ok so who's ready for a sooth rant

1) BR/pvp level: there seems to be way to many issues revolving around these and there abuse ability. anyone who's played for an era knows how to keep his pvp level down and sky rocket his BR. i think the one problem with the BR/pvp level system is that they are to closely related to each other while being completely opposite at the same time. ,my BR can be lets say 50 and my pvp level can be 35 due to workers and techs well lets say i have 200 workers in temple and i'm half way done each tech tree. as i keep fighting and rearching both my pvp level and BR increase. so now i'm at a 75 BR and 275 workers in my temple and now i'm pvp level 45 and no one else is that high yet so i have to wait for ppl to catch up.

so its been a week and only 4 other ppl are pvp lvl 45 and i'm bored so i get this brilliant idea to drop my pvp level so i fire all but lets say 150 workers from my temple and OMG my pvp level is now 30-35 again and hey there are ppl to fight so i starting pvping and winning and i've stopped adding workers to temple and stoped researching tech trees back when i was lvl 45 so ppl could catch me. so another week goes by my BR is now 90-100 and my pvp level has now gotten back to the level 40 range due to BR. so i'm bored again ok lets fire all but 50 workers this time. now my pvp level is back to 30-35 again and hey look new ppl to fight. anouther week goes by pvp level is again in the 40 range and my BR is 120 but now that i'm like a week or 2 into the second month on the era. all those ppl i've been fighting are still with me so i can start techs up again and continue to raise my BR. so end of the era i'm at 150ish BR

1.5) lets fix it: i think BR gain and loss should always be congruent with pvp level gain and loss. so if i fire 100 temple workers to drop my pvp level the br should also drop say .1-.5% for each person i fired. but if i hire 100 people BR won't change because i didn't earn it in a fight. that way i can't keep farming BR by dropping pvp level but the pvp level increase should still apply to BR gain. though when u lose BR due to firing ppl your pvp level shouldn't lower due to the loss of BR so essentially your BR can only increase your level and not decrease it. so say u keep firing ppl untill u go from a BR of 100 to a BR of like 10-20 but your pvp is still level 20-25 because of the 10 or so pvp levels that was gained by the 100 BR you had b4 u tried to fire ppl and lower your BR.

2) ELO(as melor called it): i like this idea but your ELO need to either follow the BR guide lines i stated about or what ever guide lines you want to use. or your ELO needs to be completely separate from the pvp lvl and ELO system because as you keep adding in variables to the pvp and BR system the more abuse able it will become. or have it not effect BR at all. OR replace BR with the ELO and make it follow the guidelines like i described above.

3) trophies: ok these either need to be put back on island battles or they need to be taken away from crafting because that really hurt the crafters when you could only get trophies from DG because only cv's that had myth, diablo, yomega, etc, etc, in them got trophies for crafting. and the trophies in market cost way to much to make the item u needed the more cost effective.

4) newbie bashing: will always be a problem in any online MMO ever made. but to lessen it i think something that could be done would be to make it so that if u fight anyone 5-10 pvp levels lower then your level u won't get ANY BR from that fight if you win. also any one with 30 or higher BR then the person they are fighting should also not get and BR bonus.

5) high level pvp: i think in order to solve this problem u need to make it easyer to get to higher levels in pvp or even harder that should keep ppl closer together. pvp level wise.

ok thats it for now have fun reading

Being in EYE (diablo's CV) we didn't get many trophies this era, I've gotten no ultimates at all, maybe three people in the CV could have been set up, but I doubt even that happened.

1.5) This is a bad idea. They need to just go by ELO and call that BR. Whatever the old system for BR was, it needs to disappear. And PvP Level should likely not factor because it's all about whether you win or lose right? Even those with heavy PvP research can still lose to those without any. A good example of this would be the time I fought Bismark and he skipped the precaution rounds, I ran through 9 of them, disabled a TON of his stuff and still lost. Yes, I really suck that bad, but so do a few other people I'm sure.

Really, I'm not sure what PvP level could or should be used for. Perhaps island fighting or something, but it really doesn't have a tremendous impact on the fights.

Also, units should cost whatever the most advanced unit cost is for that unit. That will prevent people from deliberately not researching advancement on that unit so they can spam them at less point cost. You can then get rid of the "minimum research" function that limits only the Warfare building so that those who PvE can still pick and chose which units they want to upgrade first.

@sooth your 1.) and 1.5) have the major flaw that they dont take into account that you will loose br over time.

@exe
i think its less that the cost increase causes that, and more that its because the increase of power isnt good enough, and spamming has no negative side.
(well except for a higher durability loss)

I rather like these ideas. PvP will probably be more enjoyable that way, with around 50% chance of winning/losing matches once I reach my limit ELO rating.

I'm not too sure removing alt-f4 will solve all problems. This era I just added to my friend list pvp-ers on my lvl range that are unbeatable by me. And left DG as soon as one of them logged in. Such avoiding strategies could probably be used here too.

I'm also afraid that high ELO rating pvp-players won't find many different opponents. And between 2 given players most of PvP fights end with victory for the same player.

i think that that will help a lot as far as evening the battle feild...
still missing the visual waiting though...
but we will see what happends.

Hrm. I think the dueling grounds can work, but I would have to say, either make it completely anonymous, or completely open. In other words, have a PvP 1-50 island for dueling grounds where there is only one or 10 territories to capture, just for people to kill time while in reality, it serves more as a dueling grounds lobby than any real island.

KTCAOp wrote:In other words, have a PvP 1-50 island for dueling grounds where there is only one or 10 territories to capture, just for people to kill time while in reality, it serves more as a dueling grounds lobby than any real island.

