Ranks, Point loss and Rewards - Lightning Tourney Experiment

Because I'm a nerd, this kind of experimentation interests me. I decided to use a lightning tournament as a lightning rod (see what I did there?) to test just how much people can be affected by challengers, and how the standings can shift in a short time. Sorry that this is longish.

In this case, my goal was to get to 250 points around the 1 hour mark, see where I stood, and see how far I'd drop.

The important aspect to this experiment that makes things vary wildly, of course, is my team. I don't have the time to play excessively, and I've put $20 in to the game because I appreciate the PQ brand, but all it really got me was a few classic spidermans that I don't use yet because he's can't get to a high enough level and I didn't get any of his yellow skill. Eventually.

So my team consisted of: Level 43 Ironman model 35 (1 star), Level 61 Thor, and Level 60 Classic Storm. I know, Ironman needs to go. I'm working on it very slowly.

The theory was that a lot of people won't bother messing with classic Storm because unless you take her out first you're probably going to get smacked around by her a bit and that's annoying when fighting in a tournament that spans a short period. Apparently several people have no issue destroying a level 60 Classic Storm. Here's what happened:

- 55 Minutes to go in the tournament. I'm #7 overall with 254 points (I specifically fought a match to hit 250 exactly, but ended up at 254, so I assume someone attacked me and lost). This is when I stop playing completely.

- 50 Minutes to go. I've dropped from 7 to 10 and haven't lost any points. Fair enough.

- 30 Minutes to go. I've been attacked and lost 24 points. I'm down to 230 but have dropped from #10 to a whopping #80 overall. It's cool. I didn't want that pair of heroic tokens anyway.

- 20 Minutes left. I've been hit for another 11 and I'm down to 219 points. But now I've gone from #80 to #135. 250 ISO, here I come.

- 5 Minutes left. I'm still at 219 points (I was attacked but lost 0), and I've dropped all the way to #197.

Summary:

- In an hour I went from 254 points to 219 points using a mildly annoying, but not excessive, team.

- More importantly I went from #7 to #197. 190 places in less than an hour.

Because lightning tourneys aren't bracketed, the fact that there may be 190 people worldwide who have nothing better to do for an hour than sit around and raise their ranks in a tournament is not a shockingly high number at all. But it's worth taking into account that the odds of being in a bracket where casual or even mildly-casual players have a chance of getting some of the cooler prizes are next to zero.

That's why the Episode 1 Red ISO missions were so great - they were bracketed, and the hardcore players definitely got the top prizes, but the number of quality prizes was quite large. I was able to get Ironman Mk 40 red and yellow (the third place prize I think, not the bonus 500 hp version) just from following along during the week and doing a few of the crazy-hard grinding missions.

Without opportunities like that, the casual players are going to get bored or frustrated and stop playing because they're constantly decimated in tournaments, which is incredibly discouraging. People with lives, adults, etc. are never going to have more time than either a) people with excessive amounts of money who can pay for characters and pay for healing, and b) high school kids.