Enter The Silverbird! – New Event!

[The Dark Knight]

@moifirst

That’s awesome, amazing job :D

Thank you!

That helped me!

[Optimus_Pig]

On the topic of Spark promotions, it’s hard to believe, but it looks like I may be the only player on my leaderboard today who has a high promoted Energized Squad member.

This is pure speculation of course, but after 16 natural runs, #2 is only at 60,000.

If he were running at +875% bonus, he should be closer to 100,000 without recharging.

 

[seaspray]

@optimuspig

After 16 runs, #1 on my board is at 60,000.  And I’m about what, 600 ranks below you.

[Optimus_Pig]

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.

My understanding is that Rovio’s algorithm (is supposed to) group people on a leaderboard so that players of similar ranks are competing against each other.

But in the end, rank doesn’t determine your bonus, the sparks promotion does.

But generally speaking, people of similar rank should at least be in spitting distance of each other in terms of total sparks earned.  How they allocate those sparks is totally up to them of course, but I’m just surprised that I’m the only one in my group who has a highly promoted Energized Squad member, when there are four to choose from.

[Optimus_Pig]

I broke 200K again today, quite comfortably.

Technically I didn’t need the third (40 gem) recharge, as I would have broken 200K without it.

But that was only because of a Unicron run that I got right after I recharged the third time.  Without the Unicron run, I would have definitely needed the third recharge.

Funny how it seems to always work out that way, isn’t it?

[seaspray]

@optimuspig

I was essentially corroborating your assessment.  Given that I’m level 316, it’s much lower probability than at your rank that a player has a promoted squad member.  I’ve seen one this event.  So my leader (who hasn’t played a run in 6 hours btw) is most likely not using a promoted squad member.  The similarity in score of my leader and your #2 seems to confirm your speculation.

[seaspray]

But generally speaking, people of similar rank should at least be in spitting distance of each other in terms of total sparks earned.

If that’s the case, then we’re definitely not grouped by rank.  I’ve earned 77,587 sparks to date, only missed maybe 5 or 6 days.  I’ve got screenshots of the same players in different events with multiple bots being ruby crowned, amethyst crowned, gold star, etc.  Going by @moifirst table, these players have earned anywhere up to 400% more sparks than me.  And they like to put them on awesome bots like OP.  It’s quite ridiculous when you think about it, that someone would/could drop a ruby crown on OP by level 300.

[seaspray]

When you think about it, grouping by rank is completely ineffectual at “leveling the playing field”.  Rank was the variable before the introduction of sparks.  Now, the scoring capability differential between say a level 10 and level 15 bot is negligible when compared to an analogous differential between ruby crown and silver crown.  You put the multiplier in there for a squad member, and all bets are off.  So it’s now pointless to group by rank, and would be a waste of server to attempt to do so.  (which has been severely reduced after Rovio closed their brand new London site after being open only 1 year)  The “grouped by rank” hypothesis is untenable on multiple fronts, and has been supported by nothing more than rumor and hearsay, while there has been a mountain of evidence to the contrary.  I contend this game was never grouped by rank.  People started to figure it out, so they introduced sparks as a way to mask that fact and give you a way to outscore the algorithm.

[seaspray]

Case in point. The guys earned at least double the sparks as i, and he blows them all on… Sunstreaker?  Um, ok.

[GrimLockdown]

Got 7,500 tokens and used them to open 10 Gold crates:

One legendary crate but quite useless. The Steeljaw accessory was interesting because it wasn’t in the token exchange the last time Rodimus was there.

[Optimus_Pig]

Argh, two hours ago I was 110,000 points ahead of #2, and now I’m 120,o00 points down?

So basically this guy picked up 230,000 points in two hours.

WTF?  There’s no way the additional tokens he earned could possibly be worth the recharges spent.  That’s something like 35-40 runs, assuming he’s working with a +875% bonus.

At least I know not to chase.

[Asen_77]

My 10 Gold Crates from 7500 tokens this time

[Optimus_Pig]

@seaspray

Well if it’s not grouped by rank, then how is it grouped?

I agree the system is far from perfect, but the only other way is to group by number of spark promotion levels or number of sparks earned by each player.

Generally speaking the leaderboards are competitive.  It’s rare to find a day like the one I had on Day 5 where I was completely running away with it, and #2 wasn’t even close.  More often than not, I’m having to fight it out to the bitter end.

I’m not saying that we have any sort of “parity” in the way the leaderboards are grouped.  But at least we’re talking about a “league” where we have the Red Sox and the Orioles (1st and 5th in the AL East respectively) grouped together, rather than the Red Sox and the Biloxi Shuckers (the Milwaukee Brewers’ AA affiliate).

