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

[PandaJJ]

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. 

 

I understand that you are biased because you want instant money in your pocket, and I can't really see your argument. How many people sign up for tournaments? Not a thousand. Okay, maybe people don't know about about the forums? Then, how many people have 100+ long streaks in the battle frontier? Not a thousand. How many people will play more than ten battles in Vermillion each week? Again, not that many. The player base consists mostly of 10-year olds who play the story and quit, and other people who don't battle, that number is irrelevant. It is also worth to take a look at showdown, which I imagine has quite a large player base - it doesn't take long to break the top 500 on any ladder there. As I said, the number of players who get the highest rewards, 2nd highest rewards etc, will be based on the playerbase. Getting the top prize might mean being the top 5 or 10%. And that number changes as the playerbase changes.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing about a way where instant rewards actually works, though.

[DoubleJ]

I understand that you are biased because you want instant money in your pocket, and I can't really see your argument. How many people sign up for tournaments? Not a thousand. Okay, maybe people don't know about about the forums? Then, how many people have 100+ long streaks in the battle frontier? Not a thousand. How many people will play more than ten battles in Vermillion each week? Again, not that many. The player base consists mostly of 10-year olds who play the story and quit, and other people who don't battle, that number is irrelevant. It is also worth to take a look at showdown, which I imagine has quite a large player base - it doesn't take long to break the top 500 on any ladder there. As I said, the number of players who get the highest rewards, 2nd highest rewards etc, will be based on the playerbase. Getting the top prize might mean being the top 5 or 10%. And that number changes as the playerbase changes.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing about a way where instant rewards actually works, though.

 

Your system does sound like a system that PokeMMO could easily adopt since it requires so much more commitment than the normal play requires. My argument is that this game does not promote much in the form of development from the everyday player to the competitive player, and my belief is that this is because acquiring currency is nearly impossible to obtain. Give us a PvP system that provides instant reward and then develop a ladder system to help establish a link between everyday players and the competitive scene. Maybe then we can see the competitive player base grow. 

[PandaJJ]

Your system does sound like a system that PokeMMO could easily adopt since it requires so much more commitment than the normal play requires. My argument is that this game does not promote much in the form of development from the everyday player to the competitive player, and my belief is that this is because acquiring currency is nearly impossible to obtain. Give us a PvP system that provides instant reward and then develop a ladder system to help establish a link between everyday players and the competitive scene. Maybe then we can see the competitive player base grow. 

 

I do see where you are coming from, but as for the ladder, competetiveness must always be considered before rewards. And I think (please prove me wrong) that instant rewards will alter the way we play, in one way or another. What you are really requesting is that new players have an easier time of getting into competetive, and I do agree with that. The ladder is there to provide them with battling experience, by allowing the to battle players on their own level. If the ladder is focused on really quick battles in order to earn quick cash, it does not reflect on the actual competetive battling. The other thing that new players need, namely resources, should come from other sources. This is another complex problem, maybe we should give gift comps to new players? In any case, I don't see it belonging in this thread.

[bl0nde]

People will do anything to win.

... 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.

I am not sure who this sentence is directed at (probably just anyone in general), but you can't stall with time in our game anymore. If you walk away from keyboard to try to force a loss or try to gain money while afk, the system will just afk you and also...lower your rank with the loss. You can't do that thing where you try to "fool" the other guy either because if I click my move my timer stays up. There's no exploiting our afk timer  that I've seen, it's well designed.

 

um.... just saying. Don't hate me. Merry Christmas. <3

[PandaJJ]

I am not sure who this sentence is directed at (probably just anyone in general), but you can't stall with time in our game anymore. If you walk away from keyboard to try to force a loss or try to gain money while afk, the system will just afk you and also...lower your rank with the loss. You can't do that thing where you try to "fool" the other guy either because if I click my move my timer stays up. There's no exploiting our afk timer  that I've seen, it's well designed.

 

um.... just saying. Don't hate me. Merry Christmas. <3

Ah, that is was not what I meant. Say player A is in a winning position, but has very little time left. Then player B can make random moves very quickly in order to force player A to also make his moves quickly, otherwise player A would lose on time. This is player B's best shot at winning, as he would otherwise lose thanks to the board position. My point was that people do this, and it makes them win, even though they did not really play well enough to deserve it. While it is an acceptable thing to do, it just shows that people only care about winning, no matter how that is achieved.

