Wow, is this how the leaderboards work?

bulbousb16_ESO

I started this afternoon in 2nd place, then lost a few games and more than half my points. Is this really the strategy... get up to the top and then stop playing?

spartaxoxo

Yes. The point system is the reason I don't bother worrying about it anymore.

Personofsecrets

The designers have been told by just about every player about their leaderboard issues. The silence has been deafening. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

Personofsecrets

Oh, and yes, almost all of us stop playing at a certain point. I was 1 win away from ending last month in first place and couldn't be bothered to. Let someone else have the glory. I didn't deserve to be on the board anyhow since I got to first place around the 2nd day of ranked play while point movements were inflated. On the 20th of the month, other people started to surpass me, that's how long I didn't have to play ranked for. I suspect that perhaps the point system is doing something funny after some number of days in the season pass.

Maybe I played another 15 games to surpass them again and stay there. Super low scoring season ending around 2000 points which makes little sense after an average playing individual got to an obscene 3800 points last month before disappearing this month.

tonyaccount

bulbousb16_ESO wrote: »

I started this afternoon in 2nd place, then lost a few games and more than half my points. Is this really the strategy... get up to the top and then stop playing?

The positions mean nothing in the early stages of the month. If you're 2nd after 3 days of playing it doesn't mean you're the 2nd best player of the server. You were just having a hot run and predictably eventually ran into some bad luck.

Stopping to play when you're first is mostly a strategy for players afraid of losing. The only time it makes sense is if there's only a few days left of the season and you've secured your position and want to minimize any risk.

The leaderboard system could use some fixing but mostly people are just entitled and think they should be allowed to keep their position after getting a lucky streak and are upset when it doesn't happen.

The only real problems I have with the leaderboard system are the lack of of disconnection protection, and the range of points you can win or lose in a game. The minimum gain from a win should be something like 12 points. I still regularly(not that often, but too often) run into players who give me 0-5 points. Often players like this play degenerate strategies that you cannot get a 95%+ win rate against so those are actually the worst opponents to get. And sometimes you literally get 0 points, which is a bargain in which you literally cannot win.

tonyaccount

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Super low scoring season ending around 2000 points which makes little sense after an average playing individual got to an obscene 3800 points last month before disappearing this month.

I just realized you're talking about me. I only played in NA for one season out of curiosity to see how's the level of play in NA.

I think calling me "an average playing individual" is disingenuous at best to make it sound like the leaderboard is just one big lottery. It's not. I played with plenty of disadvantages. I had to grind the decks I needed from the scratch, and to this day I still don't have Ansei, Almalexia, Orgnum(also Mora now). I didn't have any reads of any NA players, didn't know what the NA meta was like and still I hit almost 3.8k score with a week remaining of the season and could just retire because my lead was so big.

People often think it's a game of luck when they aren't getting the position they think they deserve and their natural response is externalizing the blame instead of trying to understand the system and work on their game.

In systems like this there is some natural variance and people are bad at dealing with it. When they are running hot they attribute their success to their skill and when they are going through a rough patch they are putting all the blame on luck. If you consistently play better than your opponents you'll be finishing very high every season, even if you'll have some dips here and there.

The ugly truth is that most people grossly overestimate their skill level, especially when they are having a lucky streak. And when the reality inevitably eventually catches up, the fall from the cloud castle is much higher than is should be.

Personofsecrets

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Super low scoring season ending around 2000 points which makes little sense after an average playing individual got to an obscene 3800 points last month before disappearing this month.

I just realized you're talking about me. I only played in NA for one season out of curiosity to see how's the level of play in NA.

I think calling me "an average playing individual" is disingenuous at best to make it sound like the leaderboard is just one big lottery. It's not. I played with plenty of disadvantages. I had to grind the decks I needed from the scratch, and to this day I still don't have Ansei, Almalexia, Orgnum(also Mora now). I didn't have any reads of any NA players, didn't know what the NA meta was like and still I hit almost 3.8k score with a week remaining of the season and could just retire because my lead was so big.

People often think it's a game of luck when they aren't getting the position they think they deserve and their natural response is externalizing the blame instead of trying to understand the system and work on their game.

In systems like this there is some natural variance and people are bad at dealing with it. When they are running hot they attribute their success to their skill and when they are going through a rough patch they are putting all the blame on luck. If you consistently play better than your opponents you'll be finishing very high every season, even if you'll have some dips here and there.

The ugly truth is that most people grossly overestimate their skill level, especially when they are having a lucky streak. And when the reality inevitably eventually catches up, the fall from the cloud castle is much higher than is should be.

That's all fine and good advice for most people, but the TOT leaderboard system seems to have a number of intracacies that should be refined.

1.) I've run new accounts on NA and found during the process that prior to leveling up to TOT rank 8, I played an entirely different group of players, mostly novices, and earned a large number of leaderboard points all the same despite being insulated from other players commonly playing for top leaderboard spots.

I also should mention, that I wasn't having the game placement issues that I have on my main account. So getting into games isn't as tedious creating an overall faster rate of play. Afterall, the designers are concerned with the pace of the game and I regularly have 3 minute ques which, when compared to my average game time, is quite a bit of waiting around.

2.) Being the first person to reach rubedite ensures that future wins against non-rubedite players earn 150 points per game.

3.) Intentionally throwing a bunch of games has been reported to increase the point values of future wins. The same hidden point system that is keeping track of players wins probably also interacts with players that don't have many games in an interesting way.

Anyhow, I was a little surprised by how you decide to play, but it makes a little more sense now given that you were hopping over here on a new TOT character. It may be tempting to make this leaderboard issues about the players, but we aren't the ones who created an opaque system with different parts that can be abused and which discourages active play in all kinds of ways. The devs did that.

tonyaccount

Personofsecrets wrote: »

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Super low scoring season ending around 2000 points which makes little sense after an average playing individual got to an obscene 3800 points last month before disappearing this month.

I just realized you're talking about me. I only played in NA for one season out of curiosity to see how's the level of play in NA.

