That's where I disagree. The difference in Accounts affects all Players wherever they're at.
What are you disagreeing with. You are for "fair" matches - your definition of fair being rosters at similar strength should play each other. In a system where winning pushes you forward and losing pushes you back. And then you insist that it is the losers fault for not winning and it's up to them to progress.
You cannot have Paragons only play Paragons and then blame the Paragons who are stuck that they should do better. If those Paragons progressed, the others wouldn't. At this point the system is taking some progress from higher level accounts and transferring them to some other accounts who are at a lower level. It is an arbitrary system which either benefits you or hinders you based on where you fall in some opaque range.
Your belief is that the redistribution of progress is important to have an engaging game mode for all players. Majority do not seem to agree. Mainly because it goes against most normally accepted definitions of fair competition.
You can't have Paragons losing against other Paragons and blaming it on not being able to take out UCs and Cavs either.
The same way you can't have Cavs complaining about facing Paragons once they reached their peak in a competition.
Which I never disagreed with. That peak doesn't involve stonewalling them at the start just to get easy Wins to get out of the VT.
Its a competition, there is no stonewalling...
Without something intervening, that's what you're doing.
By intervening u mean catering?.. then its no longer a competition
It is not catering by making sure Players actually have a chance to win starting out. The opposite is true. It's catering their Loss to the benefit of making it easier on Players who feel entitled to an easier time.
If you are making sure someone has a chance its not a competition...its a fixed game
A fixed game is making sure they have no chance out the gate by matching them against Accounts they're never going to win against.
That's where I disagree. The difference in Accounts affects all Players wherever they're at.
What are you disagreeing with. You are for "fair" matches - your definition of fair being rosters at similar strength should play each other. In a system where winning pushes you forward and losing pushes you back. And then you insist that it is the losers fault for not winning and it's up to them to progress.
You cannot have Paragons only play Paragons and then blame the Paragons who are stuck that they should do better. If those Paragons progressed, the others wouldn't. At this point the system is taking some progress from higher level accounts and transferring them to some other accounts who are at a lower level. It is an arbitrary system which either benefits you or hinders you based on where you fall in some opaque range.
Your belief is that the redistribution of progress is important to have an engaging game mode for all players. Majority do not seem to agree. Mainly because it goes against most normally accepted definitions of fair competition.
You can't have Paragons losing against other Paragons and blaming it on not being able to take out UCs and Cavs either.
The same way you can't have Cavs complaining about facing Paragons once they reached their peak in a competition.
Which I never disagreed with. That peak doesn't involve stonewalling them at the start just to get easy Wins to get out of the VT.
Its a competition, there is no stonewalling...
Without something intervening, that's what you're doing.
By intervening u mean catering?.. then its no longer a competition
It is not catering by making sure Players actually have a chance to win starting out. The opposite is true. It's catering their Loss to the benefit of making it easier on Players who feel entitled to an easier time.
If you are making sure someone has a chance its not a competition...its a fixed game
A fixed game is making sure they have no chance out the gate by matching them against Accounts they're never going to win against.
In every league you know there are teams that have 0 chance of winning.. they have to play everybody... There is no accomodating to make them play matches they could win... Funny you are at work and manage to micro answer me and others.. but Zola has to wait; I really hope you are not avoiding him, cause he really is trying to see a positive side to your ideas
@Stature The sticking point there is that you're saying "the same content" but it's not. Low folks are doing easier fights for the same rewards.
One of the things that I think causes some people to have a different perspective on this is the fact that some people see a difference between fighting against easier defenders in BG or AW, and fighting against easier defenders in PvE content.
Is there a difference between fighting against Kabam's 6* defenders in EQ and fighting against my 6* defenders in BG? For the purposes of discussing difficulty, I say no. I think most people would say no. But there are some people who say yes.
A BG match is not just you facing a defender, but you attacking and defending in the same round. The result is determined by the relative difference between attacking and defending. In this case there is a meaningful difference in difficulty based on the opponent you face.
When I face Kabam's 6* defenders in EQ, it only matters if I can win that match. When someone fights your 6* defenders with their 5* attacker and you fight their 5* defender with your 6* attacker, your roster advantage is multiplied many times - your defender can stay up longer and your attacker needs less time to win. The result is then defined as difference between these already skewed matches. It isn't this lopsided even in AW where one can largely close the defense gap with better skills. The attack bonus for taking down the defender is not influenced by how the your defender did in the corresponding match up (yes there are tie-breakers on duration, but it is a small advantage). Given the time limit on BG matches, at a certain roster gap the advantage may be insurmountable.
When I said "is there a difference" what I meant was is there a difference that would cause someone to reasonably believe that facing the higher opponent was no more difficult. Here, you're pointing out differences that amplify the difference in the direction of presuming that higher roster players facing higher roster opponents are facing even harder difficulty than you would otherwise project. That's fair, but it only reinforces the original point being made, that the argument that lower roster players facing lower roster opponents has comparable difficulty to higher roster opponents facing higher roster opponents is on shaky ground when comparing to how we judge difficulty anywhere else.
Here's an interesting thought experiment. Would it make a difference if I was working for Kabam? Suppose I was hired to be a BG opponent in battlegrounds. So I'm no longer a player competitor, I'm in effect a content designer. I design decks for players to fight, and I act as the server to draft opponents and fight in the AI's place. Is there a difference between fighting against my Cav account and my Paragon account, vs playing Cav difficulty and TB difficulty in EQ? If so, what is it?
If you deserve more rewards for beating TB difficulty than Cav difficulty, you should probably deserve more rewards for beating DNA's Paragon tier BG opponent vs DNA's Cav tier BG opponent. But that's what's happening now, only Kabam keeps forgetting to send me checks. We the competitors are all, in a sense, creating the challenge content for Kabam when we act as opponents for other players. That's what we are all doing for each other. So why shouldn't players get some sort of advantage or reward boost for defeating the harder content we are all creating in BG?
I'm not specifically advocating for higher rewards for higher progress players. But I do recognize the difficulty difference, and it is something I tried to respond to in my original suggestions. Not specifically by handing out more rewards, but in other structural ways.
The demand for rewards is also two sided, because every BG match has a winner. When a Cav faces Cav or a TB faces TB (I'm using titles in place of roster strength, not making a direct comparison), those matches are of equal difficulty for both sides. Whoever wins gets the rewards. When a TB faces Cav how should the difficulty be rated? If the TB wins should they get awarded for the equivalent of winning the Cav difficulty and vice versa?
The issue that there is (virtually always) a winner is a global economy issue, not an issue for judging the rewards earned by an individual player.
EQ difficulties are measured in defender PI and node complexity, because the result is measured by an absolute metric. Either the defender is down or not. BG results are measured by a relative metric, you not only put up points, winning is determined by how many points you took off from your opponent. Within the BG scoring system, a Cav facing a Cav is of equivalent difficulty to a Paragon facing Paragon. A Cav facing a Paragon is a harder fight for the Cav (vs. facing a Cav) and a easier fight for the Paragon (vs. facing the Paragon) - realistically, the Cav should get more if they win that match up than a Paragon since the odds of the Cav winning is very low.
