Squidboards Ranking System Proposal

[Flying_Tortoise]

Hey everybody!

We are the Splatoon Community Organizers, a group of users here on Squidboards. We come from all sorts of backgrounds: competitive FPS/TPS, competitive fighting games, previous moderators from other communities, tournament scene organizers from other communities, and some involved in esports newscoverage. In the past weeks, we have been hard at work researching, debating, and drawing upon our prior experiences to devise a rankings system for competitive play on Squidboards. With this post, we are submitting our proposal to the community for feedback. We want to hear your feedback so that we can make this system the best it can be for the community.

Ranking System:​

The system will be an Elo system. Elo is a ranking system that is supposed to place people at their proper skill level. It is meant to properly predict the odds a certain player has against another. It is very objective, and to us seems like the best option.


Why Elo?
Elo is used in many gaming communities, such as Chess, LoL, CS:GO, Smite, and many others.
We did research into an ATP system, but we do not feel it is an appropriate system for Splatoon. With Elo, new players a year down the road will have no problem catching up to teams that have had extra time to get their ranking, this is because the system places you at your true skill level and is not just a team gathering points. This is why new teams who are better than the rest can definitely catch up and surpass other teams in ranking, if they are good enough.

Tiers and their subdivisions:​

After registering, new teams will play 6 matches and then be placed in one of the following divisions. Platinum I will be where only the elite of the elite squads will be placed. The skill level will get lower and lower until the subdivision Stone IV.


Platinum I - IV > Gold I – IV > Silver I – IV > Bronze I – IV > Iron I - IV > Stone I – IV

Squads and their Teams:​

We would like to make the distinction between squads and teams. There are already many squads present on Squidboards, but they will not be automatically registered as a team for this ranking system. Of course, they can still register as a team, or even register multiple teams, as long as each team has no more than seven members, no fewer than four members, and no members are on multiple teams. We realize that this is confusing and may seem unnecessary, but we believe that it is for the best. By doing this we are able to keep squads with lots of members together, have more people playing in the system instead of sitting on the bench. We want to see the most players in the system actually playing and so we hope you understand.

How To Raise Your Ranking:​

Teams vs Teams (aka “Wars”) and Tournaments (both online and offline, if offline is possible) will be accepted.


Why will both be allowed? Can't teams just play a lot of 'Wars” beat some easy opponents and get a higher ranking?
This is the beauty of an Elo system. As explained in the Elo section, this system is meant to place players at their proper skill level and they will only be able to increase their ranking until they themselves improve as a team. So by offering both Wars and Tournaments we are offering more opportunities for Teams to get to their proper ranking. Besides not every squad can participate in a long tournament every month, so this offers another avenue for those who are indeed skilled but don't have the time to attend tournaments.


But doesn't this decrease the purpose for tournaments?
The thing is tournaments aren't specifically about ranking. It's about being the best. It's about showing the world that you can defeat multiple squads in a row, end up on top, and enjoy the glory that you came out on top at a tournament that had a lot of participants. Plus there is also the opportunity to earn money in tournaments. This is why we feel that this does not devalue tournaments.

Inactivity penalty:​

There is a problem that some communities have faced where a top rated player decides to stop accepting challenges from people and so they get to keep their ranking for as long as they wish. We will making sure this doesn't happen by giving the Team 2 weeks to play at least one match before they are given a warning. If two more weeks go by after a team receives a warning and they are still inactive, then they will be removed from the system.


Isn't this a bit harsh?
In the end the team has an entire month to play a single match against another Team or participate in a tournament, this is actually a lot of time. If we didn't put some kind of penalty then teams would end up abusing this, play until a certain rank, and then stop playing even when all the other teams are getting better. We are indeed open to opinions, however.

Let’s say my team goes inactive and gets our Elo erased, what options do I have?
Well, first of all members are still free to create or join another team, even after the team has been removed from the Elo ranking. Also, if you wanted to you could have the team restart climbing Elo ranking.

Reporting Scores:​

For Wars: Captains from both teams (whether it is a win or loss) will report their team's outcome.

-If both Teams end up reporting a win, and there is no proof from either party, then the match is void.

-If only one team reports a result from a match, we will attempt to contact the other team to verify the results.

Photos of the results screen count as ample proof.


