21 Sunday Mar 2021
Posted in Hearthstone
Tags
Wow. This took almost 18 months to complete. I didn’t even get an achievement!
Ignore the rating. That might explain why it took so long. If asked, my excuse will be lots of meme builds and attempting stupid stuff.
21 Thursday Jan 2021
Posted in Garrisons, World of Warcraft
Tags
I quite like the mission tables in Shadowlands. They make a nice change from the previous ones that were seen and can sometimes need a little bit of thinking for how to maximise my chance to get the victory at minimum cost. That isn’t to say they are flawless though. This post is a two-for. First, the main problems as I see them and second, my tips for success.
The Covenants are not balanced
The missions were tested with players having a full range of followers. When starting out, some covenants will find the missions much more difficult than others. It evens out eventually, but some campaign missions are incredibly difficult for some factions and need significant outlevelling before being considered.
Mission scaling is uneven
I was happy with my set of L12 missions for my new, levelling characters and L24 missions for the experienced team. Then I completed a campaign mission and I the easy missions have gone in place of lots of tough ones.
The UI is not intuitive
There have been some improvements made, but it is not always apparent what your heroes will do. Figuring out what the enemies will do and any environmental effects can be even more problematic.
Getting new followers will make your troops weaker
The generic troops are based on your average hero level. In the early days, getting a new hero can make your team significantly weaker. Fortunately it does not take long to level them up.
Get the Venture Plan add-on
Failing a mission is annoying. You lose the anima, reward and have to wait for them to heal up. The Venture Plan addon predicts the final result, giving you an opportunity to cancel the mission or fine tune follower positioning.
Hearts and Sword numbers are good indicators, except when they are not
If your damage per round (sword) gets through their health (heart) before they do the same to you, you should win except.
Keeping that in mind…
Positioning matters
Positioning affects who your followers attack and who attacks you. The aim should be to focus your attacks onto the most dangerous or easy to eliminate opponents. The sooner an enemy is killed, the easiest the mission becomes.
Followers should be positioned so that they are focusing down the same target; consider abilities like cleaves which can overlap. Damage dealers with small health pools should be the priority. Healers can be a pain if they heal for significant amounts, so they may also be a high value target. Tanks, with their high health pools and lowest damage per round, are best avoided since they will take more effort to kill and their deaths will bring you the least damage reduction.
Defensively, try to keep the squishy followers it of positives where they would be the target. While it is preferred to get the first kill by having more damage, sometimes you will need a high health minion to tank a big hit and keep the damage dealers alive for longer.
28 Friday Aug 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Sometimes it did not look as though we would ever get here but finally, and only slightly delayed, we have reached the end of regular season 3. Next stop is the jumbo play-offs.
After what seems like months where we have been watching 3-0verwatch, we finally had a weekend where both teams took maps in the majority of matches. Looking over the season I think it feels as though there were more 3-0s than there actually were. Exactly half of the 210 regular season games ended in a 3-0 result. By comparison, 39% of 2018 and 33% of 2019 regular season games finished as X-0.
On the all-time record list, San Francisco Shock have pulled level with Philadelphia Fusion for regular season wins (58), while a poor week for Atlanta saw them fall to 5th for fewest number of losses (23) and rise to joint 4th for lowest number of wins (26). We also saw LA Gladiators get their 200th map win, and Hangzhou Spark 100th map win.
To add some colour, below is cumulative matches won over the 2020 season.
It is fairly obvious that New York are miles ahead of everyone with the most wins. Below them we we see the continued merging of the original and expansion clubs. The Dragon’s strong season has pulled them above the expansion teams leaving Florida as the only original team that do not have more wins than all the expansion teams. We can see the flatlining of Vancouver, Boston and Houston and how Shock have spent the season chasing Fusion for second place.
Looking at the cumulative maps total, New York finished the season just short of +150 maps but are well ahead of Shock in second place. Paris and London seem to be mirrors of each other, one heading down as the other rises. The Boston and Washington are sliding downwards. Shock are in clear second, and Fusion have gone up from close to 0 to +50
19 Wednesday Aug 2020
05 Wednesday Aug 2020
Posted in Overwatch, Speculation
Tags
As we move into the Countdown Cup, it might be worth considering which teams are most in need of the bonus wins from a post-season perspective.