[OldKeith]

Ah, that is was not what I meant. Say player A is in a winning position, but has very little time left. Then player B can make random moves very quickly in order to force player A to also make his moves quickly, otherwise player A would lose on time. This is player B's best shot at winning, as he would otherwise lose thanks to the board position. My point was that people do this, and it makes them win, even though they did not really play well enough to deserve it. While it is an acceptable thing to do, it just shows that people only care about winning, no matter how that is achieved.

 

But dropping your timer below 2 minutes while you are qinning is questionable. it really is not a problem for players usually. If your opponent manages to time stall you maybe you should make your moves a bit faster.

 

Edit: I also don't feel like rewarding the top players better than the bottom ones is healthy; this just increases the barrier of entry to comp. What do you mean by abusing threats and doing everything to win? That is just normal, it is just what people need to do; if this pvp system also picks up usage stats, that would help the tier council make decisions as well. 

 

And I cannot see a good reason not to give a minor reward per match. That just makes players earn some cash, 5k per 2 battles (considering 50% winrate) is too little to be worth abusing. If players were desperate for cash they would do the islands.

Edited December 18, 2015 by OldKeith

[PandaJJ]

But dropping your timer below 2 minutes while you are qinning is questionable. it really is not a problem for players usually. If your opponent manages to time stall you maybe you should make your moves a bit faster.

 

Edit: I also don't feel like rewarding the top players better than the bottom ones is healthy; this just increases the barrier of entry to comp. What do you mean by abusing threats and doing everything to win? That is just normal, it is just what people need to do; if this pvp system also picks up usage stats, that would help the tier council make decisions as well. 

 

And I cannot see a good reason not to give a minor reward per match. That just makes players earn some cash, 5k per 2 battles (considering 50% winrate) is too little to be worth abusing. If players were desperate for cash they would do the islands.

 

Depends on how long you need to think. I, for one, play better when I actually think about my moves, and acquiring a winning position might very well bring me low on the timer. Again, it was not the fact that you can lose on time if you are not careful that was the point, it was the fact that your opponent gladly helps you lose on time in a winning position.

 

Now, as I said in my other reply, I really don't think a ladder should be the main place to get your money. But if you want rewards, I proposed a system that offers more to the better players, as an encouragement. The outcome of doing anything else might be that nobody will care to use the ladder at all, which is what happened last time. 

 

Saying that people will use the best stuff available is indeed a trivial observation, but the consequence of this is that playing becomes rather unenjoyable if the tier in question is broken. A ladder will hopefully increase the amount of battling by a great amount, and people therefore get tired of playing the broken stuff much faster. Unlike now, where changes take months, we need to update the tiers quickly to make the ladder enjoyable. Usage stats help with this.

 

If you get 5k per battle, it is certainly not worth abusing. But it still punishes you for playing slow games, hence encouraging fast games, thus altering players playstyle. You can't really compare it with island runs, because four 5-minute battles earns 20k, while one 20-minute battle earns 5k, so playing faster is more beneficial than playing slow, irrespective of how much money you get by not laddering. If you want to give away an insignificant amount of money at the cost of altering people's playstyle, you might as well not give away any money at all.

 

 

Just a clarification, though: My proposed system for rewards was meant to encourage players to use the ladder, while not making them play a certain way to obtain their reward. It is very possible to have a ladder with no rewards at all, or the same rewards to all players, and I would be up for that. However, judging by the mentality of this community, and seeing how the last system was abandoned, I feel like rewards are kinda necessery for people to care.

[Perry]

 

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)

 

Isn't 1M too much? I mean, if you put it weekly, giving 1M(*winrate) to 10 players every week would be too high, imo. Plus, the 25 will usually be arround the same players.

[PandaJJ]

Isn't 1M too much? I mean, if you put it weekly, giving 1M(*winrate) to 10 players every week would be too high, imo. Plus, the 25 will usually be arround the same players.

 

Possibly, yes. It was pretty much a random example, as I don't know how the exact size of the playerbase, nor do I know the intent of the developers when it comes to rewards and a ladder system. The details have to be figured out by them.

