Injecting points into tourneys

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IceIX wrote:

As more players join the game, the overall points pool will also rise, making those currently unattainable prizes within reach. Every point gained is a point lost, so it takes more players coming in and "creating" points as 0s to make for larger pools.

I'm quoting you, IceIX, but this isn't necessarily directed at you unless you can clarify.

I've been trying to reconcile the above quote, particularly the part I've underlined, with my observations in the tourney. It seems to me that each person entering a tourney would "create" roughly the same number of points, so that even as the player pool rises the general churn of wins and losses would tend to keep the median score roughly the same. A higher count of people could attain higher scores for progress rewards, but not necessarily a higher percentage of the players.

But then I think about it further. I know there are seed teams to inject points, but so far as I know I only fight one or two of those at the beginning of a tournament. I can't recall a time I've ever been attacked and lost points when close enough to zero that it would have added points to the pool, likewise for being on the other side of that attack except where apparent seed teams are involved. So a generous estimate of points added to the pool per player would be 100. Then if median score is around 600, to balance each one person at 600 there must be the equivalent of five others sitting at zero, essentially non-participants. The distribution curve with score on X-axis and number of players with that score on Y-axis would need to have a huge spike around score=0. Though, if those zero-point players continue to be available in matchmaking, they will potentially continue to add points to pool as they are attacked over and over.

So is there any way players can come together to add points to the pool to gain higher progress rewards? Seek and attack teams with less than 25 points multiple times? Allow their teams to sit at zero and be attacked multiple times early in the tournament? It's an interesting dynamic that you probably need to be low in the matchmaking rank to see those types of players consistently; except for seed teams, points are generated at the lowest ranks and must travel upwards.

Unknown

There's one other way that points are injected -- until you get to about 800 points you gain more points than you (or they) lose. Above that point I don't think points are "sucked out", but I cannot be sure.

To be more clear (I hope) -- if you are at 100 points and you attack someone with 100 points then you will gain 25 points but they will only lose 5 or 6 points.

At ~300 points you'll gain 25, but they'll lose 10. At 600 points you'll gain 25, they'll lose 20.

At about 800 it's even -- you gain 25, they lose 25.

AFAIK it stays like that from 800 on up -- I don't think at any point they lose more than you gain.

This is also important for retaliations -- because you can swap retaliations up until you get close to 800 points and both gain net points in the process.

Spoit

I don't recall exactly what it was, but I thought that attacking people with around the same number of points actually yields a net gain of like 10 points, even after they retaliate back?

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Spoit wrote:

I don't recall exactly what it was, but I thought that attacking people with around the same number of points actually yields a net gain of like 10 points, even after they retaliate back?

Below 800 points, yes.

But if I have 850 points and you have 850 points then I attack you and win 25 points putting me at 875 and you at 825. If you retaliate then you'll win about 27 points, and I'll lose the same, putting you at 852 and me at 848.

At least that's what I've observed.

Unknown

@Zathrus: that makes the point distribution far more reasonable. I was having a hard time imagining how there were enough non-participating players to create the point spread we typically see.

But then the mechanic you describe makes it clear where progress rewards are supposed to get harder to obtain. Anybody should be able to reach about 800 with a retaliation cohort, but after that you've got to strive and grind.

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fatcatfan wrote:

But then the mechanic you describe makes it clear where progress rewards are supposed to get harder to obtain. Anybody should be able to reach about 800 with a retaliation cohort, but after that you've got to strive and grind.

Yup. Anything above 800 currently is... difficult. It becomes more and more difficult the higher you get, simply because of how the scoring works -- at 900 points being attacked by someone w/ 800 will make you lose 28ish points (and the retaliation will be 24). At 1200 that same attack will make you lose about 40 points and the retaliation will be... 3.

Between this and the abysmal matchmaking ("Why yes, I'll attack that person worth 0 points! Of course that's a sane matchup!") it's why getting to higher point levels (and retaining leaderboard standing) is so difficult and frustrating.

And by the same means, I question that all of the SHIELD tourney prizes are actually reachable.

Unknown

I guess that's why retaliations have to exist? To add points into the tourney.

But yeah, if the scoring code makes it an equal trade between attacks above 800 points, then no matter how many players you add you won't be able to climb much higher. It would take a long chain of players constantly siphoning points up from the lower scored ranks where points are still being generated. You have to stand on others shoulders, as it were, because as soon as there's a wide enough gap that the lowest climber can no longer pull points up from below, you're cut off from the source and all the high scorers are trading points between themselves and gaining no ground.

Sorry, I'm probably rehashing stuff that was said in some of the scoring discussions that were so long and heated that I didn't bother to read.