Asia Pacific
Thanks to Chengdu finishing as second seed, the draw for the Countdown Cup is rather lop-sided with the best three teams in the same half of the draw. Whoever wins that semi will probably win the Cup.
When it comes to post season qualification, the only spot that is really still available is the the battle between London and Seoul over which one goes into tier 2 and which falls into tier 3.
In the race for the top 2, NYXL’s fate is still in their own hands, but they need to win both their remaining regular season fixtures, and reach the final of the Countdown Cup.
The other team almost certain to finish in tier two is the Spark, they might not look safe but Hunters cannot overtake them and the Seoul/London matches make very unlikely that both will pick up the right number of wins to displace the Spark.
Chengdu have a similar situation to the Spark but from the other perspective. To avoid tier 3 they would need a good cup run, then for Seoul and London to drag each other down exactly the right amount.
North America
The post season places for tier 3 are mostly decided. Boston and Washington are unable to escape. Houston would need maximum points and a tier 2 team to perform very badly. Theoretically Vancouver Titans have enough matches remaining that they could still reach tier 2, but they would need to double the number of wins they have taken this season.
Technically, all teams currently in 6th to 9th could make tier 1, but the only team with more than an outside chance is LA Valiant. They could displace Atlanta Reign. Reign have 4 regular matches still to play, but they include playing against the SF Shock and Paris, while LA Valiant’s will be the favourite in each of their three regular season games. Both teams go into the Countdown Cup at the same stage, being ranked 5th and 6th.
The top 4 teams are positioned as such they will probably finish as they stand, but a cup victory might move a team up a position. Florida are not quite safe, but they would only miss out on tier 1 if both Atlanta and Valiant to overcome a 4 win deficit to both move into the top 5. In the battle for the top spot, Fusion will be looking for a tournament win to prevent Shock from overtaking them in the run-in.
Stats Bonus!
New York Excelsior’s defeat to Shanghai Dragons means they are now tied for the 2nd least wins with Atlanta (19)
A two win week for Philadelphia Fusion leapfrogs them above San Francisco Shock into the 3rd best win percentage (65%)
Shanghai Dragons victory moves them up from 4th to 5th lowest win percentage (35%)
A double-defeat week for Houston Outlaws into 4th place for total number of losses (52), replacing Boston.
29 Wednesday Jul 2020
Posted in Overwatch, Speculation
Tags
After finally getting my all-time stats spreadsheet, I have some interesting (or not) titbits from last weekend.
New York Excelsior retained their position as the team that has lost the second fewest losses in regular season matches by avoided defeat to Guangzhou Charge. Had Guangzhou won, then NYXL, Charge and Atlanta Reign would all have been tied with 19 defeats. As it stands, NYXL are clear 2nd with 18 losses.
Philadelphia Fusion stay in second place for the total regular season wins (55), one ahead of San Francisco Shock (54), although it took them two attempts to get the win which restored the gap. Shock have two more games than Fusion this season so don’t expect Philadelphia to retain the silver medal position for much longer.
Florida Mayhem’s victory over Washington Justice saw the two teams with worst win percentages in OWL history. (Was 26%, Fla 28%). Washington have the fewest wins (12), while Florida have suffered the most defeats (61).
The play-off race
Looking ahead, the end-of season play-off picture is starting to get clearer, and lots of teams are getting some sort of idea on what they will need to do to reach each tier of the qualifiers
APA Region
NA Region
I think I like that bonus points on offer in the Countdown Cups provide potential opportunities for teams to move up or down a tier. Without them, the most teams would already be sure in which tier they will finish the season. Those bonus wins keep matters up in the air for a bit longer.
25 Saturday Jul 2020
Posted in Overwatch
It has been quite a while since I wrote anything. That has not been due to lack of interest or things to write about. I have had plenty of ideas, but this Covid season has really messed up with my time-keeping. I seem to be a lot less free time than previously.
So to recap the last two months.
(1) I am glad the regional tournaments went well and are something that will be continued. I am also very happy to hear that the future plans will not be wall-to-wall tournaments. That leaves me hoping that the league will move to the format I saw hidden in their original homestead timetable, with 4 week of Division Vs Division match-ups. Tag on an extra week at a regional host venue have the top 4 teams playing off in 4 mini tournaments a season.