This is actually what I had envisioned the dueling grounds to be when I read about it before our era ended. Then I find out it's simply a button you push and wait endlessly for a match with the same person over and over until either of you log off...

starting with david...

obviously overall. i am strongly in favor of an ELO system over the current system as i have been promoting the idea.

[NOTE: to prevent a massive amount of reposting please refer to this topic's parent thread in Forum Index --> Feedback --> Open Letter to David]
(the posters who seem to have no idea what ELO means should catch up as well)

"Each era played adds a value to this" - David

pro 1) for a brief moment this makes sense as the players who did pvp last era have an advantage over the new players who haven't done it.

con 1) this plan backfires when someone decides to learn pvp their second era and now it is even harder
con 2) era's played does not always correlate to pvp ability
con 3) we are trying to get away from a system that tries to predict how good someone is based on "assumptions" like that.
con 4) you are adding another door for abuse
con 5) ELO is already going to pair players up with equivalently strengthened opponents pretty quickly and doesn't need to be "improved."

conclusion: good intention but bad results and really not needed... really

" BR is calculated as before" - David

pro 1) attempt to calculate an equal starting point for the pvp event so everyone has a chance at their skill level

con 1) Melor Arios' abuse argument which essentially boils down what is commonly known in sports as "sandbagging."
con 2) abuse argument because the BR calculation drastically rewards wins heavier than losses.
con 3) BR should be renamed to BGR for battle "grind" rating because quantity counts more than quality. it seems that the average player who grinds out a record of 100-100 has a higher BR than the player who is 40-10 and beat that average player every time they played.
con 4) BR seems to have no consideration of the rating of your opponent (noob bashing wins are equal to hard fought wins.)
con 5) what purpose does a BR have when an ELO system is in place?
con 6) as Melor Arios pointed out, the current BR system is heavily influenced by players who can artificially keep their pvp rating low to find easy matchups.
con 7) an ELO based ladder (current web interface ranking area) would tell me who the strongest player is in the game at any given time. this is a combination of how much research they have done, how many traits they have, how good their equipment/gear is, and how good their skills are. the player at the top of an ELO based ladder is the player that i would put my money on winning a traditional single elimination tournament if it was held right then.
con 8 ) i have much less respect for the current BR ladder

conclusion: please enlighten us as to why the BR system is being kept at all and what purpose it will serve.

if you end up getting rid of the BR system, an ELO system SHOULD NOT be messed with by changing the start values of players or eroding the rating over time. you absolutely have to see the system in action before you can try to improve a system that you don't fully understand. there is a reason that it is setup the way that it is after 40 years of use.

"However it will have a few drawbacks..." - David

i'm sorry, but i in no way see "assumptions" being taken out of the matching equation as a drawback. if you are telling the players who had unfair advantages from their traits or extreme advantages from their tribute gear/equipment that it will no longer help them... then hopefully they can continue to be happy by exploiting that advantage on the islands but learn to appreciate some competitive fights in the DG.

I would love to have a slight payout for simply BEING on the battle-ground - Melor Arios

i think that any kind of incentive for players to be in the DG system is a good one.

my suggestions revolve around timely events. perhaps every 6-8 hours a day (3-4 times a day) have something special happen for that hour in DG. perhaps for 5 minutes at the top of every hour (need some kind of in game clock or notification.) it has to be considered that players are in different time zones all over the world so the more frequent, the more likely it will fall during their standard window for playing. you don't want it to be so drastic that it is the only time worth playing, but you want it good enough draw more attention to the DG during that time. perhaps encourage some players who wouldn't be in there otherwise creating faster and better pairings.

the new system will just give medium-low skilled players 2 many benefits - Mythriel

since the only benefit of pvp other than bragging rights is trophies, i have to assume that is what you are talking about until you tell me otherwise. my apologies but i do not believe that preventing 1% of the players from controlling 90% of the uper level trophies should be considered giving "medium-low skilled players 2 many benefits." if they can obtain a high enough level to get an ultra charm ingredient drops in pve and potentially research dreamsorcery ultimate, then why should they not be able to obtain an ultimate trophy fighting someone of their own skill level?

"the big sharks will just have to eat each other" - Mythriel
"I'm also afraid that high ELO rating pvp-players won't find many different opponents" - Asharai

1) the current system is the epitome of what both of you are saying as only a few players are consistently in it at all (so things can not be worse.)

2) the new system should have a lot more players in the system.

3) ELO can pair players of a much larger range than the current DG does.(see parent thread for reasons) This means that the guys at the top will get a larger variety of opponents but will not make large gains on each other for their wins against inferior opponents (like they do now.)

My only question is how the trophies will work in this system - Zakariaz

i really hope that they remain based on pvp lvl as being tied to research prevents the early obtaining of high level trophies. i would also like to see them remain in the DG system if it is fixed.

Lan

Melor Arios idea with payout for being on the DG and Landrenas idea about regular pvp-hours both seem interesting.

I would also like to see BR disappear and be completely replaced by an ELO rating. The only problem with that is what would happen to the pvp event.

If the pvp event is all about having the highest ELO rating it would be possible to get a high rating before the event and and not play at all during the event, since ELO (as far as I understand) doesn't change if you don't fight it would be possible to win the event this way... For the event to work we need some way to measure pvp skill during a limited time.

If they are hardcoding in an ELO formula for the PvP system, there really isn't much reason why they couldn't have it sent in there to calculate twice. Then one of them you can reset for the PvP Feast, and have a special ladder that is for just the PvP Feast so progress can be monitored.