UPDATE: [Rumble Changes are planned for March 22](https://www.kongregate.com/forums/727066-general/topics/1550843-official-rumble-improvements-planned-for-march-22) *** In a [previous thread](https://www.kongregate.com/forums/727066-general/topics/1496980), we discussed potential changes to Rumbles and Sieges and we want to thank all of you for the feedback provided. The player suggestions and thoughts shared helped us fine-tune upcoming changes to Rumble. Here are some updates: * Instead of using Siege rankings, previous Rumbles will be used to seed the following Rumble * Rewards will be revamped (no specifics yet) * Battle times will be extended from 8 hours to 12 hours * Event will be shortened from 6 days to 5 days * Rematch prevention will be extended to every 4 matches * Minimum activity point requirements for rewards will be updated to encourage more activity at the lower tiers * As mentioned before, we anticipate that the event scoring changes will strongly disincentivize "sandbagging" because players are scored based on consistently high placement throughout the event **UPDATE:** To further elaborate on our point about the scoring changes improving sandbagging. Each guild's Victory Point score will increase every round based on their current ranking in the Matchmaking leaderboard. Winning matches will cause guilds to rise through the Matchmaking leaderboard (and face tougher matches). In other words, the guilds that earn the top rewards will need to be ranked highly _consistently_ throughout the event, rather than purposefully fighting lower-ranked guilds and simply ending the event higher on the Matchmaking leaderboard. Note that this is totally separate from the increase in minimum individual participation points. Siege is still being discussed further and we’ll share details of potential changes in the future. We aim to have these Rumble changes implemented and ready in the coming weeks. We will also announce ahead of time when the last Rumble under the current/old format will be, and when the first Rumble of the new format will begin. 

> As mentioned before, we anticipate that the event scoring changes will strongly disincentivize "sandbagging" because players are scored based on consistently high placement throughout the event What scoring changes? Any details that you can share? Or are you just referring to the "minimum activity points"? If so, those changes will do nothing to prevent sandbagging/point-targeting. Unless you change match-making, sandbagging will continue unabated.

All sensible stuff that isn't too dramatic a change all at once. I appreciate all the thought and effort in listening the AT crew put into this. Looking forward to the next stages!

Love this. Really appreciate shortened rumble and matches per day as well as reward revamp. Very awesome, thanks!

Its like my whole list to the T. All right direction

Yah score changes need more than the individual player activity for rewards thing. That wont atop sandbagging at all as you only need to bag 2 rounds. You need a huge scoring change to atop bagging. This is the #1 goal kong. Stop ppl from working the system in a way the devs never intendes.

> *Originally posted by **[dramagirl42](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418406)**:* > All sensible stuff that isn't too dramatic a change all at once. I appreciate all the thought and effort in listening the AT crew put into this. Looking forward to the next stages! I disagree completely. These changes do nothing to address the core complaints of the top guilds, which is the horrible scoring and matchmaking. The only thing they did was to shorten the rumble for the less dedicated guilds.

> *Originally posted by **[werenarc](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418387)**:* > > As mentioned before, we anticipate that the event scoring changes will strongly disincentivize "sandbagging" because players are scored based on consistently high placement throughout the event > > What scoring changes? Any details that you can share? > > Or are you just referring to the "minimum activity points"? If so, those changes will do nothing to prevent sandbagging/point-targeting. Unless you change match-making, sandbagging will continue unabated. > This is meant to convey that consistent performance will affect the final rank of a guild. In other words, choosing not to participate will negatively affect your standing overall. I will update the post shortly with a bit more clarification.

> *Originally posted by **[ShizTokin](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418412)**:* > fix the rewards, not the system. The devs are planning to do both. >* Rewards will be revamped (no specifics yet)

> *Originally posted by **[werenarc](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418433)**:* > > *Originally posted by **[dramagirl42](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418406)**:* > > All sensible stuff that isn't too dramatic a change all at once. I appreciate all the thought and effort in listening the AT crew put into this. Looking forward to the next stages! > > I disagree completely. These changes do nothing to address the core complaints of the top guilds, which is the horrible scoring and matchmaking. > > The only thing they did was to shorten the rumble for the less dedicated guilds. > Shortening the event is NOT "The only thing they did"... Several of my concerns were addressed and I'm appreciative of the development team's thoughtful care (ू•ᴗ•ू♡)

> *Originally posted by **[ModchiKopi](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418441)**:* > > This is meant to convey that consistent performance will affect the final rank of a guild. In other words, choosing not to participate will negatively affect your standing overall. I will update the post shortly with a bit more clarification. Sandbagging isn't just failing to participate, it's also "point-targeting". That means a guild wants to be slotted at a particular position so they get easier opponents. The way they do this to lose a match by a certain amount. This can either be done by having only a certain number of players play or have players only score a certain number of points. For example, if a guild only wants to score 24,000 points in a match, they can either have 30 players score 800 points or they can have 50 players score 480 points. As far as I can tell, your changes will push all sandbagging guilds to move to the latter option so that each player "participates". This is why many players were pushing for scoring changes to discourage sandbagging but from what I can tell, nothing was changed to address this core complaint.

