Hi,
Why not add Seasons to the Ranked Ladder?
The ratings across the ladders are becoming overinflated and very grindy. These should be reset from time to time to promote competitive play. Players that return after breaks have an extremely laborious task to grind into the top 500, let alone 100. It’s way too much of a time sink. Pretty much every eSport game that has highly competitive multiplayer resets their ranked ladders using “Seasons”. For example Season 1, 2, 3 and so on. These could also have fun and memberable names to mark each Season, like “Season 1: Reign of an Empire” or something.
You could award unique:
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Titles, such as if you were to finish in the top 100, 50, 25, 5. You could even add a “grand master” for the person that finished number 1 by the end of the current Season. These could also be linked to community forums.
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Profile icons.
- In-game skins.
and so much more…
So what does everyone else think?
Do you think it’s a good idea?
If so, do you think the ladder should be reset quarterly, half-yearly or annually?
Maybe you’re not a fan of this idea - what comments and improvements do you think the ladder could see?
3 Likes
After a reset the pros will have to play noobs. That’s not fair for both sides
4 Likes
I understand that team ELO might need a reset, but there’s absolutely no need to reset the well functioning 1v1 ELO.
In chess, where ELO as it’s implemented in the 1v1 ladder originated (AFAIK), I’ve never even heard the concept being mentioned, let alone considered.
I suspect other multiplayer games which have seasons have different ranking systems, where resetting makes more sense. Certainly on BGA, which has seasons, that’s the explanation.
3 Likes
That is solved on other competitive games by “calibrating” players based on the performance of their first 10 games. It would match you against anyone at first, then based on your win%, it would place you against better players.
This “well functioning” ELO does however allow you to get 3K rating and then jump into any other ladder, win 10 games, and get ranked 2400~. I don’t personally feel that it is functioning as intended and everyone that moved over to DE from Voobly for instance never complained about playing noobs whilst the ratings began to settle down as I recall.
You’re right, I forgot there are issues even with the 1v1 ladder because sometimes the team ELO is used to estimate the ELO of a player in a new ladder. I haven’t experienced any trouble related to that myself, but I acknowledge it exists and I forgot it.
I’d see it as an outflow of the team-ELO problems rather than a problem with 1v1 ELO itself though, and the best medium-term solution would be to stop using the team-ELO to estimate how good people are in other ques.
Still it’s no reason to reset the ELOs of all the people who’ve played dozens or hundreds of 1v1 matches and have a 50% winrate.
1 Like
If Viper himself can admit that the ranking ladder is not considered as meaningful to any the top, what do all those countless games that people have played really mean anyway?
At least getting an award for where you placed to promote competition, rather than it being how it is now, whereby people have no choice other than to play “dozens or hundreds of 1v1 matches and have a 50% winrate.”
If you dont play for a few months and start playing again, you find yourself just smashing in the first few matches. Thats because in the time you didnt play, Elo got inflated and 1300 now is a lot lower skillwise than it once was.
This also means that after a break, you have to play a lot to get to a good rank again - as once you get closer to your actual skill level, the slower you climb.
The reason this is not an issue in chess is because noone spams 20 Matches a day there, its a few matches per month even for active players. So the same thing happens, but over decades instead of mere months.
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Have you heard of bullet chess?
The real reason is that ELO inflation in chess is a lot slower than it is currently in EOA2. (Arguably less than 100 points in the last 50 years for FIDE ELO.)
The problem you describe seems to be specific to team-ELO, since you’re talking about ELO inflation. The 1v1 ELO average is still around 1000 (https://ratings.aoe2.se/, but I think the graphs are labelled the wrong way round?)
I generally like the idea, just a few adjustments I’d make:
- Make sure we have a fix to the 1v1 vs team game ELO situation.
- At the beginning of a new season you’re immediately placed at a certain rank based on your standings last season, thus allowing us to avoid the crapshoot week of every 1v1 game being entirely imbalanced. So if a player is 1187 at the end of a season there placed at the 1100-1300 elo tier, or something to that effect.
- I’d add a way to view past seasons! It would be cool to look back a few seasons and see where someone who is currently top 20 was playing a few years back, or who used to be a dominate player etc.
In all I’d say it seems like a fun idea just to give some more incentive on the ladder for everyone 
1 Like
Yeah, actually played some about 18 ago - did like it a lot, but in my post i was talking about the normal tournaments. And there, Elo inflation happens really, really slowly as you pointed out.
I was refering to my experience in 1v1. When i played this spring, i got to 1400, i was peaking at about top 1k. Now, after a long break, my rating is at 1500 (with 55% winrate), but im not even top 2k. So, if i wanted to get back to top 1k, i need a lot of grinding.
Im not even saying that the problem is all that serious (i really dont mind it, as long as the matches are fair and intersting), but i do agree with OP that if your goal is just barely within your skill range it takes a few matches to grind to where you would like to be - and every break you take can set you back a bit.
2 Likes