(2) They extended the hero pool windows as well. These are the sort of predictions I can do well at!
(3) I like the extra wins for tournament progression this year. With everything being a bit weird, it keeps everyone interested to the end of a very turbulent season. I am not sure how I would if they awarded bonus wins next season. Part of me feels it is cheap and they tournaments should just reward more prize money, while another part of me things I might like it more once I have looked into their impact on post-season qualification.
(4) Finally, I think London Spitfire are the second best team in the Overwatch League. By that I mean that they are very good at being slightly worse than every team they play. They seem to lose every encounter by tiny margins, no matter who they are playing against. They aren’t like Atlanta, who are the ultimate in mid-tier consistency. They aren’t a team like Chengdu Hunters ether who are either hopelessly outclassed or crazy-style wins. either win or lose and they are definitely no longer like Seoul Dynasty who have taken the old Spitfire mantle of being the coin-toss team that can switch between god and trash tier at a moments notice.
On that, it is time to get back into my many incomplete projects. I have spreadsheets to play with.
05 Friday Jun 2020
Posted in Hearthstone, Light Hearted
Tags
In the 6 months since the Hearthstone battlegrounds mode has been released, I might have played a few too many games.
I dinged my 50th first place, and it only took 110 hours!
and look at all the great stats I have. I do like doing the Dance, but I am obviously rubbish with Curator.
And then I went on a 12 hour cold streak until my 51st first place. :(
04 Monday May 2020
Tags
It is amazing how being stuck at home has kept me from doing the computer stuff that I would normal do from home. Strange times. Anyhow, the Overwatch League has a new format for May, and in-spite of an MVP quitting and one team completely falling apart from mismanagement, things are looking quite promising.
The May Tournament, where teams are seeded based on 4 matches over 3 weeks then proceed into a knockout competition, sees a return to something like the stage finals held in previous seasons. 2018 and 2019 had play-offs based on stage performance at the quarter points of the season. They were dropped from the 2020 Homestand experience because it is hard to schedule international on one week’s notice matches. To me, this has left the seasons feeling a little unfocused, with only the grand finals at the end of the season to play for and each individual match feeling as though there is less to play for. I am hoping that the May Tournament will be a return to mid-season competitive events.
The new playoffs also come at a good time. With the regional restrictions, some matchups were starting to get repetitive. Extra teams in Asia and more cross-play across North America can add a bit more variety, but something that spices up matches so they are more than just games being played for the sake of it is very welcome. I am hoping that this mini competition will do just that. It is all well and good playing towards eventual league positions, but the season is long and chunking it up into regular stages gives something extra to discuss and celebrate.
My hope is that, if these work well, then 2021 will see the return to the stage format. Under the current schedule, divisions play against each other in 5 games across a 4 week period. I would love it to be extended so that the top 4 teams from each match-up stay on for an extra week to play-off against each other for a mini-prize.
20 Monday Apr 2020
Posted in Blizzard
It has been a while since I did a statistics post for Hearthstone card openings. Things were getting stale so stopped doing any analysis, but then the rules were changed. From this patch, protection has been extended to all cards. You will not receive a third (or second legendary card), until you have received a full set of cards for that rarity. That is enough for me to crack open my old spreadsheets and launch an investigation based 111 pack openings.
Starting with the obvious, what were my duplicates like? I completed a full set of common and rare cards and did not get any triples until after both sets were completed. Nor did I get any triple epics. My first triple was a Bonechewer Brawler in pack 29, approximately when they would be expected and the first triple was a Priestess of Fury in pack 67. For comparison, after my 83 Boomsday packs, I was still 12 cards away from a complete set of rares.
Once the card types exhausted their duplicate protection, they started appearing in a fully random order. I eventually had 7 rare Priestess of Fury cards and Scavenging Shivarra and Supreme Abyssal appeared 13 times.
In terms of value for for the player, my set is more complete, but the cumulative dust value is little changed. 70 packs in the new format is buys you a more complete set and similar value to 83. The new format is more linear, with sudden slope changes at around pack 29 and 62 when the sets are expected to fill out. Outside those two points, the difference in value between being with or without duplicate protection narrows, but the feel good factor of not receiving multiple “wasted” triples is the biggest win for the player.
El Dobablos 