First off, read this message curtesy of Tacticsoft.

http://imgur.com/1rmOzze

Here we have a nice message indicating that the ranking system of SuperMechs has been changed to focus on "simply being the best and not having the most wins". Not only has it been changed to be more "fair and balanced" but, in their exact words, "drastically improved".

Ok so you're probably thinking, "Aye Maxxi boy, quit babbling and show us this improvement, I'm dying to see how fair and unbelievablely amazing this new ranking system is". Well here you go.

http://imgur.com/3QwOY6H

My uncensored thoughts about this, open with caution.

Alright my rant is over. Here's your "feedbacks" Tacticsoft.

I agree that calling the new ranking system "improved" is questionable.

I have been gone for quite some time now (hello again, by the way), and I have not seen any change with the matchmaking system at all.

But, I suppose that my lack of experience in the past few months of SuperMechs may impair my knowledge and opinion of the situation. Correct me if I am wrong.

You are both correct

The idea behind the new ranking system is not bad, really not

BUT the calculation behind is "horrible"

It support only full fused mechs and/or players who pay most in this game

So this way tacticsoft forget about the player base, who are not able to pay for every new mythical

5 examples (facts) about the new ranking system ...

- bestplayeroftheworld jump from rank 669 to 118 with one (!) win 3v3

- [ ] fall from rank 9 to rank 30 with one (!) loss

- player A 10% better win-loss ratio than player B
player A 500 more wins than player B
player B is before player A in ranking

- Bago rank 54 with 42 wins (for whole weekly tournament)

- HardToKill was rank 3, let join 1 member, and fall to rank 14 for no reason


I also thought that the sentence in the news "We will test the new changes and collect your feedbacks." means something
ALL this FEEDBACK (see the 5 points listed, with every detail and much more examples) was given to Liran, Liran's answer was word for word quoted out of a longer answer (to tell it here correct) ... "I am not going to change this system ..."

Is this "collect your feedbacks"

I am disapointed about, that Liran forget about the player base, that he cannot believe that something is wrong

Liran do really a lot of work (just think about how many mails he get every day and he do really his best to answer all). he do a really great job for this game, he do also many for the player base

BUT about the feedbacks about the new ranking system, at this point he is doing not correct right now

Sorry to have to say that, its NOT BAD meant

To WarrMachine: You know what? I've started to answer but then I deleted what I wrote. Feel free to rewrite what you want in a respectable way and in a new post. We are investing way too much energies and efforts to deserve something like what you wrote.

To best:
I am investigating. There are some bugs but the system itself is working as we expected. I'll continue to test, check and look for bugs. I appreciate you wrote what you wanted the way you did. Thank you.

I think the ranking system is great . Bravo Liran

The only gripe I have with this system is that there is particularly no benefit to start the week with wins. You get more points "stealing" them off people who are already at the top.

A suggestion I would have is that the greater the distance in ranking, the least points you can "steal".

Let me elaborate. If you are rank 1,000 and you beat someone in rank 100, you will get hardly any points. The closer the rank you are to a person, the more likely it is to surpass them. So someone ranked 10 in the world can easily surpass ranks 10+. However someone ranked 1,000 or ranked 500 will not yield much points defeating top 10. You need consecutive wins near your ranks first. This punishes people who start tournaments late but not so much where they are behind in rankings.

The problem with the current system is that it's easy fall in rankings from how much "points" you lose.

It's also difficult to "hunt" a specific person to rise in rankings. So they can stack points with a few wins easily where as you may spend 4-5x more bc just trying to get a target.

Another idea I'd like suggest is point loss for when people near your ranks earn wins. So if you are ranked 1 and rank 2 beats rank 3,4, Rank 1 can lose some points. The idea is to encourage constant activity between top ranks.

Reality is, the game really is heavy on people who spend tokens now. It's putting a burden on the player base who feel they do not stand a chance. This is a necessary evil but it keeps the game interesting. For me at least. =)

The main issue with such a system would be that top clans could attain insurmountable leads effectively excluding the rest of the player base.

Ideally the competition is tough and dynamic - the rank 1 changes a lot and you're never quite "safe". Top clans can not win every week nor be guaranteed a top spot - that would be an ideal situation, I reckon.

In the end, in my opinion at least, the game is more fun when it's competitive. And a key tool to making people competitive is giving them a obvious chance to win.

We see this in Battle Dawn (and in lesser form we saw it in Super Mechs) all the time. Once people are behind a lot - they're usually demotivated and stop trying. Even if their chances are secretly pretty high, the lack of strong positive feedback loops has a devastating effect to a players motivation.

People won't generally winter through a difficult spot - they will quit trying "for real" instead depriving a game of competition.

If instead they feel like they are constantly rising when they play, they are pushed to play more actively and try more. It has definite down sides (such as a much greater amount of stress among top clans) but it does significantly increase competition and put a much larger emphasis on building smart mechs.


Those are my two cent's, don't take them too serious. I have nothing to do with the creation of the ladder and am merely flaunting my personal opinion.