The New, NEW Raid Tournament Loot

[Garanwyn]

@Gryphonknight

I would absolutely love to be wrong, and I would love for you be correct.

But it is a NESTED statement:

It is a nested statement, and it’s pretty cryptic to do things that way.

I’m confident I’m correct that Significant Portion > Portion > Small Portion. I’m not confident that they aren’t going to try to use some other new feature to make up the existing shortfall in the raid tourney loot versus a meaningful definition of “Significant portion.”

@Gryphonknight

Small Portion ( this section is why Devs never talk to us ).

I’m not sure that “we pay attention to what you say and expect it to have meaning” is a justification for not communicating. Honestly, it’s a justification for being explicit rather than cryptic.

@Gryphonknight

Interesting that with the Tourneys original loot, on average, each entrant got 324 emblems per year.

Each VIP Pass is guaranteed 365 emblems.

So on average, each entrant getting 324 emblems per year qualifies Tourneys, with the ORIGINAL loot, as “a small portion”.

The top 25% were averaging over 500 emblems a year under the old system. My guess would be they weren’t looking at the pooled mean when they asserted “significant portion.” But perhaps I’m wrong.

[KingArchur]

@Wondermoose

.5 percent tier: Guaranteed
1 random HOTM, 2 random 4* mat, 1 random 3* mat

Other random junk and emblems

Cause the original loot wasn’t crazy enough… Why not add some guarantee HOTM, and “rare” ascension materials.

Seriously, the only thing the loot needs is slightly more emblems. That’s it. It doesn’t need to give better loot than winning 5 alliance wars and weeks worth of beating 12*. It’s not like it requires any serious effort to play or even place well in. I’ve been top 1% in every tournament without having changed a single thing about what heroes I level or spend emblems on. I’m now leveling some more 3* as insurance, but it’s so easy to do it I would do it even for the current loot. A couple feeders and some food to get more emblems for my 5*s? I’ll take it.

[Halifax]

This response is entirely reasonable and really does call for game designers to speak to their flip-flop on loot levels.

[thugen]

Creating demand for reset emblems all along…

[Gryphonknight]

Pooled mean

@Garanwyn

The top 25% were averaging over 500 emblems a year under the old system. My guess would be they weren’t looking at the pooled mean when they asserted “significant portion.” But perhaps I’m wrong.

I would love for you to be correct.

However, with 1 million plus tourney entrants, I would hope they are paying attention to the pooled mean.

Rumor from Beta says improving the loot for the Bottom 25% was requested when there was a 100 gem entrance fee. Instead of better Bottom 25%, they removed the entrance fee making it F2P ( excuse my laughter ). This preserved the pooled mean.

If Devs are focused on the pooled mean instead of the Top 25%, that would also explain the method they choose to nerf Tournament loot. Instead of raising the low tiers, they lowered the higher tiers, preserving the pooled mean.

Class quests

The difference between the final stage of Class quests and Tourneys is eventually 100% of active players could possibly complete the final stage of all Class quests and get emblems as long as they keep increasing their roster. Even if 100% of active players can complete all stages of all class quests, only 25% can be in the Top 25% of Tourneys and possible revamped Challenge events.

I would argue that this make the pooled mean more important from a designers perspective. They cannot predict the growth, or shrinkage, of completing the final stage of all class quests, but they can force a tiered prize structure on Tourneys and Challenge events.

Challenge event revamp

If they add new challenge events ( rare quests have seven ) this will still be once a month. So the average player will not see an increase in emblems per year.

If Challenge event revamp ( Arrr me Pirate Family bonus ) adds emblems to the tiered prizes, this will boost the emblems earned through Challenge events. But in my opinion, it would once again focus on the pooled mean.

Weekly Tourney

I am slowly understanding why they resisted the Beta suggestion to have a new Tourney start every 23 hours ( running multiple Tourneys at a time ). The loot pay outs would be 1/7th the original Tourney loot.

This is too bad, as some of the Tourney rules are rumored to be quite fun and some favored players with zero HotM. Mostly due to the pressure of roster space on Elder players and titan rewards being so important in Empires ( especially with Hunter’s Lodge coming out ).

Roadmap

I am also beginning to see that game designers never get to add all the cool features they want, because they are busy spending development cycles on fixing things that worked internally, but shattered into a million pieces when exposed to the actual customers.

[Hermann]

hope it’s not taken too serious and hope i’m not banned…
but here is something that crossed my mind…

Gimme hope Joanna /
Gimme more loot version

Well SG they run a company
They run in Helsinki in Finnland
They make a few of their players happy, oh
but they don’t care about the rest at all

They got a system they call raid tournament
and RNG keeps a us in great subjection
But maybe entreaty can make SG see
How everybody could ascend and proceed

Gimme more loot, SG
More loot, SG
Gimme more loot, SG
and ascension mats
Gimme more loot, SG
More loot SG
Loot and ascension mats

I hear they make all the money from gems
To buy new stuff, any shape of things
While every player here daily fears
The killing of another hero

Sneakin’ across all the players patience borders
Now and again gving only few emblems
They don’t care if the fun and games we play
Is ridiculous to ev’ryone

Gimme more loot, SG
More loot, SG
Gimme more loot, SG
and ascension mats
Gimme more loot, SG
More loot SG
Loot and ascension mats

[DD38]

How many of us aren’t taking a full part in the tournaments due to the bad loot?
I only used three attacks the first day to help fill my hero chests.
These tournaments aren’t much use for anything more.
The special rules make it guaranteed that you’ll lose your four lives soon enough due to not being able to stack against tanks but where is the real incentive to buy back in?
I know the tournaments and loot are a work in progress but the lack of communication and transparency from staff is creating a bad feeling in the playing population about the future.