I think calling me "an average playing individual" is disingenuous at best to make it sound like the leaderboard is just one big lottery. It's not. I played with plenty of disadvantages. I had to grind the decks I needed from the scratch, and to this day I still don't have Ansei, Almalexia, Orgnum(also Mora now). I didn't have any reads of any NA players, didn't know what the NA meta was like and still I hit almost 3.8k score with a week remaining of the season and could just retire because my lead was so big.

People often think it's a game of luck when they aren't getting the position they think they deserve and their natural response is externalizing the blame instead of trying to understand the system and work on their game.

In systems like this there is some natural variance and people are bad at dealing with it. When they are running hot they attribute their success to their skill and when they are going through a rough patch they are putting all the blame on luck. If you consistently play better than your opponents you'll be finishing very high every season, even if you'll have some dips here and there.

The ugly truth is that most people grossly overestimate their skill level, especially when they are having a lucky streak. And when the reality inevitably eventually catches up, the fall from the cloud castle is much higher than is should be.

That's all fine and good advice for most people, but the TOT leaderboard system seems to have a number of intracacies that should be refined.

1.) I've run new accounts on NA and found during the process that prior to leveling up to TOT rank 8, I played an entirely different group of players, mostly novices, and earned a large number of leaderboard points all the same despite being insulated from other players commonly playing for top leaderboard spots.

I also should mention, that I wasn't having the game placement issues that I have on my main account. So getting into games isn't as tedious creating an overall faster rate of play. Afterall, the designers are concerned with the pace of the game and I regularly have 3 minute ques which, when compared to my average game time, is quite a bit of waiting around.

2.) Being the first person to reach rubedite ensures that future wins against non-rubedite players earn 150 points per game.

3.) Intentionally throwing a bunch of games has been reported to increase the point values of future wins. The same hidden point system that is keeping track of players wins probably also interacts with players that don't have many games in an interesting way.

Anyhow, I was a little surprised by how you decide to play, but it makes a little more sense now given that you were hopping over here on a new TOT character. It may be tempting to make this leaderboard issues about the players, but we aren't the ones who created an opaque system with different parts that can be abused and which discourages active play in all kinds of ways. The devs did that.

I really don't understand why would someone go so deep to try to theorize how exactly the leaderboard system works and find weaknesses in it. It's honestly just a waste of time and energy.

Even if there's a "newbie protection system" which we do not know about, that would only apply in the beginning. We're talking about a month long season. It's a non-factor if you get easier opposition during the early days of the season. It's not a sustainable strategy. Assuming your theory about Rank 8 is true, as soon as your newbie protection wears off your results will begin to normalize and your leaderboard position will sink like Titanic.

You can't stay at low TOT ranks forever because each time you win a game you gain TOT ranking points and eventually you will hit higher ranks, and there are also consequences in doing so. Most notably you unlock Red Eagle by reaching rank 8. Red Eagle is is a core part of my strategy and I would like to have it in every game. I am the type of a man who would rather play an optimized strategy and play it well over relying on crutches and exploits.

If you are throwing away games "for future yields," the obvious downside is that you lose points when you throw games too. Again assuming your theory is true(which it might not be) you could theoretically do this in the beginning of the season when you have 0 points and you'd gain more points when you start to play serious. But just like in the newbie protection system situation, you'll run out of gas as soon as the situation normalizes. When you have 1200 points after 2 weeks of play you can't possibly be seriously considering throw games away with the expectation of gaining something from it. This is a moot point.

Being first to Rubedite literally doesn't matter at all. The early days of the season are irrelevant because the sample sizes are so small that the players' leaderboard positions do not reflect their ability. You might be playing difficult games against advanced opponents who haven't played enough yet and who have 0-300 points and you get barely any points even if you win, and you lose the maximum if you lose. On the other hand you might get a ton of points against random opponents who've had a lucky start even if they aren't that good.

My advise to everyone struggling with the leaderboard system is, first off understand how variance works and also accept that you do not permanently "deserve" the leaderboard position you got when you hit a lucky streak. Expecting your God run to continue forever and thinking you've gone from 53% win rate to 90% win rate overnight is only going to result in a disappointment. Also understand that at higher rankings you almost always lose the maximum number of points so losses are more expensive. Losing 3 games in a row means -450 points and this will happen to you and everyone else eventually

Secondly, stop wasting your energy on trying to find exploits and instead spend it on working on your game. There is no substitute to skill, and there's no better safety net against variance and system flaws than a high expected win rate. With high win rate your losing streaks become less common and less extreme, and you recover from them faster. Also your winning streaks become more common and more extreme.

And one more hint I can give people is that you need to be critical about the sources of information you use. Most ToT advise I see flying around is absolute rubbish and only reinforces common, widely accepted bad habits or primarily exists to make stupid people feel smart without improving their game. I constantly run into people who repeat the most average conventional wisdom as facts. You know the players who think it's a good play to buy an Elder Witch and sacrifice it right away or the players who keep Fortify and War Song as a default play and instead make writs out of their Gold coins, who feel they are being perpetually unlucky because their opponent who gets rid of those cards somehow seems to get all the good 6 and 7 coin cards.

tl;dr: Early season doesn't matter. Exploits are a waste of time. Leaderboard system isn't a lottery. Your fellow average players telling you what and how to play are going to make you average. Work on your game, be critical and get used to the variance in the game.

bulbousb16_ESO

The point is that it takes a lot of wins to get to the top, but a couple of successive losses can knock you right down to peasant level again. It's pretty punishing, and I can understand why people stop playing when they achieve a decent rank. Not saying I dislike it - makes beating someone at the top a lot more rewarding.

I didn't notice an appreciable difference in the rankings change when I was rank #3 in the early season vs rank #9 in the late season. Both were followed by a precipitous fall.

Personofsecrets

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Super low scoring season ending around 2000 points which makes little sense after an average playing individual got to an obscene 3800 points last month before disappearing this month.

I just realized you're talking about me. I only played in NA for one season out of curiosity to see how's the level of play in NA.

I think calling me "an average playing individual" is disingenuous at best to make it sound like the leaderboard is just one big lottery. It's not. I played with plenty of disadvantages. I had to grind the decks I needed from the scratch, and to this day I still don't have Ansei, Almalexia, Orgnum(also Mora now). I didn't have any reads of any NA players, didn't know what the NA meta was like and still I hit almost 3.8k score with a week remaining of the season and could just retire because my lead was so big.

