League Level Cutoffs

I know iOS has fairly low level stuff even in Diamond but on Android nearly maxed hangars are common as dirt in upper gold and diamond. Level 10+ stuff isn't uncommon in silver (I'm low leveled in my 7/7 hangar) although mismatched gear levels are more common .

I'm not clear if you mean a player should be forced into a higher tier or having a high level item or barred from using the item but both are bad ideas.  The former would either shove tons of players up from silver to diamond/expert/master and from from gold/diamond to master (if you bump players up to the matching tier for their weapons) thus flooding the upper tiers with cannon fodder.  Private and bronze would suddenly flesh out everything below diamond.  Forcing players up leagues would either be exploited to jump up leagues  (just power level a light weapon and enjoy the gold rewards of master 3) or deter players from leveling their hangars in any way but perfectly evenly. 

The latter would lock out half the hangars of players in middling leagues because they aren't allowed to use such high level weapons.  Can you image the reaction of the player base to suddenly being told they can't use the stuff they just invested days and weeks into upgrading?

Besides, the matchmaker already tosses players in with higher tiered foes fairly often. It's bad enough being cannon fodder but your idea would make the lowbies even more toothless. It would be harder to climb tiers too since you'd be locked out of weapon/bot progression.

Again, I don't know about iOS but the clubbers on Android are clubbing in leagues below Silver 1/2.  The only time we see them is when they ditch/idle on their way down to recruit/private leagues.  Expert, diamond, gold and even silver players don't get clubbed.    We get ditched by tankers.  Somewhere around bronze (maybe low silver), the clubbers meet too much resistance to quickly harvest gold and return to greener pastures.  The only time we see Uber hangars is when the matchmaker decides we need a loss and sticks us in a match 2-3 tiers above our own.

First of all, there's a pretty drastic difference between the platforms, so right off the bat we're talking apples and oranges here with respect to numbers. But that is really a moot point. We are also lacking data that could be used to develop a real solution, so this is all merely speculation anyhow. That said, I fail to see how implementing cutoffs is a bad idea. The previous MM used cutoffs and I don't think many would argue at this point that was a better system than is currently in effect. Although I wasn't verbose in my original post, I'm not suggesting hard cutoffs like those. An average of weapons/bots in your hanger would provide a way of allowing a range of levels without shooting someone up two leagues just because they have one level 10 weapon. If you're going to use a league system in order to assign players to a group with people of similar skill, then the first thing you have to do is make sure they're on relatively equal footing. You don't drop a rookie flyweight boxer into the ring with a reigning heavyweight champion. Implemented correctly, leagues should do what Pixonic says they do... if you're a flyweight that can compete with a heavyweight, then go for it. This way if someone wants to club, they're at least forced to use the same equipment as the rookies they're fighting. Now, this might take a restructuring... right now it's such a mess it's hard to tell. That's why I created the thread.

I was thinking more like, if the MM places you on gold tier, while your points can go lower, you still can't drop down to Silver.  You'll just look like a noob that got stuck in the wrong tier.

I think there is a fair bit of variation.  5 bot hangars in a given tier seem to average somewhat lower bot/weapon levels since they can churn out an extra bot's worth of damage when the chips are down (thus increasing their average damage and rankings).  Any 3 bot hangar past bronze is usually filled with rather high level stuff.  Anything less would bot out fast and drift down in tier.

If you regularly see better hangars in lower tiers than your own, you are performing well and should be getting tier rewards reflecting that.  As to whether the tier rewards justify climbing tiers, that's a different question and might not even yield the same answer on iOS vs Android (due to the wildly different typical hangars in the various tiers).

Well, the difference between platforms is pretty significant...  as it stands it's almost impossible to compare.  I'm Diamond 2 on iOS, but from the sound of things I'd be lucky to make Silver 3 on Android.  That being the case I'm starting to wonder if using the same algorithm for both systems is really even feasible.  Anyway, I'm not sure how you can tell if that guy two tiers below you with a better hanger is really not that good, or if he's a tanker(just not an obvious one)  I feel like if I dropped to Gold 2 right now, I'd be clubbing...  so when I see guys at that level with hangers like mine I have to question if I'm really that good...  I mean how much of a difference could even the best players make up?  Seems like even a top level player running a level 8 hanger would have great difficulty competing with even below average players with hangers 2 to 3 levels higher than theirs.

I don't think the platform would make a difference. It didn't with the old MM which matched based on hanger strength. There does need to be an improvement to the current system. But not just bot level, but weapon level too, else we'll have the geptards back in no time.

The main problem I can see with it is when you switch bots. Example, you usually use all lvl 9 bots. This puts you in diamond league. However, you want to play with your griffs that are all level 6. What happens?

Thanks for the input.  At the end of the day I guess it doesn't really matter...  just wish this stupid thing wasn't so....  FUBAR.