I think that is a good and equitable solution @Jainus.
I found happiness with the new PvP system when I realized how much work would be required to get to the top, how little sleep (I reset at 3 am) I would get, and how sad the rewards are for people not in the top twenty. Now I am very happy farming the the ranked system and enjoying the game (minus mawmeggedon) like I did pre-patch.
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While i don’t want to defend Maw, and am sure the Devs already plan how they approach this issue, aside from Maw being arguably too powerful, it is also the best way to deal with defending Gorgothas, which is most definitely part of the reason why many players invade with a Maw, and as people currently defend with their invade teams, why even more people defend with one now.
Granite Skin sure was the reason why i picked up Maw.
The problem that exists with this idea, is the same problem that has been plaguing matchmaking since the beginning. The whole reason why there is the level 200 hump is because there weren’t enough players amongst all of the different levels for matchmaking to allow for this kind of banding even within just the standard PVP system. I don’t see how this issue has been resolved in any way that would allow for bending for the leaderboard either. Unless, there is significantly more players now then there were at the time that that was talked about.
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I feel like we should separate the maw conversation into its own post, but I will respond here regardless. I do think that this troop needs to have some kind of change with its third trait. I actively avoid fighting them when I see them on defense teams simply because in the few times that I have I’ve had its third trait go off enough that I have absolutely no interest in fighting it again. There is nothing that is more annoying than having your troops devoured within one or two turns, even before the maws spell can even go off. Especially since combo breaker is gone.
I like the idea that was talked about before about making it similar to the Archer trait, but even then I see it happening too often. I’m also a fan of making cards that have abilities to counter cards instead of just changing other cards, for example if we were to change all big huge and immense cards to be immune to devour that would be a great counter to the maw, and would greatly diversify the amount of tank troops that we see at the front of the line. It wouldn’t just be Gorgotha, Gorgotha, Gorgotha.
I also don’t really think that Mercy should be changed.
Best solution I see is to have the ranks also mimic the ring the bell reward of the tier system. Hit first, get reward, go do other things with your actual life. The different times zones and player abilities means that the top 10 are going to be filled with people who gave up sleeping for a week playing keep away with first place. But if they did that I am sure the rewards would lower.
I would also like to point out this post which I just saw, that has a great maw counter deck!
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Without an energy mechanic to limit the number of games played the leaderboard will always be primarily determined by playtime. This was the problem with this concept from the point it was first discussed and was asked about when first demoed. The personal leaderboards are just as meaningless as a skill measure as the guild leaderboards. They are both measures of time spent playing more than any other measure. The only thing that keeps the guild leaderboards appearing to be “correct” is that they are lifetime and not cleared periodically so they reward an “older” player more than a “newer” one.
There really is no solution with the current framework we have. The system is set up to reward time spent playing beyond any other metric. Even if matches were worth exactly the same amount (and I am not convinced they are not based on feedback I have seen) between a lvl 100 and a lvl 1000 the driving metric would still be time spent playing. Because of the luck mechanic of GoW a true competitive leaderboard would be difficult. You would have to limit the number of battles fought, disallow any form of skipping, and ensure “relative” difficulty was maintained. The first is completely possible, the second would annoy peeps who didn’t want to play against certain teams, and the last is so incredibly complex it is basically impossible with a game so heavily based on luck. Better to just accept the pvp leaderboards for what they are exactly the same thing as the guild leaderboards. A measure of time spent contributing to a goal, nothing more.
-Razlath
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I think – and have said elsewhere – that the game is subtracting PVP points when your defense team wins. Look at those same three players you mentioned, all with similar win counts and points. The lower level player has radically more defense wins than the two 1000+ players. If I am right, then they would have subtracted off a lot of points from his/her total, and that same number of wins should be hundreds of points higher.
I’m not going to get mad if the higher level players start getting more points, but there is a problem with this argument.
You’re saying “each win should be worth the same points” but then…
Worth the same number of points even though the higher level players will be playing the same match with better resources and expecting a much better win rate.
A lowbie playing against a high ranked player is going to LOSE more matches. So average out the wins against the losses and we’re not really earning more points against the same teams.
Though I will admit that this seems quite odd.
I’m not sure there’s a nice way to say (effectively) “What are these people doing on my leaderboard.”
I just want the Maw and/or Mercy and/or IK teams to be less prevalent… and if it isn’t them, Bone Dragon and Gorgotha are close seconds. I’m not sure what to do about the level disparity on the leaderboards (while I agree that it’s freaking weird), but if these troops are being used this often then clearly something is very wrong.
Nerf em all!!!
We could just wait for the next worse thing to come. First it was broken TSO, sometimes later it was endless looping Webspinner/Slime/Shaman, then it was Centaur Scout/Skelly all over the place, and now it’s Mercy/Maw. They’ll come up with some super defense troop that will not only one-shot your team but at the same time steal your keys, souls and gems. And we’ll all talk about the good ol’ days when it was only about the Broken Worm. 
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You forgot goblins.
Goblins never dominated the endgame, really. Yes, there were high-level players who played them, but they’ve always been the staple “budget” team. In 1.0.8, true damage was much more effective than they were.
Not sure about end game but the fact that goblins have received a lot of nerf bat requests about them being on defence teams has to mean something in the 1.7 to 1.8 era. Devs would not look at them if not for us.
To anyone interested… I reproduced the opponents graph again for this morning’s pvp battling and maw-skipping… results (from my not-statistically-significant-but-soul-destroying sample of 50 offerings, that is 100 teams) are still unhappy, and (to me) worse in that the three trophy battles were utterly maw/mercy dominated… that sucks…
To anyone struggling to read, that’s:
- 62% of three trophy battles had Maw
- 64% of three trophy battles had Mercy
- and 56% of three trophy battles had Maw and Mercy together
PS: re-cutting the data, I have 60% of all battles offered had either Maw or Mercy on the enemy team… and 70% of all three trophy battles…
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Old news - but I think the main reason for excess Maw/mercy teams is the combining of defence (AI) results with pvp results. I was perfectly happy with my (quite interesting) defence team until mid morning on Thursday when I too succumbed to the lure of the M/M defense without really assessing how well my previous defense team was doing. Shame on me. After the reset tomorrow I may return to my old defense as I am not too bothered about the ranking thing.
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I wonder how much of this is also due to the reverse glitch where the defense team was set to the same as the invading team. People use the pair to invade and oops, there they are now defending as well.
While I’m sure several people probably set it that way deliberately, I’d say a good number did it on accident as well.
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I feel very confident the dev team is aware of the situation and will do something about it. The bug fix alone should help a fair amount.
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