Season 5 PC Squadron results - graphs and analysis
- Thread starter Ian Doncaster
- Start date
@Jmanis check Barrett's Privateers
It's a great effort, but not really the point I was making.
I wasn't trying to say small squadrons can't be competitive, rather that outside of those upper ranks (I would say Top 30, but I'm literally making up numbers at that point) probably don't care about the squadron leaderboards because they look at it and know, for one reason or another, they'll never make that.
For me, I see no distinction between coming 4th, and coming 212th... result is pretty much the same. I look at the effort a group like Barrett's Privateers put in, and the effort my group would have to put in to reach that, and just go "nope"... I'm under no false pretenses that their efforts weren't significant, and knowing how significant that effort is, I know it's well and truly out of my group's reach, so it's easier to just ignore it.
But if Squadron Leagues broke it down to, say, 100-player leagues,, suddenly my group is coming 12th in Division 3. I can't punch god in the face and take on a squad like Barrett's, but trying to get 3rd, or even 1st, in a 3rd Divison league (which is actually just 203rd or 201st), that would get me playing that little bit more to try and hit that mark... and getting players to play more as a byproduct of trying to be competitive is the surely whole point of the Squadron leagues, right?
It's why any sporting league breaks participating teams into divisions based on skill, otherwise the lower-division teams don't ever feel like their achieving anything and don't feel like trying, which is just bad for the sport.
Edit: even buckyball is considering a split between platforms: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...eaderboards-for-buckyball-race-events.526641/
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Very impressive.
I'll get the season 6 analysis up when I get chance - might be the weekend, depends how things go.
It's a tricky one to do, because of the shape of the scoring curve - if you double your efforts on a leaderboard, you'll likely approximately halve your position number, all else equal.
So if you were 16th out of 100 in the 8th Division, and you doubled your effort, you'd probably end up in mid-table obscurity in the 4th Division.
The gaps between squadrons get really small very quickly - e.g. the difference between 9th and 10th on the Season 6 exploration board is about 150 million, which over 8 weeks is under 20 million a week, which is basically "one explorer".
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
I can see your point @Jmanis, but I also only partially agree with it.
Divisions would certainly help those players that can't be bothered to make an effort. But it begs the question why should someone who can't be arsed be rewarded?
It would also help smaller squadrons, which rarely stand a chance against the bigger ones. However - that really depends on the leaderboard, as for Exploration you could easily gather the data for the last year and then only sell them all at the end of a season.
For something like Combat, where the points are being scored direclty when player actions take place (destroying ships) - smaller squadrons simply stand no chance against the bigger ones. 10 active players will (mostly) always lose against 200 active players.
Then again, for something like CQC for example, where you play pure PVP, it's the actual skill that matters more. One of our members took a break from our community, founded his own 1-man Squadron and single-handedly won a gold trophy in CQC couple of seasons ago. Yes, 1 man smashed ALL of the other squadrons to pieces, including one that has "CQC" in their name and plays that almost exclusively.
When you say this:
You're kind of contradicting yourself here. "Anyone can make it to the top with great effort" vs "I can't be bothered, so I will never reach the top".
I'm sorry, but "they'll never make that" is simply not true. "They can't be bothered to try to make that" is more accurate. But you know what they say - no pain no gain.
Divisions would certainly help those players that can't be bothered to make an effort. But it begs the question why should someone who can't be arsed be rewarded?
It would also help smaller squadrons, which rarely stand a chance against the bigger ones. However - that really depends on the leaderboard, as for Exploration you could easily gather the data for the last year and then only sell them all at the end of a season.
For something like Combat, where the points are being scored direclty when player actions take place (destroying ships) - smaller squadrons simply stand no chance against the bigger ones. 10 active players will (mostly) always lose against 200 active players.
Then again, for something like CQC for example, where you play pure PVP, it's the actual skill that matters more. One of our members took a break from our community, founded his own 1-man Squadron and single-handedly won a gold trophy in CQC couple of seasons ago. Yes, 1 man smashed ALL of the other squadrons to pieces, including one that has "CQC" in their name and plays that almost exclusively.
When you say this:
You're kind of contradicting yourself here. "Anyone can make it to the top with great effort" vs "I can't be bothered, so I will never reach the top".
