EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE CONCLUDED
The Team has identified a fix for the recent Catalyst Offer issue.
Summoners who purchased this offer have been temporarily locked out of the Contest to Clawback any Catalysts bought/used while active, and ensure previously owned resources remain intact.
They will be unlocked once this process is complete, and no further action will be taken on their Accounts - along with a compensation package to those affected for the inconvenience.
Doing this allows us to bring the Game back up for everyone else.
We've removed the affected offer so we can decide later whether or not to bring it back after it's been fixed.
Additionally, all summoners can expect a general compensation package due to this Emergency Maintenance interrupting their play session.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
The Team has identified a fix for the recent Catalyst Offer issue.
Summoners who purchased this offer have been temporarily locked out of the Contest to Clawback any Catalysts bought/used while active, and ensure previously owned resources remain intact.
They will be unlocked once this process is complete, and no further action will be taken on their Accounts - along with a compensation package to those affected for the inconvenience.
Doing this allows us to bring the Game back up for everyone else.
We've removed the affected offer so we can decide later whether or not to bring it back after it's been fixed.
Additionally, all summoners can expect a general compensation package due to this Emergency Maintenance interrupting their play session.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Comments
Welcome to Season 4! You're starting in Diamond III, here are rewards from the lower tiers. Good luck!
Not that hard Kabam.
Whole idea is ppl spend to progress through tiers and some do, when they get stuck.
If they implement track tier continuation, there would need to be some side line milestone or other mechanism to re-earn the lower tier rewards separate from progression. It is possible, but would take some time to find a fair balance point.
If you give me a set of system requirements and design constraints, I can guarantee delivering you a system. If you give me a set of system requirements and design constraints and tell me someone else has to implement the design, I can promise you a system that will eventually be implementable. If you give me a set of system requirements and design constraints and tell me to deliver a design a large group of people will believe is fair, that's a potentially open ended problem space.
tl;dr I don't think it's gotten worse but matchmaking still is a pain
Side note: my alt account (much weaker thronebreaker) has an extremely easy time cruising through the victory track. I think I've had up to like a 10-match win streak at times
Keep in mind the system we have now works perfectly fine, except for all the people who hate it. It is easy to come up with something that works if you ignore all the people who will hate it. Changing which people hate it without reducing their numbers is not progress.
That’s another incorrect metric.
Any kick start implementation should consider ONLY last season placement.
This s literally similar to how AW works with rating lock off season.
Three to four wide brackets of “kick starting” are enough to mitigate big mismatches.
f.e. whoever reached GC last season kick starts from Gold3 next season,
whoever finished from Platinum to Vibranium stars from Silver3, and whoever finished below Platinum starts from Bronze3 aka ground zero.
It’s not so hard to implement something like this.
Full random matchmaking (within same bracket) and minimal mismatches.
Absolutely fair.
Prestige matchmaking can’t continue.
It’s unfair, and game breaking considering the highest, non permanent in game rewards are on stake.
Problem solved.
I know mods can respond to every thread, but the frustrating part of no response is the sheer volume of this thread as you mentioned.
Additionally the fact mods were quick to respond to matchmaking complaints of the lower accounts (which in turn led to this mess) is a bit frustrating.
There's a separate economic balance issue to consider. If you make the rewards for the UC/Cav too low, you will eliminate the incentive to participate. This can make the UC/Cav division too thin to support proper matching, which can lead to a participation death spiral where long turnstile times discourage participation.
You also have to consider the more general impact on match frequency near the division boundary. Which is to say, high Cavs and low TBs currently can match with each other. When they end up in different "leagues" they won't be able to match against each other anymore. Which means while a mid tier Cav will still have roughly the same number of players near their strength level, upper Cavs will in a sense "lose" half their opponents (because they will be on the other side of the fence). What impact this would have on competition is difficult to predict, but probably nothing good.
There is one other meta issue that will come up when you split up the player base like that. In effect, you are depleting the amount of lower tier players from the game (by moving them into their own league). This means the TBs and up will be matching against each other more often, which means their win/loss ratio will shift downward. In a sense, you're removing wins from them by taking opponent losses away. Which means on average, the higher tier players will progress slower. And because progress speed is exponentially related to win percentage, relatively small changes can result in very large net changes to overall progress speed. It would probably take a couple whole seasons of play to determine what the net impact of that would be on the distribution of players across the VT and into the GT tiers.
I think a lot of people assume that separating players by progression tier is always the obvious answer to problems like this. But this option doesn't come for free, and it isn't always the best option.
Random matchmaking and kick start, based on previous season placement, seems the most effective and fair solution.
I can understand it needs the most work by Kabam’s end to implement, and also I suspect, this was the reason they patched “sandbagging” problem with Prestige matchmaking.
Because it was easier and faster to do.
But by trying to fast solve a problem, they created a bigger one.
Prestige matchmaking is problematic and they should know.
They had tried in AW and it was a huge failure.
Yet they they chose to try it to BGs too 🤔
It's not about the Rewards for me. I'm perfectly fine with people earning Rewards that are appropriate to where they're at. I'm more concerned with what's best for everyone, and not just more lucrative for one over the other.
Therein lies the problem. I was present with War, and how it resulted in the top being made the central focus. It's still a scoff whenever someone points out the lack of fairness in Matches. 5 times the size and Roster, and it's brushed off as fair because the War Ratings are similar. I don't care who disagrees with me. I'm not that glib.
My only concern is for a reasonable competition, and as long as people have some way to be able to take advantage of the system, they will use it. I just hope whatever result allows people to earn their Rewards in a reasonable and fair manner. If they win, they win. If they lose, they lose. If they have Matches that have no business taking place, that's not fair. Tanking, 2* manipulation, those are not fair ways to compete.
If the Rewards are the issue, then that needs to be addressed, rather than the fact that the Matches are what they are because of the results of unsportsmanlike actions. People can't be trusted. If there's an in, they'll use it. I'd still support changing the payout based on where a Player is at, and leaving it at that. That would solve the issue. Uru for UC wouldn't be the same as Uru for Paragon, for example.
I'm not opposed to other suggestions as well. I just don't want to see this game mode become a stomping grounds for one group of Players at the expense of others. That's my main quip.
Kabam has to stop catering to the mid-tiers of players that have stuff to do and forgetting about their oldest and most loyal customers.
Meanwhile, Paragon players with literally twice their prestige are stuck in Victory track with waaaaaaay less rewards.
How can anyone consider this fair when none of those 7k-8k UC and Cav players have to face the bigger accounts but meanwhile are getting better rewards due to easier progression?