If they didn't do this, eventually the SR spread would be so great that we would be stuck in our brackets for eternity.
I understand the point and agreed with that need but it would be more understandable for people if they changed the number of SR points gained/lost eahc fight
(but as a developper the "quick and dirty" solution of squashing existing numbers is simpler the first 2 or 3 times)
I still don't see the problem. SR determines your league, not your spot on the ladder. So your bracket and matchups don't change because of the squish.
Yes it does because it determines your rank and you are placed with those around you in one bracket.
But it doesn't change your rank. It decrease the SR points between ranks, but doesn't reorder anything. Your bracket and matchups do not change.
This system could be potentially good however, lets stop kidding and let's admit it isnt.
There are two major problems with it, one of them being transitionary.
First, there should be a cap on the W.-L streak effects. To put it differently there should be forbidden matchups. This is the permanent issue. Reaching a point when you objectively dont stand any chance has a crushing effect to the morale. You can also easily derive that you will end up around 50-50 W-L, and the major question remains the exact league where you end up. The AVERAGE difference between k1 and k2 is so small that it creates a major counterargument against upgrading GAC omicrons. If you can advance one extra league due to just your omicron upgrades (how do you even prove this in the first place) the gain is so marginal that it renders them almost obsolete.
The second issue is that we can see now that the matchups are getting more or less balanced. Yes there are still matchups that I think should be considered to be forbidden but their numbers are dropping fast as the system iterates. It took roughly 2.5 tournaments which is 30 matchups. I cannot name a single reason to put us through this torture. The initial (GP based) system was barbaric, primitive. An 8th century caveman with troll ancestorts could have come up with a better idea. They put ZERO effort into creating a playable initiative system and had us play more or less 30 mismatches. (I definitely had 21 mismatches in the first 24 matches. No excitement, no chances. Won most of them, lost some of them. There were at most 3 matches that could be seen as something inbetween. The 3rd season seems to be somewhat better) CG deserves nothing but pure detest for the initial parameter system.
Also, the principle is still: you perform well, you get punished, and that is problematic.
If they didn't do this, eventually the SR spread would be so great that we would be stuck in our brackets for eternity.
I understand the point and agreed with that need but it would be more understandable for people if they changed the number of SR points gained/lost eahc fight
(but as a developper the "quick and dirty" solution of squashing existing numbers is simpler the first 2 or 3 times)
I still don't see the problem. SR determines your league, not your spot on the ladder. So your bracket and matchups don't change because of the squish.
Yes it does because it determines your rank and you are placed with those around you in one bracket.
But it doesn't change your rank. It decrease the SR points between ranks, but doesn't reorder anything. Your bracket and matchups do not change.
You're right, it doesn't matter.
The main thing it does is mean people can't bank too many wins in one run of GAC so that if they lost an equal number in the following run of GAC that their division wouldn't change. Since there's no upper limit to Skill Ranking, if you started in Kyber 1 and won a whole bunch early on, someone who started today might never be able to reach your level, guaranteeing a lock for you.
Is that likely? No, not at all. It's an extremely rare possibility. And, frankly, a solid solution to an unhealthy situation.
Folks that are angry about this need to think of it this way--You could win 162 games in a season of baseball, but when the season is over you're all reset to 0.
Reaching a point when you objectively dont stand any chance has a crushing effect to the morale.
It's all about expectations. A lot people kind of carried over their expectations of going 11-1 or 12-0 from the old GAC, so it hits particularly hard when they realize they cannot possibly keep the WR up.
What CG could have done better was to completely ditch the old division/league system, so that the message to the players would be clear: this is a whole new format, so should be your expectations.
Well no one is expecting to go 11 or 12 wins, but I was still expecting to have fun.
Now because I am a better player for my roster size with 2 GLs, I have gone up the rankings, and now I'm just coming across people who aren't good but they have 5GLs and put them all on defense.
Speaking for myself, it never was. The only reason I participate now is because of the crystals. If it wasn't for that, I would ignore it like I have always done.