[Tritios]

How about scaling the payouts after how many pokes you kill and pokemon you loose. you start on 5k by default and,  say 1k for each kill and -1k for each lost and a small bonus for winning or something.

 

it gives both parts a payout if you arent poop. and it promote real battles, i think...

[Perry]

How about scaling the payouts after how many pokes you kill and pokemon you loose. you start on 5k by default and,  say 1k for each kill and -1k for each lost and a small bonus for winning or something.

 

it gives both parts a payout if you arent poop. and it promote real battles, i think...

I would say that's a great way to scale bonus cash, but it does promote fake battles (battles with friends).

[OldKeith]

Well panda has a solid point about altering playstyles. If we get a ladder, it is best that it encouraged people to play as good as they could.

[Tritios]

I would say that's a great way to scale bonus cash, but it does promote fake battles (battles with friends).

 

in my mind you shouldnt be able to choose your opponment anyway

[londark]

Add exclusive vanity items after some kind of milestones in the ladder ( like 100 victories or something ). People love vanity items. Could possibly help/incentivate casual players to get into comp and give some reason to play to half RIP players ( aka: me )

I'm all in favor of this, and i also like the fact that it goes really well with a possible daily task system ( suggested that years ago, still no news ) and even a possible achivement system... ( win a total of 200 Ranked battles etc... )

[Bestfriends]

Here is what I am going to say about this suggestion: I love it!

 

As of now, some players are apathetic about a lot of the after game to the point where they actually quit because of it. Why not make their experience interesting? This battle system Keith is calling for is entertaining and helps out the people in comp. I feel that some aspects of the game are favoured towards a shiny trader = Show their toys in Viridian/Muaville/(now) Vermillion Check; Laugh at competitive people for being too poor Check; While the competitive person is working off the breeding system, the shiny trader just log their game into Verm so they can hear about how great they are (with little to no work in achieving their greatness) Check. I want to address my possible counter-claim = Bestfriends, you are ignorant, you don't know how to negotiate and thus your a terrible player. Competitive people don't negotiate either, so shiny traders have as much arduous work as a competitive player maybe even harder.  My answer to the possible counter-claim, you may know how to negotiate for acquiring shinies, but you as a shiny trader only do speaking, for competitive players, you have to speak (some comps are bought [so yes competitive players can negotiate as well]), breed, get items for tutors, and prepare for an official. Tell me the last time a shiny trader had to prepare for an official (BurntZebra is the exception to the rule [because he is a hybrid player that plays both competitive play and shiny trading]). Over all, competitive play is in my opinion has a lot more laborious training than shiny traders.

 

I feel like that the benefits of being a shiny trader outweigh the benefits of going comp. I think we need to change this. Keith is going the right direction with this idea! Make those shiny people go comp in order to achieve wealth. Can this be successful? Yes, with this new mentality, people like Frags, DoubleJ, OldKeith can finally feel a sense of earning money for the endeavours they had to go through (almost like light at the end of the tunnel). And for those bombastic shiny traders who flaunt their expensive toys, they can be looked at as people who are not brave enough to actually duel instead of being looked at as "wow, we have a Bill Gates in this game, I am so honoured to meet someone so wealthy!" At this rate, I think shiny traders could turn into a BurntZebras. Shiny traders can work on acquiring comps with their Bill Gates wealth and actually start competing to get better shinies to flaunt! So, I am not fighting the shiny traders, I'm trying to find a way for them to start becoming a BurntZebra and in my opinion, I think OT Squirtle shinies are even better shinies to display than the shinies that are being displayed right now.

 

 

I love Keith's idea, if you play comp, you can earn yen from it especially 100k from your efforts (who does not want 100k)??? Keep it up and you can become wealthy. This might be something to make shiny traders have a lot more energy (unless they enjoy the feeling of having a lesser allowance than someone like Frags).

Edited December 18, 2015 by Bestfriends

[Bearminator]

Still, "insert amount of $"/minute  in fight seems like good idea, if only there would be limit as well, so it would stop AFK. For example, after 5 minutes match you get 1500$, 10 minutes 3000$ etc, with maximum of 6000$ for 20 minutes match.After that, even if battle continues, no more cash will be received.