For Tournaments: It will be the TO's responsibility to send all the results from the tournament to us. How exactly will be explained later.

Register:​

Teams must register and then they will be added into the ranking system. The exact registration process will be defined later.

Ruleset:​

We have not finalized a ruleset for competitive play, as we think that is something that requires more community input, as well as more experience with the game. Expect us to make a post later on in the summer in which we will be asking for your input.

How many teams can a player be on?
1​

Changing Team Rosters:​

Teams will be able to change their members in one big move, once every two weeks. Exactly what days this happens on has not been decided yet.

Dropping Teams:​

A player can drop his/her squad at any time for any reason they may have. They will not be able to officially join another competitive team until the next time teams are able to change their roster.





Thank you very much for reading our proposal. Should you have any questions, comments, suggestions, complaints, etc. please post them here in this thread. Users @Flying_Tortoise, @Aweshucks, and @DNE, who were integral in devising this plan, will be in the post responding to you. We greatly appreciate any and all feedback.

 

[iTwAsLucK]

Looks good, except for the 1 team limit.

 

[Aweshucks]

I assume you're referring to the limit of each player only allowed to play on one team? We just felt that it would be the most simple way to do it and avoid potential problems. We specifically made it so that you could switch teams frequently to make sure someone isn't stuck on a team they no longer want to be a part of. Of course, we appreciate the feedback and will take it into consideration

 

[Box]

This sounds hastily thrown together and not well explained. It makes me wonder if you guys really know what you're talking about. I mean, the general community here on Squidboards isn't very experienced with this sort of thing. So since I have no idea how or why you came up with this stuff, I'm kind of suspicious.

It might be easier to start off by just collecting data rather than making a bunch of rules about who can join which teams at which time.

 

[Flying_Tortoise]

Well I don't really know what data you are talking about.
Hastily would be that last word I would use. We come from all backgrounds, and have taken a long time to get everything together. This is only one part of what we are working on.

This post was just focusing on the ranking system from a general point of view, as we feel this post is big enough. Introducing people to the beginning of our proposal, and maybe even getting a new perspective different from the 15 of us. In this post we are telling people about Elo because we are assuming that there are some that don't know about it because they are only from the smash community. If you would like to question our reasoning on a certain point we would be more than happy to offer our reasoning for what we have offered so far. We welcome different perspectives, we just want the Splatoon community to have the best system it can have.

 

[Aweshucks]

This sounds hastily thrown together and not well explained. It makes me wonder if you guys really know what you're talking about. I mean, the general community here on Squidboards isn't very experienced with this sort of thing. So since I have no idea how or why you came up with this stuff, I'm kind of suspicious.

It might be easier to start off by just collecting data rather than making a bunch of rules about who can join which teams at which time.

I understand your concerns, and they are completely valid. In your position, I would be saying the exact same thing.

We have been working on this for over two months now, devoting a lot of time to it. We are definitely still in the very early stages of developing it, and this post obviously shows it. We don't want this to be something that we just do behind closed doors. We want to explain what we're doing, and get feedback from the community. We are very devoted to helping grow this community, and we feel that this is one such way that we could do that. If you wanted, we could set up a private message between you and some of the people on our team so we could go into more detail about our plans and get your input.

 

[CoopLan]

I really love how things are turning out guys! I enjoy the one team limit due to the fact that it would really skew things if people could be on more than one team, especially during tournaments. It's also good to note that by keeping the team switching under control by limiting it to a certain date every so often allows time so teams do not make hasty decisions dropping/picking up players left and right. Keep up the good work and I am excited for what you guys have in store for us once private lobbies are out.

 

[Aweshucks]

I mean, even if we were to change the one team per person rule, they obviously still wouldn't be able to be on more than one team during a tournament. And that would be up to the TOs, anyway.

 

[doop]

august can't come here soon enough

 

[Box]

Well I don't really know what data you are talking about.
Hastily would be that last word I would use. We come from all backgrounds, and have taken a long time to get everything together. This is only one part of what we are working on.

This post was just focusing on the ranking system from a general point of view, as we feel this post is big enough. Introducing people to the beginning of our proposal, and maybe even getting a new perspective different from the 15 of us. In this post we are telling people about Elo because we are assuming that there are some that don't know about it because they are only from the smash community. If you would like to question our reasoning on a certain point we would be more than happy to offer our reasoning for what we have offered so far. We welcome different perspectives, we just want the Splatoon community to have the best system it can have.