Fix matchmaking!!! Today I had my 6th loss in a row because all my previous opponents had 4-5-6 GLs and 6-7* Executors compared to my 2 GLs and 4* Executor. I mean, how on Earth I'm supposed to beat my opponents when they are more overpowered than me? I still struggle to do full clears or even half and I always strategize carefully... I totally lost my appetite for this. Equally or little bit stronger is fine, but having such whale advantages is a total game killer...
At least with the eventuality of a 50/50 win rate, you don't have to feel bad about a streak of losses - they just mean in the next season you'll likely face easier opponents and get a string of wins to make up for it. *shrugs* seems like less incentive to spend to me, as any short term spurt of spending based progress will eventually hit a ceiling inherent to the new skill rating system, but I think those who spend $1000s on the game monthly either don't think about it logically or have an addiction that only considers the immediate gratification of winning more in the immediate coming season.
This system could be potentially good however, lets stop kidding and let's admit it isnt.
There are two major problems with it, one of them being transitionary.
First, there should be a cap on the W.-L streak effects. To put it differently there should be forbidden matchups. This is the permanent issue.
<snip>.
There are no streak effects in GAC. That is only in TW. GAC is strictly SR rating matching and doesn't use history at all.
This system could be potentially good however, lets stop kidding and let's admit it isnt.
There are two major problems with it, one of them being transitionary.
First, there should be a cap on the W.-L streak effects. To put it differently there should be forbidden matchups. This is the permanent issue.
<snip>.
There are no streak effects in GAC. That is only in TW. GAC is strictly SR rating matching and doesn't use history at all.
SR rating on its on is an indirect history. If you keep losing, you lose SR, and go down on the ladder and the only thing to stop you is an eventual victory. Okay streak may be an incorrect word here, but the term itself wasnt the point.
This is a huge issue at the bottom rungs where there are a lot of casual players. When you can’t fall any farther but still get that daily for being in the ranks it makes it no fun for the folks who showed up to play.
Thing is, though, that a casual player is going to continue to advance up the GAC ladder because they're going to beat those mismatches at the bottom (unless the high GP player decides to be active that day, which seems unkikely or else they would be higher, know what I mean?) and then surpass where those folks are and reach other casual players.
It's a temporary problem. I just wish it wasn't such a surprise for people who just unlock GAC and their first opponent is huge--that's not a good first impression for the mode to make, temporary or not.
Yeah it’s very de-motivating. It encourages the exact behavior I describe. I am tempted to essentially ignore GAC (to the minimum to get income) and work my roster and zetas for a while until I can actually make a move. Then I will have to ignore/fall for a while until I feel I can move up again. Fits and starts with huge swings and most of the time spent where my acct is just dead weight annoying anyone who happens to be actually playing.
Yeah, same thing. I dont see matchups getting better. The curve is not getting any smoother The matchups seem to get worse. Why i have to put up w 1.5 to 2 mil higher GPs. They can search for the loosers who have more similar GP not ”skill” which is not very much a skill anymore.
This system could be potentially good however, lets stop kidding and let's admit it isnt.
There are two major problems with it, one of them being transitionary.
First, there should be a cap on the W.-L streak effects. To put it differently there should be forbidden matchups. This is the permanent issue.
<snip>.
There are no streak effects in GAC. That is only in TW. GAC is strictly SR rating matching and doesn't use history at all.
SR rating on its on is an indirect history. If you keep losing, you lose SR, and go down on the ladder and the only thing to stop you is an eventual victory. Okay streak may be an incorrect word here, but the term itself wasnt the point.
The only way elo based match making ratings gain any accuracy or value is by matching against opponents that are similarly rated, that's the whole point. Yes, CG didn't put any effort into getting the initial ratings anywhere near what their "accurate" values end up at, but the whole point of this type of matching is pitting you against similarly successful players. And losing doesn't always lower score, only when you are similarly rated does the rating change. If you are outmatched on SR at some point the odds of winning are so low that the loss doesn't affect the score. But on the other side is if the win is expected for a player with a much higher ranking and they lose, there is a much larger point loss for the loser and transferred to the winner. Since everyone is matching at near the same ratings the rating will always change on the outcome but very slowly because the match was expected to be close - but the ratings are so far off it's going to take much longer for the ratings to be normalized.
