Royal Royale Promotion - Feedback

Suggestions & Feedback
1

So I decided to give the Royal Royale promotion a go, since I love Royal Poker and the promo seemed to encourage everyone to play Royal ring games.

For those who don’t know, the promo offers 2 leaderboards, one for most blinds won, and one for most hands played, with lots of prizes in chips for the top board positions. So obviously players are gonna try to win as many blinds as possible, and play as many hands as possible, to win.

Unfortunately, instead of bringing interest to the game and making the Royal ring games an interesting place for everyone to compete, the promo kinda backfired.

First of all, since the goal is to win blinds, the stakes of the ring game are irrelevant, so everyone is basically playing at the Bird Tables 2/4 understandably.

So far, every time I tried to play, I’d find 4 or 5 tables with at least 3 players at each, so I take a seat at one or two of them to maximize my profit. However, I find that the exact same players are sitting at 3 or 4 tables each (hoping to maximize their profit as well of course), but they very clearly cannot handle playing multiple tables at once, so the game is very very slow and boring at all tables, because every single player at every single table runs out the clock/timer before playing while trying to toggle between tables.

Just now there were 4 active tables, and all of them had the same 4 players, and the game was so unbearably slow at all of the tables that I had to leave. No point trying to play if the game is so boring. This is not poker!!! This is torture :roll_eyes:

And that’s not all. This is basically the problem created by the blind collectors. But there’s another issue as well, created by the “most hands played” collectors.

There are some players, (one in particular), whose goal is to win the most hands played board. So their strategy is to sit at 4 or 5 tables at once, and keep folding every single hand preflop, even from the SB and BB positions, just to accumulate a number of played hands enough to top the board, and it’s working for them. However, it’s so annoying for other players. When the table is full, or even when it’s not, they just take up a seat away from those who really want to play and enjoy a game of poker, to just sit there and fold. They’re not playing, not enjoying the game, not letting others properly enjoy the game, or even be able to join it, just because they have their eyes on the prize.

All I’m trying to say is that, if the promotion’s goal is to attract players to the Royal format, and enjoy Royal ring games, it’s actually failing to do so. The games are slow, boring, un-enjoyable, and some seats are wasted on the number of hands collectors who are not even playing and yet still being rewarded for wasting a seat at every table with their inactivity.

I believe it would be a good idea for the future to limit the number of tables a player can sit at simultaneously to a maximum of 2 during the promo, and maybe change the rules for the number of hands played leaderboard to exclude the hands that are folded preflop, or maybe cancel that whole leaderboard altogether and replace it with something that is not as open to abuse. That’s just my own opinion and feedback, and that’s coming from a big fan of Royal.

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2

This is almost exactly what I hear from the regular SnG players who say the new leagues have killed the games. I don’t know the reason for why the games play the way they do but this is starting to look like a pattern to me. I appreciated the bonus chips but honestly, the games became so unbelievably soul-crushingly boring that its not worth it to me. If the game is poker, lets play poker (or Royal poker or Omaha or whatever). If the game is “X leaderboard”, and that game is different from poker, then I’m not interested. From what I have been hearing, that sentiment is shared by any number of people who have played here for far longer than I have.

I don’t know the solution but it would seem to me that the site should decide what its trying to be and stick with that. Is it a poker site? Is it a poker-like video game site? Maybe they could just make some of the games in every lobby separate from the promotions so people who don’t care about those can play the game without their influence?

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That’s one solution yes. And another is to put restrictions on the games that qualify for promotions to prevent abuse. Having one player sitting on 5 or 6 tables doing nothing shouldn’t even be allowed, let alone be rewarded by a top position on the leaderboard. Maybe quicker timers, restrictions on the number of tables one can play at once. Only 1 or maximum 2 tables is a fair restriction.

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Maya,
Please Maya, nothing here diminishes your opinions…
After re-writing this 3 times ( on the 4th attempt )

I had a thought …
What if, the Database is the #1 reason, staff keeps creating many of the same types of Leaderboard Criteria, that so many players see as the same ole same ole, bahh humbug ?

