We are always looking for champion-league pilots, and welcome skilled communicators from around the world.
As a gold 3 f2p amazon player running level 6 /7 facing champion clan death squads every other match . Being spawn raided in under 3 minutes by the shiny new meta toys. Has taught me one thing and only one thing. There is no point staying or fighting a losing battle. War not battle.
ReplyDeletewow ... is the MM that bad in that part of the universe?? Ouch. How many people are quitting those matches?
DeleteKinda hard to tell most players are botted out by the 8:30 mark. The rest are destroyed by no later than 7:35. That's IF everybody last man stands . Or tries to at least get out of spawn . Not much you can when you're dead before you get a shot off .
DeleteI agree with the poster at reddit, no point in playing against squads when you're in a random team.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, but quitting hurts your - our - side of the equation. There are thousands of people playing for every dozen or so paying. And they presumably like the game. You might be degrading it a little bit for the whales with the “take my ball/go home/sort of” protest quit. But you degrade the very same game and the very same match for everyone who is trying. If I thought the protest action would be effective, I’d definitely say so.
DeleteI completely agree, you will never accomplish anything if you don't try. Personally my best ever matches were when I pulled off a win against what would seem to be impossible odds by good teamwork and superior strategy. If you aim at nothing you will achieve it every time, but instead I choose to fight all fights whether I'm going to win or not, and give my teammates a chance to pull through and surprise that inevitable whale squad.
DeleteNice post, greatly appreciated
ReplyDeleteIf you are never even willing to try, then how will you ever win?
ReplyDeleteLv 6 versus mk2 do the math. No amount of skill can stop you from being steamrolled and destroyed by the death squad champion clans
DeleteI agree with Unknown above. It varies wildly between ecosystems. I started playing WR on Kindle Fire, and added an iOS game a week later. Just got to Level 30 on both, and my League standings are about the same (Diamond III and Gold I). On the Kindle game it's a wipeout in under 4 minutes once or twice every 10 games, if not more often. On the iOS game it happens maybe once a month. Some fights are harder than others, but hardly ever is there a completely one-sided annihilation.
ReplyDeleteLesson for me: first, I stopped spawning in the Kindle game when it was clear that we were getting rolled by whales. I am probably going to stop playing the Kindle game entirely. It's just no fun getting wiped out regardless of how hard or how smart I fight. I never quit battles in iOS. There is almost always a chance to be Jordan.
Lessons for you: one, analyzing the differences between platform ecosystems would be a GREAT topic for you to write about. It might take some doing, but it would really benefit people to know how bad some ecosystems are, and how good others are by comparison. And two, realize that one-size-fits-all advice like "don't quit when facing overwhelming odds" might make sense in the iOS game, but it's worthless--and clueless--for the Kindle game. So please either write for _all_ WR players, or say up front which ecosystem your pieces address. Or, ideally, do both of those things.
I can't do that effectively (write for all systems) but I will definitely make it more clear in the future that I play on the iOS side.
Delete