*Dev Response* iN Stormy's Feedback on current Tournament(s)

Stormy

@CG_Kozispoon @CG_RyDiggs ,

First off, you may be aware of the last review I did for the first tournament- and how much distaste I had for it.

I'm happy to say the improvements made are very welcoming and I really enjoy the tournament miles more from it's first version.

I feel rewarded for my roster depth, my Mod depth, and my overall roster strength. I enjoy using different squads and feel tactical in what I'm doing, match to match. I enjoy the aspect of getting the best "win" for the cheapest resources use- it all feels strategic and fun.

My only issue now, and I'm hearing it from a lot of upset friends- is the time commitment. They are complaining that the grind is severe and it's an awful experience for their family/social life when a tournament is active. I think this is due to AP coin inflation at the moment, and will die down.

I think this tournament is really stressing some out to be something they "have" to do, because of how good the rewards are. The rewards for first, by comparison of how these items are acquired in this game, are worth thousands and thousands of USD. It makes everyone feel like they HAVE to be at the top, to keep up with whatever their current investment is. Perhaps a simple solution is to just reduce the rewards down to "meh" so people will stop stressing the tournament so much.

I hear some suggest squad limiting/refresh limiting- but I think the rewards being reduced would be the ultimate way to solve the drama around this event.

I write this having completed first in the 2nd Shore tournament, and will be completing first in this Chirrut event. I'll be finishing with a million AP left over even after scoring first in the 2 events utilizing them. Most likely, I'll have dominance over the 3rd tournament event too. Needless to say, I'm happy with everything about this right now, besides the time/grind commitment.

Reduce the rewards to see reduced stress in the player base. So many players are fearing the event due to the time commitment and stress over the rewards.

Thank you for everything thus far and listening to us all!

Stormy
Team Instinct

AKK889

100% agreed. Tourneys are too long. 1 day should be more than enough.

Zeus23

Great, Stormy!
I know it is not likely to be discussed here, so i will try to be polite and just FYI. Many-many-many people want to play fair. The tournament encourages misbehaviour. It's a great problem especially for europe\russia timezones
It is frustrating to see people with only one squad with phasma\rey etc driving to the top faster than a bullet

Lasserini

Another option would be to have refresh cost increase faster and have the cap much higher. Once a squad refresh costs 10k AP pr toon, the time required drops fast

scuba

Good points. I will say it is all choices though. Yeah it sucks the tournament is a time commitment but I also think some are out of touch with the the time commitment it becomes so that part won't change. So it will have to come down to the players making choices.

Nebulous

I've been saying it since the first one--limit the total amount of refreshes during the 24hr roster refresh. The potential for unlimited play will make players feel they are required to partake. It's not fun when the game begins to play the player.

CG_RyDiggs

@stormy

Stormy wrote: »

@CG_Kozispoon @CG_RyDiggs ,

First off, you may be aware of the last review I did for the first tournament- and how much distaste I had for it.

I'm happy to say the improvements made are very welcoming and I really enjoy the tournament miles more from it's first version.

I feel rewarded for my roster depth, my Mod depth, and my overall roster strength. I enjoy using different squads and feel tactical in what I'm doing, match to match. I enjoy the aspect of getting the best "win" for the cheapest resources use- it all feels strategic and fun.

My only issue now, and I'm hearing it from a lot of upset friends- is the time commitment. They are complaining that the grind is severe and it's an awful experience for their family/social life when a tournament is active. I think this is due to AP coin inflation at the moment, and will die down.

I think this tournament is really stressing some out to be something they "have" to do, because of how good the rewards are. The rewards for first, by comparison of how these items are acquired in this game, are worth thousands and thousands of USD. It makes everyone feel like they HAVE to be at the top, to keep up with whatever their current investment is. Perhaps a simple solution is to just reduce the rewards down to "meh" so people will stop stressing the tournament so much.

I hear some suggest squad limiting/refresh limiting- but I think the rewards being reduced would be the ultimate way to solve the drama around this event.

I write this having completed first in the 2nd Shore tournament, and will be completing first in this Chirrut event. I'll be finishing with a million AP left over even after scoring first in the 2 events utilizing them. Most likely, I'll have dominance over the 3rd tournament event too. Needless to say, I'm happy with everything about this right now, besides the time/grind commitment.

Reduce the rewards to see reduced stress in the player base. So many players are fearing the event due to the time commitment and stress over the rewards.

