laa (league addicts anonymous) How you doing in the "League"

[JustVisitingReborn]

5 hours ago, 430i said:

Yeah sure, there are level 500 NPC players, but from my experience the majority of them have a very decent line-up and are no slouches. I ran a couple of queries for my past few leagues:

2022.03.10 - 2022.03.17: 6/10 in the top15, 7/10 in the top45
2022.03.17 - 2022.03.24: 5/9 in the top15, 8/9 in the top45
2022.03.24 - 2022.03.31: 7/10 in the top15, 10/10 in the top45
2022.03.31 - 2022.04.07: 7/8 in the top15, 8/8 in the top45
2022.04.07 - 2022.04.14: 5/11 in the top15, 9/11 in the top45
2022.04.14 - 2022.04.21: 2/8 in top15, 6/8 in the top45
2022.04.21 - 2022.04.28: 11/20 in top15, 20/20 in the top45
 

I dont have that many samples (I am sure Rarum has more extensive stats than me), and the variance is somewhat large, but the trend is clearly there: a top45 is essentially a given for a level500 players and it does not take too much effort to place in the top15 - 50% to 70% of all level 500 players are in there. And mind you, this takes only the maxxed out players and not all 499, 498 etc players (which for all intends and purposes can be considered level 500 as well).

There's obviously no denying that level makes a difference and that 500s are more likely to place well. In fact, that's somewhat the point I was making about level 500s choking up the top leagues.

But I'm afraid this idea that a lower level player just can't compete against the majority of 500s isn't accurate, though I understand why you may feel demoralised seeing so many 500s.

Results from this week so far - where I've been targeting 500s (not strictly true, but true enough) 32 wins for 48 challenges. Two in every three. Given that these players have nearly 80 levels on me, I don't feel that saying the "majority of them" are that significant a challenge would be accurate. Given that we're not even two days into the league, I've caught 16 of the 22 500s unboosted. Maybe one or two of them are good players who I was lucky to catch unboosted, but I haven't caught 16 in that manner. And this week is not the exception. In fact last week was far better for me - I've already had 25% more losses than I had last week.

I'd also point out that many of these player's team selections has been less than great. They either don't have the girls or fundamentally do not understand the battle mechanics.

Yes level gives these players a very significant advantage, but no, it's not stopping a level 420 player winning over them.

[Methos2]

@Liliat@JustVisitingReborn You are right that a lvl 420 player can beat 500 with better gameplay. However, you forgot to acknowledge that @430i is under 400. At his level, it would be hard to stay at top 45. Better gameplay is not going to help him outranking the casual 500. When I was under 400, I had the same problem. Once I reached 420s, I started staying at top 15 with same gameplay. Those 20 levels make a big difference.

Edit: Also, I found that level is not really what matters. It's your percentile in the league.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Methos2

[JustVisitingReborn]

10 hours ago, Methos2 said:

At his level, it would be hard to stay at top 45.

I entered D3 at level 363. My first week I finished at 54th. My strategy was poor and needed significant improvement.

Every week after that I finished top 45. It took me 12 weeks before I broke level 400 during which period I finished top 30 5 times and top 45 6 times. I then broke level 400 and took my first top 15. Since then I've had 5 weeks at top 30 and a top 15 last week. I'll only manage top 30 this week.

To be clear, this is only my 20th week in D3.

I'm not saying that it isn't tough under 400. It absolutely is. But that's natural - level gives advantage. What I am saying is that 500 players aren't all fantastic players. Quite the contrary. The majority of them I think are strategy weak.

I'd also say that I'm not suggesting that @430i is in a position to 'outrank' 500s. In the last eleven weeks there have been 9 where a 500 took #1! Where a 500 plays well they should easily hold the best positions (15+). (Which is why watching which players in top 15 and aren't level 500 or really close is a good way to start getting a feel for who is a good player ) What I am saying is that right now it is not impossible to place in the upper half of D3 even sub 400.

Edited April 30, 2022 by JustVisitingReborn

[Ol Sheriff Joe]

Wow! last week was such a close one that i'm just getting over it now!!...

anyways, all was initially looking good and fine, stars aligned the right way, Quistis so gently leaving the top aaaaalllll open...
Until i realized something was off, my right eyebrow kept twitching... and it does so only when i have the sun in the face in the middle of grand street, or something bad's going to happen.

