Rollerbeetle Racing Top Score Analysis

@ CLuebag: As noted, playing well is a choice. You made your choice. But if you play badly and waste a better player's time by doing it or boot a match by doing it, expect that player to tell you that you're bad.

GvG is much more dependent on your opponent's strategy because there are more variables. You, and your opponent, have freedom to choose different skills and freedom to move. There are multiple paths by which you can generate threats.

When you restrict the game down to "get to point X in the least amount of time" and fix everyone's skills, the strategy of the game quickly collapses. There is some strategy to starting cleanly. After that, the only real strategy in the game is deciding when to Harden if you're not the leader.

You're worrying about minutiae that either you don't control or don't determine outcomes. For instance, if your opponent takes a suboptimal line through water and doesn't luck into a Super (or possibly an Echo from a certain box), you win every time if you take an optimal line irrespective of whether or not you KD them in the water. If your opponent DOES get a Super, then the stupidest possible thing you could do was waste your KD in the water. You need to use that KD to kill the 100% RRPMs the opponent derived from the Super, because that's going to burn their time a lot more than parking them in the drink for two seconds would have.

Sorry, but the odds are always against you. In very rare cases it makes sense to gamble for resurrection and open a box that it is normally stupid to pick up. But in the vast majority of races, you will get better results by avoiding stupid late box pickups that kill your RRPMs. This is a simple expected utility calculation; the odds that the pickup will get you something worth more than the time cost of getting it are low for most boxes.

Remember, I finish races too. I like gamer points. And I win the vast majority of the races I finish. You are correct that if I just wanted to win races, I could race between checkpoints 2 and 3 differently and improve my odds of winning. But there isn't a lot of difference in skill usage between a clean 462 run with no speed boosts and a 483+ run. The fast line down the mountain is still the fast line down the mountain.

This cases out nicely:
- losing contact against good resistance: You're done unless you get a Super to close the gap. If you do get a Super, you are better off having KDs available for use in the most effective locations.
- losing contact against bad resistance: You can catch up and reacquire the target. If that's the case you're better off locking the target down on the beach than trying to hold contact and hoping that baddies in the back of the pack use Blast on the leader rather than spamming them randomly.

You should not be getting multiple Blasts. At most you should be picking up four boxes, and the fourth one is pretty dubious. If you're running over lots of boxes and getting duplicate Blasts regularly, you are doing something wrong.

Bump since it's RBR event again

Sidenote, already scored a 479K title in the first half hour so I have no more reason to play


On a sidenote: they so should have made this a "single player dungeon". The leaderboard would have looked so different with all the syncers and multi-acounters gone.

Aside from RBR being lame for all the reasons you described, if it were a single player race it wouldn't be any fun (not that rubber banding on the spiral or getting camped is fun anyway). People want to play with other people, they just don't want those other people to spoil their fun.

The attitude top 100s have is offensive tbh. Watching the back of someone who got a good start (SRB) is match manipulation and I wouldn't be surprised if people get banned for it this year. If you are a top 100 and see another top 100 get a good start leading you to decide to help him out, you are manipulating the outcome of the match unfairly for other players.

lololololol. thats like saying ganking in halls is match manipulation. will never see bans or changes. just deal with it.

IMO they should have gotten rid of RBR years ago and replaced it with something else.

I would have been allllll for this.

While I agree that RBR really isn't that great, they just need to get rid of the leaderboard. Then you are left with a casual event for casuals which was all that RBR was ever intended to be from conception.

Finally broke 470 I'll probably get kicked off the leaderboard soon but w/e, it's an achievement for me. RBR isn't much fun when you're rubberbanding, missing boxes cause of lag, getting stuck on the bridge etc(i haate that spiral) but it's faster gamer points than Dragon Arena, which is a sync fest right now...

I agree with everything that was said. Excellent guide my friend. And what you said about knowing what the racer next to you is going to is most definitely true. After doing a handful of runs, you begin to run into familiar faces. Some people you recognized because they are a KD abuser, or others because they were using their skills "correctly." I pay close attention to what the other racers are doing, and if they fall into either category mentioned previously, I take a mental note of it. Later, when I see a familiar racer I'll know if I should steer in his/her direction or widen my gap between him/her. Granted that i don't remember the names of most of the racers, I still remember some. Which that knowledge has helped a lot in some races.

