Nexus: An NPE like no other

[Mycellanious]

42 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Every month is a different event.

Otherwise no one could play ES since we all started something else 😜

I figured it would be the top members of each faction

[Maniacal_cackle]

Just now, Mycellanious said:

I figured it would be the top members of each faction

It is the top 16 players.

[Alerteddonkey42]

13 hours ago, Adran said:

Strictly, no I don't think I need to because in my view if it is overpowered it should be making people perform better than they normally do. I'm not basing the distribution on the population of explorers I'm basing it on each player. Although if you were to argue that plaag typically got his best results with colette, and she has just been nerfed and his explorers output was comparable to his Colette output you could use that as evidence that they are too strong. 

Likewise if you can show the mid placed explorers players were typically bottom placed players with other factions that could also be evidence they are too strong. 

I'm sure nexus has tricks up her sleeve still for the new gg. She has enough sleeves after all. 

Wait so you’re cutting the high end but not the low end because you think the low end has been raised. This is an assumption about the results before the data is analyzed. So what you’re attempting to analyze is the win rate (present win rate vs past for the same players?) but you’ve already skewed your data based on what you think you’ll find. Just from a methodological standpoint this doesn’t make sense. It would be more accurate to model the data with player as a random variable on your model and keep all the data. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, Alerteddonkey42 said:

Wait so you’re cutting the high end but not the low end because you think the low end has been raised. This is an assumption about the results before the data is analyzed. So what you’re attempting to analyze is the win rate (present win rate vs past for the same players?) but you’ve already skewed your data based on what you think you’ll find. Just from a methodological standpoint this doesn’t make sense. It would be more accurate to model the data with player as a random variable on your model and keep all the data. 

Well, also worth noting that the data basically summarises a handful of people.

Like we have 20 games of Molly which seems like a decent sample size, but I'm pretty sure almost half of those are me.

[Adran]

7 hours ago, Alerteddonkey42 said:

Wait so you’re cutting the high end but not the low end because you think the low end has been raised. This is an assumption about the results before the data is analyzed. So what you’re attempting to analyze is the win rate (present win rate vs past for the same players?) but you’ve already skewed your data based on what you think you’ll find. Just from a methodological standpoint this doesn’t make sense. It would be more accurate to model the data with player as a random variable on your model and keep all the data. 

No I'm not cutting any data. I'm not looking at how explorers do in an event as a variable to say they are too strong. I'm looking at how a player does with explorers compared to how they did with another faction. 

It's like if I raced usain bolt while he was wearing flippers. He would win the race, but that won't prove flippers are better to race in than running shoes. 

 

Edit- Having actually had a chance to look at some data -this is only from the VWS so it is a really small data set. I've also only looked at 2 players who finished 1 and 2 with explorers in March, who are also ranked 1 and 2 in the event as a whole

Mr Gretchin won with explorers in March. He has 11 Explorers games with 9 wins and 2 loses. Looks pretty good. But if we look at his Resurrectionist results he played 6 games won 5 and drew 1. 

So his Explorers record is actually slightly worse than his Resurrectionist record. 

Now for Mr Tymokhov. He has only 4 explorers games but has a 4-0 record. He has 10 Arcanist games and is 8-2 for them and 3 resserectionist games and is 2-1 for them. If this trend was to continue then it could be used as evidence for Explorers being stronger. ( He did start with a 5-0 record for arcanists, just to show the risks of looking at small numbers). 

Combining the 2 we get 13-0-2 for explorers and 15-1-3 for non explorers. That is a slight advantage for explorers over non explorers at the moment, but very slight. 

This doesn't consider how "easy" a crew feels to play, or even look at how high a differential it gets (which are both metrics that can effect a crews power level). 

My point was that these are good players. The fact they went 1 and 2 with explorers in March should be considered with the fact they went 1 and 2 with non explorers factions in November

EDIT 2- now you've made me look, I took the next 4 highest ranking people with at least 2 Explorers events in the VWS and 2 non explorers results to try and allow a comparison. 

Combined they have 16-5-7 explorers record, and a 20-3-9 non explorers record. Over all that means they are getting an average of 1.89 TP per Explorers game and 1.97 TP per non explorers game.  

Add in the first two results (even though 1 doesn't have 2 Explorers events it feels wrong to exclude him now, but its a time consuming process to work out how many explorers games any person has played)

Across the 6 people I now have 29-5-9 for explorers and 35-4-12 for non explorers. That is 2.14TP per game as explorers and 2.14TP per game as non explorers.  That's only 94 games across 6 players who all have a good record in VWS. Its in no way rigorous analysis, and TP per game doesn't tell the whole story. 

I may have made some calculation or transcription errors and if so I apologise

 

[Paddywhack]

Doesn't the We Are Legion FAQ also change how many appear to have been playing Cadmus?

