You're not presenting facts. You're presenting that your intention is keeping Players from progressing more than what's best overall
I presented facts about why there are 5 tiers on each side of Plat2, I presented facts about seeding, I presented facts about over crowding in GC lower tiers when the change was implemented. You not acknowledging is a total different issue.
You presented the effects of the Token system before seeding existed. Which I pointed out that was pre-seeding. You ignored that point. The amount of Tiers before Plat 2 hasn't changed. That's not an issue, and it isn't what I am talking about. You're holding your own discussion and dodging the points that have been made. That doesn't constitute facts. You could just as easily say you disagree. Instead you're repeatedly trying to cause a disruption.
Really? You are going to accuse me of causing disruption? The person holding the record for disagreements on the forums?... You don't like the facts they are frustratjng for you, that's why the game mode is frustrating FOR YOU Still waiting for the moment you stop having a conversation with me Captain Nitpick
I don't think you understand the range of Players I'm talking about.
Why do you think that you speak for anyone besides yourself? Who voted to make you the voice of the low player? Stop hiding behind the "I'm not talking about myself" garbage and stand by your statements.
It needs to go back to +2 -1 NOW. The enjoyment of the mode has been sucked dry this season. It’s absolutely horrible.
I could understand asking for literally anything else to change except this. Players' win rates evening out to 50% is the exact way that Ranked competitive game designers know they've made a good system. It's a constant for a reason. It literally just means that you are as strong as everyone else in your tier.
Asking for "strength" to be determined by skill rather than roster size is much more reasonable, though I doubt Kabam will ever go for that.
The victory track shouldn’t be a ranked competitive mode. That’s what gladiator circuit is
But how are you going to reward participation while still requiring that players work on their skill and their roster growth in order to succeed?
The Victory Track is, and likely will always be, a ranked competitive mode. They've said before that they are not interested in just making another Arena. As long as the Victory Track exists, players will be rewarded most of all for being stronger than their competition and least of all simply for participating. That's how it remains a competition. If you don't want it to be a competition, then you're asking for a separate game mode entirely. Something more like Arena.
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
How many times are you guys gonna clog up the forums with GW vs. Everyone arguments lol this is seriously starting to get old, same arguments again and again and again. Just agree to disagree and move on, every single time I open a BGs thread it's the same back and forth between the same people: "I'm right" "no, I'm right" 💀
How many times are you guys gonna clog up the forums with GW vs. Everyone arguments lol this is seriously starting to get old, same arguments again and again and again. Just agree to disagree and move on, every single time I open a BGs thread it's the same back and forth between the same people: "I'm right" "no, I'm right" 💀
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I've made that case a number of times, among the people trolling me. I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far. I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against. What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers. No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game. As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
How many times are you guys gonna clog up the forums with GW vs. Everyone arguments lol this is seriously starting to get old, same arguments again and again and again. Just agree to disagree and move on, every single time I open a BGs thread it's the same back and forth between the same people: "I'm right" "no, I'm right" 💀
You are wrong (lol jk)
Lol no you're wrong. Seriously though, I try not to argue with GW because this is exactly what happens, there's just no point.
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I've made that case a number of times, among the people trolling me. I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far. I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against. What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers. No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game. As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
So 2 tokens per win till Diamond and only Vibranium III/II/I should be one token per win. Is that it?
There are players with 4 different progression levels in BG. Would 3 tiers be sufficient to create homogenous groups where win-rates stabilise at 50%? If they don't we'll be back to most people being in BG, which devs are clearly against.
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I've made that case a number of times, among the people trolling me. I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far. I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against. What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers. No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game. As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
So 2 tokens per win till Diamond and only Vibranium III/II/I should be one token per win. Is that it?
There are players with 4 different progression levels in BG. Would 3 tiers be sufficient to create homogenous groups where win-rates stabilise at 50%? If they don't we'll be back to most people being in BG, which devs are clearly against.
That's the suggestion. Considering everyone meets everyone else from around Plat 2 up, and seeding starts everyone around there, yes.
I like how a "less frustrating" system of 2-1 coin is supposedly better, even though it will send more meat and faster to the big roster bad wolf players to just take advantage of them.
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I've made that case a number of times, among the people trolling me. I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far. I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against. What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers. No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game. As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
So 2 tokens per win till Diamond and only Vibranium III/II/I should be one token per win. Is that it?
There are players with 4 different progression levels in BG. Would 3 tiers be sufficient to create homogenous groups where win-rates stabilise at 50%? If they don't we'll be back to most people being in BG, which devs are clearly against.
In a few words let the people who start at Plat1 (previous season GC players) deal with the 1:1 system. I'm starting to feel the proposition is a little biased against GC people. Being called big bad wolves, getting this type of a deal on changes... someone hates big accounts (Not talking about you @Stature)
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I've made that case a number of times, among the people trolling me. I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far. I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against. What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers. No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game. As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
So 2 tokens per win till Diamond and only Vibranium III/II/I should be one token per win. Is that it?
