Tournament times
Дата: 13.01.2020 18:15:58
CLRG: Hello TijgernootTank, Thanks for your feedback. First of
all, please be assured that I have been reading your posts
carefully, not just this one but the others as well in other
threads. I thought It would be important to answer at least this
one here, because I wouldn't want you to feel like you are
being ignored. On the contrary. To be very blunt, you are one of
the most negative voices on the tournament forum, and I care a
great deal about what you have to say. There is a
lot to talk about here, so first, let's clear out all your quick
questions. Yes, I have all the tournament stats regarding
the participation over the years, the rewards distributed etc.
I was also around at the time of the tournaments 2.0, all the
discussions around it, and I am well aware of all the formats we
have used over the years. So I understand all of your points in
detail. Also yes, the tournament scene matters to WoT. If
it didn't, it would have been discarded. However, you do have a
point. You have been around for a long time, and you have
observed that other game modes receive more love.Love in
this case is more rewards, more development features,
more manpower behind it. Why is that? Well, the tournament audience
is only a fraction of the overall audience. So obviously, there are
other popular game modes that legitimately concentrate more of
the efforts. But let's talk about the core of the
problem. The rewards, and the format. You already understand that I
cannot increase the rewards. If I could, then would the format
still be a problem? I would reward the group stage places, it would
potentially fix everything. But I can't increase the reward pool.
Right now, a Tier X tournament in 2v2 is 13600 gold distributed.
This is a fixed amount to the top 16 teams, it doesn't change. If
I'd reward the group stage, the gold would go to a fluctuating
amount of players depending on the number of registrations. I'm not
a mathematician, so bear with me for a minute as I run a rough
example. 
Say, I have 1000 players, I would need to
reward 500 (top 2 out of 4). It makes no sense to give them
only 10 gold (I bet you would hate me if I did ! ). I would have to at least give them 50
gold, maybe 25 for the second place. That's already 50x250,
and 25x250, so 18750 gold. Already more than the 13600 gold I
currently am able to give to the winners. Imagine if I'd allow
reserve players, I would have to take gold from the prize pool to
reward them, too. Why can I not just increase the
rewards? Well, it's a matter of gold
balance and obviously ultimately a matter of revenue for
the game. I don't need to remind you that WoT is a free to play
game - it can only exist if the players purchase gold. So the
amount of gold we give "for free" has to be controlled. And it is
being controlled with statistical data and analysis. It is not
enough to increase the rewards because "CLRG wants to make the
players happy". That definitely counts, for sure, but it's
simply not enough. I know your main talking point is always 2.0.
But before 2.0, the rewards were unfortunately not sustainable
for WoT. It may be unpleasant to hear (it was for me) but the 2.0
rework put the tournament scene in a state of
balance. As you pointed out, there are alternatives to
gold. You are correct, and I actually want to implement some of
them. There are a number of issues with that too though. Mainly,
implementing other types of rewards is most likely not going to be
"on top of the gold". It's going to be "instead of the gold". And
I'm not so sure you will want that. A lot of the players wouldn't
be happy if the gold turned into personal reserves and boosters,
and I'm not sure bonds would work either. Again - the value of the
bonds will probably mean some gold removed. Naturally, I would
prefer the bonds to be what you called "cosmetic extra". To give
you some juicy information, I would like to offer premium days as a
reward in the coming weeks, and if that works, bonds are on the
list soon after that, too. Now you mentioned the premium
tanks and the missions. For you they are just cosmetic extras. But
on my side, I simply call them extras. Because these are
actual rewards that are "on top of the gold". They represent "a
cost" that is fairly substantial. And even though to you they look
unattractive, the data shows that participation to the tournaments
has actually been extremely high whenever I ran those operations.
Even the missions are shaping out to be a big success in terms
of turnout. The rewards aren't amazing at all, but they give the
tournaments another purpose, bring in some new recruits, and
overall make the competitions appealing. For me it's all
very positive, and I am truly satisfied that I was able
to offer those events, especially the advent calendar
tournaments that lasted for several weeks. It gave the players so
many opportunities to get those nice tanks. I am glad that you
suggested "collecting points" as a means to followup on
performance over time, because it means we share the same vision
and expectations about the tournaments. This is something I have
wanted to explore for a long time, how great it would be to be able
to track the participation and performance of the teams over
time, and reward them accordingly. Needless to say, this is a topic
that has been on the table for a while, but it falls under the
current "needs a new feature" factor. This is one of the things
that may happen at some point, but not in the immediate
future. That's it for the negative side. The improvements in
terms of features are indeed slow to arrive. But one thing I want
to bring your attention to is how the tournaments have also
improved since 2.0. Just two years ago, we were able to run 9
tournaments per week. None of them on the weekend. Now, thanks to
new development features, we are able to run nearly 30, including
10 every weekend. We are also offering a variety of Tiers and team
sizes so you can play pretty much whenever you want. Even one year
ago, in January 2019, we weren't even running a half of what we run
now. The schedule has actually changed nearly every month as well,
and keeps improving too. So for the negative that you point
out, there is also in my opinion a lot of positive, that you are
not taking into account. I'm not sure if you will be
sensitive to all of the above or dismiss it as
flim-flam malarkey, but nevertheless, that's what it
is. It's difficult to give the players full honesty and at the
same time expect that the answers please them, you know. 
