He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
One of the main reasons this is even a discussion is that those low accounts ARE in the top gc rankings though.
Let's break that up then. Suppose there were two different BG competitions - One for UC/Cavs and on for TB/Paragaon.
The lower accounts who are in GC now will also be in GC in the UC/Cav comp. Actually, they would be higher placed since they won't have to face any of the higher accounts they face in GC today (which they mostly bypassed in VT). The TB/Paragon account in GC will also be in the GC of the new exclusive BG, because they would have the same path to get there (they are stronger/more skilled within the competition). They would also be very similarly placed as they are now. The TB/Paragons in VT will still remain there, they weren't able to string together enough wins to get out earlier, why would you expect them to do so now?
Now to rewards. The UC/Cav comp pays out fewer trophies, say 50% of what the TB/Paragon one does, which you can use in the store. The current store already does that - it charges Cav 3x of what it costs Paragons to buy items and some items are gated. Cutting trophies by 50% and keeping a common store isn't going to materially change what resources UC/Cavs get from the competition. Reducing the trophy count will not change what devs think is the right amount of resources lower progression accounts should have access to.
On why we need more people in the same competition. A match happens when two people are looking for a match at the same time. You need both players to be online and then to be in the BG mode at the same time. Even if a million people spend an hour a day on the game, only 4% of those will be online in any given hour - what % of those would be clicking the BG match button in the same minute? If you restrict the game mode to only top 5-10% of player base how much worse would the odds of finding a match get? I don't have the answers but I would think this is one mode where you want a lot of players playing at any given time.
I don't understand what higher accounts will gain from splitting the competition into two. It isn't matchmaking that's impacting accounts moving through VT but the win-loss progression system. Removing lower accounts from the competition will not make it any easier or faster for larger accounts to progress.
Lower accounts on the other hand will probably progress faster. At least at the top, because there will be space created for them. The average ones will have no change probably. Reward structure might be changed but access to resources will be similar to what they have now - costs will be adjusted.
If the only aim is to reduce the trophy count for smaller account then splitting competitions would be a great move. It isn't going to improve progression or experience at the top.
I do not advocate for splitting the competition. However, your analysis of what if does not account for the law of unintended consequences. In other words, the devs would never just split the competition in two and then call it a day. They would recreate the competition starting from scratch, with the new assumption of having two separate competitions.
With such an explicit split, two things now come into play that you seem to be glossing over. The first is that when we have two completely separate VT "leagues" we reopen the question of how easy or hard it should be to reach GC. You're assuming that the best "lower league" players that make it to GC now would still make it in a split league because they would still be winning at the same or higher amount. But what we don't know is whether the devs would continue to allow lower progress players to reach GC with the same amount of effort. Right now that is less "obvious" in the current system. It is not clear to me they would continue to allow that in a far more blatantly constructed environment. In other words, this is so obviously an easy mode path to GC for sufficiently high skilled low progress players that it can be prohibitively distracting. As it is now, it is already problematic. It would be moreso in such a system.
The second is rewards. You assume that the lower league rewards would be the same because any progressive differences are already reflected in the BG store. But to see what would really happen, consider the one place with an analogous situation: AQ. In AQ, lower prestige players earn less glory, because glory is based on alliance prestige. And then the glory store is itself progression based. So, while glory earning is tied to alliances and not players (so low progress players can earn lots of glory in higher alliances), and the glory store costs are tied to player progression and not alliance prestige, it is fair to say that as a general principle low prestige alliances earn less glory and in general have higher glory store costs.
In fact, the comparison to AQ could be more than skin deep. Once upon a time AQ was tiered. Alliances had to place highly in their tier to move up to the next tier. I would not be surprised to see the devs take a look at the tiered AQ system from the past for some inspiration in how VT might work moving forward. If they take inspiration from AQ, the notion that lower progress players would continue to receive the same amount of tokens as they do now if the competition was split is on very shaky ground.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
One of the main reasons this is even a discussion is that those low accounts ARE in the top gc rankings though.
Let's break that up then. Suppose there were two different BG competitions - One for UC/Cavs and on for TB/Paragaon.
The lower accounts who are in GC now will also be in GC in the UC/Cav comp. Actually, they would be higher placed since they won't have to face any of the higher accounts they face in GC today (which they mostly bypassed in VT). The TB/Paragon account in GC will also be in the GC of the new exclusive BG, because they would have the same path to get there (they are stronger/more skilled within the competition). They would also be very similarly placed as they are now. The TB/Paragons in VT will still remain there, they weren't able to string together enough wins to get out earlier, why would you expect them to do so now?
Now to rewards. The UC/Cav comp pays out fewer trophies, say 50% of what the TB/Paragon one does, which you can use in the store. The current store already does that - it charges Cav 3x of what it costs Paragons to buy items and some items are gated. Cutting trophies by 50% and keeping a common store isn't going to materially change what resources UC/Cavs get from the competition. Reducing the trophy count will not change what devs think is the right amount of resources lower progression accounts should have access to.
On why we need more people in the same competition. A match happens when two people are looking for a match at the same time. You need both players to be online and then to be in the BG mode at the same time. Even if a million people spend an hour a day on the game, only 4% of those will be online in any given hour - what % of those would be clicking the BG match button in the same minute? If you restrict the game mode to only top 5-10% of player base how much worse would the odds of finding a match get? I don't have the answers but I would think this is one mode where you want a lot of players playing at any given time.
I don't understand what higher accounts will gain from splitting the competition into two. It isn't matchmaking that's impacting accounts moving through VT but the win-loss progression system. Removing lower accounts from the competition will not make it any easier or faster for larger accounts to progress.
Lower accounts on the other hand will probably progress faster. At least at the top, because there will be space created for them. The average ones will have no change probably. Reward structure might be changed but access to resources will be similar to what they have now - costs will be adjusted.
If the only aim is to reduce the trophy count for smaller account then splitting competitions would be a great move. It isn't going to improve progression or experience at the top.