Actually, if I understand what you mean when you talk about "measuring" EQ difficulties, this is actually not fundamentally correct. EQ and BG are on more economically similar ground than I think you''re implying here. Correct me if I am wrong, but you're saying that EQ's difficulty is absolute while BG's difficulty is competition relative. In other words, by definition we cannot all be above average in BG because there must be winners and losers, but in EQ everyone can be a winner. We just all have to beat the content.
Except that actually ignores how difficulty is designed in EQ (and in many if not most similar games). I think there is a misconception that the way EQ is designed is with absolute parameters. The devs "believe" Uncollected should have a certain difficulty, and the content is designed to attempt to have this chosen difficulty. But that's not how difficulty is designed, at least not in the large scale. Rather, difficulty is designed relative to the playerbase. To put it in terms most would be familiar with, EQ is graded on a curve. There's a presumption that content that is appropriate to Cavalier players will have some success rate when attempted by the average Cavalier player. That success rate is not 100%. If you think Cav is too hard, it might be because they tweaked it too high this month, but then next month will be tweaked downward to compensate when they see the game data. But if you *consistently* think Cav is too hard, that's because all the other Cav players are just better than you, and the content difficulty has been tweaked for them.
To put it another way, in EQ there are also winners and losers. Its just less obvious. But no matter how tough the class is and no matter how hard the final is, someone is getting the A and someone else is getting the D. This just typically happens invisibly. It didn't happen invisibly when they completely revamped EQ.
@DNA3000 Reposting this here (with some edits), because it might be lost in the thread given what followed
A proposed solution: The victory tokens granted for BG wins and losses are too chunky, leading to the current dissatisfaction. Instead of the current system of 2/3/4/5 tokens to move up a tier, it would be better if it was changed to a 2000-5000 token system - I'm using arbitrary numbers, they just need to be large enough. Trying to address two issues:
1. Remove silos in matchmaking, to the extent possible 2. Provide avenues for all players to progress
Currently, all matches are judged equally. It doesn't matter who you defeat or lose to, you gain or lose a token. The equivalent in the new system would be 1000 tokens, to keep the number of wins needed to progress same. But the number of tokens gained or lost can be adjusted to reflect the strength of the opponent.
For the purpose of examples I am using prestige, but this could be ELO or any other rating mechanism in between. The number of tokens won or lost is adjusted by the difference in prestige between the two players.
1. A 12k player vs 12k player - winner gets 1000 tokens, loser loses 1000 (or 500 etc. as per your suggestion if you want to make progress easier). 2. A 12K player plays a 10K player - If the 12K player wins they get 750 tokens, but if they lose they lose 1250 tokens. Reverse if the 10K player wins - they get 1250 token but only lose 750 tokens. Higher the difference, bigger the gap.
Now you have multiple paths to progress - if a 10K player can consistently beat 12-13K player, they have legitimately progressed higher at a faster pace than a 12K player beating a 12K player who is progressing at a faster pace than a 12K player beating a 10K player.
A 17K Paragon wants to climb up by only beating 8K accounts. It will take them 10x the matches to do so, with a jeopardy that if they are set back further if they lose to those accounts (or not, that's an optional call). The number of win loss tokens can be determined based on analysis of win rates, but essentially this allows for fractional wins and progress.
In this system it is easier to justify a fully random match making from the beginning within a tier, since the penalty of losing to stronger accounts (and the advantage from winning against easier ones) is attuned to reflect the nature of the challenge. A strong player with a strong account can progress quickly, since their path will be similar to what it is currently. A strong player but with a weaker roster can also progress fast, until they hit a ceiling. A strong account but average skills can progress at a good rate (higher title will place higher). The lower accounts can progress, probably at a slow rate but are not penalized extensively for the fact that most of the competition has a stronger account.
Expanding the number of tokens then allows for fractionalization and managing progress as required. Higher you go you can change the pace at which tokens are accrued and lost, necessitating more matches to be played to progress without pushing one back too much.
I'm tackling this one separately, so the quote pyramid doesn't get too deep.
If I understand what you're saying, I don't think this allows us to arbitrarily open the floodgates to random match making. On the one hand, it does reward players who find themselves on the lower end of an uneven match up, but it only rewards them if they win. If players consistently get matched against stronger roster players and consistently lose, that would cause a lot of frustration. But also, a super strong player that gets unlucky and matched against significantly weaker opponents will actually have to grind out a lot more wins to advance.
Typically, whenever we discuss ELO matching, we are presuming that the whole idea of using ELO is to actually find even matches - that the goal is to attempt to match players against other players with similar ELO. However, your idea does open the door to examining that assumption more closely. Here's a spitball: suppose we implement ELO but instead of matching by similar ELO we borrowed a feature from the arena. We propose to the player three possible matches: even, somewhat higher, somewhat lower. Whichever one the player picks, the game goes looking for that.
If the player picks even, the game looks for an even match. If the player asks for higher, the game looks for a stronger opponent. What if the player asks for weaker? Well, you might think that would be a kind of cheating, because we're letting the player pick a lower difficulty. But the game will only make such a match if that player *asks* for "higher." In other words, the only time a 1500 will face an 1800 is if the 1800 asks for lower and the 1500 asks for higher, so *both* players are getting exactly what they ask for. Neither side can complain.
*Now* we slap your points system on top of this. We incentivize asking for higher by rewarding more points. But you're only going to get those extra points if you can find a higher player that asks for lower. This match up is now "fair" because both players asked for it, so by definition neither side can complain. And now we are offering a high player a chance to get an easier win but for less points and we are also offering a low player a chance to get more points by picking off a higher player. We combine this with roster matching for the case where we do not yet have reliable rating for a player, so in the early stages of a season "higher" and "lower" would mean roster, and then deeper in "higher" and "lower" would mean higher and lower rating.
I can see a lot of problems with such a system, from match making density issues to psychological problems with players asking for "lower" and only running into players strong enough to ask for "higher" and still win. This is a very half-baked idea. But I think it is worth thinking about, if for no other reason than it theoretically - if it can be made to work at all - puts more agency into players hands in a way no reasonable player could complain about. It reverts to fair ELO matching if no one chooses the alternate match options, and uneven match ups only happen if both sides want it to happen. It might be completely broken, but it sounds intriguing.
That is basically my origional proposal from like 12 threads ago, which those who understood it agreed with.
Beating a Paragon gains 3 tokens Beating a TB gains 2 tokens Beating a UC or Cav gains 1 token Losing is always a loss of 1 token
You could keep matchmaking as it is but reward those who are able to beat the best competition and help them progress more quickly. You also give lower accounts that get matched vs someone bigger than them a chance to really benefit from beating them.
That is basically my origional proposal from like 12 threads ago, which those who understood it agreed with.
Beating a Paragon gains 3 tokens Beating a TB gains 2 tokens Beating a UC or Cav gains 1 token Losing is always a loss of 1 token
You could keep matchmaking as it is but reward those who are able to beat the best competition and help them progress more quickly. You also give lower accounts that get matched vs someone bigger than them a chance to really benefit from beating them.