People often think it's a game of luck when they aren't getting the position they think they deserve and their natural response is externalizing the blame instead of trying to understand the system and work on their game.

In systems like this there is some natural variance and people are bad at dealing with it. When they are running hot they attribute their success to their skill and when they are going through a rough patch they are putting all the blame on luck. If you consistently play better than your opponents you'll be finishing very high every season, even if you'll have some dips here and there.

The ugly truth is that most people grossly overestimate their skill level, especially when they are having a lucky streak. And when the reality inevitably eventually catches up, the fall from the cloud castle is much higher than is should be.

That's all fine and good advice for most people, but the TOT leaderboard system seems to have a number of intracacies that should be refined.

1.) I've run new accounts on NA and found during the process that prior to leveling up to TOT rank 8, I played an entirely different group of players, mostly novices, and earned a large number of leaderboard points all the same despite being insulated from other players commonly playing for top leaderboard spots.

I also should mention, that I wasn't having the game placement issues that I have on my main account. So getting into games isn't as tedious creating an overall faster rate of play. Afterall, the designers are concerned with the pace of the game and I regularly have 3 minute ques which, when compared to my average game time, is quite a bit of waiting around.

2.) Being the first person to reach rubedite ensures that future wins against non-rubedite players earn 150 points per game.

3.) Intentionally throwing a bunch of games has been reported to increase the point values of future wins. The same hidden point system that is keeping track of players wins probably also interacts with players that don't have many games in an interesting way.

Anyhow, I was a little surprised by how you decide to play, but it makes a little more sense now given that you were hopping over here on a new TOT character. It may be tempting to make this leaderboard issues about the players, but we aren't the ones who created an opaque system with different parts that can be abused and which discourages active play in all kinds of ways. The devs did that.

I really don't understand why would someone go so deep to try to theorize how exactly the leaderboard system works and find weaknesses in it. It's honestly just a waste of time and energy.

Even if there's a "newbie protection system" which we do not know about, that would only apply in the beginning. We're talking about a month long season. It's a non-factor if you get easier opposition during the early days of the season. It's not a sustainable strategy. Assuming your theory about Rank 8 is true, as soon as your newbie protection wears off your results will begin to normalize and your leaderboard position will sink like Titanic.

You can't stay at low TOT ranks forever because each time you win a game you gain TOT ranking points and eventually you will hit higher ranks, and there are also consequences in doing so. Most notably you unlock Red Eagle by reaching rank 8. Red Eagle is is a core part of my strategy and I would like to have it in every game. I am the type of a man who would rather play an optimized strategy and play it well over relying on crutches and exploits.

If you are throwing away games "for future yields," the obvious downside is that you lose points when you throw games too. Again assuming your theory is true(which it might not be) you could theoretically do this in the beginning of the season when you have 0 points and you'd gain more points when you start to play serious. But just like in the newbie protection system situation, you'll run out of gas as soon as the situation normalizes. When you have 1200 points after 2 weeks of play you can't possibly be seriously considering throw games away with the expectation of gaining something from it. This is a moot point.

Being first to Rubedite literally doesn't matter at all. The early days of the season are irrelevant because the sample sizes are so small that the players' leaderboard positions do not reflect their ability. You might be playing difficult games against advanced opponents who haven't played enough yet and who have 0-300 points and you get barely any points even if you win, and you lose the maximum if you lose. On the other hand you might get a ton of points against random opponents who've had a lucky start even if they aren't that good.

My advise to everyone struggling with the leaderboard system is, first off understand how variance works and also accept that you do not permanently "deserve" the leaderboard position you got when you hit a lucky streak. Expecting your God run to continue forever and thinking you've gone from 53% win rate to 90% win rate overnight is only going to result in a disappointment. Also understand that at higher rankings you almost always lose the maximum number of points so losses are more expensive. Losing 3 games in a row means -450 points and this will happen to you and everyone else eventually

Secondly, stop wasting your energy on trying to find exploits and instead spend it on working on your game. There is no substitute to skill, and there's no better safety net against variance and system flaws than a high expected win rate. With high win rate your losing streaks become less common and less extreme, and you recover from them faster. Also your winning streaks become more common and more extreme.

And one more hint I can give people is that you need to be critical about the sources of information you use. Most ToT advise I see flying around is absolute rubbish and only reinforces common, widely accepted bad habits or primarily exists to make stupid people feel smart without improving their game. I constantly run into people who repeat the most average conventional wisdom as facts. You know the players who think it's a good play to buy an Elder Witch and sacrifice it right away or the players who keep Fortify and War Song as a default play and instead make writs out of their Gold coins, who feel they are being perpetually unlucky because their opponent who gets rid of those cards somehow seems to get all the good 6 and 7 coin cards.

tl;dr: Early season doesn't matter. Exploits are a waste of time. Leaderboard system isn't a lottery. Your fellow average players telling you what and how to play are going to make you average. Work on your game, be critical and get used to the variance in the game.

I appreciate your taking the time to post. My comment from two seasons ago goes to show how gaining advantages, in my case it was playing a ton during the first few days of the season, can carry someone way further than it should be able to. As I said back then, I found no reason to care about about a leader board that is clearly biased. I personally only have an 80% win rate in ranked play, so the fact that I just sat as player 1 for so long and then ended up 2nd during the season after barely playing at all, goes to show how the leader board system isn't tailored toward the best rising to the top. It's about sucking up the easy points when they are available and making opponents then languish as they get 10 points per win.

It's too the case that players being able to sit on their points, even if it is just the last week of the season, is very against any spirit of competition and letting the strongest players prove themselves. Instead, something that you seem to criticize is favored, lucky streaks.

Sure, some players will get "lucky" streaks and I really don't care about that. But the current system encourages the top few players to just try and get a lucky streak and then stop playing. This is not just my thought, but also the thought of other strong players I've talked to over NA including a player that had dominated your leader board.

If you really favor the prevalence of the strongest, then we don't have any debate here because I believe in just that, but times 1000.

tonyaccount

Personofsecrets wrote: »

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Super low scoring season ending around 2000 points which makes little sense after an average playing individual got to an obscene 3800 points last month before disappearing this month.

