As a heavy grinder of the game. I'm not grinding BGs. Missed half of the objectives this season.
I have played less than 20 matches this season. Gold 3. Not struggling. 1 loss somewhere in bronze but rest wins.
The game feels like a job these days and I'm not doing it. I can reach GC when I want, but I don't want to concentrate... The conundrum lol.
Matches are intense, it's not that I dont like a challange, it's draining my mental health, so I don't want to persu mysterium which I shoot for every season.
Unrelated side note: Also hate the fact I cannot autoplay low level eqs. Absolutely despise it.
Maybe I get some time off from the daily life, I may push GC but not a big deal if i can't.
@DNA3000 in regards to your comment, I think part of the problem is everyone has to slog through VT from the bottom each time and go thorough each rank. Maybe starting people in different tiers in relation to where they finished the season prion could help.
I think this is an independent problem. Which is to say, even if you implement a way to start people higher based on their prior achieved tiers, there’s still the question of how frustrating and/or time consuming it is to get there on the first place. So it would still think there was value in reviewing the trophy scoring system.
Conversely, starting people at higher start points creates other problems that need solving, namely how to award players the rewards they would have had the opportunity to get had they started lower and would now miss out on. Simply giving the players those rewards is unlikely to be acceptable, so another mechanism would have to be implemented.
All theoretically solvable to be sure, but the more things you have to do, the less likely the devs would have the time and resources to implement such a solution.
I'm not sure why "giving" the previous milestone rewards from a staggered start is considered such a taboo thing personally.
This is also why I'd rather the stagger be based on how quickly one completes VT or their ending point within VT from the previous season as opposed to staggering just based on title though. I see that as more of earning those rewards in the previous season as them being handed out in the following. That also incentivizes people capable of getting through VT quickly to actually do so as opposed to taking their time and letting stronger accounts finish first so as to dilute the matchmaking pool on the way up.
The problem is, you're giving people Rewards in a competition that they haven't actually earned. I mean literally. The results are based on how you perform in BGs. Not to mention you're talking about compounding benefits..a higher start PLUS all previous Rewards, PLUS an accelerated climb. That's essentially expectation running wild. For people to say they should climb higher because they're the largest is one thing. For them to say they should have benefit upon benefit is another.
Unfortunately, they bent to the will of the vocal low-end players complaining abotu sandbagging and completely screwed-up matchmaking (which end-game players predicted would happen). The top players are stuck facing each other, which guarantees that a Paragon is losing every round and artificially keeps them down. It's a slog and a frustrating waste of time now for many of the best players in the game (and a breeze for many of the mid to low-tier players). They did this in AW and it was a complete disaster. I have no idea why they thought the same thing wouldn't happen in BGs.
The frustration is made worse, at least for me, because in no way should a player of my level be struggling this much in the lowest tiers of the VT. That's not me being an entitled A-hole, that's just a fact. I have spent 8 years playing this game, many of which were in a top 10-20 ally, beating all content as soon as it was released and building a roster that is globally in the top 1000 (my lowest was ~100 a few years ago). In literally any other game, that amount of time, money, and effort would be rewarded and I'd quickly ascend and be fighting in the top few tiers of BGs vs others who have similar journies as me. Instead of seeing those fithgts vs seasoned vets in the top tiers, I'm seeing them in Bronze and Silver when I know for a fact that low accounts are getting a free pass to higher tiers because they can't face me.
Also, because I should be winning Bronze and Silver fights, losses feel so much worse than wins feel good. That leads to more anger and frustration, which leads to not wanting to play the mode.
The current BG matchmaking is completely backward and has to be changed. If they won't change the matchmaking they have to implement my proposed win multiplier system from a last week, which is basically how they do AW:
3 tokens for beating a Paragon 2 tokens for beating a TB 1 token for beating a UC or CAV All losses are -1 token
None of "the best players in the game" are struggling.
Only if you don't consider the top ~1000 players of the millions that play the game the best, then I guess you're right. The best is only the .0001% noth the .001%!
I doubt there are millions of active players. I don't know only kabam does. If you think your competition is gold 2 and above you are looking at that's 90k of players right. I know in my ally p4 only half run battle grounds. I believe this is a logical number to be basing from for Paragon players
You can use whatever numbers you want but the point still stands. The top 1% or .1% should still be cruising through VT in any good game mode.
The top 1% (.1%) is only relative to the game mode itself. They ARE. The top percentile of BGs is cruising through BGs. Dominating other game modes doesn't mean free Wins in another.
BGs is a competition. One that's based on results within itself. It's not a statement to who is entitled to be on top because they're on top in every other aspect. What's the sense of even having a competition if that's the case? Take the Leaderboards from other game modes, copy and paste them, dole the Rewards out. You progress based on how you perform in the game mode. You lose, you don't go up. You win, you go up. Not "I'm the top in everything else, I deserve to be the top here.". You earn it.
@DNA3000 in regards to your comment, I think part of the problem is everyone has to slog through VT from the bottom each time and go thorough each rank. Maybe starting people in different tiers in relation to where they finished the season prion could help.
I think this is an independent problem. Which is to say, even if you implement a way to start people higher based on their prior achieved tiers, there’s still the question of how frustrating and/or time consuming it is to get there on the first place. So it would still think there was value in reviewing the trophy scoring system.
Conversely, starting people at higher start points creates other problems that need solving, namely how to award players the rewards they would have had the opportunity to get had they started lower and would now miss out on. Simply giving the players those rewards is unlikely to be acceptable, so another mechanism would have to be implemented.
All theoretically solvable to be sure, but the more things you have to do, the less likely the devs would have the time and resources to implement such a solution.
I'm not sure why "giving" the previous milestone rewards from a staggered start is considered such a taboo thing personally.
This is also why I'd rather the stagger be based on how quickly one completes VT or their ending point within VT from the previous season as opposed to staggering just based on title though. I see that as more of earning those rewards in the previous season as them being handed out in the following. That also incentivizes people capable of getting through VT quickly to actually do so as opposed to taking their time and letting stronger accounts finish first so as to dilute the matchmaking pool on the way up.
The problem is, you're giving people Rewards in a competition that they haven't actually earned. I mean literally. The results are based on how you perform in BGs. Not to mention you're talking about compounding benefits..a higher start PLUS all previous Rewards, PLUS an accelerated climb. That's essentially expectation running wild. For people to say they should climb higher because they're the largest is one thing. For them to say they should have benefit upon benefit is another.