Thank you for everything thus far and listening to us all!

Stormy
Team Instinct

Heya @Stormy et, al.

We hear and understand. Tournaments definitely have some tuning opportunities. I've added your feedback to the growing number of suggestions in this vein.

Tks!

Whiteroom

Personally I think it needs more than some tuning opportunities. Needs a full rehaul. Yes it is fun for those people with massive rosters but most people just have one or two useable teams and they face the same meta teams constantly through it. It isn't just the time commitment but it is literally just arena fights x 100. That isn't interesting as we all do 5 of those battles everyday. The reward levels are just bad too. You can get top 100 and have a 4*. Brilliant, but in the 2nd tournament you have to get 1st to get you 4* to a 7*. How does that work?

Stormy

Tooks 1st again for 3rd tournament in a row and I still have over 1million AP left - my post still stands on the rewards being too good. Also, I notice now that if player X has 1million, Player Y has 600k, and Player Z has 300K (AP) - that every tournament, the majority will spend what they have, meaning next tournament Player X has 700k, Player Y has 300k, and Player Z has 0. It makes it pretty easy for those who had, to keep staying on top, as the lower people keep flushing themselves out. I'm not complaining - this is good for me, just making sure it's known.

Zeus23

CG_RyDiggs wrote: »

@stormy

Stormy wrote: »

@CG_Kozispoon @CG_RyDiggs ,

First off, you may be aware of the last review I did for the first tournament- and how much distaste I had for it.

I'm happy to say the improvements made are very welcoming and I really enjoy the tournament miles more from it's first version.

I feel rewarded for my roster depth, my Mod depth, and my overall roster strength. I enjoy using different squads and feel tactical in what I'm doing, match to match. I enjoy the aspect of getting the best "win" for the cheapest resources use- it all feels strategic and fun.

My only issue now, and I'm hearing it from a lot of upset friends- is the time commitment. They are complaining that the grind is severe and it's an awful experience for their family/social life when a tournament is active. I think this is due to AP coin inflation at the moment, and will die down.

I think this tournament is really stressing some out to be something they "have" to do, because of how good the rewards are. The rewards for first, by comparison of how these items are acquired in this game, are worth thousands and thousands of USD. It makes everyone feel like they HAVE to be at the top, to keep up with whatever their current investment is. Perhaps a simple solution is to just reduce the rewards down to "meh" so people will stop stressing the tournament so much.

I hear some suggest squad limiting/refresh limiting- but I think the rewards being reduced would be the ultimate way to solve the drama around this event.

I write this having completed first in the 2nd Shore tournament, and will be completing first in this Chirrut event. I'll be finishing with a million AP left over even after scoring first in the 2 events utilizing them. Most likely, I'll have dominance over the 3rd tournament event too. Needless to say, I'm happy with everything about this right now, besides the time/grind commitment.

Reduce the rewards to see reduced stress in the player base. So many players are fearing the event due to the time commitment and stress over the rewards.

Thank you for everything thus far and listening to us all!

Stormy
Team Instinct

Heya @Stormy et, al.

We hear and understand. Tournaments definitely have some tuning opportunities. I've added your feedback to the growing number of suggestions in this vein.

Tks!

And add my feedback also please. Lots (hundreds if not thousands!!) of unfair persons are already very close to open Kenobi, have opened TIE advanced, Chirrut, Shore - the most desirable achievements now

hnewton

Stormy wrote: »

Tooks 1st again for 3rd tournament in a row and I still have over 1million AP left - my post still stands on the rewards being too good. Also, I notice now that if player X has 1million, Player Y has 600k, and Player Z has 300K (AP) - that every tournament, the majority will spend what they have, meaning next tournament Player X has 700k, Player Y has 300k, and Player Z has 0. It makes it pretty easy for those who had, to keep staying on top, as the lower people keep flushing themselves out. I'm not complaining - this is good for me, just making sure it's known.

Hey I was in your server for the TIE advanced tournament and finished just outside the top 10. The system is still very unbalanced. I spent over 600k ally points and won every battle and still couldn't even break top 10, when I thought I could at least break top 5 going in. While I see that is obviously favors players like you with stronger rosters, it still is very demoralizing to spend that much time for a 4* (but its my favorite ship from star wars, so this time its acceptable haha). I think rewards should be scaled better and while I do think only #1 should unlock at 7*, I do think getting 6th place should not give you a 4* ship. It should be more like top 100 is 4*, top 25 is 5* and top 5 is 6*. Especially when most toons (shoretrooper being an exception obviously and maybe even chuirrit) aren't even viable until 5* or 6*.

