Huge drop in number of high ranked players playing games

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Originally Posted by Calmdown

And yet, because rankings aren't wiped and there is no decay, the hundreds of people above me, I cannot pass. So despite the fact that I could be the best player currently playing, with the highest win ratio, I can never get on to a leaderboard.

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There's the difference - you're proposing this because you want to see your name on the leader board, and don't want to wait for decay & the lack of exploits to sort things out.

I don't care if I see my name on the leaderboard or not. What I don't want is to have to play a load of players with starter decks again to get up to a point where I am seeing top tier decks.

I'm also hoping Kyle implements the new match making method he outlined in another thread, where the threshold (currently +/- 150, which is too high IMHO) starts small and increases over time to find you the best match.

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Originally Posted by Calmdown

This was to be expected really.

Since the fix, and people not being able to quit anymore, the number of players of reasonable rank playing has dropped off incredibly sharply. Whereas before it was a struggle to find people of 400+ rank to play and especially people of 450+, now it seems that there simply aren't people of this rank playing much at all and even the number of 350-400s has dropped off sharply.

I'm now chaining games against people ranked very low 300s, and in some cases high 200s, meaning that again the syndrome of not being able to level due to earning fractions of a point for a win is around. I havent lost against one of these yet but the simple fact is that decent players do exist at lower levels and both luck and first turn can occasionally beat you in SE and losing to players of this level is going to drag you down 20 games' worth of rating.

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I think you are missing a BIG POINT here.

You should not be rated as highly as you are.

You got to your rank by playing cheaters who boosted (this is not your fault). This in turn unintentionally boosted your rank. Now you have to wait for people to get up to your rank (or you can lose and go down to their rank).

Eventually, everyone will hit the rank that they are supposed to be at. You might lose points against a low-ranked player, but if you are supposed to be in the 400+ club, then you'll work your way back up with all the other legit players.

Remember that the Shadow Era ranking is based on TrueSkill, where 500 is on the same level as a Grandmaster in chess. I doubt ANY of us are adequate enough to be "grandmasters."

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Originally Posted by Hatts

There's the difference - you're proposing this because you want to see your name on the leader board, and don't want to wait for decay & the lack of exploits to sort things out.

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If decay is implemented, fine. Is decay going to be implemented? Who knows. A hard and fast answer on that would change the discussion.

It still doesn't change the core issue that people were allowed to cheat and are now allowed to keep the fruits of their cheating. A good player who cheated his way to 500 can still maintain his 500 rating by playing the odd game or two and winning; a good player who sits at low 400s will still need weeks and weeks (im talking hundreds and hundreds of hours) of real life hours investiture to get to that point. A good player maintaining his 500+ ranking may be a good player to do so, but it doesnt change the fact that he cheated to get there.

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I don't care if I see my name on the leaderboard or not. What I don't want is to have to play a load of players with starter decks again to get up to a point where I am seeing top tier decks.

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If what you said in your previous posts is right, the system would make everything rosy and you'd be playing the people of the correct level in no time, right? Or are you saying the system is flawed now? Make up your mind.

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I'm also hoping Kyle implements the new match making method he outlined in another thread, where the threshold (currently +/- 150, which is too high IMHO) starts small and increases over time to find you the best match.

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That would help. It's not a solution if there is no-one of appropriate rank online or willing to play, though.

I'm a proponent for a wipe, and if we can't have that I'd love to have seasons.

The idea of coming up with a deck build for the next season to see how far it can go during that season is appealing to me. So is the idea of resetting to a base level occasionally and being exposed to all levels of players and decks for a while occasionally until things settle themselves out again...keeps things fresh.

The way a non-reset system works is that you end up in a general "bracket", and most people in whatever bracket you're in are going to be playing generally the same decks...because that's where the deck belongs in the overall scale of things. If they were playing a tier 1 deck, they'd be in the top bracket (in general). I play decks because I enjoy them, not because they're "uber". I'm not going to switch to using someone else's tier 1 deck because its awesome, if I don't enjoy playing the deck. This means that I will rise to whatever level my deck plays at, and stay there...with the other scrubs. It's already gotten repetitive, I'm tired of the decks I see in my bracket. My choice are to either adopt a cookie cutter and raise above my bracket, which is the same thing really (same two/three heroes in that next bracket up), suck it up and keep playing the decks that are in my bracket, or purposely un-rank to see some new stuff.

A wipe will fix that for a little while, and fix the problems Calmdown and those like him are experiencing.

Seasons fix all of that, repeatedly.

Another plus to seasons: If you win "Season 2", your name can be there as the season 2 winner forever. Briefly attaining the highest ranking is just that, a flash in the pan and a constant rotation. There's no monument, nothing to point at and say "See that, I was #1 for 3 hours".

Actually I'll do a 180 and say that I can envision ranking resets at each release... Because with bug fixes, balance changes, and new cards, people really should start fresh and have a reason to play.

I'm gonna crosspost this post by Fry:

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Originally Posted by Fry

Drop everyone above 400 rating down to 400 rating, problem solved

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That would actually solve the issue too. It's less elegant than a clean wipe but basically hits a lot less people that cheated (since most people below 400 probably werent cheating). Also opens up the 400s bracket to some competition for a change :)

I like the dropping to 400 idea as well.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

Actually I'll do a 180 and say that I can envision ranking resets at each release... Because with bug fixes, balance changes, and new cards, people really should start fresh and have a reason to play.

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I personally would love to see that. Seems win/win to me.

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Originally Posted by Thuull

I personally would love to see that. Seems win/win to me.

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+1 to to this.

Glorious suggestion Kyle. New set/bug fix = new climb to the top with new challenges.

Wins for everyone!