This is a longer answer than I
initially intended, and yet there is so much more to say. But
the bottom-line for now is that yes, I do think about the
tournament formats quite a bit. I just work within a
tight frame. But I definitely want to bring about new
things, and I am fully open to suggestions in that regard - if
you have ideas for formats that would be fun, bring a lot of
people without altering the reward balance, I would be
delighted to shamelessly steal your ideas make
them happen.
Say, I have 1000 players, I would need to
reward 500 (top 2 out of 4). It makes no sense to give them
only 10 gold (I bet you would hate me if I did ! ). I would have to at least give them 50
gold, maybe 25 for the second place. That's already 50x250,
and 25x250, so 18750 gold. Already more than the 13600 gold I
currently am able to give to the winners. Imagine if I'd allow
reserve players, I would have to take gold from the prize pool to
reward them, too. Why can I not just increase the
rewards? Well, it's a matter of gold
balance and obviously ultimately a matter of revenue for
the game. I don't need to remind you that WoT is a free to play
game - it can only exist if the players purchase gold. So the
amount of gold we give "for free" has to be controlled. And it is
being controlled with statistical data and analysis. It is not
enough to increase the rewards because "CLRG wants to make the
players happy". That definitely counts, for sure, but it's
simply not enough. I know your main talking point is always 2.0.
But before 2.0, the rewards were unfortunately not sustainable
for WoT. It may be unpleasant to hear (it was for me) but the 2.0
rework put the tournament scene in a state of
balance. As you pointed out, there are alternatives to
gold. You are correct, and I actually want to implement some of
them. There are a number of issues with that too though. Mainly,
implementing other types of rewards is most likely not going to be
"on top of the gold". It's going to be "instead of the gold". And
I'm not so sure you will want that. A lot of the players wouldn't
be happy if the gold turned into personal reserves and boosters,
and I'm not sure bonds would work either. Again - the value of the
bonds will probably mean some gold removed. Naturally, I would
prefer the bonds to be what you called "cosmetic extra". To give
you some juicy information, I would like to offer premium days as a
reward in the coming weeks, and if that works, bonds are on the
list soon after that, too. Now you mentioned the premium
tanks and the missions. For you they are just cosmetic extras. But
on my side, I simply call them extras. Because these are
actual rewards that are "on top of the gold". They represent "a
cost" that is fairly substantial. And even though to you they look
unattractive, the data shows that participation to the tournaments
has actually been extremely high whenever I ran those operations.
Even the missions are shaping out to be a big success in terms
of turnout. The rewards aren't amazing at all, but they give the
tournaments another purpose, bring in some new recruits, and
overall make the competitions appealing. For me it's all
very positive, and I am truly satisfied that I was able
to offer those events, especially the advent calendar
tournaments that lasted for several weeks. It gave the players so
many opportunities to get those nice tanks. I am glad that you
suggested "collecting points" as a means to followup on
performance over time, because it means we share the same vision
and expectations about the tournaments. This is something I have
wanted to explore for a long time, how great it would be to be able
to track the participation and performance of the teams over
time, and reward them accordingly. Needless to say, this is a topic
that has been on the table for a while, but it falls under the
current "needs a new feature" factor. This is one of the things
that may happen at some point, but not in the immediate
future. That's it for the negative side. The improvements in
terms of features are indeed slow to arrive. But one thing I want
to bring your attention to is how the tournaments have also
improved since 2.0. Just two years ago, we were able to run 9
tournaments per week. None of them on the weekend. Now, thanks to
new development features, we are able to run nearly 30, including
10 every weekend. We are also offering a variety of Tiers and team
sizes so you can play pretty much whenever you want. Even one year
ago, in January 2019, we weren't even running a half of what we run
now. The schedule has actually changed nearly every month as well,
and keeps improving too. So for the negative that you point
out, there is also in my opinion a lot of positive, that you are
not taking into account. I'm not sure if you will be
sensitive to all of the above or dismiss it as
flim-flam malarkey, but nevertheless, that's what it
is. It's difficult to give the players full honesty and at the
same time expect that the answers please them, you know. This is a longer answer than I
initially intended, and yet there is so much more to say. But
the bottom-line for now is that yes, I do think about the
tournament formats quite a bit. I just work within a
tight frame. But I definitely want to bring about new
things, and I am fully open to suggestions in that regard - if
you have ideas for formats that would be fun, bring a lot of
people without altering the reward balance, I would be
delighted to shamelessly steal your ideas make
them happen. Tournament times