"nfidel2k;c-2391710" wrote:
"Lumiya;c-2391686" wrote:
"nfidel2k;c-2391654" wrote:
"Fieldgulls;c-2391646" wrote:
The squish is to help CG control overall crystal income in its entirety (i.e. player base).
This is the part I don’t understand. If you are referring to the skill squish doing this, it would have to be affecting a player’s rank. It doesn’t track that CG would do this either, as they already have direct control over the overall crystal income and therefore no need to create a mechanism to control it indirectly. I might be missing something, but so far as I can see the league size dropping because the overall GAC population is dropping is the likely culprit, which matches the explanation CG gives for the setup.
It does indirectly affect their rank. If you get squished and have now less points than the minimum for the division you are in, you have to win or you get demoted, where as before it wouldn't have dropped you out of your division, or which also happens to players, even if you win you get demoted because you lost so many points with the squish that even a win is not enough to keep you where you were. I would say that very much affects a players and just because it only takes effect after the first fight it doesn't mean that it was not the squish that caused a player to get demoted.
This creates a downward spiral. You need more and more wins to get/stay where you were and in a system that is designed for 50/50 that will eventually lead to players falling.
I disagree with the logic, but only because it doesn’t eliminate all other possible explanations for the change. While I understand where you are coming from about the squish and the skill cutoffs, there’s no guarantee that if you had lost that match without being squished that you wouldn’t have dropped.
In my opinion, it still all ties back to the population shrinking and league/division size changes. My wild guess about the graph changes is that CG was tweaking the skill rating cutoffs for the leagues, but left Carbonite/Bronzium alone, in an effort to normalize the leagues. This still can’t be tied directly back to skill squish, because skill squish would have to move players between divisions in order to be able to create an effect like overpopulation.
Basically, we need to push more people to sign up for GAC. More people means larger division/league sizes; people move up instead of dropping down. Spiral averted.
My logic is not supposed to take away all the other possibilities because there are more points than just what I wrote that affect the players. I only stayed on topic here and didn't want to list everything else.
One other big point I think affects players is less participation while still signing up. These players automatically are lower than they would be, if they don't always attack or just do the bare minimum.
The graphs provided show that the percentage of the shrinking number of sign ups is not proportional to the shrinking of divisions/falling down of players.
Of course there is a guarantee. If your SR was high enough before the squish that you could at least afford 1 loss, you wouldn't drop. If the squish now takes away points and even a win is not enough to stay in your division, you will need 2 wins only to get where you were before the squish otherwise at least one to get back. If this happens regularly before a new season starts it means you will need more and more wins to stay where you were which is impossible in a 50/50 system and we see the effects in the graphs.
People fall down, face smaller accounts which in turn then also fall down and so on. I don't know if you have seen my comments in the other GAC post where I provided images of my last 2 GACs. Not only can you see there that both times I lost points before the new season but also, that I lost more rounds than I won eventhough I already fell from A3, where I was for a longer time, to A4. The reason for that is because I faced bigger accounts that belong in Kyber. And this season it continues. My opponents are all again bigger than me with at least 1 GL more. I lost my first round, won the second but only because my opponent stopped attacking after they cleared one zone and the opponent I now face has over 7M GP and 3 GLs against my 4.6M with 1 GL.