Unfortunately, they bent to the will of the vocal low-end players complaining abotu sandbagging and completely screwed-up matchmaking (which end-game players predicted would happen). The top players are stuck facing each other, which guarantees that a Paragon is losing every round and artificially keeps them down. It's a slog and a frustrating waste of time now for many of the best players in the game (and a breeze for many of the mid to low-tier players). They did this in AW and it was a complete disaster. I have no idea why they thought the same thing wouldn't happen in BGs.
The frustration is made worse, at least for me, because in no way should a player of my level be struggling this much in the lowest tiers of the VT. That's not me being an entitled A-hole, that's just a fact. I have spent 8 years playing this game, many of which were in a top 10-20 ally, beating all content as soon as it was released and building a roster that is globally in the top 1000 (my lowest was ~100 a few years ago). In literally any other game, that amount of time, money, and effort would be rewarded and I'd quickly ascend and be fighting in the top few tiers of BGs vs others who have similar journies as me. Instead of seeing those fithgts vs seasoned vets in the top tiers, I'm seeing them in Bronze and Silver when I know for a fact that low accounts are getting a free pass to higher tiers because they can't face me.
Also, because I should be winning Bronze and Silver fights, losses feel so much worse than wins feel good. That leads to more anger and frustration, which leads to not wanting to play the mode.
The current BG matchmaking is completely backward and has to be changed. If they won't change the matchmaking they have to implement my proposed win multiplier system from a last week, which is basically how they do AW:
3 tokens for beating a Paragon 2 tokens for beating a TB 1 token for beating a UC or CAV All losses are -1 token
None of "the best players in the game" are struggling.
Only if you don't consider the top ~1000 players of the millions that play the game the best, then I guess you're right. The best is only the .0001% noth the .001%!
I doubt there are millions of active players. I don't know only kabam does. If you think your competition is gold 2 and above you are looking at that's 90k of players right. I know in my ally p4 only half run battle grounds. I believe this is a logical number to be basing from for Paragon players
You can use whatever numbers you want but the point still stands. The top 1% or .1% should still be cruising through VT in any good game mode.
The top 1% (.1%) is only relative to the game mode itself. They ARE. The top percentile of BGs is cruising through BGs. Dominating other game modes doesn't mean free Wins in another.
They did earn them in this situation though. They were earned by completing the previous season's VT faster than everyone else. For people finishing VT in the first week or even two weeks, it's just a formality. It's a question of when they'll finish based on how much they want to play as opposed to whether they'll string enough wins together to finish in the first place.
Removing those groups from the majority of the VT to begin with just makes it easier for the remaining people to finish in general or finish faster than if the first group was in the pool while having basically zero impact on the group given a headstart other than they have to waste less of their and the opponent's they'd have matched time.
@DNA3000 in regards to your comment, I think part of the problem is everyone has to slog through VT from the bottom each time and go thorough each rank. Maybe starting people in different tiers in relation to where they finished the season prion could help.
I think this is an independent problem. Which is to say, even if you implement a way to start people higher based on their prior achieved tiers, there’s still the question of how frustrating and/or time consuming it is to get there on the first place. So it would still think there was value in reviewing the trophy scoring system.
Conversely, starting people at higher start points creates other problems that need solving, namely how to award players the rewards they would have had the opportunity to get had they started lower and would now miss out on. Simply giving the players those rewards is unlikely to be acceptable, so another mechanism would have to be implemented.
All theoretically solvable to be sure, but the more things you have to do, the less likely the devs would have the time and resources to implement such a solution.
I'm not sure why "giving" the previous milestone rewards from a staggered start is considered such a taboo thing personally.
This is also why I'd rather the stagger be based on how quickly one completes VT or their ending point within VT from the previous season as opposed to staggering just based on title though. I see that as more of earning those rewards in the previous season as them being handed out in the following. That also incentivizes people capable of getting through VT quickly to actually do so as opposed to taking their time and letting stronger accounts finish first so as to dilute the matchmaking pool on the way up.
The problem is, you're giving people Rewards in a competition that they haven't actually earned. I mean literally. The results are based on how you perform in BGs. Not to mention you're talking about compounding benefits..a higher start PLUS all previous Rewards, PLUS an accelerated climb. That's essentially expectation running wild. For people to say they should climb higher because they're the largest is one thing. For them to say they should have benefit upon benefit is another.
Unfortunately, they bent to the will of the vocal low-end players complaining abotu sandbagging and completely screwed-up matchmaking (which end-game players predicted would happen). The top players are stuck facing each other, which guarantees that a Paragon is losing every round and artificially keeps them down. It's a slog and a frustrating waste of time now for many of the best players in the game (and a breeze for many of the mid to low-tier players). They did this in AW and it was a complete disaster. I have no idea why they thought the same thing wouldn't happen in BGs.
The frustration is made worse, at least for me, because in no way should a player of my level be struggling this much in the lowest tiers of the VT. That's not me being an entitled A-hole, that's just a fact. I have spent 8 years playing this game, many of which were in a top 10-20 ally, beating all content as soon as it was released and building a roster that is globally in the top 1000 (my lowest was ~100 a few years ago). In literally any other game, that amount of time, money, and effort would be rewarded and I'd quickly ascend and be fighting in the top few tiers of BGs vs others who have similar journies as me. Instead of seeing those fithgts vs seasoned vets in the top tiers, I'm seeing them in Bronze and Silver when I know for a fact that low accounts are getting a free pass to higher tiers because they can't face me.
Also, because I should be winning Bronze and Silver fights, losses feel so much worse than wins feel good. That leads to more anger and frustration, which leads to not wanting to play the mode.
The current BG matchmaking is completely backward and has to be changed. If they won't change the matchmaking they have to implement my proposed win multiplier system from a last week, which is basically how they do AW:
3 tokens for beating a Paragon 2 tokens for beating a TB 1 token for beating a UC or CAV All losses are -1 token
None of "the best players in the game" are struggling.
Only if you don't consider the top ~1000 players of the millions that play the game the best, then I guess you're right. The best is only the .0001% noth the .001%!