Conceptually it is similar (and I have a recollection of it) but as stated I believe the advantage is too large for Paragons who match against each other. Even someone with a 40% win rate is gaining over half a trophy net per match (statistically speaking, I believe my alternate scoring suggestion has significantly less than half that upward bias).
Consider also that losses actually almost don't matter at all for Paragons who match against each other. Say I just arrived in Gold 3, and my next match is against a Paragon. If I lose, I lose nothing, because at the moment I have no trophies. If I win, I will instantly promote to G2, where I will again have no trophies. So long as I match against Paragons, I will be very rapidly propelled to Diamond 1. If you think about it, for losses to matter at all promotion would need to take at least four trophies at all levels, and realistically probably at least five or six. Which would then be doubling the trophies necessary for progress for UC and Cav players. Some of them are progressing quickly and could overcome that increase, but many other average UC and Cav players would be getting crushed by that adjustment.
If you deserve more rewards for beating TB difficulty than Cav difficulty, you should probably deserve more rewards for beating DNA's Paragon tier BG opponent vs DNA's Cav tier BG opponent. But that's what's happening now, only Kabam keeps forgetting to send me checks. We the competitors are all, in a sense, creating the challenge content for Kabam when we act as opponents for other players. That's what we are all doing for each other. So why shouldn't players get some sort of advantage or reward boost for defeating the harder content we are all creating in BG?
Actually, if I understand what you mean when you talk about "measuring" EQ difficulties, this is actually not fundamentally correct. EQ and BG are on more economically similar ground than I think you''re implying here. Correct me if I am wrong, but you're saying that EQ's difficulty is absolute while BG's difficulty is competition relative. In other words, by definition we cannot all be above average in BG because there must be winners and losers, but in EQ everyone can be a winner. We just all have to beat the content.
I am saying the EQ result is absolute while the BG result is relative. You only need to beat the defender in EQ. You need to beat the defender better than your opponent beats the defender in BG.
Your though experiment only highlights one side of the issue. But BG is two sided. You are saying X fights DNA and the match difficulty depends on how strong DNA is. Which is true in most solo content. But in BG, when DNA fights X, X also fights DNA. There are two match difficulties DNA's view of X and X's view of DNA. The match result is the difference of these two. If X's reward must go up as DNA gets stronger, should DNA's rewards also go down in response?
You can say there are no easy matches in competition. Smaller accounts should suck it up and face the bigger ones. Which is fair. But those smaller accounts need to be compensated/incentivized for participation, I don't think the top heavy nature of BG rewards support that. Hence the every two day objective of just play 3 matches. If you open up matchmaking further, I think participation rewards will need to go up.
That is basically my origional proposal from like 12 threads ago, which those who understood it agreed with.
Beating a Paragon gains 3 tokens Beating a TB gains 2 tokens Beating a UC or Cav gains 1 token Losing is always a loss of 1 token
You could keep matchmaking as it is but reward those who are able to beat the best competition and help them progress more quickly. You also give lower accounts that get matched vs someone bigger than them a chance to really benefit from beating them.
While this sounds good on papers, it has one very serious issue. Huge account differences within the same title pools. There are TB with one r3, there are TB with nearly full or full r3 decks. There are Paragons with 3 r4s and can’t even fill a deck with r3s, and there are Paragons with full r5/r4 decks. Title is a quite inaccurate metric of roster strength, same as is Prestige or rating. Rather than matchmaking or anything else, the token system in VT needs to change. 65% win ratio needed to advance (in a pace that make the time/resources to rewards ratio worthy) is lethal for the mode. At least a 50% (imo something around 40%) should be enough to progress through VT. That would take out the frustration players feel at VT. BGs are already in the death spiral. Participation this season was lower. And before someone jump in and ask from where my data is from, I’ll give the answer in advance: GC standings used to be filled to URU3 from week2 in previous seasons, this season it got filled literally the last week. Also, I scored less points at BGs solo event and got higher bracket rewards compared to last season. BGs are slowly dying, and the main reason is VT. Kabam needs to change things, not in the future, but on the upcoming season, if they want the mode to continue alive. Else BGs will become Incursions 2.0
That is basically my origional proposal from like 12 threads ago, which those who understood it agreed with.
Beating a Paragon gains 3 tokens Beating a TB gains 2 tokens Beating a UC or Cav gains 1 token Losing is always a loss of 1 token
You could keep matchmaking as it is but reward those who are able to beat the best competition and help them progress more quickly. You also give lower accounts that get matched vs someone bigger than them a chance to really benefit from beating them.
While this sounds good on papers, it has one very serious issue. Huge account differences within the same title pools. There are TB with one r3, there are TB with nearly full or full r3 decks. There are Paragons with 3 r4s and can’t even fill a deck with r3s, and there are Paragons with full r5/r4 decks. Title is a quite inaccurate metric of roster strength, same as is Prestige or rating. Rather than matchmaking or anything else, the token system in VT needs to change. 65% win ratio needed to advance (in a pace that make the time/resources to rewards ratio worthy) is lethal for the mode. At least a 50% (imo something around 40%) should be enough to progress through VT. That would take out the frustration players feel at VT. BGs are already in the death spiral. Participation this season was lower. And before someone jump in and ask from where my data is from, I’ll give the answer in advance: GC standings used to be filled to URU3 from week2 in previous seasons, this season it got filled literally the last week. Also, I scored less points at BGs solo event and got higher bracket rewards compared to last season. BGs are slowly dying, and the main reason is VT. Kabam needs to change things, not in the future, but on the upcoming season, if they want the mode to continue alive. Else BGs will become Incursions 2.0
I doubt it's going to die. We don't have a discussion this passionate about something people don't care about. I agree somewhat that separating by Titles is problematic, although I considered the OP's suggestion deeply. I think it would be more punitive to Cavs than anything, along with DNA's view on it being too advantageous. However, I do feel the need to point out that people are going to struggle when they're new to the Title either way. They're in a new pool, of sorts. It's going to happen.
Your though experiment only highlights one side of the issue. But BG is two sided. You are saying X fights DNA and the match difficulty depends on how strong DNA is. Which is true in most solo content. But in BG, when DNA fights X, X also fights DNA. There are two match difficulties DNA's view of X and X's view of DNA. The match result is the difference of these two. If X's reward must go up as DNA gets stronger, should DNA's rewards also go down in response?
I don't think you are focused on the salient points about the thought experiment, so just replace me with a bot and replay the thought experiment. Are you saying that there is a difference between playing a bot that happens to play like me and playing against me? Because that's an epistemological argument beyond the scope of game design.
From a game design perspective, there is no fundamental difference between having to defeat a defender and having to beat a BG score. Beating a defender is reducing defender health to zero before your health reaches zero. These two scenarios are mathematically congruent. I spent years analyzing and comparing game systems on this fundamental basis, but a full discussion of that would be a very wide side track.