In the future, I am either going to avoid tournaments or save up till I get at least 1m and know I can place high. But as you said, that is a crazy time commitment to complete that many battles.

Pieeater420

I think rewards should def be upd some. Inly top players like stormy benefits from tournament so they just cont to get more dominant over smaller weaker players as they dont have a chance of ever uocking these chars until they are ftp. I spent over 600k ap an didnt lose but couple matches an still barely made top 500 so all i got was few shrds i cant use an gold. Def needs a tune up of some sort. Thk u

AaronBurrSir

So this is hilarious. #1 complains rewards are too good to hold onto their #1 rewards. So what happens? Going forward only the top 25 get the character and we increase the ally point refresh.

Great way to keep the 1% in the 1% CG.

Stormy

Refresh cost increased- good first step in trying to slow down the grind- lets see how it works! Still, rewards are so good, haha- hard to pass this event up- the way the game is and how rare resources are, as well as new characters, we're talking $400-$1000+ USD value in rewards.

medetec

I'm note sure we have the same value for $1000 USD but we can agree to disagree. I think the refresh cost increase is a decent step, but perhaps just make it 100 - 200 - 500 - 2500 there on out.

The rewards at the top end are fine, but past say 25 they fall off so hard that there's little incentive for most players to shoot for a higher rank than they can get through very casual play. Rather than dampening rewards to make the tournament less "necessary" I'd suggest increasing the lower tier rewards significantly to generate some lower end competition, which combined with increased refresh cost should see a majority of players playing seriosly but in smaller bursts.

https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/80405/change-tournament-reward-scaling/

Bolta

I would like so much a tournament without refresh !

Darth_Jay77

I think the refresh change is good but people that spend beyond what a moderate whale spend can still get Ally points far beyond what anybody, especially F2P, can get. There needs to be a limit on refreshes per day to keep it even moderately even. Put a max ceiling that is something beyond what a F2P can buy so whales get some value too, but not so ridiculous that mega-whales can out-pace everybody by thousands of points. Tournaments should be about one's ability to do well in arena, not who has the largest credit limit and can max out on daily refreshes for Cantina and the tables to maximize Ally points.

Length of time as everybody has stated is too long. Reward structure definitely needs to be better. A larger group of players should at least be able to get an unlock on the prize.

Dyakoff

Rewards too good? 1 mln AP left?
its like B.Gates having a beer with D.Trump and saying that poverty and famine are myth.
"Reduce the wages, there is too much money in the world"

What is good about the rewards? A 4* character for top 10 is too good?
Try starting a new account and getting ANY reward after you hit level 80.

Stormy

Dyakoff wrote: »

Rewards too good? 1 mln AP left?
its like B.Gates having a beer with D.Trump and saying that poverty and famine are myth.
"Reduce the wages, there is too much money in the world"

What is good about the rewards? A 4* character for top 10 is too good?
Try starting a new account and getting ANY reward after you hit level 80.

@Dyakoff sorry I wasn't clear- I feel rewards are too good for first place- this is what drives the "I must sacrifice IRL to get there!" Ultimately, creating the grind fest.

Stormy

Jyn Event-

I easily took 2nd place (could of gone for 1st, but why bother when I can top off 7* jyn from the bundle? Also, Do I even want Jyn? She doesn't seem all that great)

REALLY happy with the changes on this event. 24 Hour- no Refresh, and High Costing refreshes - this made it very rewarding to those with larger rosters. I could go further on less resources.

The only issue I have, and hearing from others, is the crack down on exploiters.

We witnessed many get stopped in their tracks, so we saw CG on the case - and it felt good to know you were watching and policing during the event!

Please keep it up, many more out there, and we are trying our best to report them, but it's still demoralizing having to "work" to see justice done, as well as see those rewards goto waste.

Thank you for all progress thus far with tournaments- very genius way to diverse the arena field - I think this is a very healthy effort towards diversity.

I think in 2-3 more events, you will have most the stockpiles wiped out, and see underdogs starting to win tournaments- which looks to be the ultimate goal.

