Battlegrounds S18 v S19: progressing account experience
DNA3000
Member, Guardian Guardian › Posts: 19,677 Guardian
A few days ago I posed my comparison and analysis of the changes from Season 18 to Season 19 for the Victory track, in the context of a GC-caliber player and account. I was going to post something similar for my low alts, but I realized that was flawed because it was much more difficult to do an apples to apples comparison. My lower alts are progressing alts, they don't always make it to GC, and I don't push them as hard as I do my main account. Comparing the effort expended between the two seasons wouldn't be a fair comparison.
What I think *is* fair, however, is to ask whether Season 19 treated those accounts reasonably. Which is to say, did those accounts progress reasonably far upward given their roster strength, or were they roadblocked unreasonably due to seeding, match up quality, or other factors. So I'm going to do something a little different. I'm going to post the decks of both accounts. In both cases I snapped the deck near the end of the season, so the deck was if anything weaker than shown earlier in the season, not stronger than shown (but in both cases my deck was similar for the duration, because I don't rank up nearly as often on those accounts as I do on my main: the quality of my deck doesn't change dramatically during any one BG season - deliberately so, as I tend to use them for testing purposes).
So here's my BG deck for my mid-TB account, and my lower Cav account:
[Note: neither account runs the recoil masteries]
Now, for each account, here's the question. How high should a reasonably skilled player *expect* to be able to climb in VT? Platinum 1? Diamond 1? GC? In order to answer the question: is VT reasonably fair to players, we have to ask what is reasonable performance for an account/deck of a given strength. It isn't reasonable for a newly minted Uncollected player with a deck full of 4* champs to expect to beat 90% of the players and rise to GC. At least, most people wouldn't consider that to be a reasonable expectation. So what's the reasonable expectation for accounts of this strength?
For me personally, I think a reasonable expectation for a TB with a deck like mine is to be able to reach mid-Diamond at least. A much more skilled player has a shot at getting into Vibranium, maybe even GC, but I think the vast majority of players with that deck would not reach GC without playing a huge number of matches. So how did I actually do? in S19, I played 92 matches and ended with exactly a 50/50 record (46 wins 46 losses). I started in Silver 5 and ended in Diamond 3. I probably could have pushed to D2 or D1, but I ran out of time. To me, that's a reasonable rise through the Victory track with that deck.
I was less optimistic about the Cav deck. I was estimating a P1 finish for that deck, but I actually ended up finishing higher than that. I played 79 matches and ended with a 49 and 30 record, a win percentage of 62%. That account started in B5 and ended in D4.
It was a tiny bit weird for both accounts to finish so close together, even weirder that I played fewer matches with the lower alt and still almost caught up to the higher alt. Even so, D4 and D3 finishes with less than a hundred matches played each is, I think, pretty good overall given deck strength. What's more, both accounts never failed to obtain the Magnetron crystal from the every other day objective.
In my opinion, across three different accounts with three widely separated deck strengths, I think Season 19 was a significant improvement over S18 in general, and produced results consistent with what I believe are fair. Both of my lower alts promoted consistently, and significantly. Neither ended in GC, but I didn't expect either of them to make it, although if the TB account was my main and I put all of my effort into it, I might have eventually made it (I played a total of over 300 BG matches in S19 across three accounts, and the TB account made it to D3 in less than a third of that amount).
Did I see wildly lopsided match ups? Occasionally, but not too often to be a serious impediment. Whenever I started to lose, I just made sure I had my one win at least, and took a break. It was always better the next day, as players continued to promote upward (and leave me behind to deal with less strong competition). Also, it is worth noting that both accounts maxed out the solo milestones and still have a ton of marks.
Max out the solo milestones, get all the Magnetron crystals available, and climb into Diamond from Bronze or Silver. Given deck strength and level of effort, I think the Victory Track was an entire fair and reasonable experience over all, at least in terms of rewards earned vs effort, and overall promotion experience (I did lose some matches to crashes and such, but I'm not counting that here).
But what does everyone else think? Given those two decks, where would you expect to finish in VT? Where would you expect the average player to finish? What do you think is a reasonable expectation for the typical player with similar roster strength? What level of VT do you think would be reasonable to expect to reach? And do you think the average player can reach it in the current VT implementation?