CG should have taken the historic GAC data, assigned the initial SR to players on matches from a year ago, then then replayed the outcomes and applied the SR changes through the year of matches. This would have quickly caused high GP players who don't play to rapidly lose SR, and players that actually try would have been much more accurately rated and the divisions would have been more accurate at start.
I was squished from 3700 down to 3632 at the end of last season. Now I’ve gone back up to 3673 after going 2-1.
But I’m curious why they keep artificially, intentionally dropping our hard earned rank after each season. I’ve been winning 50% as designed, but they keep pushing us further and further down with the squish. Now I’m in battles to stay in K1, which I never faced before.
I’d be a bigger fan of this GAC iteration if they ditched the squish. Why does it even exist?
I was squished from 3700 down to 3632 at the end of last season. Now I’ve gone back up to 3673 after going 2-1.
But I’m curious why they keep artificially, intentionally dropping our hard earned rank after each season. I’ve been winning 50% as designed, but they keep pushing us further and further down with the squish. Now I’m in battles to stay in K1, which I never faced before.
I’d be a bigger fan of this GAC iteration if they ditched the squish. Why does it even exist?
#ditchthesquish
Because without it, you would eventually be stuck in the same bracket for eternity. That's an extreme version that would take probably a million years to occur, but even in the short term there are effects and therefore the squish is definitely required to keep us from getting stuck on the ladder.
But I’m curious why they keep artificially, intentionally dropping our hard earned rank after each season. I’ve been winning 50% as designed, but they keep pushing us further and further down with the squish. Now I’m in battles to stay in K1, which I never faced before.
I’d be a bigger fan of this GAC iteration if they ditched the squish. Why does it even exist?
#ditchthesquish
Because they set some (arbitrary) percentages for each division within a league. For example K1 is supposed to have 10% (or is it 15%?) of the Kyber League. The squish is to maintain those percentages, if I understand it correctly.
The more I think about this, the more I feel that the real solution is for CG to completely ditch the divisions/leagues, and just put everyone on one big ladder. Currently the only purpose of divisions and leagues is to define reward tiers. They could calculate everyone's rewards directly from their SR instead. Do away with brackets, events, or seasons too. Just have deploy/attack cycles every 2 days. Matchmaking would become extremely simple too - start from the top of the ladder, match every two players, and work the way down.
Because they set some (arbitrary) percentages for each division within a league. For example K1 is supposed to have 10% (or is it 15%?) of the Kyber League. The squish is to maintain those percentages, if I understand it correctly.
Another purpose of squish might be to reduce "rating inflations", which is a well known issue in any Elo based system. That's probably more likely the reason, since SBCrumb did state that squishes were not supposed to change anyone's leagues or divisions.
Regardless, my other point about completely ditching divisions/leagues stands, as they seem to just cause a lot of confusion without much benefit.
But I’m curious why they keep artificially, intentionally dropping our hard earned rank after each season. I’ve been winning 50% as designed, but they keep pushing us further and further down with the squish. Now I’m in battles to stay in K1, which I never faced before.
I’d be a bigger fan of this GAC iteration if they ditched the squish. Why does it even exist?
#ditchthesquish
Because they set some (arbitrary) percentages for each division within a league. For example K1 is supposed to have 10% (or is it 15%?) of the Kyber League. The squish is to maintain those percentages, if I understand it correctly.
The more I think about this, the more I feel that the real solution is for CG to completely ditch the divisions/leagues, and just put everyone on one big ladder. Currently the only purpose of divisions and leagues is to define reward tiers. They could calculate everyone's rewards directly from their SR instead. Do away with brackets, events, or seasons too. Just have deploy/attack cycles every 2 days. Matchmaking would become extremely simple too - start from the top of the ladder, match every two players, and work the way down.
So GA style battles in squad arena, but with everyone in the shard? That would make the calculation of SR even more contentious, and you’d still have the issue of many players with the same SR (unless you want to rank the entire user base from 1 to whatever million). Also it doesn’t solve the yo-yo issue of non-attacking accounts falling down the ladders making a headwind for everyone else. Then bouncing back up if/when they decide to play. The tying of GA to crystal income pollutes the whole mode. Everyone has to opt in to get paid, but they don’t have to play very often.
