HoD Prize Rankings Need a Re-Think

wickedwitch74

So, I just completed my last node of HoD. It wasn't my best event... Lost two matches, and I dropped a number of secondaries. On a whole, I saw a varied field of decks, with lots of interesting combos. Bravo to the players and builders. That's the positive.

The negative? So I sunk a lot of hours into this event over the weekend. It's a real grind playing through all of these nodes, especially over a holiday weekend. 

My score was 224... not terrible... not great. This was good enough for 530th place. My individual prize? 1000 runes.

My Alt account didn't play a single match, though I joined the event to pick up some rewards. My prize for that? 1000 runes.

So, I committed a lot of hours to this event, had a decent showing, and received the same rewards as a no-show?

That's really, really demoralizing.

Please re-think the (p)ranking system on this event, or reduce the number of participants per server instance.

DumasAG

Probably ok for there to be a highly competitive event every now and then, where only the top scores get a reward. Not every single event needs to have significant consolation prizes. 

Mburn7

The issue isn't the rewards, per se, but the level of competition.

1 loss usually drops a player out of the top 50 (and thus most of the good rewards), 2 losses (as I have this event) drops you well out of the top 100.
Any more than that and you are stuck with the bottom tier rewards.

A solution would be to add another tier or 2 (as I have been advocating for for about a year and a half now) to make the competition more even, so losses become more common and less luck-based.

Reducing the bracket size would also help quite a lot, although its more of a quick fix than a lasting solution.

wickedwitch74

DumasAG said:

Probably ok for there to be a highly competitive event every now and then, where only the top scores get a reward. Not every single event needs to have significant consolation prizes. 

I like the idea of highly competitive events, and think there should be significant prizes for the top rankings.

My complaint is that I would like to see more granularity at the top and, especially, at the bottom. There's no reason that anyone who puts the time in to play 30+ nodes (and wins all but two of them) should receive the lowest reward tier. 

Mburn7

wickedwitch74 said:

DumasAG said:

Probably ok for there to be a highly competitive event every now and then, where only the top scores get a reward. Not every single event needs to have significant consolation prizes. .

My complaint is that I would like to see more granularity at the top and, especially, at the bottom. There's no reason that anyone who puts the time in to play 30+ nodes (and wins all but two of them) should receive the lowest reward tier. 

224 points is significantly more than 2 losses, unless you missed a large number of secondary objectives.

I had 2 losses and scored 256, which got me 124th place, for reference.

wickedwitch74

Mburn7 said:

224 points is significantly more than 2 losses, unless you missed a large number of secondary objectives.

I had 2 losses and scored 256, which got me 124th place, for reference.

Huh... interesting. I must have missed a refresh.

That said... a 500-1000 prize tier would have been nice to the people that committed the time. 

FindingHeart8

meh, it required too much time for me to stay in the fight that long.

In the end this game falls victim to the same issues that most app games do, that players who have other demanding priorities in life will never be able to keep up with the players who make mtgpq their top priority, unless you're willing to buy your way ahead.

I love this game, but I don't have half a weekend to devote to mtgpq.  I don't want to devote half a weekend to mtgpq.

Mtgpq gets my undivided attention for several hours a weekend and nothing more, that's often enough to achieve progression in many events, but this one seems to take a bit longer.

I'd much rather they start each node off with 5 charges, no re-charges, and whatever you get at the end is your final score and you can go about doing other things with your weekend, looking forward to what your final competitive score will be at the end of the weekend

Mark_Tedin

FindingHeart8 said:

meh, it required too much time for me to stay in the fight that long.

In the end this game falls victim to the same issues that most app games do, that players who have other demanding priorities in life will never be able to keep up with the players who make mtgpq their top priority, unless you're willing to buy your way ahead.

I love this game, but I don't have half a weekend to devote to mtgpq.  I don't want to devote half a weekend to mtgpq.

Mtgpq gets my undivided attention for several hours a weekend and nothing more, that's often enough to achieve progression in many events, but this one seems to take a bit longer.

I'd much rather they start each node off with 5 charges, no re-charges, and whatever you get at the end is your final score and you can go about doing other things with your weekend, looking forward to what your final competitive score will be at the end of the weekend

5 charges is a little overdone. 3 charges by node would be better for a weekend.

Mburn7

Mark_Tedin said:

FindingHeart8 said:

meh, it required too much time for me to stay in the fight that long.

In the end this game falls victim to the same issues that most app games do, that players who have other demanding priorities in life will never be able to keep up with the players who make mtgpq their top priority, unless you're willing to buy your way ahead.