I do not advocate for splitting the competition. However, your analysis of what if does not account for the law of unintended consequences. In other words, the devs would never just split the competition in two and then call it a day. They would recreate the competition starting from scratch, with the new assumption of having two separate competitions.
With such an explicit split, two things now come into play that you seem to be glossing over. The first is that when we have two completely separate VT "leagues" we reopen the question of how easy or hard it should be to reach GC. You're assuming that the best "lower league" players that make it to GC now would still make it in a split league because they would still be winning at the same or higher amount. But what we don't know is whether the devs would continue to allow lower progress players to reach GC with the same amount of effort. Right now that is less "obvious" in the current system. It is not clear to me they would continue to allow that in a far more blatantly constructed environment. In other words, this is so obviously an easy mode path to GC for sufficiently high skilled low progress players that it can be prohibitively distracting. As it is now, it is already problematic. It would be moreso in such a system.
The second is rewards. You assume that the lower league rewards would be the same because any progressive differences are already reflected in the BG store. But to see what would really happen, consider the one place with an analogous situation: AQ. In AQ, lower prestige players earn less glory, because glory is based on alliance prestige. And then the glory store is itself progression based. So, while glory earning is tied to alliances and not players (so low progress players can earn lots of glory in higher alliances), and the glory store costs are tied to player progression and not alliance prestige, it is fair to say that as a general principle low prestige alliances earn less glory and in general have higher glory store costs.
In fact, the comparison to AQ could be more than skin deep. Once upon a time AQ was tiered. Alliances had to place highly in their tier to move up to the next tier. I would not be surprised to see the devs take a look at the tiered AQ system from the past for some inspiration in how VT might work moving forward. If they take inspiration from AQ, the notion that lower progress players would continue to receive the same amount of tokens as they do now if the competition was split is on very shaky ground.
I don't advocate splitting the competition either. Neither am I claiming that the tokens are appropriately priced for different progression levels. All I am saying is that splitting the competition by titles is not going to change the pace of progression for higher accounts without changing the progression system itself. If anything, with the same setup, game mode experience would be worse for bigger accounts. The only comfort factor would be the avoidance of the ego hit from seeing a lower progression account on the same leaderboard.
On AQ, rewards are very front loaded. You can get 2K+ glory by hitting 8M and 3K+ glory by hitting 80M (doable with 2 BGs and map 4/5), you can spread the load within the alliance and still consistently get that. You'll get the next 1-1.5K glory for 3x the effort. Even with all that, glory store prices were dropped recently. While lower prestige players earn less glory, you can get ~50% of the rewards for 20-25% effort and low participation. BG is reverse, the rewards get higher and better as you go up.
All said and done, the game relies on the player in mid-tiers catching up to top players. Not on top players pulling away faster than the competition. I don't see giving hundreds of thousands of tokens to Paragons while cutting back what is available to lower titles as a viable economic strategy.
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
If your roster surpasses the the min requirement for the next progression it is beyond what they deserve...
I still think the most fair matchmaking is no matchmaking at all. The bigger accounts will rise and the lower accounts will fall. I think a good way to balance it is with the trophy method that DNA mentioned. You will have a more balanced playing field in the end. With this method you would be able to progress as high as your account would allow. Since it is everyone fighting for the same rewards, there should be no matchmaking. Either that or there should be tier locks based on progression.
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
If your roster surpasses the the min requirement for the next progression it is beyond what they deserve...
Perhaps, perhaps not. The requirements for the Titles are pretty specific. Having the Champs is only part of it. What I'm saying is you cannot make generalized statements about all Players choosing to be there.
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
If your roster surpasses the the min requirement for the next progression it is beyond what they deserve...
Perhaps, perhaps not. The requirements for the Titles are pretty specific. Having the Champs is only part of it. What I'm saying is you cannot make generalized statements about all Players choosing to be there.
U r doing the same exact thing being jumping on the pedestal and thinking you are the voice of the lower part... U just don't like being called out about it.. Thats why when u run out of arguments u ignore other people's valid points.. they ask you specific points about your claims and u just dodge them... I told u before i advocate for the upper tier . U advocate for the lower.. u just won't own it and claim u advocate for both.. which u really dont... There is about 4-5 other people on this thread that ask for answers to your claims and u just managed to avoid them, pretend you didn't read them, or claim its too long of a conversation on a thread that already has 10 pages.... You argue for the sport of argueing, nit picking what u might have an answer for... I said it many times... Check the posts about "unfair matchmaking" claiming they are just cavalliers and then they show u a deck with 5-10 r3s... That's a cavallier with a TB Deck but yet they claim unfair matches
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
If your roster surpasses the the min requirement for the next progression it is beyond what they deserve...
Perhaps, perhaps not. The requirements for the Titles are pretty specific. Having the Champs is only part of it. What I'm saying is you cannot make generalized statements about all Players choosing to be there.
U r doing the same exact thing being jumping on the pedestal and thinking you are the voice of the lower part... U just don't like being called out about it.. Thats why when u run out of arguments u ignore other people's valid points.. they ask you specific points about your claims and u just dodge them... I told u before i advocate for the upper tier . U advocate for the lower.. u just won't own it and claim u advocate for both.. which u really dont...
Yes, I do. What I don't advocate for is ignorance to the issues that each side have. In fact, I've acknowledged both issues all along this conversation. What I don't agree with is belittling and reducing the problems that the lower Players are presenting. I'm not shifting at all. I'm making matter-of-fact statements. You have a judgment towards their arguments. You're entitled to your own views. I'm also entitled to how those views limit your perspective on the overall issue. You're approaching this as a "one or the other" situation, and it's not. There is more than one side to this.
All said and done, the game relies on the player in mid-tiers catching up to top players. Not on top players pulling away faster than the competition. I don't see giving hundreds of thousands of tokens to Paragons while cutting back what is available to lower titles as a viable economic strategy.
