Ranked Game / ELO

  • Nebenkuh

    What do you guys think about having some sort of ranking or elo system?

    I know this game is meant to be inclusive to all, but I can't even remember the last time I got sunk or even faced a decent challenge in PvP. Since matchmaking seems to be completely random, it's highly likely that a skilled crew will mostly encounter unskilled crews, because there are more of them.

    If we had matchmaking based on combined crew rank, we would have skilled crews matched with other skilled crews, while inexperienced players would be more likely to face other inexperienced players. This could be more fun for everyone, since everyone would meet opponents more on their skill level.

    The ranking system could be based simply on kills+assists, and maybe damage dealt to other ships. Kills are obvious - you kill someone, your rank increases. You get killed, your rank decreases. If someone from your crew kills someone, everyone on your crew gets an assist and their rank increases. If someone from your crew gets killed, everyones ranking decreases. You damage a ship with cannonballs, your rank goes up. You gunpowder barrel a ship, your entire crews rank goes up or something.
    Everyones rank is added to get the total crew ranking, servers then match crews with similar rankings. Crews smaller than 4 people have their ranking multiplied so it matches the 4 man crews.

    What do you think?

    Edit:
    This would also give some more incentive to PvP, especially if a high rank would unlock cosmetics or titles. Obviously, rank gained from killing others would depend on their rank, so if you kill a higher ranking player, you gain more than from a lower ranking player.

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  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @nebenkuh i'm against anything that supports killing other crews...so it would be completly impossible to talk to others and/or find people for events like the megalodon
    Then there would be even more Shoot on Sight as there is already

    It was said: Be the pirate you want to be...if they would make a PvP faction or something like that you can't be anymore the pirate you want to be, if you want to get xp you have to be an a**hole pirate

  • DickeyHugey

    What do you think?

    awful idea, no thanks. go back to cod or whatever you crave for with all their toxic statshungry kids

  • B52 BigBob
    Founder

    First of all I am an very active Overwatch rank player, so I get your drift. Yet, this is a terrible idea.

    If you like ranked games, I would advice you to get a game apart from SoT to get this type, untill the come up with maybe a different mode. I wouldn't wait for it tho.

    The problem that will occur is the following:

    People who like to play this game for the adventures and social interaction, but also have no problem defending themselves, will climb the ranks unintentionally. Therefore, they will be matched through matchmaking with other high ranked crews. You can bet that there are among those crews some PvP-only crews who will just fight all the time.

    This will ruin the game for non-aggressive crews (but who have PvP skill)

  • B52 BigBob
    Founder

    @a-trusty-mango

    I get what you mean, and in theory that should happen. Yet, there is always a fraction of people who just do the opposite for the [player edited] of it.

    Server hopping wouldn't do the trick. Server hopping can work now with THD, because matchmaking is completely random. Server hopping when you have high MMR will just place you in another server with other crews with high MMR.

    A really good option would be considering implementing a small(er) map which is used as a PvP mode. No voyagers, just islands with supplies, a kill count, sink count and a score.

  • Crimsonraziel
    Master
    Insider

    @b52-bigbob And it likely would make PUGs way worse.

    Another nice feature: If you're a super pro (obviously oneself is ... ) but your friend is only decent or even subpar at PvP it basically ruins his game when you're not around until he died enough (and probably quits frustrated before that).

  • Spectrazy666
    Insider

    @nebenkuh bad idea over bad idea its not a ranking game where u need be best in something pvp or pve its a random world where u meet everykind of ppl if u want pvp go make a fort ! Ppl who go there know they can pvp but hunting solo sloop who farm chicken its not pvp its just stupid imo ppl need less mentality like shoot everything ans strt talking more make friend and having fun in sea ! Ur idea is not fit 4 this game stry

  • entspeak
    Captain
    Insider

    @nebenkuh While the game involves PvP, it isn’t really about PvP for PvP’s sake, so it really doesn’t make sense to have these kinds of leaderboards. It’s just not that kind of game.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @nebenkuh Appreciate the suggestion but that's going to be a hard pass for me. Some of the pirate legends have a big enough ego as it is (not all, they're are plenty of nice ones too).

  • AngryCoconut16

    @nebenkuh I am for the idea of some sort of PvP faction, or structure to PvP, but I dislike the idea of having ranks in this game, it is casual and any system introduced should remain casual... ranks and elo should never exist in SoT in my opinion.

  • Nebenkuh

    Appreciate the feedback everyone!
    Don't appreciate that one guy telling me to go back to CoD lol. I'd rather throw my PC out the window than play that.