'something bad' was soon discovered: Lemus was hiding in the blindspot... Lemus, and his perfect team of beautifully and perfectly groomed to the 750 max ladies... All of a sudden, the walk in the park became a long and agonizing war of observation, trying to squeeze everything of every adversary, holding my breath, loosing my sleep... all the while fighting that never ending cold of death that doesn't want to heal... until the very last moment, and the very last performance... for the results shown below:

  Not a little proud of that one... even if, in the end, 4 points can also be just a matter of luck...

[Liliat]

Le 29/04/2022 à 19:38, Rarum a dit :

They both have the same data, but since I'm no data scientist, I'm giving you the two versions with different trend lines. The first one uses a second-degree polynomial trend line, while the second one uses a logarithmic one. How these look a fair bit different reminds me of the proverb: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I think the important point here is that Top 15 at lvl 400 doesn't exist*; but it's totally possible to finish 90+ at level 500. The level definitely gives a buff, but it's not a guaranteed win.

I'm no data scientist either, but the distribution of dots (all over the place, except in the bottom-left corner) suggests that trying to draw a simple curve doesn't make a lot of sense to begin with.

I would actually be interested to see the dots below the lvl 400 mark. Lower level players reaching D3 are usually getting very decent places for their level (They're almost always lvl 650+ and actively playing - otherwise they wouldn't have reached D3 in the first place). So I wouldn't be surprised to see that level < 400 players always end up in the 31-60 range (Not strong enough to reach top 15/30, but active enough to reach Top 60).

* Sure, with 15 AME, 4000 Cordyceps and lvl 1350 Mythics, it's probably doable

[Zteev]

One issue with interpreting anything from those very low-end results, are people intentionally demoting will drastically skew the numbers for those postions.

I consider myself an active player who is at least okay with strategy, with an ability to be above average if I want to push myself, but I will often just take my top 15 if I am too busy to deal with playing regularly. This weekend I even used the spend Kobans for auto-fights option, which is decidedly sub-optimal.

 

[Rarum]

7 hours ago, Liliat said:

I would actually be interested to see the dots below the lvl 400 mark.

I guess I could do that. I also hid the trend lines, even though I think it obscures data in the way that this graph doesn't really show the frequency with which players of different levels reach certain ranks. It just now shows what different leveled people "can" under some circumstances achieve. Maybe the chart design could be improved somehow... Which I do, later on in the message.

7 hours ago, Liliat said:

So I wouldn't be surprised to see that level < 400 players always end up in the 31-60

The amount of data points for so low level people is maybe a bit too low to draw many conclusions, but I think we can say that it's not "always", even beyond the people who are trying to demote.

 

Now, I said I already did think that the frequency of a rank could be shown better somehow. I found this bubble chart type and organized my data to be able to utilize it properly. I even added a few more brackets to it (I only had those "a few more" for level data). It could be worth it to note that I do stop at rank 102, but it's not like we are terribly interested in who is trying to demote, are we? I put bubble opacity as low as 3%.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Rarum
It seems a larger size bubble chart makes a difference, so I reuploaded a bigger version. And another edit gave it a trendline.

[DvDivXXX]

Now we're just getting rain drops and clouds. I prefer the ones that look like a jumbled mess of cables. ^^

[Rarum]

Well, no jumbled cables since this is now as one single set of data instead of multiple brackets independently, but your comment did make me add a trend line. I ended up using the Power Series method for that, since it produced the lowest chi-squared number (0.182). Maybe we'll get a statistician telling us what it might mean or if it has even any meaning at all in this context, but it looked like I can test goodness-of-fit by observing which method gave the lowest chi-squared.

[Rarum]

Well, it looks like I had to go back and fix something from two past league brackets' posts. Namely, the "perfect precognition scores"; they had one extra "illusory opponent". There's always something, isn't there? At least it was easily fixable this time. The very first league where I had it introduced was already correct, though.

[Zteev]

23 hours ago, Rarum said:

Now, I said I already did think that the frequency of a rank could be shown better somehow. I found this bubble chart type and organized my data to be able to utilize it properly. I even added a few more brackets to it (I only had those "a few more" for level data). It could be worth it to note that I do stop at rank 102, but it's not like we are terribly interested in who is trying to demote, are we? I put bubble opacity as low as 3%.

