Pipped at the post.
I don't know the last time I finished in the top 25 of the Modern Leaderboard, but with less than ten minutes to go before the end of season when maintenance also kicked in, I saw I was tied with three others on 4960 points, last of the three and in 26th position, as I have played a lot more games than they have. So, since there is no point in being the first loser, I chose to play one more round to see if I could leapfrog into 24th and claim a T25 slot.
Success!
Sadly, there are only three player-owner accounts in the T25, with the rest being scholared accounts. The points totals are tighter now because of the new scoring system where it is possible to gain/lose 20/40/60 points depending on the points gap between battlers, but there is still a significant gap.
As I mentioned the other day, I would like to see some significant incentive for people to play their own accounts so that there are benefits to remain active, knowledgeable, and skilled in the game itself. I would also like to see that tournaments are only played by account owners, rather than the winners primarily being scholars. If you don't have time to battle, fine. If you don't have time to play a tournament, don't.
Imagine if I entered in amateur and semi-pro tennis tournaments but had Jannik Sinner play in my name. Not only that Jannik Sinner was also playing in a few other people's names also. Makes a bit of a mockery of the tournament, right?
Is there no domain where people won't take the easy way?
Anyway, unless one of the other two above retook me just before the 5-minute grey out prior to the end of the season, it means that I happily landed into the T25 and will get a little extra glint for the trouble. That is pretty meaningless, isn't it? But for me I still like to succeed against those who are only looking to maximize. And I reckon if more people played rather than having a scholar or a bot do all the work for them, they would become more engaged with the community also, and perhaps be a part of building it, rather than levelling it.
Just my opinion though.
Many in the game don't agree with me and quite like all the automation so they don't have to actually spend much time on it. Many seem to prefer it not to be a game as much as a tool to use, but in my opinion, if the fun of the game itself is lost, then the game is lost and the tool fails. And when a player like me is mostly competing against the maximisers, it does get a little depressing.
“It's not that they don't love to win, it's that they don't hate to lose”
Shoresy
Gaming should have an emotional element to it, like sport. But when people aren't even playing the game themselves and probably are rarely watching any of it, there is no emotion. At the end of the season they might look at the place their scholar got them, or their earnings, but there is no journey, no emotional ups and downs of winning and losing. So for those accounts that are so used to being in the T25, the only time they are going to "feel the loss" is when they aren't there, or are missing out on something that only account players can have.
Game design is a slice of behavioural design.
For a lasting game, the incentives need to align for it.
Taraz
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