Your though experiment only highlights one side of the issue. But BG is two sided. You are saying X fights DNA and the match difficulty depends on how strong DNA is. Which is true in most solo content. But in BG, when DNA fights X, X also fights DNA. There are two match difficulties DNA's view of X and X's view of DNA. The match result is the difference of these two. If X's reward must go up as DNA gets stronger, should DNA's rewards also go down in response?
I don't think you are focused on the salient points about the thought experiment, so just replace me with a bot and replay the thought experiment. Are you saying that there is a difference between playing a bot that happens to play like me and playing against me? Because that's an epistemological argument beyond the scope of game design.
From a game design perspective, there is no fundamental difference between having to defeat a defender and having to beat a BG score. Beating a defender is reducing defender health to zero before your health reaches zero. These two scenarios are mathematically congruent. I spent years analyzing and comparing game systems on this fundamental basis, but a full discussion of that would be a very wide side track.
I get what you are saying about difficulty of defenders. Players who are Paragons have faced content multiple times harder than the match they play in BG. The fight against the 6r4 is not the problem. Paragons are not complaining because BG fights are too hard. They are complaining that their opponents are harder than someone else's opponents.
With respect to EQ vs. BG. I don't lose a EQ quest if you can beat the defenders faster. I have played some really poor BG games, and then won those because my opponent was even more incompetent. That is the source of discontent in BG. That someone else gets to play less competent opponents. Or worse, that they are the incompetent opponents for someone else.
The difference between playing you and a bot that plays like you is that you are on the other side - either winning or losing. Make it lopsided enough and one of us will walk away. The bot doesn't have that choice.
I can see a lot of problems with such a system, from match making density issues to psychological problems with players asking for "lower" and only running into players strong enough to ask for "higher" and still win. This is a very half-baked idea. But I think it is worth thinking about, if for no other reason than it theoretically - if it can be made to work at all - puts more agency into players hands in a way no reasonable player could complain about. It reverts to fair ELO matching if no one chooses the alternate match options, and uneven match ups only happen if both sides want it to happen. It might be completely broken, but it sounds intriguing.
We can balance the problem with selection by cushioning the losses. If you lose to a higher opponent you don't lose all your progress. If you beat a higher opponent you progress faster and vice versa. When you are starting off at a tier, you might be happier to take a higher opponent while when you are close to promoting you might want to lower the odds of a loss.
But the primary issue is that the +1/-1 system is too punitive. The win/loss points system should be flexible enough that a repeated WLWL streak lets you move forward in VT rather than keeps you stagnant. The secondary issue is that the system doesn't recognize the difference between easy wins and tough ones. It incentivizes people to seek easy matches vs. fair matches (individual). A system which promotes some fairness in match-ups while maintaining the integrity of the broader competition is what most people would be happy about.
You want people to chose to play off against the players they are equal to. And then reward them with appropriate progress for doing so.
Your though experiment only highlights one side of the issue. But BG is two sided. You are saying X fights DNA and the match difficulty depends on how strong DNA is. Which is true in most solo content. But in BG, when DNA fights X, X also fights DNA. There are two match difficulties DNA's view of X and X's view of DNA. The match result is the difference of these two. If X's reward must go up as DNA gets stronger, should DNA's rewards also go down in response?
I don't think you are focused on the salient points about the thought experiment, so just replace me with a bot and replay the thought experiment. Are you saying that there is a difference between playing a bot that happens to play like me and playing against me? Because that's an epistemological argument beyond the scope of game design.
From a game design perspective, there is no fundamental difference between having to defeat a defender and having to beat a BG score. Beating a defender is reducing defender health to zero before your health reaches zero. These two scenarios are mathematically congruent. I spent years analyzing and comparing game systems on this fundamental basis, but a full discussion of that would be a very wide side track.
I get what you are saying about difficulty of defenders. Players who are Paragons have faced content multiple times harder than the match they play in BG. The fight against the 6r4 is not the problem. Paragons are not complaining because BG fights are too hard. They are complaining that their opponents are harder than someone else's opponents.
With respect to EQ vs. BG. I don't lose a EQ quest if you can beat the defenders faster. I have played some really poor BG games, and then won those because my opponent was even more incompetent. That is the source of discontent in BG. That someone else gets to play less competent opponents. Or worse, that they are the incompetent opponents for someone else.
The difference between playing you and a bot that plays like you is that you are on the other side - either winning or losing. Make it lopsided enough and one of us will walk away. The bot doesn't have that choice.
That's the reverse side of the situation which I was not addressing. I specifically referenced the situation where a person might claim that a lower roster strength player facing lower roster content is equivalent to a higher roster strength player facing higher roster content when the higher roster content is a player opponent, but the exact opposite when the higher roster content is developer constructed content.
Everything you're mentioning are indeed things my thought experiment does not address, but deliberately so because I was referencing the converse perspective directly.
So one suggestion I have that may solve the issue is a combination of a Rating System, and what we have now. Obviously, we would start with Matches that are somewhat within our range of Rosters. Perhaps softer limits than exact Matches. Then, as Players accumulate a certain amount of Rating Points, they are Matched within their Rating Range. Now, this is where it gets complicated. You want higher Players to accelerate, but not so quickly that it gives a total catapult. At the same time, you want Players lower down to advance, but not so quickly they have an advantage within the system. Each Win awards Points. Each Loss reduces Points by half. For example, UC Players win 100 per Win, but lose 50 per Loss. Cav win 200, lose 100. TB win 300, lose 150. Paragon win 400, lose 200. Now, you also want to award skill for those winning above their "paygrade", so-to-speak. Which means Paragon won't benefit from this, but it actually closes the gap enough for it to be not as advantageous. If an UC Player wins against a Cav, they get an extra 50 Points. If they lose, no difference. If they win against a TB, they get an extra 100. If by chance they manage to win against a Paragon, it's 150. Something that would either be rare, or "artificial". Same goes for Cav against TB/Para, with 50 Points or 100 being the bonus. Now, the part that I haven't worked out is whether to have the Brackets a set number, or a continual system like War Tiers. That's one idea I was playing with, in as best terms I can articulate for now.
So one suggestion I have that may solve the issue is a combination of a Rating System, and what we have now. Obviously, we would start with Matches that are somewhat within our range of Rosters. Perhaps softer limits than exact Matches. Then, as Players accumulate a certain amount of Rating Points, they are Matched within their Rating Range. Now, this is where it gets complicated. You want higher Players to accelerate, but not so quickly that it gives a total catapult. At the same time, you want Players lower down to advance, but not so quickly they have an advantage within the system. Each Win awards Points. Each Loss reduces Points by half. For example, UC Players win 100 per Win, but lose 50 per Loss. Cav win 200, lose 100. TB win 300, lose 150. Paragon win 400, lose 200. Now, you also want to award skill for those winning above their "paygrade", so-to-speak. Which means Paragon won't benefit from this, but it actually closes the gap enough for it to be not as advantageous. If an UC Player wins against a Cav, they get an extra 50 Points. If they lose, no difference. If they win against a TB, they get an extra 100. If by chance they manage to win against a Paragon, it's 150. Something that would either be rare, or "artificial". Same goes for Cav against TB/Para, with 50 Points or 100 being the bonus. Now, the part that I haven't worked out is whether to have the Brackets a set number, or a continual system like War Tiers. That's one idea I was playing with, in as best terms I can articulate for now.
