[Implemented] Example of an active PvP ladder with seasonal rewards

[OldKeith]

So, cash for PvP? That surely won't work if you can battle anyone you want, but reintroducing random matchups in a competitive format with rewards can fix that problem.

 

How much does Paydaying a rich lady on island 5 give you? A bit over 6k. Other trainers in islands 6-7 give, in average 4-5k. Battling those is faster than PvP, but completely boring and non-entertaining.

 

So why not introduce the concept of a ladder with rewards for wins?

The ladder resets once every 4 weeks, to allow everyone to catch up and start on level grounds. Each win gives you 5k (this can get buffed for consecutive wins), while a loss gives you nothing but loses you nothing either (maybe a berry). Alongside a very reliable way to have fun and make money at the same time, another incentive for intense laddering can be added: at the end of each "season", the top 5 players receive prizes: 1 million for first, 500k for 2nd, 250k for 3rd, and 100k for places 4-5. This makes people care about laddering more than just getting some cash while testing teams.

 

Will this work?

Go to Vermillion at any point of any day and you will see people battling or looking for battle. Even without a reward or incentive, people still battle. A lot.

 

Will this impact the economy?

Not at all. An average match can last up to 20 minutes (with some going up to one hour), and only one person wins. So considering a 50% winrate player, he will spend about 40 minutes making 5k, which is still nothing but it adds value to "vermilion duels". If someone really wants to make money, in those 40 minutes they may amass over 100k from island runs.

 

Can this be abused?

Arguably it can, but that can be worked around. The first way to abuse it is to click "search for matchup" at the same time with a friend who will facilitate your win. To prevent this, 1 or 2 hour cooldowns can be imposed between fighting the same person again. If a group of people are trying to abuse this system, a different cooldown can be set which allows you to battle once every 10 minutes. Because island runs give you more than 5k per 10 minutes, this method of abuse becomes unviable. A second way to abuse this is an "unwritten rule" among players in which everyone brings very frail, very offensive pokemon. While this can be fundamentally flawed, where a player breaks this "rule" by bringing a defensive team that easily deals with hyper offence (prisoner's dilemma), the cooldown can also help make these tactics unviable. Furthermore, a good ladder ranking where even the top 10 or 20 players get some prize like a mistery box encourages people to use real teams.

TLDR - cooldown makes arranged matches unprofitable, as island runs generate more cash

 

The game currently lacks a good endgame content, and I believe reintroducing random matchups with a ladder that means something is a solid starting point.

[XelaKebert]

I do like this concept but I think some other ways to get around plays trying to abuse it would be to limit who can be fought. Like excluding members of the same team or players on your friends list from being matched with you via this system. You'd still be able to duel them outside of the ladder system with no reward. That becomes an issue though with one player losing a good number of potential opponents though. Though if there was a cooldown between facing friends it could he that you can't face the same person more than twice in one day. This would make it a lot harder to abuse quickly due to there being a limit on how many times you can face one person. Just spitballing ideas out there.

[OldKeith]

I do like this concept but I think some other ways to get around plays trying to abuse it would be to limit who can be fought. Like excluding members of the same team or players on your friends list from being matched with you via this system. You'd still be able to duel them outside of the ladder system with no reward. That becomes an issue though with one player losing a good number of potential opponents though. Though if there was a cooldown between facing friends it could he that you can't face the same person more than twice in one day. This would make it a lot harder to abuse quickly due to there being a limit on how many times you can face one person. Just spitballing ideas out there.

 

Having a restriction on whom to play (people in your team/friends list) is not a good idea as people can just use their alts to play. I think allowing your next battle to start 10 minutes after the first one starts is a clean and efficient solution to all these potential problems.

[XelaKebert]

Having a restriction on whom to play (people in your team/friends list) is not a good idea as people can just use their alts to play. I think allowing your next battle to start 10 minutes after the first one starts is a clean and efficient solution to all these potential problems.

Making a player wait 10 minutes for another random battle isn't a good idea either. If they want to keep searching they should be able to face the first available opponent. Which is why limiting the number of times you can face the same player in a day may be the better way to go.