How does that factor in to how they play now? Enough to help make the Parasite tokens a little more bearable? 

[Kharnage]

3 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Doesn't the We Are Legion FAQ also change how many appear to have been playing Cadmus?

 

The FAQ addresses We Are Legion healing in the same exact way that the Vassal FAQ handled it, so it shouldn't have any meaningful impact on this data.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Personally, my uninformed prediction is the summoning changes means that Cadmus won't be 'best in faction' at symbols potentially, but we'll have to see.

(Of course, I'm sure some would argue that they weren't last season anyway, but nevermind).

[Math Mathonwy]

On 4/24/2021 at 1:38 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Personally, my uninformed prediction is the summoning changes means that Cadmus won't be 'best in faction' at symbols potentially, but we'll have to see.

(Of course, I'm sure some would argue that they weren't last season anyway, but nevermind).

Did we ever see?

But in all seriousness, what is the current status of Cadmus in the competitive scene? All the top Masters got nerfed but of course the Summon changes affected Cadmus as well. Is Nexus taking names all day long these days or has counterplay appeared?

The models will be making a physical appearance soon and just in time for the physical tournaments as well so I admit I'm mildly worried, but I've been out of the Faux scene for a couple of months now so maybe all is well?

[Adran]

I tried doing a statistical analysis of the VWS data, and I can't see any trends over all that support the view that switching to Explorers gets you better results. (I haven't looked at how each master did). 

About half the people that have played explorers and another faction have explorers producing above their average TP per game, but similarly about half are scoring fewer points per game with explorers than normal.  (most of this was pre errata)

I haven't quite worked out how to use the data

I've been and checked everyones scores that played more than 1 faction over the 7 months. (47 people)

I've then worked out their average TP/Game for each faction they played, and a combined score from all their games. I then look to see if their faction score is above the combined score or below the combined score. 

	Above Average	Below average	Average
Arcanist	5	4
Bayou	5	9	1
Explorers	12	10
Guild	5	6
Neverborn	9	5
Outcast	7	7	1
Reserectionist	8	11
Ten Thunder	8	10	1

If anyone has ideas on what I can do with this sort of analysis then please let me know. I spent ages tabulating all the data, and then realised I'm not actually sure what any of it means. Nor what things actually make sense to compare to each other. 

Explorers were the most played faction amongst players that played multiple factions, but even so its a really small sample set

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Did we ever see?

But in all seriousness, what is the current status of Cadmus in the competitive scene? All the top Masters got nerfed but of course the Summon changes affected Cadmus as well. Is Nexus taking names all day long these days or has counterplay appeared?

The models will be making a physical appearance soon and just in time for the physical tournaments as well so I admit I'm mildly worried, but I've been out of the Faux scene for a couple of months now so maybe all is well?

I played my first game against Cadmus. My impression is that the summoning changes make a MASSIVE difference. You have to hire eyes and ears if you want them to interact with the strategy, and those eyes and ears can be killed and cannot be replaced by strategy-capable eyes and ears.

That said, the nests can still run the strategy which seems like it is probably too powerful, but I'm not sure yet. Their 2" engage also just inherently denies the strategy, so they're pretty powerful.

I think the August top 16 will be very telling. A lot of really good players will be making a choice as to whether or not to play Cadmus, and if they do we may see what Cadmus at a top level looks like.

34 minutes ago, Adran said:

I tried doing a statistical analysis of the VWS data, and I can't see any trends over all that support the view that switching to Explorers gets you better results. (I haven't looked at how each master did). 

About half the people that have played explorers and another faction have explorers producing above their average TP per game, but similarly about half are scoring fewer points per game with explorers than normal.  (most of this was pre errata)

I haven't quite worked out how to use the data

I've been and checked everyones scores that played more than 1 faction over the 7 months. (47 people)

I've then worked out their average TP/Game for each faction they played, and a combined score from all their games. I then look to see if their faction score is above the combined score or below the combined score. 

	Above Average	Below average	Average
Arcanist	5	4
Bayou	5	9	1
Explorers	12	10
Guild	5	6
Neverborn	9	5
Outcast	7	7	1
Reserectionist	8	11
Ten Thunder	8	10	1

If anyone has ideas on what I can do with this sort of analysis then please let me know. I spent ages tabulating all the data, and then realised I'm not actually sure what any of it means. Nor what things actually make sense to compare to each other. 

Explorers were the most played faction amongst players that played multiple factions, but even so its a really small sample set

I don't think there's enough 'clean' data to make a useful power level analysis. What I think it does help illustrate is:

• What are people doing well with (a function of power of the crews and preference of the players)?
• What masters stand out in each faction/are being played a lot?
• What's the relative strength of the factions (and there we can see that ES does tend to win the most in GG1).
  • BUT the numbers are remarkably close, suggesting the game is remarkably balanced.