I doubt there are millions of active players. I don't know only kabam does. If you think your competition is gold 2 and above you are looking at that's 90k of players right. I know in my ally p4 only half run battle grounds. I believe this is a logical number to be basing from for Paragon players
You can use whatever numbers you want but the point still stands. The top 1% or .1% should still be cruising through VT in any good game mode.
The top 1% (.1%) is only relative to the game mode itself. They ARE. The top percentile of BGs is cruising through BGs. Dominating other game modes doesn't mean free Wins in another.
They did earn them in this situation though. They were earned by completing the previous season's VT faster than everyone else. For people finishing VT in the first week or even two weeks, it's just a formality. It's a question of when they'll finish based on how much they want to play as opposed to whether they'll string enough wins together to finish in the first place.
Removing those groups from the majority of the VT to begin with just makes it easier for the remaining people to finish in general or finish faster than if the first group was in the pool while having basically zero impact on the group given a headstart other than they have to waste less of their and the opponent's they'd have matched time.
The purpose of having a Season is to measure progress from point A to point B, and award people based on that. What you're describing is giving Rewards automatically. That's where the conflict lies. You can't give people Rewards in a competition that they never earned within that competition.
The purpose of having a Season is to measure progress from point A to point B, and award people based on that. What you're describing is giving Rewards automatically. That's where the conflict lies. You can't give people Rewards in a competition that they never earned within that competition.
Isn't that exactly what's happening with the lower progression accounts? They are getting rewards in a competition that they never actually play in. They get to play in a silo and gain rewards from that, never having to face stronger competition. While the stronger accounts roadblock each other. If everybody was in the same pool the distribution of rewards would be very different. Essentially, this is a transfer of rewards from one group to other.
In a common pool, there would still be higher progression accounts who will not move up and lower accounts who will. This is not different from offering the same rewards for all SQ tiers. It would be fairer in that case than doing so in BG as you can make the argument that you aren't blocking anyone's access to SQ rewards by completing your quest. Everyone can play at their level and get the same rewards.
I'd like to know how they're getting Rewards they never actually play in. They're playing, they're advancing. That's how it goes. Unless someone has devised a new kind of Mod that needs to be addressed.
They aren't facing the same competition. They are advancing because they are provided protection that some are not. If they had to play the entire pool, some wouldn't advance. To help them advance, few others are being prevented from advancing. If by Mod you mean a preferential treatment, then that is the case here.
Disagree. They're playing Matches that are lower, equal, greater (within range) of what they're working with. So are others. This whole self-serving comparison that flip flops needs to go, because no one looks at the larger scale. Only how it seems for them. You're comparing two people in a knife fight with both knives, and saying they're not bringing a knife to a gun fight so they're not really fighting. In essence, that's it. "They're not fighting the same level we are." News flash, they're fighting the same challenges. Same Nodes, same time to do it in, same scoring. I feel like I'm repeating myself but it's still ignored, so here we are. At the risk of being torn by the math aficionados here, I'll use a numerical example. Let's say the strength of the Rosters of Players at the lower end are represented by 3. They're fighting people within the 2, 3, and 4 range. You have people at the higher end, and we'll say they're 8 "power". They're fighting people in the 7, 8, 9 range. You can say "I'm an 8, and they're a 3. I'm fighting harder fights.". The reality is, it's a one point range, or equal, on both sides. You can't say because an 8 could overpower a 3, that the 3 is not fighting as hard. They are fighting just as hard, with different tools, against different tools. What you call preferential treatment is the antithesis of that. What people expect and call fair, is preferential treatment based on the size of their Roster. Which is all fine and well in the GC. I can't believe people are claiming that in the VT. Nevertheless, I've played ball and agreed to a number of suggestions. What I will debate until the end of time, is how people are not earning their way up because they haven't engaged in a hypothetical ego trip.
@DNA3000 in regards to your comment, I think part of the problem is everyone has to slog through VT from the bottom each time and go thorough each rank. Maybe starting people in different tiers in relation to where they finished the season prion could help.
I think this is an independent problem. Which is to say, even if you implement a way to start people higher based on their prior achieved tiers, there’s still the question of how frustrating and/or time consuming it is to get there on the first place. So it would still think there was value in reviewing the trophy scoring system.
Conversely, starting people at higher start points creates other problems that need solving, namely how to award players the rewards they would have had the opportunity to get had they started lower and would now miss out on. Simply giving the players those rewards is unlikely to be acceptable, so another mechanism would have to be implemented.
All theoretically solvable to be sure, but the more things you have to do, the less likely the devs would have the time and resources to implement such a solution.
I'm not sure why "giving" the previous milestone rewards from a staggered start is considered such a taboo thing personally.
Because then a player wouldn't have to do anything at all to gain those rewards. In the extreme case you could choose to play every other season and still get basically twice the rewards. Suppose you implement season decay where every season you start one track lower. You could then play all the way up to Vibranium, then in the next season throw a single match and still get all the rewards up to Vibranium and be placed in Diamond, then throw one match next season and get all the rewards up to Diamond and be placed in Platinum, and so on. Fundamentally, it is too exploitable.
And even though I ought not to speak on behalf of the developers, in this case I am 99% certain I know what their reasoning would be. VT rewards are *specifically* there to encourage participation: that's why the Victory track even exists. Without this need to promote participation, BG would just be one big GC. So giving VT rewards out without needing to participate would be a direct contradiction of its reason for existing. That's not just unpalatable, that would be in this specific context nonsensical.
And even though I ought not to speak on behalf of the developers, in this case I am 99% certain I know what their reasoning would be. VT rewards are *specifically* there to encourage participation: that's why the Victory track even exists. Without this need to promote participation, BG would just be one big GC. So giving VT rewards out without needing to participate would be a direct contradiction of its reason for existing. That's not just unpalatable, that would be in this specific context nonsensical.
Agree. The rewards are designed with the current 'dump everyone into Bronze at the same time' model. Change whether people are dumped into Bronze, or start at the same time, then the rewards would change (likely to something less). They definitely would not change to 'dump GC players into Platinum' and give them the same earlier rewards.
OP here, catching up on the chat, lots going back and forth but it’s good discussion and debate.
I do want to focus on something specific, though, and it’s around the wins, needed to advance. Putting aside, matchmaking, and how the player base is split into silos, and who they are competing against in each match, do you believe the system of +1 token for a win and -1 token for a loss is the best way to have somebody progress through the victory track?
