New Season Tiers

[VAN1SH1NG]

The only change so far for this season is that players are grouped into three tiers (Gold, Silver, and Bronze). This isn't much different than previous seasons where starting ratings were based on previous season ratings. However there are a couple differences.

• When the website is updated, there will be three different leaderboards. You will be ranked only against those who are in your tier.
• The top 3 in each tier will earn CP although the Gold tier earns more CP. For Gold #1 wins 200, #2 150, and #3 100. For Silver and Bronze it is 100 each for #1-3. The top 3 from Silver and Bronze are moved up to the next tier for the next season, so you can only earn CP from lower tiers once (if you aren't already in Gold... sorry).

The tiers were based on rating from last season with 1100 or higher=Gold, 500-1100=Silver, and less than 500=Bronze. Starting rating for Gold is 1500, Silver is 1000, and Bronze is 500.

While those guidelines apply to anyone who played a decent number of games last season, it got a little more complicated trying to place players who played very few games last season. Not going to try to write it out because the complete formula got lengthy and a very small number of players got manually assigned to higher tiers.

I will listen to requests to move up or down tiers, but generally your rating from last season would have to be very close to the cutoff.. so like within about 100 rating points. You should request a change BEFORE playing any ladder games.

You can check the tier you are in by joining a ladder server. It will be displayed next to your rating.

planeball.com/ranked shows the top 3 in each tier. You can click on GOLD, SILVER, and BRONZE to see the full leaderboards. Also as a reminder the stats pages on the website require a minimum number of games played. For last season it was set to 20. For now I have set minimum games to 5 for this season but it will be raised later (if I remember anyway).

[Winters Ark]

It seems ridiculous to me to require 20 games to see your, or another player's, stats. One of the best things about Nobo's ladder was the diversity of stat tracking. You could learn so much about the holes in your game just by looking at those stats, which is one of the features that I'd absolutely love to have back.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the tiers. Going to have to play with it for a while to see how much I like it.

EDIT: Are there any significant changes to the team balancer that we should know of? (i.e. in are the tiers weighted at all, is it just based on ratings as before, etc. etc.) Also what tier/rating do new players receive on first play?

[VAN1SH1NG]

The point of the current stat pages are to rank players in statistical categories. If you don't have a minimum number of games then you will have a lot listed who play one or two games where they happened to do far better than usual or perhaps even had like one quick spawn with a kill and disconnected, never to be seen again. 20 games is not that many games, but most likely it will be set to between like 8-10 games this season and beyond since seasons will be much shorter.

Whenever the player profile pages are created you will be able to see all stats for all players by looking at their profile. Anything missing from nobo ladder is only because of limited time to work on all the many things that need to be done. By the end of July profile pages with a lot of stats and other info will be back.

There are zero changes other than tiers right now. And the only change from tiers is that lower rated players now have something to play for and can win CP. The only disadvantage at all I see with tiers is that some players towards to bottom of Gold might not be so happy they don't have a shot at easier CP (although those at the very bottom of Gold can request to be moved down to Silver).

I have to work on something else for most of the next two weeks, but after that I'll put a lot of time into new features during this season. I will try to at least get a new lobby as well as 1DM and TDM working asap though.

[VipMattMan]

The way I'm reading this is that there's no way to transition up and down tiers automatically from just playing, until we're reassigned each season. I could see some potential frustrations with that from players currently assigned in lower tiers, if accurate.

I'm also curious about how the whole ranking system is operating now. Does all team assignment and overall rating operate as it did before, with all users factored in, or are ratings somehow independent within tiers and using a different team assignment methodology?

[Slender]

Group all tiers into a global ranking list. It'd be good to compare how top ranks from each tier compare to the rest in a global ranking.

[VipMattMan]

Indeed, I think the tiers should be a little less static, and the rewards a little less arbitrary as they relate to the overall group.

If the purpose is incentive as it is right now, with the community points, then theoretically people who couldn't play up to the top of their tier would instead play down to a lower tier for the next season and then blow that group out of the water for the points.

We should see if we can get a way to give all players community points. You could then just give all players of increasing tiers more points which would incentivize current players to get better, reward lower players for giving it a shot (probably bringing in new users), and do away with the weird situations where lucky middling/low players get rewards over unlucky high tier players.


Edit: Re-reading the top post, it looks like maybe the intention is that people can't drop tiers at all after they've advanced, which does prevent people from gaming the system for community points, but then that opens more questions.

[VAN1SH1NG]

You are overthinking this way too much. As I said the only real change this season is more CP is given out. I have been doing "tiers" for awhile now in that players start at different ratings based on their final rating from the previous season.

I have been wanting to do events for higher rated players only and while this may be done by tiers now, its not really much different than going by rating.

Aside from events, players in lower tiers should be happy that they have a chance to win CP. I can't really see anyone not being happy about this except those near the bottom of Gold as I said in my last post.

You can't move down tiers unless I manually move you down because it becomes extremely clear should be in a lower tier. I doubt I manually move more than a few players during the season. Players are not re-assigned each season. Only the top 3 players in Bronze go up to Silver and the top 3 in Silver to Gold. Should we somehow get a sudden surge of players this would have to be changed, but moving 6 up per season should be plenty for now considering the seasons will be short (2.5 to 3 months). If anything the risk is that we move people up that aren't really good enough to move up.

Ideally it would be possible to move up and down anytime, but then I couldn't award CP for finishing in the top 3 of tier as it wouldn't make sense then. With seasons being short it shouldn't matter much that you are stuck in one tier for an entire season.

It would be nice to be able to give out more CP in Altitude, but I don't have power to award CP. As it is now it is too difficult (or at least to slow) to earn CP and unlock skins.

Originally Posted by Slender

Group all tiers into a global ranking list. It'd be good to compare how top ranks from each tier compare to the rest in a global ranking.

I'd really rather not combine tiers into a global ranking list. The stat rankings contain everyone although I might also do stat rankings for within tiers. Honestly I really wanted to make all tiers start at 1500 so that it was impossible or at least very difficult to compare. But I couldn't not think of a good way to have every tier at 1500 while not hurting the balancer in the day or two I had to throw this together.

I want people to not worry about higher tiers and try to get good enough to finish top 3 in their tier.

[Winters Ark]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

I'd really rather not combine tiers into a global ranking list. The stat rankings contain everyone although I might also do stat rankings for within tiers.

What I think Slender was getting at, and what I would like, is a page that shows everyone, their tier, and all the other stuff that's already shown. Then you can have a filter at the top to only show the tiers you want to see.

[Slender]

Originally Posted by Winters Ark

What I think Slender was getting at, and what I would like, is a page that shows everyone, their tier, and all the other stuff that's already shown. Then you can have a filter at the top to only show the tiers you want to see.

Precisely. No combining tiers or anything, just a general view of everyone from every tier.

[Tekn0]

I'm currently rank 9 in Silver with a 10 win streak.. how much more do I need to win to get to Gold?

Do the tiers have anything to do with the game balancer?

[VAN1SH1NG]

As I posted, at the end of the season the top three from silver (and bronze) move up a tier. There is one update to this I keep forgetting to post is that there will likely be a minimum rating to move up as well as earn CP for top 3. I don't want to move players up tiers if they will be very overrated.

Bronze will be somewhere between 700-800 points to move up and Silver between 1100-1200. Again though only a maximum of 3 will earn CP and move up each season.

Tiers do not affect balance at all. Balancer is exactly the same and I have started players at different ratings the last few seasons. So the only changes are more players can earn CP and at some point there might be special events restricted to gold or gold+silver tiers.