Ackkk stop making sense!!! Not allowed, Racing is srs bsns!

your mom is a distracting lunge.

Real man of genius? Indeed. This is the perfect fix to ALL the problems of "casual" fun things to do. Add a reason to boast outside of the match and you are asking for problems. Kudos to you sir for fixing that altogether. **Side note** this is exactly what will happen in the stuff to GW2 if they don't address it this way.

Thanks for the bump Borat, this was pretty cool to read again.

I don't see why you guys have a problem with the leaderboards. You don't want to go for the leaderboards? Fine, don't. Just because you don't want something doesn't mean they should take it out. I for one love the leaderboard and competing for the top time on the leaderboard.

- Fire Hunter, for those who don't know my forum account. xD

I don't really see a need to remove the leaderboard. The problem isn't the fact that there is a leaderboard, and that there is people playing it competitive. (For best times)

The problem is that the casual players and the time-players are mixed together. This results in tactics such as mass-syncing and multi-acounting to be used. I've even heard of certain programs which give you the ability to single-load into a instance. (In a way, it dc's all the other players upon load, and they never load in)

Getting a 480K+ score really isn't that hard (I currently have a 479K time WITH a shitty start and no ECHO/SRB from the first box), the thing is that a regular player simply can not compete with intire guilds syncing and multi-acounting.

Nontheless, I'm happy because I got both my acounts top 100 this time (476K, 479K) and I know I played legit, unlike a large rest of the top 100.
I still play RBR every now and then to try and get a 480k+ time, but after a few tries, I usually quit because in those few occasions I get a perfect start, I always seem to get nothing out of the boxes.

The fact that Manchak and other infamous syncers/Real-life-reward farmers aren't hogging up 50% of the top 100 spots for their beetle is fun too...

Manchak and his friends stopped playing maybe thats why they are not on the leaderboard

And besides that much less ppl are playing during the dragon festival cause u dont get a reward for being top100.

Still grats on top100 i know how hard you tryed last time there was RBR.

That side note was interesting : most players do play for the time and not for being first only , whether having a low score or not . In that kind of race games such as mario kart , you can easily go from 1st to last when all are locked on you , but the point is the time you make doesnt really matter.

Thus , they could have made 2 separated mini games :
- 1 time trial , in which you are alone and play for the ladder , but you dont get any trophy
- 1 normal race , where you get a certain amount of trophies relying on ur position.

That would have fixed all syncings and multi accounts in my opinion ..

Bumped for relevance.

Nothing can be done on it , but multiple accounts on top20( i.e 480+ , those which will be on top100 end ) isn't really fair... Probably ,upon next days , those will extend accounts and then , as usual , top100 will be 20-25 diferent guys( which are same every year ) ...

Maybe they should have made some kind of " beat the clock " , since getting top scores with certain players is close to undoable. I usually can get to 479-480k when i got patience , but here , most of games are like you have everyone locked on you , spamming rock rock blast , etc... I gave up after getting 475k now...
But , what i mean is this fact combined to multiple accounts is just not fair , but can anything be done against it ?

Stop asking for the game to be adapted to you and adapt to the game.

Well said. Taking however much time you needed to type all that out, for no gain other than to have your 15 seconds of fame on guru...pretty weak.

Run the races, do your thing. let other people do their thing. If they can't understand how it works after 5 races, they need to either stop trying or just live with it.

FYI, I don't race. I don't care to race, and I doubt I even will.

The only fact is once again about people stealing rewards. I don't care getting knockdowned 24/7 , same happens every where ,mariokart , etc.. that's part of the game...

On topic, i would like to know : is it still possible to get 475+ after getting kded from ram at begin ??

yes
12 chars

Yes it is very possible. I've gotten 478 being kd'ed out of the gate. I think higher is possible though. I think 485 is the max score you can get pretty much. KD is 1 second, take another second for lost speed and that leaves you at a max score of 483 including kd. You do have to play a perfect race though, which is hard if you're near other people.

The anwser to this would be an analogy:

Is it possible to win a formula 1 race if your car breaks down?

