@Alexbrand you plagued my dueling grounds with losses 
I spent quite much time (at least since winter of 2018 till now) on multiplayer levels (Cavern Survival and Dueling Grounds to be exact) and I’m pretty sure that some of my opponents CAN ignore decoys and attack my hero (definitely yes - with their allies). My best result in this cases is tie. And I’m sure that @jasoneilif could beat me with a little tweaks of his code if he would be still active.
I remember)) (if you recall our PMs on August and November 2019 - I told about that).
Uhm, maybe it is
?
Or even, to be wider and complete
?
Multyplayer levels are just a little part of CoCo) I don’t think that there is need to add row “And you will have more chances to win in multiplayer battles* (*fighting non-subscribers)” to Premium Advantages Description ).
Well yes, sound reasonable.
Eeeer, why? What if subscriber with good coding skills meets non-subscriber with a little bit better skills and in addition perfect tactic? Or, sometimes people find kinda bruteforceing “exploits” in game mechanics or equipments - f.e. I was beaten with my 3000 characters of code many times on Cavern Survival by people (non-subscribers) who won just by instant shielding. So I had to pump up my creativity) Or, do you remember the case when I showed you the way to be №1 on Cavern Survival just by one dot? (But this is a little bit off the tactics cause it’s rather loop bug usage).
So, IMHO, - no. I think better weapons, armor and pets means nothing without code (and tactics). (Concerning multiplayer levels of course. In single-player and repeatable levels better weapons, armor and pets should definitely give a good coder a leg up)
But if I loose to subscribers and can’t create effective strategy to win - I don’t mind, it’s normal) Huh, it’s even normal to lose to non-subs too)) There are a lot very good coders, I’m not the best one.
Why? This conception again rises the question of pay-to-win idea.
Those perks are very helpful in replayable levels. Only this one advantage makes them good enough, not talking about others advantages)
A long time ago in another life I was playing MMORPG. In short words it started to die when stuff decided that pay-to-win conception is good idea.
As for
Idk, I’m not economist or marketer or any else related profession but I’m self-employed person and work for myself for last 12 years, so… IMHO, I think that lifetime subscription abolition is a mistake. It seems to me that even if it will give some kind of profit it won’t last for long time (from 6 to 10 months I would say). But well, it’s up to CoCo stuff.
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It happens from time to time)
We’re currently reworking the multiplayer ladder to optimize ranking and also making sure all future ladders aren’t equipment-based and just skill-based events. All current events will still have equipment-based rankings but any future ones won’t.
Sounds good, but I’m afraid it could be hard to implement
I mean, as far as I remember, multiplayer ranking is based on Bayesian statistics and compupation https://discourse.codecombat.com/t/sharp-drop-in-score-when-submitting-new-code/1629/2?u=alexbrand . If competing with non/subscribers would be a match option it may bring some mess into ranking system.
P.S. Came across to this interesting topic) Rewards for multiplayer levels
Well, wizards can summon things and they can attack the hero. Not the same case for ritic! P.S. decoy is something that lures enemies away, not killing them.
I have a suggestion:
Add an intelligence level to the heroes. The higher the intelligence level is, the lower the chance of forcing yourself to attack the decoy.
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maybe, if you have summoned soldiers, they will attach an opponent decoy, but you won’t. this way, you can still attack the enemy player, but they don’t have a swarm of soldiers on them.
OK, let’s look at Hattori (also paid hero, not so cool and strong as Ritic).
Here you can see how his aiming changes from decoy to his enemy hero placeholder. (I can upload video, but don’t think there is any sense).
As for balancing un/subscribed players…
May I ask you a few questions @brooksy125?
How many non-subscribers can beat you on multiplayer levels?
How many of them do it with decoys?
How many of them reach top-10 in the ladder of certain multiplayer level?
I took screenshots of two multiplayer levels ladders: Cavern Survival and Dueling Grounds (I played them the most as I mentioned).
So the first 30 places are here:
As we can see at Cavern Survival 12 players from 30 in red team are non-subscribers, and 8 players - for blue team. It gives as 20 from 60, exact 1/3.
7 players from 30 are non-subscribers in red team, and 10 - in blue team at Dueling Grounds. 17 of 60, even less than 1/3.
