Why am I playing against 1700 ranked players in leagues?

One thing to consider about trying to match people based on rating in leagues:
I believe on average, there are a lot less people playing leagues than ranked multiplayer (based on waiting times).
If there was also an attempt to match by rating, this could increase waiting times by a large margin.

As for buying items in shops with pizza converted into gold, yes, good items will often show up there, but not in such a great quantity that you can't just earn the gold to buy them by playing for an hour every day and making sure to visit the loot fairy.

If you cannot spend time OR money, yes you will be behind for a while in THOSE particular leagues.

Yup, this is not fair, but I am not sure it's worth it for tiny dev team to spend tons of dev time adding multiple tiers of ranking AND making everyone's wait time longer just to fix this one bit of unfairness. Why not just play the other leagues/ranked MP until your collection improves?

 

Okay, let's back it down a bit. This is an important conversation and I think the game, like all CCGs, suffers from a perception of pay to win that needs to be debunked.

I can understand you're frustrated. But I think very, very few players do what you say here though - convert dollars to pizza, pizza to gold and then gold to items. Honestly, it's much easier to build up gold by playing the game. I've been playing casually -- loot fairy, 1-2 leagues a day, maybe a couple of other ranked MP matches a week -- for a year(ish) and in that time I've had about 230 legendaries drop. I've bought maybe 10 with gold saved up from adventuring. I've never converted real money to gold. I do buy club membership, not all the time, but as a way to support the game. Having said that, I'd say that only 25% of my legendaries drop in the club slot. So it's not like I'm pulling way ahead of players who never buy club membership.

I'm at a point now where there are very few legendaries and zero other items I'd buy from Randi's or the DD, so I'm actually building more money up than I know what to do with (currently 23k gold). But this is very common with players who have been playing for more than a year. Not so much for you new guys, who want to buy everything in the shop. I was there too!

This statement is true for leagues with pre-constructed decks.

It's also mostly untrue for leagues with fixed decks, and quickdraw. Like Pathy, I get blasted by low ELO players in fixed deck on the regular. Take today, Graveyard Gambol, facing a 900ish ELO. Turn 1, I get no additional moves. My opponent takes the VP and I have to discard attacks. My guys move up in turn 2. Turn 3, I draw one attack and three moves for each mob. Game over.

What kills new players in quickdraw is that they pick the wrong cards, and that they don't play them that well. That's experience - knowing which drawbacks don't hurt you that much (and which will kill your party dead), knowing that you can only draw armour once until you can discard it, knowing that it's better to take an unrelated bronze trait than most bronze attacks.

And this translates to pre-constructed leagues. A player may have an edge on you with items, but they'll definitely have an edge in experience. So it's not the monster gear which wins them games - it's the fact that they look at the cards you've played to see which item it's come from. Then they can guess your build and strategy, and predict your moves. Your deck won't be as tight as theirs, because that comes with experience too, not just items. And they're playing to their own strategy, so they know to hold back and stall until the moment is right to unleash the pain.

If you agree that fixed and quickdraw can match players at any ELO level, as required by who is playing at what time and the fact we all don't want to be sitting around for 10 minutes to match someone at a similar level, then I'll agree that constructed league should be tweaked to better match players' ELO (assuming enough are logged in to stop that 10 minute wait).

I'll also tell you that, in a few months of casual play, you'll be well on your way towards building a very competitive collection of items at your keep.

 

Couldn't let this one go. I only had 330 saved up and it. took. forever. to. open. them. I was wondering how many mice you went though doing yours?

The worst thing was, I went into a kind of treasure trance and started pressing 'keep all' instead of 'sell all' for my discards. It's taken me probably an extra hour or two since just to sell the excess as I come across it in my inventory.

 

And this proves that players with money don't have much better cards? Do you have EVERY card you want? Seems like not, but I guarantee if I spent a lot of money I would have a FAR better collection of cards given what I pass up in shops each day.

Ok, but aren't you doing the same to me? Goes both ways.

So instead of coming to discuss my issue, you just wanted to scold me because you have a different opinion? Great, thanks.

I will not go so far as to say "pay to win" in so much as "pay to have a better collection to pull from." Sure players can do well in MP by grinding, as many have apparently. My issue is that everyone jumped on a "pay to win" comment more so than why low ranked people have to compete with high ranked people (who likely have much more experience AND cards, regardless of how they got them) in constructed leagues.

Yes, but having those extra 55-60 paid for club legendaries can make a huge difference no?

But you kind of contradicted yourself a bit here. Items can certainly help. But in any case, all of this is proving my point. People of high ranking should not be playing people of low ranking in constructed, based on everything available: experience AND gear.

I can certainly agree with this.

 

Well... imagine you continue to basically only ever play leagues. In a year, you'll be rated 650, but you'll have a year's worth of loot and, more importantly, experience. So asking to only play folks within a couple hundred points of a rating that meaningless seems a bit unproductive to me. Some folks have mentioned having multiple ratings in this thread and I think that's the only 'solution' to this issue (and not super likely to happen soon, but don't discount it as impossible). League matchmaking based on ranked score is definitely not a good idea.

 

You have a fair point. In any case, doesn't seem to matter as the devs have more important items to work on anyways. Definitely feel the best solution is to keep constructed play separate and always have a league available for both. I'll just avoid constructed for now.

 

I'm sorry, does it? Where have I done this? You have stated your experience clearly: You don't play a lot and don't spend much money on the game so as a result you have a small collection and are at a disadvantage against players with larger collections. Would you please show me where I have disagreed with this statement? The fact is, I fully affirm that that would be true. That doesn't mean that larger and powerful collections can be easily achieved by simply buying them.

So far I have respectfully noted something you said that I thought was disrespectful to many players who have reached high level play through non-pay-to-win means (and disrespectful to the designer of the game who intentionally has attempted to avoid a pay-to win structure).

- You responded by implying that I shouldn't take it personally.
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I offered specific examples of why it's not a pay to win model.

-You ignored some examples and dismissed the others.
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I responded with more details concerning the specific form of pay-to-win that you say you were talking about and called you out for being dismissive.

-You once again ignored the example on what you specifically said you cared about, and then made an unsubstantiated claim that I've also been dismissive of your experience.
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Yes, I do feel that when you unfairly group me or other players inaccurately by stereotypes, that I have a right to say something.

 

After lurking forever, I think it's finally time for me to give my two cents on this. And let me start by saying that I have not paid for a single chest.

After 8-9 months of playing the game, I've finally managed to accumulate a collection that is reasonably competitive in ranked (well, not wizards yet. No fun stuff there for me yet =/ ) with a 1400s elo that I have managed to stabilize there. It honestly isn't difficult to reach 1100-1200 elo when you begin this game. Just don't expect to be holding a constant elo until your collection grows. There were countless times when I would reach a new milestone (1250, 1300, 1350) and get pummeled back down because I didn't have the items to play at that level.

Like others have said before, league play has little to do with elo ranking. If I ever do look at elo, it's at the beginning of the match, and even then I use it as a gauge of how much experience this person has. For me, higher elo means more experience and to play with a bit more caution. Lower elo doesn't always equate to an easier game as I too have been thrashed by players much lower in the ranks then me.

Any leagues that don't require prebuilt decks are the best in terms of developing a strategy to overcome your opponent since they don't bring collections into the game. I won't deny that it can be rough when you don't have the items that everyone else seems to be using, but you can still come back to win.