Probably not how we're intended to play Rift Battles

[Mornedil]

A big reward from playing rifts are those much useful rift coins.
And since the coins we gain from each battle scales with our win streak, longer streaks mean more coins!

But, keeping a streak gets harder and harder the higher our rift rating is...
So players have developed the strategy of throwing matches at the start of the week to begin their streak at a lower rating.

I found out by accident that this is a common farming tactic.
And by "accident", I mean that I thought I was smart to figure it out, and I threw 3 matches on Monday, and went to sleep.
Then I woke up only to find my base had gotten 8 defense wins from other people with the same throw tactic!

As funny as this is, it's probably not how we're intended to play rifts.
I'm aware that I'm guilty of attempting this method too, but I still think this is an unintentional side effect of how the streak system works.


My suggestion for a fix (if it even should be fixed? Take the poll and/or respond to the thread!):

Spoiler

• If a player has 1000 rift rating or below, don't lose any rating from losing a rift attack.
• If a player has above 1000 rift rating and they lose a battle, don't let them go below 1000.

• This would mean that the only way to go below 1000 is if somebody beats your rift defense and pushes you down further, and players won't be able to throw matches to get a higher streak later.

• The one side-effect from this, is that there will be an imbalance in amount of rift rating gained/lost between the attacker and defender. (but it only applies to attackers at 1000 rank or below).
So if that balance is super important, the rating change (for people at 1000 rating or below) could be such an insignificant amount that throwing matches wouldn't be worth it.
For example, if you only lose 10 points when you're at 1000 or below, and the defender gains 10 points, then maybe it wouldn't be worth spending rift tickets on losing matches on purpose.

 

[Art3mes]

New detective in the town, baBy.

That's the first time I heard about this trick. The suggestion is also looking good.
But isn't it benefitting the victim(the person whose defence wins). I mean free rift rating, hurray.
I will be very happy if that happens to me. I just play five matches a week, so the extra ratings will surely increase my rank. Talk about low effort grinding.

Nice video but what is the background music? Is it duck or dog?

 

[evilgordo]

"Welcome to the party pal!"

I've tweaked this 'trick' a bit. As each ticket/loss is at least worth 10Rift coins and your first win is with 25, I've been lose1/win1 earning 35 coins for every 2 tickets. Also, every 'free' defense win forces me to add a loss. Personally, I doesn't bother me if players do this, It all comes out in the end as by Fri/Sat/Sun, players are then working on their desired final rating.

 

[Mornedil]

New detective in the town, baBy.

That's the first time I heard about this trick. The suggestion is also looking good.

Yeah most people don't talk openly about tricks like this for various reasons. A lot of people probably just don't think about mentioning it, but there are others who want less people to know so they have an advantage over other players, or to keep the developers in the dark out of fear that they might fix it.
But I'd rather be open about it, so both the community and the developers are on the same page about what's going on.
And then in the end, it's up to the developers to decide whether it's a feature or unintended behavior.

Only exception is if there's a SERIOUS exploit, then it's best to keep quiet to prevent spreading it, and maybe contact a dev.

But isn't it benefitting the victim(the person whose defence wins). I mean free rift rating, hurray.
I will be very happy if that happens to me. I just play five matches a week, so the extra ratings will surely increase my rank. Talk about low effort grinding.

I'm sure a lot of people are happy to get free rift rating.
But lower rating is better for rift coin farming, so starting at 1100+ makes it harder to get coins.

Nice video but what is the background music? Is it duck or dog?

Lol the background music is from an episode of South Park. Just the creators of the show making derpy sounds.
Maybe a weird choice, but it's what this situation reminded me of xD

 

[Art3mes]

Only exception is if there's a SERIOUS exploit, then it's best to keep quiet to prevent spreading it,

 

[Mornedil]

Update:

I haven't touched rifts since I lost those 3 fights and dropped to 910 rating.
But somehow I'm now in Gold 1 territory!

---

2nd Update:

I took another screenshot on Friday night. It's kind of crazy how far I've gotten by now.



Most of the defense wins are from people losing on purpose, but there have been some legit losses too.

 

[Disasterrr19]

But lower rating is better for rift coin farming, so starting at 1100+ makes it harder to get coins.

I am not sure if I understand the whole thing about coin farming. Isn't going straight to Diamond ranks with no battles lost more profitable in terms of rewards? Or do you mean that people are just grinding low ranks endlessly to get "per victory" coins instead of trying to get better "end of the week" results?

 

[Mornedil]

I am not sure if I understand the whole thing about coin farming. Isn't going straight to Diamond ranks with no battles lost more profitable in terms of rewards? Or do you mean that people are just grinding low ranks endlessly to get "per victory" coins instead of trying to get better "end of the week" results?

Most players eventually hit a wall because the opponents become too hard at higher ratings. Where this "wall" is depends on how strong the player is.
If you're level 60, maybe you can only do 8 wins before opponents become too hard to beat.
And for those who can reach Diamond, it takes just around 14 straight wins before reaching Diamond territory, where opponents start getting much harder.

Once you hit your wall, there's not much you can do to earn more rift coins other than wait for the season to end, or wait to get pushed down in ratings by others so you can refresh for easier opponents.

So now pretend that these people start their streak at 850 rating instead of 1000.
That level 60 person who normally reached their "wall" after 8 wins, can now do 13 wins to get to the same rating.
And instead of reaching diamond territory after 14 wins, you'll reach diamond territory after 19 wins.


So basically (TL;DR), in the end you will reach the same rating and get the same season end reward.
But if you lose some first, it will take more wins to get there, which means more rift coins. +75 extra rift coins per win at 10+ streak.

 

[Lililira]

Eh, it's not the rift coin thing that worries me about this. People will always seek out the most efficient way to grind after all, and this is just one instance of folks finding an efficient strategy that's not developer intended. At least it's not something super shady like manipulating a glitch.

I'm more worried about the effects this might have on the lower ranked players who *aren't* applying this strategy. Pushed up above their skill level by throwers at the start of the week giving them tougher matchups than they might be able to handle (meaning more losses and less rift coins), then pulled back down again later on after they've been beaten down both by the folks who threw at the start of the week *and* the higher ranked folks playing Rift as intended (to whom these weak but high-rated bases are easy targets). I worry that it might lead to the inverse of the score-boosting effect that Morne is seeing for the Bronze / Silver folks who get caught in the crossfire.

Plus, there's that one glitch(?) I keep seeing with Rift Rating mismatches... (Link to Bug Report).

After seeing this thread I'm starting to wonder if it really is a glitch after all, or if it might be a side effect of this exploit and the effects I've speculated about in the previous paragraph.

I don't know, maybe these lower ranked folks can manage to get back to their proper place in the ratings by the end of the week, but I worry that this exploit to avoid the newbie protection on the first 5 matches might result in the newbies getting beat down even harder than they were before it was ever added.

 

[Mornedil]

I'm more worried about the effects this might have on the lower ranked players who *aren't* applying this strategy.

I 100% agree! The rift coins are just the reason why people do it, but not really a problem by itself. It's all the consequences surrounding it that we have to consider

 

[Art3mes]

Now I have experienced this.