As stated there's a structural issue. UC players can almost never lose. Whenever they are matched against anyone higher than UC, which is almost everyone, they can only go up, they cannot go down. Meanwhile Paragons face the full brunt of losing in every match, because they will never get the benefit of these over matches.
This is also exploitable in a weird way. Just never promote. I have alts that could have arbitrarily strong rosters by virtue of alliance rewards, but they only progress upward if I choose to run the gateway content. The sweet spot is probably for Cavalier players. A player that simply never completes Act 6 does not have a strong upward ceiling if they are in a strong alliance. The rewards they are foregoing by not promoting could be significantly offset by gaining access to higher BG rewards. Even if this is only temporary and the player eventually outgrows this, it still represents a significant reward influx until they eventually decide to go for TB/Paragon.
People are already holding off on rank and sig increases to job the matchmaking. No mode should ever promote stagnating your account to make progression easier.
So one suggestion I have that may solve the issue is a combination of a Rating System, and what we have now. Obviously, we would start with Matches that are somewhat within our range of Rosters. Perhaps softer limits than exact Matches. Then, as Players accumulate a certain amount of Rating Points, they are Matched within their Rating Range. Now, this is where it gets complicated. You want higher Players to accelerate, but not so quickly that it gives a total catapult. At the same time, you want Players lower down to advance, but not so quickly they have an advantage within the system. Each Win awards Points. Each Loss reduces Points by half. For example, UC Players win 100 per Win, but lose 50 per Loss. Cav win 200, lose 100. TB win 300, lose 150. Paragon win 400, lose 200. Now, you also want to award skill for those winning above their "paygrade", so-to-speak. Which means Paragon won't benefit from this, but it actually closes the gap enough for it to be not as advantageous. If an UC Player wins against a Cav, they get an extra 50 Points. If they lose, no difference. If they win against a TB, they get an extra 100. If by chance they manage to win against a Paragon, it's 150. Something that would either be rare, or "artificial". Same goes for Cav against TB/Para, with 50 Points or 100 being the bonus. Now, the part that I haven't worked out is whether to have the Brackets a set number, or a continual system like War Tiers. That's one idea I was playing with, in as best terms I can articulate for now.
As stated there's a structural issue. UC players can almost never lose. Whenever they are matched against anyone higher than UC, which is almost everyone, they can only go up, they cannot go down. Meanwhile Paragons face the full brunt of losing in every match, because they will never get the benefit of these over matches.
This is also exploitable in a weird way. Just never promote. I have alts that could have arbitrarily strong rosters by virtue of alliance rewards, but they only progress upward if I choose to run the gateway content. The sweet spot is probably for Cavalier players. A player that simply never completes Act 6 does not have a strong upward ceiling if they are in a strong alliance. The rewards they are foregoing by not promoting could be significantly offset by gaining access to higher BG rewards. Even if this is only temporary and the player eventually outgrows this, it still represents a significant reward influx until they eventually decide to go for TB/Paragon.
This was the suggestion I had made, except replace the bonus points for titles with bonus points for roster strength. If you beat stronger teams you qualify for bonuses. To exploit it you would have to keep from ranking up champs, which would impact your odds of winning (and progress in all other modes of the game).
So one suggestion I have that may solve the issue is a combination of a Rating System, and what we have now. Obviously, we would start with Matches that are somewhat within our range of Rosters. Perhaps softer limits than exact Matches. Then, as Players accumulate a certain amount of Rating Points, they are Matched within their Rating Range. Now, this is where it gets complicated. You want higher Players to accelerate, but not so quickly that it gives a total catapult. At the same time, you want Players lower down to advance, but not so quickly they have an advantage within the system. Each Win awards Points. Each Loss reduces Points by half. For example, UC Players win 100 per Win, but lose 50 per Loss. Cav win 200, lose 100. TB win 300, lose 150. Paragon win 400, lose 200. Now, you also want to award skill for those winning above their "paygrade", so-to-speak. Which means Paragon won't benefit from this, but it actually closes the gap enough for it to be not as advantageous. If an UC Player wins against a Cav, they get an extra 50 Points. If they lose, no difference. If they win against a TB, they get an extra 100. If by chance they manage to win against a Paragon, it's 150. Something that would either be rare, or "artificial". Same goes for Cav against TB/Para, with 50 Points or 100 being the bonus. Now, the part that I haven't worked out is whether to have the Brackets a set number, or a continual system like War Tiers. That's one idea I was playing with, in as best terms I can articulate for now.
As stated there's a structural issue. UC players can almost never lose. Whenever they are matched against anyone higher than UC, which is almost everyone, they can only go up, they cannot go down. Meanwhile Paragons face the full brunt of losing in every match, because they will never get the benefit of these over matches.
This is also exploitable in a weird way. Just never promote. I have alts that could have arbitrarily strong rosters by virtue of alliance rewards, but they only progress upward if I choose to run the gateway content. The sweet spot is probably for Cavalier players. A player that simply never completes Act 6 does not have a strong upward ceiling if they are in a strong alliance. The rewards they are foregoing by not promoting could be significantly offset by gaining access to higher BG rewards. Even if this is only temporary and the player eventually outgrows this, it still represents a significant reward influx until they eventually decide to go for TB/Paragon.
The suggestion was to have a base level for intervened Matches, then at a certain Rating number point, random within the range. Whether that's 200, or 500, or what have you, is variable. I was asked to provide a suggestion, and it's just one idea I was playing around with. I'm open to anything that accommodates my main concern, which I have expressed. As long as there's a starting point that keeps people from being grossly overpowered before the results take over, I'm cool with it. I do have concerns about people trying to take advantage of the system with any suggestion, and that's something that's a priority. What I'm not invested in is the effort to keep Players from getting the Rewards they're earning at any progress level. Not that I necessarily think that's your aim. I've just felt the need to point out how some suggestions are about more than just Rewards. Ideally, we need a system that achieves a number of things. That it a) allows Players a reasonable start b) reflects their results and skills based on their performance c) rewards them for that appropriately as well as in tandem with their skill in the game mode d) prevents as much manipulation as possible, and e) motivates as many Players to participate as possible that are allowed to. It's the "c" aspect that seems to be the emphasized concern, but the other aspects are not arbitrary in my opinion. Obviously perfection doesn't exist and I understand your points about sacrifice. What I don't believe is a "fair" sacrifice is the motivation and appropriate Rewards for lower Players. There's been a great deal of minimizing and distorting the issue, and I agree. It shouldn't be an easy street for lower Players to get Rewards beyond their level. Conversely, it shouldn't be something that higher Players have a way of preventing them from getting Rewards at all, just because it's a competition. Those two sacrifices are not absolute in my opinion. It's reasonable enough to want something that everyone benefits from in the way that's appropriate to where they're at, as well as their performance. The defining factor for me is on Kabam's side on what's appropriate, not popular opinion here. Ask the majority to answer honestly, and they'd say give them as little as possible. That's not reasonable, and it doesn't mean the argument is only about the Rewards just because the point is made.