You aren't really explaining what you're providing for one thing. It's more like you're deciding how other people should play. I mean, these things you're decided should be debated among the community if you really expect the entire community to adopt them. Why are teams capped at 7? Because you thought it was for the best? That's not really sufficient. Why are there 24 leagues? How can you decide on something like that before anyone has signed up? It doesn't really inspire confidence that you know what you're doing.

I understand your concerns, and they are completely valid. In your position, I would be saying the exact same thing.

We have been working on this for over two months now, devoting a lot of time to it. We are definitely still in the very early stages of developing it, and this post obviously shows it. We don't want this to be something that we just do behind closed doors. We want to explain what we're doing, and get feedback from the community. We are very devoted to helping grow this community, and we feel that this is one such way that we could do that. If you wanted, we could set up a private message between you and some of the people on our team so we could go into more detail about our plans and get your input.

Why not just start a thread to talk and decide on stuff like this? If you don't want it to be behind closed doors, then don't submit proposals for feedback. Just hold the conversation here.

 

[Aweshucks]

You aren't really explaining what you're providing for one thing. It's more like you're deciding how other people should play.

I though we had been clear with this, but if there was any confusion: this is a ranking system that would be hosted on squidboards. Like a ladder, if you will. Teams would play other teams who are part of the system in order to be ranked. When a team wins or loses, their rank would go up or down, accordingly. As for "deciding how other people should play," we don't want to do that at all. However, there needs to be some rules in order to have objectivity and consistency.

I mean, these things you're decided should be debated among the community if you really expect the entire community to adopt them. Why are teams capped at 7? Because you thought it was for the best? That's not really sufficient. Why are there 24 leagues? How can you decide on something like that before anyone has signed up? It doesn't really inspire confidence that you know what you're doing.

That is quite literally the point of this post. We made this because, though this is what we think is best, it is something the community should have input on, and we are open to changing any part of it.

Teams are capped at 7 so that teams have an ample amount of subs, but also so that we encourage more smaller teams rather than a few larger teams. We feel like this is better for what will likely be a relatively small playerbase. This is something not all of us agree on either, so we would really love feedback on this.

And I think you've misunderstood on the second thing. There's only one league. There are 24 divisions within the ranking system that you can move up or down on depending on your team's skill level and game results, but you can play people at any level. Of course, losing to someone with a lower ranking than you will make you fall in ranking more than if they were at an equal rank to yours. Likewise, you will gain less rank for beating a team that is ranked lower than you. The same is true the other way around. If a team beats another one that is ranked higher than them, they will climb in rank faster, and there will be less penalty if they lose to a team that is ranked higher than them.

Why not just start a thread to talk and decide on stuff like this? If you don't want it to be behind closed doors, then don't submit proposals for feedback. Just hold the conversation here.

Again, that's basically what we're trying to do here. We may just have worded it wrong and given the wrong connotation. We came up with a base concept, and are looking to the community for feedback. We waited to do this until we had a basic concept so that there was something to build upon. Had we just made a thread two months ago saying "hey guys, let's make a ranking system for squidboards! how should we do it?" nothing likely would have come from it.

 

[bluekentuckyboy]

If only Nintendo could add tourney medals into the game, I would proudly show off my stone badge lol.

So glad to see people serious about playing this game competitively. We can all think of new strats and techs but without this group of hard working organizers then strats would be pointless except for maybe going up a couple ranks in ranked battles.

Can't argue with much so far, I enjoy the Elo system and the divisions seem easy to understand (though I would start out by only having two or three leagues, then start expanding as more and more teams join, promoting and demoting teams by their ranks when the new leagues are added, I believe UGC tf2 4v4 did this).

Can't wait to hear more from you guys, I am definitely in support of a competitive league. Splatoon and TF2 are the only games I'm slightly good at and though we may never grow as big as tf2's competitive scene, we can strive to be just as serious with our's).