[OrangeManiac]

I do like this concept but I think some other ways to get around plays trying to abuse it would be to limit who can be fought. Like excluding members of the same team or players on your friends list from being matched with you via this system. You'd still be able to duel them outside of the ladder system with no reward. That becomes an issue though with one player losing a good number of potential opponents though. Though if there was a cooldown between facing friends it could he that you can't face the same person more than twice in one day. This would make it a lot harder to abuse quickly due to there being a limit on how many times you can face one person. Just spitballing ideas out there.

 

Not being able to play against teammates and friends doesn't solve anything. Only thing it really does is making a bigger threshold to accept friends in this game that accomplishes nothing. At worst you might not even find battles because everyone finding a battle are your friends / teammates while someone else can. The x amount of time cooldown to play the same player is easily the best way to avoid abusing this and in addition it's just boring to play same person multiple times to begin with so this feature would be necessity in a lot of ways.

Edited December 17, 2015 by OrangeManiac

[OldKeith]

Making a player wait 10 minutes for another random battle isn't a good idea either. If they want to keep searching they should be able to face the first available opponent. Which is why limiting the number of times you can face the same player in a day may be the better way to go.

 

Usually those 10 minutes have already passed during your first duel. I feel this rule mainly prevents people from using 6-choice band teams to force quick games, be it wins or loses.

[bl0nde]

I think the majority of the community supports some type of reward for spending time in comp battles basically similar to this thread. I would also recommend skimming through the poverty thread in general discussion by KaynineXL and the suggestion thread (can't remember title) started by DoubleJ if more thoughts are wanted about this idea.

 

My only critique about this opening post is the whole point of proposing these PvP reward systems was because people get no $ for playing (dueling) and breeding costs/move tutors costs eat up millions. If you think about it, some of the people who need the most cash are our new players who are trying to get a team started. I agree that higher payout should go to winners or consecutive winners (as long as there is a payout limit) because that creates incentives to play (just like your proposed prizes at the end of "seasons" also create incentives), but also I think giving basically nothing to the loser seems like too much of a chock hold for new players. My opinion would show a more even balance of payouts - perhaps half the cash the winner gets or something - not enough to encourage alt runs.

 

Another reason for my critique: this system will impact how we treat each other in our community in dueling environments. Only giving rewards to the winner seems like it creates a "must win" community which is potentially a very angry and rude community with many expressing that "win at any cost" level of anger. On the other hand, if everybody gets a bit of "cake" for playing it can be a completely different environment - one that is more carefree and one that has a little more leniency or tolerance for goofing around/experimentation (variety) in the metagame. This is just my opinion (which could be wrong).

 

Obviously, the whole system just requires a ton of thinking, it's a big step and I'm sure any idea would be critiqued. It is a good suggestion Keith and it is well thought out with some good ideas in it. I like "seasons" (ladder resets), I also like incentivizing veterans to play against each other instead of "noob stomp" or whatever you want to call it. +1

 

edit/p.s. we have to be careful with that reward thing though. Remember when we had the same group of guys winning tournaments regularly and they convert cash/shiny into comps. Now they do untradable gift shiny. That is another delicate balance there.

Edited December 17, 2015 by bl0nde

[OldKeith]

 

 

Thanks for the reply. While I agree to most of your points, rewarding a loss is extremely abusable as it allows people to run a 5xexplosion team, getting some cash quickly.

[bl0nde]

That's a good point. Each payout rate will need to be analyzed to prevent exploits and provide ideal balance. As you mention, I also think using the average money run payout rate from the islands 5,6,7 (not exaggerations) is a good base to start off of then balance from there. That's all I have. +1

[OldKeith]

To expand on the potential of daily challenges (a.k.a. give your players a reason to log into your game), some fun objectives can be given for a separate, non-ranked game mode. To accomplish a challenge, you need to win your battle, and do random tasks at the same time, example:

-do not use an ice move

-one hit-ko a full-hp pokemon

-use no recovery moves

-5 of your pokemon need to share a type

-win with 3 members of your team alive

-reveal up to 5 of your pokemon only

-use a weather-summoning move

-maximize at least one of your stats

-explode

-land a critical hit

-have your remaining time over 2:30 minutes

 

Surely, some challenges can be more difficult than others. But it gives that extra incentive to play. Requiring a win to activate is also up to debate.