    Either way, my suggestion wasnt as much about PvP itself as it was about making sure equally skilled players are on the same servers. I'm not an aggressive player at all, by the way. I rarely attack other ships, mostly just act in self defense. But I never get sunk. Maybe you don't believe me, that's fine. But I bet there are others whose experience is similar.
    Yesterday I was sloopin' with me mate, and we decided to do a fort. Two galleons contested, and we sunk them 3 times each before they had enough. This is like a regular occurence - just crews of randoms or inexperienced premades losing over and over and never even coming close to sinking us. It's just become boring tbh.
    IF we decide to play aggressive, the vast majority of ships decide to flee. Those that do fight are swiftly sunk. Where's the challenge for us? Is it not extremely frustrating for those others?

    The first few weeks of SoT were amazing because everyone was still figuring stuff out and was on more or less equal footing. Now, if we feel like fighting, we are close to start server hopping in hopes to somehow find a crew that can at least put up a decent fight.

    A ranking system would not have to be out in the open. It could be hidden, so you would not have leaderboards or players chasing down others to gain rank. I totally understand those concerns. I just think it woud be nice if skilled players could play with someone on their level and inexperienced players would have the chance to experience PvP without getting stomped.

  • DrunkPunk138
    Master
    Founder

    While I wouldn't mind this, I would wonder how they could quantify MMR in a meaningful way. It's already incredibly difficult for most competitive shooters to get it right, and that's with a fairly straightforward method of stat comparison, where here it would be considerably harder to accomplish. Would it be per crew? How do you deal with massive discrepancies? How would it impact cross play (not trying to start a fire here, but it's a legitimate consideration)? Would it be a visible MMR, or a hidden one? Would it take into account ship to ship PvP, or combat as a whole? How does it impact server hoppers? And most importantly, in what ways, with private crews, can it be abused?

    I get these are all questions the devs would need to answer, but it's something to think about, because I can see it being a challenge. I see a wealth of benefit for it, though, especially in retaining new players.

  • Nebenkuh

    @drunkpunk138
    Most simple way would probably be to have kills raise ranking for all crewmembers, getting killed reduces ranking for all crew members. Every persons rank would be added to a total, smaller crews would get a multiplier to compare to 4man crews. Something like that. The game isn't highly competitive so I don't think it would have to be overly accurate. It would just be a little nudge to get crews of equal skill level into the same servers.

    It could probably alleviate the crossplay "issue" a bit, since equally "succesfull" players would end up in the same servers. So assuming PC does have an advantage, a strong PC player would at least face equally or slightly less strong Xbox players instead of newbies.

    Reading all the concerns, a hidden ranking would probably be best so overly aggressive play isn't encouraged. However, if rank was displayed in the game, it could also discourage higher ranked crews from attacking lower ranks, since they would not gain as much. Many ways to balance that.

    Higher rank server hoppers might be discouraged from server hopping, since they would get placed into servers of a higher average rank, meaning they would be more likely to encounter worthwhile resistance. That could also encourage them, obviously, but there are many other ways to also adress server hopping in general, so I don't think it's a big concern for this idea.

    I honestly can't think of a way to abuse this, neither in relation to private crews or without them. I guess you could maybe get your friends to make new pirates so your crew would have a lower rank. But I don't see the benefit in that, especially if lower rank kills don't give you as much or if the ranking is hidden anyway.

    I think ultimately the idea is worth considering because of, like you said, retention of new players but also of veterans who get bored from fighting unskilled crews.

  • DrunkPunk138
    Master
    Founder

    @nebenkuh said in Ranked Game / ELO:

    I honestly can't think of a way to abuse this, neither in relation to private crews or without them. I guess you could maybe get your friends to make new pirates so your crew would have a lower rank. But I don't see the benefit in that, especially if lower rank kills don't give you as much or if the ranking is hidden anyway.

    The potential for abuse is the thing I think is my biggest apprehension to the idea. I could see someone game passing themselves a new toon and inviting higher MMR players into a private crew to score some easy kills/do some griefing, or something along those lines. But it would probably be pretty uncommon, or at least I like to think we live in a world where it would be :P

    overall I agree with the rest of what you said. I would hope to see something like this in the future, despite the challenges that one would face implementing it.

  • Nebenkuh

    @drunkpunk138
    If a ranking system will just ensure you play with equally ranked players, I don't think there's incentive to abuse it like that. Sure, there might be the very rare occasion where someone gets enjoyment out of stomping lower ranks, but creating a new pirate for that? Doubt it will be a problem. Could also add some kind of multiplier tied to the faction levels of a pirate. So a legends rank would influence the crew rank more than a lvl 1 pirate. :)

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