This clarification was provided by the devs: To further elaborate on our point about the scoring changes improving sandbagging. Each guild's Victory Point score will increase every round based on their current ranking in the Matchmaking leaderboard. Winning matches will cause guilds to rise through the Matchmaking leaderboard (and face tougher matches). In other words, the guilds that earn the top rewards will need to be ranked highly _consistently_ throughout the event, rather than purposefully fighting lower-ranked guilds and simply ending the event higher on the Matchmaking leaderboard. Note that this is totally separate from the increase in minimum individual participation points.

Hey this is really exciting. Thanks for extending the matches to 12 hours. 20 fights a day feels more reasonable to me. I'm excited to see how the restructured scoring and rewards play out.

It's unclear how all the changes will work together, the devil-in-the-details. If it means the results aren't much subject to artificial manipulation, and we don't spend our time in totally lopsided fights, it'll be a win over the current system. I presume that when the changes go live, the details (like how scoring works) will be documented in detail? The one artificial manipulation / sandbagging aspect I'd be most worried about is if the system makes it in a guild's interest to play badly one rumble, then their best the next rumble, kind of like going for low arena ranking to get win streaks. Please run numbers to be reasonably sure this is not actually to the guild's benefit: getting straight wins, getting up to #45 over the rumble, should not more valuable than being around #45 and winning/losing 50%, that a guild could be willing to sit out an entire rumble to get low and then charge up the next rumble.

> *Originally posted by **[werenarc](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418509)**:* > > *Originally posted by **[ModchiKopi](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418441)**:* > > > > This is meant to convey that consistent performance will affect the final rank of a guild. In other words, choosing not to participate will negatively affect your standing overall. I will update the post shortly with a bit more clarification. > > Sandbagging isn't just failing to participate, it's also "point-targeting". That means a guild wants to be slotted at a particular position so they get easier opponents. The way they do this to lose a match by a certain amount. This can either be done by having only a certain number of players play or have players only score a certain number of points. > > For example, if a guild only wants to score 24,000 points in a match, they can either have 30 players score 800 points or they can have 50 players score 480 points. As far as I can tell, your changes will push all sandbagging guilds to move to the latter option so that each player "participates". > I'm willing to give the devs the benefit of the doubt that sandbagging will be addressed. But if guilds are able to sandbag in the same way after a complete rumble rework, it will be a complete travesty. In that case, I'll be there with you to excoriate them. On the other hand, if guilds find a completely novel way to game a completely new system, I guess that just comes with the territory.

> *Originally posted by **[crimsontiger](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418555)**:* > > I'm willing to give the devs the benefit of the doubt that sandbagging will be addressed. But if guilds are able to sandbag in the same way after a complete rumble rework, it will be a complete travesty. In that case, I'll be there with you to excoriate them. On the other hand, if guilds find a completely novel way to game a completely new system, I guess that just comes with the territory. Thanks for the additional details, ModchiKopi! Now that there are more details, I will take back some of my venom since it's unclear how "Victory Points" will work out in practice so I'll have to reserve judgement. Edit: Of course, it's not a positive sign that the bagging guilds are already saying that these changes won't do anything and they will continue to bag.

> _Originally posted by **[mattender](/forums/726779/topics/1524161?page=1#12418551):**_ > It's unclear how all the changes will work together, the devil-in-the-details. If it means the results aren't much subject to artificial manipulation, and we don't spend our time in totally lopsided fights, it'll be a win over the current system. > > I presume that when the changes go live, the details (like how scoring works) will be documented in detail? I would guess that it won't be very detailed so if teams want to sandbag, they have to figure out the scoring on their own. We all know currently that winning teams get 10k even, but I don't think the devs ever released exactly how losing points were calculated. I imagine they will explain it vaguely but not give exact calculations. I'm sure a lot of the folks will figure it out though.

Perhaps we'll need to make a thread for system evaluation and reverse engineering...

Benefit of a doubt? For what? They created an absurd system for scoring in the first place. They're doing nothing to actually change that, just "patch" it with "Victory Points", more absurdity.

> *Originally posted by **[1Platdiamond1](/forums/727066/topics/1524161?page=1#12418657)**:* > Starts at 1pm. Next one at 1am. Won't be able to do that one. u wont have time from 1am until 1pm to get ur rumbles in?

Before I joined my current guild I quit one that asked us to mpurposely lose matches. I refused and quit. Later I foiund out this is sandbagging

> Instead of using Siege rankings, previous Rumbles will be used to seed the following Rumble Rewards will be revamped (no specifics yet) Battle times will be extended from 8 hours to 12 hours Event will be shortened from 6 days to 5 days Rematch prevention will be extended to every 4 matches Minimum activity point requirements for rewards will be updated to encourage more activity at the lower tiers As mentioned before, we anticipate that the event scoring changes will strongly disincentivize "sandbagging" because players are scored based on consistently high placement throughout the event That all sounds surprisingly reasonable, good on you. I remain cautiously optimistic - proof of all this will be in the rewards revamp.