Excuse me, but I'm ftp and I'm always in top 10. (used to be 4-6 mostly, when I actually tried. now it's usually 7-9 while I more or less auto afk, thou that have something to do with other people also stopped trying or I won't have stayed that high)

What's more, my server is the last one in my server bracket.

I would say there are very few bracket where a ftp from one of the earliest server can't get into top 10 at all.


Anyway, 4 adjustments are possible:
Power over level (either pure power or with adjustment to account for level talent tier)
Shrink sage size
Increase reward count.
A winner bracket where all the winner are placed into one (or few) sages against fellow winners in the next sage (most of which will fall back to regular sage as they can't win in that and repeat)

Now, it won't solve all the problems. Player in later servers will still be significantly disadvantaged Thou when it goes far enough down the line, it's rather random as they can be placed on top or bottom, depending on how many people show up in earlier brackets, it's the middle-bottom of the first 3 bracket or so that have the least fluidity in placement and thus chance of winning. Note, not rock-bottom ones, those are likely to bumped into a "later" sage, but middleish-bottom that is unlikely to surface nor sink far enough.
But in any case, would be significant improvement over what we have right now.

Which one? the fluidity?

Let's consider if they changed bracket size to 60, reward place to 5, so let's say top 15 by power always get reward for simplicity (realistically, more like 15 out of top 20-25 or so)

"Thou when it goes far enough down the line, it's rather random as they can be placed on top or bottom"
let's say someone is ranked #500 in sage participants, in term of power.
Let's further assert that on average, each player have a 70% chance of joining.
This means this #500 player would be placed as, on average the 350th player in sage, which would place him at the bottom of bracket #6, a bad thing.
however, it only takes 11 more participants to bump him to 361st, which would be top of bracket #7, giving him a win.
What is the chance that 361 or more player show up out of 500 given a 70% rate for each? 15.2%. granted, this DOES include the chance of say more than 376 player showing up and thus he gets bumped to the middle or bottom of bracket #7 and so on (0.58%), but all in all, he have a chance to win in there.

"it's the middle-bottom of the first 3 bracket or so that have the least fluidity in placement"

Similarly, let's consider someone who is ranked say 40, 130, 220 respectively.
The ranked 40th player, on average, would be the 28st, around middle of bracket 1. The chance of him getting into top 15 would require only 14 of the 39 before him showing, at 70% rate, this is 0.001% chance. And being the 40th, there is no way in heck that he will be in bracket 2.
The ranked 130th player, on average, would be the 31st player in bracket 2. To be in top 15 of bracket 2, only 74 of the 129 player above him can show, this is 0.16% chance. Alternatively, if 120 or more of them show, which is less than 0.001% chance, he will be on top of bracket 3. So overall, almost no chance of winning.
And finally, the 220th, who on average will be the 34th player in bracket 3. To be in top 15 of his bracket, at most 134 of the 220 can show, which is 0.25% chance, and on the other end, >180 of 220 show, it's 0.00445% chance.
So as you can see, those who are "normally" in the middle of the top brackets are pretty much stuck where they are, in the "loser zone" of the bracket that they are in and will, in all likelihood, always be, unless people quit the game in mass before them (quit sage or game altogether, as is the case right now. But if sage is improved, this is less likely so...) in which case the 130/220 might eventually surface to the top of their bracket.

So as it stands, there will be around 100 player per server bracket that will never see the light of day no matter what modification is made to sage. But in the very least, if all 4 proposed changes are made, it will change from 80% of the bracket population, whatever that might be, to just the 100 or so player. (I am, unfortunately, most likely one of them. Granted, as I've said that it's not always the top power that win, I might have a chance to get something every now and then)

if it's something else, plz specify