So GA style battles in squad arena, but with everyone in the shard? That would make the calculation of SR even more contentious, and you’d still have the issue of many players with the same SR (unless you want to rank the entire user base from 1 to whatever million). Also it doesn’t solve the yo-yo issue of non-attacking accounts falling down the ladders making a headwind for everyone else. Then bouncing back up if/when they decide to play. The tying of GA to crystal income pollutes the whole mode. Everyone has to opt in to get paid, but they don’t have to play very often.
Many players having the same SR isn't an issue, at least from MM perspective. Instead of matching every two players next to each other, the MM can take every one with the same SR in a pool, and randomly pair them up. It's still programmatically trivial to do.
The "yo-yo" issue can be solved by keeping two separated ratings. One is the active skill rating, used for MM. It only gets adjusted when you actually play. So if you sit out for however long, your active SR does not change, and when you come back you'll still be matched up with people in that range, rather than players with much lighter rosters. The other rating is adjusted from both match results and idling, and used for calculating your rewards. So if you lose matches, you lose rewards. If you sit out, you lose rewards too.
The initial seeding based on GP, while unsophisticated, was easy to implement and encouraged hoarders to spend their hoard. I know I did. I unlocked a bunch of useless toons, put stars on these same toons, put mods on these toons, and applied a few relic levels on key toons, which bumped me into the next division for a slight increase in daily crystals, and higher match and season rewards. The old system discouraged broadening of your roster if you were serious about GAC. Now, there is no penalty, aside from opportunity cost.
So GA style battles in squad arena, but with everyone in the shard? That would make the calculation of SR even more contentious, and you’d still have the issue of many players with the same SR (unless you want to rank the entire user base from 1 to whatever million). Also it doesn’t solve the yo-yo issue of non-attacking accounts falling down the ladders making a headwind for everyone else. Then bouncing back up if/when they decide to play. The tying of GA to crystal income pollutes the whole mode. Everyone has to opt in to get paid, but they don’t have to play very often.
Many players having the same SR isn't an issue, at least from MM perspective. Instead of matching every two players next to each other, the MM can take every one with the same SR in a pool, and randomly pair them up. It's still programmatically trivial to do.
The "yo-yo" issue can be solved by keeping two separated ratings. One is the active skill rating, used for MM. It only gets adjusted when you actually play. So if you sit out for however long, your active SR does not change, and when you come back you'll still be matched up with people in that range, rather than players with much lighter rosters. The other rating is adjusted from both match results and idling, and used for calculating your rewards. So if you lose matches, you lose rewards. If you sit out, you lose rewards too.
At my level there are literally hundreds of ppl with my same SR, and wildly divergent GP (see my earlier post on this thread). I don’t want to be randomly matched against them, I want to be matched competitively. (+- 10% GP, or whatever other metric you want). MM has to be both global and local (feel the divisions/brackets creeping back in). A squad arena style where it’s pure ranking gets us back to mafia land.
On the yo-yo side I like the idea of a meta-rating, or a “participation modifier” etc. sure ppl will soon figure out the minimum effort to maintain rough position, but it might stop the falling rocks that hit me every week. Both the 4+ M players above and below me in my carbonite3 fell from highest level of chromium5. That’s 8 tiers. Clearly they don’t care about the rewards, but I still have to “play” them. Ick.
So GA style battles in squad arena, but with everyone in the shard? That would make the calculation of SR even more contentious, and you’d still have the issue of many players with the same SR (unless you want to rank the entire user base from 1 to whatever million). Also it doesn’t solve the yo-yo issue of non-attacking accounts falling down the ladders making a headwind for everyone else. Then bouncing back up if/when they decide to play. The tying of GA to crystal income pollutes the whole mode. Everyone has to opt in to get paid, but they don’t have to play very often.
Many players having the same SR isn't an issue, at least from MM perspective. Instead of matching every two players next to each other, the MM can take every one with the same SR in a pool, and randomly pair them up. It's still programmatically trivial to do.