[bl0nde]

They do those daily challenges in world of tanks and it's totally a love or hate relationship. As long as they are kind of easy to do and fun, people love them. If you start getting to the point where people have to play for 3 hours to complete a "special" task it can turn into frustration and hate. If you tease people will something special, they will all want it just like they all want 31's. Then the cries will start coming in the forums about how hard it is. Since we already have grinding (many consider an annoyance at times), I'd recommend keeping daily challenges as easy fun little challenges that don't give you a lot of extra work. We're going off topic though in my opinion that is sort of a different suggestion if you want to have an official discussion on it.

Edited December 17, 2015 by bl0nde

[Solist]

I also think a reward for endgame PVP would make this game alot more enjoyable for all kinds of players, casual or competitive.

 

How about if the matchup system puts a cooldown on getting rewards from players you already battled during a given timespan. And adjust the search algorithm in a way to prefer matchups against players you haven't battled yet.

[Rendiz]

Highly in favor of this.

 

This is in no way to be abused. Best case scenario with the current suggested parameters you run a CB team and win a game earning 5k every 10 minutes which comes to 30k per hour. Or for an average player winning 20 min games its only 15k its clear nobody will be using this as a way to make income but rather as a fun competitive experience + bragging rights for being higher on the ladder. The payout rates could easily be doubled from what Keith said and it would still only equal 60k per hour in best case which is under half you could make in that amount of time doing a vs seeker run so this is not in any way exploitable to make a lot of money. God forbid giving players any way of making money which isn't a painful grind.

 

This is definitely a system that works because pretty much any other online game and mmo with any amount of system has a ladder with rewards for playing. And its definitely something people have been asking for a long time to have.

 

A couple of suggestion. First would be to increases payouts based on time / turns taken. Lets say 10% per 5 minutes. Of course this rate is just an example but you get the idea. It is still only pitiful amounts of money but again it's more of a reward than not having one and the main idea would be to keep the main focus on the ladder rather than the monetary gain.

 

Second I feel like while earning 1Mill for coming first each season  is very nice and all it's also kind of boring. What i'm suggesting is maybe a couple of months a year adding something extra like maybe a comp gift shiny or even a regular non gift shiny to build up the hype and to get more people involved. It should probably remain solely a monetary prize the majority of the time to make these seasons more 'special' also because if there would be any way to exploit this system it would be to win trade to get first place. Although on this game i feel like win trading wouldn't be as big of an issue.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Rendiz

[Champlooo]

First would be to increases payouts based on time / turns taken. Lets say 10% per 5 minutes. Of course this rate is just an example but you get the idea. It is still only pitiful amounts of money but again it's more of a reward than not having one and the main idea would be to keep the main focus on the ladder rather than the monetary gain.

 

I feel like this would encourage stalling though, just to build up your winnings. Could get annoying.

 

And staff could argue how easily this could be abused

[XelaKebert]

Usually those 10 minutes have already passed during your first duel. I feel this rule mainly prevents people from using 6-choice band teams to force quick games, be it wins or loses.

Then what's the point of the cooldown if it is finished before you even finish a match? If there is a concern about items unique item clause could be enforced in these duels.

[OldKeith]

Then what's the point of the cooldown if it is finished before you even finish a match? If there is a concern about items unique item clause could be enforced in these duels.

 

The point of the cooldown is to prevent people from repeatedly playing 2-minute matches by bringing glass cannon nuke teams.

Also, it is preferable that this ladder used tournament mode clauses, the standard which can help players prepare for official tournaments.

[Sebaku]

Then what's the point of the cooldown if it is finished before you even finish a match? If there is a concern about items unique item clause could be enforced in these duels.

