Tiered Rankings / Gym Leader / Player Recognition Ideas

[Divinokage]

Could we please move on from all this gym leader stuff. We really wanted to focus on the Tiered Rankings to help define where players stand. The gymleader/badges/etc idea was just a spur of the moment, whatif line of thought, and not really a serious one at that. You guys need to relax. >.>

We'd really like to know what people think about instating the tiers as the new form of the PR. The intention isn't to necessarily rank every individual in every tier, but to give players a solid view of their current position and where they can move up to.

To recap: Our current view on the player tiers are:

S - This is basically World Class, top level players. Think Armada/Mango/PP/Hbox.

A+ - This is a tier for players who not only dominate their own regions, but are also legitimate threats to the S tier, where beating an S tier player wouldn't be an upset, but would still be relatively unexpected. Players who are vying for S class. M2K is probably the top of A+.

A - Players who are at the top of their regions, place in the top 16-32 at nationals. Beating an S player would be an upset, A+ would be unexpected.

B - Players who are contending for the placings just below the A+/A players consistently at locals/regionals.

Unranked - Everyone else.

I mean I personally dont mind to see where i am but what could we use this for?

 

[Cactuar]

Player incentive, discussion topic, assist with seeding, fight cards. Just off the top of my head, theres probably other stuff.

I really like the fight card idea that norcal is going to be trying out soon. We've pretty much stuck to the standard tournament model throughout the lifetime of melee, so it'll be fun to mix it up and see how players prepare for opponents when they know exactly who they are playing for weeks in advance. As a bonus, its going to be really interesting to remove the A+/A players from tournaments to do the fight card matches while the tournaments are played through by B players. We'll get to see more player movement, where the results from tournaments tend to stay pretty consistent over the long term between the top guys.

 

[Divinokage]

Player incentive, discussion topic, assist with seeding, fight cards. Just off the top of my head, theres probably other stuff.

I really like the fight card idea that norcal is going to be trying out soon. We've pretty much stuck to the standard tournament model throughout the lifetime of melee, so it'll be fun to mix it up and see how players prepare for opponents when they know exactly who they are playing for weeks in advance. As a bonus, its going to be really interesting to remove the A+/A players from tournaments to do the fight card matches while the tournaments are played through by B players. We'll get to see more player movement, where the results from tournaments tend to stay pretty consistent over the long term between the top guys.

I really like that too, having some personal grudges to be settled and then new ones will be formed later on as we keep kicking each other's *****. lol. There's also the matter of the possibility to fight most top players while in tournament you can just fight select ones seriously. I demand S2j.

I wonder how these can be setup, if I can start organizing tournaments here somehow then I'll definitely look into how to implement things like this.

 

[clowsui]

i always thought the topanga league system was a really good idea

in japan they had a tiered tournament gig where across 2 months 8 top players played each other in a round robin then 8 high top players played each other in a round robin concurrently

1 through...i wanna say 5 or 6 got money. then bottom 2-3 played the top 1-3 of the other RR to see who would cycle through to the next iteration of the topanga leagues

so like

let's say topanga a was 1-8, with each number placing as their number suggests
then topanga b was 9-16, same deal here (assuming 9 is the highest placing in topanga B)

so now 6-8 play 9-11

and let's say 9-11 beat 6-8

so now next time around, with the original naming system in mind
topanga A is composed of 1-5, 9-11
topanga B is composed of 6-8, 12-16

 

[Bones0]

That just sounds like you're playing pools with the top 16 players. It seems like that'd be difficult logistically because you'd have to have all the same players attend the same tournament multiple times, and the fact that the main incentive to getting the top place in the pool is money doesn't seem to achieve the goal of making pride the incentive. Not trying to **** on your idea or anything. Maybe it can be applied to lower ranked players or something, but I think the last thing we need are more matches to determine which top players are the best. That's what tournaments are for, and they serve their purpose perfectly. It just seems to me like the mid-high level players are the ones who need the incentives of ranks because they are the ones who are actually going to be making significant improvement over a few months time.