Corvus

Stormy wrote: »

Jyn Event-

I easily took 2nd place (could of gone for 1st, but why bother when I can top off 7* jyn from the bundle? Also, Do I even want Jyn? She doesn't seem all that great)

REALLY happy with the changes on this event. 24 Hour- no Refresh, and High Costing refreshes - this made it very rewarding to those with larger rosters. I could go further on less resources.

The only issue I have, and hearing from others, is the crack down on exploiters.

We witnessed many get stopped in their tracks, so we saw CG on the case - and it felt good to know you were watching and policing during the event!

Please keep it up, many more out there, and we are trying our best to report them, but it's still demoralizing having to "work" to see justice done, as well as see those rewards goto waste.

Thank you for all progress thus far with tournaments- very genius way to diverse the arena field - I think this is a very healthy effort towards diversity.

I think in 2-3 more events, you will have most the stockpiles wiped out, and see underdogs starting to win tournaments- which looks to be the ultimate goal.

The tournaments are horribly wrong. Your level of success depends heavily on luck (the shard you are put in) and your level (below 80 its far easier) both is totally wrong imho. Also maybe the stockpiles will run dry for most players (not the whales I guess at least not anytime soon). But with all the OP characters locked behind tournaments that won't matter. If you did not get the OP from the last tourneys you will most likely not get the new ones as you simply can't compete with those toons.

This tournaments created a ridiciolus stupid circle of death for everyone that can't get to the top. The funiest part is they hear that almost everyone is unhappy and frustrated and the reaction is to throw even more tournaments upon us...

The tounaments could be fine eg if the reward would be based on points rather than rankings that would even the shard problem a bit 8not totally but a bit). Other options would be a better reward structure or releaseing the characters on farmable locations after the tournaments so that these would only give a time advantage.

But none if this will happen I guess it seems they prefere to worl against their playerbase...

Boo

CG_RyDiggs wrote: »

@stormy

Stormy wrote: »

@CG_Kozispoon @CG_RyDiggs ,

First off, you may be aware of the last review I did for the first tournament- and how much distaste I had for it.

I'm happy to say the improvements made are very welcoming and I really enjoy the tournament miles more from it's first version.

I feel rewarded for my roster depth, my Mod depth, and my overall roster strength. I enjoy using different squads and feel tactical in what I'm doing, match to match. I enjoy the aspect of getting the best "win" for the cheapest resources use- it all feels strategic and fun.

My only issue now, and I'm hearing it from a lot of upset friends- is the time commitment. They are complaining that the grind is severe and it's an awful experience for their family/social life when a tournament is active. I think this is due to AP coin inflation at the moment, and will die down.

I think this tournament is really stressing some out to be something they "have" to do, because of how good the rewards are. The rewards for first, by comparison of how these items are acquired in this game, are worth thousands and thousands of USD. It makes everyone feel like they HAVE to be at the top, to keep up with whatever their current investment is. Perhaps a simple solution is to just reduce the rewards down to "meh" so people will stop stressing the tournament so much.

I hear some suggest squad limiting/refresh limiting- but I think the rewards being reduced would be the ultimate way to solve the drama around this event.

I write this having completed first in the 2nd Shore tournament, and will be completing first in this Chirrut event. I'll be finishing with a million AP left over even after scoring first in the 2 events utilizing them. Most likely, I'll have dominance over the 3rd tournament event too. Needless to say, I'm happy with everything about this right now, besides the time/grind commitment.

Reduce the rewards to see reduced stress in the player base. So many players are fearing the event due to the time commitment and stress over the rewards.

Thank you for everything thus far and listening to us all!

Stormy
Team Instinct

Heya @Stormy et, al.

We hear and understand. Tournaments definitely have some tuning opportunities. I've added your feedback to the growing number of suggestions in this vein.

Tks!

Wait - I agree that tourneys are time consuming - but considering only a small percent of people will actually walk away with the new character - a handful of shards for me is completely useless, so the gear is the only reward worth entering the tournament for me.

Cutting back on those rewards will make the whole tournament completely useless - to me, I won't even bother to play it anymore. I am sure that results like that are far from the EA and the Dev Team want.

Simply reducing the tourneys to a 1 day event (on weekends preferably) that would solve the time issue and keep the rewards worth entering for.

Stormy

Boo wrote: »

CG_RyDiggs wrote: »

@stormy

Stormy wrote: »

@CG_Kozispoon @CG_RyDiggs ,

First off, you may be aware of the last review I did for the first tournament- and how much distaste I had for it.