 

I really like this bubble type chart. It gives a nice clean look as it can take a ton of data points and get it to the point where one's eye isn't lost in the morass of data points.

One can see that there's almost a horizontal line somewhere around level 490-495 where it's darkest. 

[Rarum]

6 minutes ago, Zteev said:

One can see that there's almost a horizontal line somewhere around level 490-495 where it's darkest. 

I do believe that's the level 500 line. The bubbles just are that big that you can't really pinpoint to the precision of a single level or hardly even five. But it starts not looking as good if I enlarge the chart even more (that seems to be the way to decrease the relative bubble size).

[Pelinor]

Well... I will get the girl so I am thinking this was a good run at the D3 league. But I am being called into work a day early so I was forced to rush the final 10 hours and that means I have no clue where I'll end up in the end. This is a screen shot taken as I was walking out the door.

Have fun everyone. 😀

[DvDivXXX]

@Pelinor Not enough info to really make a prediction from that screenshot, but you might have a shot at a top 4 here, assuming there are no other big contenders currently below #9 in your group. You already have Asoa, GodeMichel, and Harlequin who are likely to contest your top spot. I'm not familiar with Petr here, but with a 50 point gap if he has anything left in the tank he could still pass you over as well. Good luck for this and in your job, at any rate.

[Shaftiel]

I knew it was going to be a rough week when I saw there were 19 level 500 players in my group. I had a solid line-up for the first few days but missing/haven't leveled 5/7 of the top 5 girls for the current spread, and not having High Mage Arcana (or Nero, or Eliana) is going to suck next week as well... 

On the plus side I missed the top 4 by so much that I don't think there's anything strategic I could have done to make it up, and I'm heartened by how many players just leave their teams with a dominant color so with minimal effort I was countering almost everyone.

[bolitho76]

Woohooo! My first top4 in D3! Screenshot ca. 20sec before reset. I used 2 Ginseng and 1 Cordycep as Booster and only some hours long in total I wasn't boosted the whole week. 1 expecte loss against Sartoris and one with a win-chance of 86%. Had to do one refill of 6 Tokens because of 103 in this League-bracket.

A very nice feeling... 😍🎉

Edited May 5, 2022 by bolitho76

[Liliat]

I expected a tough league, considering the terrible blessing this week (Golden hair / Black eyes, I only have Sai).

However, last week blessings were very decent, and I was surprised to be able to fight the strongest half of the league in these first few days, with a 17+ average. I only had the easiest fights left after that, so the bad blessing didn't hurt me too much.

Fights: 103 players, 306 possible fights, 299 fights done

Final score: 5352*, 17.90 average

Final rank: 27 (I lost 2 places in the last 10 minutes)

Top 10:

I failed my last-minute screenshot, but I was in Bolitho's bracket, screenshot just above.

* Interestingly, I had the exact same score when I reached top 30 for the first time, in my 7th attempt. Better average this time though, with 1 less fight done.

[DvDivXXX]

Finally a league in which I reach my goal and get the return on investment I expected (after two #2 when I was going for the win and a #5 while going for a top 4, let's just say it's a relief ^^).

------------------
D3 run #88 2022/04/28-05/05
Boosters used: 3 legendaries all the time, 2.5 AM boosters.
103 players. 102 opponents. 306 fights. wins: 306. losses: 0.
Average: 23.17
Finished: Top 4
Girl Shards: (O'Malley Week 3) +38% (complete!)X
Refills: 2x188kos 2x187kos 186kos 173kos 165kos 157kos 50kos
Contenders for Top 4: Daniel (500/750), Oliver Twix, Linky, Ezekiel... ME?
Maybe: whoever gets lucky past the gap?