I love this game, but I don't have half a weekend to devote to mtgpq.  I don't want to devote half a weekend to mtgpq.

Mtgpq gets my undivided attention for several hours a weekend and nothing more, that's often enough to achieve progression in many events, but this one seems to take a bit longer.

I'd much rather they start each node off with 5 charges, no re-charges, and whatever you get at the end is your final score and you can go about doing other things with your weekend, looking forward to what your final competitive score will be at the end of the weekend

5 charges is a little overdone. 3 charges by node would be better for a weekend.

I'm reading this as 5 charges total for the weekend, which is perfectly reasonable.  3 charges means all of my weekend play is done in 20 min, and I need a bit more than that.

FindingHeart8

Mark_Tedin said:

FindingHeart8 said:

meh, it required too much time for me to stay in the fight that long.

In the end this game falls victim to the same issues that most app games do, that players who have other demanding priorities in life will never be able to keep up with the players who make mtgpq their top priority, unless you're willing to buy your way ahead.

I love this game, but I don't have half a weekend to devote to mtgpq.  I don't want to devote half a weekend to mtgpq.

Mtgpq gets my undivided attention for several hours a weekend and nothing more, that's often enough to achieve progression in many events, but this one seems to take a bit longer.

I'd much rather they start each node off with 5 charges, no re-charges, and whatever you get at the end is your final score and you can go about doing other things with your weekend, looking forward to what your final competitive score will be at the end of the weekend

5 charges is a little overdone. 3 charges by node would be better for a weekend.

that would just be 9 rounds total then you're out.  While that would be fine with me, I could see a lot of players being unhappy because they didn't get enough of a chance to compete.  Given the amount of luck present in this game (who you're randomly set against planeswalker and planeswalker-level, what they have in their deck, what they draw and what you draw) I'd say they have an argument to consider.

wickedwitch74

I would prefer a greater quantity of shorter events.

This would allow coalition players to support their teams without burning out.

It would let players pick and choose what they wanted to spend time on. Those that have more time, have more content options.

Gunmix25

Mburn7 said:

wickedwitch74 said:

DumasAG said:

Probably ok for there to be a highly competitive event every now and then, where only the top scores get a reward. Not every single event needs to have significant consolation prizes. .

My complaint is that I would like to see more granularity at the top and, especially, at the bottom. There's no reason that anyone who puts the time in to play 30+ nodes (and wins all but two of them) should receive the lowest reward tier. 

224 points is significantly more than 2 losses, unless you missed a large number of secondary objectives.

I had 2 losses and scored 256, which got me 124th place, for reference.

I'm Inclined to agree with Nahi... uh, @Mburn7 . I had two losses and missed the lower left node objective 3 times and ended up at rank 67 and my score was about 245-ish for reference.

FindingHeart8

Gunmix25 said:

Mburn7 said:

wickedwitch74 said:

DumasAG said:

Probably ok for there to be a highly competitive event every now and then, where only the top scores get a reward. Not every single event needs to have significant consolation prizes. .

My complaint is that I would like to see more granularity at the top and, especially, at the bottom. There's no reason that anyone who puts the time in to play 30+ nodes (and wins all but two of them) should receive the lowest reward tier. 

224 points is significantly more than 2 losses, unless you missed a large number of secondary objectives.

I had 2 losses and scored 256, which got me 124th place, for reference.

I'm Inclined to agree with Nahi... uh, @Mburn7 . I had two losses and missed the lower left node objective 3 times and ended up at rank 67 and my score was about 245-ish for reference.

I see what you did there

stikxs

DumasAG said:

Probably ok for there to be a highly competitive event every now and then, where only the top scores get a reward. Not every single event needs to have significant consolation prizes. 

That would be fine for a significantly shorter event. In HoD the pinks (not sure about crystals) double as you go up position ranks. Spending the same amount of time (a lot) as others to get possibly 200+ less pinks (and w/e crystals are) is a bit of a drag for an entire weekend event. A one day event would be better (not sure what the status quo is on events shorter than a day but I'd imagine that'd screw over some timezones somewhere)

Enygma6

If they give all charges up front (no having to wait for a refresh), or adjust the endtime for 22 hours past last recharge, that ought to give ample time to deal with real life schedules regardless of timezone.

span_argoman

I was under the impression that the event Progression rewards were the rewards for players who were willing to put in the time and effort to play the event. And it's capped at 150 in this event to ensure that many newer or weaker players who can't always hit the secondary objectives will be able to achieve the top Progression reward still.