The "yo-yo" issue can be solved by keeping two separated ratings. One is the active skill rating, used for MM. It only gets adjusted when you actually play. So if you sit out for however long, your active SR does not change, and when you come back you'll still be matched up with people in that range, rather than players with much lighter rosters. The other rating is adjusted from both match results and idling, and used for calculating your rewards. So if you lose matches, you lose rewards. If you sit out, you lose rewards too.
At my level there are literally hundreds of ppl with my same SR, and wildly divergent GP (see my earlier post on this thread). I don’t want to be randomly matched against them, I want to be matched competitively. (+- 10% GP, or whatever other metric you want). MM has to be both global and local (feel the divisions/brackets creeping back in). A squad arena style where it’s pure ranking gets us back to mafia land.
On the yo-yo side I like the idea of a meta-rating, or a “participation modifier” etc. sure ppl will soon figure out the minimum effort to maintain rough position, but it might stop the falling rocks that hit me every week. Both the 4+ M players above and below me in my carbonite3 fell from highest level of chromium5. That’s 8 tiers. Clearly they don’t care about the rewards, but I still have to “play” them. Ick.
Explain mafia land. Is there a million member guild alliance out there manipulating the rankings and holding you back?
Sign up.
Deploy defences.
Remember to attack at least once.
Do nothing, let auto def do their job.
Remember to attack at least once.
Do nothing, let auto def do their job.
Remember to attack at least once.
Sign up.
Deploy defences.
Remember to attack at least once.
Do nothing, let auto def do their job.
Remember to attack at least once.
Do nothing, let auto def do their job.
Remember to attack at least once.
Sure. Exactly the behavior that’s killing the fun. While we’re at it CG can just auto-sim all the matches and give my rank/rewards accordingly. Turn it into a full on idle game. I’ll log in twice a week to sim for gear and sim the occasional event and spend my “hard earned” crystals. What fun.
In seriousness though, this is the reality for new/casual players who didn’t spend levels 1-85 hyper focused on a tight farming path. The fun ends. Conquest is ok but I can’t clear even easy mode and it doesn’t come around often. My guild are nice folks but we are not strong enough for TW. GAC was the only thing that was promising engaging play and encouragement to build my teams by battling my peers. I really am just simming my dailies and auto helping on raids at this point. It’s a bummer.
Sure. Exactly the behavior that’s killing the fun. While we’re at it CG can just auto-sim all the matches and give my rank/rewards accordingly.
In seriousness though, this is the reality for new/casual players who didn’t spend levels 1-85 hyper focused on a tight farming path. The fun ends.
I disagree. I am having way more fun. Deployment matters, attack matters, strategy matters. I lose half my games, but the ones i win are great fun. It always requires one of my defense teams to surprise the opponent.
I see the opposite of what you say...in the past, players that followed the "tight farming paths" were unbeatbale because they were matched by weaker opponents (as they had lots of "trash" toons). Now... i can research whatever i want, only thing that matters is the teams WE ACTUALLY USE and the strategy we use.
I am overmatched in general as some players will not attack or even deploy, so i win more than i should....but i prefer this a lot more...some games i cant win, lost all three on previous GAC, but way more interesting than before...
You just cant feel "entitled" to win...any match requires that half the players will lose.
Replies
But it doesn't change your rank. It decrease the SR points between ranks, but doesn't reorder anything. Your bracket and matchups do not change.
There are two major problems with it, one of them being transitionary.
First, there should be a cap on the W.-L streak effects. To put it differently there should be forbidden matchups. This is the permanent issue. Reaching a point when you objectively dont stand any chance has a crushing effect to the morale. You can also easily derive that you will end up around 50-50 W-L, and the major question remains the exact league where you end up. The AVERAGE difference between k1 and k2 is so small that it creates a major counterargument against upgrading GAC omicrons. If you can advance one extra league due to just your omicron upgrades (how do you even prove this in the first place) the gain is so marginal that it renders them almost obsolete.