The defining factor for me is on Kabam's side on what's appropriate, not popular opinion here.
How do you know what Kabam's specific position is here? Even I don't know precisely what that is, and I've discussed this thread with them.
I believe that the devs are making an honest legitimate effort to try to resolve these issues. But they've also made honest legitimate efforts to solve problems in the past that I thought they were completely bonkers to attempt.
I am never as judgmental about the developers as most people around here, but I am very judgmental about their work, which is completely different. I may be rooting for Kabam as people, but I can't support a solution that Kabam hasn't actually described or released yet. It could be great (free revives was great, although I'm probably a bit biased), it could be good enough (defender diversity with attack bonuses was a good enough solution) or it can be completely dumb (their original stacking balance modifications post 12.0 were mathematically illiterate).
I get that your posted suggestion may have not been precise about details. But I think we're past the point of just throwing out ideas. Every idea has already been thrown out, if we assume all the details are completely negotiable. In fact, many suggestions aren't even suggestions, they are just directives. For example: just preserve progress while keeping match making fair and allowing a path to regain track rewards. I mean, that's great, but is there a way to do that? Is there a way to do what you're describing with numbers different from the ones you mention? It is never a safe presumption that the numbers will always work out. Some suggestions have a problem with the numbers because *no* numbers will ever work, so while the numbers are often negotiable to a point, it is important to produce an example that at least theoretically works at all, even if it is not optimal.
The defining factor for me is on Kabam's side on what's appropriate, not popular opinion here.
How do you know what Kabam's specific position is here? Even I don't know precisely what that is, and I've discussed this thread with them.
I believe that the devs are making an honest legitimate effort to try to resolve these issues. But they've also made honest legitimate efforts to solve problems in the past that I thought they were completely bonkers to attempt.
I am never as judgmental about the developers as most people around here, but I am very judgmental about their work, which is completely different. I may be rooting for Kabam as people, but I can't support a solution that Kabam hasn't actually described or released yet. It could be great (free revives was great, although I'm probably a bit biased), it could be good enough (defender diversity with attack bonuses was a good enough solution) or it can be completely dumb (their original stacking balance modifications post 12.0 were mathematically illiterate).
I get that your posted suggestion may have not been precise about details. But I think we're past the point of just throwing out ideas. Every idea has already been thrown out, if we assume all the details are completely negotiable. In fact, many suggestions aren't even suggestions, they are just directives. For example: just preserve progress while keeping match making fair and allowing a path to regain track rewards. I mean, that's great, but is there a way to do that? Is there a way to do what you're describing with numbers different from the ones you mention? It is never a safe presumption that the numbers will always work out. Some suggestions have a problem with the numbers because *no* numbers will ever work, so while the numbers are often negotiable to a point, it is important to produce an example that at least theoretically works at all, even if it is not optimal.
I don't. What I'm saying is I would rather rely on what their judgment is for appropriate Rewards for lower Players is than make that the result of popular opinion. There's been a great deal of discussion on what other Players *should* get, and that's not something I trust other Players to determine. Again, I don't necessarily put you in that category. I just think it's important to filter what's best for the system from what people deem is appropriate for other Players. I don't really feel the need to direct that to Kabam, but if the suggestion comes at a large detriment to them, I'm going to point it out. Some people are competitive. To the point that they not only want to speak to what's fair for them, they also want to have a say on what people under them deserve. That's not necessarily altruistic in my view. Not always. It needs to be appropriate for everyone. Not just grossly beneficial to a small number.
Which isn't directed at your suggestions, for the record. That's why I don't wholly agree with some suggestions. It's about what's best for all, not keeping others from making any progress at all. Different objectives than some.
*Also, I offered the suggestion at the request of someone else. I'm not aiming for anything with it. I've avoided the comparison to War for a reason. I have strong feelings about what it's become, and they're not just rooted in the lack of "Prestige Wars". I do not agree that it's a success as much as some. People have lost interest, and not just in the general sense. People that used to love War and feel motivated have lost the desire at all to play, people who have been playing the game for years. They just don't care anymore. It's become something that is more stress than it's worth, and that's not just a "Git gud." scenario for me. Once you sacrifice that desire, it takes more than just Revs to bring it back. I won't feel confident in what it's become until that shifts and unfortunately, people don't just suddenly become interested again. That's what I've been trying to say all along. If you take their desire, they stop caring. That's a serious situation, whether Players are on the upper or lower end.
I asked the question previously because deciding how to restructure BGs is hard when you have to state specifics.
As @DNA3000 notes, outlining general principles is an armchair exercise. I can readily say what I don’t want in BGs based on what I consider undesirable outcomes. For instance, here are six *principles* I generally support (and I think most others might as well):
1. I don’t want a system that rewards newer, less developed rosters at the expense of deeper, more developed rosters. 2. I don’t want cheaters to be able to claim ranks or rewards for the season they cheated or to participate at all in the next season. 3. I don’t want a system that causes smaller accounts to suffer and quit any more than I want one that causes deeper, more developed accounts to quit. 4. I don’t want BGs to be the predominant and quickest way to acquire valuable materials and advance in game. 5. I don’t want BGs to unduly penalize players for rankups done to advance in other areas of the game. 6. I don’t want players to be able to manipulate matchmaking by dropping low rarity champs into their BG decks (unless they are penalized directly for doing so).
To me these seem pretty unobjectionable, but I’m sure there will always be objections. What’s hard is deciding precisely how to realize these principles in actuality. Is it ELO? Is it a modified version of silos? Is it prestige or deck-based matchmaking? Do people get seeded or a head start based on previous seasons? Do small accounts only face each other the entire season, or just for a while?
Answering those questions is the hard part. In fact, answering some of them positively may very well require you to answer others negatively—there are few perfect solutions, but always trade-offs. To date, the only person I can point to who has tried to answer those questions. @DNA3000 offered concrete suggestions—I don’t put a cent’s worth of stock in my own or anyone else’s generic armchair pronouncements.
That's entirely up to you. I also have a great deal of respect for DNA's input. That doesn't mean that I'm always going to be a "yes man". Meaning, if there are aspects I disagree with, I'm going to verbalize that. Everyone has ideas and views. That's what we're here to discuss.
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Funny you are at work and manage to micro answer me and others.. but Zola has to wait; I really hope you are not avoiding him, cause he really is trying to see a positive side to your ideas
Any mode that allows players to avoid playing others is not a competitive mode IMO.
Except that actually ignores how difficulty is designed in EQ (and in many if not most similar games). I think there is a misconception that the way EQ is designed is with absolute parameters. The devs "believe" Uncollected should have a certain difficulty, and the content is designed to attempt to have this chosen difficulty. But that's not how difficulty is designed, at least not in the large scale. Rather, difficulty is designed relative to the playerbase. To put it in terms most would be familiar with, EQ is graded on a curve. There's a presumption that content that is appropriate to Cavalier players will have some success rate when attempted by the average Cavalier player. That success rate is not 100%. If you think Cav is too hard, it might be because they tweaked it too high this month, but then next month will be tweaked downward to compensate when they see the game data. But if you *consistently* think Cav is too hard, that's because all the other Cav players are just better than you, and the content difficulty has been tweaked for them.
