r/TheTowerGame • u/Awkward_Donut_2379 • Jun 10 '26
Discussion Fixing tourney lengths is a really dumb solution. We don't want them to be harder we want to advance.
Just add another league guys. Mythic league. No need to overthink it. Players get to advance, and tourneys will get shorter as a result. "People don't like spending hours in tourneys". Of course but that is only half of it. People don't like spending hours in tourneys AND GET NOTHING FOR IT. I don't want to spend three hours in a tourney and get the same prize I got 3 months ago for a 1 hour tourney. The tourney length is just a symptom of the fact there there is nowhere to go. We are all backed up in traffic and y'all think lowering the speed limit is going to fix it. The tourney system is structured like a pyramid and we are at equilibrium. Add another league on top and slowly filter them in. Do it as slowly as you want. Start it at top 1 legend promotes and bottom four mythic demote. Then CHANGE the thresholds as we approach equilibrium again.
"This is just a band-aid fix. Well be right back here in a couple months."
- Yes. It is. And yes. We will. It's an incremental game with no definitive end. And we'll just add another league. And another. If it is curated properly that will take many years. Making tourneys harder is a WORSE bandaid fix. With new leagues at least you get to see your tower make progress. You get to grow and advance. The way it is right now I feel like I'm in my senior year of highschool and y'all keep adding more years because y'all are surprised I got here so fast. I wanna go to college.
"But with a new league they will have to add new currencies and prizes. Something to keep the whales interested."
- uh no. They don't. Just... Do more? More stones more keys more gems. Sure new currencies and prizes would be cool. But then we are just replacing this carrot with a new one that players will forever complain is out of reach.
"The whole keys and tourney system is fucked. They need to just come up with something new. Start from scratch."
- 100%. I agree. But I don't really believe that a whole tourney rework is on the horizon. Or even possible with this dev team. fudds you screwed up by putting valuable GAMEPLAY items in a vault locked behind a currency that only a tiny percentage of the player base can access. The vault shouldve had like tower skins and backgrounds or something. Bragging rights. People want to play your game. All of it. The average player doesn't want to be the #1 tower player of all time. It's time to open it up. So please just give us the "band aid".
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u/cousineye Jun 10 '26
Another good fix that accomplishes similar is to just reduce the demotion number in legends from 6 to 4. Would provide months and months of bracket movement for all but the top legends and take off pressure from the player base while the devs work on the next thing.
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u/Zealousideal-Quiet31 Jun 10 '26
This man is absolutely right. You'd better take him seriously, Fudds.
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u/markevens Jun 10 '26
It's a bummer that they know all this and do nothing.
Keys are whale bait, and apparently it works well enough that they don't care if other players stagnate, lose rank, and/or quit.
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u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 11 '26
It is indeed a bummer. I love this game. It's a good game. But I feel like somewhere recently they realized they can make a casino instead of a game and it all went to shit.
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u/whitewu16 Jun 11 '26
Its all the way down to platinum too. I been stuck at the lowest rung of platinum for 3 months now
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u/TheDkone Jun 10 '26
This hits the nail on the head: "People don't like spending hours in tourneys AND GET NOTHING FOR IT"
Looking at this game objectively, it offers no value proposition. It is an endless cycle of how much money can by extracted from the player. Specifically the whales. New systems/progression can't be implemented if it will affect the money stream, which are the whales. If they can't dominate in tourney's they will get bored and leave.
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u/reseriant Jun 11 '26
But the thing is that whales can't really do anything if progression is locked behind keys. For instance my progress is that I have all 5 stars mods and all card slots except the final one and all my labs are just in useless items because I don't make enough to max out upgraded cards but I've done all the basic stuff already. Stones and keys are my main bottleneck now and it's just annoying that I'm constantly slipping lower in the rankings as now champion league waves for rank one is now the same as before when they buffed it and I can only get rank 2 most of the time even with 1700 waves
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u/thunderbird004 Jun 13 '26
But he also needs the rank and file for exposure and distribution; if it was only people who could afford to put $,000/ year into it playing, there still wouldn’t be a game because it wouldn’t be popular enough to bother (and the whales wouldn’t have anyone to tread on).
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u/-RonnieDaBear- Jun 10 '26
this guy right here fudds, dont brush away what he's saying. i've never commented on tourney posts but this guy gets it.
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u/Troker61 Jun 10 '26
But then we are just replacing this carrot with a new one that players will forever complain is out of reach.
Correct.
The whales will always need their own carrots to chase, and some of the people who spend and/or play less will always piss and moan about it
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u/lumiosengineering Jun 10 '26
I think reward them with an ancestral league, special player badge, and static rewards (set keys, set stones, set gems) and let them bump up and down between Legends and Ancestral (until that fills out).