The second issue is that we can see now that the matchups are getting more or less balanced. Yes there are still matchups that I think should be considered to be forbidden but their numbers are dropping fast as the system iterates. It took roughly 2.5 tournaments which is 30 matchups. I cannot name a single reason to put us through this torture. The initial (GP based) system was barbaric, primitive. An 8th century caveman with troll ancestorts could have come up with a better idea. They put ZERO effort into creating a playable initiative system and had us play more or less 30 mismatches. (I definitely had 21 mismatches in the first 24 matches. No excitement, no chances. Won most of them, lost some of them. There were at most 3 matches that could be seen as something inbetween. The 3rd season seems to be somewhat better) CG deserves nothing but pure detest for the initial parameter system.
Also, the principle is still: you perform well, you get punished, and that is problematic.
You're right, it doesn't matter.
The main thing it does is mean people can't bank too many wins in one run of GAC so that if they lost an equal number in the following run of GAC that their division wouldn't change. Since there's no upper limit to Skill Ranking, if you started in Kyber 1 and won a whole bunch early on, someone who started today might never be able to reach your level, guaranteeing a lock for you.
Is that likely? No, not at all. It's an extremely rare possibility. And, frankly, a solid solution to an unhealthy situation.
Folks that are angry about this need to think of it this way--You could win 162 games in a season of baseball, but when the season is over you're all reset to 0.
It's all about expectations. A lot people kind of carried over their expectations of going 11-1 or 12-0 from the old GAC, so it hits particularly hard when they realize they cannot possibly keep the WR up.
What CG could have done better was to completely ditch the old division/league system, so that the message to the players would be clear: this is a whole new format, so should be your expectations.
Now because I am a better player for my roster size with 2 GLs, I have gone up the rankings, and now I'm just coming across people who aren't good but they have 5GLs and put them all on defense.
It is just not fun to play against.
At least with the eventuality of a 50/50 win rate, you don't have to feel bad about a streak of losses - they just mean in the next season you'll likely face easier opponents and get a string of wins to make up for it. *shrugs* seems like less incentive to spend to me, as any short term spurt of spending based progress will eventually hit a ceiling inherent to the new skill rating system, but I think those who spend $1000s on the game monthly either don't think about it logically or have an addiction that only considers the immediate gratification of winning more in the immediate coming season.
There are no streak effects in GAC. That is only in TW. GAC is strictly SR rating matching and doesn't use history at all.
SR rating on its on is an indirect history. If you keep losing, you lose SR, and go down on the ladder and the only thing to stop you is an eventual victory. Okay streak may be an incorrect word here, but the term itself wasnt the point.
Yeah, same thing. I dont see matchups getting better. The curve is not getting any smoother
The only way elo based match making ratings gain any accuracy or value is by matching against opponents that are similarly rated, that's the whole point. Yes, CG didn't put any effort into getting the initial ratings anywhere near what their "accurate" values end up at, but the whole point of this type of matching is pitting you against similarly successful players. And losing doesn't always lower score, only when you are similarly rated does the rating change. If you are outmatched on SR at some point the odds of winning are so low that the loss doesn't affect the score. But on the other side is if the win is expected for a player with a much higher ranking and they lose, there is a much larger point loss for the loser and transferred to the winner. Since everyone is matching at near the same ratings the rating will always change on the outcome but very slowly because the match was expected to be close - but the ratings are so far off it's going to take much longer for the ratings to be normalized.
CG should have taken the historic GAC data, assigned the initial SR to players on matches from a year ago, then then replayed the outcomes and applied the SR changes through the year of matches. This would have quickly caused high GP players who don't play to rapidly lose SR, and players that actually try would have been much more accurately rated and the divisions would have been more accurate at start.
But I’m curious why they keep artificially, intentionally dropping our hard earned rank after each season. I’ve been winning 50% as designed, but they keep pushing us further and further down with the squish. Now I’m in battles to stay in K1, which I never faced before.
I’d be a bigger fan of this GAC iteration if they ditched the squish. Why does it even exist?
#ditchthesquish
Because without it, you would eventually be stuck in the same bracket for eternity. That's an extreme version that would take probably a million years to occur, but even in the short term there are effects and therefore the squish is definitely required to keep us from getting stuck on the ladder.
Because they set some (arbitrary) percentages for each division within a league. For example K1 is supposed to have 10% (or is it 15%?) of the Kyber League. The squish is to maintain those percentages, if I understand it correctly.
