THIS! Exactly this... Every new thing wizards has done has been "the worst thing ever!??!!" Does the game survive? Yes. Do people adapt? Yes. Is the game going to keep going if all of the QQ'ers here stop playing? Yes. Will these QQ'ers actually quit? No. It's just people *****in cause things are changing...
I remember people's reactions to M10 rules changes. You know, the sky was falling and we all were doomed. And now I see that everyone has adapted to the "battlefield", "exiled" and the new combat damage rules.
Trust me, no one even will remember this discussion in two months and everyone will be perfectly fine with this system.
As a judge I shudder in complete horror.
I have nightmares of a Grand Prix with such a high multiplier that no one drops from Day 1,thus having to maintain 700+ tables for 9+ rounds.
The horror...the horror!!!!
I kinda hate how the multiplier system works out. The games stores in my area each holds standard tournaments on different days. The Friday location gets a huge boost because it has the 3x FNM mulitplier and the other ones get the shaft. FNM friday used to be worth less as it was 8k instead of 16k. Now it is worth more. Worse yet for people who work on Fridays and can't make the FNMs. They will fall drastically behind.
LOL @ all the "What? I won this big tourney once or twice and got like thousands of points that show how pro I am, even if I don't really play that much! Why should all the n00bs that keep playing outrank me? I should be enthroned for life for my past victories!"
I'm calling it right now- worst rare in the set. Even good limited players will find better bombs at common and uncommon no sweat. Worst. Episode. Ever.
I really do predict this to be our worst rare in set award winner. I'd be happier opening a jar of eyeballs, so I think anything worse is highly unlikely. This card wont just have zero constructed potential, but not be significantly better than a mass of ghouls in a draft.
As for everyone that wants the "legends" to still qualify without having to play, you are short sighted
This offers a chance for new blood every season and discourages the stagnatation that the old system encouraged
If these people just use their past to qualify for major tournaments, they aren't benefiting anyone.
As for the lifetime points, they are not relevant in evualating play skill, so don't try to use them for something they aren't intended for.
And yes, skill should not be the only determining factor of pro-level events.
And if this drives away "part-time" elite players, oh well, makes room for the people that make this game grow, the "grinders".
And I don't get how you think that this is going to change anything, if one Grand Prix a month is equal to 5 or 6 large FNM's then that player would have to be traveling in time to attain that many points, and he deserves to play at the PT for figuring out time travel.
And if someone is going to "grind" FNM's every week and play in every major tournament possible, I think that they deserve a seat at the PT over someone that plays in one GP or PTQ, then doesn't play again until the PT.
What is it with everyone that is worried about people "endlessly" grinding events, do they have access to time travel or something?
For example, does a team that made the playoffs for their sport 5 seasons ago still get an "automatic" bid at the next playoffs? No? Why not? Because they have to play that season to qualify for that seasons playoffs (Pro Tour)!! It's akin to when you hear "that's the reason you play the game.", you never know what's going to happen.
Lastly, why don't we hold judgment until we see how the system works?
As someone who's combined rating is 1876, I can say I'm not exactly happy with this change, but I can still see the positive in the changes being made. There have been times where I was reluctant to play in smaller local drafts and standard events because even going 4-1 will result in an overall loss in rating, and being so close to a bye bubble tends to make a more serious player a little choosy with the events they play in.
With the new changes, it's going to be a lot more of a grind-fest for 4 months out of the year, then coasting the rest of the time with the byes you earn. What that translates to is with every new season, newer players and worse (ranked) players get a fresh chance to earn their byes while those that already earned them will be enjoying their larger events. The only real downside is that initial reset that affects players such as myself who have earned themselves byes or invitations, which has been softened by Wizards by allowing players to maintain their ratings privileges for the rest of the year.
As a judge I shudder in complete horror.
I have nightmares of a Grand Prix with such a high multiplier that no one drops from Day 1,thus having to maintain 700+ tables for 9+ rounds.
The horror...the horror!!!!
I'm kinda scared to see how this turns out as well. Considering no one will need or even want to Drop from a high multiplier event.
In fact, I could go 0-2 (or 0-3), get into the 'losers' brackets and win out... Earning just as many points as would the guy that played upper level tables all day.
Phenomenal players like Paul Rietzl or guys who take breaks have no chance at qualifying on rating.
But the guy who lives next to an FNM that gets 100 people per week does.