I just realized you're talking about me. I only played in NA for one season out of curiosity to see how's the level of play in NA.

I think calling me "an average playing individual" is disingenuous at best to make it sound like the leaderboard is just one big lottery. It's not. I played with plenty of disadvantages. I had to grind the decks I needed from the scratch, and to this day I still don't have Ansei, Almalexia, Orgnum(also Mora now). I didn't have any reads of any NA players, didn't know what the NA meta was like and still I hit almost 3.8k score with a week remaining of the season and could just retire because my lead was so big.

People often think it's a game of luck when they aren't getting the position they think they deserve and their natural response is externalizing the blame instead of trying to understand the system and work on their game.

In systems like this there is some natural variance and people are bad at dealing with it. When they are running hot they attribute their success to their skill and when they are going through a rough patch they are putting all the blame on luck. If you consistently play better than your opponents you'll be finishing very high every season, even if you'll have some dips here and there.

The ugly truth is that most people grossly overestimate their skill level, especially when they are having a lucky streak. And when the reality inevitably eventually catches up, the fall from the cloud castle is much higher than is should be.

That's all fine and good advice for most people, but the TOT leaderboard system seems to have a number of intracacies that should be refined.

1.) I've run new accounts on NA and found during the process that prior to leveling up to TOT rank 8, I played an entirely different group of players, mostly novices, and earned a large number of leaderboard points all the same despite being insulated from other players commonly playing for top leaderboard spots.

I also should mention, that I wasn't having the game placement issues that I have on my main account. So getting into games isn't as tedious creating an overall faster rate of play. Afterall, the designers are concerned with the pace of the game and I regularly have 3 minute ques which, when compared to my average game time, is quite a bit of waiting around.

2.) Being the first person to reach rubedite ensures that future wins against non-rubedite players earn 150 points per game.

3.) Intentionally throwing a bunch of games has been reported to increase the point values of future wins. The same hidden point system that is keeping track of players wins probably also interacts with players that don't have many games in an interesting way.

Anyhow, I was a little surprised by how you decide to play, but it makes a little more sense now given that you were hopping over here on a new TOT character. It may be tempting to make this leaderboard issues about the players, but we aren't the ones who created an opaque system with different parts that can be abused and which discourages active play in all kinds of ways. The devs did that.

I really don't understand why would someone go so deep to try to theorize how exactly the leaderboard system works and find weaknesses in it. It's honestly just a waste of time and energy.

Even if there's a "newbie protection system" which we do not know about, that would only apply in the beginning. We're talking about a month long season. It's a non-factor if you get easier opposition during the early days of the season. It's not a sustainable strategy. Assuming your theory about Rank 8 is true, as soon as your newbie protection wears off your results will begin to normalize and your leaderboard position will sink like Titanic.

You can't stay at low TOT ranks forever because each time you win a game you gain TOT ranking points and eventually you will hit higher ranks, and there are also consequences in doing so. Most notably you unlock Red Eagle by reaching rank 8. Red Eagle is is a core part of my strategy and I would like to have it in every game. I am the type of a man who would rather play an optimized strategy and play it well over relying on crutches and exploits.

If you are throwing away games "for future yields," the obvious downside is that you lose points when you throw games too. Again assuming your theory is true(which it might not be) you could theoretically do this in the beginning of the season when you have 0 points and you'd gain more points when you start to play serious. But just like in the newbie protection system situation, you'll run out of gas as soon as the situation normalizes. When you have 1200 points after 2 weeks of play you can't possibly be seriously considering throw games away with the expectation of gaining something from it. This is a moot point.

Being first to Rubedite literally doesn't matter at all. The early days of the season are irrelevant because the sample sizes are so small that the players' leaderboard positions do not reflect their ability. You might be playing difficult games against advanced opponents who haven't played enough yet and who have 0-300 points and you get barely any points even if you win, and you lose the maximum if you lose. On the other hand you might get a ton of points against random opponents who've had a lucky start even if they aren't that good.

My advise to everyone struggling with the leaderboard system is, first off understand how variance works and also accept that you do not permanently "deserve" the leaderboard position you got when you hit a lucky streak. Expecting your God run to continue forever and thinking you've gone from 53% win rate to 90% win rate overnight is only going to result in a disappointment. Also understand that at higher rankings you almost always lose the maximum number of points so losses are more expensive. Losing 3 games in a row means -450 points and this will happen to you and everyone else eventually

Secondly, stop wasting your energy on trying to find exploits and instead spend it on working on your game. There is no substitute to skill, and there's no better safety net against variance and system flaws than a high expected win rate. With high win rate your losing streaks become less common and less extreme, and you recover from them faster. Also your winning streaks become more common and more extreme.

And one more hint I can give people is that you need to be critical about the sources of information you use. Most ToT advise I see flying around is absolute rubbish and only reinforces common, widely accepted bad habits or primarily exists to make stupid people feel smart without improving their game. I constantly run into people who repeat the most average conventional wisdom as facts. You know the players who think it's a good play to buy an Elder Witch and sacrifice it right away or the players who keep Fortify and War Song as a default play and instead make writs out of their Gold coins, who feel they are being perpetually unlucky because their opponent who gets rid of those cards somehow seems to get all the good 6 and 7 coin cards.

tl;dr: Early season doesn't matter. Exploits are a waste of time. Leaderboard system isn't a lottery. Your fellow average players telling you what and how to play are going to make you average. Work on your game, be critical and get used to the variance in the game.

I appreciate your taking the time to post. My comment from two seasons ago goes to show how gaining advantages, in my case it was playing a ton during the first few days of the season, can carry someone way further than it should be able to. As I said back then, I found no reason to care about about a leader board that is clearly biased. I personally only have an 80% win rate in ranked play, so the fact that I just sat as player 1 for so long and then ended up 2nd during the season after barely playing at all, goes to show how the leader board system isn't tailored toward the best rising to the top. It's about sucking up the easy points when they are available and making opponents then languish as they get 10 points per win.

It's too the case that players being able to sit on their points, even if it is just the last week of the season, is very against any spirit of competition and letting the strongest players prove themselves. Instead, something that you seem to criticize is favored, lucky streaks.