The more I think about this, the more I feel that the real solution is for CG to completely ditch the divisions/leagues, and just put everyone on one big ladder. Currently the only purpose of divisions and leagues is to define reward tiers. They could calculate everyone's rewards directly from their SR instead. Do away with brackets, events, or seasons too. Just have deploy/attack cycles every 2 days. Matchmaking would become extremely simple too - start from the top of the ladder, match every two players, and work the way down.
Another purpose of squish might be to reduce "rating inflations", which is a well known issue in any Elo based system. That's probably more likely the reason, since SBCrumb did state that squishes were not supposed to change anyone's leagues or divisions.
Regardless, my other point about completely ditching divisions/leagues stands, as they seem to just cause a lot of confusion without much benefit.
So GA style battles in squad arena, but with everyone in the shard? That would make the calculation of SR even more contentious, and you’d still have the issue of many players with the same SR (unless you want to rank the entire user base from 1 to whatever million). Also it doesn’t solve the yo-yo issue of non-attacking accounts falling down the ladders making a headwind for everyone else. Then bouncing back up if/when they decide to play. The tying of GA to crystal income pollutes the whole mode. Everyone has to opt in to get paid, but they don’t have to play very often.
Many players having the same SR isn't an issue, at least from MM perspective. Instead of matching every two players next to each other, the MM can take every one with the same SR in a pool, and randomly pair them up. It's still programmatically trivial to do.
The "yo-yo" issue can be solved by keeping two separated ratings. One is the active skill rating, used for MM. It only gets adjusted when you actually play. So if you sit out for however long, your active SR does not change, and when you come back you'll still be matched up with people in that range, rather than players with much lighter rosters. The other rating is adjusted from both match results and idling, and used for calculating your rewards. So if you lose matches, you lose rewards. If you sit out, you lose rewards too.
At my level there are literally hundreds of ppl with my same SR, and wildly divergent GP (see my earlier post on this thread). I don’t want to be randomly matched against them, I want to be matched competitively. (+- 10% GP, or whatever other metric you want). MM has to be both global and local (feel the divisions/brackets creeping back in). A squad arena style where it’s pure ranking gets us back to mafia land.
On the yo-yo side I like the idea of a meta-rating, or a “participation modifier” etc. sure ppl will soon figure out the minimum effort to maintain rough position, but it might stop the falling rocks that hit me every week. Both the 4+ M players above and below me in my carbonite3 fell from highest level of chromium5. That’s 8 tiers. Clearly they don’t care about the rewards, but I still have to “play” them. Ick.
Explain mafia land. Is there a million member guild alliance out there manipulating the rankings and holding you back?
Can’t. Need the crystals.
Sign up, put in weak defense, and walk away. You'll still get crystals.
And in a couple months You'll get the easy matchups you want.
Sign up.
Deploy defences.
Remember to attack at least once.
Do nothing, let auto def do their job.
Remember to attack at least once.
Do nothing, let auto def do their job.
Remember to attack at least once.
Sure. Exactly the behavior that’s killing the fun. While we’re at it CG can just auto-sim all the matches and give my rank/rewards accordingly. Turn it into a full on idle game. I’ll log in twice a week to sim for gear and sim the occasional event and spend my “hard earned” crystals. What fun.
In seriousness though, this is the reality for new/casual players who didn’t spend levels 1-85 hyper focused on a tight farming path. The fun ends. Conquest is ok but I can’t clear even easy mode and it doesn’t come around often. My guild are nice folks but we are not strong enough for TW. GAC was the only thing that was promising engaging play and encouragement to build my teams by battling my peers. I really am just simming my dailies and auto helping on raids at this point. It’s a bummer.
I see the opposite of what you say...in the past, players that followed the "tight farming paths" were unbeatbale because they were matched by weaker opponents (as they had lots of "trash" toons). Now... i can research whatever i want, only thing that matters is the teams WE ACTUALLY USE and the strategy we use.
I am overmatched in general as some players will not attack or even deploy, so i win more than i should....but i prefer this a lot more...some games i cant win, lost all three on previous GAC, but way more interesting than before...
You just cant feel "entitled" to win...any match requires that half the players will lose.