To put it another way, in EQ there are also winners and losers. Its just less obvious. But no matter how tough the class is and no matter how hard the final is, someone is getting the A and someone else is getting the D. This just typically happens invisibly. It didn't happen invisibly when they completely revamped EQ.
If I understand what you're saying, I don't think this allows us to arbitrarily open the floodgates to random match making. On the one hand, it does reward players who find themselves on the lower end of an uneven match up, but it only rewards them if they win. If players consistently get matched against stronger roster players and consistently lose, that would cause a lot of frustration. But also, a super strong player that gets unlucky and matched against significantly weaker opponents will actually have to grind out a lot more wins to advance.
Typically, whenever we discuss ELO matching, we are presuming that the whole idea of using ELO is to actually find even matches - that the goal is to attempt to match players against other players with similar ELO. However, your idea does open the door to examining that assumption more closely. Here's a spitball: suppose we implement ELO but instead of matching by similar ELO we borrowed a feature from the arena. We propose to the player three possible matches: even, somewhat higher, somewhat lower. Whichever one the player picks, the game goes looking for that.
If the player picks even, the game looks for an even match. If the player asks for higher, the game looks for a stronger opponent. What if the player asks for weaker? Well, you might think that would be a kind of cheating, because we're letting the player pick a lower difficulty. But the game will only make such a match if that player *asks* for "higher." In other words, the only time a 1500 will face an 1800 is if the 1800 asks for lower and the 1500 asks for higher, so *both* players are getting exactly what they ask for. Neither side can complain.
*Now* we slap your points system on top of this. We incentivize asking for higher by rewarding more points. But you're only going to get those extra points if you can find a higher player that asks for lower. This match up is now "fair" because both players asked for it, so by definition neither side can complain. And now we are offering a high player a chance to get an easier win but for less points and we are also offering a low player a chance to get more points by picking off a higher player. We combine this with roster matching for the case where we do not yet have reliable rating for a player, so in the early stages of a season "higher" and "lower" would mean roster, and then deeper in "higher" and "lower" would mean higher and lower rating.
I can see a lot of problems with such a system, from match making density issues to psychological problems with players asking for "lower" and only running into players strong enough to ask for "higher" and still win. This is a very half-baked idea. But I think it is worth thinking about, if for no other reason than it theoretically - if it can be made to work at all - puts more agency into players hands in a way no reasonable player could complain about. It reverts to fair ELO matching if no one chooses the alternate match options, and uneven match ups only happen if both sides want it to happen. It might be completely broken, but it sounds intriguing.
Beating a Paragon gains 3 tokens
Beating a TB gains 2 tokens
Beating a UC or Cav gains 1 token
Losing is always a loss of 1 token
You could keep matchmaking as it is but reward those who are able to beat the best competition and help them progress more quickly. You also give lower accounts that get matched vs someone bigger than them a chance to really benefit from beating them.
Consider also that losses actually almost don't matter at all for Paragons who match against each other. Say I just arrived in Gold 3, and my next match is against a Paragon. If I lose, I lose nothing, because at the moment I have no trophies. If I win, I will instantly promote to G2, where I will again have no trophies. So long as I match against Paragons, I will be very rapidly propelled to Diamond 1. If you think about it, for losses to matter at all promotion would need to take at least four trophies at all levels, and realistically probably at least five or six. Which would then be doubling the trophies necessary for progress for UC and Cav players. Some of them are progressing quickly and could overcome that increase, but many other average UC and Cav players would be getting crushed by that adjustment.
Your though experiment only highlights one side of the issue. But BG is two sided. You are saying X fights DNA and the match difficulty depends on how strong DNA is. Which is true in most solo content. But in BG, when DNA fights X, X also fights DNA. There are two match difficulties DNA's view of X and X's view of DNA. The match result is the difference of these two. If X's reward must go up as DNA gets stronger, should DNA's rewards also go down in response?
You can say there are no easy matches in competition. Smaller accounts should suck it up and face the bigger ones. Which is fair. But those smaller accounts need to be compensated/incentivized for participation, I don't think the top heavy nature of BG rewards support that. Hence the every two day objective of just play 3 matches. If you open up matchmaking further, I think participation rewards will need to go up.
Huge account differences within the same title pools.
There are TB with one r3, there are TB with nearly full or full r3 decks.
There are Paragons with 3 r4s and can’t even fill a deck with r3s, and there are Paragons with full r5/r4 decks.
Title is a quite inaccurate metric of roster strength, same as is Prestige or rating.
Rather than matchmaking or anything else, the token system in VT needs to change.
65% win ratio needed to advance (in a pace that make the time/resources to rewards ratio worthy) is lethal for the mode.
At least a 50% (imo something around 40%) should be enough to progress through VT.
That would take out the frustration players feel at VT.
BGs are already in the death spiral.
Participation this season was lower.
And before someone jump in and ask from where my data is from, I’ll give the answer in advance:
GC standings used to be filled to URU3 from week2 in previous seasons, this season it got filled literally the last week.
Also, I scored less points at BGs solo event and got higher bracket rewards compared to last season.
BGs are slowly dying, and the main reason is VT.
Kabam needs to change things, not in the future, but on the upcoming season, if they want the mode to continue alive.
Else BGs will become Incursions 2.0
I agree somewhat that separating by Titles is problematic, although I considered the OP's suggestion deeply. I think it would be more punitive to Cavs than anything, along with DNA's view on it being too advantageous.
However, I do feel the need to point out that people are going to struggle when they're new to the Title either way. They're in a new pool, of sorts. It's going to happen.
From a game design perspective, there is no fundamental difference between having to defeat a defender and having to beat a BG score. Beating a defender is reducing defender health to zero before your health reaches zero. These two scenarios are mathematically congruent. I spent years analyzing and comparing game systems on this fundamental basis, but a full discussion of that would be a very wide side track.
With respect to EQ vs. BG. I don't lose a EQ quest if you can beat the defenders faster. I have played some really poor BG games, and then won those because my opponent was even more incompetent. That is the source of discontent in BG. That someone else gets to play less competent opponents. Or worse, that they are the incompetent opponents for someone else.
The difference between playing you and a bot that plays like you is that you are on the other side - either winning or losing. Make it lopsided enough and one of us will walk away. The bot doesn't have that choice.
But the primary issue is that the +1/-1 system is too punitive. The win/loss points system should be flexible enough that a repeated WLWL streak lets you move forward in VT rather than keeps you stagnant. The secondary issue is that the system doesn't recognize the difference between easy wins and tough ones. It incentivizes people to seek easy matches vs. fair matches (individual). A system which promotes some fairness in match-ups while maintaining the integrity of the broader competition is what most people would be happy about.
You want people to chose to play off against the players they are equal to. And then reward them with appropriate progress for doing so.
Everything you're mentioning are indeed things my thought experiment does not address, but deliberately so because I was referencing the converse perspective directly.