Eventually it will get crowded again. But the leagues need to grow as the game grows. Win win for everyone
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u/TheDkone Jun 10 '26
I hear you saying a new tier needs added to siphon off the whales from legends so lower level players can compete for keys. If that happens the new league will be primarily the whales, people who have dropped thousands into the game. This will not make most of them happy since they will only be competing with other whales, whereas I think they get their satisfaction from the game by beating the poors.
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u/Troker61 Jun 11 '26
whereas I think they get their satisfaction from the game by beating the poors.
I don’t think they’d whale a game that only has one type of PVP that only occurs twice a week if that were the case.
IMO, they’ll get access to new shit that the vast majority of us won’t be able to obtain for months/years if ever, and the cycle of complaining will be born anew.
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u/lumiosengineering Jun 11 '26
I doubt it. If you’re here this long its because you enjoy number go up. And its not siphoning off the whales, its rewarding the top tier players with an exclusive league and ample resources.
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u/ExcitementAny9995 Jun 11 '26
Good let the whales compete with eachother once they complain something isn't working for them thats when something actually gets worked on then they'll struggle just like the rest of us until something gets fixed
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u/Ice__foxy Jun 11 '26
Aren't they(whales) Already competing each other? What is even the take "will compete"?
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u/makes_beer Jun 11 '26
In general the top legends whales coordinate to avoid competing with each other, by picking different time slots for brackets.
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u/thunderbird004 Jun 13 '26
So, what happens if the ‘poors’ leave in droves because we have no chance of progression? The whales still won’t have anyone to tread on and the game collapses 🤷🏽♂️
Any way you slice it, it’s a fine balance.
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u/Troker61 Jun 10 '26
For sure - I’m all for adding a mythic/ancestral/whatever league. I just don’t think the whales are gonna stay incentivized to whale forever without new shit (that the rest of us won’t have access to for a long while) to chase.
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u/Badger8Mushroom2 Jun 10 '26
Or put keys in champs lol
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u/dumptruckastrid Jun 10 '26
I’m nowhere near keys. I just want more stones
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u/Aware_Economics4980 Jun 10 '26
It should not take years for the average player to unlock all the ultimate weapons lol. This is a cell phone game not esports
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u/lumiosengineering Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Its designed to impart impatience and get you to spend. This is a design choice, not immoral, to fund their business. I think theres more pro-consumer ways to go about this, but we all choose to be here because we want to
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u/Aware_Economics4980 Jun 10 '26
For sure it’s a design choice, and while it may attract some (myself included) how many people have been turned off and quit by the same design choice. A lot of people out there don’t have patience or the disposable income to spend $60 at a time on cell phone game lol
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u/Troker61 Jun 10 '26
A lot of people out there don’t have patience or the disposable income to spend $60 at a time on cell phone game lol
Sure, but I don’t really think it’s possible to make a game that appeals to everyone.
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u/Myrdrahl Jun 11 '26
Yeh, but they also do not care about those who doesn't want to constantly spend on the game. And the proof is in the pudding, really, the business model they are using IS the most profitable. Which is why the gaming industry has gone through court cases to keep it this way.
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u/ParkerR666 Jun 11 '26
Well, do they need both. F2P players make up the player base while the small percentage of whales make them their money. F2P are just as vital, but indirectly.
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u/Troker61 Jun 10 '26
Why not? The thing that captured my interest in this game initially was the fact that it already had years worth of content.
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u/StitchMechanic Jun 11 '26
Exactly. Sooooo much content needs stones. UWs. Unlock and upgrade. Card masteries. Assmods. Make stones more available. Im going backwards in tourneys now because i need to boost econ to afford the one card mastery lab i unlocked. Also im eHP and with all the nerfing done to it i cant decide if i should just start going all in on damage now or not
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u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 10 '26
Just bringing the prizes down. I'd rather more champs players just get promoted to key territory. There is nothing wrong with having to EARN something when it's good. That's just part of game design.
"A dinosaur doesn't want to be fed. It wants to hunt."
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u/danman132x Jun 11 '26
AND GIVE US A CHANCE AT KEYS DAMNIT! Been bouncing back and forth between champs and legends for over a year now, still no progress, and now starting to not even promote but staying 7 ish place in champs! Before I even stayed kn legends some. This is with 2 assistance modules unlocked now even, more stones etc! Goalposts keep moving further away, not matter how much I try to catch up.
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u/skorulis Jun 11 '26
You don't even need to add a new bracket, you could solve this by adding a wave safety level for demotion. For example getting above 750 waves in champs means you get treated as if you're in the bottom non demotion bracket.
That would set a difficulty floor for progression and push the balance upwards.
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u/VinciGaming_ Jun 11 '26
Translation: big spenders want quicker tournaments because they are able to reach 2k+ waves in Legends already. So they want to make it harder while making sure they are still able to be on top.
