Both are incorrect. It is a complicated formula based on how an obfuscated number based on either how much global score bonus or max score potential you have on the account versus the absolute score of the defense team for gold payout, with the trophy slot the match appearing in also influencing the range of PvP points a battle can give. Level is only one component of this formula, and the point differential for level anywhere past the 1000s is less than the point differential for a single other instance of something that would grant a skill bonus (you get a fraction of a point for every level past 1000 and the diminishing returns gets even worse as you level more).
For comparison purposes, to get your Max Score Potential you need to:
- Make a team with three mythic (doesn’t matter if ascended or base mythics, worth the same points) fully traited troops on the team
- Make the hero class for the team your highest champion level hero
- Put the hero on the team using a weapon that you have the highest amount of upgrades in
To get your Global Score Bonus:
- Put four mythic fully traited (non hero) troops on the same team
- Subtract 5100 points to get how many points your account alone is adding (450 for each fully traited troop, 125 for each mythic troop, 700 for each level 20 troop).
- You can also do this by putting in 1 level 1 untraited common and subtracting 35 points to get the same number, or anywhere in between and subtracting how many points the troops add (50 for first trait, 150 for second trait, 250 for third, 35 per level, 25 per rarity above common)
The formula takes one of these (it is not immediately clear which since most my accounts are past the point where I can increase MSP without GSB), combines it with some unknown modifier (possibly just a score offset), compares it to the defense team score in a non-linear fashion, and gives payouts accordingly. Increasing your bonuses increases your minimum payout, but increases the amount of points a defense will be that it will give this minimum payout. Gold payouts below a certain score are pegged at minimum, increase slowly past that, increase the most during a certain range of scores past that, and then taper off again in a fashion as they approach max payout. This is readily observable for any given account by documenting score ranges and payouts and how they change as you get more things that grant score, which I have done extensively in the past. This is harder to observe at endgame when there aren’t a lot of choices to demonstrate “strong” opponents and the only way you can alter your score appreciably is just leaving your guild.
PvP point payouts function similarly have another component that is based on which trophy-slot they appear in, and trophy-slots are always organized by team score when first offered to you, but the matchmaking pool they are pulled from is varied, so you can easily have your “strongest” fight be with a 12k score opponent. Which, if you are close enough to max, would give you 31 points and 1100 or 1200 gold. And this will happen multiple times in a row. Which is really frustrating. Which is what people are responding to.
Basically, high top end is broken because you so rarely get matched with other high top end, because people that are not top end get matched with them as well and there are only so many to go around. The “variety fix” also may be playing a role here, because teams tend to get very samey at a certain point, so at least some of these might be getting filtered. And because of the non-linear way the formula works, fighting things below a certain score heavily penalizes your payouts to the point where you might as well fight minimum payout matches all the time.
Similar things have happened with score before when more score bonuses became available and few people had them, and those partially self corrected with time, but are unlikely to this time because five star kingdoms and completed guild tasks are somewhat of an eventuality while ten star kingdoms and renown stats are not. Also, if the variety fix is preventing some things from appearing in the pool, you’ve heavily culled possible opponents with decent payouts.
Currently, an account that is behind on just a few 10 star kingdom bonuses and renown stats is currently in optimum position here to have a good minimum payout and enough “strong” opponents on the three trophy to not be completely stalled by repeated three trophy matches at near-minimum payout.
The simplest way to fix this would be to change the offset portion of the formula to consider a wider range of scores viable targets for endgame - a few hundred points is all that is really needed. That, and a matchmaking tweak so you get just a bit fewer “weak” opponents on your three trophy slot. This would put people with everything maxed at a similar earning potential as those with almost everything maxed. So, basically, make 12k score payouts viable for people near maxed out, and make sub-12k score opponents not appear so often on three trophy slots. I would say just fix the matchmaking to strongly prefer at least one strong opponent, but for many people, this would result in playing the same opponents over and over and over. PvP point payouts are more broken than they have ever been in history because of the huge disparity in score ranges that common appears in the three trophy slot, and the minimum threshold for PvP points the three-trophy slot as you approach max score limit should honestly just be increased at this point.
As an aside, I highly doubt any drastic change or rework is going to make PvP more profitable over time than it currently is, or even was pre-patch. Given our history of how things generally work when they are changed, I’m pretty surprised so many people are willing to dive over that cliff.