A Lot of Random

With one day left to the end of the second conflict, I am getting ready to be disappointed again. I have possibly the worst luck when it comes to anything that involves randomization, and the card drops are no exception. Out of 23 cards, I got no gold Mantaroth. Out of 22 cards I got no gold Rage. And I suspect that I will get around 20 Kei, and assume I will get no golds either.

While it might come down to luck, it has very real implications on the drops, because each Gold Foil adds 12500 points toward the contribution, and the earlier one has them, the more they will add and increase chances. For instance, if I had a gold Mantaroth, I would have got an extra card or two in the Rage drop, which would have increased chances of a gold. And had I got that, it would have pushed me to get an extra couple cards in the Kei drop, which again would increase my chances for another gold, and then add to the possibility for the following drop. A gold card in each round, would have added about 7% to my contribution points, and pushed me over to get an extra two cards this round, from where I am now.

Luck.

Randomization and luck is good, but at the same time, too much randomization weakens skill. For instance, with the RNG of all the cards now, there is a lot of room for random results, where good lineups get beaten by poor lineups, far too often. And the good but unlucky, get punished too often. This could also weaken the value of cards, in the sense that it reduces the skill level associated, and instead puts more emphasis on rolling the dice in a gamble.

The points system changes is meant to deal with some of this by reducing the cost of RNG losses to weaker setups. But that doesn't actually change the problem of the randomization, or the development of skill. What it does do though, is create more encouragement to cheat, for instance, by using battle helpers for suggesting lineups. the spread of points between P1 and P50 is around 1300 points at the moment - that is equivalent to over 4 league tiers. There are 1000 points difference between the top and P21, the last position in Champion 1. The crab bucket is gone.

Is the excitement as well?

I don't know, but for me, the randomization takes a lot of fun out of the game, because I feel I am at the mercy of the dice in pretty much every round, rather than skill. The "sport" of it where there was the drive to improve and work on setups has reduced, and now I feel like I have to throw a blind Hail Mary pass and hope there is a receiver. I run a setup that should win, I get beaten by RNG. I run a similar setup that beat me earlier, I get beaten by RNG. I use poison, it lands 10-20% of the time most rounds. I use Coeurl Lurker at speed, and it gets hit by 1 speed magic. I aim for it at speed, I miss. 8 rounds of hits, until I finally get an affliction on a heal monster - but by then, it is too late, my team has already been decimated.

Is it just me?

Probably not, but it definitely feels like it at times. And now, because I have so little faith in the the cards providing their actual stats, that I lose because I have to throw up stupid setups and hope the opponent doesn't put up the base play, because they will beat me.

In 24 hours from now, let's see what my drop looks like.

I have my guesses.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]