Wizards won't get a dollar of my money until this is fixed. I'll borrow cards much more than I already do.
"I'm a Battlemage!" Lame.
Way to throw out credibility for dollars.
"ELO doesn't work due to variance." Why don't we throw it out and stop tracking skill altogether...
Maybe you should read before you post... even if he does take a break, he has a chance during the next season to qualify again. He should have to earn. How many professionals (which is what these "phenomenal players" are at this level) come back the next season and get their playing time back immediately? That's right, they have to EARN it, which makes that player (and team and sport, which this basically is, it is a team sport at it's core) better.
i'm not in love with the new system....
I can already see a few guys that i beat regularly and that are way ahead of me, just because they played much more tournaments...
i don't like the fact that the rating is linked to how many times you play and not to your skills. i had a rating of 1800 in limited by playing at draft on thirsdays where 1 loss in the night was equal to a loss in rating overall... i earned my rating, and i'm not happy seeing that mark going away.
Now i understand the fact that some players just sitted on theyr rating and that something had to be done. perhaps not that way...
Time will tell.
Once again, read before you post. Just because they have more lifetime points then you doesn't say anything about their play skill, they (lifetime points) are not relevant in evualating play skill, so don't try to use them for something they aren't intended for.
I'm kinda scared to see how this turns out as well. Considering no one will need or even want to Drop from a high multiplier event.
In fact, I could go 0-2 (or 0-3), get into the 'losers' brackets and win out... Earning just as many points as would the guy that played upper level tables all day.
I don't see this as a problem though. The point of playing in an event is to play until the end. Most other games I played at a competitive level had prizes all the way down at most tournaments, even if it was just a pack, but you didn't get any prizes unless you were there at the last round.
In fact if was looked down on if you dropped,even if you were doing poorly, because you sill affected other players tiebreakers.
I'll stop before I digress into a rant on intentional drawing being bad, but anything that encourages players to actually play all their rounds is a good thing in my opinion.
There's really only 2 things I'm not happy about with this:
1. The FNM bonus is too big. Like others, I live in an area where my local shops were good at not scheduling conflicts. One was Thursday night standard, the other was FNM. FNM got foils, TNM got higher rating value. Now...
2. 1 point for draws. I think it should be 0 points for a draw, because you didn't defeat your opponent. Not losing =/= winning, or doing anything worth a point gain.
I still do not disagree on the lifetime point system (besides everything sounding really lame and is designed to evoke a 'WOWGEEZ' effect out of newer and younger players), because, as already pointed out, the only thing it tracks is, how many games you´ve spammed.
Someone can play local FNM´s only (and perform horribly every time), but if they continue doing so for some years, they eventually manage to grind up to 40.000 points.
I´m really sad now that there´s no number from which you can have at least a glance on any players performance, I´d really appreciate if WotC would still keep the ELO rating, but use the mentioned quarterly rotating point system for invitations and such things.
TL;DR the lifetime point system is just really, really, really really lame. The rotating invitation system is fine.
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"Petals within petals within petals, tadpole. The truth lurks below an opulence of illusion."
—Neerdiv, fallowsage
Aside from the somewhat corny names ( and i still kinda like them i mean how would you name the tiers noob, semi pro? and pimp pro? what about brotha walker or chuck norris) the system envisioned seems to do eliminate the competitive players gripe on FNM being a point sucking organism to their hard earned greatness so now they can finally lose and not care about it.
The system is great (aside from the top 8 glitch mentioned earlier, please fix it soon) and will eventually prove its worth by giving new recruits a stick to better measure progress as they age on this game.
I was looking at the results for competitive points for 04/11->08/28 (filtered by my state) and the couple-three local players I know are good are pretty much all on the first page (all in the top 50 out of 8.5k players). Which is what I would expect.
I don't really consider myself "good" (I usually go 2-2 or 3-2, with an occasional 3-1 or 4-1 and an occasional 0-2 drop at FNMs, depending on how many rounds they're running), but I somehow managed to be somewhere in the top 250 players in my state over that time frame. I played in pretty much every FNM at my LGS. Not sure how I feel about that, it's like I'm higher than I think I ought to be in some ways.