Depends on what you mean by "catching up." Progression based games need to provide meritocratic advancement opportunities, for some definition of "merit" (in a game supported by microtransactions, for example, spending on the game is rewardable merit by definition). Because different players expend differing amounts of effort, spend widely varying amounts of money, and have a wide range of skill, progression speed will, in a raw sense, vary over a huge range. To prevent this spread from becoming too wide to support reasonably and to prevent the game from becoming too hostile to new players the game design will typically do a lot to compress that range. We see that with early game acceleration and we see that with soft capped progress at the very top.
But there's a difference between compression and neutralization. It is one thing to make sure lower progress players do not fall too far behind. But allowing them to literally catch up with the high progress players is hazardous, because it makes high progress pointless. Inflation can devalue historical progress, but it can never completely nullify it or the game becomes dangerously pointless to play. Especially in a game as casual friendly as MCOC is.
I know people often scoff at the notion that MCOC is casual friendly. But it is immensely casual friendly. It isn't casual friendly if you want to be at the top. But casual players always eventually get what the top players get, it just takes more time. Time is the only real advantage that the whales buy and the top players earn. Nullifying the time advantage could break the mindset that the advantages they get are advantages worth pursuing. And that's the beginning of the end for a microtransaction supported progression based game.
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
If your roster surpasses the the min requirement for the next progression it is beyond what they deserve...
Perhaps, perhaps not. The requirements for the Titles are pretty specific. Having the Champs is only part of it. What I'm saying is you cannot make generalized statements about all Players choosing to be there.
U r doing the same exact thing being jumping on the pedestal and thinking you are the voice of the lower part... U just don't like being called out about it.. Thats why when u run out of arguments u ignore other people's valid points.. they ask you specific points about your claims and u just dodge them... I told u before i advocate for the upper tier . U advocate for the lower.. u just won't own it and claim u advocate for both.. which u really dont...
Yes, I do. What I don't advocate for is ignorance to the issues that each side have. In fact, I've acknowledged both issues all along this conversation. What I don't agree with is belittling and reducing the problems that the lower Players are presenting. I'm not shifting at all. I'm making matter-of-fact statements. You have a judgment towards their arguments. You're entitled to your own views. I'm also entitled to how those views limit your perspective on the overall issue. You're approaching this as a "one or the other" situation, and it's not. There is more than one side to this.
That mentality gives license to any kind of taking advantage. Thats what u replied to me.. now don't u think having a roster that passes beyond a progression level and shielding yourself in your current progression level is actually taking advantage?... Like i said this is a never ending arguement.. i stand by my points... And yes I can't wait for 7*s and more r5s just to make my points more valid
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
If your roster surpasses the the min requirement for the next progression it is beyond what they deserve...
Perhaps, perhaps not. The requirements for the Titles are pretty specific. Having the Champs is only part of it. What I'm saying is you cannot make generalized statements about all Players choosing to be there.
U r doing the same exact thing being jumping on the pedestal and thinking you are the voice of the lower part... U just don't like being called out about it.. Thats why when u run out of arguments u ignore other people's valid points.. they ask you specific points about your claims and u just dodge them... I told u before i advocate for the upper tier . U advocate for the lower.. u just won't own it and claim u advocate for both.. which u really dont...
Yes, I do. What I don't advocate for is ignorance to the issues that each side have. In fact, I've acknowledged both issues all along this conversation. What I don't agree with is belittling and reducing the problems that the lower Players are presenting. I'm not shifting at all. I'm making matter-of-fact statements. You have a judgment towards their arguments. You're entitled to your own views. I'm also entitled to how those views limit your perspective on the overall issue. You're approaching this as a "one or the other" situation, and it's not. There is more than one side to this.
That mentality gives license to any kind of taking advantage. Thats what u replied to me.. now don't u think having a roster that passes beyond a progression level and shielding yourself in your current progression level is actually taking advantage?... Like i said this is a never ending arguement.. i stand by my points... And yes I can't wait for 7*s and more r5s just to make my points more valid
Yes. That's what I said. I said that because your comment was that if people never complained, there wouldn't be anything to change. I said that mentality gives license to any kind of taking advantage. Meaning, there's a problem whether people complain about it or not. For some reason, you think Kabam altered the Matchmaking because Players complained about the Matches. That's not entirely accurate. It was changed because Players were manipulating their Rosters to cheat the system, and people complaining highlighted the issue. The idea that there's no problem if people don't complain is a dangerous one.
You can't blanket everyone who is at that stage as "choosing to be there".
If u make a separate BG with different rewards or currency it would push them to progress and try to get the better rewards ... And im sorry if a person is Cav with multiple r3s they are chosing to stay there.
I have no idea why you're so hung up on the currency, but that's a non-issue. As for Cavs, what you're describing is a very small subset of Players who just haven't done the Story content. It's not a fair assessment to paint everyone who is Cav in that light.
Why an i fixated on rewards or currency... Cause its all about rewards.. or you think that the lower accounts complaining about not advancing past plat or diamond cause they match with TBs and Paragons.. are complaining because of their gaming experience...because there is a person behind the account and his feelings are getting hurt...
Your feelings on lower Players earning the same currency, in spite of the fact that what they can buy is regulated by the Store, is a non-issue. At least in my opinion. You're personally bothered by them getting the same thing. The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
If your roster surpasses the the min requirement for the next progression it is beyond what they deserve...
Perhaps, perhaps not. The requirements for the Titles are pretty specific. Having the Champs is only part of it. What I'm saying is you cannot make generalized statements about all Players choosing to be there.
U r doing the same exact thing being jumping on the pedestal and thinking you are the voice of the lower part... U just don't like being called out about it.. Thats why when u run out of arguments u ignore other people's valid points.. they ask you specific points about your claims and u just dodge them... I told u before i advocate for the upper tier . U advocate for the lower.. u just won't own it and claim u advocate for both.. which u really dont...
