**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Fix Battlegrounds in three easy steps (that we can argue about until the end of time)
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Comments
It's hard enough to win without losing to a cheat, let alone seeing them crawl right over the top of everyone and anyone with a half functional brain can see the difference between "that guy won, must be a modder" and "sure buddy, you ended a fight in 6 seconds"
That's not to say it isn't a real concern, or there aren't reasons for it. It just stands to reason that it's the largest focus every Season.
Does that kind of system feed cheats? Undoubtedly. And if you know, as the team does, that the entire BG system every season is always going to be 50% wins and 50% losses, then you know you are producing an unenjoyable experience (or at least a losing one) every single match and every single fight for someone. That is PVP. And people have incentive to cheat in PVP because it is winner take all.
Putting aside ToS enforcement—we can just agree that it’s imperfect at best—the three major ways forums has proposed to address BGs issues is improved matchmaking, changing scoring and rebalancing rewards.
I think a combination of changing scoring and rebalancing the way rewards are divvied to favor participation more than it currently does are the most attainable goals. Losing to a cheat will always make me angry, but it’s a little less irritating if I get something for it and/or lose fewer points because of it. Matchmaking really can’t help here at all.
Without changes, however, expect there to be a lot of focus on ill-gotten gains—because they got those gains from someone else.
Dr. Zola
As for the Rewards, I have a different view. The cheating Players shouldn't be able to keep the Rewards, no doubt. Neither should the other Player, though. That's less of a moral question for me, and more of a "based on results" issue. Readjustments are easier, on paper not necessarily in the system. You remove the cheaters, and compile the list. Redistribution of the individual Losses isn't feasible. It's a tremendous amount of work.
I like DNA's suggestion of negative Trophies, in combination with the 3 strike system. At the very least it dissuades them from repeating the behavior.
I said there's a hyperfocus on other Players and whether they're cheating or not, and that's not healthy.
I believe you play Injustice2 as well. Or if it seem familiar with it
Could their “Champions Arena” set up ve plausible regarding PVP and extrapolating that to BG?
Specifically. They grab 100 random players. Whether low threat or high threat. Put them in the same bracket. And then fight it out. You only immediately fight those 3 ahead of you or 3 behind you in your placement.
That could mean - here anyway - having a mix of one UC, one Cav and one paragon ahead of you or behind you. You pick your opponent of the 6. Yes. Some will only pick lower ranks. But based on placement sometimes all you get is paragon.
But at least you have the chance of fighting equal or near equal accounts. And if you beat the higher threat level you’ve earned it and advance with the appropriate points (2, 4, 6 or 8)
The idea of picking opponents for reward bonuses and deficits is something I've considered, I probably posted about it somewhere in this or another thread, but that was not inspired by I2 (although it should have) but rather the MCOC arena where you are presented three arena teams and you pick one to fight. You can't literally do that in BG, but you could propose to BG to find a match based on equal, slightly higher, or slightly lower strength, which would be analogous to how I2's champions arena works. Again, an interesting idea, but in and of itself it doesn't directly addresss the problems most players are facing today, rather it adds an innovation to the mode that offers something completely new.
Maybe BG4.0 could consider those kinds of ideas to liven up the mode, once it settles down.
I’m not representative of every player, but I still believe adjusting the balance of rewards between winning and participation can go a long way towards alleviating the sense of frustration players feel with a mode that—for the most part—promises failure approx. half the time.
I am convinced the team wants participation in BGs. I am also convinced the team needs to have a level of frustration in BGs. Without both, the game mode really doesn’t work well.
We’ve batted this back and forth, and I tend to agree with a lot of your well-thought out suggested changes. But the one glaring thing I see underlying the complaints about BGs is the sense of wasted time and fruitless effort.
In my view, wasted time and fruitless effort are bad features for a leisure activity. The ”easier” answer is to make the expenditure of time a little more rewarding and the effort a little more fruitful. I suggested shifting the opportunities to earn BG currency to a higher frequency and (possibly) higher amounts via participation rather than victory—without making a large change in the overall rewards for running BGs for a month. To me, it seems easier to shift the incentive structure than it does to rewrite the matchmaking engine.
When I say “easier,” I don’t mean it’s easier to get the team to implement it. I’m sure whenever the subject of enhancing or shifting rewards for players comes up they all shove wax in their ears and go back to coding.
I mean it’s likely to be easier to implement and to undo and to adjust than overhauling an entire matchmaking system built on some version of deck prestige. Neither is it an exclusive fix—it can go hand in hand with some of the others being evaluated. But I do think it’s worth discussion, and I don’t see it on the list of things being considered.
Dr. Zola
Other examples: Tokens for fight (not match) win. An objective that rewards tokens for winning X fights per objective cycle. All objectives available starting at Bronze for Paragon; all available starting at Silver for TB.
Overhauling matchmaking sounds great too. But it also sounds complicated. And experience with this game suggests simpler, more direct approaches may actually perform better.
Dr. Zola
Dr. Zola
Reducing VT tier rewards and adding them f.e. at win or play matches objectives, is basically what they suggest.
That’s not even close to weenie accounts making it to GC and nabbing the 40-50K tokens by only facing other weenie accounts.
Dr. Zola