I'd like to be able to see something that I could track that would more directly correlate to skill level (match win %? total_points / total_multiplier?), because I'm trying hard to get better and it'd be nice to have a quantifiable basis to track that - even if it doesn't have any effect on anything (The odds of my getting to a Pro Tour under either system are so miniscule as to be nonexistent, I just want to see if I'm doing better this month than last month, for instance, and the multiplier hoses up just using the number in a particular time frame for that).
I'd like to be able to see something that I could track that would more directly correlate to skill level (match win %? total_points / total_multiplier?), because I'm trying hard to get better and it'd be nice to have a quantifiable basis to track that - even if it doesn't have any effect on anything (The odds of my getting to a Pro Tour under either system are so miniscule as to be nonexistent, I just want to see if I'm doing better this month than last month, for instance, and the multiplier hoses up just using the number in a particular time frame for that).
A nice sentiment, but quoting the Wizards Planeswalker Points FAQ:
"You also get the satisfaction of knowing that your skills are increasing at the same time as your level is advancing."
So now, when great players (who shall go unnamed) sign up for events at GPs and my friend (who shall go unnamed) beats them at Legacy, TWICE, said friend doesn't earn as many rating points based on the caliber of player he beat, TWICE?
I'm not sure I like it.
Also I'm hoping they will make the search functions and filters easier to use and more location specific. We'll see. We like bragging rights at my LGS and local region. Or at least some of us do....
EDIT: Also I have to disagree with Evin from the first few posts. Significant =/= good.
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Huge change, not sure if I'm happy with it. They could have done something in between 'Completely based on who you beat/lose against' and 'How much magic you play', surely.
I think the new rating system is an overall good change.
I personally drop around 150 spots on my national ranking list (from around 40-50 to around 200), because I haven't played in any FNM for about 7 years minimum.
And that's also the only thing I don't like about this system. Why reward FNM with extra points? That's the casualest of all events imo. Prerelease's are far more competetive. And why reward people for playing on a friday instead of a tuesday for instance? Here in Copenhagen noone want to play magic on friday - they want to party on friday. So we basically don't even have FNM because the attendence was lower than 8 people. On the other hand we have like 50 people playing a tournament every tuesday.
So basically we are punished for playing on a tuesday instead of a friday. That's just stupid imo.
I went from an 1821 respectable if totally unimpressive constructed rating down to 1204. My hopes of getting byes in GP have gone from "in the foreseeable future as long as I just keep winning" to "I need to play another decade before I'll see squat". My friend had about 1750 and now has about 1730, because he's been playing longer than I have.
This system does quite the opposite from making it possible for newer players to get competitive: it makes it impossible. If you consistently won against higher rated players, then you would (deservingly) get to a higher rating than them and get closer to having a GP relevant rating. Now you have to play for years before getting there.
This system puts an insane barrier on entering competitive magic that has little to no baring on skill. Playing the highest rated players in my area at a PTQ and taking 9th is about 3 times as effective for me as going 3-0 in a random FNM. I've yet to hear a single legitimate argument in favor of this system.
I went from an 1821 respectable if totally unimpressive constructed rating down to 1204. My hopes of getting byes in GP have gone from "in the foreseeable future as long as I just keep winning" to "I need to play another decade before I'll see squat". My friend had about 1750 and now has about 1730, because he's been playing longer than I have.
This system does quite the opposite from making it possible for newer players to get competitive: it makes it impossible. If you consistently won against higher rated players, then you would (deservingly) get to a higher rating than them and get closer to having a GP relevant rating. Now you have to play for years before getting there.
This system puts an insane barrier on entering competitive magic that has little to no baring on skill. Playing the highest rated players in my area at a PTQ and taking 9th is about 3 times as effective for me as going 3-0 in a random FNM. I've yet to hear a single legitimate argument in favor of this system.
Have you even read the rules??? Try to go back and look on them again. You've misunderstood more than a few important things.
Love the concept of this, saddened by a 'level cap' at the end of it. But hey, I'll take what I can get. Hopefully more will come with this beyond a new way to show off that you both play a lot of magic and are good at it.
The level cap is nothing but sensible and well modeled, considering that there only currently exist 5 level 50s. If you were to model it a bit further, you would get:
Olivier Ruel would be the only 51 ever, with 65,187.
Considering how few are at that level, I don't think the level cap is problematic. That said, perhaps he could feasibly hit "52".
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A voice for Timmy.