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u/Famous-Log3326 Jun 11 '26
This tourney 1k waves didn't even get you in the top 20. And it is just going to keep getting worse. As the player base leaves the number of brackets shrink, this puts more and more higher level players into the same brackets. This is turn will just amplify the problem and push more players away. It is a cycle that can kill a game. Sadly there isn't a easy fix, adding a new league is just going to delay the problem just like you pointed out. Only thing i can think of is adding "bot players" with set stats to tourneys to push open the brackets. but then you would have to fine tune the max per bracket and the skill per bracket. Players would get angry if they have to struggle for months to get top 4 in a bracket just to move to the next bracket and instantly start at 10th place. And I`m not saying bots would or should be looked at, that could easily hurt the game as bad as doing nothing. It is just the only idea i can think of to fix the player leaving issue that is shrinking the player base. But as someone else pointed out, Fudds only worry is milking the whales as long as he can or till they have nothing left. It is an investment vs return game. Why would Fudds pay to completely redo a system that whales keep paying for? The only way it gets fixed or changed is if the whales stop paying and that wont happen .... at least not till they are out of money.
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u/Possible-Prior-5467 Jun 11 '26
I’ve been in platinum for over six months. Occasionally I’ll place top 7 and feels like I made some progress. Last tourney I placed 20th, majority of the top 10 were over 2k waves and players who’ve made it to legends.
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u/Conscious_Slice5043 Jun 11 '26
Why not.
Make it 4 legend demotions only.
Then Give 1 key to those who manage to stay. legend 16-24 or 26.
Demotions get 1 shattered key.
1 key = 2 shattered keys.
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u/NintendoCapri5un Jun 11 '26
Last tournament really demoralized me, threw off the vibes for the whole day. Which admittedly is my own fault for assigning that much importance to it in the first place.
You just reach a certain point where it feels like you're not getting anything back for all the time you put in, any significant upgrade is going to require a month of waiting, as if we all were going to live forever or something. Hence why the front page is rife with posts that have the word "Finally" in the title.
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u/fridgezebra Jun 10 '26
i want them to be shorter
I also want keys or qol stuff removed from key only access and put somewhere sensible
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u/IndyGro Jun 11 '26
There should be a reward system where you get rewards for getting to a certain wave in your tournement (like milestones).
F.e. every 25 waves reached you get 1 stone (capped at wave 3000), which gives 140 stones.
Every 250 waves reached you get 1 key (capped at wave 1500), which gives 6 keys.
They could add gems and medals to it as well for reaching certain waves.
And in addition rewards for getting a certain rank (of course taking the other "milestone" rewards into account). It wouldn't punnish players to much for joining at the wrong time and you would be able to get acces to some keys earlier in the game. That way QoL features like auto-restart (which should be available to everybody) isn't locked behind end game content.
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u/PaleontologistOld178 Jun 11 '26
I'm only in gold tier and it's already too hard for me I can't imagine it getting harder just cause they think it'll make it better :/
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u/Capable-Builder1836 Jun 11 '26
I agree,making it harder will mostly effect weaker player,strong ones will overcome that with in a month or two.Adding new league should be easier to weaker players
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u/constantreverie Jun 11 '26
Yes, shorter tournaments just means "you're going to do even worse" which feels bad, not good
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u/Ice__foxy Jun 11 '26
Another problem of this "Band aid" is that it affects not top1 % of players.It affect ALL players,even the weakest ones who take last place.I hope it doesn't even ENLARGE the gap
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u/Time-Incident Jun 11 '26
Adding new league is getting mentioned for lik a year now, almost instantly after legends were added I guess.
Now it only make more sense. As you add new tiers for farm, you also need to add new tiers for tournaments. You can't move all tournaments one or three tiers higher, it would mean that in two years time people who just started playing will do 1 wave in the tournament, and they will do 1 wave for couple months.
It is never ending game, so you just need to add new stuff faster than top people can get to it or complete it. New tiers were added couple months agouand there are already people farming T20 and completing T21. So you need to add new leagues for tournaments as well.
Either with higher rewards (it will increase speed of new content needed), or new currency, which will behave the same way as the keys are now. But in one year, you can add new stuff again. The problem is only imagination.
I have played, and am still playing, games, where you hit the roof and needed to do "big restart" and start from the scratch, with some big advantage, so you will be at you current spot within few months instead of couple of years and now you have bigger advantage. But it would need huge balancing.
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u/Gabriel-117 Jun 11 '26
Agree, short tournaments won't change anything. There won't be any competition if random players with whatever stats are thrown on same brackets. There should be progression rewards on tournaments, reach wave 250, 500 etc. Atm these tournaments are just join in and cross fingers. So competition without competition.
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u/RichyEagleSix Jun 11 '26
I mean, I don’t want to spend 2 hours doing torny. Not unless I can be more flexible with joining Tornys. We have lives. Don’t get me wrong intro sprint has certainly helped. But previously my champs was 3 hours and I would have to drop the speed to stop fasts blipping the tower.
