I have mentioned before about the issues over backwards sliding of players on the promotion ladder, and also read that many dont seem to think its a big thing, but I think its bigger than many realise. I play mainly at night for 3-4 hours, and havn't moved much at all promotion wise. I accept that but if you dont win because you are paired against players that may show the level the same as yours, they have actually been higher. 2 examples this last week are a level 18, was originally a level 0. They had just about a fulldeck and 4 fig wins. Another paired one was level 23, but had been a level 5, with the same cards and stats. All in all I have had about 30 such apponents over a week, and with just a handfull of wins against some true levels as I like to call them.
I also saw that there have been calls from some players wanting the dropped level points highered per month just so that they can indeed drop back down the promotion ladder quicker. This tells me that this isn't an occasional or accidental issue due to not playing, it is a planned issue, with players obviously running various accounts in order to let some rest and drop while playing others. It does seem that many players will intenionally drop for whatever reason. Some are obvious like building up decks and experience while staying at lower levels, but do they realise the damage they do to new players trying to play the game, and are persistantly beaten by better cards that will take a long time for them to get, and of course it slows the whole game down to a boring level for them when they need wins to move forward and gain cards.
A suggestion I have will to those players that I talk about go down like a lead weight is this....
There has to be a way to keep the game balanced and one suggestion would be that in the standard promotion ladder, once a players account reaches a set level, it cannot go backwards. This would serve to keep players at least on the level that they had reached with their cards and game knowledge. This will keep that group of players on a level within their own expertise, with no advantage over the lower players. If they wanted go back to a lower level they would have to start with another account, but at least it would be on a equal footing with newbies etc. All in all it would just mean that players couldn't be demoted, and the possible pool of players at each level would increase thus providing more players at an equal level in aspects of the game meaning a larger pool of apponents to play against.
In the pro league the demotion could still be the same as it is, but once demoted to the standard ladder again they would stay at level 0. Again they would be within their own experience level.
At the moment many new players are leaving because of this handicap, and I too am playing less than I was and also thinking of it being a waste of game time.
Thanks for reading...