Yes, I do. What I don't advocate for is ignorance to the issues that each side have. In fact, I've acknowledged both issues all along this conversation. What I don't agree with is belittling and reducing the problems that the lower Players are presenting. I'm not shifting at all. I'm making matter-of-fact statements. You have a judgment towards their arguments. You're entitled to your own views. I'm also entitled to how those views limit your perspective on the overall issue. You're approaching this as a "one or the other" situation, and it's not. There is more than one side to this.
That mentality gives license to any kind of taking advantage. Thats what u replied to me.. now don't u think having a roster that passes beyond a progression level and shielding yourself in your current progression level is actually taking advantage?... Like i said this is a never ending arguement.. i stand by my points... And yes I can't wait for 7*s and more r5s just to make my points more valid
For any discussion, even seemingly intractable ones, to have any chance to go somewhere, the bare absolute minimum requirement is that all parties are actually talking about the same thing. They can have differing opinions about that thing, but there has to be some fundamental common ground that the conversation can build upon.
I believe that doesn't exist in this specific line of debate here in any form, and I tried hard to find it. But at the end of the day, I am making a few very fundamental assumptions about the game mode that aren't really negotiable (for discussion purposes). And the most important one is this: the fundamental intent of the Battlegrounds game mode is to be a player vs player competitive game mode, for the standard definition of what a competition actually is.
A tremendous amount of the logic of the discussion requires this fundamental basis, and all that it implies. And while I am not the forum police, and anyone can choose to discuss whatever they want within the forum rules, I believe any discussion of the BG mode that doesn't either honor this basic notion or alternatively explicitly disavows it and attempts to advocate for something completely different in this thread specifically is going to be unproductive, and once I am certain beyond all reasonable doubt that such a basic general principle is continuously contravened, that's the exit point for me. Its my hope that everyone else will, at the point where they are similarly convinced, direct the conversation away from those unresolvable event horizons of debate.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
One of the main reasons this is even a discussion is that those low accounts ARE in the top gc rankings though.
Let's break that up then. Suppose there were two different BG competitions - One for UC/Cavs and on for TB/Paragaon.
The lower accounts who are in GC now will also be in GC in the UC/Cav comp. Actually, they would be higher placed since they won't have to face any of the higher accounts they face in GC today (which they mostly bypassed in VT). The TB/Paragon account in GC will also be in the GC of the new exclusive BG, because they would have the same path to get there (they are stronger/more skilled within the competition). They would also be very similarly placed as they are now. The TB/Paragons in VT will still remain there, they weren't able to string together enough wins to get out earlier, why would you expect them to do so now?
Now to rewards. The UC/Cav comp pays out fewer trophies, say 50% of what the TB/Paragon one does, which you can use in the store. The current store already does that - it charges Cav 3x of what it costs Paragons to buy items and some items are gated. Cutting trophies by 50% and keeping a common store isn't going to materially change what resources UC/Cavs get from the competition. Reducing the trophy count will not change what devs think is the right amount of resources lower progression accounts should have access to.
On why we need more people in the same competition. A match happens when two people are looking for a match at the same time. You need both players to be online and then to be in the BG mode at the same time. Even if a million people spend an hour a day on the game, only 4% of those will be online in any given hour - what % of those would be clicking the BG match button in the same minute? If you restrict the game mode to only top 5-10% of player base how much worse would the odds of finding a match get? I don't have the answers but I would think this is one mode where you want a lot of players playing at any given time.
I don't understand what higher accounts will gain from splitting the competition into two. It isn't matchmaking that's impacting accounts moving through VT but the win-loss progression system. Removing lower accounts from the competition will not make it any easier or faster for larger accounts to progress.
Lower accounts on the other hand will probably progress faster. At least at the top, because there will be space created for them. The average ones will have no change probably. Reward structure might be changed but access to resources will be similar to what they have now - costs will be adjusted.
If the only aim is to reduce the trophy count for smaller account then splitting competitions would be a great move. It isn't going to improve progression or experience at the top.
I do not advocate for splitting the competition. However, your analysis of what if does not account for the law of unintended consequences. In other words, the devs would never just split the competition in two and then call it a day. They would recreate the competition starting from scratch, with the new assumption of having two separate competitions.
With such an explicit split, two things now come into play that you seem to be glossing over. The first is that when we have two completely separate VT "leagues" we reopen the question of how easy or hard it should be to reach GC. You're assuming that the best "lower league" players that make it to GC now would still make it in a split league because they would still be winning at the same or higher amount. But what we don't know is whether the devs would continue to allow lower progress players to reach GC with the same amount of effort. Right now that is less "obvious" in the current system. It is not clear to me they would continue to allow that in a far more blatantly constructed environment. In other words, this is so obviously an easy mode path to GC for sufficiently high skilled low progress players that it can be prohibitively distracting. As it is now, it is already problematic. It would be moreso in such a system.
The second is rewards. You assume that the lower league rewards would be the same because any progressive differences are already reflected in the BG store. But to see what would really happen, consider the one place with an analogous situation: AQ. In AQ, lower prestige players earn less glory, because glory is based on alliance prestige. And then the glory store is itself progression based. So, while glory earning is tied to alliances and not players (so low progress players can earn lots of glory in higher alliances), and the glory store costs are tied to player progression and not alliance prestige, it is fair to say that as a general principle low prestige alliances earn less glory and in general have higher glory store costs.
In fact, the comparison to AQ could be more than skin deep. Once upon a time AQ was tiered. Alliances had to place highly in their tier to move up to the next tier. I would not be surprised to see the devs take a look at the tiered AQ system from the past for some inspiration in how VT might work moving forward. If they take inspiration from AQ, the notion that lower progress players would continue to receive the same amount of tokens as they do now if the competition was split is on very shaky ground.
I don't advocate splitting the competition either. Neither am I claiming that the tokens are appropriately priced for different progression levels. All I am saying is that splitting the competition by titles is not going to change the pace of progression for higher accounts without changing the progression system itself. If anything, with the same setup, game mode experience would be worse for bigger accounts. The only comfort factor would be the avoidance of the ego hit from seeing a lower progression account on the same leaderboard.
