So, this is my idea of a reward system for high ranking. 1. Every week, every player have their ELO reduced by 20%. 2. Top 1 player gets 1 free MP epic chest for every 100 ELO reduced. 3. Top 2 - 5 players get 1 free MP epic chest for every 125 ELO reduced. 4. Top 6 - 10 players get 1 free MP epic chest for every 150 ELO reduced. 5. Top 11 - 50 players get 1 free MP 4th gold chest for every 125 ELO reduced. 6. Top 50 - 100 players get 1 free MP 4th gold chest for every 150 ELO reduced. 7. Top 101 - 500 players get 1 free MP 1st gold chest for every 100 ELO reduced. 8. Every other players get 1 free 4 items chest, like when you finish MM, for every 100 ELO reduced.
Knee-jerk: Given that rank is ordered only secondarily by skill and primarily by inventory, I greatly dislike any reward system which is strongly linked to ranking. Giving top-ranked players ~3 epic chests every week will only solidify that barrier even further. Second take: I recall the devs mentioning that they're working on a league system which rewards top players on each map rotation. Monthly rewards would reflect skill more than the ups-and-downs of luck and the set of other players who happen to be playing during a particular week. Also, a monthly reward of a couple of chests isn't terribly unbalanced. Third take: Actually, I don't really care how the 1% are rewarded, because I'm never going to bother with the grinding effort necessary to get there. At most, they're an annoyance that I have to brush up against when my rating gets too high. I'd rather play silly builds that tank my rating, or more puzzle-like formats such as SP or Flaxative's peasant. Give 'em more toys, if that will keep them happy and the devs well-fed.
Well, I'm currently ranked 1169 so guess how enthusiastic I am about this. I won 21 of my last 33 games, so I guess I'm not that bad, but my rating is only 1130 because I just haven't played that much yet. However, you propose to throw me back to 904 and expect me to climb back 226 points in a week? I barely managed to play 10 games last week. So yeah, if your goal is to make sure all casual players are somewhere down at the 200 - 500 range and more frequent players play Mom a lot at 1500, implement this...
I don't think is the case. People who have good items don't usually have a high rating because they have good items, they have a high rating because they have experience which translates to skill. And they have tons of cards because the only way to get that experience is to play. There are many players who have tons of cards but are not even close to top-10. There are also many players who either currently are or have been in the top-10 even though they lack legendary items. While items like Vibrant Pain will certainly help, unless you know the best way to use them, you will lose. I think skill is definitely more important than inventory, especially when you take deckbuilding into consideration. When I personally rose in the rankings, the biggest change I saw was that the higher I got, the less mistakes my opponents made. I think the amount of mistakes made is a huge factor because you cannot really afford to make those in Card Hunter. In lower levels players make mistakes every other round, but in the top-10 it happens maybe once in a match, if even that. When you observe high rating play, you can almost predict what they players are going to do because there's often that one "perfect" move. In lower ratings things are much more random, like when I was just starting MP and liked to used my elf wizard as a tank. I am pretty sure that if I fought a newbie version of myself, I would win pretty much every single time because I now know many different tricks and wouldn't make as many mistakes. Unlike many other games, Card Hunter is not only about cards. Positioning for example is crucial: if you move your character in the wrong place, you will die. About the suggestion in this topic.. I think there would be way too much rating decay. I also think it would be bad if everyone would get epic and gold chests for free. If this was implemented, I would get 2 (and not far from 3) epic chests for free, when I usually have to win a total of 40 MP matches for that. Everyone getting free loot is not good for the game.
(My last comment here, since I don't want to steal the thread.) I didn't deny that skill plays a significant role, but inventory places a hard cap on what a player's skill can do. Most 1500+ builds have more WoW on a couple wizards than I have in my entire collection, and not for lack on my part of scouring the stores. Same with SPR, Nimble Strike, Nimbus, Toughness, Volcano, Firestorm... Despite those gaps, I can maintain high-1400 rankings when I bother to try, but I got tired of trying to find the right pieces just so I can slog through more of the same.
Sure, but that sounds very different from: But yes, I agree. Once the skill level of the players is close to equal, the role of cards becomes more and more important. It would be pretty difficult to get in the top-10 without any of the powerful legendaries. For me for example Bewlin's Baffling Bauble has been quite helpful.