 

[Aweshucks]

Thanks for the support, bluekentuckyboy! I also enjoy watching comp TF2, though I've never actually played in any leagues. As for starting off with fewer ranks, that's an interesting perspective we hadn't thought of before. I'll make sure to bring it up and see what everyone thinks

 

[Hope]

Having four divisions in each of the tiers is excessive at this point since you don't know how many people will sign up. To have at least two people in each division you would have to have 48 active teams... I like limiting the squads to 7 though, prevents the hogging of good players and lets everyone play. The changing roster every two weeks does seem weird though, what wasbyou guy's reasoning behind that?

 

[Aweshucks]

Well, we made four divisions in each tier in order to give a more accurate representation of where a team is skill wise, and to make moving up it down a little easier. But you make a good point that I hadn't though of.

As for the two week rule in terms of switching teams, we did that so that there would be a problem of people constantly switching teams, as well as to make it easier for us to keep track of who is on what team. We set it at two weeks so that there is still plenty of opportunities to switch if you need to. Theres been much debate among our team about what the right period of time is for this and whether it's even needed, so we'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

 

[[EJ]_Locke]

This sounds hastily thrown together and not well explained. It makes me wonder if you guys really know what you're talking about. I mean, the general community here on Squidboards isn't very experienced with this sort of thing. So since I have no idea how or why you came up with this stuff, I'm kind of suspicious.

It might be easier to start off by just collecting data rather than making a bunch of rules about who can join which teams at which time.

There is a reason why they made that counsel. I think you are juding them too early, this is a proposal not an indictment.

 

[Box]

Re:Team Sizes
The problem that I have with 7 as the number is that it's not really clear why it's needed and that it's a one size fits all rule. We don't even know if large teams are going to be a problem.

Re: Tournaments
I don't think it's a good idea to collect tournament data for rankings. It would mean that all teams in the tournaments would have to match the same teams that are used in the ranking ladder. That, and the tournaments would have to be using the same rule set for matches as the ladder.

Re: Inactivity
Have you considered holding 'seasons' of play after which all teams reset rankings rather than having a system for removing inactive teams? Also there is Glicko which is an alternative to Elo that deals with the incentives to not play.

Re: Tiers
I don't understand the need for tiers in the first place. If you're using an Elo system, there's do additional information conveyed by adding tiers on top of the Elo ratings.

 

[Kbot]

This ruleset looks good. I'm only worried about how you're going to set up the system. I'm most worried about you guys being swamped with results and everything that teams don't get their rankings back until 4 weeks after the last set of matches has happened. I think this system should be integrated within this website for teams to easily input their matches. I can understand that this might be a little work at first, but a little up front can go a long way. I'd rather not see this competitive community fall through.

Also, I'm worried about game capabilities. I fear that the team creation mode in august will allow you to create a team and then randomly face another team, and the 8 friend room will pair people randomly.

Just some things to think about. I am in support of the system, I just worry about its simplicity, work, and correlation with the capabilities of the game.

 

[bluekentuckyboy]

Re:Team Sizes
The problem that I have with 7 as the number is that it's not really clear why it's needed and that it's a one size fits all rule. We don't even know if large teams are going to be a problem.

Re: Tournaments
I don't think it's a good idea to collect tournament data for rankings. It would mean that all teams in the tournaments would have to match the same teams that are used in the ranking ladder. That, and the tournaments would have to be using the same rule set for matches as the ladder.

Re: Inactivity
Have you considered holding 'seasons' of play after which all teams reset rankings rather than having a system for removing inactive teams? Also there is Glicko which is an alternative to Elo that deals with the incentives to not play.

Re: Tiers
I don't understand the need for tiers in the first place. If you're using an Elo system, there's do additional information conveyed by adding tiers on top of the Elo ratings.

Team size: I'm pretty sure they choose 7 because that would make sure that at least one of the "Core team" (the main 4 teamates) is played each game. 4 mains, 3 subs, its a good number in my opinion. (Already stated by Aweshucks)

Tournaments: There can be tournaments that aren't ranked, like maybe a "for fun, all shooter" tournament. I think they are talking about main tournaments hosted by them. These tourneys would probably be this game's "Seasons" while other unofficial tournaments would not be ranked. (I think this is what you meant, if not then sorry lol)

Inactivity: I do not believe resetting ranks would be the best option, it's an option, but I like the way they are handing it better (resetting ranks after each season to me makes the rating system pointless). I would choose Elo just because it's more known than the Glicko, the inactivity guidelines they came up with seems fine...I personally don't see a problem. The rating system does not need to be an exact science, just something that works, and it looks like the system they have works. Heck a Win/lose ratio ranking would be fine, not the best option, but it would work.