Sure, some players will get "lucky" streaks and I really don't care about that. But the current system encourages the top few players to just try and get a lucky streak and then stop playing. This is not just my thought, but also the thought of other strong players I've talked to over NA including a player that had dominated your leader board.

If you really favor the prevalence of the strongest, then we don't have any debate here because I believe in just that, but times 1000.

I constantly skip the first half of the season while barely showing up, often even the first 2/3. It's not unheard of that I finish the preliminaries a week before the season ends and still finish first. The point yields are higher towards the end of the season and players' point totals reflect their skill level better than in the early season. So climbing the ranks is more reliable.

The reason why your early success mattered in that one instance was because it was probably the cheapest season of all times. I don't mean it badly but if getting 2k score early on and sitting on it is enough to win, that's the weakest season I've seen by a landslide.

You are right about trying to benchmark a good winning streak and sitting on it, but that's how it's always going to be in a card game leaderboard. Card games fundamentally have an element of luck. But with a higher win rate your winning streaks are more common and last longer, giving you a better chance. What kind of leaderboard system would you have then that wouldn't have variance?

Also, sitting on your score has its own problems. It's only a viable strategy in the last few days of the season and if you have a big enough lead, that you first have to establish. The paradox here is that the players who believe that they shouldn't play when they are first, by definition do NOT build a big lead worth sitting on. When they hit a winning streak and find themselves in the first place with a margin of 100 points they stop playing, change their underwear and hope nobody catches up. This is a losing mentality and the players who have it typically don't really believe they deserve the first place, lack confidence and play poorly under the pressure when someone takes their first place which results in them losing more games.

As you saw on my NA season, I didn't stop playing when I hit the first place. I stopped playing when my lead was so big that I knew nobody would reach it. I believe in my game and I'm not afraid of losing the first place because I know I can retake it even if I hit a losing streak. There's a world of difference between this and the "don't play if you are first" players who are not playing to win, but to not lose.

In football(soccer for you Americans) terms I started to defend a 4-0 lead after 75 minutes, while most players park the bus in front of their goal after they score a lucky 1-0 goal after 40 minutes, pass the initiative to the opponent and pray they don't score an equalizer.

Personofsecrets

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

tonyaccount wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Super low scoring season ending around 2000 points which makes little sense after an average playing individual got to an obscene 3800 points last month before disappearing this month.

I just realized you're talking about me. I only played in NA for one season out of curiosity to see how's the level of play in NA.

I think calling me "an average playing individual" is disingenuous at best to make it sound like the leaderboard is just one big lottery. It's not. I played with plenty of disadvantages. I had to grind the decks I needed from the scratch, and to this day I still don't have Ansei, Almalexia, Orgnum(also Mora now). I didn't have any reads of any NA players, didn't know what the NA meta was like and still I hit almost 3.8k score with a week remaining of the season and could just retire because my lead was so big.

People often think it's a game of luck when they aren't getting the position they think they deserve and their natural response is externalizing the blame instead of trying to understand the system and work on their game.

In systems like this there is some natural variance and people are bad at dealing with it. When they are running hot they attribute their success to their skill and when they are going through a rough patch they are putting all the blame on luck. If you consistently play better than your opponents you'll be finishing very high every season, even if you'll have some dips here and there.

The ugly truth is that most people grossly overestimate their skill level, especially when they are having a lucky streak. And when the reality inevitably eventually catches up, the fall from the cloud castle is much higher than is should be.

That's all fine and good advice for most people, but the TOT leaderboard system seems to have a number of intracacies that should be refined.

1.) I've run new accounts on NA and found during the process that prior to leveling up to TOT rank 8, I played an entirely different group of players, mostly novices, and earned a large number of leaderboard points all the same despite being insulated from other players commonly playing for top leaderboard spots.

I also should mention, that I wasn't having the game placement issues that I have on my main account. So getting into games isn't as tedious creating an overall faster rate of play. Afterall, the designers are concerned with the pace of the game and I regularly have 3 minute ques which, when compared to my average game time, is quite a bit of waiting around.

2.) Being the first person to reach rubedite ensures that future wins against non-rubedite players earn 150 points per game.

3.) Intentionally throwing a bunch of games has been reported to increase the point values of future wins. The same hidden point system that is keeping track of players wins probably also interacts with players that don't have many games in an interesting way.

Anyhow, I was a little surprised by how you decide to play, but it makes a little more sense now given that you were hopping over here on a new TOT character. It may be tempting to make this leaderboard issues about the players, but we aren't the ones who created an opaque system with different parts that can be abused and which discourages active play in all kinds of ways. The devs did that.

I really don't understand why would someone go so deep to try to theorize how exactly the leaderboard system works and find weaknesses in it. It's honestly just a waste of time and energy.

Even if there's a "newbie protection system" which we do not know about, that would only apply in the beginning. We're talking about a month long season. It's a non-factor if you get easier opposition during the early days of the season. It's not a sustainable strategy. Assuming your theory about Rank 8 is true, as soon as your newbie protection wears off your results will begin to normalize and your leaderboard position will sink like Titanic.

You can't stay at low TOT ranks forever because each time you win a game you gain TOT ranking points and eventually you will hit higher ranks, and there are also consequences in doing so. Most notably you unlock Red Eagle by reaching rank 8. Red Eagle is is a core part of my strategy and I would like to have it in every game. I am the type of a man who would rather play an optimized strategy and play it well over relying on crutches and exploits.

If you are throwing away games "for future yields," the obvious downside is that you lose points when you throw games too. Again assuming your theory is true(which it might not be) you could theoretically do this in the beginning of the season when you have 0 points and you'd gain more points when you start to play serious. But just like in the newbie protection system situation, you'll run out of gas as soon as the situation normalizes. When you have 1200 points after 2 weeks of play you can't possibly be seriously considering throw games away with the expectation of gaining something from it. This is a moot point.

Being first to Rubedite literally doesn't matter at all. The early days of the season are irrelevant because the sample sizes are so small that the players' leaderboard positions do not reflect their ability. You might be playing difficult games against advanced opponents who haven't played enough yet and who have 0-300 points and you get barely any points even if you win, and you lose the maximum if you lose. On the other hand you might get a ton of points against random opponents who've had a lucky start even if they aren't that good.