Two nobodies (at least two players I had never crossed path with, noticed and/or identified as "threats") passed me over, and Daniel made a last minute effort to secure his 4th spot (he was still at 6,700-ish along with Linky, Barkior and Ezekiel as late as 18 minutes before the reset). I'm glad he did, as it seems to have discouraged the others to invest further, thus securing Dan's top 4 but more importantly also my own in the process. ^^ Thanks for that. And congrats to Barracuda for getting the win, not to mention for getting a doctorate after the A Team and whatever US-only reality TV show he used to pay his taxes with when he still went by Mister T. ^^

Ah, a more global aspect of the meta and dynamics in this particular league week I need to mention is how Phase 1's blessings clashed terribly with tons of Green vs Orange teams. Phase 2 basically has almost no blessings to speak of in terms of most high-tier competitive teams. Few good players not only collected but already invested in the second Yellow Mythic, or have had the opportunity to feed Stellaluna all the way up from scratch yet (without seriously slowing down their grind towards Max Girl Level, or investing serious real-money  and/or pre-Awakenings legacy self-printing koban stashes for it). Lapis and Sai make very little difference, I just run them because I had already invested in them over time, so why not. This sucks for my Pantheon Wall, but it's more stable than, say, a random 5-star Rare demanding twice the resources I'm saving up for Mythic Norou once I finally unlock 750 just so she can dominate next week (looking at you The No One ^^).

Good luck have fun this week, folks. Stay safe!

[Rarum]

Not a whole lot to say. I managed to not have to use AME during the bits where I really wanted to fight in seasons, and that's pretty much all I can ask for. The 120 point difference to the second-best score is a bit on the high side, but I was a bit unsure of tmelloi's average so I played it somewhat safe.

Statistics
My score: 7303 (100.217% of what my algorithm would expect with completely average luck)
Expected score (my algorithm): 7287.2
Expected score (HH++ algorithm): 7265.1

If I had been using the following booster combinations for the duration of the league but with the same fight timing decisions, these would have been my completely average luck scores:
AME+3cor         7339.9
AME+2cor,1gin    7319.8
AME+1cor,2gin    7291.7
AME+2gin,1chlo   7219.4
3 cordy          7178.2
2 cordy, 1 gin   7145.2

Perfect precognition score with average luck and AME+3cor throughout: 7396.44 (24.411 average). The AME+3cor expectation was 99.236% of this.

[Boulie2]

I ended up 5th in D2 while trying to get a top4 (to secure by a far margin Abrael), but ho well. Decided that one or two days ago.

It's my first time in D3, i'll see where i end up. My target is a top 45, and if i can't i'll just demote in D2

(I'm with @Kenrae o/ Don't hit me too hard please  )

[bolitho76]

16 minutes ago, Boulie2 said:

(I'm with @Kenrae o/ Don't hit me too hard please  )

He will only get 75 points from you 😉

[Pelinor]

12 hours ago, DvDivXXX said:

@Pelinor Not enough info to really make a prediction from that screenshot, but you might have a shot at a top 4 here, assuming there are no other big contenders currently below #9 in your group. You already have Asoa, GodeMichel, and Harlequin who are likely to contest your top spot. I'm not familiar with Petr here, but with a 50 point gap if he has anything left in the tank he could still pass you over as well. Good luck for this and in your job, at any rate.

I was ready to be content with a 4th place finish so imagine my shock at seeing this message when I came in just now:

I don't know who passed me, but it was nice to see only one player was able to do so. 😀

[MrXY]

Attempt #32 in D3

Info: <current league> [<last league stats>] [<personal best>]

Points: 6870 (!) [6576] [6692]

Average: 22.45 [22.14] [22.48]

Victories: 304/306 [291/297] [300/300]

It was an easy week in terms of my usual decision problem "should I invest in mythic booster to go for a top 4 or not?". This time too many strong opponents were present, so I refused any Top 4 thoughts. Apart from that I had a strong week with nearly a new average record, which was a bit unexpected (unfortunately two unlucky defeats at the end). Used my normal "cheap" booster setup (2 ginseng, 1 cordy). Hope for an easier bracket next week.

[Kenrae]

So, I had 3 boosted opponents left at 12:30 and needed 23.11 average on them to win my league. Expected average was ~23, so it was possible. I set to it and, against the first opponent:

WHAT. THE. HELL? Can you be more of a b**** RNG? I got less than average against the other 2 opponents too (though not that atrocious) and I ended this way:

I curse you RNG gods!

I had used 1 AME for the first time in ages, because, why not. We get them from PoA after all, might as well use one once in a while.

[jelom]

Congrats to Didish76 for a well played league and deserved win. A good second place for me this week with 7053 points and 23,05 average without AME booster. Slava Ukraini and Gor accompanied me in top 4. Some time had passed from the last time i saw an old friend, Nyarlathotep, in the leagues.