Participation trophies..this generation is hilarious
I don't think this is a relevant comment in context. We're talking about a game mode that *needs* people to care about and participate in it. If it was just the top 2000 players battling it out in GC, there would be no mode and no rewards going to players who do something very well that nobody else cares about.
The top players only get rewards because the bottom players exist, and subject themselves to the game mode. If the participation-level players decide to quit the mode, then imaginary trophies are all the GC players will be getting.
To put it another way, we need them, but they don't need us.
We have the same discussion when it comes to the spenders of the game. Without the five percent of players who spend, the game would eventually die. But without the other 95% of players, there would be no game in the first place.
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 don't think they would have the stronger position personally. Just bc someone does something for a living doesn't mean they're particularly good at it. Now I'm certainly not saying I'm definitively right here as I obviously don't know, but I've dealt with enough completely clueless individuals in my own profession to know that just bc someone is employed in a field does not mean they automatically know what they are talking about either. Going off the absolute mess we have currently, I think it's a pretty safe bet that at least someone with some decision making power in fact is not particularly good at their job.
Ill only do one post since there's no sense on discussing something that its mainly logic:
Similar rosters should play with similar rosters in VT, since it doesnt work with an individiual rank like GC, and everybody can get all the rewards, in VT you should win if you play better, not if you play vs someone that has a weak roster.
Main problem is that the matchmaking is bad, because while having 3 R4 maybe at sig 20 if they are even awakened, you are playing vs players with more R4, with way more sigs, you are going to lose mainly because the difference between the stats of the champions instead of how well you played, so for VT it should be similar roster strenght.
In GC is different since everyone has a determinated position in the ranking, so you should just player everyone in your tier, here is where you have to invest greatly on ranking up every champion you need the higher you can, because there is a lot of difference each tier rewards, and not everybody can get them.
If Kabam fixes the bugs, and makes matchmaking work properly on VT, BGs will be saved
There are several ways to improve Bgs game mode. I susgest 3 ways for Kabam: 1. No more X wins in a row to advance. Stop that bs. Thats the easiest way. Or 2. No more RNG involved in draft. People can ban up to 5 champs in drafts but they can choose anyone from those 30 champs so no more luck just pure skill and roster strength base. Or 3. No more roster strength base in matchmaking. Totally random and when you win more you get more points just as AW and you match to stronger players. Right now there are too many things out of our player hands in bgs you can not choose champs you really want you have to match players as strong as you are and you need to pull several wins in a row which when stand side by side the dumbest game mode you can imagine.
@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.
This seems like the obvious solution imo. Based on previous season let the fastest people start at gold 1 and down from there. Couple an objective to it that you can claim the previous rewards only when you have played 3 GC matches. Ensures participation, counters exploitation and gives other accounts some sort of protection from the biggest accounts. Can't see how wrong this system would be or why anyone would be so against this.
-btw I'm not one of the best BG's players so this wouldn't benefit me (disclaimer before arguments of greed and such come at me)
So not exactly sure how I want to start this post as there is so many factors to consider. The over arching theme is night after night when I finally have a stretch of time to sit and play BGs (after getting up, situating kids, going to work, coming home, dinner, kids to bed) what ends up happening is I alternate wins and losses, make no progress on victory track advancement and just feel like I wasted 30 mins to an hour of play time. Having this happen over and over it just really kills your drive, makes you feel like **** in terms of being able to improve your roster with the tokens in the store and just a frustrating state of mind in regards to BGs.
I’m paragon with a roster of R4s/R3 6*s and can’t get out of silver III atm. I loose matches for various reasons; playing poorly, bad draft, better competition ect. Having to string the 3x wins together is what is really killing things for me and wish there was a better way for progression outside of buying shields for every single match.
Idk, just my stream of thoughts about where I am at with BGs in general. Feel free to reply with good, bad, ugly ect; I’m open for a good discussion to see how other ppl are feeling with BGs.
That's exactly my thoughts. If I were writing this though people would rudely respond to me "skill issues". And I'm a Paragon too.
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.
Ultimately it all comes back to the same thing - a flawed structure except for the elite, and oddly, the noobs/beginners.
You shouldn’t get anything for free but my presence in the VT is probably causes more harm than good and ultimately my only real concern is in the circuit where things actually matter.
For the first time this season, I ran into a couple of completely overmatched accounts in Gold. Our prestige was more than 2K apart and it wasn’t a close match (even though I did somehow get clipped by a special near fight end during one fight).