I'm happy to say the improvements made are very welcoming and I really enjoy the tournament miles more from it's first version.

I feel rewarded for my roster depth, my Mod depth, and my overall roster strength. I enjoy using different squads and feel tactical in what I'm doing, match to match. I enjoy the aspect of getting the best "win" for the cheapest resources use- it all feels strategic and fun.

My only issue now, and I'm hearing it from a lot of upset friends- is the time commitment. They are complaining that the grind is severe and it's an awful experience for their family/social life when a tournament is active. I think this is due to AP coin inflation at the moment, and will die down.

I think this tournament is really stressing some out to be something they "have" to do, because of how good the rewards are. The rewards for first, by comparison of how these items are acquired in this game, are worth thousands and thousands of USD. It makes everyone feel like they HAVE to be at the top, to keep up with whatever their current investment is. Perhaps a simple solution is to just reduce the rewards down to "meh" so people will stop stressing the tournament so much.

I hear some suggest squad limiting/refresh limiting- but I think the rewards being reduced would be the ultimate way to solve the drama around this event.

I write this having completed first in the 2nd Shore tournament, and will be completing first in this Chirrut event. I'll be finishing with a million AP left over even after scoring first in the 2 events utilizing them. Most likely, I'll have dominance over the 3rd tournament event too. Needless to say, I'm happy with everything about this right now, besides the time/grind commitment.

Reduce the rewards to see reduced stress in the player base. So many players are fearing the event due to the time commitment and stress over the rewards.

Thank you for everything thus far and listening to us all!

Stormy
Team Instinct

Heya @Stormy et, al.

We hear and understand. Tournaments definitely have some tuning opportunities. I've added your feedback to the growing number of suggestions in this vein.

Tks!

Wait - I agree that tourneys are time consuming - but considering only a small percent of people will actually walk away with the new character - a handful of shards for me is completely useless, so the gear is the only reward worth entering the tournament for me.

Cutting back on those rewards will make the whole tournament completely useless - to me, I won't even bother to play it anymore. I am sure that results like that are far from the EA and the Dev Team want.

Simply reducing the tourneys to a 1 day event (on weekends preferably) that would solve the time issue and keep the rewards worth entering for.

I should of been more clear- I think the reward of a 7* character is very high, and if perhaps it was only 5* at best for 1st, there would be less stress to get involved. The recent changes do help with the overall health of the event.

Darth_Jay77

I've been critical of the last few tournaments but I think the Jyn tournament was actually much better and EA is definitely listening to us.

- Top-100 gets an unlock - Excellent
- Time - Excellent, when I was out of ally points I was done, period, no waiting around for refreshing.

One thing I think would be cool is post-tournament to follow-up with some Aurodium-type pack of ONLY that character so players that didn't win a 7-star can finish promoting their character if they want to pay for it.

Anyway, this was much better, hope these improvement stay throughout; thanks for listening!!!

@CG_Kozispoon
@EA_Jesse
@CG_CapGaSP

Viserys

Stormy wrote: »

I should of been more clear- I think the reward of a 7* character is very high, and if perhaps it was only 5* at best for 1st, there would be less stress to get involved. The recent changes do help with the overall health of the event.

I don't want top rankers to get less, I want mid rankers to have at least a chance at unlocking the character. The absolutely most disheartening part of the tournament is entering knowing you have no prayer of unlocking the character and having no knowledge of when you'd be able to acquire the remaining shards to unlock.

I think the reward structure can use improvement. Why not let participation earn you Tournament Tokens with each win which can then be spent in a tournament store to acquire shards for the current (and possibly previous) tournament characters. Result ranks still award big packages to the top ranking players, but let mid-rank players harvest tokens by participating extensively and then turn around and spend those tokens to get the current or previous tourny rewards. This way a much wider swath of the playerbase has a reason to participate in every tournament.

Arkham

I disagree with almost everything in this thread.

Time commitment, refresh costs, and rewards are all secondary to problem number 1: Tournaments are no different from the Arena.

Any day I want, I can boot up the game and play an arena match. It's fun! I like it! I also like doing Galactic War, and when I have more time, that's what I do instead of arena. If I feel like a different kind of challenge, I play the campaign or try my toons in a raid.

Most events are fun because they're different and interesting--the rewards are just an added bonus.

