iDB Community Forum

You have seen this a lot. People complaining in the neoboards, complaining about the cup being rigged. Krawk Island was obviously way better as they pruned everyone in the double round robin, only for Roo Island to bounce up and win the cup. TNT has posted that players who join a team and do nothing have no effect, but this may not necessarily be the case as seen in statistics.

So the question is... DO FREELOADERS REALLY AFFECT A TEAM'S GENERAL STANDING?

Despite being a Roo Island player, I will be setting aside all personal and team biases. Still, I cannot really decide which one to side up to because both ends balance each other up. here are my stands:

(note: Some of these arguments I have already made in a post in TDN. I am just pasting most of them here so I won't have to type all over again)

DARIGAN CITADEL FINISHES 7TH!?
In the top 25 YYB players list I compiled (as of 7/27/08), there are SEVEN Darigan Citadel Players, and two of them are occupying 1st and 2nd. Aside from that, I still see a lot of dedicated darigan players with good stats (many even reaching all-star ranking, and some reaching has high as 4000+ wins who just did not make it to the table). Now the big question is, why did they finish in 7th place? With that many players playing, it should have been possible for DC to go up to the top tier, despite winning the cup last year. Only the term "freeloader" comes as a possiblity in this case.

...AND WITH THIS CASE...

Krawk Island's dominance could have open their gates to more freeloaders, pulling down the average of the whole team, helping Roo in winning the cup.

TYRANNIA SLUSHIE SLINGERS
Now out of the topic of the top tier, and go down to the topic of Slushie Slinger, specifically: Tyrannia and Meridell. Now you see this team as one of the low tier teams. They may not have enough wins in yooyuball to make an impact, but they almost own the slushie stands. Now why is this under the FREELOADERS AFFECT category? I have gone around a LOT of players list to update my Top 25 AC3 players and have seen A LOT of tyrannias with Slushie Slinger sends of over 600, and high scores at around 730+. And they are cruising up that table like a breeze, beating down the top tier teams, and Krawk Island twice. Since Tyrannia is a less popular team with obviously fewer freeloaders, wins can come easily.

BUT.... (ENTERING NON-FREELOADERS SIDE)

It might NOT have been according to weighed averages and freeloaders. With the lower tier teams gaining less freeloaders as they are not that popular, why are they always ranked low, and lose almost all games they are matched with? They play a lot, only to end up losing to a top tier team who does not even play seriously.

That's all what I can say for now. Sorry if it's kinda mixed out, but I myself had a hard time categorizing them.

If you want to view the statistics of top players I compiled, here:
http://www.neopets.com/~ImmortalSpirit

Honestly, I think most of it is rigged, and the amount we play does little more for anything other than our own stats (fat lot of good they did us this year, too). Maybe if results varied from the pre-decided ones by a huge margin, Tyrannia's SS for example, then it would be reflected accordingly, but otherwise...

Maybe my opinion is just reflective of a bitter Maraquan fan whose team really seems to have plateaued and be going nowhere. But it's what I think, anyway.

Here is how it works:

If a player plays a little, that brings down the teams average.

If a player doesn't play at all, that player doesn't affect how the team does.

A freeloader in TNT's book = someone who doesn't play.

I don't believe it's rigged at all. There would be no benefit for TNT to rig a team to win. It just means they have to do more work and I doubt they'll want to do that. I definitely think the average thing makes that difference. Maybe DC has a ton of high scorers but also tons of low scorers and fewer middle players compared to the teams who placed higher than they have.

Also, you gotta also consider that not every high scorer goes to the AC boards and some have stopped going to the AC board after the end result was announced, so your list might be accurate for the people who have seen it. But there are many factors as to why there is easily a sampling error.

Also, your list comprises of the top 25, but any person who studied statistics knows that the extremes rarely make the difference. In anything involving statistics, it's the middle ground that makes the biggest difference because that is where the bulk of the scores are from. Usually the extremes are even left out because they can skew the results.

I should have spent more time checking out the little quiz, but it seems to assign altador to anybody who does not sort into any team.

I think like xelo. You're a looking into a layer that is highly involved and those are few.

Guess so, we can never tell.

Just some thoughts that pop out of my mind are...

Why would TNT rig it in the first place anyway...
KI was cruising... what went wrong?
Why do the less popular teams keep losing? The counts probably do not do weighed average, but more of the number of wins, goals scored, and things related with totalling.

Or maybe playing everyday with your specific team is too much for a person to handle, and add on the fact that it takes place the whole month, so...enthusiasm starts strong, but then interest wanes with continued play, and with real world complications?

And I'm pretty sure it isn't rigged. Again, people would be wasting too much effort on something which is supposed to be decided by the players themselves.

What people tend to forget is that your penultimate placing (your placing that decides if you're in the 1st - 4th place championships, 5th - 8th place championships, ect. ect.) isn't decided by having the most points; it's decided by who has the most days in which they had more points. If Darigon landslided the other team whenever they won but lost barely whenever they did lose, then yeah, it would be possible for them to have a lot of points, but still get seventh place.

As for Roo Island winning, aside from the fact that Roo Island had to do good enough get to the top four, the only thing that influenced Roo Island getting first and Krawk Island getting second was the final day. Hypothetically, Krawk Island could have gotten first in the penultimate placings by a huge landslide with Roo Island barely scraping in fourth, but as long as both teams won the semi-championships, it doesn't matter how farther ahead KI could have been before, if Roo got the most points on the final day, then it would beat Krawk. That's how the system works.

As for Tyrannia and Meridell? Could just be the type of people they attract happen to prefer Slinger over the regular matches. It's not like Slinger is a bad game, either, it is, after all, based off of what was a popular arcade game. A weak answer, yeah, but it's still possible.

Jacobyts Wrote:KI was cruising... what went wrong?

KI was indeed cruising, but if I remember correctly, everytime we were up against RI, we lost, despite the fact that we could beat teams that have beaten Roo. The fact is, the Roos knew when to make it count, and before the finals, I heard they were resting in the few days before the finals since they were guaranteed a spot.

I guess the head-on-head games were probably the best indication of how the finals were going to play out. And it indeed turned out for a Krawk Island loss.

Tyrannia and Meridell were excellent slushie slingers. I have seen a lot of Tyrannians with a good slushie slinger standing. Same with Meridell.

That could probably be right Owlstar. Krawk may be dominant but when Roos go to a higher gear, they can overrun the pirates.