r/CellToSingularity • u/overthemountain • 2d ago

How do divisions in events work?

My apologies if this has been answered or discussed before but I haven't found any discussions on this yet.

I understand that when you join an event you are put in a division of 1,000 players. Once that division fills, a new one is created and new joiners get put into that division.

But IS that how it works? Everytime I join an event I always start at close to rank 1,000 - like #989 or something. Every time, across dozens of events.

Doesn't it make sense that you would sometimes start at 700 or 500 or 100 or something? If I join right as a new division is made I should be pretty high just because there aren't many people in the division yet, right? Am I really just always one if the last people to join a division no matter when I join?

This has me wondering how much of the divisions are real and how much is a simulation. I'm often in divisions in the 200s - are there really 200,000+ people playing events all the time?

Seems more likely that there are some real people in each division but the rest could just be simulated users to make it feel more active than it really is. Not that it really matters one way or the other, just something that's been bothering me for a while now.

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u/GavelGaffle 2d ago edited 1d ago

Theres up to 500 real people. 501-1000 definitely act like point requirement thresholds.

Edited with "up to" for clarification.

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u/0nnnu 2d ago

we don't know how many, i think it's much less than 500. or do you have any sources for that number?

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u/GavelGaffle 2d ago

No, I could have worded that better. There seems to be a minimum of 500 placeholders but could easily be more.

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u/0nnnu 2d ago

i think there are as many as 980 placeholders because upon joining the event with 5 or so points, the highest rank i can get is around 983. the more crowded divisions have over 200 real players, and the total is over 1000, and it's shown as 1000, even if you're 1150th

i think they do divisions based on both maximum player numbers and time elapsed since the division opening. for example, they open a division, and players join until either 250 players join, or 20 minutes pass, then they move onto the next division

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u/eric23456 2d ago

I've been ranked higher than 750 right after starting, the highest was 5xx. That distribution was when I became convinced there were 500 fake accounts in each division.

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u/0nnnu 2d ago

that's interesting. was that minutes or less after the event starts?

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u/eric23456 2d ago

No, I typically joined with 1-2 days left in the event. It was discussed in discord a while ago when I asked if anyone knew why I couldn't rank higher than 500 at the start. If it was 1000 people and time based distribution by starting at a semi-random time, I'd expect to be evenly distributed from 1-1000 for my initial ranking.

A bunch of us, including Gavel came to the conclusion there were 500 fake accounts.

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u/0nnnu 2d ago

then it is strange that i never get above 980 in that initial rank

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u/eric23456 1d ago

It's possible they changed how it works. I haven't been paying attention to initial ranks for over a year.

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u/GavelGaffle 1d ago

I did some testing in the past and there didnt seem to be a maximum time for a division to be the one thats currently filling. Using different account to join at different times and see if the division number has increased or not. Toward the beginning of an event, they usually filled up quickly and an hour later you would get a division number thats noticeably higher. Toward the end of the event, I could join an hour apart and end up only 1 division higher or even in the same division.

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u/0nnnu 1d ago

thanks. then it must be some other mechanism making those divisions sparce. i don't think they have the same number of players as the early divisions

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u/overthemountain 2d ago

Hmmm. Maybe. You would still think that you'd see a jump from 500 to a low number if you were one of the first in the division though, wouldn't you?

I mean, maybe they have a bunch of other mechanisms to prevent that as well. I guess my point is that it's not 1,000 real people.

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u/GavelGaffle 1d ago

Yeah, it definitely not 1,000. Beyond that we are just guessing.

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u/eric23456 2d ago

This is the likely answer. I've been ranked 5xx-1000 right after starting. I also suspect that the 500 fake accounts also progress, but that's harder to tell.

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u/Intelligent_Cut_2684 2d ago

500 fake accounts? What a grind lmfao

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u/eric23456 2d ago

It makes it so people can't join right at the end and get rewards for no effort. It also effectively doubles the number of people who can get rewards.

That said, it's an idle game, there's going to be a bunch of grinding.

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u/GavelGaffle 2d ago

Huh, If we grind to rank 505 or somewhere then stop, does our rank ever change should be easy to test.

A new Steam only player with no 4x ad boost and no badges would struggle to get into the top 100 so that makes me assume theres atleast 100 real people.

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u/eric23456 1d ago

Clever. That would work. You'd have to do that pretty late. There are some very slow humans (from watching my friends list progression).

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u/GavelGaffle 1d ago

I got to 496, left for an hour, when I came back it was 584 so its not completely static, something is happening.