What I think *is* fair, however, is to ask whether Season 19 treated those accounts reasonably. Which is to say, did those accounts progress reasonably far upward given their roster strength, or were they roadblocked unreasonably due to seeding, match up quality, or other factors. So I'm going to do something a little different. I'm going to post the decks of both accounts. In both cases I snapped the deck near the end of the season, so the deck was if anything weaker than shown earlier in the season, not stronger than shown (but in both cases my deck was similar for the duration, because I don't rank up nearly as often on those accounts as I do on my main: the quality of my deck doesn't change dramatically during any one BG season - deliberately so, as I tend to use them for testing purposes).
So here's my BG deck for my mid-TB account, and my lower Cav account:
[Note: neither account runs the recoil masteries]
Now, for each account, here's the question. How high should a reasonably skilled player *expect* to be able to climb in VT? Platinum 1? Diamond 1? GC? In order to answer the question: is VT reasonably fair to players, we have to ask what is reasonable performance for an account/deck of a given strength. It isn't reasonable for a newly minted Uncollected player with a deck full of 4* champs to expect to beat 90% of the players and rise to GC. At least, most people wouldn't consider that to be a reasonable expectation. So what's the reasonable expectation for accounts of this strength?
For me personally, I think a reasonable expectation for a TB with a deck like mine is to be able to reach mid-Diamond at least. A much more skilled player has a shot at getting into Vibranium, maybe even GC, but I think the vast majority of players with that deck would not reach GC without playing a huge number of matches. So how did I actually do? in S19, I played 92 matches and ended with exactly a 50/50 record (46 wins 46 losses). I started in Silver 5 and ended in Diamond 3. I probably could have pushed to D2 or D1, but I ran out of time. To me, that's a reasonable rise through the Victory track with that deck.
I was less optimistic about the Cav deck. I was estimating a P1 finish for that deck, but I actually ended up finishing higher than that. I played 79 matches and ended with a 49 and 30 record, a win percentage of 62%. That account started in B5 and ended in D4.
It was a tiny bit weird for both accounts to finish so close together, even weirder that I played fewer matches with the lower alt and still almost caught up to the higher alt. Even so, D4 and D3 finishes with less than a hundred matches played each is, I think, pretty good overall given deck strength. What's more, both accounts never failed to obtain the Magnetron crystal from the every other day objective.
In my opinion, across three different accounts with three widely separated deck strengths, I think Season 19 was a significant improvement over S18 in general, and produced results consistent with what I believe are fair. Both of my lower alts promoted consistently, and significantly. Neither ended in GC, but I didn't expect either of them to make it, although if the TB account was my main and I put all of my effort into it, I might have eventually made it (I played a total of over 300 BG matches in S19 across three accounts, and the TB account made it to D3 in less than a third of that amount).
Did I see wildly lopsided match ups? Occasionally, but not too often to be a serious impediment. Whenever I started to lose, I just made sure I had my one win at least, and took a break. It was always better the next day, as players continued to promote upward (and leave me behind to deal with less strong competition). Also, it is worth noting that both accounts maxed out the solo milestones and still have a ton of marks.
Max out the solo milestones, get all the Magnetron crystals available, and climb into Diamond from Bronze or Silver. Given deck strength and level of effort, I think the Victory Track was an entire fair and reasonable experience over all, at least in terms of rewards earned vs effort, and overall promotion experience (I did lose some matches to crashes and such, but I'm not counting that here).
But what does everyone else think? Given those two decks, where would you expect to finish in VT? Where would you expect the average player to finish? What do you think is a reasonable expectation for the typical player with similar roster strength? What level of VT do you think would be reasonable to expect to reach? And do you think the average player can reach it in the current VT implementation?
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Comments
Is there a definite answer to this yet (like xx # of Levels below where you finished) ? And how many Levels is that ?
And does that translate to those who finished in GC (same, xx Levels below the beginning points of GC) ?
Or is there a chance that it might remain at the “everyone starts at Bronze” ? (which we all hope NOT)
In fact I believe this did happen in S19, but someone forgot to account for the fact there’s more VT tiers in S19, and so the seeding offset calculations were all off by ten; eleven actually, but with an additional fence post error - it’s complicated, and that’s why GC players ended up in G5 instead of D5.
So GC players should seed in D5 in S20.