Yes, strictly it's possible. However, is it worth wasting time on the hopes of:

-Getting SRB + echo from EVERY box you pick up?
-You don't get a single KD anymore when you're already in last spot (which is REALLY unlikely)
-You don't get blocked despite still having to pass 4 other rollerbeetles?

I don't think so...

Stop blaming other people/things for your own lack of skill.

Are we discussing the fact that predicting wether or not 5 opponents will use their Ram at a given time is skill as opposed to luck?

But hey, maybe you posses psychic powers I'm not aware of, so I apologize. When I made that post, I wasn't aware of the fact that some players in Guild Wars are a medium and are able to predict other people's exact behaviour, despite those people being different every time, and most importantly randomly use skills. (As we can agree the majority of the PvE community doesn't fully understand how to effectively use Ram and Dash; and thus they'll just use it at random)



More importantly, there's no way to "reflex" other people's Rams, if they use it,it's instant KD. Since there's 5 people in a clusterfcuk ball, I highly doubt you can develop a "skill" in predicting what people will do.

I think many people don't really understand how ram works after 4 years tbh.....But it's still understandable : I mean , sometimes it doesn't kd while it should , sometimes you get kd'ed while not even close to guy using it ....

ps : is that me or it's even more lagging than last year ? i keep rolling back on almost every 3 boxes..

Nothing can be done about it, unless you're going to ask ANet to somehow take action against people who hold multiple accounts to get prizes in this matter, which is something that they've never really taken a stance against before. If this were a kind of competition that was monitored to the degree of their art contests, and their goal was to restrict the prize to one per person, you could certainly expect them to take action against those who use multiple accounts.

The only thing that you can do as a player is race better. The highest of scores are the hardest to post, and you should aim to be at least good enough that others are only going to maybe get to post two or three of those above you.

It'd be possible to even get 480k+, but that's effectively asking for you to have gotten botched on a run that would have been 482k+. A Ram from the beginning is not absolutely fatal unless you've already punched your Dash and end up losing all that speed over time.

What is all this: "You can still win if you get KD'd at start" shenanigans? You'dd figure people who get top scores to know better.

The sole fact that you'dd still have to pass 5 other beetles is enough reason to ensure you won't make a top time.

Unless, offcourse, you have access to certain hacks and exploits for example enable you to click to walk (for better sync with server, I know this one exists).

To get a mini 2011 (and 2009 and 10 for that matter), you always had 3 options:

-Sync
-Exploit (There's enough hacks I could post here if only allowed to)
-Get lucky

I tried for about 2 hours, and that's it for this year. I got a 478K time, which indvidually is a top 100 score (no counting the 20 cheating germans/frenchies alt acounts) and that's good enough for me. I really can't be asked wasting another entire weekend trying to get a 485K score (which I could if I synced or exploited like the rest), and neither should anyone else attempt at doing so.

It's a waste of time trying to beat up against the hordes of cheaters in these mini-games (both snowball and RBR) and why Anet ever decided to give such abundant rewards to easily the most botted/cheated and least competitive format will always be beyond me.

Option 4; be good at rbr.

or maybe I just got lucky 3 years in a row.

But you're arguing predicting when other racers (which are random PvE'ers who randomly use skills) is a skill, rather than a pseudo-science.

For me, that falls under the "luck" category.

I have no doubts you understand how RBR works (as do I, as I can easily score 480K times give the fact I don't get screwed over by boxes/players), but your arguing here reminds me so bad of Runescape forums (which I played like 5 years ago, and recently started again).

In Runescape, hits get randomly calculated (it's that simple), and in PvP, whilst there definatly is some skill in clicking at the right time (weaponswapping, eating food, etc) there's always those few idiots who argue they hit better because they're "skilled".

Yes, there's a basic amount of skill in RBR, something which anyone can master reading my guide and watching the youtube video 2-3 times. But from there on, it's luck or the 2 other options. (which I like to call create your own luck)

And something I've always claimed is that: In a format as flawed as RBR, it's just really suspicious that all the top 100 score players are usually in the same 2-3 guilds, and are close friends, yet failed to achieve anything in real aspects of Guild Wars. (HA, GvG, and maybe even Hero battles, altough there is 1 or 2 players who managed to be half-decent at HB)

It's botted mostly, Xinec told me before he got permabanned.