To me it’s this aspect of battlegrounds that is the most frustrating part for the player base. You can spend hours playing but if you only average a 50% win streak, chances are you’re not going to be able to advance at all. this to me is what is the drive killer in battle grounds, and if it can somehow be addressed so that people don’t feel like they are just wasting their time it will help everyone to feel like battlegrounds is a fun and enjoyable game mode to play, because in the end they will progress, they will get the tokens to buy items in the store, and feel like they’ve invested their time well related to helping their roster.
So to circle back to my question, is the way battle tokens are gained and lost the most appropriate way to have a fun and enjoyable game mode?
At the risk of being torn by the math aficionados here, I'll use a numerical example. Let's say the strength of the Rosters of Players at the lower end are represented by 3. They're fighting people within the 2, 3, and 4 range. You have people at the higher end, and we'll say they're 8 "power". They're fighting people in the 7, 8, 9 range. You can say "I'm an 8, and they're a 3. I'm fighting harder fights.". The reality is, it's a one point range, or equal, on both sides. You can't say because an 8 could overpower a 3, that the 3 is not fighting as hard. They are fighting just as hard, with different tools, against different tools.
The range isn't 2-9. Almost everyone is between 2 to 4 (a 5r4 has ~2 times HP and attack as a 6r4). So someone with a strength 3 gets largely play against 2.5 to 3.2 but if you are slightly higher you're stuck playing against 3.5-4. Most of the players who are advancing are still the ones with roster advantages and skill rather than some hypothetical amazingly skilled player who can get Cav but hasn't figured out how to rank champs beyond 5r4 or access the crystal shards tab. The ones advancing just get access to play against a wider pool of players skill variance while some are just stuck playing against tougher opponents.
While the ones progressing maybe fighting hard, it is at the expense of progression for other groups who are condemned to long periods of stagnation for excelling at roster development in a game where roster building is a major part of the game.
@DNA3000 in regards to your comment, I think part of the problem is everyone has to slog through VT from the bottom each time and go thorough each rank. Maybe starting people in different tiers in relation to where they finished the season prion could help.
I think this is an independent problem. Which is to say, even if you implement a way to start people higher based on their prior achieved tiers, there’s still the question of how frustrating and/or time consuming it is to get there on the first place. So it would still think there was value in reviewing the trophy scoring system.
Conversely, starting people at higher start points creates other problems that need solving, namely how to award players the rewards they would have had the opportunity to get had they started lower and would now miss out on. Simply giving the players those rewards is unlikely to be acceptable, so another mechanism would have to be implemented.
All theoretically solvable to be sure, but the more things you have to do, the less likely the devs would have the time and resources to implement such a solution.
I'm not sure why "giving" the previous milestone rewards from a staggered start is considered such a taboo thing personally.
This is also why I'd rather the stagger be based on how quickly one completes VT or their ending point within VT from the previous season as opposed to staggering just based on title though. I see that as more of earning those rewards in the previous season as them being handed out in the following. That also incentivizes people capable of getting through VT quickly to actually do so as opposed to taking their time and letting stronger accounts finish first so as to dilute the matchmaking pool on the way up.
The problem is, you're giving people Rewards in a competition that they haven't actually earned. I mean literally. The results are based on how you perform in BGs. Not to mention you're talking about compounding benefits..a higher start PLUS all previous Rewards, PLUS an accelerated climb. That's essentially expectation running wild. For people to say they should climb higher because they're the largest is one thing. For them to say they should have benefit upon benefit is another.
Unfortunately, they bent to the will of the vocal low-end players complaining abotu sandbagging and completely screwed-up matchmaking (which end-game players predicted would happen). The top players are stuck facing each other, which guarantees that a Paragon is losing every round and artificially keeps them down. It's a slog and a frustrating waste of time now for many of the best players in the game (and a breeze for many of the mid to low-tier players). They did this in AW and it was a complete disaster. I have no idea why they thought the same thing wouldn't happen in BGs.
The frustration is made worse, at least for me, because in no way should a player of my level be struggling this much in the lowest tiers of the VT. That's not me being an entitled A-hole, that's just a fact. I have spent 8 years playing this game, many of which were in a top 10-20 ally, beating all content as soon as it was released and building a roster that is globally in the top 1000 (my lowest was ~100 a few years ago). In literally any other game, that amount of time, money, and effort would be rewarded and I'd quickly ascend and be fighting in the top few tiers of BGs vs others who have similar journies as me. Instead of seeing those fithgts vs seasoned vets in the top tiers, I'm seeing them in Bronze and Silver when I know for a fact that low accounts are getting a free pass to higher tiers because they can't face me.
Also, because I should be winning Bronze and Silver fights, losses feel so much worse than wins feel good. That leads to more anger and frustration, which leads to not wanting to play the mode.
The current BG matchmaking is completely backward and has to be changed. If they won't change the matchmaking they have to implement my proposed win multiplier system from a last week, which is basically how they do AW:
3 tokens for beating a Paragon 2 tokens for beating a TB 1 token for beating a UC or CAV All losses are -1 token
None of "the best players in the game" are struggling.
Only if you don't consider the top ~1000 players of the millions that play the game the best, then I guess you're right. The best is only the .0001% noth the .001%!
I doubt there are millions of active players. I don't know only kabam does. If you think your competition is gold 2 and above you are looking at that's 90k of players right. I know in my ally p4 only half run battle grounds. I believe this is a logical number to be basing from for Paragon players
You can use whatever numbers you want but the point still stands. The top 1% or .1% should still be cruising through VT in any good game mode.
The top 1% (.1%) is only relative to the game mode itself. They ARE. The top percentile of BGs is cruising through BGs. Dominating other game modes doesn't mean free Wins in another.
They did earn them in this situation though. They were earned by completing the previous season's VT faster than everyone else. For people finishing VT in the first week or even two weeks, it's just a formality. It's a question of when they'll finish based on how much they want to play as opposed to whether they'll string enough wins together to finish in the first place.
Removing those groups from the majority of the VT to begin with just makes it easier for the remaining people to finish in general or finish faster than if the first group was in the pool while having basically zero impact on the group given a headstart other than they have to waste less of their and the opponent's they'd have matched time.
The purpose of having a Season is to measure progress from point A to point B, and award people based on that. What you're describing is giving Rewards automatically. That's where the conflict lies. You can't give people Rewards in a competition that that never earned within that competition.
