I have a lot of sympathy for players below Valiant trying to engage with Battlegrounds, and indeed we are looking at options to create a more casual environment so they can match with other accounts with similar strength outside of the competitive experience.
However, as a Valiant player playing on the Gladiator's Circuit, you are always going to eventually run into accounts stronger than your own. How you deal with that will determine how successful you are in Battlegrounds. If you have a deck of mostly R3s, you shouldn't be forfeiting to anybody. Yes, you are more likely than not to lose to an equal skilled player with a row of R4s, but it is definitely not guaranteed. And skill and strategy can often overcome a single rank differential in champion power. The best Battlegrounds players in the world are those with the most skill and the most experience in the various matchups, for the most part they aren't the players with the biggest accounts.
I am glad you brought up the radiance store. In one paragraph you say the store is progression based and progression based matchmaking doesn’t mean they earn more rewards because store is progression locked. Yet, in the next paragraph you say this gives them a chance to earn radiance. Radiance store is not progression locked. So any radiance a cavalier earns without facing anyone higher than a cavalier will give them things like t7b, t4a, titan shards, and a bunch of other premium items which they really don’t need at their level. How do you account for that?
The Radiance store IS progression locked. Cavs can't do anything but trade it in for tokens. Nice try tho.
And even if it wasn't, you make it sound like if Kabam decided to restructure BGs, they wouldn't or couldn't make changes to the stores as well. In fact, if they did completely overhaul bgs, I would expect them to track how changes like what I propose could affect plans they are currently implementing like radiance. Thats the whole point of pushing these ideas and having discussions.
If things were actually easy, some random knowitall loudmouth on the forums drops an idea and it somehow solves everything, they would have been fixed already, but that doesn't mean we just give up and accept the mode as it is. We keep giving ideas, we adapt them to problems, and hopefully kabam can implement something that can appease as many people as possible. Hell, they're the ones being paid to figure it out. Our community ideas are supposed to be full of holes and miss obvious problems when we're the ones stuck guessing based on observations and feelings while they have all the hard data.
Well alright buddy. I was mistaken about cavaliers. But TB and above can access the full radiance store. So you are ok with thronebreaker not facing anyone higher than them and getting the benefits from the radiance store?
My idea only guarantees they face TB only for victory track. Once they hit GC, its an open seeded pool. So imagine what we have now for the victory track but applied to gladiator circuit instead. To earn radiance, they would need to either earn enough points early on to gain the pittance given from objectives, or they would need to end the season with a high enough points placement to earn the chunk given from GC rewards. In either case, that means they would need to win out against their fellow talented TBs who made it to GC, then would need to win out against any Paragon players who made it to GC, then would need to win out against any Valiant players who made it to GC. If they can run that gauntlet, they deserve whatever they end up receiving.
So you think a large portion of cavs should get into GC, but a large portion of valiant shouldn't? Because that's what would happen.
Personally, yes. Imo, thats something that could be addressed through rewards scaling since match quality is a thing. A player who has to play through a season of valiant level bgs should be earning more points, tokens, radiance, and rewards than someone who is cav playing cavs and so on and so forth. That could extend into GC rewards as well, with seeded positions being scaled accordingly, so anyone valiant stuck in the victory track was earning more through engaging in the track than the paragon who made it to their section of GC, yet the skilled paragon who made it to GC and is somehow beating valiant accounts can still earn valiant level rewards if they can win their way to that section of GC.
But in terms of actual common sense, no, it doesn't sound fair. Still, thats not really a deal breaker. im sure the same way I tossed this idea out there, someone can come up with something better or a way to make this one better. Again, If things were actually easy, some random knowitall loudmouth on the forums drops an idea and it somehow solves everything, everything would have been fixed already, That doesn't mean we give up on a solution. We workshop on how to make it better. We hold Kabam accountable to not leave the mode to rot for seasons on end, come back with something that only alleviates the pressure for a portion of the community that they have repeatedly labeled as small, and leaving the rest to just be cogs in a machine made to feed that small percentage.
Like perhaps Bronze to Diamond is progression gated, vibranium is the open pool, they extend it like they had been saying they wanted to, and valiants start at the bottom of vibranium. Like this season, where the bugged start had some valiant players starting in Vib 2, but lower and on purpose this time. Then GC purists who don't want the lowies tainting their Valiant only playground can gatekeep their area, the lowies get a feasible competitive experience, and the anyone of them who can punch up still get to compete in Vibranium and have the chance to get somewhere in GC. Everyone wins except for the paragons.
In the end, I'm just the frustrated customer. I don''t have all the answers. I recognize problems and loudly complain about them until they're fixed while taking everything else that was done right for granted. Proposing anything even worth discussing at length is already steps ahead of where I should be. Regardless, we shouldn't need to come up with the perfect solutions for them. The point is we shouldn't give up on advocating for things to be better than they are now, and that starts with addressing the absence of competitive integrity within the mode. Even if there is no perfect solution, there is without a doubt SOMETHING that could be done to make things better than what they are now.
I am glad you brought up the radiance store. In one paragraph you say the store is progression based and progression based matchmaking doesn’t mean they earn more rewards because store is progression locked. Yet, in the next paragraph you say this gives them a chance to earn radiance. Radiance store is not progression locked. So any radiance a cavalier earns without facing anyone higher than a cavalier will give them things like t7b, t4a, titan shards, and a bunch of other premium items which they really don’t need at their level. How do you account for that?
The Radiance store IS progression locked. Cavs can't do anything but trade it in for tokens. Nice try tho.
And even if it wasn't, you make it sound like if Kabam decided to restructure BGs, they wouldn't or couldn't make changes to the stores as well. In fact, if they did completely overhaul bgs, I would expect them to track how changes like what I propose could affect plans they are currently implementing like radiance. Thats the whole point of pushing these ideas and having discussions.
If things were actually easy, some random knowitall loudmouth on the forums drops an idea and it somehow solves everything, they would have been fixed already, but that doesn't mean we just give up and accept the mode as it is. We keep giving ideas, we adapt them to problems, and hopefully kabam can implement something that can appease as many people as possible. Hell, they're the ones being paid to figure it out. Our community ideas are supposed to be full of holes and miss obvious problems when we're the ones stuck guessing based on observations and feelings while they have all the hard data.
Well alright buddy. I was mistaken about cavaliers. But TB and above can access the full radiance store. So you are ok with thronebreaker not facing anyone higher than them and getting the benefits from the radiance store?
My idea only guarantees they face TB only for victory track. Once they hit GC, its an open seeded pool. So imagine what we have now for the victory track but applied to gladiator circuit instead. To earn radiance, they would need to either earn enough points early on to gain the pittance given from objectives, or they would need to end the season with a high enough points placement to earn the chunk given from GC rewards. In either case, that means they would need to win out against their fellow talented TBs who made it to GC, then would need to win out against any Paragon players who made it to GC, then would need to win out against any Valiant players who made it to GC. If they can run that gauntlet, they deserve whatever they end up receiving.
So you think a large portion of cavs should get into GC, but a large portion of valiant shouldn't? Because that's what would happen.
Personally, yes. Imo, thats something that could be addressed through rewards scaling since match quality is a thing. A player who has to play through a season of valiant level bgs should be earning more points, tokens, radiance, and rewards than someone who is cav playing cavs and so on and so forth. That could extend into GC rewards as well, with seeded positions being scaled accordingly, so anyone valiant stuck in the victory track was earning more through engaging in the track than the paragon who made it to their section of GC, yet the skilled paragon who made it to GC and is somehow beating valiant accounts can still earn valiant level rewards if they can win their way to that section of GC.
Ok, while I don't agree with that, I do think it would be more plausible than what others have suggested. So thanks for actually having it thought it. 👍
I don’t think some people understand what they’re asking for. You want to treat Battlegrounds like it’s Event Quest. Uncollected vs. Uncollected, Cav vs. Cav, TB vs. TB, Paragon vs. Paragon
The reality is you’re going to have the same problem. There’s a “seasoned” Paragon player with more R4’s than a new Paragon player and that new Paragon player is going to complain the same way saying “matchmaking is too unfair”
For matchmaking to be “fair”, you’d have to match opponents with similar BG roster strength as you. HOWEVER, for you to match with that person, that person would also have to queue up the exact same time as you. If not, you’re left with this *necessary* imbalance of going against stronger rosters because they’re queuing up with you
My idea only guarantees they face TB only for victory track.
It also guarantees there won't be any rewards for Victory Track.
The VT rewards are primarily participation rewards while GC rewards are competitive rewards, but there's a presumption that there is actual downward pressure that prevents everyone from just skating into GC. However, we know that when players are matched against "equal competition" all the way up to GC, that allows a flood of players from lower tiers to enter GC without significant difficulty. We know this because it actually happened when roster-based matching was used in BG. This is unacceptable: Kabam explicitly stated such as a balancing point in the past.
If you segregate players by progression, it becomes both too easy to scoop up all the VT rewards *and* it becomes too easy for weaker players to enter GC without any competitive struggle. The only way the devs would consider such a thing is if they also a) depleted the VT rewards for all lower progression tiers and b) eliminated the GC rewards for the lowest GC brackets, so a lower progress player could not just fight other lower progress players and pass through VT, then get freebee GC rewards for parking in the bottom of Uru.