Slaughter ewoks using only droids and empire? Hmm, cool! Lemme see if I can make that work ...
Defeat five waves of sandtroopers with K2 helping me? Challenge accepted!
Play the same old arena game that I play every day, except do it over and over and over again for a reward that I'm never going to get?

The problem with tournaments is that there's nothing different about them. They're not new, interesting, or fun. I would feel just as blase about them regardless of refresh caps and costs, rewards, and everything. Blah.

Make me build a new team. Make me think. Give me a challenge that consists of more than hoarding AP then spending 12 hours huddled around my phone spending them so I can play the same match over and over and over and over and over and over ....

DimesandPennies

Arkham wrote: »

I disagree with almost everything in this thread.

Time commitment, refresh costs, and rewards are all secondary to problem number 1: Tournaments are no different from the Arena.

Any day I want, I can boot up the game and play an arena match. It's fun! I like it! I also like doing Galactic War, and when I have more time, that's what I do instead of arena. If I feel like a different kind of challenge, I play the campaign or try my toons in a raid.

Most events are fun because they're different and interesting--the rewards are just an added bonus.

Slaughter ewoks using only droids and empire? Hmm, cool! Lemme see if I can make that work ...
Defeat five waves of sandtroopers with K2 helping me? Challenge accepted!
Play the same old arena game that I play every day, except do it over and over and over again for a reward that I'm never going to get?

The problem with tournaments is that there's nothing different about them. They're not new, interesting, or fun. I would feel just as blase about them regardless of refresh caps and costs, rewards, and everything. Blah.

Make me build a new team. Make me think. Give me a challenge that consists of more than hoarding AP then spending 12 hours huddled around my phone spending them so I can play the same match over and over and over and over and over and over ....

Im with you there's nothing new about it, you play hours and hours against arena teams. Tournaments are one of complete mess ups known with this game, especially how the first one was handled. Why were they even needed? What was wrong with yoda, EP, military might style of earning shards?

DimesandPennies

Stormy wrote: »

Jyn Event-

I easily took 2nd place (could of gone for 1st, but why bother when I can top off 7* jyn from the bundle? Also, Do I even want Jyn? She doesn't seem all that great)

REALLY happy with the changes on this event. 24 Hour- no Refresh, and High Costing refreshes - this made it very rewarding to those with larger rosters. I could go further on less resources.

The only issue I have, and hearing from others, is the crack down on exploiters.

We witnessed many get stopped in their tracks, so we saw CG on the case - and it felt good to know you were watching and policing during the event!

Please keep it up, many more out there, and we are trying our best to report them, but it's still demoralizing having to "work" to see justice done, as well as see those rewards goto waste.

Thank you for all progress thus far with tournaments- very genius way to diverse the arena field - I think this is a very healthy effort towards diversity.

I think in 2-3 more events, you will have most the stockpiles wiped out, and see underdogs starting to win tournaments- which looks to be the ultimate goal.

If "underdogs" started to win tournaments then they might have to scrap tournaments all together, not the point of them. They are here for your guild and mega whales and that's it.

Stormy

DimesandPennies wrote: »

Stormy wrote: »

Jyn Event-

I easily took 2nd place (could of gone for 1st, but why bother when I can top off 7* jyn from the bundle? Also, Do I even want Jyn? She doesn't seem all that great)

REALLY happy with the changes on this event. 24 Hour- no Refresh, and High Costing refreshes - this made it very rewarding to those with larger rosters. I could go further on less resources.

The only issue I have, and hearing from others, is the crack down on exploiters.

We witnessed many get stopped in their tracks, so we saw CG on the case - and it felt good to know you were watching and policing during the event!

Please keep it up, many more out there, and we are trying our best to report them, but it's still demoralizing having to "work" to see justice done, as well as see those rewards goto waste.

Thank you for all progress thus far with tournaments- very genius way to diverse the arena field - I think this is a very healthy effort towards diversity.

I think in 2-3 more events, you will have most the stockpiles wiped out, and see underdogs starting to win tournaments- which looks to be the ultimate goal.

If "underdogs" started to win tournaments then they might have to scrap tournaments all together, not the point of them. They are here for your guild and mega whales and that's it.

Haha, I understand many probably don't have the foresight for it, but many whales are about out of AP. Me personally, I have 700K left, and all my GW has been consumed on ships- so in a tournament or 2, I'll be spent myself