Knockouts, hands won, hands played, BB won, BB lost, accumulated points, best of, 1st of, Ave of , ect ect ect ect … many of these seem to be things that the “system” already tracks, therefore are the easiest to roll into a promotion… Anything can be used for good or evil… that doesn’t make the item necessarilly good/bad…

Lets say you want to track Knockouts(KOs) … the immense coding nightmare ( AI ) would be insane, just to tell the difference between 1 kind of KO, and another kind… it would have to be the thought police, so to speak, on gleaming what kind of KO it was …

So basically you were out maximized by another player… what if they said, "well I can play 8 @ once, so you should just limit it to 4 max " … same thing you said, just you said 2 max not 4 …

So basically you want “fast” timers not “slow” timers… but what I have seen is no matter what staff makes the timer… someone always wants it longer or shorter or worries about other ppl using the timer as they see fit… More Importantly, I can play 4 tables @ once easily, but without 1 thing it makes me take too much time … There needs to be a “sound” when its your turn AND a “sound” when you are short on time… Too many times, I don’t know its my turn untill I have 3 seconds to act… even playing 2 tables this is need’d really bad… to help keep play moving along and give players more of whatever timer there is.

We all know… the timer, the format, your chipstack, and your posistion on the table… are ALL WEAPONS @ your disposal … when 1 players uses all 4, and another player uses only 2 of 4 … is it the rules’s fault, or the players’s fault ??? No matter what staff changes the timer to… smart ppl will always us it to thier advantage, when necessary… AND… other players will use it so they can play 4-5 tables @ once…

Maya, in theory I agree with 75% of your post… yet another marathon, but even “BB profitability” … when 1 person can play 18 hrs a day, and another person can only play 4 hrs a day… the Math says, player #1 will usually win … Thats not a rule that indicates a “marathon” its actually quality over qualtity, yet still can be exploited by simply playing 4x as much as everyone else …

Replay actually came up with a Sassy-proof, nearly un-explotable proof promotion last year … and when all was said/done… too many ppl said it was just to hard… and they chg’d it to the point it wasn’t a challange anymore …

So now when someone gets 2-6 offsuit and folds preflop, they get penalized for gett’n crappy cards ??? do you see how your rule creates unintended consequences too ???

There was a recent Royal Promotion (last month) that didn’t have any of these criteria, and Zoran and I, went toe-toe all week long…

I know from experience… you can’t please all the ppl all the time ( me included )… so I’m not devalue’n your opinions, I agree with most of them myself… but I do see Replay’s dilema, if the database itself limits what promotions they can run… I also know that no matter what rule you, I, or Replay comes up with… there’s 2-3 clever ppl out there that find a way to use it to some advantage… you should celebrate thier cleverness, not dismiss it as ruin’n the promotion… ( or are you mad you didn’t think of it, or couldn’t utilize it yourself ?? ) :thinking:

What I see is the clash between non Leaderboard strategy, and Leaderboard strategy…
There is a fix, but there will be a core of ppl that will say it too is unfair to 1 group of people… Everything shouldn’t cross to everything else … but then again maybee it should…
Sassy

5

Sarah, whilst you may be right about a few points, what I complained about is much simpler and straight forward.

The ring games are not enjoyable because players who cannot handle playing 3-4 tables at the same time are killing the game for everyone else with how slow they are at each table. Plain and simple. Everyone at the tables was complaining, not just me.

Of course people can have advantages by playing 18 hours a day, or 2 tables at once, but those who cannot handle playing more than 1 table at once are doing it just to climb the board, and by doing that are just killing everyone else’s mood at the tables. Not fair.

As for the number of hands played, again, having one person at 6 tables at the same time, folding preflop every hand, is an abuse of the system. It’s not illegal, and it’s gaining him a top spot on the leaderboard. However, it’s not in the spirit of the game. The point is to encourage people to play as much as possible and enjoy Royal ring games. Wasting a seat at every table on someone who doesn’t even play, is annoying to others, and unfair to those who are trying to climb the board fairly.

There are very easy ways to deal with these abuses. Even if I can handle 2 tables at once, I’m happy if the rule becomes that a player can only play at 1 table. It makes the game and the leaderboard fairer for me and for everyone else. Whether I play 1 hour a day or 20 hours a day is up to me, but I wouldn’t be slowing the game for everyone by sitting at multiple tables.

And when the hands folded preflop are not counted, it discourages abusers from just sitting there wasting space and folding. If not counting the folded hands seems unfair, then the whole leaderboard of number of hands played should be reconsidered. It’s not fair to see someone in 4th or 5th position on the board having played 1000 hands fair and square, when the 1st person on the board has “played” 5000 hands by not playing at all. The difference is HUGE, and it’s not because of the number of hours played!
Just sitting at 6 tables and folding all the time is not what the promo is about, and is not what a player should be rewarded 800K chips for doing.

To sum it all up: the promo is meant to encourage people to play Royal ring games, but many are actually being discouraged instead, me included, because of the abusers. We can either sit back and do nothing, and watch those abusers get rewarded with hundreds of thousands of chips and others not even joining the game anymore, or we can actually change the rules a bit to reduce abuse and attract more players. I prefer the latter.