As I said: you don't understand how the mode works. VT exists to provide a path to lower players participating in and earning rewards from BG: without it they would never gain any substantial ranks in GC and thus never earn any rewards. But VT is also the prerequisite to GC, so that participation assistance must phase out so that there's no easy path to GC. Originally they did roster matching in the lower tiers and then phased it out in the higher ones to do this, but this created an even more severe match making anomaly: players would match against very easy competition until they crossed the line where roster matching phased out, then suddenly ran into extremely high competition. It was very binary, far more than now. Seeding was implemented to partially mitigate this, but seeding combined with partial roster matching was still creating this illusion that "correct" match making was only matching against players identical in strength to you, so when it phased out too many players complained the match maker was "bugged." So roster matching was eliminated completely, at the same time the 2/1 medal system was implemented.
There is no way on Earth the devs would implement progression silos in VT *and* let them keep all those VT rewards *and* let them keep 2/1 medals *and* let them scoop up the rewards in Uru now. If you want "fair" matching, which is to say if you want to never actually see real competition, you're going to have to pay for it. And so will everyone else.
My idea only guarantees they face TB only for victory track.
It also guarantees there won't be any rewards for Victory Track.
The VT rewards are primarily participation rewards while GC rewards are competitive rewards, but there's a presumption that there is actual downward pressure that prevents everyone from just skating into GC. However, we know that when players are matched against "equal competition" all the way up to GC, that allows a flood of players from lower tiers to enter GC without significant difficulty. We know this because it actually happened when roster-based matching was used in BG. This is unacceptable: Kabam explicitly stated such as a balancing point in the past.
If you segregate players by progression, it becomes both too easy to scoop up all the VT rewards *and* it becomes too easy for weaker players to enter GC without any competitive struggle. The only way the devs would consider such a thing is if they also a) depleted the VT rewards for all lower progression tiers and b) eliminated the GC rewards for the lowest GC brackets, so a lower progress player could not just fight other lower progress players and pass through VT, then get freebee GC rewards for parking in the bottom of Uru.
As I said: you don't understand how the mode works. VT exists to provide a path to lower players participating in and earning rewards from BG: without it they would never gain any substantial ranks in GC and thus never earn any rewards. But VT is also the prerequisite to GC, so that participation assistance must phase out so that there's no easy path to GC. Originally they did roster matching in the lower tiers and then phased it out in the higher ones to do this, but this created an even more severe match making anomaly: players would match against very easy competition until they crossed the line where roster matching phased out, then suddenly ran into extremely high competition. It was very binary, far more than now. Seeding was implemented to partially mitigate this, but seeding combined with partial roster matching was still creating this illusion that "correct" match making was only matching against players identical in strength to you, so when it phased out too many players complained the match maker was "bugged." So roster matching was eliminated completely, at the same time the 2/1 medal system was implemented.
There is no way on Earth the devs would implement progression silos in VT *and* let them keep all those VT rewards *and* let them keep 2/1 medals *and* let them scoop up the rewards in Uru now. If you want "fair" matching, which is to say if you want to never actually see real competition, you're going to have to pay for it. And so will everyone else.
Oh no, the victory track rewards that affected players don't even fully claim because they're hardstuck in the track, or those who blitz past GC also don't care actually care about beyond being able to hoard it on the way to what they believe are still lackluster GC rewards.
Yeah, maybe we shouldn't change a thing because of those precious VT rewards! And oh my god, the "pass them up the ladder" competitive system of gaining more than you lose, that also doesn't matter for affected players because the odds of them getting fair matches back to back is a pipedream so they end up losing the perceived gain anyway! What a shame that such a system that we all rely on will be a thing of the past!
Oh my god! Fair matchmaking will mean no competitive struggle?! So a cav playing against a cav is just meaningless and those players should enjoy being disadvantaged from the start of match by getting placed against someone who outclasses them just off their content or spending opportunities! Yeah, if its not a mismatch, there is no match!
But wait, VT is apparently both participation rewards, while also meaning that a change to make that portion actually competitively fair would remove the competitive spirit! VT is a path to lower players participating and earning rewards in BGs, but them making it up the ladder is a terrible outcome! Yeah, the players clearly value the rewards they either can't actually earn, haven't had significant change in years, or they continously claim are garbage more than the actual experience of engaging in the mode! Yeah, lets build a mode made to keep lower progression players, the wider playerbase we have been focusing on appeasing in favor of updating the mode they have been complaining, as stepping stools, perpetuate this illusion that they are winning against weaker next progressions and are therefore enjoying a "competitive experience", and use that as the excuse to leave them as cogs in the machine for players who still won't take the mode seriously.
Yeah, none of these guys who persecute the system actually understand the complexities of what is really going on or the importance of everything we have done to make the mode even more unfair. Hell, the few times we made changes to make the mode fair, we realized it was working TOO well! So instead of rebalancing things to properly compensate the difference in match experience and quality, we just reverted the changes! Yeah, we are actually very concerned with the balancing of the mode! No, not balance as in equality, silly. We prefer balancing around one side of the scale. Its a dog eat dog world out there, you know! Or should I say, summoner eat summoner! If you aren't on the top, enjoy your spot as a steppingstone for those above you!
My idea only guarantees they face TB only for victory track.
It also guarantees there won't be any rewards for Victory Track.
The VT rewards are primarily participation rewards while GC rewards are competitive rewards, but there's a presumption that there is actual downward pressure that prevents everyone from just skating into GC. However, we know that when players are matched against "equal competition" all the way up to GC, that allows a flood of players from lower tiers to enter GC without significant difficulty. We know this because it actually happened when roster-based matching was used in BG. This is unacceptable: Kabam explicitly stated such as a balancing point in the past.
If you segregate players by progression, it becomes both too easy to scoop up all the VT rewards *and* it becomes too easy for weaker players to enter GC without any competitive struggle. The only way the devs would consider such a thing is if they also a) depleted the VT rewards for all lower progression tiers and b) eliminated the GC rewards for the lowest GC brackets, so a lower progress player could not just fight other lower progress players and pass through VT, then get freebee GC rewards for parking in the bottom of Uru.
As I said: you don't understand how the mode works. VT exists to provide a path to lower players participating in and earning rewards from BG: without it they would never gain any substantial ranks in GC and thus never earn any rewards. But VT is also the prerequisite to GC, so that participation assistance must phase out so that there's no easy path to GC. Originally they did roster matching in the lower tiers and then phased it out in the higher ones to do this, but this created an even more severe match making anomaly: players would match against very easy competition until they crossed the line where roster matching phased out, then suddenly ran into extremely high competition. It was very binary, far more than now. Seeding was implemented to partially mitigate this, but seeding combined with partial roster matching was still creating this illusion that "correct" match making was only matching against players identical in strength to you, so when it phased out too many players complained the match maker was "bugged." So roster matching was eliminated completely, at the same time the 2/1 medal system was implemented.
There is no way on Earth the devs would implement progression silos in VT *and* let them keep all those VT rewards *and* let them keep 2/1 medals *and* let them scoop up the rewards in Uru now. If you want "fair" matching, which is to say if you want to never actually see real competition, you're going to have to pay for it. And so will everyone else.
Oh no, the victory track rewards that affected players don't even fully claim because they're hardstuck in the track, or those who blitz past GC also don't care actually care about beyond being able to hoard it on the way to what they believe are still lackluster GC rewards.
Yeah, maybe we shouldn't change a thing because of those precious VT rewards! And oh my god, the "pass them up the ladder" competitive system of gaining more than you lose, that also doesn't matter for affected players because the odds of them getting fair matches back to back is a pipedream so they end up losing the perceived gain anyway! What a shame that such a system that we all rely on will be a thing of the past!
Oh my god! Fair matchmaking will mean no competitive struggle?! So a cav playing against a cav is just meaningless and those players should enjoy being disadvantaged from the start of match by getting placed against someone who outclasses them just off their content or spending opportunities! Yeah, if its not a mismatch, there is no match!
But wait, VT is apparently both participation rewards, while also meaning that a change to make that portion actually competitively fair would remove the competitive spirit! VT is a path to lower players participating and earning rewards in BGs, but them making it up the ladder is a terrible outcome! Yeah, the players clearly value the rewards they either can't actually earn, haven't had significant change in years, or they continously claim are garbage more than the actual experience of engaging in the mode! Yeah, lets build a mode made to keep lower progression players, the wider playerbase we have been focusing on appeasing in favor of updating the mode they have been complaining, as stepping stools, perpetuate this illusion that they are winning against weaker next progressions and are therefore enjoying a "competitive experience", and use that as the excuse to leave them as cogs in the machine for players who still won't take the mode seriously.
Yeah, none of these guys who persecute the system actually understand the complexities of what is really going on or the importance of everything we have done to make the mode even more unfair. Hell, the few times we made changes to make the mode fair, we realized it was working TOO well! So instead of rebalancing things to properly compensate the difference in match experience and quality, we just reverted the changes! Yeah, we are actually very concerned with the balancing of the mode! No, not balance as in equality, silly. We prefer balancing around one side of the scale. Its a dog eat dog world out there, you know! Or should I say, summoner eat summoner! If you aren't on the top, enjoy your spot as a steppingstone for those above you!