There are players with 4 different progression levels in BG. Would 3 tiers be sufficient to create homogenous groups where win-rates stabilise at 50%? If they don't we'll be back to most people being in BG, which devs are clearly against.
That's the suggestion. Considering everyone meets everyone else from around Plat 2 up, and seeding starts everyone around there, yes.
Fine, that's a start. So you want a 2-1 scoring system till Vibranium.
I would say there is zero chance of this being implemented. But more importantly, why is this needed and what does this achieve other than make most of VT grindable?
You need to have an answer to the why. If the idea is to just make it easier to progress through VT, you have to explain why that is needed. Facts, numbers, data or even anecdotes of actual experience, something other than hyperbole or broad statements. Can't just be that 'it's my opinion'. You are asking for someone to put in the work to redesigning BGs, you need to provide a justification for that effort.
I respect you trying to be helpful with them, no doubt. Telling them their views aren't going to make a difference, in more or less words, is not something I stand for.
I understand it is hot outside, but throwing water into the air will not put out the Sun.
But I fear the team still doesn’t have it all fixed. As I noted above, I’ve yet to run across one of the “little lambs” that need defending in my progress to GC, even though what appear to be hundreds of them beat me out of the VT. If there is ELO in GC, it also may not be working as I would assume it would—once again, my matches there have pretty much been the same level of competition as my matches in VT.
Given the sheer number of lower rated accounts with zero points when I hit GC, I am surprised I met none of them (as well as a couple of other similar GC players I spoke with). That may have all been just randomness in ELO matching, but it surely seems odd.
Not necessarily. Most of those low progress accounts are unlikely to make it very far in GC, and because GC has no safety net preventing going down most of them will congregate at or near the bottom, which is what you would expect with ELO matching. Because there are so many of them there, you're very likely to match against them than in VT, where it is possible to miss them when they are the minority and not the majority of players at that tier.
It is possible the match maker is bugged, and continuing to use progression and/or roster strength in the VT match criteria long past P2, or maybe it isn't bugged and Kabam did that deliberately and just not say (they do not announce their tweaks to the system as they make them by policy) but I haven't seen enough yet to be sure. I am trying to climb both my main and my Cav alt to GC (or as best I can) this season to investigate further, but I may not get far enough with the alt this season to be sure (its still in Platinum at the moment for lack of time).
But I fear the team still doesn’t have it all fixed. As I noted above, I’ve yet to run across one of the “little lambs” that need defending in my progress to GC, even though what appear to be hundreds of them beat me out of the VT. If there is ELO in GC, it also may not be working as I would assume it would—once again, my matches there have pretty much been the same level of competition as my matches in VT.
Given the sheer number of lower rated accounts with zero points when I hit GC, I am surprised I met none of them (as well as a couple of other similar GC players I spoke with). That may have all been just randomness in ELO matching, but it surely seems odd.
Not necessarily. Most of those low progress accounts are unlikely to make it very far in GC, and because GC has no safety net preventing going down most of them will congregate at or near the bottom, which is what you would expect with ELO matching. Because there are so many of them there, you're very likely to match against them than in VT, where it is possible to miss them when they are the minority and not the majority of players at that tier.
It is possible the match maker is bugged, and continuing to use progression and/or roster strength in the VT match criteria long past P2, or maybe it isn't bugged and Kabam did that deliberately and just not say (they do not announce their tweaks to the system as they make them by policy) but I haven't seen enough yet to be sure. I am trying to climb both my main and my Cav alt to GC (or as best I can) this season to investigate further, but I may not get far enough with the alt this season to be sure (its still in Platinum at the moment for lack of time).
Well, whether it is bugged or an unannounced feature of the revised matchmaking (can’t think of a third option, but there may be one), existence of chunks of lower rated accounts in GC seems at odds with flat recent statements like this one:
I suppose there’s a tiny bit of wiggle room there with the word “among,” but I think it’s fair to say that most players understood the current formula (as explained weeks ago) meant that with seeding everyone became fair game at Platinum, regardless of account size or deck. If that isn’t exactly how it works, it’s probably reasonable to offer a revision.
But I fear the team still doesn’t have it all fixed. As I noted above, I’ve yet to run across one of the “little lambs” that need defending in my progress to GC, even though what appear to be hundreds of them beat me out of the VT. If there is ELO in GC, it also may not be working as I would assume it would—once again, my matches there have pretty much been the same level of competition as my matches in VT.
Given the sheer number of lower rated accounts with zero points when I hit GC, I am surprised I met none of them (as well as a couple of other similar GC players I spoke with). That may have all been just randomness in ELO matching, but it surely seems odd.
Not necessarily. Most of those low progress accounts are unlikely to make it very far in GC, and because GC has no safety net preventing going down most of them will congregate at or near the bottom, which is what you would expect with ELO matching. Because there are so many of them there, you're very likely to match against them than in VT, where it is possible to miss them when they are the minority and not the majority of players at that tier.