It's a complicated and big sized issue. And people are doing their best.
I appreciated and enjoyed your thoughts and responses.
So one suggestion I have that may solve the issue is a combination of a Rating System, and what we have now.
Obviously, we would start with Matches that are somewhat within our range of Rosters. Perhaps softer limits than exact Matches.
Then, as Players accumulate a certain amount of Rating Points, they are Matched within their Rating Range.
Now, this is where it gets complicated. You want higher Players to accelerate, but not so quickly that it gives a total catapult. At the same time, you want Players lower down to advance, but not so quickly they have an advantage within the system.
Each Win awards Points. Each Loss reduces Points by half. For example, UC Players win 100 per Win, but lose 50 per Loss. Cav win 200, lose 100. TB win 300, lose 150. Paragon win 400, lose 200.
Now, you also want to award skill for those winning above their "paygrade", so-to-speak. Which means Paragon won't benefit from this, but it actually closes the gap enough for it to be not as advantageous.
If an UC Player wins against a Cav, they get an extra 50 Points. If they lose, no difference. If they win against a TB, they get an extra 100. If by chance they manage to win against a Paragon, it's 150. Something that would either be rare, or "artificial".
Same goes for Cav against TB/Para, with 50 Points or 100 being the bonus.
Now, the part that I haven't worked out is whether to have the Brackets a set number, or a continual system like War Tiers.
That's one idea I was playing with, in as best terms I can articulate for now.
This is also exploitable in a weird way. Just never promote. I have alts that could have arbitrarily strong rosters by virtue of alliance rewards, but they only progress upward if I choose to run the gateway content. The sweet spot is probably for Cavalier players. A player that simply never completes Act 6 does not have a strong upward ceiling if they are in a strong alliance. The rewards they are foregoing by not promoting could be significantly offset by gaining access to higher BG rewards. Even if this is only temporary and the player eventually outgrows this, it still represents a significant reward influx until they eventually decide to go for TB/Paragon.
I was asked to provide a suggestion, and it's just one idea I was playing around with.
I'm open to anything that accommodates my main concern, which I have expressed. As long as there's a starting point that keeps people from being grossly overpowered before the results take over, I'm cool with it.
I do have concerns about people trying to take advantage of the system with any suggestion, and that's something that's a priority. What I'm not invested in is the effort to keep Players from getting the Rewards they're earning at any progress level. Not that I necessarily think that's your aim. I've just felt the need to point out how some suggestions are about more than just Rewards.
Ideally, we need a system that achieves a number of things. That it a) allows Players a reasonable start b) reflects their results and skills based on their performance c) rewards them for that appropriately as well as in tandem with their skill in the game mode d) prevents as much manipulation as possible, and e) motivates as many Players to participate as possible that are allowed to. It's the "c" aspect that seems to be the emphasized concern, but the other aspects are not arbitrary in my opinion.
Obviously perfection doesn't exist and I understand your points about sacrifice. What I don't believe is a "fair" sacrifice is the motivation and appropriate Rewards for lower Players. There's been a great deal of minimizing and distorting the issue, and I agree. It shouldn't be an easy street for lower Players to get Rewards beyond their level. Conversely, it shouldn't be something that higher Players have a way of preventing them from getting Rewards at all, just because it's a competition. Those two sacrifices are not absolute in my opinion. It's reasonable enough to want something that everyone benefits from in the way that's appropriate to where they're at, as well as their performance.
The defining factor for me is on Kabam's side on what's appropriate, not popular opinion here. Ask the majority to answer honestly, and they'd say give them as little as possible. That's not reasonable, and it doesn't mean the argument is only about the Rewards just because the point is made.
I believe that the devs are making an honest legitimate effort to try to resolve these issues. But they've also made honest legitimate efforts to solve problems in the past that I thought they were completely bonkers to attempt.
I am never as judgmental about the developers as most people around here, but I am very judgmental about their work, which is completely different. I may be rooting for Kabam as people, but I can't support a solution that Kabam hasn't actually described or released yet. It could be great (free revives was great, although I'm probably a bit biased), it could be good enough (defender diversity with attack bonuses was a good enough solution) or it can be completely dumb (their original stacking balance modifications post 12.0 were mathematically illiterate).
I get that your posted suggestion may have not been precise about details. But I think we're past the point of just throwing out ideas. Every idea has already been thrown out, if we assume all the details are completely negotiable. In fact, many suggestions aren't even suggestions, they are just directives. For example: just preserve progress while keeping match making fair and allowing a path to regain track rewards. I mean, that's great, but is there a way to do that? Is there a way to do what you're describing with numbers different from the ones you mention? It is never a safe presumption that the numbers will always work out. Some suggestions have a problem with the numbers because *no* numbers will ever work, so while the numbers are often negotiable to a point, it is important to produce an example that at least theoretically works at all, even if it is not optimal.
It needs to be appropriate for everyone. Not just grossly beneficial to a small number.
I've avoided the comparison to War for a reason. I have strong feelings about what it's become, and they're not just rooted in the lack of "Prestige Wars". I do not agree that it's a success as much as some. People have lost interest, and not just in the general sense. People that used to love War and feel motivated have lost the desire at all to play, people who have been playing the game for years. They just don't care anymore. It's become something that is more stress than it's worth, and that's not just a "Git gud." scenario for me.
Once you sacrifice that desire, it takes more than just Revs to bring it back. I won't feel confident in what it's become until that shifts and unfortunately, people don't just suddenly become interested again. That's what I've been trying to say all along. If you take their desire, they stop caring. That's a serious situation, whether Players are on the upper or lower end.
As @DNA3000 notes, outlining general principles is an armchair exercise. I can readily say what I don’t want in BGs based on what I consider undesirable outcomes. For instance, here are six *principles* I generally support (and I think most others might as well):
1. I don’t want a system that rewards newer, less developed rosters at the expense of deeper, more developed rosters.
2. I don’t want cheaters to be able to claim ranks or rewards for the season they cheated or to participate at all in the next season.
3. I don’t want a system that causes smaller accounts to suffer and quit any more than I want one that causes deeper, more developed accounts to quit.
4. I don’t want BGs to be the predominant and quickest way to acquire valuable materials and advance in game.
5. I don’t want BGs to unduly penalize players for rankups done to advance in other areas of the game.
6. I don’t want players to be able to manipulate matchmaking by dropping low rarity champs into their BG decks (unless they are penalized directly for doing so).
To me these seem pretty unobjectionable, but I’m sure there will always be objections. What’s hard is deciding precisely how to realize these principles in actuality. Is it ELO? Is it a modified version of silos? Is it prestige or deck-based matchmaking? Do people get seeded or a head start based on previous seasons? Do small accounts only face each other the entire season, or just for a while?
Answering those questions is the hard part. In fact, answering some of them positively may very well require you to answer others negatively—there are few perfect solutions, but always trade-offs. To date, the only person I can point to who has tried to answer those questions. @DNA3000 offered concrete suggestions—I don’t put a cent’s worth of stock in my own or anyone else’s generic armchair pronouncements.
Dr. Zola