I dont understand the reason for the ft-payoutstructures aside from getting more rake since people have to play another 1$ mtt to get something out of it. Everything gets smaller. If you win a 1$ mtt as a recreational you wont even win enough to make a jump to 5$ mtts. If you finish 2nd or less you will be stuck if you use a little BRM. And how realistic is it for a real recreational player to get to two fts in a short amount of time.
I only play on the weekends and I know that smaller fields means less variance but I dont have the time to play enough to profit of it so when I can play only one or two days a week I want the chance to cash big or I wont even bother wasting my afternoon. I will never get to play the volume to build a bankroll the proper way when I have a dayjob. And I think its similar for lots of other players who are often enough the players who can afford to play a 20$ mtt or occasionally join a 109 major.
It also seems that for a every day business there just isnt enough money to fill every single mtt anymore which lead to decreasing gtds all over the place. But you see certain mtts still outshine others for example the 5$ marathon. It gets a lot more players than the stuff which starts around it like 5$ turbos etc.. So I think players have no problem to join longer lasting tournaments if the prizepool is good.
So maybe cut some of the stuff. Make the flagship mtts big and instead of having all the <3$ stuff, cut a lot of them and make more must play sats even for the big4+ stuff.
This part will probably get me crucified.
I often read about budget players and so on. They wont be the future of onlinepoker. A budget player will always be on a budget so even if he wins a common cents mtt he probably cashes out the bucks rather than moving up. He cant afford or justify to use the winnings to gamble higher when 100$ can buy him stuff he cant afford usually. I did that as well in 2007/2008 as a student when I won my first 4/180. I cashed out the money I deposited and a little more.
And most of the posters arguing for that stuff are probably players who try to build bankrolls from the bottom and argue for their self-interest. But we have seen that for years now. We need more turbos we need more non-nlhe stuff and we need more and more(now we are back to "We need more HU mtts". Yet the money is not there anymore. The mixed games have been around for years and they haven't gain much traction unless during SCOOP/WCOOP. How long is Ruthenberg retired since he made a killing in them?
I dont think it makes much sense to fragment the schedule even more and the grinders of these games know they still have an incredible edge in them yet I think every dollar lost in these games is almost a dollar too much because the mixed games probably wont start a new rush.
Thats just my opinion.