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Rewards for high ELO

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There is a paradox that the higher your skill, the higher elo you are, the more you are "punished". This is good for keeping a challenge in the game, but sometimes feels bad when high elo result in getting placed with only newbies etc. Given that the balance system works pretty well, is it possible that we could reward players for high elo somehow, so that they feel good about high elo and less likely to throw matches etc? Quick brainstorm:

-Have a couple of units unlocked by ELO (instead of level)
-Have visual rewards similar to the Kudos com skins and weapon effects (without undermining kudos? :/ )
-Make ELO more visible like level/rank.
-Award "medals" of some kind for ELO progress
-Some kind of advantage in Planetwars? (I don't play so unsure if this would work)

What do you think?
+3 / -1
10 years ago
I don't like the idea of any of those. While I agree that having high elo (and associated teammates) is nothing but a burden in teams I do not think you should get something for having that elo. I think the best thing for high elo players is to have more regular high skill small teams and 1v1, where you do not get the disadvantages of the regular 10v10 with people from 1100 to 2500 elo playing.

There are some other ideas about elo apartheid that could help, that would be a minefield discussion so I will not mention them here.
+0 / -0
10 years ago
I mostly agree except that it might be a while before we get that many people playing. I think carrying nubs in Teams might be more enjoyable if there was a reward like you get something special when you are highest ELO for example.
+0 / -0
10 years ago
how about giving the highest elo player of a team some kind of immobile command post that gives a small amount of non-shared metal/e, both marging them as "higher ranking" as well as giving them a small personal benefit (this would also add the secondary objective in each battle of taking town the opposing command post)
+0 / -0
10 years ago
I AGREE
+0 / -0
10 years ago
Interesting idea, though I'd worry about rewards that changes balance much.
+0 / -0


10 years ago
Anything that draws attention to Elo, let alone provides tangible rewards for having it, is a terrible terrible TERRIBLE idea.

Too many players already look at Elo as some kind of prize in and of itself. It's not. It's a rough proxy for skill. If you add any further incentive to getting a higher rating, then people will work even harder to game the system, trying to increase their number without actually increasing their skill.

This is why Licho from time to time has tried to make Elo hard to view. I don't think that's a good idea either, but I completely understand and sympathize with his motivations here. We want people trying to get better at the game, not trying to make a number get higher.

If the root issue you're trying to address is that high-skill players get put on the same team as low-skill players.... well, that's just a fact of life. That's necessary to have even teams and fair games where both sides have a chance of winning. I think the balance algorithm too often makes teams that are high-plus-low versus middle; that's been discussed a few times, and I'm still not sure why it works like that rather than more evenly distributing both the high-skill and low-skill players across both teams. But the bottom line is that no matter what, the higher your skill, the more likely you are to have more low-skill players on your team.
+1 / -1
Skasi
I've been daydreaming about things like "highest elo player can force-take idle units, so they can react in emergency situations" and similar. This would definitely stop problems such as new players' builders idling while the #1 player in the team has no construction units left. Basically: The better a player the more power they get to lead their team to victory.
+2 / -0
10 years ago
quote:
Too many players already look at Elo as some kind of prize in and of itself. It's not.

You have no business deciding whether people should try to increase their elo. What do you think leaderboards are about? ZK does not have a community who give medals for participating.
+0 / -0

10 years ago
the good thing about high-elo and low-elo in the same team is, that the low elo players eventuallly might evolve by observation of the actions surrounding them or by politely given advice explore game mechanics.

if you dont want to play with low elo players, dont join such games.
+3 / -0


10 years ago
Elo is a punishment, a handicap - in recognition of your success, you must sacrifice your ability to succeed in future. There is no upside except e-peen rights
+0 / -0


10 years ago
quote:
You have no business deciding whether people should try to increase their elo. What do you think leaderboards are about? ZK does not have a community who give medals for participating.

I think you misunderstand me, or perhaps I'm not being very clear. My apologies.

I'm drawing a distinction between increasing your numerical rating and increasing your skill at playing the game which your numerical rating is supposed to represent.

I think being the best player is a prize. I think climbing the leaderboards is a worthy endeavor. I think climbing the leaderboards should be based on how well you play the game, not how big you can make your number.

In theory, the two are reasonably well related, which is good, because we can objectively measure and rank Elo but not skill. In practice, the two aren't always as closely tied as one would like. Consequently, players make a big deal about losing Elo rather than trying to improve their skill. That's a bad attitude and it's bad for the game.

Anything which rewards Elo rather than rewarding skill will only exacerbate this problem.
+3 / -0
Yes but abstract skill is not measurable, whereas ELO is. I think Lyth's concern is at least worth a discussion. Skasi's idea may be the most useful right for the high elo-player to have ingame, but it may be rude to new players suddenly "losing" units...
+2 / -0
Skasi
It was just a wish I had. Good players would have less need to be frustrated and an easier time helping out their weaker allies. Newbies would have much less burden on their shoulders and - if this system was implemented really well - they could see that experienced players have more control for a good reason. A theory I have is that this would create a mentor-like atmosphere with less harassment.

I understand though that it might be misused. A concern I have is that too much power might corrupt (see badmins :P), but maybe that's not the case when it comes to games and fun? Anyway, it's only a nice dream.
+2 / -0

10 years ago
Don't get me wrong. I find your idea really intriguing and never-seen before and worth a try.
+0 / -0
10 years ago
IMO if we add rewards for big elo players like special unlocks or special units that needs tons of micro, it will make us ( big elo nabs) to not troll games annymore, just to mentain our elo.

Or simply make certain new unlocks available only at a specific elo, and if you lose elo you wont have them annymore, thus making you more reliable in battle.

When i say unlocks i take into consideration the fact that the units wont be OP and that they need tons of micro so not all players will know well how to use them, and newbies wont complain if they wont have them.
+3 / -1
Skasi
10 years ago
I really don't think units should be locked, ROrankForever. As soon as a player has access to a bigger variety of units, the enemy team has a disadvantage. No matter how niche the unit, it's just not fair. I've seen otherwise weak players use special purpose units surprisingly well.
+3 / -0
10 years ago
-Have a couple of units unlocked by ELO (instead of level):
I don't think it is a good idea, because high-ELO players already have skill advantage, but with unlock they will, also, have units advantage.

-Have visual rewards similar to the Kudos com skins and weapon effects (without undermining kudos? :/ )
-Make ELO more visible like level/rank.
-Award "medals" of some kind for ELO progress
It is all ways of showing who is the poro. I mean it is like self-affirmation for high-elo players. And I think it is cool. U also should add Cookies.

-Some kind of advantage in Planetwars? (I don't play so unsure if this would work)
Sure. Because Planetwars is a game of mainly high-elo players and clans.
+1 / -0

10 years ago
In PW, i heard planets are distributed by elo. Isn't that something?
+0 / -0
10 years ago
I was talking about creating new units Skasi and available only to big elo players

Units that take lots of micro, have lots of d gun types and needs special strategy to make it's metal investment back.

So newbies or low elo players will be hard for them to use, cause they hare hard units with lots of special things but big elo players will have more reasons to play better cause they get more units of these types:D

Examples are Extreme long range pulse newton, Constant jumping unit that dies fast bud does dmg like roach or something and many more.
+0 / -1
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