On the other hand Ranking Rewards, as their name suggests, seemed to be the rewards for competing to be better than the other players rather than to reward effort or be a consolation prize.

Separately there are also the coalition ranking rewards which one's event scores contribute to regardless of Progression and indivudal Ranking, helping to improve the coalition's ranking and hence overall coalition rewards.

So are people feeling like the Progression rewards aren't enough, or are Progression rewards being taken for granted, or is it something else?

Tilwin90

So back when cycling existed and lots of people got perfect rewards and you missed one objective and boom, you were below top 50, it wasn't that big of a deal.
But now that it's more difficult and we no longer see perfects all around it's a problem... Interesting.
I actually found the change of meta much better. It's like any other high reward events... I see no problem with the few putting the hard fight getting seriously rewarded. 
I had one crash because of my laptop and blue stack being unstable and still pulled a top 25. Left node is definitely more difficult and requires a few key card to avoid losing those objectives, but that has been part of the game for so long. 
It's not the reward distribution that was the issue here but the fact that you got in the end a low score. And that happens.... 
I'm sorry but in platinum where the competition is so great, a score of 224 is really low. It's 49 lost points, the equivalent of 7 lost matches.

There are other things to consider such as how large the player pool is in platinum and how the tier system needs to be redone, but the competition and the outcome are highly expected for this type of event. 
You won't find this level of competition in the innistrad or nodes of power events... And that's because the rewards are vastly underwhelming. I don't even bother with those events if I don't have a lot of free time.

Finally this was a coalition events, so top 25 coalitions battle it out ruthlessly for their team mates. From which naturally there are also rewards (but in all honesty all my crystals and jewels go down the drain when all I hit is dupes and bad packs).

I feel your frustration but hang in there. Play for fun, improve your decks, and next time you will do better. 😊

Bil

   The ranking for a determined score in a determined tier depends very much of the pool you are in. The fact that a player with more losses is able to get a better reward is weird and not really fair overall.
   Another problem is that the loss of points relies on luck in most cases. Deckbuilding allows to keep control on secundaries but you can't help loosing 10 life if the IA plays Hour of devastation on this precise node or when the IA cascades into an HUF or an Omniscience combo on his first turn. The actual ranking system (or at least some of the secundaries) do not seem accurate as long as cards like red hour, HUF or omniscience are still around.
   
   Those factors are already frustrating but they get worse because of the gap beetween top scores and mid scores in terms of rewards. A single cascade can cost you 250 pinks and 75 crystals. A single Hour of devastation can cost you 150 pinks and 25 crystals.
 
  To make it fair for any player that plays the whole nodes, the rewards should be determined considering players total score instead of their ranking. For example, set a great reward for perfect score, another for perfect -5 to perfect -1, and so on ... In this way any player would have a good reason to keep playing even after a few points dropped as he would still have a chance to get a decent reward.
    
   
   
   

Skiglass6

Bil said:

   The ranking for a determined score in a determined tier depends very much of the pool you are in. The fact that a player with more losses is able to get a better reward is weird and not really fair overall.
   Another problem is that the loss of points relies on luck in most cases. Deckbuilding allows to keep control on secundaries but you can't help loosing 10 life if the IA plays Hour of devastation on this precise node or when the IA cascades into an HUF or an Omniscience combo on his first turn. The actual ranking system (or at least some of the secundaries) do not seem accurate as long as cards like red hour, HUF or omniscience are still around.
   
   Those factors are already frustrating but they get worse because of the gap beetween top scores and mid scores in terms of rewards. A single cascade can cost you 250 pinks and 75 crystals. A single Hour of devastation can cost you 150 pinks and 25 crystals.
 
  To make it fair for any player that plays the whole nodes, the rewards should be determined considering players total score instead of their ranking. For example, set a great reward for perfect score, another for perfect -5 to perfect -1, and so on ... In this way any player would have a good reason to keep playing even after a few points dropped as he would still have a chance to get a decent reward.
    
   
   
   

I like your idea a lot. Here I ran to the rant page and you just came up with something constructive. I would add Gaea’s revenge which will never rotate out.

Bil

  Well ... Gaea's is a problem too, i mentionned it before editing the post precisely because of the fact it won't rotate out.
   However (if it isnt cast on turn one) i think there are more ways to deal with a Gaea's than with the cards i mentionned before ... HuF, red hour or omniscience will generally ruin your secundary even if they are played later in the game. 

gogol666

Another argument for having shorter coalition  events and more non coalition events