It’s not really *a* competition. It’s multiple competitions, handicapped by some as yet unknown element. Just like putting Cavs and UC in their own separate divisions, that approach would be putting the top of the top in its own separate division.
I keep hearing people arguing in favor of making it easier for smaller accounts to get to GC by handicapping competition—why is it an issue to make it easier for top end accounts (who will get there almost as a formality) to do so as well?
Precisely how or whether they earn their VT tokens is a different question, as well as specific conditions for staying there from season to season. But I really don’t have any problem with starting giant accounts in GC based on past performance.
OP here, catching up on the chat, lots going back and forth but it’s good discussion and debate.
I do want to focus on something specific, though, and it’s around the wins, needed to advance. Putting aside, matchmaking, and how the player base is split into silos, and who they are competing against in each match, do you believe the system of +1 token for a win and -1 token for a loss is the best way to have somebody progress through the victory track?
To me it’s this aspect of battlegrounds that is the most frustrating part for the player base. You can spend hours playing but if you only average a 50% win streak, chances are you’re not going to be able to advance at all. this to me is what is the drive killer in battle grounds, and if it can somehow be addressed so that people don’t feel like they are just wasting their time it will help everyone to feel like battlegrounds is a fun and enjoyable game mode to play, because in the end they will progress, they will get the tokens to buy items in the store, and feel like they’ve invested their time well related to helping their roster.
So to circle back to my question, is the way battle tokens are gained and lost the most appropriate way to have a fun and enjoyable game mode?
Short answer: no.
I think the most straightforward answer is to shift the +/-1 scoring to something that feels less punitive and reflects more of the closeness of matches.
Let's say the strength of the Rosters of Players at the lower end are represented by 3. They're fighting people within the 2, 3, and 4 range. You have people at the higher end, and we'll say they're 8 "power". They're fighting people in the 7, 8, 9 range. You can say "I'm an 8, and they're a 3. I'm fighting harder fights.". The reality is, it's a one point range, or equal, on both sides. You can't say because an 8 could overpower a 3, that the 3 is not fighting as hard. They are fighting just as hard, with different tools, against different tools.
The range isn't that wide. Pretty much everyone in BGs is probably between 2 to 4 (a 6r4 has ~2x HP/Attack as a 5r4). Right now someone at 3 gets to play against players between 2.5-3.2, while if you are slightly closer to the higher end you stuck playing against 3.5-4 strength teams. People who are progressing are doing so because of roster strength and skill rather than some hypothetical Cav with amazing skills but can't figure out how to access or rank up 6 star champs.
While the players who are progressing may be fighting just as hard, their progression is to an extent at the expense of another group who are condemned to long periods of stagnation. They are being penalized for investing in roster development in a game where roster development is a key part of progression.
Roster development is quite ubiquitous, when in terms of BGs, it's very specific development. You need the right counters Ranked, and enough of them to respond to specific scenarios like Nodes, drafts, and Bans. Just because Player X has amassed 3 R4s to get the Paragon Title doesn't mean they're automatically more adept at BGs.
@DNA3000 in regards to your comment, I think part of the problem is everyone has to slog through VT from the bottom each time and go thorough each rank. Maybe starting people in different tiers in relation to where they finished the season prion could help.
I think this is an independent problem. Which is to say, even if you implement a way to start people higher based on their prior achieved tiers, there’s still the question of how frustrating and/or time consuming it is to get there on the first place. So it would still think there was value in reviewing the trophy scoring system.
Conversely, starting people at higher start points creates other problems that need solving, namely how to award players the rewards they would have had the opportunity to get had they started lower and would now miss out on. Simply giving the players those rewards is unlikely to be acceptable, so another mechanism would have to be implemented.
All theoretically solvable to be sure, but the more things you have to do, the less likely the devs would have the time and resources to implement such a solution.
I'm not sure why "giving" the previous milestone rewards from a staggered start is considered such a taboo thing personally.
Because then a player wouldn't have to do anything at all to gain those rewards. In the extreme case you could choose to play every other season and still get basically twice the rewards. Suppose you implement season decay where every season you start one track lower. You could then play all the way up to Vibranium, then in the next season throw a single match and still get all the rewards up to Vibranium and be placed in Diamond, then throw one match next season and get all the rewards up to Diamond and be placed in Platinum, and so on. Fundamentally, it is too exploitable.
And even though I ought not to speak on behalf of the developers, in this case I am 99% certain I know what their reasoning would be. VT rewards are *specifically* there to encourage participation: that's why the Victory track even exists. Without this need to promote participation, BG would just be one big GC. So giving VT rewards out without needing to participate would be a direct contradiction of its reason for existing. That's not just unpalatable, that would be in this specific context nonsensical.
I'm not saying start people the following season in the GC but I don't see the harm in starting the people that finish VT in a week or two at the bottom of Platinum and giving those rewards personally. People playing enough to finish VT that quickly aren't just going to stop playing as those are your most competitive players.
If it's truly this crazy idea of just giving out the previous milestones in that case (which I find ridiculous), then just make win objectives with those rewards for those players and have them take enough wins for them to possibly be out of VT again.
I think VT as a whole is an awful idea personally. It's caused nothing but grief over matchmaking bc everyone who can enter it feels like they're entitled to get everything from it bc players have somehow been led to believe that the competitive aspect of the mode doesn't start until GC, which I wholly blame Kabam for causing with this asinine matching setup we have currently and not coming out and saying it's a competition some people just aren't going to finish. On top of that, it's just a total waste of time for the competitive players that are stuck being bored out of their minds with nukefest nothing nodes (bc players threw a giant tantrum last season when we got nodes that heaven forbid players actually had to think about and plan for) just having to ride out the grindfest every single season.
Let's say the strength of the Rosters of Players at the lower end are represented by 3. They're fighting people within the 2, 3, and 4 range. You have people at the higher end, and we'll say they're 8 "power". They're fighting people in the 7, 8, 9 range. You can say "I'm an 8, and they're a 3. I'm fighting harder fights.". The reality is, it's a one point range, or equal, on both sides. You can't say because an 8 could overpower a 3, that the 3 is not fighting as hard. They are fighting just as hard, with different tools, against different tools.
