[Official] Ranking + title system

[Vatumok]

Army of Darkness has quite some changes coming up and we need your opinion now to make sure it's gonna be great. Over time I will post more threads like this asking for your ideas and plans. If you haven't replied to the previous thread please do!

Previous topic: http://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/official-planning-a-new-ffa.19495/

What in my opinion has been quite lackluster is the player rank system we currently use. With some ranks being balanced around getting free orbs on restart it's become quite a mess. I think this is something we have to improve on because for players progress is an important factor in deciding whether or not to play. Note: Ranks are almost surely going to get reset later in the year.

What we consider as problematic with ranks right now:

• You can give players orbs allowing them to rank up before they should.
• Just using money to rank up is boring and you don't feel yourself growing towards the next rank.
• If you are not the highest rank you get set back if you buy store items.
• Rank costs grow out of control.

What we wish to end up with after the changes:

• Ranks should be linked to gameplay performance. Good players can rank up relatively quickly.
• Ranks shouldn't be able to get gifted, only you should be able to work towards your next rank.
• Fun system, players should wanna keep playing to reach their next rank. (most important)

My personal vision for ranks:
This is what I proposed quite some time ago as an alternate system.

Spoiler

Leveling
The main idea had was instead of using orbs to rank up, players use experience that they get by playing the game. A certain amount of experience gained is a level up. By reaching levels you get titles and perks along the way. This immediately solves the problem of max rank as players could just level up indefinitely.

Formula calculating the experience required for a level could be:
Experience for next level L: E(L) = 100 + 10(L-2)
Or equivalent, total experience for level L: TE(L) = 10(L-1)² + 90(L-1)
Second order polynomial ensures that leveling gets harder and harder and the numbers don't get crazy high.

Level possibly be displayed next to the title or use another title in front depends on which is easier:
[Pleb(3)] Vatumok
[3][Pleb] Vatumok

I've made a list with pretty reasonable exp rewards:

CTF: Kill(1), Cap(8), Win(20)
Zombie: H.Kill(5), Z.Kill(2), Survive(20)
Infection: Infection(5), Survive(20)
FFA: Kill(1), top3(x3/x2/x1.5) (being in top 3 is rewarded with multipliers of kill score)
Achievement: Varies

Titles
Titles would be given away with achievements. By adding in achievements for reaching certain levels you can still "rank up" by gaining exp but you can always pick other for cool 'chievements. Perhaps it's fair that when you get an achievement you still need to buy the title but for a considerable less amount of orbs than you buy ranks now.

What do we want from you?
We want you to post your ideas and plans to make the ranking system feel better and more rewarding. With that it's important to talk about how titles fit in too. For the rest discuss about what other people have posted. The more opinions and discussion we have the faster we can release something great. I will open a poll if there will be use for it, when everyone has gotten the chance to post we'll decide on something.

If there's anything I forgot to mention in this thread I will let you know. Questions are of course also welcome. Thanks for reading!

With kind regards,
Vatu~

 

[Notme]

Well while new system would be nice, but I don't want to get stuck with "Noob" rank with my KDR of 0.42.

 

[Vatumok]

Well while new system would be nice, but I don't want to get stuck with "Noob" rank with my KDR of 0.42.

We're definitely not planning ranks that can change depending on KDA or something. What I mean is that you get rewarded for how well you play which means good players will rank fast but noob players can get the same rank only it will take longer.

 

[Deleted member 4601]

The rankup system should encourage participation on top of skill. A system similar to the one on RoF is sustainable - players with higher ranks receive a proportionately higher amount of orbs per exp reward event, whilst having shops maintaining equal prices for all ranks, as an incentive for ranking up other than a new number beside their name.

 

[Vatumok]

The rankup system should encourage participation on top of skill. A system similar to the one on RoF is sustainable - players with higher ranks receive a proportionately higher amount of orbs per exp reward event, whilst having shops maintaining equal prices for all ranks, as an incentive for ranking up other than a new number beside their name.

There should definitely be incentive to rank up and right now we have perks, some extra stuff would be nice too. However, you have to keep in mind that AoD is a PvP game instead of PvE which means that giving experienced players more shop items to work with could be disastrous.

Bringing this thread up again, would like to see more responses so we can plan something. If you have some spare time and you play AoD, please write at least a short bit!

 

[Mastersten]

I personally am not really into the rank part but I feel that this is needed since we got so much max ranked already (due to a (now fixed) flaw in the orb system).

I personally like the whole idea of getting experience following those formulas (and maybe we can nip a bit of RoF and implement Prestige at some point)

 

[3nd3rslayer]

In my opinion your idea is great Vatumok.
Personally I think we should also imploment many more ranks and titles should not be very common.
Making alot of ranks we can also make more events and here are some beneficial points to them:
-if we make lots of them we can attract more players to aod
-it will gain you alot of experience points
-it will be a good way to imploment titles. Maybe in top 3 you get a title + experience reward (every position up you get more exp) and for top 5 you only get exp.


This I think might be beneficial in many ways and please consider.

 

[Unusual_Dood]

The idea could work, however, I would like to see that you can get exp rewards from participating and surviving for x ammount of time. This way the non-good pvpers can rank up fast aswell. Also anything like ctf kills and hunter kills(which is something you can farm), shouldnt be rewarded too much.

 

[Catcocomics]

Spoiler

Jokes and references aside, I would definitely like something that feels more like getting stronger and growing and being cooler than purchasing a new combination of words with a side of highly obscure perks for blaaaagggghhhhh amounts of stuff.
Also, I think titles would be good rewards for any notable/distinguishing behaviors and accomplishments.

 

[Iggish]

"Ranks should be linked to gameplay performance. Good players can rank up relatively quickly." -Vat 2k16
Well then i guess you won't get past veteran

Anyway, maybe a rank system based on to different gamemodes or something? A skyrim like thing would be awesome, like you pick 1 of 3 paths (mage,stealth,warrior) but with the gamemodes (ctf,tag,zombie,ffa).
This would be pretty cool, and if someone wanted to change their path they would go back to zero orbs and basic rank. Maybe perks for those players in that gamemode? idk, just an idea. This would also give aod a team like element kind of like guilds of something, would be awesome.
Anyway, this is just an idea but would be different and kind of cool.

 

[Friendy]

I think a good way to do it, similar to what Mastersten suggested with Prestiges, it would work almost like the call of duty ranks. You rank up based on the exp gained for achievements made during the game; different gamemodes would offer different amounts of exp as some gamemodes are harder than others.

For example, you could earn 5 experience per kill in the normal gamemode, 10 exp for winning, if you kill 5 or more players you could receive a bonus amount of exp ontop of what you've already earnt for killing them as it was a killstreak. Obviously this would need to be adjusted to fit where needed as this is a very rough idea, but it would allow players to achieve ranks that would make them feel "better" at the game than those below them without directly suggesting that those below them are any worse at the game. Players could even receive exp for logging in daily, or playing their first game of the day etc.

11 prestiges, 10 ranks per prestige, 75 exp for rank 2, 150 for rank 3, 225 for rank 4 up until rank 10 which is 750 exp and then you can prestige to prestige 1 which would be the same experience rates, but could offer more money/orbs per game to afford titles along with your prestige rank, or capes/wings that are cosmetics only that players may use to wear as bragging rights of sorts.

Anyway that's just my two cents, might be a bit complicated but I think something along those lines would work well, whether it is feasible or not is another issue.

 

[captain_pikmin]

I'm not sure how this would be implemented but how about cosmetic perks as you rank up, something for the casual players? Maybe a custom named weapon that replaces the same type of weapon in your given kit for a gamemode or some particle effects on victory?