It is possible the match maker is bugged, and continuing to use progression and/or roster strength in the VT match criteria long past P2, or maybe it isn't bugged and Kabam did that deliberately and just not say (they do not announce their tweaks to the system as they make them by policy) but I haven't seen enough yet to be sure. I am trying to climb both my main and my Cav alt to GC (or as best I can) this season to investigate further, but I may not get far enough with the alt this season to be sure (its still in Platinum at the moment for lack of time).
Well, whether it is bugged or an unannounced feature of the revised matchmaking (can’t think of a third option, but there may be one), existence of chunks of lower rated accounts in GC seems at odds with flat recent statements like this one:
That statement is a general statement, but as we are in season eleven there are dynamics involved that mean the mode might take a while to get there.
There is a third possibility that occurred to me. Since this is the first season with actual seeded placement (season ten being the first season where seeding was being introduced) there could have been a lot of low progress players that got very high in season ten and were then placed high in this season. Under ordinary circumstances they would have had to fight through a lot of stronger players to move up in VT, but imagine if the low progress players knew that, and decided to simply blast out of the gate as fast as possible. If an equal number of high and low progress players were dedicated enough to start doing tons of matches right at the start of the season, then there would have been a much higher probability that those low progress accounts would match against each other, and thus progress higher. Once the VT ladder fills up, going fast is problematic, but on day one hour zero going fast does have advantages.
It is possible that the number of low progress accounts that make it into GC will drop over time as this shakes out, because without doing an involved simulation to calculate this all out, it is possible there's a decay factor that will cut the average number of low progress accounts that make it into GC by some fraction every season. Analogous to the notion that when roster matching was in place, half of all low roster players had to win, and thus some percentage had to promote, no matter how strong they were. Maybe we're seeing the reverse: the new structure and seeding will make it harder for low progress players to rise as high as they used to, but their sheer numbers mean some will still get by, and BG can only reduce that number by some fraction with each season.
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I've made that case a number of times, among the people trolling me. I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far. I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against. What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers. No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game. As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
So 2 tokens per win till Diamond and only Vibranium III/II/I should be one token per win. Is that it?
There are players with 4 different progression levels in BG. Would 3 tiers be sufficient to create homogenous groups where win-rates stabilise at 50%? If they don't we'll be back to most people being in BG, which devs are clearly against.
That's the suggestion. Considering everyone meets everyone else from around Plat 2 up, and seeding starts everyone around there, yes.
Fine, that's a start. So you want a 2-1 scoring system till Vibranium.
I would say there is zero chance of this being implemented. But more importantly, why is this needed and what does this achieve other than make most of VT grindable?
You need to have an answer to the why. If the idea is to just make it easier to progress through VT, you have to explain why that is needed. Facts, numbers, data or even anecdotes of actual experience, something other than hyperbole or broad statements. Can't just be that 'it's my opinion'. You are asking for someone to put in the work to redesigning BGs, you need to provide a justification for that effort.
This is a Fourm for discussing a game. I don't need hours of research, facts, citing, data, or scientific findings just to suggest something. It's based on experience, sure. Both in BGs, and in other areas of the game. I started Bronze 1 because last Season, I disagreed with the changes to Tokens enough not to bother. This Season, I said I'll give it a go anyway, and it was just as I suspected. It's an absolute slog. Unnecessarily.
I respect you trying to be helpful with them, no doubt. Telling them their views aren't going to make a difference, in more or less words, is not something I stand for.
I understand it is hot outside, but throwing water into the air will not put out the Sun.
The moon appears full every month, but it hasn't changed size at all.
I don't see that perspective. It isn't going to make them get stuck faster. Nor would it prevent them from hitting their plateau.
In a 1-1 system people will remain at the tier when they hit a plateau. Not just because they have a 50% win-rate but everyone around them will also have a 50% win-rate. There is an equilibrium to be achieved, it might take a while for that 50% win rate to be evenly distributed, but you can get there.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I've made that case a number of times, among the people trolling me. I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far. I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against. What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers. No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game. As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
So 2 tokens per win till Diamond and only Vibranium III/II/I should be one token per win. Is that it?
There are players with 4 different progression levels in BG. Would 3 tiers be sufficient to create homogenous groups where win-rates stabilise at 50%? If they don't we'll be back to most people being in BG, which devs are clearly against.
That's the suggestion. Considering everyone meets everyone else from around Plat 2 up, and seeding starts everyone around there, yes.
Fine, that's a start. So you want a 2-1 scoring system till Vibranium.
I would say there is zero chance of this being implemented. But more importantly, why is this needed and what does this achieve other than make most of VT grindable?
You need to have an answer to the why. If the idea is to just make it easier to progress through VT, you have to explain why that is needed. Facts, numbers, data or even anecdotes of actual experience, something other than hyperbole or broad statements. Can't just be that 'it's my opinion'. You are asking for someone to put in the work to redesigning BGs, you need to provide a justification for that effort.