Commander R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
I do like this new system even as I have put off playing in some events before to save my rating. HOWEVER, I have gone from 44th in the country (Total Rating) to 370th with PWP Rating.... THAT SUCKS!
I remember people's reactions to M10 rules changes. You know, the sky was falling and we all were doomed. And now I see that everyone has adapted to the "battlefield", "exiled" and the new combat damage rules.
Trust me, no one even will remember this discussion in two months and everyone will be perfectly fine with this system.
LE
EDIT: Will we have this system on MTGO as well?
I have nightmares of a Grand Prix with such a high multiplier that no one drops from Day 1,thus having to maintain 700+ tables for 9+ rounds.
The horror...the horror!!!!
I kinda hate how the multiplier system works out. The games stores in my area each holds standard tournaments on different days. The Friday location gets a huge boost because it has the 3x FNM mulitplier and the other ones get the shaft. FNM friday used to be worth less as it was 8k instead of 16k. Now it is worth more. Worse yet for people who work on Fridays and can't make the FNMs. They will fall drastically behind.
It was nice knowing how much worse I am at one format compared to another.
This offers a chance for new blood every season and discourages the stagnatation that the old system encouraged
If these people just use their past to qualify for major tournaments, they aren't benefiting anyone.
As for the lifetime points, they are not relevant in evualating play skill, so don't try to use them for something they aren't intended for.
And yes, skill should not be the only determining factor of pro-level events.
And if this drives away "part-time" elite players, oh well, makes room for the people that make this game grow, the "grinders".
And I don't get how you think that this is going to change anything, if one Grand Prix a month is equal to 5 or 6 large FNM's then that player would have to be traveling in time to attain that many points, and he deserves to play at the PT for figuring out time travel.
And if someone is going to "grind" FNM's every week and play in every major tournament possible, I think that they deserve a seat at the PT over someone that plays in one GP or PTQ, then doesn't play again until the PT.
What is it with everyone that is worried about people "endlessly" grinding events, do they have access to time travel or something?
For example, does a team that made the playoffs for their sport 5 seasons ago still get an "automatic" bid at the next playoffs? No? Why not? Because they have to play that season to qualify for that seasons playoffs (Pro Tour)!! It's akin to when you hear "that's the reason you play the game.", you never know what's going to happen.
Lastly, why don't we hold judgment until we see how the system works?
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My youtube channel:https://www.youtube.com/user/sslater22710
With the new changes, it's going to be a lot more of a grind-fest for 4 months out of the year, then coasting the rest of the time with the byes you earn. What that translates to is with every new season, newer players and worse (ranked) players get a fresh chance to earn their byes while those that already earned them will be enjoying their larger events. The only real downside is that initial reset that affects players such as myself who have earned themselves byes or invitations, which has been softened by Wizards by allowing players to maintain their ratings privileges for the rest of the year.
I'm kinda scared to see how this turns out as well. Considering no one will need or even want to Drop from a high multiplier event.
In fact, I could go 0-2 (or 0-3), get into the 'losers' brackets and win out... Earning just as many points as would the guy that played upper level tables all day.
[Developing] 430+ Peasant Cube Thread --- [and on Cube Cobra]
I 52nd this.
Phenomenal players like Paul Rietzl or guys who take breaks have no chance at qualifying on rating.
But the guy who lives next to an FNM that gets 100 people per week does.
Wizards won't get a dollar of my money until this is fixed. I'll borrow cards much more than I already do.
"I'm a Battlemage!" Lame.
Way to throw out credibility for dollars.
"ELO doesn't work due to variance." Why don't we throw it out and stop tracking skill altogether...
Playing: Jund, Melira Pod
Maybe you should read before you post... even if he does take a break, he has a chance during the next season to qualify again. He should have to earn. How many professionals (which is what these "phenomenal players" are at this level) come back the next season and get their playing time back immediately? That's right, they have to EARN it, which makes that player (and team and sport, which this basically is, it is a team sport at it's core) better.
Look for me on MTGO, sslater
Follow me on Twitter, @slatertheman
My youtube channel:https://www.youtube.com/user/sslater22710
Once again, read before you post. Just because they have more lifetime points then you doesn't say anything about their play skill, they (lifetime points) are not relevant in evualating play skill, so don't try to use them for something they aren't intended for.