The point of the cooldown is so that people can't do more than 1 battle in 10 minutes, to farm easy money, to stop people from seeing it as a cashgrab. If you have a legit match that takes longer than 10 minutes there is no cooldown for those people.

 

edit: ninja'd

Edited December 17, 2015 by Sebaku

[bl0nde]

For the reasons you guys are discussing, I always wrote about a time based system with a flat rate across one given match.

Ex: If you stall, you get a payout for playing the 30 minutes. Just as an example calc you could say $200 per minute @ 30 minutes = $6000

Ex 2: If you use an explosion team (10 minute match. 10minutesx$200 per minute = $2000)

then a balanced team (20 minute match. 20minutesx$200 per minute = $4000 ) you get paid for playing 10minutes+20minutes = 30 minutes (2000+4000=$6000).

 

This way you don't have to worry about cooldowns because it doesn't matter if friends try to get together with the intent of making matches short. The matches are based on time, not how many matches you play. You also don't have worry about encouraging or discouraging any particular play style. It seems like you are encouraging pokemon like SunnyBeam Explosion exeggutor/destiny bonders/glass cannons if the system is based on number of matches played.

 

...but you can't just keep that rate flat forever because there are no incentives there, so then you can do rewards for each season like keith said or change the payout rate based on # of consecutive wins your opponent has at the time or something. There's lots of ways to do it.

 

p.s.

I am actually pretty excited about seasons, I could see in an announcement "Welcome to PokeMMO league season 47" with the prizes announced and stuff. Then have names of past season winners posted somewhere in a keepsake thread - a similar idea to the in game pokemmo hall of fame after you beat the elite 4.

Edited December 17, 2015 by bl0nde

[DoubleJ]

Praise. And for the love of all things Desu, implement a system like this. I can't keep going on grinding for yen by Pay Day. 

[Robofiend]

This suggestion makes sense, any battle system that is truly random and truly winner-take-all will be competitive enough to prevent abuse as long as it's done carefully. The ladder effect eliminates the short-term benefits of match-fixing and the random matchup prevents players from playing on an alt and throwing matches to teammates.

 

A couple of addtional thoughts:

 

1. You could also implement payouts based on COIL, W/L % or another competitive statistic. For instance, any time you win a match with a record of better than 50/50 you get paid or you get payouts for reaching a certain COIL (which depends both on the number of battle you play and your skill, with lower reward for players with lower W/L rates). There's no reason not to have rewards for all of these things, rewarding both casual players who like to play a few matches but can't dedicate their lives to laddering as well as giving players an incentive to reach the number 1 spot. 

 

2. A past suggestion of mine to prevent cheating is to prevent players who've recently battled from re-battling to avoid two friends getting on a low traffic time of day and abusing the lack of randomness in who they play. The only way the "alt hack" would work is if you had hours of free time which you could dedicate to throwing matches to (random) opponents while gaining nothing for yourself.

 

3. Another option is to punish people for doing things that seem sketchy, like forfeiting with 5 or 6 pokemon left on their squad or repeatedly forfeiting. 

 

I'd also like to point out there is no competitive system is immune to abuse: players can always find a way to fix matches or abuse existing rules and it even happens current tournament system on occasion. Competitive play is the only endgame here and weaving it into the fabric of the game is really the only way to capitalize on that.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Robofiend

[Linken]

payout rates according to to played time are a good idea but you'll need an upper limit to prevent abuse

[bl0nde]

I was reading [url=http://pokemondb.net/pokebase/140898/how-does-the-rating-system-work-on-pokemon-showdown]this[/url] wikipedia link a few days ago myself related to how to construct a ladder system. I am not sure if it helps staff out or not - probably not x).

[XelaKebert]

The point of the cooldown is to prevent people from repeatedly playing 2-minute matches by bringing glass cannon nuke teams.

Also, it is preferable that this ladder used tournament mode clauses, the standard which can help players prepare for official tournaments.