This is a Fourm for discussing a game. I don't need hours of research, facts, citing, data, or scientific findings just to suggest something. It's based on experience, sure. Both in BGs, and in other areas of the game. I started Bronze 1 because last Season, I disagreed with the changes to Tokens enough not to bother. This Season, I said I'll give it a go anyway, and it was just as I suspected. It's an absolute slog. Unnecessarily.
My main account is almost certainly much stronger than yours, started in P1, and has taken 31 matches to reach Vibranium 3 with a 74% win percentage.
My cavalier account is almost certainly much weaker than yours, started in Silver 2 this season, and has taken 22 matches to reach Platinum 3 with a 77% win percentage. And this is just the halfway point of the season.
My win percentage in season eight was closer to 40%, so I'm not the world's greatest Battlegrounds player. I might, however, be one of the smarter ones, as the primary thing I changed between season eight and season eleven is not deck (they are both slightly better due to rank ups over time) and not skill (although I'm probably slightly better due to having more practice). It is playing smartly. When I say "if you're losing take a break" I don't just preach that, I practice that. And while you keep saying that's not a "solution" it seems to work for me. It would probably work for most people willing to listen.
Pushing when you're losing is stubborn, as is arguing against slowing down before trying it. Stubborn only works if you're extremely good, extremely focused, or extremely undaunted. For most players, BG is only a slog if they want it to be. For those players, BG is not unnecessarily a slog. It is necessarily a slog, so as to not reward poor play or poor decision making.
Honestly TLDR my biggest gripe is you want to invest energy or units in game mode that like running into a brick wall after a certain tier this just doesn’t make sense to the average player so it feed the rich get richer mentality of this game. Honestly i play BG i get what i get and don’t throw a fit. But from a marketing side of things it just seems like a very top ended business model hoping a small percentage of player carry the weight. To consider is better to have 10 people but a 100$ deal or get 100 people to buy a 10$ deal and encourage spending with value to those who pay. Just something to consider. Better odds that 100 peeps will occasionally spend more than 10 people.
Proven more harm than good, with the absence of seeding. That's what you're ignoring.
That's just incorrect. It's been proven countless times to be more good than harm. It's a system designed with the express intention of the letting the system decide what's fair. Not the developers, not the players, the system itself says that this is fair. And your argument is that it's more harm than good, but you're refusing to reference the sources I gave you. Teams of people wrote breakdowns on why the system is designed this way.
Let's break this down:
It's just undeniable that players maintaining a 50% win rate are average in their league. That means they're winning against the bottom half and losing against the top half.
So, in simplest terms, 50% = average, less than 50% = below average, greater than 50% = above average.
In a +2/-1 system, the most average player will progress to the next tier simply by maintaining a 50% win rate for 10 games or by maintaining a 100% win rate for 3, then a 0% win rate for 3, averaging at 50%.
So let's say Timmy, a player in Vib 3 with a 50% win rate and a 1.4 mil account, wins 3 in a row due to being matched with the bottom 20% of Vib 3. This progresses Timmy to Vib 2 due to the +2/-1 system with a 5 coin requirement. Now, the most average player in Vib 2 has a 50% win rate and a 2 million account. Timmy's win rate drops to 35% due to being outmatched in this new league.
Timmy then makes forum post after forum post complaining about matchmaking. He can't complete objectives because he's losing 75% of his fights and he keeps matching with 1.8 mil-2.2 million rating accounts. Now, since Timmy has an underdeveloped roster and takes up spots at the bottom 35% of Vib 2, a player with a 40% win rate can beat him in order to progress to Vib 1.
Under leveled accounts would be invading the higher levels, completely throwing off win rates, giving easy wins to the players who previously would've had a 50% win rate, but now have a 65% win rate due to players like Timmy feeding them wins. Timmy's situation would be happening to hundreds, if not thousands of players.
It doesn't work.
That's literally what we have now. The lowest Players are being fed to the wolves at Plat and up, being tossed around for Tanking, and told to Git Gud because it's a competition. Meanwhile, they're not only required to overcome the wolves to advance, they need 10 Tiers of consecutive Wins to get out of the VT. 10 Tiers of going up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, etc. How long do you think it will last before people get tired of making little to no progress and being told to suck it up? I'll give you a hint. About as long as you would endure the same thing.
Where exactly is this “fed to the wolves” happening for real? I’ve yet to find any little lambs from Plat up to Gamma—just different sized lupines.
Dr. Zola
Buddy of mine told me he just advanced thru Diamond with people quitting most matches as soon as they see his account. Apparently they moved the barrel of fish to Diamond
But I fear the team still doesn’t have it all fixed. As I noted above, I’ve yet to run across one of the “little lambs” that need defending in my progress to GC, even though what appear to be hundreds of them beat me out of the VT. If there is ELO in GC, it also may not be working as I would assume it would—once again, my matches there have pretty much been the same level of competition as my matches in VT.
Given the sheer number of lower rated accounts with zero points when I hit GC, I am surprised I met none of them (as well as a couple of other similar GC players I spoke with). That may have all been just randomness in ELO matching, but it surely seems odd.