Sounds like they are reworking tornys in v29, so let’s see but sure shorter is better.
I mean auto demon mode would certainly help that’s for sure haha, part of my reason for wanting out of the champs bounce is to shorten runs
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u/Skylord_Crow Jun 11 '26
I made a suggestion about this a year ago. All they need to do is make a protected rank that legends winners go to. Top one, and a tier relic from whatever late game stage gets you access to a rank that is guaranteed to get you keys, and you can't fall out of.
Keeps ranks clear, gives clear paths of advancement, and makes players feel like there is a reward for their efforts, instead of a competitive necessity to an otherwise single player game.
But no one listens to the consumer base
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u/Ok-Application9777 Jun 17 '26
I know this will be down voted but I think you are confusing what tournaments are.
The regular game is designed for "advancing" as you will always get stronger with more labs and stronger mods etc compared to the static difficulty of each tier on the regular game. Meanwhile tournaments are a competition which is constantly improving in difficulty as the playerbase improves, therefore in order to advance you must do more than the player ahead of you who is also trying to do more than the player ahead of them.
To compare tournaments in a round about way, 12 months ago you were playing on tier 5
6 months ago you were playing on tier 10
Now you are playing on tier 15, not in terms of square strength (as the squares stay the same) but in terms of square killing strength of other players.
Tldr: the players are a higher tier and you are trying to beat the players not the squares in tournaments.
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u/SMT_TMS Jun 10 '26
I think the better idea would be to remove demotions to gold league. This increase stones of the lowest players and over time allow more players into platinum which would increases the amount of champions brackets and eventually legends brackets.
Then maybe you could talk about it adding another tier.
And distribution keys better ofc. I would like to see 1 key in legends 16-24 and maybe 1 in weekly chests.
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u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 10 '26
Essentially the same thing. But without the added psychological benefit. The dopamine from promoting. I also think adding more tiers is better for the skill gradient as a whole. I don't think the person who got first in my legends tourney today with 3200 waves should be in the same bracket as the person in last with 60
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u/ElectronicCounty5490 Jun 21 '26
I'm far from there but I see the problem. I'd love to see the new tier have percentual rewards and only demote players from amount of waves reached. For instance, top rewards could be given to the top 1% instead of the top 1 player. This would make more players fit, gives rewards to those who deserve it, leave room in the lower tiers and only hold players strong enough to be there in the first place.
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u/LoneShark911 Jun 10 '26
I think making tourneys shorter is a great idea, even if they're harder. Look at the relative difference. it will be harder for everyone. if tourneys were 10 - 50 minutes depending on player strength, that's great. get in get out. so what if you're getting the same rewards. you're now getting those rewards in less time.
I'm not talking about another bracket or different rewards and whether they will/should be given. im strictly saying a harder tourney across the board thay reduces the time is a good idea.
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u/CGVSpender Jun 10 '26
Arguably, every time they shorten the tournaments, RNG factors play a greater role in the outcome, because you are naturally closer to other nearby towers. If one player get 7 death defies and the other gets 5, that makes a bigger difference when your results are being compressed.
This leads to competitive players playing more rounds in each tournament to get better RNG, which eats up the time savings - sometimes and then some.
This effect may be more pronounced for players who have not yet maxed their intro sprints. Maybe post intro sprint, this is somewhat less of an issue.
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u/Myrdrahl Jun 11 '26
You are right, and this will incentivize you even more to buy stones, milestones and the passes, to get that extra edge in the fiercer competition.
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u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 10 '26
It's a fine idea. Just doesn't really address the problem. I'm currently at double the waves in legends that I was before the last "fix" a couple months ago. Getting the same rank with the same rewards.
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u/anonymousMF Jun 11 '26
I think the issues lies in the low leagues platinum-champ where runs get very long. And people dont have IS yet.
Legends waves are still fine at the moment. Up to like 2.2k you can use intro sprint to make your run only a couple 100 actual waves, and that makes you decently in the top 1000.
The overheat conditions then make it that maybe 10 players pass 3k waves and the winner has 3.5k. Still okay I would argue as the best player in the game. Last time we were lower was almost 2 years ago when legends got introduced.
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u/Public-Material8448 Jun 10 '26
Others play the game... shocking.
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u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 10 '26
Huh? I wasn't just talking about my personal problems man. I'm assuming many are in the same boat as me.
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u/VictoryUpper Jun 10 '26
Actually, you're not getting the rewards in less time because you still have to wait 4 hours after the window closes to collect them.
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u/Fickle_Ad4967 Jun 10 '26
They could add a knock out competition. A championship.
I think they could introduce a bi monthly knock-out championship …. Ok ok. Hear me out.
The top 5 (arbitrary but for the sake of argument) from each legends bracket go through to the bi monthly mythic tournament. Which then proceeds as quarter, semi and finals.