 

[clowsui]

hmm yeah i think the setup only really works for an online league

 

[MaskedMarth]

You could run an "amateur" bracket concurrently and have some of the entrance money go to fund the top players' prizes.

Most people don't expect to be in the money. They're paying for the joy, the scene, and the hype. Getting to see lots of top matches would be extra hype kinda like at FC.

 

[Bones0]

Amateur brackets that play for money will never work because players at the bottom of the pro bracket will always feel screwed over and be tempted to sandbag so they can get first in the amateur bracket and make money.

 

[Jockmaster]

Amateur brackets that play for money will never work because players at the bottom of the pro bracket will always feel screwed over and be tempted to sandbag so they can get first in the amateur bracket and make money.

This is true. Kind of sad, but true. Maybe if you just implemented a system like...once you are out of the "amateur" league you cannot fall back in. So basically, if you want to stay "amateur" and run amateur tournies, you have to lose enough normal tournies to stay "amateur". That would make sandbagging much less profitable

 

[MaskedMarth]

What if the lowest pro prize is worth at least as much as the highest amateur prize? This shouldn't be enormously difficult to do with a RR of 8 pros.

The pros will also have more free time so you could, say, set up a money-match-the-pros table between pools and bracket to help raise them more money.

 

[KrIsP!]

Amateur bracket shouldn't have a prize or a cost to enter. It's only there to give people a chance to play around their level as well be able to play once bracket begins and any chance of friendlies are shot.

When your new it's hard to approach random people who are chatting with whoever they're playing with so more chance to familiarize yourself with people who are also fairly new is great.

In a perfect world the only prize for amateur bracket would be getting a chance in pro bracket but time never permits.

 

[Bones0]

I don't think it's a big deal because mid-level players don't care about the money (seeing as how they've never won any before). The only amateur bracket tournament I ever entered didn't have any money involved, but I still fought my *** off and was really proud of myself for winning even though that just proved that I was the best of the bottom half of the tourney goers. Based on my own personal feelings as a competitor, I mostly just want to see how I rank among other players. The problem is the tournaments we run now only determine accurate ranks for the top 16/32. Below that, players get grouped with 40-some other players who they could have close, awesome sets with. I think a general goal of how tournaments operate should be to all players accurately, not just the top chunk of bracket. Obviously there's no way to actually get it as accurate as the top without playing an absurdly large number of matches, but it's also worth noting that the large majority of setups are just being used for friendlies during bracket up until the later bracket matches that have more hype with spectators. I think using those leftover resources for amateur brackets or something else that ranks lower skilled players would be much more beneficial for seeding at future tournaments, and, of course, more enjoyable.


Has anyone considered doing something with wild cards (or w/e the format below is called) to add players back into bracket after being eliminated from pools? I'm not sure how it'd play out with time constraints, and I don't know how the math pans out, but it'd look something like this:

- Everyone plays pools.
- The bottom X number of players of each pool that get knocked out are seeded (using the pools results) into an amateur bracket.
- The players that DID make it out of pools are seeded into the final bracket with spaces left for Y number of "wildcard" players.
- The X players duke it out in an amateur bracket, all fighting to get into the top Y spots.
- The top Y players from the amateur bracket get put into the bracket as the lowest seed.

The players from this amateur bracket could also be substituted in for byes in the pro bracket (so someone who worked their *** off to get out of the amateur bracket may get a chance to fight a really good player they look up to or w/e). What do you guys think?

 

[MaskedMarth]

At a large enough event, though, a tournament with a pro pool of 8 players would leave you an "amateur" bracket with players as strong as DoH or Lovage. That's still a substantial tournament.

 

[Bones0]

What if the lowest pro prize is worth at least as much as the highest amateur prize? This shouldn't be enormously difficult to do with a RR of 8 pros.

The pros will also have more free time so you could, say, set up a money-match-the-pros table between pools and bracket to help raise them more money.