Not necessarily. Most of those low progress accounts are unlikely to make it very far in GC, and because GC has no safety net preventing going down most of them will congregate at or near the bottom, which is what you would expect with ELO matching. Because there are so many of them there, you're very likely to match against them than in VT, where it is possible to miss them when they are the minority and not the majority of players at that tier.
It is possible the match maker is bugged, and continuing to use progression and/or roster strength in the VT match criteria long past P2, or maybe it isn't bugged and Kabam did that deliberately and just not say (they do not announce their tweaks to the system as they make them by policy) but I haven't seen enough yet to be sure. I am trying to climb both my main and my Cav alt to GC (or as best I can) this season to investigate further, but I may not get far enough with the alt this season to be sure (its still in Platinum at the moment for lack of time).
Well, whether it is bugged or an unannounced feature of the revised matchmaking (can’t think of a third option, but there may be one), existence of chunks of lower rated accounts in GC seems at odds with flat recent statements like this one:
That statement is a general statement, but as we are in season eleven there are dynamics involved that mean the mode might take a while to get there.
There is a third possibility that occurred to me. Since this is the first season with actual seeded placement (season ten being the first season where seeding was being introduced) there could have been a lot of low progress players that got very high in season ten and were then placed high in this season. Under ordinary circumstances they would have had to fight through a lot of stronger players to move up in VT, but imagine if the low progress players knew that, and decided to simply blast out of the gate as fast as possible. If an equal number of high and low progress players were dedicated enough to start doing tons of matches right at the start of the season, then there would have been a much higher probability that those low progress accounts would match against each other, and thus progress higher. Once the VT ladder fills up, going fast is problematic, but on day one hour zero going fast does have advantages.
It is possible that the number of low progress accounts that make it into GC will drop over time as this shakes out, because without doing an involved simulation to calculate this all out, it is possible there's a decay factor that will cut the average number of low progress accounts that make it into GC by some fraction every season. Analogous to the notion that when roster matching was in place, half of all low roster players had to win, and thus some percentage had to promote, no matter how strong they were. Maybe we're seeing the reverse: the new structure and seeding will make it harder for low progress players to rise as high as they used to, but their sheer numbers mean some will still get by, and BG can only reduce that number by some fraction with each season.
Possibly, but it seems like a very slim chance. I’m trying to imagine a low rated account (say, 750K for example) that starts in Gold 1. Starting hot out of the gate at the first instant it matches only with similar sized accounts and, giving it the full benefit of the doubt, it’s run by a very accomplished player who beats everyone else at/near his/her level.
They hit Platinum, Diamond…and then what? Play other highly competent low accounts and win enough to hit GC? Beat bunch of 3M rated accounts with their deck of half 5*? Burn a few Odins on victory shields in the process?
Then Vibranium and they match with whom? Enough small accounts (which, technically, they shouldn’t be matching) to string together three sets of 5 straight wins? Do they actually never face a 2-3-4M account there? If so, why not?
Most seasons, I hit a couple of accounts that are more than a few hundred prestige points below me—but almost never a few thousand points below me. While I may have laid an egg once or twice in any of those matches, I can assure my win % there is very high—which it should be, given time in game and effort spent on account.
Which brings me back to the statement above…that was a specific response to one of many, many long threads about BG matchmaking. Its implication is also quite specific: GC isn’t really for players who (a) aren’t among the best and/or (b) haven’t beaten the best. If the unstated qualification is the best at or near their level, then that changes its meaning entirely.
In sum: I get your response, and I’m trying to understand what’s going on here as well. I’m not sure, but I would welcome some logical explanation (other that what’s been done in the past—namely, dismissing *most* of the small accounts as mods or other kinds of offenders). And I’d like to think that the statement above originated from an “aspirational” place.
Maybe they could tweak the reward system a little bit. Maybe if they gave a very small amount of tokens per match played beyond the 3 per 2 day objective. I am talking just a small amount. Not anything substantial but just enough so that a player who has hit their cap and is losing 7/10 or 9/10 matches does not feel they are playing for nothing. This could encourage them to keep playing and try to get better as it alleviates some of the frustration. We all know the biggest pain point is when you jump on, play a few matches and then end up exactly the same overall position you were before you started. You end up very disheartened as you feel you either should not have bothered playing at all or could have done any other game mode and got something. I am not saying big rewards but just some low level **** that would lessen the thought of “what a waste of time”
Maybe they could tweak the reward system a little bit. Maybe if they gave a very small amount of tokens per match played beyond the 3 per 2 day objective. I am talking just a small amount. Not anything substantial but just enough so that a player who has hit their cap and is losing 7/10 or 9/10 matches does not feel they are playing for nothing. This could encourage them to keep playing and try to get better as it alleviates some of the frustration. We all know the biggest pain point is when you jump on, play a few matches and then end up exactly the same overall position you were before you started. You end up very disheartened as you feel you either should not have bothered playing at all or could have done any other game mode and got something. I am not saying big rewards but just some low level **** that would lessen the thought of “what a waste of time”
BGs are a game mode within the game, they are not the main source of champ acquisition or rank up materials. Encourage them to keep on bashing their heads and rewarding it on top (even if its a small reward) is counter productive.