Then I ran into the nodeless bug for several fights. Won a few just nuking my way through before I returned to my normal zero sum, war of attrition game matches.
The mode is super weird right now. Bugs abound. It’s sometimes a total slog and most times feels like a terrible investment of time. But I know others in GC love it. I have to imagine the team knows all of this and is gauging whether or not to respond in any meaningful way.
A good stop gap fix is to remove penalization of losses. Remove the fact that you lose progress by losing. That will help the initial problem of not being able to "progress".
A good stop gap fix is to remove penalization of losses. Remove the fact that you lose progress by losing. That will help the initial problem of not being able to "progress".
U really don't lose progress... U can't be dropped from Bronze 1 to Bronze 2 even if u lose 5 in a row...
A good stop gap fix is to remove penalization of losses. Remove the fact that you lose progress by losing. That will help the initial problem of not being able to "progress".
U really don't lose progress... U can't be dropped from Bronze 1 to Bronze 2 even if u lose 5 in a row...
A good stop gap fix is to remove penalization of losses. Remove the fact that you lose progress by losing. That will help the initial problem of not being able to "progress".
U really don't lose progress... U can't be dropped from Bronze 1 to Bronze 2 even if u lose 5 in a row...
yeah but there aint no way to go to SIlver if you cant string wins.
A good stop gap fix is to remove penalization of losses. Remove the fact that you lose progress by losing. That will help the initial problem of not being able to "progress".
U really don't lose progress... U can't be dropped from Bronze 1 to Bronze 2 even if u lose 5 in a row...
I believe they meant Victory Tokens.
I understood that part.. but losing 5 in a row doesnt keep u at -5 tokens...
I had a thought about the consecutive wins/victory token progression issue. Here is the proposal: - Keep the current structure as is; win +1 & loss -1 - Each tier has the same tokens to progress (2 for Bronze, 3 for Silver-Diamond 2, 4 for Diamond 1, 5 for Vibranium) - In additional have a tracker for total wins at each tier - If you haven't strung the wins together to advance but achieve a certain amount of total wins then you get promoted to the next tier - Depending on the tier you can increase the amount of required wins (Bronze 5, Silver 10, Gold 15 ect) - This will maintain the speed of progression for larger accounts and skilled players - It also now address the feeling of making no progress by giving you a way to progress from winning but not as fast as you would if you string the wins together - It will still keep the value of the victory shield for those who want to advance faster
Let me know what you all think. I am sure there are aspects I am missing but I feel this could be a legitimate way to address the time invested value issue that to me is the biggest issue in 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.
Agreed. It feels like the only reason to have the VT where everyone starts at 0 and not just have all rewards dispersed among rank rewards in the GC is to sell Victory Sheilds.
If it were just in rank rewards they could put a fight minimum to be eligible for rewards (like AW). Drop everyone a certain number of tiers each season so they still have to build back up but can't just have one big season and coast.
I think anything that changes the dynamic of +1/-1 in a tier is worth looking at.
At a visceral level, I dislike the sense that the structure *feels* like and excuse to sell Shields for struggling accounts.
But I like the idea of 3 consecutive or X total as a concept. Also like the idea of valuing 2-1 and 2-0 matches differently.
But I especially like the idea of the team rolling up sleeves and figuring out why this season has been as buggy as it has. And coming on here to discuss it with players who obviously relish this game.
I think anything that changes the dynamic of +1/-1 in a tier is worth looking at.
At a visceral level, I dislike the sense that the structure *feels* like and excuse to sell Shields for struggling accounts.
But I like the idea of 3 consecutive or X total as a concept. Also like the idea of valuing 2-1 and 2-0 matches differently.
But I especially like the idea of the team rolling up sleeves and figuring out why this season has been as buggy as it has. And coming on here to discuss it with players who obviously relish this game.
Dr. Zola
My two cents...I feel like they should stop taking away tokens for a loss. They can add more wins that are needed to advance (instead of 3 maybe 4 or 5 for higher tiers) thats fine!..That would take away the need for shields. Plus, there won't be that roller coaster feeling of playing for an hour or so and not getting anywhere...at least, your wins could start adding up to something.
It can still be competitive without the need to take away tokens and require winning 3 or 4 IN A ROW. It doesn't take much for one or two little things to go wrong before you're back at square 0 in your tier.
Everything else can basically stay the same....I think.
Except for the bugs...they definitely need to go. 🐛 🐛 🐛 🐛🪲🐞🪲🐞
The store could be adjusted. Some prices in the store don't make sense.