Anything more than that you can't really conclude, though.

Like you can look at Molly's performance and say "wow, she does alright!" But I believe if you take me out of the equation, her winrate is probably atrocious. So it is hard to say what her power level is. If you take a player and have them play 150-200 games with a master that clicks with their playstyle, they're probably going to do decent with them. So perhaps I just win with Molly because of the sheer number of games I've played with her.

[im_open_to_suggestions]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:00 AM, Math Mathonwy said:

Did we ever see?

But in all seriousness, what is the current status of Cadmus in the competitive scene? All the top Masters got nerfed but of course the Summon changes affected Cadmus as well. Is Nexus taking names all day long these days or has counterplay appeared?

The models will be making a physical appearance soon and just in time for the physical tournaments as well so I admit I'm mildly worried, but I've been out of the Faux scene for a couple of months now so maybe all is well?

1st tournament in Scotland only saw 2 people play explorers and i dont think Nexus made any appearance that event. 

[theamazingmrg]

4 minutes ago, im_open_to_suggestions said:

1st tournament in Scotland only saw 2 people play explorers and i dont think Nexus made any appearance that event. 

To be fair, the Core box doesn't get released until next month (barring delays, obviously).  I'd be more surprised if Nexus had appeared!

[im_open_to_suggestions]

1 minute ago, theamazingmrg said:

To be fair, the Core box doesn't get released until next month (barring delays, obviously).  I'd be more surprised if Nexus had appeared!

the TO was/is very lenient in terms of Proxies so it wouldnt have been that much of a shock. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Just watching a game of Cadmus on leylines...

The summon changes make basically 0 difference here, and the crew seems like it is basically at its full GG1 power level. Seems remarkably broken to casually go "draw 6, summon 10 stones of models" on top of the other stuff the crew is doing, and then being able to just run the schemes and strategies with almost no trouble.

[Korrok]

7 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Just watching a game of Cadmus on leylines...

The summon changes make basically 0 difference here, and the crew seems like it is basically at its full GG1 power level. Seems remarkably broken to casually go "draw 6, summon 10 stones of models" on top of the other stuff the crew is doing, and then being able to just run the schemes and strategies with almost no trouble.

Do you have a link to this? 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, Korrok said:

Do you have a link to this? 

Oh it was live on the vassal discord server, so I don't think there was a recording.

[Cats Laughing]

On 7/15/2021 at 6:06 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Just watching a game of Cadmus on leylines...

The summon changes make basically 0 difference here, and the crew seems like it is basically at its full GG1 power level. Seems remarkably broken to casually go "draw 6, summon 10 stones of models" on top of the other stuff the crew is doing, and then being able to just run the schemes and strategies with almost no trouble.

Who was running the strats/schemes?

I assume the Eyes+Ears->Berserkers were primarily distraction/fillers/killers/wound sponges/body blockers.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 hour ago, Cats Laughing said:

Who was running the strats/schemes?

I assume the Eyes+Ears->Berserkers were primarily distraction/fillers/killers/wound sponges/body blockers.

I think the cryptologist did the leylines. And the schemes were all kill oriented so someone killed Fuhatsu for vendetta and I can't remember what else.

[santaclaws01]

On 7/17/2021 at 5:01 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think the cryptologist did the leylines. And the schemes were all kill oriented so someone killed Fuhatsu for vendetta and I can't remember what else.

If they were using Cryptologists I assume that was @Longtin running Cadmus then?

[Da Git]

If you play mostly in keyword (so def no Cryptologists and maybe no Emissary) is the keyword still horrible to face?

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 hour ago, Da Git said:

If you play mostly in keyword (so def no Cryptologists and maybe no Emissary) is the keyword still horrible to face?

Possibly, I'm not sure. It definitely gets some solid boosts from things like Grave Goo or other mobile heavy hitters.

I think the keyword is a lot more manageable, although is still summoning ~10 stones of models a turn on top of all the other shenanigans like nests interacting. But I dunno!

[Adran]

2 hours ago, Da Git said:

If you play mostly in keyword (so def no Cryptologists and maybe no Emissary) is the keyword still horrible to face?

I would say that depends on the player, but if you find Hamlin horrible to face then you may well find Keyword Cadmus Horrible to face, regardless of its power level. 

[santaclaws01]

5 hours ago, Da Git said:

If you play mostly in keyword (so def no Cryptologists and maybe no Emissary) is the keyword still horrible to face?

I think I'd describe only spending 14ss or less on OOK stuff as "mostly in keyword".

[Math Mathonwy]

Why is seemingly no one playing Nexus in the Vassal worlds, btw? Was there a gentleman's agreement to not run Nexus or is it just coincidence that no one seems to be using her or is it that she isn't considered all that anymore for a competitive environment?