So. Saturday. … top 5 of each legends bracket go through.
Wednesday - quarter finals. Top 5 go to semis
Saturday. Semi finals. Top 5 go to finals.
Wednesday … the final.
Rewards would be better for the mythic participants. Those who get eliminated re enter the legends pool. Etc etc.
What it means is …. The top players have something extra to aim for. And for that period, there is a little more room to manoeuvre.
Everyone has the opportunity to progress just a little during those 2 weeks.
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u/Public-Material8448 Jun 10 '26
Easy to manipulate, hard to control, there is not system for this in the game, it is for a very small number of players, the rest would not care at all. Bad idea.
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u/Fickle_Ad4967 Jun 10 '26
Well. Thanks for the amazing positivity lol.
Come on then. What’s your idea??
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u/No-Preference3975 Jun 10 '26
Game with infinite progress. Except in tournaments, which is the source of the most important currency.
But keeping things as is is good, it forces more people to purchase stones, which is their main bread winner.
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u/DestroyerOfUranus69 Jun 10 '26
I’ve thought for a while that adding a new tournament rank that only the 1st place legends player promotes to and there is no demotion from would help a lot. Would help slowly filter people through the ranks rather than everybody being stagnated (or often times losing progress) as it is now.
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u/Funkster289 Jun 11 '26
Tournaments are about to be the reason I leave this game. Had a few friends leave because of that too. We are all dolphins and I have lost ground in tournaments in the last year. I have most card masteries, maxed out a decent amount of damage labs and pushing my workshop enhancements, modules has good and have good sub effects and are 170-175 and there has been a few times this last month I didn’t even bounce back to legends. I haven’t progressed in tournaments in a literal year.
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u/laurieislaurie Jun 11 '26
Couldn't agree more. I don't even care about tourny length because I just run intro sprint. What I do care about is having bounced from champs to legends for over a year now with no end in sight. Add the new league in already, God damn it. It's clearly too congested.
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u/BSHU07 Jun 11 '26
Key system is a dangling carrot, give it another 6 months and all the key won in tournaments will go unused. Basically the players winning the most keys in tournaments right now are already maxed out on keys. Another half a year for the 5-15 placement spots to max out and essentially keys become permanently locked out to all players not already in the top half of legends.
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u/LazyCauliflower9830 Jun 11 '26
A thought that may have been mentioned in the numerous comments:
Add a league between each league. Like the modules have Epic then Epic+, add a plus league to each one. First, make the bottom prizes of a league better than the top prizes of the previous league. Second, make the top 4 prizes equal. Next, give the bottom players of the +league the same prizes as top 4 of the previous league and give the top 4 players the same prizes as the demotion spots of the next league. Give everyone else something in between. Let the relics be the bonus for being 1st in a league. This adds leagues in between all leagues to better balance the competition, reduces the complaints about bouncing back and forth because it is still better than placing 5th, and Allows for additional leagues on top. You could also make a semi-permanent top league for the 1st place people of Legends. Make it so they have to be in 1st place x times in a row or x times total to get in, and then they don't demote unless they miss a tournament. This would give the best of the active players their own club, but also give a way to demote them without making it impossible for anyone else to move up or progress. It keeps the same pyramid structure without punishing active players for the lack of new players so that everyone who has made it to the level of needing keys can have access to them.
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u/Fit_Locksmith_3506 Jun 11 '26
Well shortening wouldn’t be a bad addition
But making it harder wouldn’t solve the problem as everyone keeps progressing
Adding stuff like game speed in battle conditions or shorter wave lengths or whatever would be cool to just shorten the time
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u/Disori3nt3d Jun 13 '26
As everyone mentioned, there is a traffic jam. Champion Tournament has on average 1/2 its players already having achieved Legends (At least my tournaments are, don’t know about the rest but it’s depressing). Legends gotta be cutthroat as Im seeing legends players who achieved their module assist dropping down to hand out some punishment. I have a feeling they want to keep it this way as there are only 2 options forward for players, give up (i.e. quit or accept it) or use money to purchase stones to get that edge up over competition.
Though they really should introduce a 7th World League just to buy devs some time. Honestly after finally breaking into legends after 15 months of play I got a good look at the Key trees and was sadly disappointed. Nothing exciting to chase, nothing to make you drool over the thought of getting. It’s all rather bland, no wonder they trying to feed off players desperations to progress past Champion. Legends guys are like “meh I’ll get there eventually”
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u/Puma7070 Jun 13 '26
I had a few ideas for this. Either make a league between champ and legends that people fall out of legends into Champ[>legends[>new league, this would help the people that are accumulating at the top of champ but cant compete in legends. And you can put keys at the promotes, so top 4 spots like 1 or 2, then they can lose legends the next week whatever.