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
Bronze to Gold is still too much to have “free rides”. That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking. Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2. Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them. They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match. Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token. Also their price is very high. 90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
Bronze to Gold is still too much to have “free rides”. That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking. Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2. Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them. They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match. Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token. Also their price is very high. 90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
What free rides? I understand that people scoff at the Matches lower than their own progression, but people are acting as if they're not fighting to earn what they earn. That's quite frankly, an ignorant perspective.
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
Bronze to Gold is still too much to have “free rides”. That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking. Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2. Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them. They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match. Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token. Also their price is very high. 90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
What free rides? I understand that people scoff at the Matches lower than their own progression, but people are acting as if they're not fighting to earn what they earn. That's quite frankly, an ignorant perspective.
I think he’s making a different point here. He’s addressing the idea of having no loss penalties through Gold tiers as a way to alleviate both smaller accounts and larger accounts progressing in their silos. I didn’t take it as impugning anyone.
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
Bronze to Gold is still too much to have “free rides”. That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking. Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2. Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them. They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match. Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token. Also their price is very high. 90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
What free rides? I understand that people scoff at the Matches lower than their own progression, but people are acting as if they're not fighting to earn what they earn. That's quite frankly, an ignorant perspective.
If you have a 10k prestige account and you consistently facing 10k accounts throughout VT, while you should be facing 10k, 13k, 15k, 17k prestige accounts (literally everyone who is at your tier), then facing only the lower part of the competition can be called a “free ride”, since obviously your “ride” would be very wild otherwise 😉
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
Bronze to Gold is still too much to have “free rides”. That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking. Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2. Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them. They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match. Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token. Also their price is very high. 90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
What free rides? I understand that people scoff at the Matches lower than their own progression, but people are acting as if they're not fighting to earn what they earn. That's quite frankly, an ignorant perspective.
If you have a 10k prestige account and you consistently facing 10k accounts throughout VT, while you should be facing 10k, 13k, 15k, 17k prestige accounts (literally everyone who is at your tier), then facing only the lower part of the competition can be called a “free ride”, since obviously your “ride” would be very wild otherwise 😉
You're not facing 10K constantly. My own Account is a testament to that. You're facing a range, within fairly close proximity to your own. If you're 10k Prestige and you're facing 17k Prestige in the first 3 Brackets, there's a problem. It's not a free ride. People are earning their way up. If you're a 15k Prestige Account and you don't want to face 17k Prestige Accounts, so you blame the 10k who aren't, you're not taking responsibility for your own failures.
I'm in the 12k range. I've faced anything from around mine to 15k, maybe more? This idea that people are being coddled is not accurate. They're facing a range. They're just not facing ALL Players. Which is for a reason. It's ridiculous actually. People can't string their own Wins together so they expect people with much less fire power to take the hit.
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 don't think they would have the stronger position personally. Just bc someone does something for a living doesn't mean they're particularly good at it. Now I'm certainly not saying I'm definitively right here as I obviously don't know, but I've dealt with enough completely clueless individuals in my own profession to know that just bc someone is employed in a field does not mean they automatically know what they are talking about either. Going off the absolute mess we have currently, I think it's a pretty safe bet that at least someone with some decision making power in fact is not particularly good at their job.
I think they have the stronger position in this case because of the nature of design intent. When you design something, you're supposed to design with intent. This thing does that thing for these reasons. It is a sign of bad design when something is designed supposedly for a specific reason but then doesn't satisfy that reason, and the sign of a bad designer when they don't even care if their design satisfies their original design intent.
So when a game element is designed with and implemented to satisfy a design intent, you can't' just say well, so what. If the designer caves to that, they don't deserve that job. Nor will they likely have it long.
It is a rare day when I suggest directly to the devs that they should just hand the players something for free (except in jest). It does happen, but only under extremely narrow and defensible situations. Because as a professional designer myself and someone actually aware of the design constraints involved, I would consider that to be insulting.
Sure, there are a lot of things that could be better with the game, and some things I think are just straight up wrong. The BG system as a whole is one of those things in particular I've been critical of. But Kabam is a game studio composed of a number of different individual developers. They are not a hive mind. Regardless of whether you think something has gone wrong in the game, you can't tell an individual game designer that since the game has flaws in one area, they shouldn't bother to try to do their job properly in their area. The economy designers are not just going to burn their spreadsheets just because the Battlegrounds game mode isn't working right. Their job is to hold the line on the game economy until the system designers fix their stuff.