Battlegrounds, working as intended!
I think the people who designed the system would be the ones to understand it the best. Not some guy who clearly doesn't know the definition of competition and really sucks at sarcasm
As I said: you don't understand how the mode works.
No, the problem isn't that I don't understand the mode. The problem is I don't understand the fixation on actually believing what we have currently is competitive, represents the competitive spirit in anyway, or contains an ounce of integrity beyond the players who engage honestly instead of modding. I don't understand the point in creating an unbalanced mode and defending it as balanced just because the accepted vision is to balance it around it being top heavy over offering an equally competitive experience in ANY capacity anymore. And thats after we get bombshell data saying that the overwhelming complaints made about the mode across the board has been reflected in the data gathered
Look how hard you have to talk around what is actually a fair experience just so you can prop the meme we have now as fair. "Similar strengths and roster sizes" "equal competition" yeah, you mean a bloody fair matchup? The mode is literally so broken, that offering a fair matchup experience not only broke the illusion that what we have moved towards since is fair, but it also turned the illusionary ladder system into an actual ladder system. So the illusion of the path for lower progression players became an actual path, which is apparently against the vision Kabam has for the mode. Again, the problem here isn't understanding how the mode works, its a complete disconnect between what Kabam wants to define as competitive and fair, and what those words actually mean.
I have a lot of sympathy for players below Valiant trying to engage with Battlegrounds, and indeed we are looking at options to create a more casual environment so they can match with other accounts with similar strength outside of the competitive experience.
However, as a Valiant player playing on the Gladiator's Circuit, you are always going to eventually run into accounts stronger than your own. How you deal with that will determine how successful you are in Battlegrounds. If you have a deck of mostly R3s, you shouldn't be forfeiting to anybody. Yes, you are more likely than not to lose to an equal skilled player with a row of R4s, but it is definitely not guaranteed. And skill and strategy can often overcome a single rank differential in champion power. The best Battlegrounds players in the world are those with the most skill and the most experience in the various matchups, for the most part they aren't the players with the biggest accounts.
So Cav vs Cav ad TB vs TB is such a problem, those lower progression players should be happy to play mismatches and value the fact that they earn nothing from winning 1 of many. but this is the response a valiant player gets when complaining about the ACTUAL competitive area of the mode, not the participation trophy ladder. Yeah, eventually facing someone stronger is ok and expected keyword EVENTUALLY. Yes, even a valiant with ranked 7 stars is more than likely to lose to an equally skilled player with a row of higher ranked r4s. What does that say about the rest of the playerbase who is left punching up every match as their average experience in their tailor-made ladder/path down in participation track??? "Skill and strategy can often overcome a single rank differential in champion power" How about multiple rank differentials in champ power? What about the players dealing with that for every match they play regardless of seeding thanks to noone taking the mode seriously for dozens of seasons on end? Yeah, thats definitely fair! But I don't understand the mode, so what do I know?
As I said: you don't understand how the mode works.
No, the problem isn't that I don't understand the mode. The problem is I don't understand the fixation on actually believing what we have currently is competitive, represents the competitive spirit in anyway, or contains an ounce of integrity beyond the players who engage honestly instead of modding. I don't understand the point in creating an unbalanced mode and defending it as balanced just because the accepted vision is to balance it around it being top heavy over offering an equally competitive experience in ANY capacity anymore. And thats after we get bombshell data saying that the overwhelming complaints made about the mode across the board has been reflected in the data gathered
Look how hard you have to talk around what is actually a fair experience just so you can prop the meme we have now as fair. "Similar strengths and roster sizes" "equal competition" yeah, you mean a bloody fair matchup? The mode is literally so broken, that offering a fair matchup experience not only broke the illusion that what we have moved towards since is fair, but it also turned the illusionary ladder system into an actual ladder system. So the illusion of the path for lower progression players became an actual path, which is apparently against the vision Kabam has for the mode. Again, the problem here isn't understanding how the mode works, its a complete disconnect between what Kabam wants to define as competitive and fair, and what those words actually mean.
I have a lot of sympathy for players below Valiant trying to engage with Battlegrounds, and indeed we are looking at options to create a more casual environment so they can match with other accounts with similar strength outside of the competitive experience.
However, as a Valiant player playing on the Gladiator's Circuit, you are always going to eventually run into accounts stronger than your own. How you deal with that will determine how successful you are in Battlegrounds. If you have a deck of mostly R3s, you shouldn't be forfeiting to anybody. Yes, you are more likely than not to lose to an equal skilled player with a row of R4s, but it is definitely not guaranteed. And skill and strategy can often overcome a single rank differential in champion power. The best Battlegrounds players in the world are those with the most skill and the most experience in the various matchups, for the most part they aren't the players with the biggest accounts.
So Cav vs Cav ad TB vs TB is such a problem, those lower progression players should be happy to play mismatches and value the fact that they earn nothing from winning 1 of many. but this is the response a valiant player gets when complaining about the ACTUAL competitive area of the mode, not the participation trophy ladder. Yeah, eventually facing someone stronger is ok and expected keyword EVENTUALLY. Yes, even a valiant with ranked 7 stars is more than likely to lose to an equally skilled player with a row of higher ranked r4s. What does that say about the rest of the playerbase who is left punching up every match as their average experience in their tailor-made ladder/path down in participation track??? "Skill and strategy can often overcome a single rank differential in champion power" How about multiple rank differentials in champ power? What about the players dealing with that for every match they play regardless of seeding thanks to noone taking the mode seriously for dozens of seasons on end? Yeah, thats definitely fair! But I don't understand the mode, so what do I know?
I think you’re misunderstanding the whole battleground is aimed for. While lower ranks are open to play, they are in no way the target for the game mode. This is a endgame competitive mode which is why the radiance store has the best meta rewards.
Lower ranks should not be relying on BG to boost their roster when they have plenty of content outside of bg to do that. And if you’ve done the content outside then you should be valiant by that point. As crash said, he plans to make a mode thats less competitive for those who enjoy the structure of the game mode, however by no means is the competitive side of the original game mode supposed to be what lower tiers look towards when playing the game. If you want a pvp game mode then do AQ or AW.
Lower ranks will run in to a wall. Thats how it’s intended. They then seek content outside of BG to overcome that wall and then get back into BG. Once there is no more content to be done outside. Then you should be at a point where you would easily reach GC.
I think you’re misunderstanding the whole battleground is aimed for. While lower ranks are open to play, they are in no way the target for the game mode. This is a endgame competitive mode which is why the radiance store has the best meta rewards.
Lower ranks should not be relying on BG to boost their roster when they have plenty of content outside of bg to do that. And if you’ve done the content outside then you should be valiant by that point. As crash said, he plans to make a mode thats less competitive for those who enjoy the structure of the game mode, however by no means is the competitive side of the original game mode supposed to be what lower tiers look towards when playing the game. If you want a pvp game mode then do AQ or AW.
Lower ranks will run in to a wall. Thats how it’s intended. They then seek content outside of BG to overcome that wall and then get back into BG. Once there is no more content to be done outside. Then you should be at a point where you would easily reach GC.
See what I mean? So now we go from competitive integrity and a path for lower progression players to earn rewards, to "no its made for endgame, don't you see this new store that wasn't a thing for seasons on end."
Yeah, bgs is fair, but lower progression players need to be slammed with a wall so they knuckle up and actually progress. Also, those players can earn rewards from VT, but they shouldn't expect those rewards to actually mean anything worthwhile for their progression.
So adding progression gates and fairness means everyone is stuck in bronze 3 competing for 3 star shards. The rewards as they are now are oh so valuable that any change means they will need to be removed to account for removing the "competitive difficulty." Yet the rewards also shouldn't be enough to progress or make any real steps toward bolstering rosters, which means that the participation trophy rewards are just placebo.
And nothing you said addresses the actual experience of engaging in the mode. Just the incentives for why players should suffer through playing anyway. Not even that, since if the VT rewards aren't enough to progress or bolster rosters for lower progression players, what does that say about the level of rewards the group the mode is "supposed to be catering towards" are earning. Again, the radiance store won't be the answer for most valiants, let alone the rest of the playerbase who supposedly have a path for them in the mode. So the mode is literally not worth playing in across the board, and we still haven't solved how painful it is to actually play it. Even worse, none of this has to do with facilitating a competitive experience. Just an explanation for the need to create an illusion incentivizing players to compete in a mode that now we are all admitting is not only unfair, but was purposely planned to be that way, and is also planned to stay that way.
I think you’re misunderstanding the whole battleground is aimed for. While lower ranks are open to play, they are in no way the target for the game mode. This is a endgame competitive mode which is why the radiance store has the best meta rewards.
Lower ranks should not be relying on BG to boost their roster when they have plenty of content outside of bg to do that. And if you’ve done the content outside then you should be valiant by that point. As crash said, he plans to make a mode thats less competitive for those who enjoy the structure of the game mode, however by no means is the competitive side of the original game mode supposed to be what lower tiers look towards when playing the game. If you want a pvp game mode then do AQ or AW.