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Thanks for your feedback @Maya. Also thanks to you @Comicguy and @Sassy_Sarah for discussing the promotion and sharing your thoughts on the matter.

Any promotion or leaderboard that rewards the volume of play will lead to issues like these. Playing multiple games (or as many games as possible) to climb the leaderboard is the best strategy and unfortunately can’t be seen as an abuse. These promotions encourage this behaviour. A promotion that will only reward the performance (or the profitability) will not encourage it as much for sure. However, many players like this type of promotion. It naturally encourage players in playing more hands. Experience in poker comes through playing hands so in a way we do want to ecourage it, especially for new players and begginers.

Multi-tabling has been a discussion for a little while here at Replay. We won’t get rid of it as many players like to play on multiple tables simulteanously, and as it also does help the poker traffic and its game offering attractiveness. That said, there are also some negative points, like the ones you have mentioned @Maya, and we want to address these the best we can. It’s not always simple to offer the perfect balance. This is why so far we are offering different promotions, some rewarding players on the volume they put it and the number of hands they play, some others rewarding on their performance and profitability at the table. For the latter, multi-tabling is not always the best strategy. More tables you play, smaller your win rate is will be. You will always be more focused and on top of your game if you play one or two tables, than if you play eight or ten.

We will be releasing ring game points in early 2019. Hopefully these will address this issue. This new type of ring game leaderboards will take into account both. Players will be earn points and climb leaderboards for their volume activity (hands played) and for their performance (big blinds earned - big blinds lost). The ring game points will be a weighting of the two.

We are also thinking of limiting the number of table/games a player can play in total and per game type. You wouldn’t be able to register to a new game if you have reached one of the two limits. That is yet to be confirmed and there will be a survey going out to our most regular players about it. We obviously don’t want to go live with a change that most of our community of players would see as a step back.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your feedback and I wish you all the best of luck at the tables. :raised_hands:

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Since I have been back I have been playing mainly only Promotions. I think Staff has done a great Job @ offering a variety of different formats, game types, and all 3 (Ring/MTT/SnG) … Ring players have only had recently stuff for them, that got add’d by request…

I play alot more than most, but it is very enjoyable to constantly change and adapt to the new variables… of each promotion… It sharpens my game, helps me learn all game types, and helps to eliminate bordom so you aren’t just playing 1 thing all the time. I’m not so great @ Omaha or Royal, but after the last 2 months… I’m better @ both by far.

I would like to suggest something I might have said before… Run a Contest… like 4 times a year… user suggestions for Promotions, then run the winning promotion… It allowes all replay players to brainstorm unique Promotions … even just Once , it would give staff some great ideas, they then could incorporate the best things into current Promotions… thats a win for everyone… ( pssst, and we do all the work )
Sassy.

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I just focus on promotions that have caps, this type of promotion never interested me at all. the promotions where players can play unlimited amount of games don’t interested me anymore. its your life and want to spent it playing 24/7 then more power to ya, but its not fair to people who can’t, because you know got to do that thing called life. Thanksgiving promotion is a good one, as there plenty of chances to play and earn tickets, only downside is I already got 4 tickets and that is all need to play in all 4 of the finals on 25th.

yeah there is no pleasing everyone, but the best ones are ones with cap as it gives everyone a fair chance to compete.

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Thanks for commenting and listening to the players here. I’m sure there are a lot of considerations that go into making a promotion or leaderboard. I don’t know how they affect what “normal” play is but from what I’ve heard and experienced they seem to have some impact. As I said before, I benefited from the bonuses and appreciated them a lot. Now that my bankroll is more stable, I’d like to find games that aren’t impacted by these things to see how they play. It would be nice to have that option but I don’t see many games that aren’t tied to some leaderboard or promotion. At least not in the tournament lobbies.

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Well its the last day, and as expected most of the same ppl playing.

Having not play’d much all week, I tried to make some coin and move up quickly… but noone is willing to play anything other than the lowest buyins… so you can’t make much for just playing… and if you try to be agressive then everyone folds because unlike “hands won”… “hands played” takes absolutely no skill, therefore anyone trying to be agressive just gets insults for betting too much, or no callers… yeah thats fun.:roll_eyes:

So I don’t see very much fun in only playing post-flop…part of NL, is isolating your opponents so you take less risk… but when noone will play unless its “LIMP the FLOP” every hand… you can’t very well use your best weapon… your chipstack… anymore.
Sassy.