Honestly TLDR my biggest gripe is you want to invest energy or units in game mode that like running into a brick wall after a certain tier this just doesn’t make sense to the average player so it feed the rich get richer mentality of this game. Honestly i play BG i get what i get and don’t throw a fit. But from a marketing side of things it just seems like a very top ended business model hoping a small percentage of player carry the weight. To consider is better to have 10 people but a 100$ deal or get 100 people to buy a 10$ deal and encourage spending with value to those who pay. Just something to consider. Better odds that 100 peeps will occasionally spend more than 10 people.
Setting aside Battlegrounds for the moment, you might think it makes no sense for a game to focus on the whales, but time and experience has shown that this model is what is most popular for *everyone* not just the whales. History shows that you will be far more successful if you ask ten people to pay a hundred dollars than a hundred people to pay ten dollars. First of all, it is easier to get ten people to pay a hundred dollars than to get a hundred people to pay ten dollars, due to the simple fact that you don't have to convince as many players to spend at all. Most players don't want to, and given the opportunity to play for free most will.
But second, it is actually worse for the game for a hundred people to spend ten, because now more stuff is entering the game. No matter what you do, unless you force everyone to pay subscriptions, you will never get most of your players to spend. A minority will spend, and a majority will chose to not spend. This is just reality. And for the most part, that's fine because when only a small minority of players spend, their impact on the game at large is equally small. Most players can ignore the whales, because they almost never run into them on a regular basis. They don't cause a lot of game inflation, they don't distort the difficulty curve, they don't make life miserable for a lot of other players. But when you have a hundred players buying things instead of ten, or a thousand players buying things instead of a hundred, and the fraction of players spending and getting things for their spending increases, the odds of everyone else feeling like they are getting left behind gets larger. It is one thing to see a couple whales leaving you behind, but when it is everyone else and their grandma leaving you behind, it can be a lot more difficult to ignore. It is more likely that you will cause players to feel like spending is necessary not optional, because so many people are doing it and getting more stuff than you. This is a far more toxic problem than just milking the whales, Eventually, you become perceived as a pay to play game, and quickly cut off your supply of new players, because no one wants to pick up an eight year old game in which all the veterans are spenders that you cannot possibly ever catch up with.
This not just me speculating. This is just how the F2P games industry has learned over time that people behave and react. Targeting the whales, which is a vast oversimplification of the F2P business model, is not just a singular decision someone made up one day. It is part of a much larger strategy in which every piece meshes with every other piece, and it all works together across monetization, game economies, marketing strategy, and game longevity in a way that cannot easily be taken apart and reassembled into a different shape. This doesn't work because the game operators say it works, it works because game players keep voting with their wallets *and* their attention.
So when you say the odds are better that a hundred players will spend more than ten, you're just wrong. If that were true, everyone would do it, because online game operators are not allergic to money.
Which brings me back to the statement above…that was a specific response to one of many, many long threads about BG matchmaking. Its implication is also quite specific: GC isn’t really for players who (a) aren’t among the best and/or (b) haven’t beaten the best. If the unstated qualification is the best at or near their level, then that changes its meaning entirely.
Well let's put it this way. The devs can have an honest statement of intent, but what the game will do is what the game will do, and in a complex system like the BG ladder where we have players moving around based on match ups, in a four week season it can be difficult to predict precisely what the mode will do. If it is difficult for us, it will likely be difficult for them as well. Which means even they might just be watching the mode to see if it is moving towards their intended goal or will need a push in the form of tweaks to get there.
In other words, in this case, we can't judge intent from result, when the result in a complex system is not intrinsically predictable with perfect accuracy. They might have aimed and missed. Or they might have hit their intended target, but their intended target was always meant to be an iterative one that they think will mosey to their intended target over time.
When we say to get to the top you have to beat the best, we should all know that's a bit of an aphorism. The match maker is random, so there's no way to guarantee who faces who. It isn't a fixed bracket tournament where we can know with certainty. Really, the only thing Kabam can guarantee and assert is that to get to GC you have to face a pool of players that includes the best. But that's not the kind of semantic precision I ever expect in forum responses from any game studio. We probably need to cut them a little slack in that department.
Comments
I presented facts you presented feelings that you claim are not yours.
The amount of Tiers before Plat 2 hasn't changed. That's not an issue, and it isn't what I am talking about.
You're holding your own discussion and dodging the points that have been made. That doesn't constitute facts.
You could just as easily say you disagree. Instead you're repeatedly trying to cause a disruption.
You don't like the facts they are frustratjng for you, that's why the game mode is frustrating FOR YOU
Still waiting for the moment you stop having a conversation with me Captain Nitpick
The Victory Track is, and likely will always be, a ranked competitive mode. They've said before that they are not interested in just making another Arena. As long as the Victory Track exists, players will be rewarded most of all for being stronger than their competition and least of all simply for participating. That's how it remains a competition. If you don't want it to be a competition, then you're asking for a separate game mode entirely. Something more like Arena.