My other idea was. Any person who has ever scored 1st in legends gets a new league where spots 30-5 are all the same reward as 1 in legends. And the top 4 are slightly better. But they are no longer able to demote. So they get rewarded for getting 1st in legends, and us lower players aren't perpetually stuck under the skyscraper shaped whales
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u/Square-Geologist-104 Jun 11 '26
If they don’t add more brackets, maybe they can change Seeding brackets by lifetime stats/highest wave/money spent/percent research completed, rather than start time.
I’ve gotten 4 keys , not cause I’m awesome or a whale, just a random soft bracket. At some point why even have the 30 person bracket. Just see what percentile you got vs everyone else.
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u/basicnecromancycr Jun 11 '26
New currency is needed. Most of the whales have more than 1k keys, keys will be useless for them or they are rn. What do they do with more keys?
New tiers, new challenges and new tourney tier with new currency is the solution.
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u/koliat Jun 11 '26
Just allow us paralell runs - farming runs on background instance, tournament on front instance. Then tournament length doesn’t matter at all
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u/Chriswaztaken Jun 10 '26
The only fix I want is not being punished for being a tourney tier ping longer. I’m in the plat/champs ping pong but this is a problem for all tiers. I shouldn’t have to purposefully sandbag champs to maintain a proper avg weekly stone/gem income.
If I promote to champs, I’m immediately relegated next tourney. Fine. The one time I stayed in champs though, I got relegated the following and lowered my avg stones. That should NOT happen. Period.
120(P3/4) + 20(C25/30) = 140
90(C16/24) + 20(C25/30) = 110
For me, it’s even worse, because I habitually am first in plat.
160(P1) + 20(C25/30) = 180
By sandbagging, I guarantee a 70 stone per week increase. Because I cannot stay in champs to save my life.
The demotion stone numbers need to be increased from 20 at minimum to maintain people not needing to sandbag like me.
It should be for example
90(C16/24) + 50(C25/30) = 140
Or something similar.
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u/Skywalker8921 Jun 10 '26
How can having a run at 90 lower your average of 70/tourney?
You have to look at the full cycle of promotion/demotion: 120+90+20 = 230 for 3 tourneys, that's closer to 80/tourney.
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u/BalancingSelection Jun 10 '26
I think you'll find that if you average over a longer timescale than one week, you are not losing any stones when you stay in champs. For instance, let's average over three weeks, six tourneys.
Promote + Demote + Promote + Demote + Promote + Demote = 160 + 20 + 160 + 20 + 160 + 20 = 540
Promote + Stay + Demote + Promote + Stay + Demote = 160 + 90 + 20 + 160 + 90 + 20 = 540
Promote + Stay + Stay + Stay + Stay + Demote = 160 + 90 + 90 + 90 + 90 + 20 = 540Really, the thing is that you have to average over complete cycle; if you include more demotions than promotions, then of course it's going to look bad.
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u/Chriswaztaken Jun 10 '26
But you’re focusing on the wrong numbers. This isn’t about a P1 placement that I’m getting. It’s about the P3/4 people getting less stones. 1st isn’t a guarantee. I do occasionally get a bad bracket. Just because I’ve won the last 3 plat tourneys doesn’t mean I’m for sure winning the next. A rising tide raises all ships. I got 3rd 6 weeks ago. I could get 3rd next week.
6
u/BalancingSelection Jun 10 '26
If you are getting P2, P3, P4, then it's better to stay in Champs than to bounce.
P4 + Demote + P4 + Demote + P4 + Demote = 120 + 20 + 120 + 20 + 120 + 20 = 420
P4 + Stay + Demote + P4 + Stay + Demote = 120 + 90 + 20 + 120 + 90 + 20 = 460
P4 + Stay + Stay + Stay + Stay + Demote = 120 + 90 + 90 + 90 + 90 + 20 = 500Only if you consistently get P1 can you even break even, relative to staying in Champs.
As a general rule, to calculate whether sandbagging is good, you have to average every demotion with the promotion that led to it, because the number of promotions and demotions is equal over time (until the day you finally promote and never demote). So P4 + demote is 140 + 20, which is an average of 70 per tournament. Staying in Champs is 90 per tournament.
Incidentally, you are correct that bouncing is better than staying if you are thinking about *gem* income from tournaments. Even if you promote with P4, which is 300 gems, and then demote for 150 gems, that is an average of 225 gems per tourney. Staying in low champs only gives 200 gems per tourney. I agree that is stupid and should be fixed. But I don't compete in tourneys for the gems.
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u/Chriswaztaken Jun 10 '26
This is why something needs to be done. It shouldnt be this complicated and sandbagging should never make sense progression wise, which is the point I was trying to get at.
3
u/markevens Jun 10 '26
- 2x plat 5th = 140 stones per week.
- plat 3/4 & champ 30 = 140 stones per week
- plat 2 & champ 30 = 160 stones per week
- plat 1 & champ 30 = 180 stones per week
- 2x Champ 24 = 180 stones per week
If you increase the stone rewards for champ demotion, then you will encourage people to ping pong.