That can sometimes make it seem like the game is schizophrenic, the game doesn't work right here, and they aren't willing to just bend over backwards over there to compensate and just continues on as if nothing's wrong. But that's just how it goes.
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
Bronze to Gold is still too much to have “free rides”. That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking. Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2. Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them. They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match. Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token. Also their price is very high. 90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
What free rides? I understand that people scoff at the Matches lower than their own progression, but people are acting as if they're not fighting to earn what they earn. That's quite frankly, an ignorant perspective.
Peewee teams fight with all their might against other peewee teams. Maybe even harder than many of today's NFL players. So no one says they didn't play their butts off, they just don't deserve to get to the nfl playoffs (gc) playing peewee football.
If you want to play peewee football with all your heart and effort fine, just expect your prizes to be 4 and 5* shards....even more than a reduced store.
I think anything that changes the dynamic of +1/-1 in a tier is worth looking at.
At a visceral level, I dislike the sense that the structure *feels* like and excuse to sell Shields for struggling accounts.
But I like the idea of 3 consecutive or X total as a concept. Also like the idea of valuing 2-1 and 2-0 matches differently.
But I especially like the idea of the team rolling up sleeves and figuring out why this season has been as buggy as it has. And coming on here to discuss it with players who obviously relish this game.
Dr. Zola
My two cents...I feel like they should stop taking away tokens for a loss. They can add more wins that are needed to advance (instead of 3 maybe 4 or 5 for higher tiers) thats fine!..That would take away the need for shields. Plus, there won't be that roller coaster feeling of playing for an hour or so and not getting anywhere...at least, your wins could start adding up to something.
It can still be competitive without the need to take away tokens and require winning 3 or 4 IN A ROW. It doesn't take much for one or two little things to go wrong before you're back at square 0 in your tier.
Everything else can basically stay the same....I think.
Except for the bugs...they definitely need to go. 🐛 🐛 🐛 🐛🪲🐞🪲🐞
The store could be adjusted. Some prices in the store don't make sense.
But that's it 😁
..for now
Good suggestion, but still think most will not be happy unless they make it to the GC.
If they still want Shields to matter how about: Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss. Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
Bronze to Gold is still too much to have “free rides”. That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking. Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2. Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them. They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match. Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token. Also their price is very high. 90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
What free rides? I understand that people scoff at the Matches lower than their own progression, but people are acting as if they're not fighting to earn what they earn. That's quite frankly, an ignorant perspective.
Not sure why my reply didn't post, but I agree that people are fighting their heart's out. But pee wee teams playing just pee wee teams to make it to the playoffs (GC) doesn't make sense.
Comments
The top players only get rewards because the bottom players exist, and subject themselves to the game mode. If the participation-level players decide to quit the mode, then imaginary trophies are all the GC players will be getting.
To put it another way, we need them, but they don't need us.
We have the same discussion when it comes to the spenders of the game. Without the five percent of players who spend, the game would eventually die. But without the other 95% of players, there would be no game in the first place.
Similar rosters should play with similar rosters in VT, since it doesnt work with an individiual rank like GC, and everybody can get all the rewards, in VT you should win if you play better, not if you play vs someone that has a weak roster.
Main problem is that the matchmaking is bad, because while having 3 R4 maybe at sig 20 if they are even awakened, you are playing vs players with more R4, with way more sigs, you are going to lose mainly because the difference between the stats of the champions instead of how well you played, so for VT it should be similar roster strenght.
In GC is different since everyone has a determinated position in the ranking, so you should just player everyone in your tier, here is where you have to invest greatly on ranking up every champion you need the higher you can, because there is a lot of difference each tier rewards, and not everybody can get them.
If Kabam fixes the bugs, and makes matchmaking work properly on VT, BGs will be saved
1. No more X wins in a row to advance. Stop that bs. Thats the easiest way.
Or
2. No more RNG involved in draft. People can ban up to 5 champs in drafts but they can choose anyone from those 30 champs so no more luck just pure skill and roster strength base.
Or
3. No more roster strength base in matchmaking. Totally random and when you win more you get more points just as AW and you match to stronger players.
Right now there are too many things out of our player hands in bgs you can not choose champs you really want you have to match players as strong as you are and you need to pull several wins in a row which when stand side by side the dumbest game mode you can imagine.
-btw I'm not one of the best BG's players so this wouldn't benefit me (disclaimer before arguments of greed and such come at me)
You shouldn’t get anything for free but my presence in the VT is probably causes more harm than good and ultimately my only real concern is in the circuit where things actually matter.
