M*S The Bronze Age: Data and analysis of iOS and Android

FTA: 



Do you have a source on this, because the only thing I can come up with is the fallout (it was that) from the player meeting. And they said they would do this at some point. 

We have a pool on android too. Same 4 levels (sometimes 5 and that may be replacement players in effect).  Gold II player can see all they way down to silver II (when they are at the top) and when they are at the bottom they can see diamond II. I suspect that you would find the same in bronze today. I also suspect that with the last points change android is no longer the "hell pit" it used to be, and that the difference between IOS and Android have drastically narrowed. 

Why would they want this, rather than tighter matchmaking? 

I can think of a few reasons.


1. They don't want to create a resting spot where you can grind. If you can find a way to reliably earn gold rest assured that pix is going to quickly quash it in the MM. That doesn't mean they don't want you to be able to earn, but they do want to spread that out. By "mixing" they can work toward better gold distribution. The grind should be a grind!


2. The system needs to create some pressure on players. The current points distribution is bad at this. You can run a capping hanger, with a very high win rate, and high gold earnings --- it is bad for business for pix. Without this pressure (if players find a place to comfortably hang out that isn't the top) then they are going do just that (and grind there) this mixing prevents that. Mixing cappers with lower hanger players forces them into higher damage slots... they have to advance: the system is going to rubber band you by design. 


What we want from game play, is actually poor design from the perspective of maximizing revenue. The formula pix is using is fairly tried and true in the Free To Play space and plenty of other games do it.  Unlike other games, pix is at a disadvantage when it comes to farming whales. They have a difficult task balancing the game as it is, and injecting more, rare items just to chase a market isn't going to work for the existing base. This is an attempt to maximize revenue per player, it is a solid strategy to do as much. 

I think everyone who gets a bad match when they are "time constrained" (I can sneak some War Robots in) is going to be pretty upset.

It isn't that the match was bad, the GAME was bad I wasted my time for garbage rather than entertainment.

I'm agreeing with you, and any one else who has time for one game and gets 「dookie」 instead is going to be right there with you.

sweet.

I don't think the sentiment would be restricted to only those who are time constrained.

even if i had a whole day to play, i'd much rather longer wait times to ensure high quality contests... as opposed to churning through crap match after crap match.