League Format Improvement – Proposal and Discussion
Changes to league format should make the game more entertaining and solve some other problems, like de-ranking for easier daily quest completion.
I have bought some cards back in June and started to play just a week ago, still getting a few Beta cards. Before I have properly started, Season Four got rolling. I have optimized my splinters and quickly moved to Gold League. And here I’m stuck and a bit disappointed. One out of 5 or maybe 10 matches is interesting. Just one in TEN or so. The other ones I skip. This is because I face either a very week or a very overpowered opponent. This is disappointing and uninteresting. What is left for me is to hoover around in the Gold League and farm reward cards from daily quests. Or spend hundreds of dollars to be able to compete with stronger players, but I’m not going to spend several hundreds of dollars for in game items, at least not in a short to medium period of time. Thus what is left is to aimlessly wonder around in the Gold League or maybe Silver.
Current state.
There is in fact one league currently, divided into novice, bronze, silver, gold etc. fractions. Each higher one rewards more cards for quests and the league tier itself (at the end of the season). Player moves between leagues depending on her current points (called rating). Player can meet much weaker or much stronger opponent.
Problem
Above format is causing several issues.
Moving into a higher league makes you facing much stronger opponents. With cards 1-3 levels stronger, you can skip the battle immediately. You get battered and it feel unfair and demotivating.
After moving to a higher league tier, it becomes very difficult to complete daily quests. After loosing several times to an overpowered opponent, even an honest player has sinister thoughts about de- ranking (through using just one card in a battle or bad set ups) to be able to finish this daily quest. How could she be blamed (at least for thoughts), if she’s just faced opponents with card decks 2-4 levels higher and worth hundreds of dollars more than hers ten times in a row?
Some players move to Gold League with JUST ONE levelled up splinter. As in some games it’s excluded, they face
opponents with LEVEL ONE splinters, what makes matches disappointedly one sided and boring.
Solution
Let’s get an inspiration from English or European football leagues. In England, teams ‘at level 10’ with a budget of GBP 100 millions to a billion play in Premiership. Lower budget club – lower league. Also, you don’t advance into next tier DURING THE SEASON.
Thus, lets keep Bronze, Silver etc league names, but:
at the start of the season you declare whether you stay or want to go 1 league up or down.
at the end of the season each league has its leader board and champions
each league has level caps, these could stay as they are, for example a max level for Silver League could be level 5 for common monsters, 4 for rear, 3 for epic and 2 for legendary, as it is now.
if there is enough players to make more leagues (preserved short waiting times) – more leagues would be welcomed. Thus we could have Silver I, Silver II, Silver III leagues. Here, I would swap Silver I with Silver III and make league I a top one and III a bottom one, like in football.
Benefits
With the above rules:
it makes no sense to de-rank playing one card for making daily missions being easier - as you would fight for daily rewards within the current league until the end of the season. No overpowered monsters to get slaughtered by.
achievable short to medium term goals – you can aim to finish season at top ten or better as a champion of the Bronze I or Silver II league etc.
in a Gold League, I have met a few opponents with all cards at LEVEL ONE. Interesting. How is this possible? I have investigated recent games of one of them and found that he has one deck (splinter) with monsters at 4-6 level, and all other splinters at just level one. Apparently, with one good splinter you can move high into a Gold League. With proposed system, he would struggle to reach a good position with one deck or win daily missions. Therefore in a proposed format he would have to buy new cards either as booster packs or on the secondary market, also sell some of his cards to optimize chosen splinters, as at least two splinters would be needed to compete in a league, not just one. Facing level one opponent in a Gold League is as demotivating as facing an opponent at level 7 or more.
I'm not really sure how that solves the issue.
We're basically just locking players into one league for each season?!
And what's the issue with "de-ranking" really, its up to the player if they want to swim to the top with a single splinter and then have to dive back for quests?!
Maybe I'm missing your point?! I realize I don't understand what your fundamental problem describes.
Well, isn't that exactly what should happen as you move up ?!
What's sinister about it?! Arguably, it might make sense to allow players to just erase the ranking points and not give the win-scores to the others... but there's really no issue if a player decides to moot a few matches.
That's a very strange point of view. In my dictionary game is something you try to win. Just try to imagine Manchester United deliberately loosing to Crystal Palace 0:15. Players and coach would be hated by supporters. Forever. And if players would be caught making bets on this faked game, it would become a criminal case.
Deliberately loosing matches for financial gain used to happen quite often in the past, still happens today in many sports.
Diving back requires giving up the games. Why not - same answer as above. Also, leagues are structured so that if a team is too weak it's relegated to a lower one. If players have stamina to play only one in two matches, team will drop down at the end of the season and whole next season play with teams which are at a similar level.
Yes, exactly, but not the way it is now. Current format resembles cup competitions, but they are knockout type, so there are no pointless games between cooks, waiters and carpenters who play football as a hobby and full blown professionals over and over. As it is pointless, boring and frustrating.
hmm... I still think it's a bit off to compare a soccer tournament with the leaderboard ranking for the steemmonsters seasons.
maybe we're looking at this from a completely differnet angle... but then again, maybe that's just the point right there
the seasons we are playing now are highscore rankings and not tournaments...
See, moving up in League is fun BUT if you only battle people in that League, you get ppl with monsters at a much higher level. Whereas, instead of battling people in your League, you could be battling people with lvl 1 monsters like your monsters. Maybe looking at Summoners. Instead of battling someone in League Silver 2 with Lvl 4 Summoners, battle other lvl 2 Summoners in that League. Or in other Leagues, but yes, there is an unfair advantage somewhere and winning becomes very difficult.
I'm also in favor of separated leagues during seasons. I like the idea to become champion in your own league and gives players more structure and goals to reach.