Then I ran into the nodeless bug for several fights. Won a few just nuking my way through before I returned to my normal zero sum, war of attrition game matches.
The mode is super weird right now. Bugs abound. It’s sometimes a total slog and most times feels like a terrible investment of time. But I know others in GC love it. I have to imagine the team knows all of this and is gauging whether or not to respond in any meaningful way.
Dr. Zola
Here is the proposal:
- Keep the current structure as is; win +1 & loss -1
- Each tier has the same tokens to progress (2 for Bronze, 3 for Silver-Diamond 2, 4 for Diamond 1, 5 for Vibranium)
- In additional have a tracker for total wins at each tier
- If you haven't strung the wins together to advance but achieve a certain amount of total wins then you get promoted to the next tier
- Depending on the tier you can increase the amount of required wins (Bronze 5, Silver 10, Gold 15 ect)
- This will maintain the speed of progression for larger accounts and skilled players
- It also now address the feeling of making no progress by giving you a way to progress from winning but not as fast as you would if you string the wins together
- It will still keep the value of the victory shield for those who want to advance faster
Let me know what you all think. I am sure there are aspects I am missing but I feel this could be a legitimate way to address the time invested value issue that to me is the biggest issue in BGs.
If it were just in rank rewards they could put a fight minimum to be eligible for rewards (like AW). Drop everyone a certain number of tiers each season so they still have to build back up but can't just have one big season and coast.
At a visceral level, I dislike the sense that the structure *feels* like and excuse to sell Shields for struggling accounts.
But I like the idea of 3 consecutive or X total as a concept. Also like the idea of valuing 2-1 and 2-0 matches differently.
But I especially like the idea of the team rolling up sleeves and figuring out why this season has been as buggy as it has.
Dr. Zola
It can still be competitive without the need to take away tokens and require winning 3 or 4 IN A ROW. It doesn't take much for one or two little things to go wrong before you're back at square 0 in your tier.
Everything else can basically stay the same....I think.
Except for the bugs...they definitely need to go. 🐛 🐛 🐛 🐛🪲🐞🪲🐞
The store could be adjusted. Some prices in the store don't make sense.
But that's it 😁
..for now
Bronze-Gold: Prestige matchmaking and no token loss.
Platnum-Vibranium: Random matchmaking and token loss.
That'll give the small accounts three whole levels basically guaranteed every season and if they want to earn more they need to progress. It will also allow the top accounts to properly move to the appropriate tiers. Kabam still can sell shields as most people don't use them in the lower levers anyway. Win/win/win.
That’s 9 tiers, meaning over than half VT tiers with a favouring matchmaking.
Maximum should be 5-6 tiers, or Silver1-2.
Also, if Kabam wants to sell Victory Shields they need to change them.
They should burn only when you lose, not when you win the match.
Meaning they should persist between VT matches until you lose, and burn to protect from losing the token.
Also their price is very high.
90 units (or ~3.5$) for a chance to protect from a token loss, is a lot.
Dr. Zola
It's not a free ride. People are earning their way up.
If you're a 15k Prestige Account and you don't want to face 17k Prestige Accounts, so you blame the 10k who aren't, you're not taking responsibility for your own failures.
So when a game element is designed with and implemented to satisfy a design intent, you can't' just say well, so what. If the designer caves to that, they don't deserve that job. Nor will they likely have it long.
It is a rare day when I suggest directly to the devs that they should just hand the players something for free (except in jest). It does happen, but only under extremely narrow and defensible situations. Because as a professional designer myself and someone actually aware of the design constraints involved, I would consider that to be insulting.
Sure, there are a lot of things that could be better with the game, and some things I think are just straight up wrong. The BG system as a whole is one of those things in particular I've been critical of. But Kabam is a game studio composed of a number of different individual developers. They are not a hive mind. Regardless of whether you think something has gone wrong in the game, you can't tell an individual game designer that since the game has flaws in one area, they shouldn't bother to try to do their job properly in their area. The economy designers are not just going to burn their spreadsheets just because the Battlegrounds game mode isn't working right. Their job is to hold the line on the game economy until the system designers fix their stuff.
That can sometimes make it seem like the game is schizophrenic, the game doesn't work right here, and they aren't willing to just bend over backwards over there to compensate and just continues on as if nothing's wrong. But that's just how it goes.
If you want to play peewee football with all your heart and effort fine, just expect your prizes to be 4 and 5* shards....even more than a reduced store.