On AQ, rewards are very front loaded. You can get 2K+ glory by hitting 8M and 3K+ glory by hitting 80M (doable with 2 BGs and map 4/5), you can spread the load within the alliance and still consistently get that. You'll get the next 1-1.5K glory for 3x the effort. Even with all that, glory store prices were dropped recently. While lower prestige players earn less glory, you can get ~50% of the rewards for 20-25% effort and low participation. BG is reverse, the rewards get higher and better as you go up.
All said and done, the game relies on the player in mid-tiers catching up to top players. Not on top players pulling away faster than the competition. I don't see giving hundreds of thousands of tokens to Paragons while cutting back what is available to lower titles as a viable economic strategy.
This is something that will NEVER happen. It may depend on that illusion, yes, but that statement is not true, hasn't been true for the past 8 years, and will never be true as long as this game exists.
Congrats to the usual trolls on derailing one of the most productive posts about solving BGs problems. Job well done 👏 Even @DNA3000 (who is very very patient) got tired of you 😠 If you can’t be productive and suggest solutions for BGs problems, at least don’t make it more difficult for those who try for that 🙂
All said and done, the game relies on the player in mid-tiers catching up to top players. Not on top players pulling away faster than the competition. I don't see giving hundreds of thousands of tokens to Paragons while cutting back what is available to lower titles as a viable economic strategy.
Depends on what you mean by "catching up." Progression based games need to provide meritocratic advancement opportunities, for some definition of "merit" (in a game supported by microtransactions, for example, spending on the game is rewardable merit by definition). Because different players expend differing amounts of effort, spend widely varying amounts of money, and have a wide range of skill, progression speed will, in a raw sense, vary over a huge range. To prevent this spread from becoming too wide to support reasonably and to prevent the game from becoming too hostile to new players the game design will typically do a lot to compress that range. We see that with early game acceleration and we see that with soft capped progress at the very top.
But there's a difference between compression and neutralization. It is one thing to make sure lower progress players do not fall too far behind. But allowing them to literally catch up with the high progress players is hazardous, because it makes high progress pointless. Inflation can devalue historical progress, but it can never completely nullify it or the game becomes dangerously pointless to play. Especially in a game as casual friendly as MCOC is.
I know people often scoff at the notion that MCOC is casual friendly. But it is immensely casual friendly. It isn't casual friendly if you want to be at the top. But casual players always eventually get what the top players get, it just takes more time. Time is the only real advantage that the whales buy and the top players earn. Nullifying the time advantage could break the mindset that the advantages they get are advantages worth pursuing. And that's the beginning of the end for a microtransaction supported progression based game.
Maybe there is some misunderstanding here. I agree MCOC is incredibly casual friendly and on all the other points re: game design.
There are two aspects to BG - the leaderboard and the rewards. The leaderboard is the feel good factor (and what one really plays for, this is a game after all) while the rewards actually help you get stronger. In MCOC leaderboards are hard to climb up but rewards are easier to get. In AW for example, you can get more than 50% of the rewards of being in Plat tiers at the bottom of gold tier. In AQ, you can get 50% of the glory rewards with marginal participation. So people who put more effort feel good about winning but the gap between top and bottom is not very large (as you say)
BG has great rewards, more than all the other modes put together. But the rewards structure is inverted, you get higher number of token for crossing a level in a higher tier than lower ones. In an random or ELO based BG, you get the feel good factor as well as exponentially easier access to resources. It might lead to an extremely competitive top where every edge matters but it will also create a very comfortable upper-middle where players will just focus on getting to GC (which will get easier and easier for them over time).
If you are a Paragon and you place at the bottom of GC, you can open 10-12 six stars and R3 at least one of them each season. That's 2x the number of crystals from placing 1st in AW today. I get the point of 2 six stars being more valuable to a Cav vs. 5 for a Paragon, but the gap is much higher here. Further, put together everything else a Paragon gets across modes, I feel the roster progression for Paragons will be faster than the ones below. A Cav with 2 six stars every month is not keeping up with someone who is adding a couple of R3s every month, even relatively.
I don't worry about making it too easy to nullify the time advantage but creating a mode/rewards structure which makes it futile for casual players to even bother engaging in and then putting the best rewards in the game there.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
IMO, the only reason that we have prestige matchmaking in the VT is that there is no other way to rank people 'fairly'. If everyone had their own BG rating then you could go completely random, like in GC, and it would balance itself out like AW did when it started.
The goal of prestige/roster matching is not to be "fair" at least not as I use the word (nor as the devs do). In a competitive sense, ELO matching is seen as fair, or at least fair enough - if it wasn't, GC wouldn't use it. So why match that way in VT?
Consider VT didn't originally match that way. VT previously matched on deck strength and then was changed to roster strength. Why match on deck strength? It isn't for fairness. It is to encourage participation. The VT tracks themselves exist to encourage participation, by providing a venue where players of all progression levels can theoretically feel like they can succeed to some significant degree. By only competing with other players of similar deck strength, the game doesn't often create visually striking mismatches which can be discouraging to newer players. This reduces the local feeling of disappointment having lost an unwinnable match.
To put it bluntly, deck matching is intended to encourage players to blame themselves when they lose, rather than the game mode.
Deck matching was switched to roster matching for two reasons. First, deck matching could be manipulated, ala 2* decks. Second, at least in Kabam's opinion, deck matching failed to properly encourage players to develop roster. If you could do everything you wanted with a 5/50 deck in BG, there was no incentive to rank up 5* or 6* champs. Moving to roster strength matching was an attempt to kill two birds with one stone.
None of this is about fairness. It is about game mode psychology. You could even argue that the pockets of resistance towards changing VT reflect this psychological manipulation gamesmanship. Kabam is not in the business of telling players they are right or wrong about the intent of the game mode. They hope that when they settle on how they want it to work it will be an opaque ink blot that everyone sees what they want to see in it, at least in VT.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
Wrong.
We are competing for the same rewards.