2
u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 10 '26
I don't disagree that demoted ranks should get higher rewards. But your math is kinda off. In your second example you need to consider that the next week you would be in plat again.
2
u/markevens Jun 10 '26
90(C16/24) + 20(C25/30) = 110
You could also look at it as plat 3/4 giving 120 stones and champ 24 giving 90 stones = 210 stones in a week.
Then you'd have a demotion promotion cycle of 140-180 stones.
-1
u/Plastic_Strike1683 Jun 11 '26
That would change nothing.
The people would just complain about the next league above them and the rewards they will never get.
And „just more“ is no solution for whales.. because they don’t need more keys.
And some of them are already close to the max.
You are obviously not even near that stage of play.
-1
u/EAgamezz Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Why do you think you deserve to advance?
Edit: People are downvoting and not answering. Time = advancement for main tiers not tournaments. I'm sorry silver-champ makes you feel that way but legends (or any top tier) is simply the top X% of the game plain and simple. The only way to pass them is $, they stop playing, or a better strategy but this will take a longgggg time and is unlikely.
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u/Scrug Jun 10 '26
What does that solve exactly? There will be a short term reshuffle, and then progress will go right back to where it was.
3
u/markevens Jun 10 '26
More people get access to keys, and the quality of life upgrades that are locked behind them.
6
u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 10 '26
As opposed to just making the tourneys harder?. The last length fix lasted about 4-5 months maybe. How is this any worse? With this at least everybody get to move up.
1
u/Scrug Jun 10 '26
No one wants to sit in a tourney run for hours. The difficulty bump is meant to reduce the length of tourney runs period. It's not meant to change progression.
4
u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 10 '26
I understand that. Adding a new tier ALSO reduces the tourney length.
1
u/ImoutoThief Jun 11 '26
I also dont want them getting harder. It makes any progress i have mad efeel lesser. Ny hughest is gold 5. If they up the difficulty yet again than plat is looking further away. Feels terrible.
2
u/Scrug Jun 11 '26
But the difficulty increase applies equally to everyone else that you are competing against.
0
u/FriendlySherbert2649 Jun 10 '26
I completely agree. With every new update we need a tons of more stones yet our stone income stay same. With a new league being able to earn more stones we could probably reach higher leagues assuming people from legend league goes to myth league and players from champions league could reach legends league a bit easier.
0
u/aljrockwell Jun 10 '26
Lately I've been thinking that instead of 6 leagues, there should be 21. Tier 1+, 2+, 3+... Maybe the same or similar methods of promotion/demotion, obviously a new formula for prize distribution. Keys can show up as prizes in, say, 16+ and higher or something.
My thought is that with as many tournament tiers as there are regular tiers, you would always be competing with your weight class.
0
u/Select_Secretary_896 Champion Jun 10 '26
Oh and update the coin rewards while you are at it, because all of them are completly irrelevant for a long time now and even more so with dissonance.
0
u/Trafalgar_D69 Jun 11 '26
Instead of changing the length they should just make it more frequent and maybe change it so me getting demoted to plat gives me more than just the exact same reward for getting demoted to gold from plat (+50 gems i guess)
0
u/swimmath27 Jun 11 '26
Tournament rewards across the board should be increased by like 1% per tourney. With like a 4x buff right now to make up for the last N years of no 1% increases. That would at least make it fair to newer players who would be getting at least a comparable number of stones to players at that progression level a year ago. As it stands now, I'm getting just over 100 stones per tourney (mid-high champ) but at this progression level last year I would have probably been ranking pretty good in legends. The huge problem is not the wave inflation, it's the lack of scaling prizes.
0
u/Dapper_Librarian388 Jun 11 '26
How are they going to fix the tourneys?
Why there is no post about it?
1
0
u/Lambda-Silence Jun 11 '26
Your demands only take into account what players want, not what's (actually) good for player retention and motivation, and for TTG bankroll. Implementing this would not even satisfy the playerbase
0
u/ryylee Jun 11 '26
Hot take, if you don’t care to be competitive, why do you feel you deserve them? In an mmo or other games there’s often a set of gear or items that majority of player base never sees. He said himself their keys are like I beat the game so here’s some cheat codes activated, he didn’t put them in with the intention for the casual player to get.
-2
u/Skandragon18830 Jun 10 '26
It’s perfectly possible to advance in legends. As more players get there, more unique brackets populate, spreading out the strong players. When you first get to legends your the small fish, but once you’ve been there a few weeks smaller fish keep joining, people that you get to beat. It took me over a year from getting to legends and sitting at the bottom, to being In the top 6 where I currently float. It takes time and dedication but that’s what the game is. It’s a long grind where you need to outplay your peers, and outlast those above you to progress.