My advise to everyone struggling with the leaderboard system is, first off understand how variance works and also accept that you do not permanently "deserve" the leaderboard position you got when you hit a lucky streak. Expecting your God run to continue forever and thinking you've gone from 53% win rate to 90% win rate overnight is only going to result in a disappointment. Also understand that at higher rankings you almost always lose the maximum number of points so losses are more expensive. Losing 3 games in a row means -450 points and this will happen to you and everyone else eventually

Secondly, stop wasting your energy on trying to find exploits and instead spend it on working on your game. There is no substitute to skill, and there's no better safety net against variance and system flaws than a high expected win rate. With high win rate your losing streaks become less common and less extreme, and you recover from them faster. Also your winning streaks become more common and more extreme.

And one more hint I can give people is that you need to be critical about the sources of information you use. Most ToT advise I see flying around is absolute rubbish and only reinforces common, widely accepted bad habits or primarily exists to make stupid people feel smart without improving their game. I constantly run into people who repeat the most average conventional wisdom as facts. You know the players who think it's a good play to buy an Elder Witch and sacrifice it right away or the players who keep Fortify and War Song as a default play and instead make writs out of their Gold coins, who feel they are being perpetually unlucky because their opponent who gets rid of those cards somehow seems to get all the good 6 and 7 coin cards.

tl;dr: Early season doesn't matter. Exploits are a waste of time. Leaderboard system isn't a lottery. Your fellow average players telling you what and how to play are going to make you average. Work on your game, be critical and get used to the variance in the game.

I appreciate your taking the time to post. My comment from two seasons ago goes to show how gaining advantages, in my case it was playing a ton during the first few days of the season, can carry someone way further than it should be able to. As I said back then, I found no reason to care about about a leader board that is clearly biased. I personally only have an 80% win rate in ranked play, so the fact that I just sat as player 1 for so long and then ended up 2nd during the season after barely playing at all, goes to show how the leader board system isn't tailored toward the best rising to the top. It's about sucking up the easy points when they are available and making opponents then languish as they get 10 points per win.

It's too the case that players being able to sit on their points, even if it is just the last week of the season, is very against any spirit of competition and letting the strongest players prove themselves. Instead, something that you seem to criticize is favored, lucky streaks.

Sure, some players will get "lucky" streaks and I really don't care about that. But the current system encourages the top few players to just try and get a lucky streak and then stop playing. This is not just my thought, but also the thought of other strong players I've talked to over NA including a player that had dominated your leader board.

If you really favor the prevalence of the strongest, then we don't have any debate here because I believe in just that, but times 1000.

I constantly skip the first half of the season while barely showing up, often even the first 2/3. It's not unheard of that I finish the preliminaries a week before the season ends and still finish first. The point yields are higher towards the end of the season and players' point totals reflect their skill level better than in the early season. So climbing the ranks is more reliable.

The reason why your early success mattered in that one instance was because it was probably the cheapest season of all times. I don't mean it badly but if getting 2k score early on and sitting on it is enough to win, that's the weakest season I've seen by a landslide.

You are right about trying to benchmark a good winning streak and sitting on it, but that's how it's always going to be in a card game leaderboard. Card games fundamentally have an element of luck. But with a higher win rate your winning streaks are more common and last longer, giving you a better chance. What kind of leaderboard system would you have then that wouldn't have variance?

Also, sitting on your score has its own problems. It's only a viable strategy in the last few days of the season and if you have a big enough lead, that you first have to establish. The paradox here is that the players who believe that they shouldn't play when they are first, by definition do NOT build a big lead worth sitting on. When they hit a winning streak and find themselves in the first place with a margin of 100 points they stop playing, change their underwear and hope nobody catches up. This is a losing mentality and the players who have it typically don't really believe they deserve the first place, lack confidence and play poorly under the pressure when someone takes their first place which results in them losing more games.

As you saw on my NA season, I didn't stop playing when I hit the first place. I stopped playing when my lead was so big that I knew nobody would reach it. I believe in my game and I'm not afraid of losing the first place because I know I can retake it even if I hit a losing streak. There's a world of difference between this and the "don't play if you are first" players who are not playing to win, but to not lose.

In football(soccer for you Americans) terms I started to defend a 4-0 lead after 75 minutes, while most players park the bus in front of their goal after they score a lucky 1-0 goal after 40 minutes, pass the initiative to the opponent and pray they don't score an equalizer.

Yes, that season was abysmal. And there has been at least another season like it that I can remember. The designers should more heavily encourage competing and active play. As it is now, the only thing I see them encourage is the 1st player having better options to choose from for their first purchase.

But balance is somewhat of a different issue when it comes to figuring out who is best. Yes, the best players will eventually show themselves under any circumstances, but I also don't believe that giving the less gifted means to artificially succeed is good for the game. Moving on from balance, I'd like to answer your question.

It's very obvious that the rank system scoring isn't done in a way that optimally reflects merrit. In the past, I documented someone who was beating me several times in a row and getting nearly full points each time. Why should players who are close to equals be giving up 150 points in one direction but many less points in the other direction? It genuinely baffled me to see this work.

So step one is for the ranking system to be smarter and better understand when closely matched players are playing and reward them more appropriately.

Step two would be to further segregate the better players from the lesser gifted. This would help ensure that the more skilled are earning their points while also normalizing point loss since losses will be less likely to be against those who are of far lesser rank.

Step three is to remove unranked play as an option. Players should be forced out of this option as to harbor the spirit of competition and this could help que times as well.

Step four would be to add rank decay for every increment of time that goes by without play.

A keen reader may say "but Person, if two highly skilled players are playing eachother, then isn't luck the deciding factor?" To that question I would answer that it sometime can be the case, but from my experience in playing games with other lovers of the game, as in we are looking at the board and discussing together what we would do, there are numerous play styles and decision trees that are informing us. So it isn't like a mirror match is happening when two high ranked players are going at it. I find this especially true because by talking to others who enjoy the top spots of the leaderboard, I found out that they were not even aware of a number of different mechanics such as how Ansei refresh card order used to work or how to find the right card to sacrifice used to work. I was really shocked by that revelation. That's to say that individual players at the top do have their own heuristics informing their ability and that is what figuring out who is best should be all about - who has the best method.

spartaxoxo

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

Many people with that mindset will be reluctant to switch up strategies when they are winning a lot while ranked. So, they'll just keep using the same ones because they are working. And then they get bored and burnout because the game becomes too stale and leave.