The range isn't that wide. Pretty much everyone in BGs is probably between 2 to 4 (a 6r4 has ~2x HP/Attack as a 5r4). Right now someone at 3 gets to play against players between 2.5-3.2, while if you are slightly closer to the higher end you stuck playing against 3.5-4 strength teams. People who are progressing are doing so because of roster strength and skill rather than some hypothetical Cav with amazing skills but can't figure out how to access or rank up 6 star champs.
While the players who are progressing may be fighting just as hard, their progression is to an extent at the expense of another group who are condemned to long periods of stagnation. They are being penalized for investing in roster development in a game where roster development is a key part of progression.
I would add that “fighting hard” isn’t as much an issue as roster dynamics as you move up through each siloed BG level. It ignores reality to say that the caliber of fights at the top are relatively no harder than those in lower silos. Roster development alone dictates otherwise.
Example: A Cav who gets super lucky and pulls a 6* top-end champ (for sake of argument say, iDoom) with his entire stash of 15K shards suddenly has a game changing champion that may not be at all common at Cav level. At Paragon, that lone champ is unlikely to make an anywhere near as big an impact even if he’s awakened and at R4. Moreover, most rosters already have that top-end champ (and others) at that rank. At the very highest levels, issues may only arise if a draft goes 100% horribly wrong, and even then the top-tier players have workarounds.
Back on what could maybe be a viable stopgap for the victory track so people don't give up on the game mode (a lot of good and interesting suggestions have been put up here), especially given that various bugs continue to pervade the game mode, would be to make every victory count toward progress in the victory track and losses wouldn't send you backwards within each victory track tier. Using a shield in fear of having the insta-loss bug show up or a disconnect seems just wrong, so how about just having each win move you a step closer in the victory track like it already does and remove the penalty for a loss until that great day when the bugs are worked out of the game mode that artificially stop progress? This approach would also force those with larger rosters deliberately losing to stay within a tier and rack up solo/alliance points to have to move on to where they will have a better-matched fight in the Gladiator circuit.
In this hypothetical scenario once you got to the Gladiator circuit the gloves come off the same as it is now, and this simple tweak would I'd think be easy for Kabam to implement and alleviate a lot of player frustration while they are fixing the bugs.
Just because Player X has amassed 3 R4s to get the Paragon Title doesn't mean they're automatically more adept at BGs.
While the TB who's moving up at an accelerated pace because they are largely playing against narrower teams while being sheltered from the baddies with 3 or more R4s automatically is? In the current context, progression is much more likely to be corelated to matchmaking than skills.
If the game designers want to speed up development of weaker rosters by giving them easier access to resources, that's fine - happens all the time in different forms. But to frame it as "everyone's playing the same competition" rather than a reservation system is disingenuous at best.
Just because Player X has amassed 3 R4s to get the Paragon Title doesn't mean they're automatically more adept at BGs.
While the TB who's moving up at an accelerated pace because they are largely playing against narrower teams while being sheltered from the baddies with 3 or more R4s automatically is? In the current context, progression is much more likely to be corelated to matchmaking than skills.
If the game designers want to speed up development of weaker rosters by giving them easier access to resources, that's fine - happens all the time in different forms. But to frame it as "everyone's playing the same competition" rather than a reservation system is disingenuous at best.
Huh? I'm TB. I am not sheltered. My Matches have been a range.
Not sure what you're referring to. I've come up against a number of Paragons with multiple R4s. I have one. Whatever advantage you're implying is greatly exaggerated.
Also, for the record, I'm fine with that. I play, I lose or win. That's how it goes. What I'm not agreeing to is taking out all the people winning "lower" than me because I can't string my own Wins together.
Just because Player X has amassed 3 R4s to get the Paragon Title doesn't mean they're automatically more adept at BGs.
While the TB who's moving up at an accelerated pace because they are largely playing against narrower teams while being sheltered from the baddies with 3 or more R4s automatically is? In the current context, progression is much more likely to be corelated to matchmaking than skills.
If the game designers want to speed up development of weaker rosters by giving them easier access to resources, that's fine - happens all the time in different forms. But to frame it as "everyone's playing the same competition" rather than a reservation system is disingenuous at best.
Agree. Bg in VT is nothing about the skill. Just have a look on leaderboard and last places in GC. Lot of skilled players there with less than 1m hero rating. Sometimes when I cannot find a match quickly matchmaking criteria „increases” and I got TB player. Tbh I got mixed feelings. I feel bad for him because match against 5 star roster with my account is not a match but walk in the park for me and ultra marathon for him. But on the other hand when matchmaking would be fair he would not be in plat or diamond so I am just showing him what a real world look like. Still we can just talk and talk and nothing will be changed when victory shields are used.
I'm not saying start people the following season in the GC but I don't see the harm in starting the people that finish VT in a week or two at the bottom of Platinum and giving those rewards personally.
I think you'll find if you talk to people who's job it is to design a game economy, you'll discover that they will see the harm. Its their job to see the harm in all reward flow changes.
But more to the point, those rewards only exist at all because of a specific reason: to promote participation. If you say we're not going to promote participation with those rewards anymore, it doesn't matter if it "does no harm" to give them away, you've knocked out the reason for them to even exist. Either your argument fails and they do nothing, or your argument succeeds and the rewards disappear. There's no version of "let's give the rewards away for doing nothing" that ends up winning anything.
The law of unintended consequences is not to be trifled with.
If it's truly this crazy idea of just giving out the previous milestones in that case (which I find ridiculous), then just make win objectives with those rewards for those players and have them take enough wins for them to possibly be out of VT again.
That's what I said. But that's also non-trivial, because making those objectives is not about making the objectives. You've now proposed a solution that requires the game economy people to sign off on, among other people.
And while you find the idea of not giving rewards out for free ridiculous, as I said I think the game economy designers would (off the record) look you dead in the eye and say "it is equally ridiculous to give out participation rewards for not doing anything. And also absurd." And to be frank, they would have the stronger position here.