No, not in the Victory Track, where there are no Rank Rewards. As an example, you may be competing for the same 20k Trophies (of which there are no limited amount aside from gaining the Wins), but 20k does not have access to the same amount, or sometimes type, of Rewards for a Paragon as it does a Cav or UC. Quite simply put, money is only as valuable as what you can buy.
I don't worry about making it too easy to nullify the time advantage but creating a mode/rewards structure which makes it futile for casual players to even bother engaging in and then putting the best rewards in the game there.
I don't worry about that *too* much, because even for casual players (in general: I'm ignoring the "stuck at" issues we've been discussing here) the rewards in BG are very good relative to what casual players can earn elsewhere. They are low relative to more aggressive BG players, but not low relative to their other reward opportunities in the game.
The "stuck at" issue is the critical issue here, not the "casual" one. Casual players not stuck are fine. Hard core players that are stuck are not fine. And for a competitive game mode, you'd think being a relatively casually engaged player would be a huge disadvantage, but it isn't consistently. A casually engaged player is unlikely to reach GC, but a casually engaged player on the right side of the skill/roster ratio can easily glide their way up to the upper tiers of VT and scoop up a big bunch of rewards. At least, this seems to be the case as far as I can observe.
I'm not veering off-topic just because I'm pointing out the lack of acknowledgement to other sides of the issue.
The thing is you don't seem to have a side. Your 'arguments' either contradict your previous points or don't address the topic at hand. We're talking apples vs oranges and you're arguing for both apples and oranges, as well as bananas, depending on the day or who you're arguing with.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
Wrong.
We are competing for the same rewards.
No, not in the Victory Track, where there are no Rank Rewards. As an example, you may be competing for the same 20k Trophies (of which there are no limited amount aside from gaining the Wins), but 20k does not have access to the same amount, or sometimes type, of Rewards for a Paragon as it does a Cav or UC. Quite simply put, money is only as valuable as what you can buy.
This 'argument' has already been proven wrong on more than one occasion. Why so you keep trying to use it?
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
Wrong.
We are competing for the same rewards.
No, not in the Victory Track, where there are no Rank Rewards. As an example, you may be competing for the same 20k Trophies (of which there are no limited amount aside from gaining the Wins), but 20k does not have access to the same amount, or sometimes type, of Rewards for a Paragon as it does a Cav or UC. Quite simply put, money is only as valuable as what you can buy.
This 'argument' has already been proven wrong on more than one occasion. Why so you keep trying to use it?
Nothing has been proven wrong. People keep conflating the value as being the same Rewards. I live in Central Canada. If I want a 2L of Pepsi, and I have 20 dollars, it would cost me about 25% of my 20. Depending on where I go, I could get it for $2.25 plus tax at Wal-Mart, or perhaps 4 or 5 dollars at the local corner store. Take that same 20 dollars to Nunavut up north, and it doesn't hold the same value. It's over $5.00 for a 12oz bottle there. Just because it's the same amount of Trophies doesn't mean they're playing for the same Rewards.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
Wrong.
We are competing for the same rewards.
No, not in the Victory Track, where there are no Rank Rewards. As an example, you may be competing for the same 20k Trophies (of which there are no limited amount aside from gaining the Wins), but 20k does not have access to the same amount, or sometimes type, of Rewards for a Paragon as it does a Cav or UC. Quite simply put, money is only as valuable as what you can buy.
This 'argument' has already been proven wrong on more than one occasion. Why so you keep trying to use it?
Nothing has been proven wrong. People keep conflating the value as being the same Rewards. I live in Central Canada. If I want a 2L of Pepsi, and I have 20 dollars, it would cost me about 25% of my 20. Depending on where I go, I could get it for $2.25 plus tax at Wal-Mart, or perhaps 4 or 5 dollars at the local corner store. Take that same 20 dollars to Nunavut up north, and it doesn't hold the same value. It's over $5.00 for a 12oz bottle there. Just because it's the same amount of Trophies doesn't mean they're playing for the same Rewards.
I dont like wading into the mud, but not being able to progress not only means missing out on trophy tokens, it also means missing out on Elder Marks, and Relic shards. All of which help in the mode itself, as well as solo events. Having their own track means lwoer accounts have easy access to these, and rank higher in events as such. Rank rewards doesnt see progression either, just pointing that out.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
Wrong.
We are competing for the same rewards.
No, not in the Victory Track, where there are no Rank Rewards. As an example, you may be competing for the same 20k Trophies (of which there are no limited amount aside from gaining the Wins), but 20k does not have access to the same amount, or sometimes type, of Rewards for a Paragon as it does a Cav or UC. Quite simply put, money is only as valuable as what you can buy.
This 'argument' has already been proven wrong on more than one occasion. Why so you keep trying to use it?
Nothing has been proven wrong. People keep conflating the value as being the same Rewards. I live in Central Canada. If I want a 2L of Pepsi, and I have 20 dollars, it would cost me about 25% of my 20. Depending on where I go, I could get it for $2.25 plus tax at Wal-Mart, or perhaps 4 or 5 dollars at the local corner store. Take that same 20 dollars to Nunavut up north, and it doesn't hold the same value. It's over $5.00 for a 12oz bottle there. Just because it's the same amount of Trophies doesn't mean they're playing for the same Rewards.
I dont like wading into the mud, but not being able to progress not only means missing out on trophy tokens, it also means missing out on Elder Marks, and Relic shards. All of which help in the mode itself, as well as solo events. Having their own track means lwoer accounts have easy access to these, and rank higher in events as such. Rank rewards doesnt see progression either, just pointing that out.
I'm not saying things need to be kept the way they are with lower Players being accelerated faster than others who are stuck. Actually, the only counter I've had to that was people still need to take responsibility for the results of their own Matches, and I still feel that's a part of the equation. In terms of the same Rewards, everyone gets the same amount of Trophies for hitting the Brackets and Tiers. Those Trophies aren't worth the same for everyone. Which is perfectly fine in my opinion, because the Store regulates the value of them based on progression.