Lower ranks will run in to a wall. Thats how it’s intended. They then seek content outside of BG to overcome that wall and then get back into BG. Once there is no more content to be done outside. Then you should be at a point where you would easily reach GC.
See what I mean? So now we go from competitive integrity and a path for lower progression players to earn rewards, to "no its made for endgame, don't you see this new store that wasn't a thing for seasons on end."
Yeah, bgs is fair, but lower progression players need to be slammed with a wall so they knuckle up and actually progress. Also, those players can earn rewards from VT, but they shouldn't expect those rewards to actually mean anything worthwhile for their progression.
So adding progression gates and fairness means everyone is stuck in bronze 3 competing for 3 star shards. The rewards as they are now are oh so valuable that any change means they will need to be removed to account for removing the "competitive difficulty." Yet the rewards also shouldn't be enough to progress or make any real steps toward bolstering rosters, which means that the participation trophy rewards are just placebo.
And nothing you said addresses the actual experience of engaging in the mode. Just the incentives for why players should suffer through playing anyway. Not even that, since if the VT rewards aren't enough to progress or bolster rosters for lower progression players, what does that say about the level of rewards the group the mode is "supposed to be catering towards" are earning. Again, the radiance store won't be the answer for most valiants, let alone the rest of the playerbase who supposedly have a path for them in the mode. So the mode is literally not worth playing in across the board, and we still haven't solved how painful it is to actually play it. Even worse, none of this has to do with facilitating a competitive experience. Just an explanation for the need to create an illusion incentivizing players to compete in a mode that now we are all admitting is not only unfair, but was purposely planned to be that way, and is also planned to stay that way.
It not being tailored for lower progression doesn’t negate the competitive aspect. It’s still competitive but more viable competitive mode for higher progression.
The victory track gives you a full 7* crystal and half of a titan. This is enough incentive to actually compete for VT. While for pragon and valiants, the main rewards are in GC. The lower progression incentives are the shards and battle tokens. While the battle tokens are not life changing they still benefit lower progression and the 7* shards are more then they’d typically deserve at the level they are at to actually have a go at VT. Typically speaking no one below throne breaker should even expect to earn a 7* outside of special events like banquet. The fact that they have a opportunity to slowly chip away at it is the incentive. If thats not appealing to you, then BG as a game mode just isn’t for you.
Also radiance store is extremely beneficial to higher progression, i have no idea what you mean about it not being worth while.
At this point the discussion is about narratives, not facts. And that's usually when I bow out of Battlegrounds discussions. I can explain how things work and usually why they work the way they work, but I am not a Battlegrounds therapist. What I do know is that players of all progressions can engage with the mode, and can be competitive up to a point, and with sufficient skill you can get pretty far (I even wrote the literally handbook of how to get a Cav account into GC a while back). If you want to learn the mode and how it works, especially how VT dynamically changes throughout a season, all that information is out there.
If you just want to cry foul, that's also your prerogative, and anyone that wants to follow you into that pity party is welcome to join you. We can't help everyone, nor these days am I even interested in trying.
In most games that start off PvE, PvP ends up being a niche game mode. It can be a pretty big niche as I suspect it is here, but still, not everyone is cut out for competitive PvP. The biggest problem is thinking that fairness is about how the game treats you, and not how it treats the competition itself. Not everyone likes AW, not everyone likes AQ, not everyone likes end game content. And not everyone likes BG, and there's no way to make them like it. BG is not a perfect game mode: I've been involved with a few of the changes to it over the years, and I've been playing it since the pre-beta on the CCP servers (where I got my butt kicked all over the place). I think there are still improvements to be made. But those improvements will happen within the context of the fact that it is primarily a solo competitive game modes, and competitive game modes have winners and losers. No one likes to lose, so not everyone is going to like losing in BG. I don't particularly like losing myself. People need to have the correct expectations. When the devs say they are going to try to improve the lower progression experience, that improvement is not going to be something where the goal is for them to win more matches and earn more rewards. The goal is not to turn them all into winners.
Some of those players will decide to turn themselves into winners over time by playing more, grinding more, practicing more skills, learning more mechanics, studying more abilities. And some will do, whatever this is. Games are fundamentally about choices, and we all make our own and have to live with them.
I think you’re misunderstanding the whole battleground is aimed for. While lower ranks are open to play, they are in no way the target for the game mode. This is a endgame competitive mode which is why the radiance store has the best meta rewards.
Lower ranks should not be relying on BG to boost their roster when they have plenty of content outside of bg to do that. And if you’ve done the content outside then you should be valiant by that point. As crash said, he plans to make a mode thats less competitive for those who enjoy the structure of the game mode, however by no means is the competitive side of the original game mode supposed to be what lower tiers look towards when playing the game. If you want a pvp game mode then do AQ or AW.
Lower ranks will run in to a wall. Thats how it’s intended. They then seek content outside of BG to overcome that wall and then get back into BG. Once there is no more content to be done outside. Then you should be at a point where you would easily reach GC.
See what I mean? So now we go from competitive integrity and a path for lower progression players to earn rewards, to "no its made for endgame, don't you see this new store that wasn't a thing for seasons on end."
Yeah, bgs is fair, but lower progression players need to be slammed with a wall so they knuckle up and actually progress. Also, those players can earn rewards from VT, but they shouldn't expect those rewards to actually mean anything worthwhile for their progression.
So adding progression gates and fairness means everyone is stuck in bronze 3 competing for 3 star shards. The rewards as they are now are oh so valuable that any change means they will need to be removed to account for removing the "competitive difficulty." Yet the rewards also shouldn't be enough to progress or make any real steps toward bolstering rosters, which means that the participation trophy rewards are just placebo.
And nothing you said addresses the actual experience of engaging in the mode. Just the incentives for why players should suffer through playing anyway. Not even that, since if the VT rewards aren't enough to progress or bolster rosters for lower progression players, what does that say about the level of rewards the group the mode is "supposed to be catering towards" are earning. Again, the radiance store won't be the answer for most valiants, let alone the rest of the playerbase who supposedly have a path for them in the mode. So the mode is literally not worth playing in across the board, and we still haven't solved how painful it is to actually play it. Even worse, none of this has to do with facilitating a competitive experience. Just an explanation for the need to create an illusion incentivizing players to compete in a mode that now we are all admitting is not only unfair, but was purposely planned to be that way, and is also planned to stay that way.
I think many of the players who come on the forum to complain about matchmaking are relatively new to the game, or at a lower progression, or both. Honestly, I’m always a bit surprised at how focused they are on BGs. I think what’s lost on newer players ( some, certainly not all), is that those of us with decks full of r3s and r4s didn’t come by those rosters by playing BGs. We have explored every piece of content available and we usually do it quickly. The success is a function of time spent playing the game and focusing on content that leads to progression. Being able to wipe the floor with cavs and paragons in BG is a downstream effect from sustained investment of time and energy in the game.
If you told players. UC can only get to Plat Cav can only get to Diamond TB can only get to Vibranium Paragon and Valiant can get to GC. We would not be having this problem at all. I understand the constant explotation of FOMO in this game; but this was a huge miss. And the matchmaking safe up yo Plat implemented in the past was another huge mistake.
The problems with BG and it's matchmaking are just extensions of the problems the game has built over time. It isn't new to face account larger in size in pvp modes like war and pvp-ish modes like arena which can brick your progress.
also with very new toxic defenders and very specific attackers, i'd say the BG's meta has essentially become to find the newest roadblock at the highest level possible 7*r3, so even if you do have enough skill and are lucky enough to even pull a decent counter you're still loosing because you're facing a loosing battle.
now as much as people can suggest play the game out because you don't know what can happen, it doesn't matter when the entire game is a random mess of spagetti. defenders refusing to throw specials and bricking the fight, the game not loading in time and crashing, lags and the time spent in fight getting elongated.
Theres no way to achieve balance for the non top 5% of bg without taking a saw to dismantle many of the systems the game is hanging from
I don’t think some people understand what they’re asking for. You want to treat Battlegrounds like it’s Event Quest. Uncollected vs. Uncollected, Cav vs. Cav, TB vs. TB, Paragon vs. Paragon
The reality is you’re going to have the same problem. There’s a “seasoned” Paragon player with more R4’s than a new Paragon player and that new Paragon player is going to complain the same way saying “matchmaking is too unfair”
For matchmaking to be “fair”, you’d have to match opponents with similar BG roster strength as you. HOWEVER, for you to match with that person, that person would also have to queue up the exact same time as you. If not, you’re left with this *necessary* imbalance of going against stronger rosters because they’re queuing up with you
It's only "necessary" because most sensible beginning and intermediate players aren't going to spend an inordinate amount of time in a PvP game mode where they're just punching bags for heavyweights. That anyone without a dominant deck plays Battlegrounds at all is the result of the placement of hard-to-resist high-value rewards in the mode.
