So much for competitiveness

Unknown

I remember reading how the designers wanted the competition on the top of the leader boards to be the highest, and that's why they made the match making system the way it is. IE: you could attack up as far as you wanted, but could only attack so far down.

If you go to the No Holds Barred Elite leader board right now you'll see the top ranked players, every last one of them is shielded. To me, there is no competition in that at all. None of them are attacking, none of them are competiting any more. Sure, they did work hard to get there but there are still 8 hours left in the tournament and the top ten are probably locked in already.

Unknown

They're unshielding pretty often. What they're doing is unshield, fight 1-2 matches, and reshield immediately before attacks/retaliations hit. Most of them aren't shielding for long, certainly not to the end of the tournament.

Walkyourpath wrote an excellent post on his last elite tournament, viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2879&hilit=anatomy+of

You can see that its FAR from uncompetitive at the top.

Unknown

I've read that message now, and I admit what that guy is doing is smart and well thought out. However, I would contend that it's not really the spirit of the game. He maintained his spot as number one not because he had the best team or matched tiles the best, but because he was superb at purchasing shields after each match. I realize in the current cut throat set up it may be the best way to stay on top. I'm certain he's got an excellent team and he spent a lot of time playing, but I feel the shields are playing too big a role in the outcomes.

I'd rather see the shields used as a respite from the game without worry, not a way to eak out a few more points safely. I'd like to see players able to advance while on the top of the leader boards without so much fear of being dragged down. Perhaps reduce the points lost to lower players while increasing the points earned from higher players. It'll make it more of a race and less of a gang jumping.

Unknown

I feel thats sort of what the devs are trying to promote in these newest tourneys. They've significantly raised the threshold at which you lose equal points to what your attacker gains. Before as you go past ~300 for every point someone get from attacking you you would lose that much, so it's always a zero-sum game at the high levels. Now the level at which this happens has been raised to at least 500, so there's less penalty to being attacked at the lower levels.

However, at the highest levels it's still zero-sum in order to make progression limited (can't keep retaliating and keep creating points out of nothing). And since attacker has such huge advantages over the defender, everybody can beat everybody else almost all the time, so the question isn't whether you can win, but how fast you can win. That's why how to use shields and such can be the deciding factor.

I_am_Zero

They really should bring back people who are shielded as people you can fight. Perhaps only give 25% of the points you would normally get from that person if they weren't shielded. Do SOMETHING with those people who are shielded. They probably have some RNG that puts a handful of shielded people into matchups, but I don't think it's a very high number. Putting them back in the fight population, but awarding less points, allows for a larger set of people you can attack without getting the crazy high win points they were getting before.

Unknown

I am Zero wrote:

They really should bring back people who are shielded as people you can fight. Perhaps only give 25% of the points you would normally get from that person if they weren't shielded. Do SOMETHING with those people who are shielded. They probably have some RNG that puts a handful of shielded people into matchups, but I don't think it's a very high number. Putting them back in the fight population, but awarding less points, allows for a larger set of people you can attack without getting the crazy high win points they were getting before.

I agree, because it's fun to get points while shielded from defensive wins, and I like going to bed leaving Hulk + Patch knowing they will defend well while I sleep.

turul

Hulk and Patch isnt the best for defensive ponit gaining. Noobs skip instead of trying, but the ones who attack are skilled. Also im afraid AI green is used by Hulk most times.