 

 

TL:DR

5min- 1500$

10min- 3000$

15min- 4500$

20min- 6000$

after 20min- still 6000$

[bl0nde]

Still, "insert amount of $"/minute  in fight seems like good idea, if only there would be limit as well, so it would stop AFK. For example, after 5 minutes match you get 1500$, 10 minutes 3000$ etc, with maximum of 6000$ for 20 minutes match.After that, even if battle continues, no more cash will be received.

You can't walk away from the keyboard during a duel with the purpose of gaining cash while afk because there is an afk timer in the game during duels now. It doesn't really make sense to stall out the duel either because page 1, post 18, bold letters. I am glad you support the topic though. You are a kindred spirit among us here. <3

[Robofiend]

No. Any system that rewards players for time of match is going to be prone to abuse. It's also massively fucked up from a metagame perspective: if I got $10,000 every time I played a 20 minute match I'd just run Stall without exception, since Stall is pretty reliable in this game and it's not hard to build a team that needs 20-30 minutes to win. By contrast, running offense would just lower your payouts.

 

Incentivizing players for shorter matches is fucked vice versa. Rewarding players for doing anything but just winning the damn match is prone to abuse, and will cheapen the competitive aspect of the ladder. It'd be ok if there was "challenge mode" or something where we had random teams with different objectives but that is another discussion for another time, imo.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Robofiend

[PandaJJ]

About the afk timer, it was certainly removed from battles with the implementation of the timer, right? It served the same purpose and was a horrible idea since it was hidden. If we are talking about the afk timer that kicks you out of the game if you don't do anything in 30  minutes (or whatever it is depending on the traffic,) that is completetly irrelevant to battling. 

 

What you can do when you're in a winning position (for example sweeping with a linoone) is to wait untill your timer is almost out before you make your moves, which will earn you more money for the win. Given, of course, that you have already used less time than what you are paid for.

 

Will anobody ever do this? To be fair, this is the least impacting system for rewarding money per battles. If the maximum time was chosen appropriately, i.e. such that most battles are naturally shorter than the maximum time, but also such that the maximum time is not so long that you are willing to drag out games, it would probably see little abuse. But this doesn't mean it still won't affect people. If you are a player that tends to lose, but have decided to spend your day battling on the ladder, there is no reason not to exploit this. I'm just not a fan of allowing something that could be exploited just because it probably won't.

[Guest]

I love all suggestions in this thread made by OldKeith and others and I see no reasons not to implement them.

 

If there are enough players participating in automated PvP, the Devs should also consider making different tiers, e.g. bronze, silver, gold, diamond,.. etc. (similar to League of Legends) or simply add some kind of rating. If you queue for a battle, you will most likely battle someone from your tier or someone with a similar rating. Battles in higher tiers could reward the winner with more money. This prevents abusing the system AND gives newbies better chances and more motivation as they won't fight the best players but players with approximately the same skill level.

[Bearminator]

You can't walk away from the keyboard during a duel with the purpose of gaining cash while afk because there is an afk timer in the game during duels now. It doesn't really make sense to stall out the duel either because page 1, post 18, bold letters. I am glad you support the topic though. You are a kindred spirit among us here. <3

 

 

Totally forgot about Afk timer. It would still hold "too much money" thing.

And thanks. You made little bear smile. :3 
 

 

 

Oh, btw, usually duel is about 10minutes long. If you will be given 1500$ for 10 minutes match, and 2-3000$ for 20 minutes, would you really wait for it? I wouldn't, since starting new duel is way quicker

 

 

 

I still support ladder, though

Edited December 19, 2015 by bearminator

[Albeast33]

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.

 

If we could either make the cool down half an hour then (20 min battles + 10 min waiting time), or just make the waiting time 10 min after the battle ends (if you can do that), it really can't be abused.

 

I really like this idea, as players don't need to be on time to register for tournaments, and can battle at their own pace while still making some profit.

[Eggplant]

Done on 25/3/16.

 

Ranked

• Ranked matchmaking now occurs three times per day, at 5:30PM, 10:30PM, and 1:30AM UTC.
• Ranked matchmaking queues last for 1 hour.
• On winning, Ranked matchmaking now gives a Battle Point reward and grants MMR. (2500+(250 per 100MMR>500))
• MMR is compressed every month, drawing every player back to 500 by a relative amount. 
• Ranked matchmaking has a fee of 1000BP to enter.