Edit:
Others will leave because the quality of their matches decreased since now they are facing a bunch more people who don't care or just learning, leading to a lopsided match. The matches such people tend to value most is close ones that they still won. Lopsided matches aren't fun for either side.

Combating that is one of the reasons casual modes exist.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

Many people with that mindset will be reluctant to switch up strategies when they are winning a lot while ranked. So, they'll just keep using the same ones because they are working. And then they get bored and burnout because the game becomes too stale and leave.

Such players could study the game pieces by reading them over, discussing them, or watching others play with them. Additionally, I don't see why aprehensiveness would be the same in this alternate reality I propose of no casual mode. There being a casual mode, at least in part, helps create aprehensiveness in players because of it's existence.

A better response to that concern though is that there are plenty of games which are stagnant from the perspective of getting new ways of playing, but are still wildly successful.

Because an ever changing game is so in vogue now with digital designers, I would think that a game which advertises itself as being willing to not change could easily gain a cult following and therefore have good player retention. To the contrary, it's been revealed by multiple design teams that I've followed in the past that although new players DO get draw into games when seeing new updates and ways of playing, player retention still isn't necessarily good because legacy players become culled when a game changes too much and because non-serious players burn out quickly on new content all the same as if the game was more stagnant.

For example, the recent update to the game has made me less interested in it. And on another note, how interested are players in switching things up to begin with? I know a large number of players who I've competed against or spoken with directly who, with the game how it is now, play the same decks every single game no matter what.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

Many people with that mindset will be reluctant to switch up strategies when they are winning a lot while ranked. So, they'll just keep using the same ones because they are working. And then they get bored and burnout because the game becomes too stale and leave.

Such players could study the game pieces by reading them over, discussing them, or watching others play with them. Additionally, I don't see why aprehensiveness would be the same in this alternate reality I propose of no casual mode. There being a casual mode, at least in part, helps create aprehensiveness in players because of it's existence.

Because when you know you're being ranked, a competitive players mindset becomes "I play to win." And when you're not being ranked the mindset becomes "Win or Lose, I just want to have fun/learn/whatever."

Edit
There are also people who don't care about winning at all. You don't want such people in a ranked competition because it degrades the quality of the competition. Those people know that and will self-select into a casual mode if it's available.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

Many people with that mindset will be reluctant to switch up strategies when they are winning a lot while ranked. So, they'll just keep using the same ones because they are working. And then they get bored and burnout because the game becomes too stale and leave.

Such players could study the game pieces by reading them over, discussing them, or watching others play with them. Additionally, I don't see why aprehensiveness would be the same in this alternate reality I propose of no casual mode. There being a casual mode, at least in part, helps create aprehensiveness in players because of it's existence.

Because when you know you're being ranked, a competitive players mindset becomes "I play to win." And when you're not being ranked the mindset becomes "Win or Lose, I just want to have fun/learn/whatever."

Edit
There are also people who don't care about winning at all. You don't want such people in a ranked competition because it degrades the quality of the competition. Those people know that and will self-select into a casual mode if it's available.

Those who don't do well and those who don't care to win would be sort of like me if I went to run a marathon. I could participate and there may be other people such as myself in the back. It wouldn't be likely though for me to devalue the competition as a whole. I wouldn't matter.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

Many people with that mindset will be reluctant to switch up strategies when they are winning a lot while ranked. So, they'll just keep using the same ones because they are working. And then they get bored and burnout because the game becomes too stale and leave.

Such players could study the game pieces by reading them over, discussing them, or watching others play with them. Additionally, I don't see why aprehensiveness would be the same in this alternate reality I propose of no casual mode. There being a casual mode, at least in part, helps create aprehensiveness in players because of it's existence.

Because when you know you're being ranked, a competitive players mindset becomes "I play to win." And when you're not being ranked the mindset becomes "Win or Lose, I just want to have fun/learn/whatever."

Edit
There are also people who don't care about winning at all. You don't want such people in a ranked competition because it degrades the quality of the competition. Those people know that and will self-select into a casual mode if it's available.

Those who don't do well and those who don't care to win would be sort of like me if I went to run a marathon. I could participate and there may be other people such as myself in the back. It wouldn't be likely though for me to devalue the competition as a whole. I wouldn't matter.

In a marathon, you're competing against everyone at once. In ToT, it's 1v1. So coming up on lopsided matches more often would matter. One of the games I'm currently playing is completely redesigning their competitive ranking to try and address that very issue. And a lot of people have exited the comp queue because they are fed up with the lopsided matches. Theirs is more fixable because it's not a player mindset issue mostly, it's that they allowed too wide a range.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

Many people with that mindset will be reluctant to switch up strategies when they are winning a lot while ranked. So, they'll just keep using the same ones because they are working. And then they get bored and burnout because the game becomes too stale and leave.

Such players could study the game pieces by reading them over, discussing them, or watching others play with them. Additionally, I don't see why aprehensiveness would be the same in this alternate reality I propose of no casual mode. There being a casual mode, at least in part, helps create aprehensiveness in players because of it's existence.

Because when you know you're being ranked, a competitive players mindset becomes "I play to win." And when you're not being ranked the mindset becomes "Win or Lose, I just want to have fun/learn/whatever."

Edit
There are also people who don't care about winning at all. You don't want such people in a ranked competition because it degrades the quality of the competition. Those people know that and will self-select into a casual mode if it's available.

Those who don't do well and those who don't care to win would be sort of like me if I went to run a marathon. I could participate and there may be other people such as myself in the back. It wouldn't be likely though for me to devalue the competition as a whole. I wouldn't matter.

In a marathon, you're competing against everyone at once. In ToT, it's 1v1. So coming up on lopsided matches more often would matter. One of the games I'm currently playing is completely redesigning their competitive ranking to try and address that very issue. And a lot of people have exited the comp queue because they are fed up with the lopsided matches. Theirs is more fixable because it's not a player mindset issue mostly, it's that they allowed too wide a range.

Care to elaborate more about the other game and what happened?

