Wow! What a difference a month makes! Here in the Splinterlands, nothing stays steady for long.
I mean, we've just unveiled an entire continent! (Have you surveyed your land yet?)
Oh, and just in case you haven't heard, we have another SPS Pre-Proposal targetting botting!
But that's not why we are here today - I want to continue looking at how the most competitive guilds in the league stay on top. We took a few weeks off, but we're back, baby!
Looking at the Tiers overall...
We can see that XBot's Battle Helper continues to be used in more guilds across all Tiers. In fact, in Tier 4, I've identified members that have paid for XBot's "coaching" service, in nearly every guild.
| Guilds with BH Users | Current Cycle | Last Time | Total Guilds in Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tier 4 | 37 | 25 | 40 |
| Tier 3 | 56 | 51 | 127 |
| Tier 2 | 59 | 42 | 266 |
| Tier 1 | 30 | 26 | 450 |
50% More Users are Paying for XBot's Battle Helper
| Total Users (by Tier) | Current Cycle | Last Time | Number of Frays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 5 | 0 | 0 | 25 |
| Tier 4 | 148 | 92 | 21 |
| Tier 3 | 157 | 104 | 18 |
| Tier 2 | 103 | 70 | 16 |
| Tier 1 | 77 | 50 | 13 |
Across the board, we have seen ~50% more users in every Tier. So how to interpret?
Two things really stood out to me.
- The number of guilds where anyone is using XBot's Battle Helper is steady, and yet
- The number of users is still increasing rapidly.
How to can that be that? I think there's only one possibility....
XBot's Battle Helper seems to spreading within Guilds
If you think about it, it makes complete sense. Guilds have private chats and a shared mission to perform better. Most guilds I've been involved with also share tips and tricks with their guildmates in pursuit of a common goal. And the data seems to support it.
Let's test our hypothesis with our usual look at Tier 4.
Tier 4: Only 3 out of 40 Guilds Aren't on this List
| Tier 4 Guilds with BH Users | Current Cycle | Last Time |
|---|---|---|
| ✨[RKO] Outta Nowhere 🧨 | 13 | 13 |
| YGG Brawlers (Niflheim) | 13 | |
| Legendary Dragons | 9 | 5 |
| Legendary Wyverns | 7 | 7 |
| T&A Legion I | 7 | 4 |
| PeakMonsters Pirates | 7 | 3 |
| Legendary Wizards | 6 | 4 |
| YGG Brawlers (Ásgard) | 5 | 5 |
| Team Possible Hackers | 5 | 5 |
| Legendary Raptors | 5 | 5 |
| [KoG] Guardians of Glory | 5 | 5 |
| The Guild of Neoxian | 5 | 3 |
| PeakMonsters [CHAMPS] | 5 | |
| Legendary Lunatics | 4 | 6 |
| YGG Dragons | 4 | 4 |
| Plan B | 4 | 4 |
| Knights United | 4 | 3 |
| PeakMonsters Embryon | 4 | 3 |
| PeakMonsters [Archon] | 3 | 3 |
| Immortal Gods | 3 | 2 |
| PeakMonsters [Legion] | 3 | 1 |
| [KoG] Shield of Glory | 3 | 1 |
| Legendary Whelps | 3 | |
| HD HYBORIAN DREAM | 3 | |
| YGG Knights | 3 | |
| [KoG] No Guts No Glory | 2 | 2 |
| Roaring Twenties | 2 | 1 |
| Team Possible | 2 | |
| Samurai Soul 🗻 LLAC | 2 | |
| PeakMonsters [PREMIERE] | 1 | 1 |
| PeakMonsters [Vikings] | 1 | 1 |
| The Grand Praetorian Army | 1 | 1 |
| Archmage Arius' Disciples | 1 | |
| Phoenix IVY | 1 | |
| Praetorian Pandas | 1 | |
| The MobyDicks | 1 | |
| Legendary Unicorns | 1 |
So there is definitely more users in many of these guilds. Maybe not enough data to say if our hypothesis is right or not. There are more guilds on this list too. Last time, some of these guilds were still in Tier 3, so their numbers look brand new.
The Notably Absent
I thought about making you work to find those three missing Tier 4 guilds.
Some might find that a fun little bit of homework.
If you want to discover it yourself, DON'T CLICK THE SPOILER BELOW
Which Tier 4 guilds are not using Battle Helper?
[Which Tier 4 guilds are not using Battle Helper?]
- Knights of Praetoria
- Summoners Tribe
- Cardinals
Make Your Voice Heard
Maybe you have an opinion on the current SPS Pre-Proposal to split ranked into leagues where bots are welcome and where they are kindly asked to leave. Or maybe you just have questions, comments, random thoughts, or you just want to say Hi...
Whatever it is, let me know if you have suggestions or thoughts about where we go next. Thanks!
I am the guild leader of Cardinals and we've come to conclusion a couple of cycles back that botting in competitive play (brawls, tourneys) is really a defeat to last stronghold of human play.