He is fixating on UC cause its the lowest allowed in BGs, u reach UC at around lvl 37-40.. it doesnt even make sense you are competing against people 20+ lvls below...
You aren't competing against them, they are not blocking your progress and they aren't getting the same rewards. For all purposes they are playing a different competition. You only get matched against them when there isn't anyone in your range to be matched against. You can do what DNA did and game the system if you want to.
The current system is exactly what you want - two different competitions for different levels. Just under the same banner. Your current placings and game experience would be slightly worse if it was bifurcated into two separate competitions since there wouldn't be the occasional easy match-ups which happen currently.
Wrong.
We are competing for the same rewards.
No, not in the Victory Track, where there are no Rank Rewards. As an example, you may be competing for the same 20k Trophies (of which there are no limited amount aside from gaining the Wins), but 20k does not have access to the same amount, or sometimes type, of Rewards for a Paragon as it does a Cav or UC. Quite simply put, money is only as valuable as what you can buy.
This 'argument' has already been proven wrong on more than one occasion. Why so you keep trying to use it?
Nothing has been proven wrong. People keep conflating the value as being the same Rewards. I live in Central Canada. If I want a 2L of Pepsi, and I have 20 dollars, it would cost me about 25% of my 20. Depending on where I go, I could get it for $2.25 plus tax at Wal-Mart, or perhaps 4 or 5 dollars at the local corner store. Take that same 20 dollars to Nunavut up north, and it doesn't hold the same value. It's over $5.00 for a 12oz bottle there. Just because it's the same amount of Trophies doesn't mean they're playing for the same Rewards.
I dont like wading into the mud, but not being able to progress not only means missing out on trophy tokens, it also means missing out on Elder Marks, and Relic shards. All of which help in the mode itself, as well as solo events. Having their own track means lwoer accounts have easy access to these, and rank higher in events as such. Rank rewards doesnt see progression either, just pointing that out.
I'm not saying things need to be kept the way they are with lower Players being accelerated faster than others who are stuck. Actually, the only counter I've had to that was people still need to take responsibility for the results of their own Matches, and I still feel that's a part of the equation. In terms of the same Rewards, everyone gets the same amount of Trophies for hitting the Brackets and Tiers. Those Trophies aren't worth the same for everyone. Which is perfectly fine in my opinion, because the Store regulates the value of them based on progression.
well they are taking responsibility. They are stuck where they are. lower Players are being accelerated. The fact that 1/3 the rewards 'arent same" in value but 2/3 of them are.... Moots the argument of rewards. Bottom line, there is a problem currently, and things cant stand as they are. Changes need to be made. For better or for worse.
i wont respond more than this, i got my point made.
Comments
With such an explicit split, two things now come into play that you seem to be glossing over. The first is that when we have two completely separate VT "leagues" we reopen the question of how easy or hard it should be to reach GC. You're assuming that the best "lower league" players that make it to GC now would still make it in a split league because they would still be winning at the same or higher amount. But what we don't know is whether the devs would continue to allow lower progress players to reach GC with the same amount of effort. Right now that is less "obvious" in the current system. It is not clear to me they would continue to allow that in a far more blatantly constructed environment. In other words, this is so obviously an easy mode path to GC for sufficiently high skilled low progress players that it can be prohibitively distracting. As it is now, it is already problematic. It would be moreso in such a system.
The second is rewards. You assume that the lower league rewards would be the same because any progressive differences are already reflected in the BG store. But to see what would really happen, consider the one place with an analogous situation: AQ. In AQ, lower prestige players earn less glory, because glory is based on alliance prestige. And then the glory store is itself progression based. So, while glory earning is tied to alliances and not players (so low progress players can earn lots of glory in higher alliances), and the glory store costs are tied to player progression and not alliance prestige, it is fair to say that as a general principle low prestige alliances earn less glory and in general have higher glory store costs.
In fact, the comparison to AQ could be more than skin deep. Once upon a time AQ was tiered. Alliances had to place highly in their tier to move up to the next tier. I would not be surprised to see the devs take a look at the tiered AQ system from the past for some inspiration in how VT might work moving forward. If they take inspiration from AQ, the notion that lower progress players would continue to receive the same amount of tokens as they do now if the competition was split is on very shaky ground.
On AQ, rewards are very front loaded. You can get 2K+ glory by hitting 8M and 3K+ glory by hitting 80M (doable with 2 BGs and map 4/5), you can spread the load within the alliance and still consistently get that. You'll get the next 1-1.5K glory for 3x the effort. Even with all that, glory store prices were dropped recently. While lower prestige players earn less glory, you can get ~50% of the rewards for 20-25% effort and low participation. BG is reverse, the rewards get higher and better as you go up.
All said and done, the game relies on the player in mid-tiers catching up to top players. Not on top players pulling away faster than the competition. I don't see giving hundreds of thousands of tokens to Paragons while cutting back what is available to lower titles as a viable economic strategy.
The Players who are complaining about Matches are complaining about Matches they can't compete with. Not wanting Rewards beyond what they deserve. Which is why they talk about Matching and not the Rewards. You can keep reducing the issue to that, but that's not the case.
What I'm saying is you cannot make generalized statements about all Players choosing to be there.
I told u before i advocate for the upper tier . U advocate for the lower.. u just won't own it and claim u advocate for both.. which u really dont...
There is about 4-5 other people on this thread that ask for answers to your claims and u just managed to avoid them, pretend you didn't read them, or claim its too long of a conversation on a thread that already has 10 pages....
You argue for the sport of argueing, nit picking what u might have an answer for...
I said it many times... Check the posts about "unfair matchmaking" claiming they are just cavalliers and then they show u a deck with 5-10 r3s... That's a cavallier with a TB Deck but yet they claim unfair matches
In fact, I've acknowledged both issues all along this conversation. What I don't agree with is belittling and reducing the problems that the lower Players are presenting.
I'm not shifting at all. I'm making matter-of-fact statements. You have a judgment towards their arguments. You're entitled to your own views. I'm also entitled to how those views limit your perspective on the overall issue.