I see a lot of argument here suggesting that those high-value rewards should require a commensurate high degree of challenge on behalf of the player, but no one seems to be acknowledging the other side of that equation: that these unbalanced match-ups grant the already-advantaged player set literally the easiest path in the game to the best rewards. So of course there's a portion of the player base that's perfectly happy with the arrangement of feasting on weaker players so they can rank up a few more R4s. No, they'll never be good enough to beat the strongest players atop the leaderboards, but they'll be able to outpace the majority of players in terms of champions and rank-ups by punching down most of the way, and then they'll take their inflated accounts into other content and complain about how paltry the rewards are. It's not a good dynamic, and besides annoying players looking for a competitive game mode, I can't see how it is good for the game in the long run.
I don’t think some people understand what they’re asking for. You want to treat Battlegrounds like it’s Event Quest. Uncollected vs. Uncollected, Cav vs. Cav, TB vs. TB, Paragon vs. Paragon
The reality is you’re going to have the same problem. There’s a “seasoned” Paragon player with more R4’s than a new Paragon player and that new Paragon player is going to complain the same way saying “matchmaking is too unfair”
For matchmaking to be “fair”, you’d have to match opponents with similar BG roster strength as you. HOWEVER, for you to match with that person, that person would also have to queue up the exact same time as you. If not, you’re left with this *necessary* imbalance of going against stronger rosters because they’re queuing up with you
It's not a good dynamic, and besides annoying players looking for a competitive game mode, I can't see how it is good for the game in the long run.
Battlegrounds has been around for 28+ seasons. With the 1 week breaks in between seasons, that’s nearly 3+ years worth of Battlegrounds, which is “long term”. But see how you didn’t address my first point either?
At this point the discussion is about narratives, not facts. And that's usually when I bow out of Battlegrounds discussions. I can explain how things work and usually why they work the way they work, but I am not a Battlegrounds therapist. What I do know is that players of all progressions can engage with the mode, and can be competitive up to a point, and with sufficient skill you can get pretty far (I even wrote the literally handbook of how to get a Cav account into GC a while back). If you want to learn the mode and how it works, especially how VT dynamically changes throughout a season, all that information is out there.
If you just want to cry foul, that's also your prerogative, and anyone that wants to follow you into that pity party is welcome to join you. We can't help everyone, nor these days am I even interested in trying.
In most games that start off PvE, PvP ends up being a niche game mode. It can be a pretty big niche as I suspect it is here, but still, not everyone is cut out for competitive PvP. The biggest problem is thinking that fairness is about how the game treats you, and not how it treats the competition itself. Not everyone likes AW, not everyone likes AQ, not everyone likes end game content. And not everyone likes BG, and there's no way to make them like it. BG is not a perfect game mode: I've been involved with a few of the changes to it over the years, and I've been playing it since the pre-beta on the CCP servers (where I got my butt kicked all over the place). I think there are still improvements to be made. But those improvements will happen within the context of the fact that it is primarily a solo competitive game modes, and competitive game modes have winners and losers. No one likes to lose, so not everyone is going to like losing in BG. I don't particularly like losing myself. People need to have the correct expectations. When the devs say they are going to try to improve the lower progression experience, that improvement is not going to be something where the goal is for them to win more matches and earn more rewards. The goal is not to turn them all into winners.
Some of those players will decide to turn themselves into winners over time by playing more, grinding more, practicing more skills, learning more mechanics, studying more abilities. And some will do, whatever this is. Games are fundamentally about choices, and we all make our own and have to live with them.
The "narratives" are just the reality of what you have steadily admitted about the mode in this thread, and even then you still ignore the point of the conversation. Its not about winners and losers. Every mode with a form of competition has winners and losers. If two people enter a match, one person has to win, one person has to lose. Thats practically unavoidable.
The point here is that you all completely miss the most important part of any form of regulated or standardized competition, competitive integrity. I don't know how you all expect to do anything esport related if you can't grasp the point of Fair Play. BGs is not a tournament. Its a one v one mode. There is no excuse to not have any sense of fair play. Thats just a basic expectation in ANY form of competition. You know what happens when people compete outside of Fair Play regulation? With complete mismatches? You even already have it implemented in your game. Yeah, FRIENDLY competitive matches. Showmatches, even. Not the sort of match you expect when queuing into official matchmaking. Not the sort of match that is allowed to be worth what was originally intended if fair play rules were followed.
I'm not even proposing "textbook" fairness of "perfect equality." I'm advocating for equal opportunity. Cav vs Cav, TB vs TB, Para vs Para, Val vs Val matches and expectations are fair because of the equality of opportunity through time played or money spent. Thats a fair shot and imo one of the closest things to a fair shot in a competitive game built on progressing forward like MCOC. A cav player cannot match a TB in opportunity, thats just a fact. Even in the cases where stronger cavs are beating weaker TBs, it doesn't amount to anything since cavs are still competing for cav level rewards. There is no benefit to mismatches beyond the higher player getting a chance at a free win and an easy path forward. Again, BGs is not a tournament setting, its a game mode.
There is no reason to not implement fair play in battlegrounds beyond being attached to the mode as it is and preferring the unregulated wild west approach, but that is NOT competition. Its like hearing some modern doctor trying to push the benefits of leeching. You know what we call them? Quacks. They're a joke in the face of modern medicine, and Kabam's chosen interpretation of competitive play is a joke in the face of modern competition. Yall can do whatever you want, just don't lie and call it competitive.
Regardless, its good to see you all just come out and say it at this point. All that, "people don't understand the mode," is really, "you all don't understand that this is what we are aiming for. Its working as intended." Yeah, BGs is founded on "competition." Unregulated competition with no integrity, no fair play, and no plans to change that. A "solo-competitive" mode in name. Lets hear an announcement for the community on this so we can really temper the playerbase's expectations.
"BGs is not fair, it is not intended to be fair, and we do not plan to create a fair environment with competitive integrity. Compete at your own risk."
Regardless, its good to see you all just come out and say it at this point. All that, "people don't understand the mode," is really, "you all don't understand that this is what we are aiming for. Its working as intended." Yeah, BGs is founded on "competition." Unregulated competition with no integrity, no fair play, and no plans to change that. A "solo-competitive" mode in name. Lets hear an announcement for the community on this so we can really temper the playerbase's expectations.
"BGs is not fair, it is not intended to be fair, and we do not plan to create a fair environment with competitive integrity. Compete at your own risk."
Why does this announcement need to be made? If you show up to a basketball court with your team of 1.6m tall players to play pickup, and the team on the court is all 1.8m and taller, everyone intuitively understands what the competition level is.
This is an optional PVP game mode in a mainly PVE game, with optional rewards. There is no commissioner, there is no salary cap. It only needs to be balanced to encourage some level of participation (and spending, because otherwise Kabam is not just creating this mode out of the goodness of their hearts), and not 100% balanced for every player.
not even in uru 3 not in uru 2 not in uru 1 not in gamma 5 but gamma 4.
4 whole entire rank places above me and i'm getting matched with him.
Dude, that is the most ideal matchup ever. This one, however, is not. Even if I had won, I would have only received 8 points, but I was completely outdrafted.
I am still a little salty about it, but kudos to him.
Regardless, its good to see you all just come out and say it at this point. All that, "people don't understand the mode," is really, "you all don't understand that this is what we are aiming for. Its working as intended." Yeah, BGs is founded on "competition." Unregulated competition with no integrity, no fair play, and no plans to change that. A "solo-competitive" mode in name. Lets hear an announcement for the community on this so we can really temper the playerbase's expectations.
"BGs is not fair, it is not intended to be fair, and we do not plan to create a fair environment with competitive integrity. Compete at your own risk."
Why does this announcement need to be made? If you show up to a basketball court with your team of 1.6m tall players to play pickup, and the team on the court is all 1.8m and taller, everyone intuitively understands what the competition level is.
This is an optional PVP game mode in a mainly PVE game, with optional rewards. There is no commissioner, there is no salary cap. It only needs to be balanced to encourage some level of participation (and spending, because otherwise Kabam is not just creating this mode out of the goodness of their hearts), and not 100% balanced for every player.
But if I que into a league or organized experience, not a pickup game thats basically a bg friendly, I don't expect to play NBA players. In this case, even if I do end up doing so, there is no benefit. I don't earn more medals, I don't get a more points. I'm stuck playing for the same stakes in match that is stacked against me where I have more to lose. Playing a mismatch in VT is the same as every other match. There is no competitive integrity in the official game mode. Its literally the same as if I made a community league, the only difference is you get rewards from the unbalanced mess.
And why does the announcement need to be made? To make it apparent that how things are is what they want and that while they intend to keep tweak things it will be in the spirit of keeping things that way. Actions may speak louder than words, but at this point there is no point in not just coming out and saying it. They came out and admitted years later that they abandoned bgs and strung the players who believed in it along, why not come out and just admit 30 seasons later that their solo-competitive mode was always intended to be anti-competitive. Why shouldn't they tell the stepping-stones they built the system off of that there is no future for them in the mode? Let it be known exactly what they think. Thats been their new policy, right? Transparency. Well its time for another dose of reality. For everyone. Let the ones who have been whining about poor rewards know that the mode was built for them to easily obtain them off the backs of weaker players instead of fueling real competition from top to bottom. Let the rest of the community know that BGs is made for them to engage and hit a wall and if you want a real competitive experience at your level then you need to look to their next iteration of a "casual" mode. Because they don't consider competition between Cavs, Tbs, or Paragons to be actually competitive. No, to kabam, fair matchmaking is a casual experience.
