I understand that right now we use an ELO based system to determine win/loss ratio of trophies. That’s fine, makes sense (what you base your ELO rating on, well, that’s a different story and does not make sense.)
Anyway…
How hard would it be to code win/loss of trophies just slightly differently? What if you always lost 5 trophies less than your opponent gained? e.g.: I lost, they got 40 trophies; I lost…35. Not 40. 35.
Ditto for every range in between.
What difference does this make? Simple: It introduces trophies into the system from someplace other than just new players/players at 0 trophies (which is how they currently enter the system). This is why climbing is so hard. This is why it feels like no progress is made. This is why, 2 weeks after the start of a new season where folks were reset to what, 4500? are just now hitting 6k (and it’s only a handful of people).
Seeing as you “drain the swamp” once a month already (aka trophy reset) there should be no issue from that perspective in introducing this method. It rewards those that win, those that play a lot, and those that play a lot and win especially.
And that’s a good, encouraging thing - something to keep us coming back.
I mean, it’s discouraging seeing the exact same arena for months and months on end - because you can never gain enough trophies to progress.
I believe this simple (in concept if not design) approach would go a really long way to helping folks feel good about arena again.