The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). I get that part; lets round up numbers though.. call it GC 30k players at 15k free EMs... Doesn't seem much of an impact... Eh who knows maybe I am wrong Marks are a valuable resource. I can’t recall starting a season without (at least) a few thousand. I imagine burning through most of my marks, hitting 5K as we hit the 1B milestone and spinning that Titan to reveal…Nova. Dr. Zola Well there is a worse case scenario. Imagine spending all your EMs, not hitting a milestone that is useful to you in the Realm event, score more than 5k and start the next season with 0 marks in an Alliance that has a minimum expected.
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). I get that part; lets round up numbers though.. call it GC 30k players at 15k free EMs... Doesn't seem much of an impact... Eh who knows maybe I am wrong Marks are a valuable resource. I can’t recall starting a season without (at least) a few thousand. I imagine burning through most of my marks, hitting 5K as we hit the 1B milestone and spinning that Titan to reveal…Nova. Dr. Zola
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). I get that part; lets round up numbers though.. call it GC 30k players at 15k free EMs... Doesn't seem much of an impact... Eh who knows maybe I am wrong
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of).
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones.
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those.
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too.
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around.
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola
The math ain’t looking good…
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). I get that part; lets round up numbers though.. call it GC 30k players at 15k free EMs... Doesn't seem much of an impact... Eh who knows maybe I am wrong Marks are a valuable resource. I can’t recall starting a season without (at least) a few thousand. I imagine burning through most of my marks, hitting 5K as we hit the 1B milestone and spinning that Titan to reveal…Nova. Dr. Zola Well there is a worse case scenario. Imagine spending all your EMs, not hitting a milestone that is useful to you in the Realm event, score more than 5k and start the next season with 0 marks in an Alliance that has a minimum expected. Yeah… 100% agree. The Alliance Event without the Marks wasn’t enough. Marks being in the Realm event is a clear flaw here, along with killing the solo event. That shouldn’t have been touched. The realm milestones should have had the extras only. By robbing from Peter (solo and alliance) to pay Paul (realm) to make that appear more exciting ends up leaving us all less rewarded and motivated. It’s too bad
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). I get that part; lets round up numbers though.. call it GC 30k players at 15k free EMs... Doesn't seem much of an impact... Eh who knows maybe I am wrong Marks are a valuable resource. I can’t recall starting a season without (at least) a few thousand. I imagine burning through most of my marks, hitting 5K as we hit the 1B milestone and spinning that Titan to reveal…Nova. Dr. Zola Worth it. Nova is OP… he’s my most wanted pull in that crystal.
Maybe I am the exception .
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). I get that part; lets round up numbers though.. call it GC 30k players at 15k free EMs... Doesn't seem much of an impact... Eh who knows maybe I am wrong Marks are a valuable resource. I can’t recall starting a season without (at least) a few thousand. I imagine burning through most of my marks, hitting 5K as we hit the 1B milestone and spinning that Titan to reveal…Nova. Dr. Zola Worth it. Nova is OP… he’s my most wanted pull in that crystal. You want mine?😉Dr. Zola
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). I get that part; lets round up numbers though.. call it GC 30k players at 15k free EMs... Doesn't seem much of an impact... Eh who knows maybe I am wrong Marks are a valuable resource. I can’t recall starting a season without (at least) a few thousand. I imagine burning through most of my marks, hitting 5K as we hit the 1B milestone and spinning that Titan to reveal…Nova. Dr. Zola Worth it. Nova is OP… he’s my most wanted pull in that crystal. You want mine?😉Dr. Zola Deal! Gladly trade you my unduped Serpent pull.