[Rumcajs997]

I just lost 3 fights in a row with 0 points so I definitely wont bother with 75gems reset as I’ll end up with 25% loot at best so 5 emblems max.

[LucasDaoc]

@Dead89

It would be nice to have an official statement if this is another temporary adjustement or if it is intended as the official reward from now on.

" We are continuing to Monitor and develop raid tournaments. We will continue adjusting as we get more data."

They’re you go! Now we don’t need one.

[LucasDaoc]

I think what it really boils down to is…

“I know you guys were having a lot of fun and we introduced more strategy and options into our game, but the bottom line is we weren’t making quite as much on gem continues as we thought we would, so this is how it’s going to be.”

[Zero2Hero]

I agree. They hyped it up like Raid tournaments was going to be something special but as quick as a flash it became a boring piece of unrewarding game junk.

[Zero2Hero]

They’ve turned the whole thing into a TournaJoke.
If the rewards are going to stay like this, then the whole fun of it is dead.

[Liliac]

As a fairly new player, I don’t even have any 4/70 guys yet, I find the Raid Tournament nothing alike Challenge events.
First one I competed in, was Riddles of Wonderland, when I had my hopes crushed. I knew I couldn’t compete in epic and legendary levels, but I genuinely though I had a chance in rare levels → Yay, got a gray token and the top 100 was full of high-levelled guys.
So why they are different? Challenge event is really much more about the items and replayed levels than a good bench of heroes (although it helps.) Raid tournaments are different because items can’t be used and battles can’t be replayed, if you lose, you lose precious points that can make a difference in the end and that’s it. No replay for a better score. As I could reach 1% in 3* tournaments, for example. I am not saying I am an awesome player, just that more players have a shot at higher tiers there. As IIRC the top 100 of the first tournament included low level accounts.
So yeah, I wouldn’t mind other getting 100 emblems, if I also have a shot at getting them. It seems to be the whole reason the loot was reduced to start with anyway. Some people were not happy about what other people were getting.

tl;dr: Sorry for the long post. New loot is a good change, but I hope it’s not final.

[Api]

Top 100 should have better loot. That will stimulate motivation to invest in tournament heroes as it does with the Challenge events.

Today I lost for the fourth time and didn’t have a reason to pay 75 for a few more attempts, although, I buy raid/world energy daily to close all raid chests and farm feeders/challenges.

[KingArchur]

@Api

Top 100 should have better loot. That will stimulate motivation to invest in tournament heroes as it does with the Challenge events.

Getting top 100 vs being 200th is luck based though.

[BarryWuzHere]

@lexinen

I won’t, but to be fair I wouldn’t spend gems on continues even if it were 100%. Having to continue means you’ve already lost 4 raids, which means a sub-1% score anyway.

FYI, I did spend 75 gems to continue this tourney, and I did get a top 1% finish (#13xx ranking as I recall), despite a total of 6 raid losses. (Aside: One was probably due to accidentally using my 2/12 Proteus instead of the 4/70+18 Proteus, oopsie, and another one was probably due to poor team selection on my part.)

I had a lightly attacked (but undefeated) defense which helped my score, but even with B/C grades on defense I might still have made the top at least on this tourney. Perhaps because these rules made most of the slow 5* heroes into true beasts, especially on defense. I’m guessing that overall raid success rates were lower under these rules, at least for maxed/emblemed 5* teams; IDK how it would compare for people who don’t normally raid in diamond.

Anyhow … the net result was that by spending 75 gems, I got to play in the tourney for a couple more days (I enjoy different raid challenges), got to fill raid chests faster, and ended up with 30 emblems and a hero token, and a compass in my loot so it was totally worth it this time.

[lexinen]

That’s interesting, because I had the opposite experience this past tournament. I got my 4th loss on attack #24, and paying 75 gems to get that last attack didn’t seem worth it at all. My defense apparently wasn’t up to par either (4 losses, 0 wins), so I lost quite a few potential points there as well. My final rank was around 15000, putting me in the Top 5% tier. I doubt the 75 gems to continue would have pushed me into the 1% tier.

On the plus side, I was pretty happy with the loot I got in that tier, plus the free raid chest filling for even more loot, so it’s all good.

[BarryWuzHere]

Last attack in the tourney is worth at most ~700 points, and probably wouldn’t have bumped you up a tier.

I was out on day 2 or 3, so I got ~10 more attacks for my 75 gems, which made a huge difference in my score. If I’d quit there I’d probably have been top 50% or maybe top 25%.

[Halifax]

Top 1 percent rewards

2 losses for 0 points and 2 other losses - defence not hit at all for 3 days then scored a B last 2 days.

[Leia]

Same problem here.

Im surprised they have changed the loot when the defense teams still face either 0 -5 hits or massive attacks.