In a 2-1 scoring, eventually everyone will progress. One only needs ~40% win rate to progress. If some is winning only 40%, someone else is winning 60% of their matches. There is never a point where that pool of players can be stable, because you cannot have an entire group of players playing each other and arrive at a 40% win-rate. Everyone eventually goes up and the process repeats in the next tier.
The scoring has be close to 1-1 wherever you want most of the players to be. Devs have decided that somewhere around platinum. If you want things to change, you have to make a case for why that threshold should be higher. Eventually, a large part of the player pool will end up in a few tiers. At that level they will all progress slowly (or not at all).
If your opinion is that almost everyone should be in GC (or Diamond or Vibranium), then be clear and say that. Wherever the point is, people will be stuck in terms of their climb. Where should it be?
I'm at the point now where I'm just watching what happens because burning people out in the VT so the GC can keep their spot every month is only going to go so far.
I never said everyone belongs in the GC. Not everyone will get into the GC with the suggestion I made. It doesn't change the higher Players that the lower ones will have to come up against.
What it does, is curve the cycle of pissing in the wind when you're doing the get-one-lose-one tango. Which, let's be honest, was the argument from higher Players stuck in the first 3 Tiers.
No one wants that. Regardless of where they're at in the game.
As I said, having the 3 Tiers require one Win per Token to get into the GC is reasonable. Expecting the majority of the VT to be like that is just adding salt. What the hell is the sense of even having the VT if that's the case? Redundant point because I'm sure some people would love that.
Seriously though, I try not to argue with GW because this is exactly what happens, there's just no point.
There are players with 4 different progression levels in BG. Would 3 tiers be sufficient to create homogenous groups where win-rates stabilise at 50%? If they don't we'll be back to most people being in BG, which devs are clearly against.
Being called big bad wolves, getting this type of a deal on changes... someone hates big accounts (Not talking about you @Stature)
I would say there is zero chance of this being implemented. But more importantly, why is this needed and what does this achieve other than make most of VT grindable?
You need to have an answer to the why. If the idea is to just make it easier to progress through VT, you have to explain why that is needed. Facts, numbers, data or even anecdotes of actual experience, something other than hyperbole or broad statements. Can't just be that 'it's my opinion'. You are asking for someone to put in the work to redesigning BGs, you need to provide a justification for that effort.
It is possible the match maker is bugged, and continuing to use progression and/or roster strength in the VT match criteria long past P2, or maybe it isn't bugged and Kabam did that deliberately and just not say (they do not announce their tweaks to the system as they make them by policy) but I haven't seen enough yet to be sure. I am trying to climb both my main and my Cav alt to GC (or as best I can) this season to investigate further, but I may not get far enough with the alt this season to be sure (its still in Platinum at the moment for lack of time).
I suppose there’s a tiny bit of wiggle room there with the word “among,” but I think it’s fair to say that most players understood the current formula (as explained weeks ago) meant that with seeding everyone became fair game at Platinum, regardless of account size or deck. If that isn’t exactly how it works, it’s probably reasonable to offer a revision.
Dr. Zola
There is a third possibility that occurred to me. Since this is the first season with actual seeded placement (season ten being the first season where seeding was being introduced) there could have been a lot of low progress players that got very high in season ten and were then placed high in this season. Under ordinary circumstances they would have had to fight through a lot of stronger players to move up in VT, but imagine if the low progress players knew that, and decided to simply blast out of the gate as fast as possible. If an equal number of high and low progress players were dedicated enough to start doing tons of matches right at the start of the season, then there would have been a much higher probability that those low progress accounts would match against each other, and thus progress higher. Once the VT ladder fills up, going fast is problematic, but on day one hour zero going fast does have advantages.
It is possible that the number of low progress accounts that make it into GC will drop over time as this shakes out, because without doing an involved simulation to calculate this all out, it is possible there's a decay factor that will cut the average number of low progress accounts that make it into GC by some fraction every season. Analogous to the notion that when roster matching was in place, half of all low roster players had to win, and thus some percentage had to promote, no matter how strong they were. Maybe we're seeing the reverse: the new structure and seeding will make it harder for low progress players to rise as high as they used to, but their sheer numbers mean some will still get by, and BG can only reduce that number by some fraction with each season.
It's based on experience, sure. Both in BGs, and in other areas of the game. I started Bronze 1 because last Season, I disagreed with the changes to Tokens enough not to bother. This Season, I said I'll give it a go anyway, and it was just as I suspected. It's an absolute slog. Unnecessarily.
My cavalier account is almost certainly much weaker than yours, started in Silver 2 this season, and has taken 22 matches to reach Platinum 3 with a 77% win percentage. And this is just the halfway point of the season.