The only way this will work is if the amateur bracket is an obscenely large percentage of the entrants so that EVERYONE in pro bracket gets paid out. That basically means amateur brackets will be played out as if the top 8 players hadn't came to the tourney (which is basically the same as if they had for the lower-skilled players).

 

[KrIsP!]

I think what he's saying is top 8 from pools who would get byes avoid playing until an amateur bracket made up if everyone else has a top 8 and you make a smaller pro bracket from that.

If that is what he meant, it's still fair although pools are nearly unnecessary and were pretty much just making it so top players don't have to be bothered playing the first few rounds if winners bracket. It's like 4 byes basically.

Unless that's not what he meant...in which case why would make it so someone like lovage doesn't get to play for a chance at top 8 in bracket because only 8 people make it out of pools?

 

[Bones0]

I thought he meant anyone not seeded top 8 would have to play out an entire bracket for seeding into a pro bracket, which is why I think it's ridiculous. If he meant something else idk what purpose pools would be serving, like you said.

 

[MaskedMarth]

I was talking about something similar to clowsui's idea.

 

[KrIsP!]

I thought he meant anyone not seeded top 8 would have to play out an entire bracket for seeding into a pro bracket, which is why I think it's ridiculous. If he meant something else idk what purpose pools would be serving, like you said.

That's what I thought he meant, but I thought you thought he meant amateur bracket players don't get into pro bracket. I'm gunna have to go and reread but lol he explained it anyways.

 

[jerflip]

1: rip off starcraft2
2: Letters aka S class A+ class A class B class etc...
the options go on and on.

I'm for this. Spinoff of the ELO rating system.

Badges could be given for stuff like performing a clean sweep at a tourney, holding a position for a given amount of time, progressing through the ranks quickly, etc.

 

[thespymachine]

I don't think it's a big deal because mid-level players don't care about the money (seeing as how they've never won any before). The only amateur bracket tournament I ever entered didn't have any money involved, but I still fought my *** off and was really proud of myself for winning even though that just proved that I was the best of the bottom half of the tourney goers. Based on my own personal feelings as a competitor, I mostly just want to see how I rank among other players. The problem is the tournaments we run now only determine accurate ranks for the top 16/32. Below that, players get grouped with 40-some other players who they could have close, awesome sets with. I think a general goal of how tournaments operate should be to all players accurately, not just the top chunk of bracket. Obviously there's no way to actually get it as accurate as the top without playing an absurdly large number of matches, but it's also worth noting that the large majority of setups are just being used for friendlies during bracket up until the later bracket matches that have more hype with spectators. I think using those leftover resources for amateur brackets or something else that ranks lower skilled players would be much more beneficial for seeding at future tournaments, and, of course, more enjoyable.

Regarding this, and going a bit off topic, I do think there is a lot of untapped fun for low-to-mid players to have at tournaments. I mean, I'm sure we're already having tons of fun, but there is more to have. Playing people near your skill level is much better than getting your butt kicked by two really good players, then playing friendlies with people who may or may not be considered competition.
I think with a Global Melee ranking (or whatever is chosen to recognize players), seeding top players out of pools will be part of what comes with it. And with that spare time, it could be used for stellar amateur pools and brackets. It's really up to TOs, though, as to how that spare time is used.

Player recognition can also provide a set list of who to invite to tournaments.


I do think recognizing regional and national players is a must.

And I think having a Final Four + Rival is fantastic.
At (inter)nationals, where the top five players in the nation/world are attending, there would be a setup designated to take down the Final 'Five.' This could be done on a Day 1, when all these players will be seeded out of pools anyways, and it would have to cost the player trying some money - the money would go to the five players, prize money, raffle money/prizes, or whatever the TO thinks it could be used for. And to make sure it's not over-working the #5 player, only if you're a top 50 players or something can you attempt it; and attempts would only happen every hour or so (and if there are multiple players wanting to take out the Final Five, they have to play each other to see who goes).
Just some ideas.