Yes the bot is better than us, but we hope to see an end of it, or it will be the end of us.
Do you remember having fun or fair play gaming?
Thanks for the comment! Yeah, I agree, I hope that we can keep some areas of the game limited to human minds. Admirable for you guys for taking a proactive approach. Did you guys do your own version of a pledge too, like some other guilds?
It was more of unwritten, tacit agreement or an oath if you will during casual in game chat. To be honest I am a bit surprised everyone is sticking to it because the bot pressure is so strong. We even manage to rank better than some of those guilds at times even though we are not even close to a whale guild and play using "natural" computing.
Us fools chose a honorable lose instead of profitable exploit.
I want to applause this attitude, you're not fools but valuable players for this game in my book, have it in mind and keep that chin up mates. 💪
What has happened with the so called "Pact" between top rated guilds, that they will not use bots, bh's? I guess it's just words but no action... (sad)
I think those guilds that made a "No Bot" pledge probably didn't anticipate all the possible combinations and changes. Also some people don't think that a battle helper is a bot, since the human player can see the recommendation, and modify based on their experience. I suppose that's what makes it complicated. So for me, I like to call it "Bot Brains".
You should know that many of these guild leaders are very interested in the activities of their members, and a number have asked many follow up questions in private. I truly believe that most of these guild leaders want to keep their members committed. But another problem is that many of these kinds of tools are very hard to detect.
Controversial subject here but as a user of the BH on this list, I think the correct context of possibilities is not posted here. As a user, I have agreed to a pledge by my Guild to not bot Brawls. However, BH came out afterwards and as you state, there is a grey line of this is considered exactly that. I have stayed in line with the agreement but when these articles came out, I decided to experiment. Of the last 2 brawls, I have not encountered an opponent across most of these Guilds that have used BH teams against me. In looking at the teams suggested, I have found the BH not to be the optimal selections when the players have strong Gladiator collections. In fact, I see myself using very different teams that the ones suggested after reviewing in detail and comparing my selection. Blockchain is intended to be transparent and that is great but making assumptions with data is a questionable path.
I hear you. It's not a black-and-white situation. I've said before, not all users are using it the same, and I'm not accusing any individual.
Im sure you recognize you are getting some bot-informed information for brawls, even if you decide to use a different team. And the more users that do this, the further it helps enrich the dataset used by these bots.
If Battle Helper isn’t useful, I expect the usage will start to slow eventually. For now it is still increasing.
My assumptions are pretty mild, and I only present circumstantial evidence. I am not judging any individual player, all I’m pointing out is the data shows these are guilds where some members have loaded funds to use Battle Helper. Leaders of our guilds and our community can ask more questions, and decide what to do with that info, but that’s it.
For example, I’m not publishing a list of the players that have loaded the most DEC to the service. I haven’t compared my data to tournament winners (although that might be an interesting analysis too) 🤔
i really wish xbot didn't offer this service or was told to stop
It's a tough situation. There are other similar services that are permitted; some even have Chrome Browser extensions to build similar "hints" right into the webpage.
@niallon11 it would be interesting to see how our tier is
Here's some stats...
No wonder it's getting harder to win. Although I found if I'm a bit quirkier with my selection it has positive consequences
Yeah there's sometimes really good opportunity in brawls with surprise lineups, people tend to expect the same sort of play all the time!
Thank you for the research. Glad to know this :)
Upvoted 100% using the HP delegated from Hive Birthday Event :)
Thanks! I'm glad I can help shed some light on the situation.
I am actually quite surprised and saddened to see my guild Shield of Glory make this list. I thought we had an understanding that no bots or hand helpers would be used for brawls or tournaments, so this was an unpleasant shock to me. 🙁
Hey Duce - I'd recommend you check in with your guild leader. Sometimes there are reasons and misunderstandings, and if they need more info they can reach out.
I checked in with not just my leader, but all of my guildmates as well. Three of them do hold XBot tokens, but nobody is using the hand helper. One person tried it and said the lineups were awful and they just did it themselves, especially since it was not recommending gladiators to use. I understand the limitations of your research and I'm glad that we are still committed to brawls and tournaments without assistant software.
GOOD INFO
Very good analysis.
Just for the sake of completion: Summoners Tribe arent using Battle-Helper cause they have their own tool up for ages. Or does somebody really think that they have the best brawl performance now for ages, because they are the only human players that can beat the bot? 😂
Summoner's Tribe don't use bots for brawls and we don't have any tool, so what you said is not true. If you have any questions you can always ask!
Battle-hardened instincts are the most dangerous tool! :D
Thanks for your comment. I am not familiar with the inner workings of Summoners Tribe, but I do know there are other tools out there and it's possible that anyone could be using them. If you have any specific details I can look deeper to see if I can find out more for next time.
How can you check if someone is using the helper or not?
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Thanks Bulldog - appreciate the support!
Great research and info!