My win percentage in season eight was closer to 40%, so I'm not the world's greatest Battlegrounds player. I might, however, be one of the smarter ones, as the primary thing I changed between season eight and season eleven is not deck (they are both slightly better due to rank ups over time) and not skill (although I'm probably slightly better due to having more practice). It is playing smartly. When I say "if you're losing take a break" I don't just preach that, I practice that. And while you keep saying that's not a "solution" it seems to work for me. It would probably work for most people willing to listen.
Pushing when you're losing is stubborn, as is arguing against slowing down before trying it. Stubborn only works if you're extremely good, extremely focused, or extremely undaunted. For most players, BG is only a slog if they want it to be. For those players, BG is not unnecessarily a slog. It is necessarily a slog, so as to not reward poor play or poor decision making.
Apparently they moved the barrel of fish to Diamond
They hit Platinum, Diamond…and then what? Play other highly competent low accounts and win enough to hit GC? Beat bunch of 3M rated accounts with their deck of half 5*? Burn a few Odins on victory shields in the process?
Then Vibranium and they match with whom? Enough small accounts (which, technically, they shouldn’t be matching) to string together three sets of 5 straight wins? Do they actually never face a 2-3-4M account there? If so, why not?
Most seasons, I hit a couple of accounts that are more than a few hundred prestige points below me—but almost never a few thousand points below me. While I may have laid an egg once or twice in any of those matches, I can assure my win % there is very high—which it should be, given time in game and effort spent on account.
Which brings me back to the statement above…that was a specific response to one of many, many long threads about BG matchmaking. Its implication is also quite specific: GC isn’t really for players who (a) aren’t among the best and/or (b) haven’t beaten the best. If the unstated qualification is the best at or near their level, then that changes its meaning entirely.
In sum: I get your response, and I’m trying to understand what’s going on here as well. I’m not sure, but I would welcome some logical explanation (other that what’s been done in the past—namely, dismissing *most* of the small accounts as mods or other kinds of offenders). And I’d like to think that the statement above originated from an “aspirational” place.
Dr. Zola
Maybe if they gave a very small amount of tokens per match played beyond the 3 per 2 day objective.
I am talking just a small amount.
Not anything substantial but just enough so that a player who has hit their cap and is losing 7/10 or 9/10 matches does not feel they are playing for nothing. This could encourage them to keep playing and try to get better as it alleviates some of the frustration.
We all know the biggest pain point is when you jump on, play a few matches and then end up exactly the same overall position you were before you started.
You end up very disheartened as you feel you either should not have bothered playing at all or could have done any other game mode and got something.
I am not saying big rewards but just some low level **** that would lessen the thought of “what a waste of time”
But second, it is actually worse for the game for a hundred people to spend ten, because now more stuff is entering the game. No matter what you do, unless you force everyone to pay subscriptions, you will never get most of your players to spend. A minority will spend, and a majority will chose to not spend. This is just reality. And for the most part, that's fine because when only a small minority of players spend, their impact on the game at large is equally small. Most players can ignore the whales, because they almost never run into them on a regular basis. They don't cause a lot of game inflation, they don't distort the difficulty curve, they don't make life miserable for a lot of other players. But when you have a hundred players buying things instead of ten, or a thousand players buying things instead of a hundred, and the fraction of players spending and getting things for their spending increases, the odds of everyone else feeling like they are getting left behind gets larger. It is one thing to see a couple whales leaving you behind, but when it is everyone else and their grandma leaving you behind, it can be a lot more difficult to ignore. It is more likely that you will cause players to feel like spending is necessary not optional, because so many people are doing it and getting more stuff than you. This is a far more toxic problem than just milking the whales, Eventually, you become perceived as a pay to play game, and quickly cut off your supply of new players, because no one wants to pick up an eight year old game in which all the veterans are spenders that you cannot possibly ever catch up with.
This not just me speculating. This is just how the F2P games industry has learned over time that people behave and react. Targeting the whales, which is a vast oversimplification of the F2P business model, is not just a singular decision someone made up one day. It is part of a much larger strategy in which every piece meshes with every other piece, and it all works together across monetization, game economies, marketing strategy, and game longevity in a way that cannot easily be taken apart and reassembled into a different shape. This doesn't work because the game operators say it works, it works because game players keep voting with their wallets *and* their attention.
So when you say the odds are better that a hundred players will spend more than ten, you're just wrong. If that were true, everyone would do it, because online game operators are not allergic to money.
In other words, in this case, we can't judge intent from result, when the result in a complex system is not intrinsically predictable with perfect accuracy. They might have aimed and missed. Or they might have hit their intended target, but their intended target was always meant to be an iterative one that they think will mosey to their intended target over time.
When we say to get to the top you have to beat the best, we should all know that's a bit of an aphorism. The match maker is random, so there's no way to guarantee who faces who. It isn't a fixed bracket tournament where we can know with certainty. Really, the only thing Kabam can guarantee and assert is that to get to GC you have to face a pool of players that includes the best. But that's not the kind of semantic precision I ever expect in forum responses from any game studio. We probably need to cut them a little slack in that department.