[Optimus_Pig]

On my final natural run of the day, I did well enough (8,844 points incl. bonus) to end my day with a score 300,046.

I would have hated to spend 80 gems on a final recharge.

As mentioned above, there was no point in trying to catch #1, who was well over 400K by the end of the day.

[Optimus_Pig]

No complaints.

The only thing that would have made it better was unlocking Moonracer.

[Grimlock]

I got energon nautica the hard way and my nephew opened 1 gold chest for 1k tokens and got nemisis prime

[Optimus_Pig]

@seaspray

If you’re talking about #19, that’s actually Sideswipe.

I agree, it’s not a TF that I would necessarily promote based on performance.

However going back to one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that I was promoting Energon Windblade not based on performance, but it was purely strategic.  i.e. she was the first TF to be released from the Energized Squad, so I was able to benefit from her promotion when each of E. Shockwave, E. Nautica, and E. Megatron were released.

Similarly, Sideswipe was the first TF to come out of the Speedsters Squad.  The player who promoted him up may have been using a similar strategy to mine.

[Optimus_Pig]

@grimlock

Yup, it’s like the casino.

[seaspray]

@optimuspig

My bad, Sideswipe.  I don’t have any of them, so I was kinda taking a shot in the dark.  Of course he could have put all his sparks on him, but he’s still earned a minimum 100% more sparks than me by rank 315.  So it at least illustrates that there is no correlation between rank and sparks earned.  Hence grouping by rank is pointless and is a theory carried over from before the spark era.  I see no strategic advantage to having all your sparks on one bot, so he must have earned more than 100% sparks as me by the same rank.  No beginner player will take sparks over a new bot and accessories, so he’s not picking up too many spark containers with tokens.  What’s even more curious, is that Sideswipe played 8 runs in 36 minutes, then never played again.  You have to remember, you old school guys got to hit the original spark runs already having level 15 bots.  It’s much more difficult for us new players to advance through the spark levels with mediocre upgraded bots.  I will have my first level 15 bot tomorrow, ready to get Wheeljack.

[seaspray]

You have to remember the Turing Test.  AI will exhibit behavior indistinguishable from a human.  When you consistently observe behavior that is only believable if someone were acting multiple standard deviations form the norm (ie at the ends of the bell curve, eg 230,000 pts in 2 hours, 910 gems in recharges for 500 tokens, 10,000 pts in 1 run with heatwave on missile day, 8 event runs in 10 minutes with nautica), the skeptic would seek a more plausible explanation rather than just accept the improbable as the status quo.  The more plausible explanation is that it is not human players exhibiting these types of behaviors.

[Optimus_Pig]

Ocham’s Razor states that the simplest solution tends to be the right one.

In my experience, people are stupid.  That is by far the simplest and most plausible explanation.

[Optimus_Pig]

@seaspray

Just FYI – Sparks can be purchased using gems, as long as you receive the correct special offer bundle in the events introducing new TFs.

If memory serves, I believe @elpapam has taken up that offer on several occasions, to the tune of 100,000 sparks each time (on top of the new TF a few other goodies), I forget how many gems – 5,000(?).

It’s luck of the draw as to which offer you receive – I’ve only ever been given the 500 (later increased in price to 750) gem offer, which gave me the TF, some coins, and a small number of sparks.

[seaspray]

I’ve only had the 1000 gem offer, which gave I think 10,000 sparks maybe?.  A far cry from 156,000 or whatever needed for ruby crown.  There’s only been 2 new bots since I started, Beachcomber and Novastar.  So that doesn’t make up the difference.

In my experience, people strive for maximum efficiency, anyone who’s serious about anything anyway.  Most people are relatively poor and don’t have too much extra cash for games.  Especially teenagers and young 20’s who are still at the low end of the wage spectrum.  Even parents are on tight budgets trying to make ends meet.  Believing that people are wantonly wasting resources for a lesser valued return is in itself accepting the improbable as the status quo.  Yes, people are stupid.  Generally speaking, stupid people don’t have lots of cash to burn on ABT.

[Drover’s Dog]

@optimuspig those gold crates were excellent, mine not so but got an overpower that I regretted not using tokens for previously. Besides that I got the 11th crate plus all sparks and 100,000 coins.

[The Dark Knight]

@optimuspig Yes i see the 5000 gems bundles with in Character & 2 Accessories and 100.000 or some times 110.000 sparks!

Here are some example of older bundle offers that i have uploaded here in many event threads with new characters