All you have to do is learn best path, and where to use which skill, which is incredibly easy. Then its just a matter of mindless repetition waiting for that lucky run when you get echo srb and you dont have interfering team mates.

The people in top 100 dont have some super awesome strategy, or leet skills. They just do it over and over until luck favor them

Believe it or not, even 'n00bs' don't bash skills at random, they might hit them on recharge, but that's not random is it? Tis not hard to predict when people use what, after observing the first couple of seconds of the race. This the same ability that lets people dshot infuse or pre-prot targets. Because you can't do it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ofcourse there's a little bit of luck involved. Obviously being the blue ball is an advantage and getting the right spawn is pretty cool too for getting a top score. But if you play often enough skill > luck since you can eliminate the bad-luck runs by doing very many and getting a few good-luck ones in.

If anything, shield should stop lunging aswell.

Also if you only try for 2 hours, yeah, you might have some bad luck, but then again. Is playing for only 2 hours really worth 500(?) ecto?




PS: Godwin's Law doesn't only apply to Hitler. I think in this context Runescape qualifies aswell...

You're still arguing nonsense:

Yes, you CAN observe peope and watch their behaviour, that's what I do to try and gues people will Ram at start or not, but you never know for sure.

Also, there's little to no use of knowing people's behaviour post 17 seconds, because the game is usually won or lost by then. It's the first 10 seconds that are most crucial for any skilled player.

And the truth is that PvE'ers will randomly use Ram anywhere in those 10 seconds. You only have 4 seconds of immunity, and thus no matter how skilled you are, you'll always have a high chance of getting KD'd.

UNLESS you Ram start or sync/exploit.

I could believe it but well , i saw some players having multiple accounts in ladder 4-5 hours after rollerbeetle was introduced ( so euro evening thursday..)... I would like to believe it's luck , but is it really ?

Even now i'm watching semestrial ladder , there are multiple players called same : i.e Master Joan I , Master Joan III ; Arya I , Arya II , many called Ewok ,etc...
Considering you still need to expect to be able to get a perfect race ( not getting any kd , getting super on good times ) , it's really hard to think many in actual top100 are playing fair ..

And well , like Borat said it's quite pointless anyway now . It looks like it will end up with top100 scores 481+ ...

If you're under the impression that you can't pull a first place finish out of getting KD'd at the start of the race, then trying for a top time is going to always be a futile effort.

Have you PMed any links to these hacks to Regina?

If not, you've not even taken the first step in trying to get rid of them, so I hope that you've done at least this much.

Not with your attitude, you won't.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I find my biggest detriment to be the average 12 year old who wants to win the race instead of place top 100. I lose my temper pretty easily and pick up all crates to echo lightning them though.

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

I have to say, the same thing pisses me off. All the people who think nothing of ending your run. I had 1 guy who watch me try to use my eched srb (he had 1 copy too) but he recharged my skills right before people would have used it. He then laughed at me for stopping my top 100 run.

I gotta say though, even though I get pissed about it, can we really get mad at the people just racing to the end? I mean, that is what this game is for. For some reason Anet decided to reward people for the fastest scores even though that isn;t what the race is about. Anyone who wouldn;t think this would promote cheat/syncing clearly does not pay attention to the gaming world.

Gaile and other's have been aware of most exploits for a long time. Instead, they refuse to do anything about it.

Again, a friend of mine, who helped create GWLP and so much more exploits (Tough he never did it to harm anyone, solely for educational/entertainement purposes) send in all his exploits directly to Gaile Gray.

With the exception of 1 or 2, not one of them got fixed within months. As a result, he kept experimenting with these exploits, with full approval of Gaile: He actually saved the email (and showed me) in which he's corresponding with Gaile where she says he needs to "report" all his findings to her.

A couple of months later, he got banned for abusing exploits, yet almost none of the exploits got fixed, and Gaile ignored his emails.

Anet/NCSoft is aware of these exploits and hacks (including the bot frenzy that went on years ago) yet refused to do anything about it.