@CG_SBCrumb First off, I love the concept here and think this will be a really great addition to the game if implemented properly. I do have a few concerns that I want to flag for you though, along with what I hope are some useful suggestions on how to combat those issues both from the perspective of higher and lower tier gp where applicable.
GP Matching: I'm a 4.2 million GP player and have a FTP account that is around level 82. Obviously my high GP account should be matched up somewhere around that area. One area of concern though is what I see when playing TW with my FTP account. Most of the members of that guild are FTP but we also have some whales. What ends up happening is that we get paired up with other guilds who have roughly the same GP but who get there by having more players at a similar GP. At the level that guild is at, we can basically put one or two g12 squads in the front and never have to worry about the other guild getting a single TW offensive point. That would make for a pretty yucky player experience if I were on the other side. My suggestion here is that, at least for the first GA event, that you match people up according to similar GP but also account somehow for big swings in GP for top characters. Maybe something like Total GP sorted by Top 10 Toon Average GP (for players < 1 million gp).
Individual Matches: I like the concept here which feels like a compromise between a true "top-of-the-round" tournament and the reality that not everyone (or anyone) really wants to sink more time into the game. A true winner for a round of 8 would involve a double elimination bracket system that would be a week-long event or longer. Please don't do that! I assume you will be doing something along the lines of: Round 1 (random); Round 2 (winners vs. winners random and losers vs. losers random); Round 3 (double winner vs. double winner = #1 & #2); (single winners vs. singer winners random #3 - #6); and (double loser vs. double loser = #7 & #8). If that is correct, on a single event rotation it isn't exactly fair since I could really be the second best player but if I get paired with the true top player in round 1 or 2 I can't finish in 2nd. I don't really have a suggestion on how to fix this on the first GA Event but perhaps there could be some weighting in the subsequent events based on prior placements. The other issue is how you deal with the scoring in order to pick the winner...
Scoring: This topic is the most concerning to me, especially since I have lived/suffered through tournaments. As stated in the announcement, scoring will be based on offensive wins AND defensive wins. That feels nice but can easily lead to collusion. Here's an example. I get matched up with 7 random people in GA 1 but one of the people happens to be in my guild or a friendly guild (or even in a guild that I hate). Let's say in Round 1 I get my friend/friendly person. We can easily agree with one another that we will play the first two rounds of the event straight up and whoever is winning at that point takes the win AND that the other player will send their entire roster against the third team to help inflate the winner's score. Alternatively, if I am going against my guild enemy, I could just refuse to attack to prevent him from getting defensive points or, depending on how scoring is set, even declining to set a defense so he can't get offensive points. My suggested solution is this: (1) the players should not know the identity of anyone else in the round of 8 until the results are in. This means that the player's name is blank and there is no mechanism to chat with the players in game during the GA Event. (2) the players should not know where they are ranked in the GA Event until the results are in. This would encourage people to fight every single round as hard as they can and hopefully reduce the incentive to collude or throw matches.
I hope these suggestions are received in the spirit they are written--i.e. from someone who is very much looking forward to playing this game mode, even if all it will do is confirm that @Maraxus is the top player in the galaxy.
EA Staff