At this point the discussion is about narratives, not facts. And that's usually when I bow out of Battlegrounds discussions. I can explain how things work and usually why they work the way they work, but I am not a Battlegrounds therapist. What I do know is that players of all progressions can engage with the mode, and can be competitive up to a point, and with sufficient skill you can get pretty far (I even wrote the literally handbook of how to get a Cav account into GC a while back). If you want to learn the mode and how it works, especially how VT dynamically changes throughout a season, all that information is out there.
If you just want to cry foul, that's also your prerogative, and anyone that wants to follow you into that pity party is welcome to join you. We can't help everyone, nor these days am I even interested in trying.
In most games that start off PvE, PvP ends up being a niche game mode. It can be a pretty big niche as I suspect it is here, but still, not everyone is cut out for competitive PvP. The biggest problem is thinking that fairness is about how the game treats you, and not how it treats the competition itself. Not everyone likes AW, not everyone likes AQ, not everyone likes end game content. And not everyone likes BG, and there's no way to make them like it. BG is not a perfect game mode: I've been involved with a few of the changes to it over the years, and I've been playing it since the pre-beta on the CCP servers (where I got my butt kicked all over the place). I think there are still improvements to be made. But those improvements will happen within the context of the fact that it is primarily a solo competitive game modes, and competitive game modes have winners and losers. No one likes to lose, so not everyone is going to like losing in BG. I don't particularly like losing myself. People need to have the correct expectations. When the devs say they are going to try to improve the lower progression experience, that improvement is not going to be something where the goal is for them to win more matches and earn more rewards. The goal is not to turn them all into winners.
Some of those players will decide to turn themselves into winners over time by playing more, grinding more, practicing more skills, learning more mechanics, studying more abilities. And some will do, whatever this is. Games are fundamentally about choices, and we all make our own and have to live with them.
The "narratives" are just the reality of what you have steadily admitted about the mode in this thread, and even then you still ignore the point of the conversation. Its not about winners and losers. Every mode with a form of competition has winners and losers. If two people enter a match, one person has to win, one person has to lose. Thats practically unavoidable.
The point here is that you all completely miss the most important part of any form of regulated or standardized competition, competitive integrity. I don't know how you all expect to do anything esport related if you can't grasp the point of Fair Play. BGs is not a tournament. Its a one v one mode. There is no excuse to not have any sense of fair play. Thats just a basic expectation in ANY form of competition. You know what happens when people compete outside of Fair Play regulation? With complete mismatches? You even already have it implemented in your game. Yeah, FRIENDLY competitive matches. Showmatches, even. Not the sort of match you expect when queuing into official matchmaking. Not the sort of match that is allowed to be worth what was originally intended if fair play rules were followed.
I'm not even proposing "textbook" fairness of "perfect equality." I'm advocating for equal opportunity. Cav vs Cav, TB vs TB, Para vs Para, Val vs Val matches and expectations are fair because of the equality of opportunity through time played or money spent. Thats a fair shot and imo one of the closest things to a fair shot in a competitive game built on progressing forward like MCOC. A cav player cannot match a TB in opportunity, thats just a fact. Even in the cases where stronger cavs are beating weaker TBs, it doesn't amount to anything since cavs are still competing for cav level rewards. There is no benefit to mismatches beyond the higher player getting a chance at a free win and an easy path forward. Again, BGs is not a tournament setting, its a game mode.
There is no reason to not implement fair play in battlegrounds beyond being attached to the mode as it is and preferring the unregulated wild west approach, but that is NOT competition. Its like hearing some modern doctor trying to push the benefits of leeching. You know what we call them? Quacks. They're a joke in the face of modern medicine, and Kabam's chosen interpretation of competitive play is a joke in the face of modern competition. Yall can do whatever you want, just don't lie and call it competitive.
Regardless, its good to see you all just come out and say it at this point. All that, "people don't understand the mode," is really, "you all don't understand that this is what we are aiming for. Its working as intended." Yeah, BGs is founded on "competition." Unregulated competition with no integrity, no fair play, and no plans to change that. A "solo-competitive" mode in name. Lets hear an announcement for the community on this so we can really temper the playerbase's expectations.
"BGs is not fair, it is not intended to be fair, and we do not plan to create a fair environment with competitive integrity. Compete at your own risk."
Bro is the king of yapping about absolutely nothing
Regardless, its good to see you all just come out and say it at this point. All that, "people don't understand the mode," is really, "you all don't understand that this is what we are aiming for. Its working as intended." Yeah, BGs is founded on "competition." Unregulated competition with no integrity, no fair play, and no plans to change that. A "solo-competitive" mode in name. Lets hear an announcement for the community on this so we can really temper the playerbase's expectations.
"BGs is not fair, it is not intended to be fair, and we do not plan to create a fair environment with competitive integrity. Compete at your own risk."
Why does this announcement need to be made? If you show up to a basketball court with your team of 1.6m tall players to play pickup, and the team on the court is all 1.8m and taller, everyone intuitively understands what the competition level is.
This is an optional PVP game mode in a mainly PVE game, with optional rewards. There is no commissioner, there is no salary cap. It only needs to be balanced to encourage some level of participation (and spending, because otherwise Kabam is not just creating this mode out of the goodness of their hearts), and not 100% balanced for every player.
But if I que into a league or organized experience, not a pickup game thats basically a bg friendly, I don't expect to play NBA players. In this case, even if I do end up doing so, there is no benefit. I don't earn more medals, I don't get a more points. I'm stuck playing for the same stakes in match that is stacked against me where I have more to lose. Playing a mismatch in VT is the same as every other match. There is no competitive integrity in the official game mode. Its literally the same as if I made a community league, the only difference is you get rewards from the unbalanced mess.
I mean, that is the problem in your approach right there - BGs is essentially pickup (hop on at anytime, play as many matches as you want, play whoever is there) but with a combination of participation trophies (complete 3 matches) and ladder based rewards. It is not an organized experience where each season is 12 games only, or where there are different leagues (little league, varsity, intramural, college, professional).
You want the competitive, "fair" structure? That's what AW is there for.
You may just have to accept that BGs is not for you (And full disclosure, BGs is not really for me). Kabam can do minor tweaks here and there, but it will never be what you want it to be.
It’s about as pure a competition as you could dream up. What OP fails to understand is that 80% of the competition is taking place outside of BGs. It’s the time spent in story and progression, the time spent to acquire champs through sagas, EoP, Ordeal, etc.
BG is like most competitions in that the outcome of the individual game is dictated by everything that a player or team has done in preparation.
If I go to the park across the street to run in the Saturday pickup game and I don’t want to get packed up, I don’t complain that the rules of basketball are unfair or argue that we should lower the rim. I work the phones and find my buddies who are better players than the scrubs I would have brought otherwise. I stack the deck in my favor by preparing. That’s what is valiants are doing all the time by playing the game seriously over the long haul.
It’s about as pure a competition as you could dream up. What OP fails to understand is that 80% of the competition is taking place outside of BGs. It’s the time spent in story and progression, the time spent to acquire champs through sagas, EoP, Ordeal, etc.
BG is like most competitions in that the outcome of the individual game is dictated by everything that a player or team has done in preparation.
If I go to the park across the street to run in the Saturday pickup game and I don’t want to get packed up, I don’t complain that the rules of basketball are unfair or argue that we should lower the rim. I work the phones and find my buddies who are better players than the scrubs I would have brought otherwise. I stack the deck in my favor by preparing. That’s what is valiants are doing all the time by playing the game seriously over the long haul.
Thats the same for every competition. 80% of the battle takes place before the match starts. But none of that is an excuse to disregard any sense of fair play. For all that Kabam has been saying that this game is more than valiants and trying to get the community to have any sort of sympathy for the average player they have been trying to appeal to, suddenly those player's experiences mean nothing. All that matters is structuring the mode for the top.
Again you're also falling into the same fallacy as DNA. Nothing about this has to do with winning or losing. He already tried to use strong cavs beating weak TBs as an example. In the same example, who cares if the pickup team beat the NBA squad. The point is why the hell are we normalizing complete and utter mismatches and branding it as competitive. You see a grown man playing JV kids and your first thought isn't, "this is pure competition" its, "who let a grown man into a JV league."
They already said their approach hadn't been working and caused them to abandon the mode for months on end. You go anywhere players can voice opinions, reddit, the discord, ingame in global, youtube video comments, twitch streams, its a constant outcry of why BGs is unfair. The structure does not create an enjoyable or valid experience for most of the playerbase, the ones that it does heavily favor still don't take it seriously, its even more niche among the pvp enjoying playerbase than pvp is generally among pve style games like this one, and its run using an anti-competitive structure being lauded as competitive. They need to just come out and say its as intended so the real outcry can start.
