Indeed, considering it's the cash cow. While it seems Disney Interactive is currently digesting Playdom, the game may not need quite the same scale of profit to be considered successful. But it still needs to meet a threshold, and a declining market makes it more difficult.

I wonder if we're in an adjustment period and it will start picking up. But more tweaking is definitely going to be needed. You can't go from n00bs walking away with the top prize, then go right to only the longer term players able to get it. There's gotta be some middle ground where if the average player really busts their ass for a month or 2, they can start having an increasing shot at it. I dunno know if that could work by raising, lowering, or keeping a cap system.

The ones getting Ada before (at low levels) were not new to the game, they were gaming the system by parking, taking advantage of actual new players who suddenly faced people at their level, but with every hero at 14.

I was just over the Vibranium level at 1280/ 8.77%

not quite the 25 points you were looking for, but means the top 3% for Vibranium went out to approximately 9% of participants.

I finished in vibranium with 1256/7.34%. Almost didn't make it! Hope this helps.

The long term trend may be down, but maybe this PVP was particularly low? Maybe the numbers will rebound a bit once people adjust to the level cap system? Maybe the quick restart after the last PVP, or maybe the holidays, contributed?

I don't remember my % from the Karnak PVP, but it looks from my history like there was a big drop in the total population. Karnak PVP - Rating 1435, Rank 29,794. Nova PVP - Rating 1346, Rank 26,929. I think the % -> rating scale was similar.

Would need harder numbers from people around the margins to really be sure. I scored lower in this tournament than the Karnak one, but had a higher percentage and a higher ranking, despite lower rating. Even considering your numbers, lower rating, higher rank in the Nova tournament. Score -> %age/ranking is partially a function of total system volume, which is usually a function of tournament length. Karnak may have skewed a bit high, in terms of system volume, because it had been four months since there had been real competitive PVP and some of us got itchy. My Karnak volume was something like 3* my Nova volume. 

At any rate, I'd need hard numbers from that tournament. %-> rating scale is how we estimate the number of players. Since the overall trend has been consistently down, we can be pretty sure that they are not enticing new players into the game at the same rate as players are retiring from the game. Not healthy in the long term. 

OTOH, they might retiire the game and start a version 2, with a new storyline and everyone starts from scratch. That move has generally not been greeted that well, so maybe not. 

Can't remember my percentage for this tournament sorry. I got to mid vib at one stage when I bought the cube but defensive battles against lvl 300's killed my score day after day. A few observations though. I am level 229 and the Anti-venom PVP was my first tournament, however long ago that was. Back then I quickly realised I needed to work hard at the game, recruit as often as I could (back then spec ops with no allies for iso's were impossibly hard for whatever total noob rank I was) I still spent money and worked hard because I enjoy the game and the challenge. Just when I thought I was getting a solid profile to battle PVP against players in and around my rank they capped the game and suddenly slack (high gold and diamond level 300 players with a massive chacter bonus advantage just killed me on the defensive end. I started the tournament around level 218. I am not complaining although I know it sounds like I am. I am a fairly new player working hard to be rewarded but finding myself discouraged. I don't know If it's been discussed before (and I apologise if my comments are out of place on this thread) but I thought perhaps it might help even out PVP a little if when you join a tournament every player is restricted to say 30 heros (of their choosing) for their hero bonus. The number restriction would mean each player would have to consider what class spread they wanted I.E (my strategy requires high attack) so I may pick  8 blasters out of the 30 at the disadvantage of other class bonus' I believe this would encourage  an added thought process element to PVP and an added process to strategy. Also newer players would not be defaulted into a character bonus disadvantage against level 300 players on the defensive end. (I think also the player's hero options for attack and defense teams could also only come from the initial number restricted pool). I understand many level 300 players are enjoying thier default advantages, but I believe it would only be the slacker players who don't work hard and attain reseach weapons etc that would drop grades and so be it! Hard working thoughtful and sound strategist lvl 300's would still have excellent tournaments. (Again sorry if this comment is out of place on this thread, I'm new to this wikia so please redirect me if necessary.)

Yeah, that would be a post that should be edited down as a comment on the page for the tournament (much like many that are currently there) or extended and posted as a blog. 

It's completely off topic here, as I'm only interested in peoples rating and percentages. 

I didnt hit the Margin this PVP but the last one I was at 1253 hit Vib at around 10.03%.

This PVP could not log in the last hour so could not make the last min drive for Vib.

Rating was 1,555, top 3.02%. Rest of this post is rant, sooooo:

Honestly, a lot of doom and gloom of the game lately that I've been seeing. Until Paydom themselves say otherwise, I'll not worry about them.

As far as less people particpating in the tourney goes, I personally think a number of factors contriubte to it. The whole Gold item/SpecOps item fiasco left a BAD taste in a lot of peoples mouth, especially considering the work that Playdom's gone to work with the new pvp set up. That said, I know for a fact that there are people who just started and I was seeing them as high as Vibranium. That's only going to entice newbies into pvp if matchmaking has improved like that to where they're able to get through with a little bit of work, where as I've got some longstanding members that I know hate pvp from it's ealier incarnations and flat out refuse to particpate in it. This has only really been our second PVP under the new rules, with it's own issues that they need to work out, so I say we need a few more rounds of it before saying anything about it.

There's also the fact that this pvp was right on the tail of on the previous one(With specops, and hybrid boxes, and daily missions during Chirmstas/New Years of all times... burn out is real, yo) probably dampered a lot of enthusasim for it, specially with no extra rewards outside of Silver. This isn't even going of the fact that, well, the Marvel fan community gets very uppity with Nova. Marvel Heroes, the diablo style Marvel game, went so far as to not only give early buyers who wanted Nova both Richard Rider AND Sam Alexander, they didn't charge anyone new playing the game the normal price of a huge skin change should they want the other Nova, just to make sure that fans who liked either character would be happy. Playdom didn't do that and went straight for the Shota Nova, which isn't going to make any of the Rider fans happy.

Now, I'm not saying that Playdom doesn't need to improve or make the game more accessable to newer players (They do, on both accounts), but they seem to doing fine currently and we've still got work on PVP to go to further improve on it. With it also only being one half of the game, I'm not too worried.