You're approaching this as a "one or the other" situation, and it's not. There is more than one side to this.
But there's a difference between compression and neutralization. It is one thing to make sure lower progress players do not fall too far behind. But allowing them to literally catch up with the high progress players is hazardous, because it makes high progress pointless. Inflation can devalue historical progress, but it can never completely nullify it or the game becomes dangerously pointless to play. Especially in a game as casual friendly as MCOC is.
I know people often scoff at the notion that MCOC is casual friendly. But it is immensely casual friendly. It isn't casual friendly if you want to be at the top. But casual players always eventually get what the top players get, it just takes more time. Time is the only real advantage that the whales buy and the top players earn. Nullifying the time advantage could break the mindset that the advantages they get are advantages worth pursuing. And that's the beginning of the end for a microtransaction supported progression based game.
Thats what u replied to me.. now don't u think having a roster that passes beyond a progression level and shielding yourself in your current progression level is actually taking advantage?...
Like i said this is a never ending arguement.. i stand by my points... And yes I can't wait for 7*s and more r5s just to make my points more valid
I said that because your comment was that if people never complained, there wouldn't be anything to change.
I said that mentality gives license to any kind of taking advantage. Meaning, there's a problem whether people complain about it or not.
For some reason, you think Kabam altered the Matchmaking because Players complained about the Matches. That's not entirely accurate.
It was changed because Players were manipulating their Rosters to cheat the system, and people complaining highlighted the issue.
The idea that there's no problem if people don't complain is a dangerous one.
I believe that doesn't exist in this specific line of debate here in any form, and I tried hard to find it. But at the end of the day, I am making a few very fundamental assumptions about the game mode that aren't really negotiable (for discussion purposes). And the most important one is this: the fundamental intent of the Battlegrounds game mode is to be a player vs player competitive game mode, for the standard definition of what a competition actually is.
A tremendous amount of the logic of the discussion requires this fundamental basis, and all that it implies. And while I am not the forum police, and anyone can choose to discuss whatever they want within the forum rules, I believe any discussion of the BG mode that doesn't either honor this basic notion or alternatively explicitly disavows it and attempts to advocate for something completely different in this thread specifically is going to be unproductive, and once I am certain beyond all reasonable doubt that such a basic general principle is continuously contravened, that's the exit point for me. Its my hope that everyone else will, at the point where they are similarly convinced, direct the conversation away from those unresolvable event horizons of debate.
Yes: I know people; and yes, I am in fact only human. I'm flipping the emotion chip back off now.
Job well done 👏
Even @DNA3000 (who is very very patient) got tired of you 😠
If you can’t be productive and suggest solutions for BGs problems, at least don’t make it more difficult for those who try for that 🙂
There are two aspects to BG - the leaderboard and the rewards. The leaderboard is the feel good factor (and what one really plays for, this is a game after all) while the rewards actually help you get stronger. In MCOC leaderboards are hard to climb up but rewards are easier to get. In AW for example, you can get more than 50% of the rewards of being in Plat tiers at the bottom of gold tier. In AQ, you can get 50% of the glory rewards with marginal participation. So people who put more effort feel good about winning but the gap between top and bottom is not very large (as you say)
BG has great rewards, more than all the other modes put together. But the rewards structure is inverted, you get higher number of token for crossing a level in a higher tier than lower ones. In an random or ELO based BG, you get the feel good factor as well as exponentially easier access to resources. It might lead to an extremely competitive top where every edge matters but it will also create a very comfortable upper-middle where players will just focus on getting to GC (which will get easier and easier for them over time).
If you are a Paragon and you place at the bottom of GC, you can open 10-12 six stars and R3 at least one of them each season. That's 2x the number of crystals from placing 1st in AW today. I get the point of 2 six stars being more valuable to a Cav vs. 5 for a Paragon, but the gap is much higher here. Further, put together everything else a Paragon gets across modes, I feel the roster progression for Paragons will be faster than the ones below. A Cav with 2 six stars every month is not keeping up with someone who is adding a couple of R3s every month, even relatively.
I don't worry about making it too easy to nullify the time advantage but creating a mode/rewards structure which makes it futile for casual players to even bother engaging in and then putting the best rewards in the game there.
We are competing for the same rewards.
As an example, you may be competing for the same 20k Trophies (of which there are no limited amount aside from gaining the Wins), but 20k does not have access to the same amount, or sometimes type, of Rewards for a Paragon as it does a Cav or UC.
Quite simply put, money is only as valuable as what you can buy.
The "stuck at" issue is the critical issue here, not the "casual" one. Casual players not stuck are fine. Hard core players that are stuck are not fine. And for a competitive game mode, you'd think being a relatively casually engaged player would be a huge disadvantage, but it isn't consistently. A casually engaged player is unlikely to reach GC, but a casually engaged player on the right side of the skill/roster ratio can easily glide their way up to the upper tiers of VT and scoop up a big bunch of rewards. At least, this seems to be the case as far as I can observe.
I live in Central Canada. If I want a 2L of Pepsi, and I have 20 dollars, it would cost me about 25% of my 20. Depending on where I go, I could get it for $2.25 plus tax at Wal-Mart, or perhaps 4 or 5 dollars at the local corner store.
Take that same 20 dollars to Nunavut up north, and it doesn't hold the same value. It's over $5.00 for a 12oz bottle there.
Just because it's the same amount of Trophies doesn't mean they're playing for the same Rewards.
In terms of the same Rewards, everyone gets the same amount of Trophies for hitting the Brackets and Tiers. Those Trophies aren't worth the same for everyone. Which is perfectly fine in my opinion, because the Store regulates the value of them based on progression.
lower Players are being accelerated. The fact that 1/3 the rewards 'arent same" in value but 2/3 of them are.... Moots the argument of rewards.
Bottom line, there is a problem currently, and things cant stand as they are. Changes need to be made. For better or for worse.
i wont respond more than this, i got my point made.