Disagree. They're playing Matches that are lower, equal, greater (within range) of what they're working with. So are others. This whole self-serving comparison that flip flops needs to go, because no one looks at the larger scale. Only how it seems for them. You're comparing two people in a knife fight with both knives, and saying they're not bringing a knife to a gun fight so they're not really fighting. In essence, that's it. "They're not fighting the same level we are." News flash, they're fighting the same challenges. Same Nodes, same time to do it in, same scoring. I feel like I'm repeating myself but it's still ignored, so here we are. At the risk of being torn by the math aficionados here, I'll use a numerical example. Let's say the strength of the Rosters of Players at the lower end are represented by 3. They're fighting people within the 2, 3, and 4 range. You have people at the higher end, and we'll say they're 8 "power". They're fighting people in the 7, 8, 9 range. You can say "I'm an 8, and they're a 3. I'm fighting harder fights.". The reality is, it's a one point range, or equal, on both sides. You can't say because an 8 could overpower a 3, that the 3 is not fighting as hard. They are fighting just as hard, with different tools, against different tools. What you call preferential treatment is the antithesis of that. What people expect and call fair, is preferential treatment based on the size of their Roster. Which is all fine and well in the GC. I can't believe people are claiming that in the VT. Nevertheless, I've played ball and agreed to a number of suggestions. What I will debate until the end of time, is how people are not earning their way up because they haven't engaged in a hypothetical ego trip.
In one breath you’re saying you can’t just give out rewards but in the next breath, you’re arguing for fairness in rosters in essence, helping just give out rewards lesser rosters,. You should not be able to progress to higher tiers if you are not as strong as the next guy progressing farther than somebody that has a far superior roster and just as much skill as you because they are facing the lesser opponents affording them more rewards. Explain how it makes sense that I can move much further in the victory track with my cavalier account that is barely 1,000,000 hero rating. But can’t stream together three wins with my paragon account and it’s almost 4,000,000? The account that I have worked so hard on should not be able to get the same rewards or better than my cavalier account? The same skill person playing both of them why should my stronger account be penalized?
I'm not saying start people the following season in the GC but I don't see the harm in starting the people that finish VT in a week or two at the bottom of Platinum and giving those rewards personally.
I think you'll find if you talk to people who's job it is to design a game economy, you'll discover that they will see the harm. Its their job to see the harm in all reward flow changes.
But more to the point, those rewards only exist at all because of a specific reason: to promote participation. If you say we're not going to promote participation with those rewards anymore, it doesn't matter if it "does no harm" to give them away, you've knocked out the reason for them to even exist. Either your argument fails and they do nothing, or your argument succeeds and the rewards disappear. There's no version of "let's give the rewards away for doing nothing" that ends up winning anything.
The law of unintended consequences is not to be trifled with.
If it's truly this crazy idea of just giving out the previous milestones in that case (which I find ridiculous), then just make win objectives with those rewards for those players and have them take enough wins for them to possibly be out of VT again.
That's what I said. But that's also non-trivial, because making those objectives is not about making the objectives. You've now proposed a solution that requires the game economy people to sign off on, among other people.
And while you find the idea of not giving rewards out for free ridiculous, as I said I think the game economy designers would (off the record) look you dead in the eye and say "it is equally ridiculous to give out participation rewards for not doing anything. And also absurd." And to be frank, they would have the stronger position here.
I’m not agreeing or disagree here, but there are big games that already do that on competitive modes. Head starts based on previous season performance allows them to have random matchmaking in competitive modes, and avoid the cry out of new players about miss matches, with way stronger players. The previous tiers rewards are payed out the moment you enter new season. So the idea is not crazy at all, since very big and serious gaming companies are already using it. But again more than matchmaking, the whole structure of VT is discouraging participation. A 50% win ratio, that most people will likely have, gets you nowhere. I still believe your point system suggestion, is the most solid to make VT more appealing to players, without being too much.
Comments
As a heavy grinder of the game.
I'm not grinding BGs.
Missed half of the objectives this season.
I have played less than 20 matches this season.
Gold 3. Not struggling. 1 loss somewhere in bronze but rest wins.
The game feels like a job these days and I'm not doing it. I can reach GC when I want, but I don't want to concentrate... The conundrum lol.
Matches are intense, it's not that I dont like a challange, it's draining my mental health, so I don't want to persu mysterium which I shoot for every season.
Unrelated side note:
Also hate the fact I cannot autoplay low level eqs. Absolutely despise it.
Maybe I get some time off from the daily life, I may push GC but not a big deal if i can't.
Not to mention you're talking about compounding benefits..a higher start PLUS all previous Rewards, PLUS an accelerated climb. That's essentially expectation running wild. For people to say they should climb higher because they're the largest is one thing. For them to say they should have benefit upon benefit is another. The top 1% (.1%) is only relative to the game mode itself. They ARE. The top percentile of BGs is cruising through BGs. Dominating other game modes doesn't mean free Wins in another.
You progress based on how you perform in the game mode. You lose, you don't go up. You win, you go up. Not "I'm the top in everything else, I deserve to be the top here.".
You earn it.
Removing those groups from the majority of the VT to begin with just makes it easier for the remaining people to finish in general or finish faster than if the first group was in the pool while having basically zero impact on the group given a headstart other than they have to waste less of their and the opponent's they'd have matched time.
I agree man this has just been bg for me its just not fun anymore its a win and then just alot of loses
In a common pool, there would still be higher progression accounts who will not move up and lower accounts who will. This is not different from offering the same rewards for all SQ tiers. It would be fairer in that case than doing so in BG as you can make the argument that you aren't blocking anyone's access to SQ rewards by completing your quest. Everyone can play at their level and get the same rewards.
You're comparing two people in a knife fight with both knives, and saying they're not bringing a knife to a gun fight so they're not really fighting. In essence, that's it. "They're not fighting the same level we are."
News flash, they're fighting the same challenges. Same Nodes, same time to do it in, same scoring. I feel like I'm repeating myself but it's still ignored, so here we are.
At the risk of being torn by the math aficionados here, I'll use a numerical example.
Let's say the strength of the Rosters of Players at the lower end are represented by 3. They're fighting people within the 2, 3, and 4 range.
You have people at the higher end, and we'll say they're 8 "power". They're fighting people in the 7, 8, 9 range.
You can say "I'm an 8, and they're a 3. I'm fighting harder fights.". The reality is, it's a one point range, or equal, on both sides. You can't say because an 8 could overpower a 3, that the 3 is not fighting as hard. They are fighting just as hard, with different tools, against different tools.
What you call preferential treatment is the antithesis of that. What people expect and call fair, is preferential treatment based on the size of their Roster. Which is all fine and well in the GC. I can't believe people are claiming that in the VT. Nevertheless, I've played ball and agreed to a number of suggestions.