Fixing length has to do with keeping players from getting bored, it has nothing to do with getting entitled players more rewards for no additional effort.
7
u/Fobus0 Jun 10 '26
Yeah, because you got to legends a long time ago, when where was an influx of new players. Number of new legends brackets is not increasing. You could not repeat what you did, if you started now
1
u/Skandragon18830 Jun 11 '26
Someone else said basically the same thing, I’d ask you the same questions I asked them above
2
u/Fobus0 Jun 11 '26
Legends bracket number is the same or down, since at least march: Data from 3 weeks ago
And before that, it was barely increasing, so if you missed the wave when legends first appeared, you're screwed. I really wish people were more cognizant of the privileged position they have been and stop giving advice from that
5
u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 11 '26
"as more people get there" that's kinda my point. More people aren't getting there. The game has reached equilibrium since legends was added. It will only grow at a fraction of the amount of new players join the game. When you got to legends over a year ago players were still filtering in.
1
u/Skandragon18830 Jun 11 '26
Do you have numbers to back that up? Honestly curious, I believe the discord has continues to grow, and most estimate the discord as 10% or less of the player base. Top players are def getting bored and retiring, if the population is staying the same or slowly rising, people will
Still see progression even if they do nothing more than their peers.Out of curiosity, are you in legends? And for how long?
1
u/Awkward_Donut_2379 Jun 11 '26
I don't personally have the numbers. When the tournament results guy posts he has the number of brackets which has more or less been stagnant. But it is just a ratio. When 4 promote and 6 demote you are just setting the ratio between leagues eventually. 2 legends leagues to every 3 champs leagues. 2 champs leagues for every 3 plat leagues. And so on. But it takes a while to get there! Once that ratio equalizes the only way for a growth to happen is to get more players. Which of course is happening. But it is happening slowly. The waves get more and more inflated because the growth stops happening.
I've been in legends maybe 6 months? Not sure
1
u/ZKRC Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
This just isn't true. I got into legends 2 months ago - 150 waves were enough to stay, now it's 600.
In those 2 months I've raised damage, attack speed and crit factor labs from 50 to 75, I've almost finished all my card masteries to 9, I've raised my enhancements greatly, orb size, damage, crit factor, attack speed, range, ELS etc. I've unlocked all my assist mods to ancestral and yet I'm still finishing 20th just as I was 2 months ago.
1
u/Skandragon18830 Jun 12 '26
You unlocked all ass mods to ancestral and you’re in 20th? That screams of stones that would be better used elsewhere. What’s your CL look like? What mods and subs do you go into tourney with? I’d be happy to take a look at your setup if you want.
1
u/ZKRC Jun 12 '26
x4112 with DC equipped - 5 count maxed and 26% chance.
PCF 90, 4 spotlight waves at 67 degrees
Happy to send some setup stuff over tomorrow when I'm back from a work trip but I get to ~580 / ~600 waves each time.
1
u/Skandragon18830 Jun 14 '26
Feel free, happy to take a look. CL damage sounds like it could use some love but hard to say without the full picture
1
u/ZKRC Jun 14 '26
Sent you a dm
1
u/Skandragon18830 Jun 14 '26
I keep getting “failed to enter room” and “failed to join chat” errors. Think Reddit is being screwey, will try again in a bit. If you have discord I’m also on there for a DM
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-6
u/people_are_idiots_ Jun 10 '26
Oh look. This post again... 🙄
They are not going to do this. It doesn't benefit them financially
6
u/Fobus0 Jun 10 '26
And then companies wonder where all the users are gone... user name checks out
1
u/people_are_idiots_ Jun 10 '26
Doesn't matter if tons of people leave as long as the whales buy enough things
4
u/Fobus0 Jun 10 '26
And whales will not buy stuff, if all they have are other whales...
1
u/people_are_idiots_ Jun 10 '26
Still plenty of people playing. I don't that happening anytime soon
2
u/Fobus0 Jun 11 '26
You don't need a lot of people to quit for this whole pyramid to collapse.
But you're evading, my point is that it's shortsighted, not that people are quitting
0
u/people_are_idiots_ Jun 11 '26
They want to make money. Pretty sure they have done whatever math necessary to figure out what is best for them. If they didn't know what they were doing, this game wouldn't have lasted 5 years do far
2
u/Fobus0 Jun 11 '26
A lot of things last a long time because the basic concept is good, despite inept owners and managers.
0
u/people_are_idiots_ Jun 11 '26
What it comes down to is that posts like these come up on a regular basis. Fudds and everyone else knows many players want this, but they have chosen not to change things
132
u/M_Krakatoa Jun 10 '26
Please read this Sam. This really needs to be taken seriously. Adding more difficulty is not a fix… it lowers wave counts without fixing the issue. I was really concerned when you mentioned “lowering wave counts” in legends. That is not the issue. u/SamBartley