The math ain’t looking good… It’s not, even with the recent surge. The uptick of smaller account participation seen in lower tiers also dries up at Vibranium, which means most matches are straight up doppelgänger pairings influenced significantly by the draft and AI behavior. Dr. Zola It is extremely early in the season, and actually the numbers suggest a significantly higher participation level than normal. Based on what Crashed said, quite a lot of players seem to be in GC already, and those numbers feel substantially higher than typical.Faster promotion rates are a potentially positive reinforcement process. The more people who get into GC, the lower the match difficulty relative to normal, and the easier it is to win matches. We've seen in the past that participation has these positive reinforcement feedback loops. When people *think* BG is too hard, fewer players participate and it *becomes* hard. But when Kabam has had boosted reward seasons, such that the rewards are a sufficient enticement to overcome that restraint, participation goes up and that higher participation rate encourages even more participation.The bottom line is if players think its worth jumping in, they *make* it worth jumping in. A lot of lower players playing means they match against each other more often, which causes them to broadcast to other players that match making is easier than normal, which causes more players to jump in. That's what makes it so difficult to predict points in this event relative to, say, the Crystal Cleanse. We aren't going to "run out" of matches. It won't get harder and harder to squeeze out points. It will get easier, if players simply continue to push as they normally would during a typical boosted season.Every season I have tracked has had more participation in the back half than the first two weeks, by a significant margin. So our current point earning rate is more likely to be the floor and not the ceiling, unlike with Crystal Cleanse where the reverse was true. So players should not be comparing our points today with a linear projection of the required number of points and thinking the one billion mark is impossible already. There's simply no way to really know what our point potential is before the third week rolls around. I love the positive view, and as I repeated numerous times you do take your time to analyze data. There is 1 little bit of a problem with the GC players though, scores will go up at a faster rate. EMs will ran out too, once you get to GC you stop earning EMs, yes there are free ones on the Realm event milestones, but even those are spread between high milestones. We are not only at the mercy of GC players, they need to spend too. The players who push the hardest will of course run out of marks, but those guys tend to run out of marks every season, or at least most of them. The real reservoir of marks that exists are the marks people tend to hold back on most seasons. Even I tend to spend enough marks to drop below the GC starter bucket (2100 marks, so 6900) but not always much more than that. If players tap into those marks they usually don't spend, but can be encouraged to spend on this event, that's a ton of points available to tap into that don't directly cost units or cash.As this is a deathless piece season and also the realm event, I will likely be spending most or all of those marks, and just build them back up in future seasons. So that's an additional 75 matches with mark scoring from me, assuming a 50% win rate in GC (as I get into GC every season, matches I play over and above normal will be in GC) over 5000 points just from those. I don't know, with CM and Banquet around the corner people will have a pretty strong grip to the units. Most people will spend whatever they have available for free. One of the reasons why it bothers me they put the EM rewards in the Realm Milestones. That's why, as I said, the mark reservoir to count on is not marks we hope people will buy, but rather marks most players already have but most don't usually spend (all of). The problem with this is that you have to incentivize people to use those marks they saved and once you get to 5k points you don't have many motivations left, if they have reached their alliance minimum they should use marks just for the hope to get a better milestone in the realm event, which is not guaranteed at all. The realm event ranked rewards are buffed, but still it's hard to justify spending extra marks when the there isn't much difference between adiacent brackets and there's no guarantee in which bracket you'll end up.
Well something weird just happened...
Y'all should rank up your max rarity venom to maximum possible rank if I'm right.
Now what does everyone think after the latest news?
Now what does everyone think after the latest news? That it was a bad design and we needed charity, same as the other event.
Now what does everyone think after the latest news? That it was a bad design and we needed charity, same as the other event. I meant in terms of the milestone we will reach...
Now what does everyone think after the latest news? That it was a bad design and we needed charity, same as the other event. I meant in terms of the milestone we will reach... That they will be charitable enough to get us to 1B points; but lower progression players will stop grinding after the Titan crystal, and it will be at higher progression players will to keep on getting Titan Shards.
Revisiting everyone’s prognostications at the mid-point……still feeling good about hitting 1B points? Expecting another large infusion from the Stark Foundation? Deducting any exogenous contributions (which are appreciated), I continue to think my original guess is a reasonable one. How about yours?Revisions and new predictions welcome…Dr. Zola