What I will debate until the end of time, is how people are not earning their way up because they haven't engaged in a hypothetical ego trip.
And even though I ought not to speak on behalf of the developers, in this case I am 99% certain I know what their reasoning would be. VT rewards are *specifically* there to encourage participation: that's why the Victory track even exists. Without this need to promote participation, BG would just be one big GC. So giving VT rewards out without needing to participate would be a direct contradiction of its reason for existing. That's not just unpalatable, that would be in this specific context nonsensical.
The rewards are designed with the current 'dump everyone into Bronze at the same time' model. Change whether people are dumped into Bronze, or start at the same time, then the rewards would change (likely to something less). They definitely would not change to 'dump GC players into Platinum' and give them the same earlier rewards.
I do want to focus on something specific, though, and it’s around the wins, needed to advance. Putting aside, matchmaking, and how the player base is split into silos, and who they are competing against in each match, do you believe the system of +1 token for a win and -1 token for a loss is the best way to have somebody progress through the victory track?
To me it’s this aspect of battlegrounds that is the most frustrating part for the player base. You can spend hours playing but if you only average a 50% win streak, chances are you’re not going to be able to advance at all. this to me is what is the drive killer in battle grounds, and if it can somehow be addressed so that people don’t feel like they are just wasting their time it will help everyone to feel like battlegrounds is a fun and enjoyable game mode to play, because in the end they will progress, they will get the tokens to buy items in the store, and feel like they’ve invested their time well related to helping their roster.
So to circle back to my question, is the way battle tokens are gained and lost the most appropriate way to have a fun and enjoyable game mode?
While the ones progressing maybe fighting hard, it is at the expense of progression for other groups who are condemned to long periods of stagnation for excelling at roster development in a game where roster building is a major part of the game.
I keep hearing people arguing in favor of making it easier for smaller accounts to get to GC by handicapping competition—why is it an issue to make it easier for top end accounts (who will get there almost as a formality) to do so as well?
Precisely how or whether they earn their VT tokens is a different question, as well as specific conditions for staying there from season to season. But I really don’t have any problem with starting giant accounts in GC based on past performance.
Dr. Zola
I think the most straightforward answer is to shift the +/-1 scoring to something that feels less punitive and reflects more of the closeness of matches.
Dr. Zola
If it's truly this crazy idea of just giving out the previous milestones in that case (which I find ridiculous), then just make win objectives with those rewards for those players and have them take enough wins for them to possibly be out of VT again.
I think VT as a whole is an awful idea personally. It's caused nothing but grief over matchmaking bc everyone who can enter it feels like they're entitled to get everything from it bc players have somehow been led to believe that the competitive aspect of the mode doesn't start until GC, which I wholly blame Kabam for causing with this asinine matching setup we have currently and not coming out and saying it's a competition some people just aren't going to finish. On top of that, it's just a total waste of time for the competitive players that are stuck being bored out of their minds with nukefest nothing nodes (bc players threw a giant tantrum last season when we got nodes that heaven forbid players actually had to think about and plan for) just having to ride out the grindfest every single season.
Example: A Cav who gets super lucky and pulls a 6* top-end champ (for sake of argument say, iDoom) with his entire stash of 15K shards suddenly has a game changing champion that may not be at all common at Cav level. At Paragon, that lone champ is unlikely to make an anywhere near as big an impact even if he’s awakened and at R4. Moreover, most rosters already have that top-end champ (and others) at that rank. At the very highest levels, issues may only arise if a draft goes 100% horribly wrong, and even then the top-tier players have workarounds.
Dr. Zola
In this hypothetical scenario once you got to the Gladiator circuit the gloves come off the same as it is now, and this simple tweak would I'd think be easy for Kabam to implement and alleviate a lot of player frustration while they are fixing the bugs.
If the game designers want to speed up development of weaker rosters by giving them easier access to resources, that's fine - happens all the time in different forms. But to frame it as "everyone's playing the same competition" rather than a reservation system is disingenuous at best.
Sometimes when I cannot find a match quickly matchmaking criteria „increases” and I got TB player. Tbh I got mixed feelings. I feel bad for him because match against 5 star roster with my account is not a match but walk in the park for me and ultra marathon for him. But on the other hand when matchmaking would be fair he would not be in plat or diamond so I am just showing him what a real world look like.
Still we can just talk and talk and nothing will be changed when victory shields are used.
But more to the point, those rewards only exist at all because of a specific reason: to promote participation. If you say we're not going to promote participation with those rewards anymore, it doesn't matter if it "does no harm" to give them away, you've knocked out the reason for them to even exist. Either your argument fails and they do nothing, or your argument succeeds and the rewards disappear. There's no version of "let's give the rewards away for doing nothing" that ends up winning anything.
The law of unintended consequences is not to be trifled with.
That's what I said. But that's also non-trivial, because making those objectives is not about making the objectives. You've now proposed a solution that requires the game economy people to sign off on, among other people.And while you find the idea of not giving rewards out for free ridiculous, as I said I think the game economy designers would (off the record) look you dead in the eye and say "it is equally ridiculous to give out participation rewards for not doing anything. And also absurd." And to be frank, they would have the stronger position here.
In one breath you’re saying you can’t just give out rewards but in the next breath, you’re arguing for fairness in rosters in essence, helping just give out rewards lesser rosters,. You should not be able to progress to higher tiers if you are not as strong as the next guy progressing farther than somebody that has a far superior roster and just as much skill as you because they are facing the lesser opponents affording them more rewards. Explain how it makes sense that I can move much further in the victory track with my cavalier account that is barely 1,000,000 hero rating. But can’t stream together three wins with my paragon account and it’s almost 4,000,000? The account that I have worked so hard on should not be able to get the same rewards or better than my cavalier account? The same skill person playing both of them why should my stronger account be penalized?
Head starts based on previous season performance allows them to have random matchmaking in competitive modes, and avoid the cry out of new players about miss matches, with way stronger players.
The previous tiers rewards are payed out the moment you enter new season.
So the idea is not crazy at all, since very big and serious gaming companies are already using it.
But again more than matchmaking, the whole structure of VT is discouraging participation.
A 50% win ratio, that most people will likely have, gets you nowhere.
I still believe your point system suggestion, is the most solid to make VT more appealing to players, without being too much.