Tiers: While true, Tiers just make rankings easier to understand for new people. Instead of saying "#-#" is top tier, you just say "platinum/gold" is top tier.

I don't want to come off as rude, or just trying to disproving you, in fact I'm not even apart of the organizers lol. However it seems you are just posting alternatives instead of why the system they have is inferior or corrupt in some way. This thread is meant for discussion and I'm glad there is an alternative viewpoint, I just believe you are disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. Just give it a chance, it looks promising!

 

[Aweshucks]

Re:Team Sizes
The problem that I have with 7 as the number is that it's not really clear why it's needed and that it's a one size fits all rule. We don't even know if large teams are going to be a problem.

Well, the exact number is certainly up for debate, but I strongly believe that a limit to the number of players on a team is necessary. As much as I would like it to be otherwise, splatoon will almost certainly be a small community, and we need to encourage more teams to form. And while we don't know that large teams will be a problem, it is evident that they may be based on the large squads already formed on squidboards. And I'm not sure what you mean by it being a "one size fits all rule". If you're referring to the fact that it affects all teams, then yeah, of course it does.

Re: Tournaments
I don't think it's a good idea to collect tournament data for rankings. It would mean that all teams in the tournaments would have to match the same teams that are used in the ranking ladder. That, and the tournaments would have to be using the same rule set for matches as the ladder.

Well, looking back, we weren't very clear about this, so I apologize about that. We weren't talking about outside tournaments. It's definitely not feasible or reasonable to force them to conform to our rules. We were talking about the possibility of tournaments run by us (or others on squidboards), open to anyone in the ranking system, which could count for rank. We just wanted to keep the possibility open.

Re: Inactivity
Have you considered holding 'seasons' of play after which all teams reset rankings rather than having a system for removing inactive teams? Also there is Glicko which is an alternative to Elo that deals with the incentives to not play.

We thought about seasons, but we decided they weren't necessary. The beauty of an Elo system is that it places you at the rank you deserve to be at, and you won't climb any higher unless you legitimately get better at the game. It's not a system in which accumulating a bunch of games is going to put you at an advantage over a newer team, so resetting the rankings will only serve to piss people off. We didn't look into Glicko (well, I personally didn't, someone else on the team may have, though), but we did look at some other systems, and decided that Elo was the best for us.

Re: Tiers
I don't understand the need for tiers in the first place. If you're using an Elo system, there's do additional information conveyed by adding tiers on top of the Elo ratings.

The idea is that we would not be publishing the exact numbers for each teams ranking, only which tier they were in and their position relative to other teams in that tier. This is probably a controversial decision, we understand. When people can see the actual numbers, they are much more likely to try to 'game' the system, rather than just play their best and end up where they should be ranked. This is also the reason we have so many tiers. They are spaced 100 Elo points away from each other, and will allow teams to go up or down relatively quickly, which is nice positive feedback.

This ruleset looks good. I'm only worried about how you're going to set up the system. I'm most worried about you guys being swamped with results and everything that teams don't get their rankings back until 4 weeks after the last set of matches has happened. I think this system should be integrated within this website for teams to easily input their matches. I can understand that this might be a little work at first, but a little up front can go a long way. I'd rather not see this competitive community fall through.

Well, we're currently working on automating the system so that it requires significantly less work on our end to run. We're getting some outside help with that and hopefully it will work out. And even if that falls through, we've got a dedicated team of people who will run all of the behind the scenes stuff, and we can always get more volunteers from the community. We plan on publishing the ranks regularly (but not real-time). Probably weekly or bi-weekly. As for it being integrated into the website, that's not in our hands. That's up to the admins.

Also, I'm worried about game capabilities. I fear that the team creation mode in august will allow you to create a team and then randomly face another team, and the 8 friend room will pair people randomly.

Well there's nothing we can do if it's the second thing, so we're just assuming it's the first. If it does pair you randomly, there would be almost zero competitive community for this game, and that would suck.



And thanks for the backup, @bluekentuckyboy . You pretty much hit the nail on the head