Hey there,
Sorry to hear you feel this way. When I started reading this entry, I actually thought we were going to agree, but it seems you were going in the COMPLETELY different direction I was thinking
For me, I have to say I actually disagree with you completely. The high blue rewards for 2nd and 3rd place actually INCREASED battlehugs. It made 3rd and 2nd place extremely valued ranks, which also meant, no one bothered trying to knocked 1st place out. Instead, it promoted players to bring in large teams and assure the helper teams that if they helped them win, they would ensure 2nd and 3rd for the high reward payout. This lead to the current system of sub abuse/families. MANY complained that lowering the blue rewards would decrease competition because the non-boosters could no longer keep up with the red boosters. lowering the rewards though showed no such results. Then the staff decided (for a bit) to eliminate 2nd and 3rd place rewards to increase competition. The proof was (in my opinion) undisputed in that competition increased enormously as everyone was going for 1st. CME on M2 had one of it's hardest earned era's since it's conception. They had to take down the world in 4 separate (and large) waves to come out on top. Unfortunately, before the 1st era even ended, the staff turned back on this decision due to high amounts of push back from the community. My opinion was that this was truly a shame.
In my honest opinion, I believe the inception of blue tokens overall harmed BD. It made players believe they NEEDED blue tokens to do anything. No longer was "hard work" needed. Nope. It was blue tokens and numbers. Now people attempt to farm them and play "JW" eras all the time.
They sit by in eras with no intent to play just to click on the daily bonus and collect blues up for months later. Players will simply ally everyone on the map in hopes of being able to build all era and come out with 2nd or 3rd rank to "earn" blues for later.
By no means does high blue rewards help the community. It harms it to make them believe blues are of high value in order to compete. Players decide they don't want to boost reds because they can just farm a few easy eras and get a couple thousand blues to use later for a serious era.
Now, with less players in the community, we have less competitive teams in the first place. This only results in even more teams realizing they can easily get away with rank 2 or 3 (and sadly, sometimes 1st) from doing nearly nothing. 1 war and done. Yet, for doing nothing, people get rewarded. And when that 1 team falls on a world, they no longer compete and rebuild. Instead, they quit and look for another world that looks easy to "earn" blue tokens.
I'd personally like to increase 1st place prize and eliminate 2nd and 3rd again. But overall, I'd want total elimination of blues. But that option will never come to be as players have become so dependent on them and the push back would be enormous from the community.