So then the losers get punished for someone trying to abuse the system. You can't have the cooldown only apply to the winners because someone could lose on purpose to help someone else out. Furthermore, why are we concerned if someone wants to build a heavily offensive team? If someone wants to run a glass cannon nuke team, then that's their choice. If someone wants to bring a heavy stall team that's their choice. Why punish someone for a playstyle? A cap could be set on the amount that can be earned in a day and achieve the same end goal without punishing players for their strategic choices.

[PandaJJ]

Having a ladder like this is essential to make this game complete. However, as many have mentioned, the wrong implementation can have unfortunate effects, especially when it comes to rewards. Here are my thoughts:

 

I was a chess player for a long time, and used several different websites to play on when I wanted to practice by myself. Most of these sites are only concerned with playing chess, and give you a rating (no equivalent to rewards as in our game.) Here are a couple of things I learned and that need to be addressed for an enjoyable ladder:

 

People are sore losers. And sore losers won't accept a defeat just like that. Chess websites usually give you a few minutes to reconnect after you leave in the middle of a game, in order for you to recover if you disconnected. This is also being implemented in pokemmo as far as I'm aware, and it's a great thing. However, sore losers abuse this by disconnecting, sometimes even after waiting untill their game timer is almost at zero, to make their opponent have to wait needlessly. This behaviour needs to be punished for the ladder to be enjoyable.

 

People will do anything to win. When rating is the only thing that matters, people couldn't care less about anything but winning. This will especially true in pokemmo if we also give money awards to the players. In chess, this means they will start playing quickly when your game timer is low in order to force a loss by time, even when they are clearly losing. While this will also happen in pokemmo, pokemon has other ways this can be abused. People will make teams that win a lot and use the best pokemon. If a tier is unhealthy, people will abuse this for all it's worth. If we want an enjoyable ladder, we need a quick-acting council to govern the tiers. In particular, we will probably need to gather all usage statistics on order for the council to quickly spot what is broken and fix it.

 

Now, these things only concerns the ladder when we don't take rewards into consideration. When we add rewards, we get a much more complex system that players will try to abuse for the sake of getting these rewards. And the way I see it, there is almost no way to make system that can't be abused. If you give payouts for each battle, there will be issues no matter what: If the payout is based on simply winning or losing, even if it's modified by how many games you have won in a row or your COIL, people will want to play fast games. Fast games mean more games which mean more money. If the payout is based on time consumption, we get the opposite effect: Say you are winning, but you have plenty of time left on your timer. Then you can simply let the timer go down to almost 0 before you make your winning move. You drag the games. And if you earn less and less money as time passes, we are back to quick battles.

 

The way I see it, the solution is to only give rewards for your position on the ladder, and not after every battle. In this case, this would need to happen rather frequently, perhaps once a week (after which the ladder will reset). However, giving only rewards to top players might discourage other players to use the ladder, so it is better to give rewards to everybody on the ladder. In order to be a part of the ladder, you need to play, say 10 or 20 games. This again will discourage players who know they can't reach the top from actually trying to win - they will simply lose their 10 games quickly to become a part of the ladder and "get their share." This should be counteracted by basing the reward on both your position and your winrate. A possible example could be like this:

 

Base rewards:

1st-10th: 1m

11th-100th: 100k

101st and onwards: 10k

 

The true reward will then be the base reward multiplied by your winrate. For example, if Leorodo is number 7 on the ladder with a winrate of 63%, he will get 1.000.000 * 0.63 = 630.000 pokedollars at the end of the week. (Note that the base rewards need to be calibrated by the number of players etc etc, this is just an example)

 

Other than that, it is of course necessary to have a pairing system that only finds opponents with similar ratings and avoids picking the same opponent frequently, like people have mentioned. A cooldown between each battle is not necessary with this system, and should be avoided in general - it is discouraging to those who wants to play quickly.

Edited December 18, 2015 by PandaJJ

[DoubleJ]

Awarding players for position on the ladder seems kind of painful in my opinion. We play a game that consists of thousands, if not tens of thousands of players, and justifying a reward system like that is painful. This is why we have official tournaments to award players on this kind of level. What we need is something that can provide instant return in the form of in-game currency that is actually engaging. PvP is engaging and that is the single-most reason we all play this game.