Statistics for Multiplayer Treasure Grove and Harrowland are even sadder (as far as a lot of win/loss factors depend on tactics in Cavern Survival and Dueling Grounds, but almost doesn’t matter in Multiplayer Treasure Grove and Harrowland, where subscriber’s heroes, abilities, better weapons, armor and pets are huge advantages).
So, with current balancing it’s quite normal ratio, IMHO. Only the most skilled and/or creative non-subscribed players reach the top. Like hmm3hero in Dueling Grounds)
Is there a real need to decrease quantity of non-subscribers in top-x of the ladders?
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Hmm. I don’t see how this would be possible. I don’t think it’s a matter of being clever… No code should run while you’re attacking a decoy, there’s no opportunity for clever code. I think a much more likely reason could be that maybe that player has limited vision glasses (5, 10, 15…).
Although on Dueling grounds (with my Pender code) manaBlast() didn’t have any affect on you. It’s supposed to be AoE, but nothing happened to you even though you were right next to me. Was that intentional?
Oh, uhm, didn’t think of that possibility. It’s funny to be defeated because of weak glasses 
No, it wasn’t intentional (It happens all the time or once per fight?). I even hear for the first time about manaBlast() method (Pender is far less popular then Nalfar or Ritic, so I rather knew about rise of dead or drain life or sacrifice or backstab combos). The only explanation comes to my mind at the moment is that both my teams equipped with Thornprick that announces “damage reflection +5”. Maybe combination of Thornprick+self.shield() caused such effect.
Anyway, I never tried to struggle with any specific casts or heroes abilities. My strategy based on common tactic “for everybody” and if it fails - on defining what player I loss, creating and adding tactic specially for him. As for techniques I use all I have in equipment and can imagine and implement: bash, shield, jump, invisibility, damage deflector, directing decoys towards enemy hero position, directing decoys to closest enemy, dodging closest enemy, arrow-towers, bear-traps, fire-traps planting, even casting invisibility on my decoys) In Cavern Survival teleportation also.
P.S.
What is AoE? Tried to google but I suppose Age of Empires is not what you meant)
What is AoE? :Refers to abilities that effect large areas and therefore potentially impacting multiple targets. MOBA Glossary
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I looked up the stats on the decoy. The only thing that I can see that prevents any enemy from not attacking it is being outside of the 30 meter range, or not having good glasses to see the decoy like @Deadpool198 mentioned. But apparently, if your primary weapon is a hammer, this doesn’t lure you away either, which I find interesting. In Cavern Survival you have enough room to avoid decoys and the ogres will also take them out, but Dueling grounds it is a smaller map and there are no ogres to destroy the decoys, so the entire enemy force is chasing them down and no code is able to run… at all, if your hero can see the decoy (and limiting your vision is a huge deficit in battles) and within 30 meters.
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I must admit I was wrong about opportunity of opponents to ignore decoys. I experiment a bit with my orges and humans teams in Dueling Grounds, hammer vs sword. And there is no possibility for clever code against decoys as @Deadpool198 mentioned (or I didn’t find it) ). In jasoneilif case looks like distance to decoys>30 and smth like target=friend.findNearest(enemy) makes his allies attack me in spite of decoy on arena.
But without decoys non-subscribers have no chance on the Dueling Grounds I would say. And even with decoys it’s very hard to compete with subscribers, and almost unreal if the subscriber have good coding skills.
It seems to me that goliath is a wrong choice for Dueling Grounds. Necromancers, assassins, sorcerers, potion-masters, librarians and trappers are more powerful themselves and/or with allies prop-up.
I personally think the non-sub clan is a good idea. As a non sub, I feel sort of left out, and by left out, I mean I can’t compete with the first ten thousand in any multiplayer arena (I have embalmed dragon chest plate). I’m in sarven desert stuck on trials and sand snakes.
If you need help you can make some topics.
There are nonsub clans.
And you can compete with the first ten thousand in multiplayer arena.
If you are stuff on a level, then please make a topic, and we’ll help you out.
Lydia
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Thanks! But, like, I can’t really compete
sword is bad. Plus, like I said, I didn’t sub. So really bad warriors.
you dont need a weapon for sand snakes.
I mean, they are still pretty good heroes as you can pass the campaign with them.
And there are some really good nonsub players on the leaderboards.
What matters is the code and maybe the equipment but not the heroes
Lydia
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