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However, as a Valiant player playing on the Gladiator's Circuit, you are always going to eventually run into accounts stronger than your own. How you deal with that will determine how successful you are in Battlegrounds. If you have a deck of mostly R3s, you shouldn't be forfeiting to anybody. Yes, you are more likely than not to lose to an equal skilled player with a row of R4s, but it is definitely not guaranteed. And skill and strategy can often overcome a single rank differential in champion power. The best Battlegrounds players in the world are those with the most skill and the most experience in the various matchups, for the most part they aren't the players with the biggest accounts.
But in terms of actual common sense, no, it doesn't sound fair. Still, thats not really a deal breaker. im sure the same way I tossed this idea out there, someone can come up with something better or a way to make this one better. Again, If things were actually easy, some random knowitall loudmouth on the forums drops an idea and it somehow solves everything, everything would have been fixed already, That doesn't mean we give up on a solution. We workshop on how to make it better. We hold Kabam accountable to not leave the mode to rot for seasons on end, come back with something that only alleviates the pressure for a portion of the community that they have repeatedly labeled as small, and leaving the rest to just be cogs in a machine made to feed that small percentage.
Like perhaps Bronze to Diamond is progression gated, vibranium is the open pool, they extend it like they had been saying they wanted to, and valiants start at the bottom of vibranium. Like this season, where the bugged start had some valiant players starting in Vib 2, but lower and on purpose this time. Then GC purists who don't want the lowies tainting their Valiant only playground can gatekeep their area, the lowies get a feasible competitive experience, and the anyone of them who can punch up still get to compete in Vibranium and have the chance to get somewhere in GC. Everyone wins except for the paragons.
In the end, I'm just the frustrated customer. I don''t have all the answers. I recognize problems and loudly complain about them until they're fixed while taking everything else that was done right for granted. Proposing anything even worth discussing at length is already steps ahead of where I should be. Regardless, we shouldn't need to come up with the perfect solutions for them. The point is we shouldn't give up on advocating for things to be better than they are now, and that starts with addressing the absence of competitive integrity within the mode. Even if there is no perfect solution, there is without a doubt SOMETHING that could be done to make things better than what they are now.
The reality is you’re going to have the same problem. There’s a “seasoned” Paragon player with more R4’s than a new Paragon player and that new Paragon player is going to complain the same way saying “matchmaking is too unfair”
For matchmaking to be “fair”, you’d have to match opponents with similar BG roster strength as you. HOWEVER, for you to match with that person, that person would also have to queue up the exact same time as you. If not, you’re left with this *necessary* imbalance of going against stronger rosters because they’re queuing up with you
The VT rewards are primarily participation rewards while GC rewards are competitive rewards, but there's a presumption that there is actual downward pressure that prevents everyone from just skating into GC. However, we know that when players are matched against "equal competition" all the way up to GC, that allows a flood of players from lower tiers to enter GC without significant difficulty. We know this because it actually happened when roster-based matching was used in BG. This is unacceptable: Kabam explicitly stated such as a balancing point in the past.
If you segregate players by progression, it becomes both too easy to scoop up all the VT rewards *and* it becomes too easy for weaker players to enter GC without any competitive struggle. The only way the devs would consider such a thing is if they also a) depleted the VT rewards for all lower progression tiers and b) eliminated the GC rewards for the lowest GC brackets, so a lower progress player could not just fight other lower progress players and pass through VT, then get freebee GC rewards for parking in the bottom of Uru.
As I said: you don't understand how the mode works. VT exists to provide a path to lower players participating in and earning rewards from BG: without it they would never gain any substantial ranks in GC and thus never earn any rewards. But VT is also the prerequisite to GC, so that participation assistance must phase out so that there's no easy path to GC. Originally they did roster matching in the lower tiers and then phased it out in the higher ones to do this, but this created an even more severe match making anomaly: players would match against very easy competition until they crossed the line where roster matching phased out, then suddenly ran into extremely high competition. It was very binary, far more than now. Seeding was implemented to partially mitigate this, but seeding combined with partial roster matching was still creating this illusion that "correct" match making was only matching against players identical in strength to you, so when it phased out too many players complained the match maker was "bugged." So roster matching was eliminated completely, at the same time the 2/1 medal system was implemented.
There is no way on Earth the devs would implement progression silos in VT *and* let them keep all those VT rewards *and* let them keep 2/1 medals *and* let them scoop up the rewards in Uru now. If you want "fair" matching, which is to say if you want to never actually see real competition, you're going to have to pay for it. And so will everyone else.
Yeah, maybe we shouldn't change a thing because of those precious VT rewards! And oh my god, the "pass them up the ladder" competitive system of gaining more than you lose, that also doesn't matter for affected players because the odds of them getting fair matches back to back is a pipedream so they end up losing the perceived gain anyway! What a shame that such a system that we all rely on will be a thing of the past!
Oh my god! Fair matchmaking will mean no competitive struggle?! So a cav playing against a cav is just meaningless and those players should enjoy being disadvantaged from the start of match by getting placed against someone who outclasses them just off their content or spending opportunities! Yeah, if its not a mismatch, there is no match!
But wait, VT is apparently both participation rewards, while also meaning that a change to make that portion actually competitively fair would remove the competitive spirit! VT is a path to lower players participating and earning rewards in BGs, but them making it up the ladder is a terrible outcome! Yeah, the players clearly value the rewards they either can't actually earn, haven't had significant change in years, or they continously claim are garbage more than the actual experience of engaging in the mode! Yeah, lets build a mode made to keep lower progression players, the wider playerbase we have been focusing on appeasing in favor of updating the mode they have been complaining, as stepping stools, perpetuate this illusion that they are winning against weaker next progressions and are therefore enjoying a "competitive experience", and use that as the excuse to leave them as cogs in the machine for players who still won't take the mode seriously.
Yeah, none of these guys who persecute the system actually understand the complexities of what is really going on or the importance of everything we have done to make the mode even more unfair. Hell, the few times we made changes to make the mode fair, we realized it was working TOO well! So instead of rebalancing things to properly compensate the difference in match experience and quality, we just reverted the changes! Yeah, we are actually very concerned with the balancing of the mode! No, not balance as in equality, silly. We prefer balancing around one side of the scale. Its a dog eat dog world out there, you know! Or should I say, summoner eat summoner! If you aren't on the top, enjoy your spot as a steppingstone for those above you!
Battlegrounds, working as intended!
Look how hard you have to talk around what is actually a fair experience just so you can prop the meme we have now as fair. "Similar strengths and roster sizes" "equal competition" yeah, you mean a bloody fair matchup? The mode is literally so broken, that offering a fair matchup experience not only broke the illusion that what we have moved towards since is fair, but it also turned the illusionary ladder system into an actual ladder system. So the illusion of the path for lower progression players became an actual path, which is apparently against the vision Kabam has for the mode. Again, the problem here isn't understanding how the mode works, its a complete disconnect between what Kabam wants to define as competitive and fair, and what those words actually mean.
Not even just that, So Cav vs Cav ad TB vs TB is such a problem, those lower progression players should be happy to play mismatches and value the fact that they earn nothing from winning 1 of many. but this is the response a valiant player gets when complaining about the ACTUAL competitive area of the mode, not the participation trophy ladder. Yeah, eventually facing someone stronger is ok and expected keyword EVENTUALLY. Yes, even a valiant with ranked 7 stars is more than likely to lose to an equally skilled player with a row of higher ranked r4s. What does that say about the rest of the playerbase who is left punching up every match as their average experience in their tailor-made ladder/path down in participation track??? "Skill and strategy can often overcome a single rank differential in champion power" How about multiple rank differentials in champ power? What about the players dealing with that for every match they play regardless of seeding thanks to noone taking the mode seriously for dozens of seasons on end? Yeah, thats definitely fair! But I don't understand the mode, so what do I know?
Lower ranks should not be relying on BG to boost their roster when they have plenty of content outside of bg to do that. And if you’ve done the content outside then you should be valiant by that point. As crash said, he plans to make a mode thats less competitive for those who enjoy the structure of the game mode, however by no means is the competitive side of the original game mode supposed to be what lower tiers look towards when playing the game. If you want a pvp game mode then do AQ or AW.
Lower ranks will run in to a wall. Thats how it’s intended. They then seek content outside of BG to overcome that wall and then get back into BG. Once there is no more content to be done outside. Then you should be at a point where you would easily reach GC.
Yeah, bgs is fair, but lower progression players need to be slammed with a wall so they knuckle up and actually progress. Also, those players can earn rewards from VT, but they shouldn't expect those rewards to actually mean anything worthwhile for their progression.
So adding progression gates and fairness means everyone is stuck in bronze 3 competing for 3 star shards. The rewards as they are now are oh so valuable that any change means they will need to be removed to account for removing the "competitive difficulty." Yet the rewards also shouldn't be enough to progress or make any real steps toward bolstering rosters, which means that the participation trophy rewards are just placebo.
And nothing you said addresses the actual experience of engaging in the mode. Just the incentives for why players should suffer through playing anyway. Not even that, since if the VT rewards aren't enough to progress or bolster rosters for lower progression players, what does that say about the level of rewards the group the mode is "supposed to be catering towards" are earning. Again, the radiance store won't be the answer for most valiants, let alone the rest of the playerbase who supposedly have a path for them in the mode. So the mode is literally not worth playing in across the board, and we still haven't solved how painful it is to actually play it. Even worse, none of this has to do with facilitating a competitive experience. Just an explanation for the need to create an illusion incentivizing players to compete in a mode that now we are all admitting is not only unfair, but was purposely planned to be that way, and is also planned to stay that way.
