Grand Arena matching leaves me flabbergasted

What would knowing that change?

The high GP players in lower tiers are there because they haven't been playing. I don't see how forcing them to skip even more playing would solve the problem.

I can see why a lot dont have trust in the ratings because CG does nothing to help persuade why the system works the way it does.

I for one, dropped leagues because quite simply i was bored with GAC, setting defences, attacking....eat sleep rave repeat actions. So i leave every so often just to get away from it.  Very sorry if some upcoming players who have done well improving skill scores then meets me when im interested.  This happens at just about every level

I think penalty for zero participation across matches should be loss of daily crystals related to your placement, whilst no deduction on SR to prevent sandbagging. To get the win / loss reward you should still get banners still too so those who participate and lose, losing SR in the process, are not worst off than inactive players. End of season PO should have a minimum activity of at least 1 match from each sign up. Once they are active and participating then daily crystal payout continues and they continue from the same division they were at before the period of inactivity. Preventing a drop to lower tiers full of newer lower GP players but preventing rewarding inactivity. This way if you’re busy in RL it just impacts rewards for a short while and not placement. Most importantly the toxic players I know who purposefully drop to Bronzium through long periods of inactivity, with 4/5 GLs and 9-10M roster for an easy win-streak later (they have seriously bragged to me about winning 30+ when all they need to do is block with GLs and attack once) can not exploit the SR MM. This does not payoff for Crystal income in my calculation but feeds some sense of “skill” for them at the expense of experience of newer and players. I am aware some players fall through not having time or interest but what bothers me most is the intentional inactivity.

Thanks for responding. 

The fact is that this is a horrible matchmaking experience. The "skill rating" needs tweaked to make sense so that "skills" can be used to win somewhat balanced matches.  8M GP vs a 1.5M GP simply is not really a match. Either the 8M autos the match, or they don't participate at all. So, there isn't really skill being used by either party.   

If life gets in the way, don't join the arena because you won't be able to do your matches which are manually performed. If you don't play (or even auto), you should be setback from playing the next time. Or even better, move non-participating players out of the standard levels and create their own. After 3 arenas of playing in the non-competitive, they can move back into the competitive play.  I am just brainstorming here, but this would solve this issue quickly and improve the playability of grand arena. I would estimate that over half of the players in the lower tiers would be gone.  People that have high GPs being forced to play would move up in the arena and play against more equitable opponents. People with lower GPs would battle against similar lower GPs and there would be far fewer lopsided matches. 

I'd be curious to see stats on GP difference between opponents by tier.  The last 3 GAs that I have participated in, I was at the at or near the bottom GP of all participates.  I won 1 GA. That was due to no one participating.  The other two, I was steamrolled in all 3 matches by opponents with at least 3x my GP, close to 4-5 in some cases.  Either way, none of those arenas were fun to play nor skill based. 

 It's okay to critique what I wrote and propose better ideas, but don't sit there and claim that matchmaking isn't broken or that it is fun to "play" lopsided matches, or that it's okay that players sign up but don't participate, etc.  I am trying to propose realistic solutions to a significant problem with arena. 

Its not covering for CG the system actually works as intended. For any of you that think carbonite and bronzium should be a competitive league its like wanting silver or gold to be competitive in league of legends

It will never be this way cause not every single person wants to be competitive in those ranks

Yeah maybe 8m to 1.5m gp is unfair however every single one of us has gone through these ranks and in the long run you should be able to move past these accounts in to time.

If you are looking for competition you are going to get it in the last ranks of GAC as it should be.

Btw you have a better chance of winning these accounts than winning a "real" player. Yes it sucks that you cant full clear or whatever but its not viable to punish players for wanting to play your game but not so much as you want them to. In every single game out there, there are always these accounts or these players that half play the game. It is what it is you cant fix it.

Don't get hung up on the "skill" part. CG called it "skill rating" to cause an emotional response so you'll spend. It's just where you are on the win/loss ladder. 

What astonishes me with this tired debate. Is over and over we reach the conclusion that it is not fair to punish inactivity. But it is to keep a system which punishes new players with low GP ruining the initial experience. I was initially seeded into Bronzium with the current system there was not lopsided matches back then because these larger rosters were initially seeded based on GP in Kyber or Aurodium. They moved down over time so the experience is not the same and perhaps is not as it was intended. I am in Kyber, my matches often suck and are lopsided but I punch up, this makes it bearable as I get higher rewards than a GP match up would give me and so I am happy to hit my head against the wall of superior rosters as this is competitive. But it makes no sense to say 8-9M players in Bronzium is okay. This is not the 1-2M players punching up it is the sandbaggers exploiting easy, lazy match ups and bullying new rosters to ruin their enjoyment. It does not matter if it’s intentional or unintentional CG can figure a way to fix this many suggestions have been made over the last few years. Such as leagues for new players and slowing down sandbagging (which does not punish inactivity too much). It’s ridiculous to question whether a 1-2M account should be able to develop and evolve in a more enjoyable arena. “Suck it up until the broken match making lets you stand a chance” is an elitist mentality, newer players deserve the chance to gain genuine experience from their matches rather than wait for some sandbagger not to attack.

 Can you give an allycode so we can see an account that runs into this constantly (1-2M v 8-9M match-ups)?

Just had another one. 2 matches of the 3 were lopsided. 494559411. Last arena was worse. I won the 2nd match due to inactivity. Lost the other 2 by landslide. My GP is 1.8M.