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They'd basically kill Tales if they removed casual play. Even the most hardcore games generally have casual play. Because people who are new find competition stressful and will not join. And top competitors use those modes to learn new strategies. This greatly prevents burnout and optimizes competition. Because a good player isn't going to lose to a bad one just purely because some new deck dropped they were trying to learn.

I'd immediately quit if they removed casual personally.

Hidden player rank would create levels of players perfectly fine so that nobody would ever feel like they are being unfairly matched, even those who don't like TOT, don't want to learn it, and find it to be a bother. If a decent player is still learning other decks, then it is fair to judge them on their lack of knowledge.

Hiding player rank would not solve that issue. People don't want to be ranked when they are learning, and new players tend to not like joining competitive. That's just generally true and is why casual mode is available in the vast majority of games. I can't think of any seriously competitive games that don't separate serious competitors from people still learning and who aren't interested in playing at their best.

I don't really understand how, from the perspective of the lesser caring/understanding, there are any stakes on the line when they win/lose in a mode called "ranked" versus "unranked." They aren't playing for anything either way.

Because ranked competition inherently creates this feelings. When people know their gameplay is being ranked, they have an entirely different mindset to when they know they aren't.

You can have a gamemode called ranked and one called unranked, but removing unranked gameplay creates an environment where competitive minded players will exit and people who don't care at all cheapen ranked mode.

Competitive minded players leaving a game that becomes more tailored to them seems like a non-sequitor.

Many people with that mindset will be reluctant to switch up strategies when they are winning a lot while ranked. So, they'll just keep using the same ones because they are working. And then they get bored and burnout because the game becomes too stale and leave.

Such players could study the game pieces by reading them over, discussing them, or watching others play with them. Additionally, I don't see why aprehensiveness would be the same in this alternate reality I propose of no casual mode. There being a casual mode, at least in part, helps create aprehensiveness in players because of it's existence.

Because when you know you're being ranked, a competitive players mindset becomes "I play to win." And when you're not being ranked the mindset becomes "Win or Lose, I just want to have fun/learn/whatever."

Edit
There are also people who don't care about winning at all. You don't want such people in a ranked competition because it degrades the quality of the competition. Those people know that and will self-select into a casual mode if it's available.

Those who don't do well and those who don't care to win would be sort of like me if I went to run a marathon. I could participate and there may be other people such as myself in the back. It wouldn't be likely though for me to devalue the competition as a whole. I wouldn't matter.

In a marathon, you're competing against everyone at once. In ToT, it's 1v1. So coming up on lopsided matches more often would matter. One of the games I'm currently playing is completely redesigning their competitive ranking to try and address that very issue. And a lot of people have exited the comp queue because they are fed up with the lopsided matches. Theirs is more fixable because it's not a player mindset issue mostly, it's that they allowed too wide a range.

Care to elaborate more about the other game and what happened?

The other game had widened the skill gap allowed when forming matches to address player queue times. They also weren't strict enough on player groups. The end result was that players ended up in matches faster, but they encountered lopsided matches a bit more often. This resulted in too many players on both extremes of the bell curve, more lopsided matches, and a lot of player complaints. They thought it would be fine because there wasn't a ton of more lopsided matches (they were never extreme) but it clearly was a significant enough increase that people hated it.

So now, they're going to do further work to lower the amount of times solo players encounter groups, and they are tightening the skill gap back up a bit. There's some other more superfluous stuff like new rewards to draw people back into the mode as well.

Regardless, the reason it caused issues is that people would generally rather have closer games they feel they can win in a competitive mode than more matches but lower quality.

Personofsecrets

Just commenting since I played the same player twice today with interesting results.

We played a VERY average game, I won, and I received zero points.

We played a game where my first two average puchases both revealed crow cards, their third turn led to a Currency Exchange purchase, and I was easily spanked with zero effort. I lost 150 points.

Regardless whether or not the better players will rise ans the lesser fall, their is a time dimension to this issue. If I have to play 200 hundred games to get a "representative" score, then that is just a waste of time.

The game should be imrpoved accross MANY fronts.

Personofsecrets

@spartaxoxo - I just got another great zero point win. Between the long que times and matchmaking system that is clearly unable to put two similar skilled players against eachother with any consistency, it sounds like the other game you play is just like TOT.

spartaxoxo

Personofsecrets wrote: »

@spartaxoxo - I just got another great zero point win. Between the long que times and matchmaking system that is clearly unable to put two similar skilled players against eachother with any consistency, it sounds like the other game you play is just like TOT.

I have now officially quit comp because of the dumb zero point matches. Went 6 games in a row where I didn't win a single point a while back and never looked back. And no, I didn't win all of those matches. I won 4/6. Which is good enough to climb at least a little in most other games I've played.

Seraphayel

This is the first thread that comes up at the third page talking about the ranking system.

I don’t get it, really, how the hell is this supposed to work?

I lose two battles in a row and drop from place 22 to 56, I win three games after that in a row and I’m somewhere in the lower 30s. I lose three matches after that and I’m out of the Top 100 - hello? Like how the hell is this working? What decides how much points you get / lose? Is it a winning / losing streak? Is it about your opponent? I have no idea how this leaderboard works and apparently losing is punished way harder than you can make up for it with winning.

Seraphayel

Two games lost, dropped 36 places from #8 to #44. We all know these situations, don’t we. And if I’d have lost my next game, too, I’m sure I’d be somewhere in the 70-89 bracket.

This ranking system is such a joke because you can never tell how bad it will get for you.

maxxiestackhouse

Seraphayel wrote: »

This is the first thread that comes up at the third page talking about the ranking system.

I don’t get it, really, how the hell is this supposed to work?

I lose two battles in a row and drop from place 22 to 56, I win three games after that in a row and I’m somewhere in the lower 30s. I lose three matches after that and I’m out of the Top 100 - hello? Like how the hell is this working? What decides how much points you get / lose? Is it a winning / losing streak? Is it about your opponent? I have no idea how this leaderboard works and apparently losing is punished way harder than you can make up for it with winning.

This thread is so low down because we all got sick of trying to get ZoS’s attention and for them to fix it. Most of us don’t bother anymore with trying to get a better leaderboard or playing competitively