The victory track gives you a full 7* crystal and half of a titan. This is enough incentive to actually compete for VT. While for pragon and valiants, the main rewards are in GC. The lower progression incentives are the shards and battle tokens. While the battle tokens are not life changing they still benefit lower progression and the 7* shards are more then they’d typically deserve at the level they are at to actually have a go at VT. Typically speaking no one below throne breaker should even expect to earn a 7* outside of special events like banquet. The fact that they have a opportunity to slowly chip away at it is the incentive. If thats not appealing to you, then BG as a game mode just isn’t for you.
Also radiance store is extremely beneficial to higher progression, i have no idea what you mean about it not being worth while.
If you just want to cry foul, that's also your prerogative, and anyone that wants to follow you into that pity party is welcome to join you. We can't help everyone, nor these days am I even interested in trying.
In most games that start off PvE, PvP ends up being a niche game mode. It can be a pretty big niche as I suspect it is here, but still, not everyone is cut out for competitive PvP. The biggest problem is thinking that fairness is about how the game treats you, and not how it treats the competition itself. Not everyone likes AW, not everyone likes AQ, not everyone likes end game content. And not everyone likes BG, and there's no way to make them like it. BG is not a perfect game mode: I've been involved with a few of the changes to it over the years, and I've been playing it since the pre-beta on the CCP servers (where I got my butt kicked all over the place). I think there are still improvements to be made. But those improvements will happen within the context of the fact that it is primarily a solo competitive game modes, and competitive game modes have winners and losers. No one likes to lose, so not everyone is going to like losing in BG. I don't particularly like losing myself. People need to have the correct expectations. When the devs say they are going to try to improve the lower progression experience, that improvement is not going to be something where the goal is for them to win more matches and earn more rewards. The goal is not to turn them all into winners.
Some of those players will decide to turn themselves into winners over time by playing more, grinding more, practicing more skills, learning more mechanics, studying more abilities. And some will do, whatever this is. Games are fundamentally about choices, and we all make our own and have to live with them.
How much story content have you explored?
UC can only get to Plat
Cav can only get to Diamond
TB can only get to Vibranium
Paragon and Valiant can get to GC.
We would not be having this problem at all.
I understand the constant explotation of FOMO in this game; but this was a huge miss.
And the matchmaking safe up yo Plat implemented in the past was another huge mistake.
also with very new toxic defenders and very specific attackers, i'd say the BG's meta has essentially become to find the newest roadblock at the highest level possible 7*r3, so even if you do have enough skill and are lucky enough to even pull a decent counter you're still loosing because you're facing a loosing battle.
now as much as people can suggest play the game out because you don't know what can happen, it doesn't matter when the entire game is a random mess of spagetti. defenders refusing to throw specials and bricking the fight, the game not loading in time and crashing, lags and the time spent in fight getting elongated.
Theres no way to achieve balance for the non top 5% of bg without taking a saw to dismantle many of the systems the game is hanging from
I see a lot of argument here suggesting that those high-value rewards should require a commensurate high degree of challenge on behalf of the player, but no one seems to be acknowledging the other side of that equation: that these unbalanced match-ups grant the already-advantaged player set literally the easiest path in the game to the best rewards. So of course there's a portion of the player base that's perfectly happy with the arrangement of feasting on weaker players so they can rank up a few more R4s. No, they'll never be good enough to beat the strongest players atop the leaderboards, but they'll be able to outpace the majority of players in terms of champions and rank-ups by punching down most of the way, and then they'll take their inflated accounts into other content and complain about how paltry the rewards are. It's not a good dynamic, and besides annoying players looking for a competitive game mode, I can't see how it is good for the game in the long run.
The point here is that you all completely miss the most important part of any form of regulated or standardized competition, competitive integrity. I don't know how you all expect to do anything esport related if you can't grasp the point of Fair Play. BGs is not a tournament. Its a one v one mode. There is no excuse to not have any sense of fair play. Thats just a basic expectation in ANY form of competition. You know what happens when people compete outside of Fair Play regulation? With complete mismatches? You even already have it implemented in your game. Yeah, FRIENDLY competitive matches. Showmatches, even. Not the sort of match you expect when queuing into official matchmaking. Not the sort of match that is allowed to be worth what was originally intended if fair play rules were followed.
I'm not even proposing "textbook" fairness of "perfect equality." I'm advocating for equal opportunity. Cav vs Cav, TB vs TB, Para vs Para, Val vs Val matches and expectations are fair because of the equality of opportunity through time played or money spent. Thats a fair shot and imo one of the closest things to a fair shot in a competitive game built on progressing forward like MCOC. A cav player cannot match a TB in opportunity, thats just a fact. Even in the cases where stronger cavs are beating weaker TBs, it doesn't amount to anything since cavs are still competing for cav level rewards. There is no benefit to mismatches beyond the higher player getting a chance at a free win and an easy path forward. Again, BGs is not a tournament setting, its a game mode.
There is no reason to not implement fair play in battlegrounds beyond being attached to the mode as it is and preferring the unregulated wild west approach, but that is NOT competition. Its like hearing some modern doctor trying to push the benefits of leeching. You know what we call them? Quacks. They're a joke in the face of modern medicine, and Kabam's chosen interpretation of competitive play is a joke in the face of modern competition. Yall can do whatever you want, just don't lie and call it competitive.
Regardless, its good to see you all just come out and say it at this point. All that, "people don't understand the mode," is really, "you all don't understand that this is what we are aiming for. Its working as intended." Yeah, BGs is founded on "competition." Unregulated competition with no integrity, no fair play, and no plans to change that. A "solo-competitive" mode in name. Lets hear an announcement for the community on this so we can really temper the playerbase's expectations.
"BGs is not fair, it is not intended to be fair, and we do not plan to create a fair environment with competitive integrity. Compete at your own risk."
This is an optional PVP game mode in a mainly PVE game, with optional rewards. There is no commissioner, there is no salary cap. It only needs to be balanced to encourage some level of participation (and spending, because otherwise Kabam is not just creating this mode out of the goodness of their hearts), and not 100% balanced for every player.
I am still a little salty about it, but kudos to him.
And why does the announcement need to be made? To make it apparent that how things are is what they want and that while they intend to keep tweak things it will be in the spirit of keeping things that way. Actions may speak louder than words, but at this point there is no point in not just coming out and saying it. They came out and admitted years later that they abandoned bgs and strung the players who believed in it along, why not come out and just admit 30 seasons later that their solo-competitive mode was always intended to be anti-competitive. Why shouldn't they tell the stepping-stones they built the system off of that there is no future for them in the mode? Let it be known exactly what they think. Thats been their new policy, right? Transparency. Well its time for another dose of reality. For everyone. Let the ones who have been whining about poor rewards know that the mode was built for them to easily obtain them off the backs of weaker players instead of fueling real competition from top to bottom. Let the rest of the community know that BGs is made for them to engage and hit a wall and if you want a real competitive experience at your level then you need to look to their next iteration of a "casual" mode. Because they don't consider competition between Cavs, Tbs, or Paragons to be actually competitive. No, to kabam, fair matchmaking is a casual experience.
You want the competitive, "fair" structure? That's what AW is there for.
You may just have to accept that BGs is not for you (And full disclosure, BGs is not really for me). Kabam can do minor tweaks here and there, but it will never be what you want it to be.
It’s about as pure a competition as you could dream up. What OP fails to understand is that 80% of the competition is taking place outside of BGs. It’s the time spent in story and progression, the time spent to acquire champs through sagas, EoP, Ordeal, etc.
BG is like most competitions in that the outcome of the individual game is dictated by everything that a player or team has done in preparation.
If I go to the park across the street to run in the Saturday pickup game and I don’t want to get packed up, I don’t complain that the rules of basketball are unfair or argue that we should lower the rim. I work the phones and find my buddies who are better players than the scrubs I would have brought otherwise. I stack the deck in my favor by preparing. That’s what is valiants are doing all the time by playing the game seriously over the long haul.
Again you're also falling into the same fallacy as DNA. Nothing about this has to do with winning or losing. He already tried to use strong cavs beating weak TBs as an example. In the same example, who cares if the pickup team beat the NBA squad. The point is why the hell are we normalizing complete and utter mismatches and branding it as competitive. You see a grown man playing JV kids and your first thought isn't, "this is pure competition" its, "who let a grown man into a JV league."
They already said their approach hadn't been working and caused them to abandon the mode for months on end. You go anywhere players can voice opinions, reddit, the discord, ingame in global, youtube video comments, twitch streams, its a constant outcry of why BGs is unfair. The structure does not create an enjoyable or valid experience for most of the playerbase, the ones that it does heavily favor still don't take it seriously, its even more niche among the pvp enjoying playerbase than pvp is generally among pve style games like this one, and its run using an anti-competitive structure being lauded as competitive. They need to just come out and say its as intended so the real outcry can start.