Look for me on MTGO, sslater
Follow me on Twitter, @slatertheman
My youtube channel:https://www.youtube.com/user/sslater22710
I don't see this as a problem though. The point of playing in an event is to play until the end. Most other games I played at a competitive level had prizes all the way down at most tournaments, even if it was just a pack, but you didn't get any prizes unless you were there at the last round.
In fact if was looked down on if you dropped,even if you were doing poorly, because you sill affected other players tiebreakers.
I'll stop before I digress into a rant on intentional drawing being bad, but anything that encourages players to actually play all their rounds is a good thing in my opinion.
There's really only 2 things I'm not happy about with this:
1. The FNM bonus is too big. Like others, I live in an area where my local shops were good at not scheduling conflicts. One was Thursday night standard, the other was FNM. FNM got foils, TNM got higher rating value. Now...
2. 1 point for draws. I think it should be 0 points for a draw, because you didn't defeat your opponent. Not losing =/= winning, or doing anything worth a point gain.
Someone can play local FNM´s only (and perform horribly every time), but if they continue doing so for some years, they eventually manage to grind up to 40.000 points.
I´m really sad now that there´s no number from which you can have at least a glance on any players performance, I´d really appreciate if WotC would still keep the ELO rating, but use the mentioned quarterly rotating point system for invitations and such things.
TL;DR the lifetime point system is just really, really, really really lame. The rotating invitation system is fine.
—Neerdiv, fallowsage
The system is great (aside from the top 8 glitch mentioned earlier, please fix it soon) and will eventually prove its worth by giving new recruits a stick to better measure progress as they age on this game.
I don't really consider myself "good" (I usually go 2-2 or 3-2, with an occasional 3-1 or 4-1 and an occasional 0-2 drop at FNMs, depending on how many rounds they're running), but I somehow managed to be somewhere in the top 250 players in my state over that time frame. I played in pretty much every FNM at my LGS. Not sure how I feel about that, it's like I'm higher than I think I ought to be in some ways.
I'd like to be able to see something that I could track that would more directly correlate to skill level (match win %? total_points / total_multiplier?), because I'm trying hard to get better and it'd be nice to have a quantifiable basis to track that - even if it doesn't have any effect on anything (The odds of my getting to a Pro Tour under either system are so miniscule as to be nonexistent, I just want to see if I'm doing better this month than last month, for instance, and the multiplier hoses up just using the number in a particular time frame for that).
A nice sentiment, but quoting the Wizards Planeswalker Points FAQ:
"You also get the satisfaction of knowing that your skills are increasing at the same time as your level is advancing."
Honestly though, I agree with you.
I'm not sure I like it.
Also I'm hoping they will make the search functions and filters easier to use and more location specific. We'll see. We like bragging rights at my LGS and local region. Or at least some of us do....
EDIT: Also I have to disagree with Evin from the first few posts. Significant =/= good.
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I suppose I *could* look at it as 'I am 27 levels better than I was in February'
I personally drop around 150 spots on my national ranking list (from around 40-50 to around 200), because I haven't played in any FNM for about 7 years minimum.
And that's also the only thing I don't like about this system. Why reward FNM with extra points? That's the casualest of all events imo. Prerelease's are far more competetive. And why reward people for playing on a friday instead of a tuesday for instance? Here in Copenhagen noone want to play magic on friday - they want to party on friday. So we basically don't even have FNM because the attendence was lower than 8 people. On the other hand we have like 50 people playing a tournament every tuesday.
So basically we are punished for playing on a tuesday instead of a friday. That's just stupid imo.
But overall good change.
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This system does quite the opposite from making it possible for newer players to get competitive: it makes it impossible. If you consistently won against higher rated players, then you would (deservingly) get to a higher rating than them and get closer to having a GP relevant rating. Now you have to play for years before getting there.
This system puts an insane barrier on entering competitive magic that has little to no baring on skill. Playing the highest rated players in my area at a PTQ and taking 9th is about 3 times as effective for me as going 3-0 in a random FNM. I've yet to hear a single legitimate argument in favor of this system.
Have you even read the rules??? Try to go back and look on them again. You've misunderstood more than a few important things.
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Such as?
51 - 65,000
52 - 80,000
53 - 95,000
54 - 110,000
55 - 125,000
Olivier Ruel would be the only 51 ever, with 65,187.
Considering how few are at that level, I don't think the level cap is problematic. That said, perhaps he could feasibly hit "52".
Commander
R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control
GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock
WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
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