Understanding Meltdown (4 Qs)

[Saf]

I just played my first Meltdown game and I loved it! I may never go back But what does the tier system mean exactly? I took it to mean quarter-semi-finals but I went back to the Challenge page after the game? And if the top players are determined by wins-to-games ratio, how can I track this? I can write down my tally but how do I know how many games I need? And when in the week is the jackpot awarded? Finally, people on threads are saying that they always break even if not gain from Meltdown. How many games does it take for some bonus awards? Because I only got 80g like a normal game? Tx

[roustabout]

Hey Saf.

First of all, when you have the game open, open the menu and hit the status button. That should give you your current number of meltdown points, your meltdown rank, the amount of gold currently in the jackpot, and the time until the current round of meltdown is over.

You don't learn your tier until the round is over. I'm not sure if wulven has ever posted where the tiers break down.

I'm afraid I can't tell you how many games it takes to break even or any of that. But for one thing, the 80 gold you get for a win is not the only payout you will get. At the end of the week (but not before), you will get a certain percentage of the jackpot based on your points and rank. So you will see your total gold sink as you play, even if you win every game. But hopefully at the end of the week you will win more than you had to begin with (but no guarantees).

Hope that helps. Someone else may be able to help more.

[danae]

What you should be aiming for is to be in the Top 50 at least since aside from winning a higher gold payout, you also get a foil card as a prize.

[Saf]

Interesting:

2games 2wins: Score 60 Rank 519

3games 2wins: Score 70 Rank 488

4games 2wins: Score 80 Rank 452

Generous! Can't imagine how much better my score and rank would be with a win

[Warr Byrd]

To give you an idea, I have had terrible luck in Meltdown this week and have a roughly 40% win rate. I have played enough games that I still have a score of 815, and am rank 90. Ranking is not based on win:loss ratio but pretty much just how many games you play. The higher you climb, the less you climb with each match. So even if you had 100% win rate with those 4 games, your rank probably wouldn't be above 400, almost certainly not above 350, no where near Tier 1 or 2. I would guess Tier 5, maybe 4 based on your current score, it depends somewhat on how many people play each week.

[danae]

To give you an idea, I have had terrible luck in Meltdown this week and have a roughly 40% win rate. I have played enough games that I still have a score of 815, and am rank 90. Ranking is not based on win:loss ratio but pretty much just how many games you play. The higher you climb, the less you climb with each match. So even if you had 100% win rate with those 4 games, your rank probably wouldn't be above 400, almost certainly not above 350, no where near Tier 1 or 2. I would guess Tier 5, maybe 4 based on your current score, it depends somewhat on how many people play each week.

Ranking is not necessarily based on how many games you played. Your meltdown score is an accumulation of all the points you earn win, lose or draw. Your ranking, however, is relative to the Meltdown score of all the other Meltdown players. There are times where you can still get quite a jump even at a higher ranking just because those in front of you have relatively the same meltdown score. There will also be times where you don't advance in your ranking at all just because the player ahead of you is so far ahead of you with regards to your MD score. In the end, though, the more time you can spend playing MD, the more likely you will get a better payout.

[Warr Byrd]

Ranking is not necessarily based on how many games you played. Your meltdown score is an accumulation of all the points you earn win, lose or draw. Your ranking, however, is relative to the Meltdown score of all the other Meltdown players. There are times where you can still get quite a jump even at a higher ranking just because those in front of you have relatively the same meltdown score. There will also be times where you don't advance in your ranking at all just because the player ahead of you is so far ahead of you with regards to your MD score. In the end, though, the more time you can spend playing MD, the more likely you will get a better payout.

To the climbing, yeah, it varies a bit due to how many people are playing and where there scores happen to fall. But in general, the higher you climb, the harder it is to move up in the rankings.

For the ranking though, it really does reward playing games more than winning. Gross oversimplification: Alfred, Bob, Carl, and Darryl each play one Meltdown game; Edward plays four games, one against each of the preceding players. In each case, Edward loses. At the end of the week, Edward has 40 points, the rest all have 30 points. Edward gets the largest payout, despite being the worst player, simply because he plays more. Which means, depending on how the jackpot is divided (which Wulven hasn't revealed, to my knowledge), Edward could potentially get a bigger profit than the others.

[roustabout]

To the climbing, yeah, it varies a bit due to how many people are playing and where there scores happen to fall. But in general, the higher you climb, the harder it is to move up in the rankings.

For the ranking though, it really does reward playing games more than winning. Gross oversimplification: Alfred, Bob, Carl, and Darryl each play one Meltdown game; Edward plays four games, one against each of the preceding players. In each case, Edward loses. At the end of the week, Edward has 40 points, the rest all have 30 points. Edward gets the largest payout, despite being the worst player, simply because he plays more. Which means, depending on how the jackpot is divided (which Wulven hasn't revealed, to my knowledge), Edward could potentially get a bigger profit than the others.

In this last example, though, you should probably distinguish between making a bigger profit, and getting a bigger payout. In my mind, the payout is simply the number of gold you get back at the end of the week. Here Edward can get more than the others, but did he make a bigger profit? No. The reason is that he has paid 800 gold and recouped none of that amount from the winning bonus. So his payout has to be over 800 to make any profit. But it won't be.

On the other hand, if he had won 4/4 games, he would have payed 800, and recouped as much as 320 (some wins seem to give 80 and some 40; still haven't figured this out. It would be nice to know why). So he is only down 480, and whatever his payout is over this amount will be profit. So you see, even though sheer quantity allows you to accumulate points, the ultimate profitability is balanced out by the fact that your games cost more when you lose.

[Warr Byrd]

In this last example, though, you should probably distinguish between making a bigger profit, and getting a bigger payout. In my mind, the payout is simply the number of gold you get back at the end of the week. Here Edward can get more than the others, but did he make a bigger profit? No. The reason is that he has paid 800 gold and recouped none of that amount from the winning bonus. So his payout has to be over 800 to make any profit. But it won't be.

Given that the starting jackpot is going to be 1000000 from now on, it will be very difficult to not make a profit if you get into the top tiers, even if you do lose most of your games.

As to why some matches give 80 for winning and others 40? It's based on your opponent's rating, just as normal; above 100 (or whatever the cutoff is), you get 80, below that you get 40. But for whatever reason, the second player always seems to have a rating of 0.

[danae]

Given that the starting jackpot is going to be 1000000 from now on, it will be very difficult to not make a profit if you get into the top tiers, even if you do lose most of your games.

As to why some matches give 80 for winning and others 40? It's based on your opponent's rating, just as normal; above 100 (or whatever the cutoff is), you get 80, below that you get 40. But for whatever reason, the second player always seems to have a rating of 0.

Is it based on your QM rating or Meltdown rating? I would think that it's MD rating but then that makes me wonder how matchups are done. Is there a range on the people you can get matched up with similar to QM? It seems to me that with MD now as compared to before, it takes longer to get a match started. Maybe not many people playing but the jackpot is rising steadily so I can't imagine that the numbers are that low.