I'm sorry, but "they'll never make that" is simply not true. "They can't be bothered to try to make that" is more accurate. But you know what they say - no pain no gain.
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Impressive again. Was this XBox or PS4, out of interest? (And congratulations on your second CQC Gold this season on PC, too)
On PC, there's been a Silver win for a 2-person squadron, and another Silver win for a larger squadron that just had a single CQC player. Getting Gold would rely on a bit of luck, I think: your season 5 score or CQCD's season 1-4 scores would I think be unbeatable by a single individual.
How are points calculated? Do they represent credits or something?
It depends on the board.
AX, Trade and Exploration roughly represent credits gained during those activities.
Combat represents combat rank gained. (or which would be gained, if already Elite)
Powerplay is merits gained.
CQC is XP gained.
Political is a mess.
Very realistic then!
I was making 35-50 Mcr per day in my Asp Explorer with grade 1 engineering and no guardian modules in approx. 500-600 Ly from Sol without maximum effort. This corresponds to average 0,023 Gpts/day so gather 10 people and with maintaining this average You can be easily in top10 (12,61 Gpts) but I think most of the top 10 squadrons just gave up and decide to hold data for next seasons.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
That was a PC as far as I'm aware. Let me confirm that, I may have misuderstood him. It's been a while when we were talking about that. I don't want to give wrong information!
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Actually Exploration is roughly 0.5 point for 1 Cr earned from selling data.
And yet so many successful games and sporting leagues do it?
This isn't a can't be ... it's a "I have a family and two jobs =~120% of a full time job, and most of my group are in a similar position", and tbh calling it a "can't be " thing is pretty short-sighted and ignorant. I guess all those social/ amateur leagues shouldn't give you out trophies/medals either...
Edit: lol, what? is censored, arsed isn't?
For the purposes of rank progression. This was changed from a 1:1 ratio back in 2.3, when there was a payout increase. I wouldn't be surprised if Frontier went with a 1:1 ratio for Cr - squadron points as well. It would certainly be easier for squadrons to keep track of, and have questions of "why are my payouts only contributing half as many points?" on a regular basis.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
LOL I didn't know it'd censor THAT
For the record - 90% of my guys are between 30 and 60. We all have families and jobs. And yet we somehow manage to squeeze it in.
Good for you guys. That attitude still stinks though. Every activity of worth i can think of, whether it's video games, sports, board games, martial arts all break themselves into leagues of different skill levels, and rewards winners of those different leagues, from social and amateur right up to professional, with the rewards becoming more sought after as the skill levels increase... it simply makes for a more interesting, more competitive environment.LOL I didn't know it'd censor THAT
For the record - 90% of my guys are between 30 and 60. We all have families and jobs. And yet we somehow manage to squeeze it in.
I am just so glad they added something for the chart and graph makers out there. I dunno if it's the need to compete or the competitive nerdery that amuses me more - but keep it up!
There's a name I've not heard since...
Well, let's just say The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight.
@Jmanis check Barrett's Privateers
There's a name I've not heard since...
Well, let's just say The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
I just got some chips but forgot to put salt on them, so thanks for that! YUMMY!
Right. But the squadron leaderboards don't really fit themselves to that, because they're largely not about skill [1] but about time put in. Therefore the apparent ability of a squadron can vary massively from season to season - up and down - in a way that it just wouldn't in a skill-based league.
Generally the leagues also have regional elements - world/national/regional/local - to deal with the fact that there's a few really good players, and a lot of okay ones. Elite Dangerous doesn't have that sort of natural means of splitting up "the masses".
I really don't see how you'd take the current leaderboards and fit a division system onto them in a way that didn't have very odd consequences.
[1] In the directly competitive sense of "I'm a better trader than you". Organising and motivating a large enough group of traders and miners to work together to get a trophy place absolutely requires skills.
Hi, CMDR Wielkimagik of Barrett's Privateers here.
To give you some idea of the effort it was: the biggest contributor for us was our squadron leader, CMDR Voodoo Le Strange, who took long way back from DW2 and sold several months of data in this season. It gave us 1st place for a while.
I was probably second - I took a trip over 100k ly long, starting early september and ending this week, so over a month in the black. Steam shows I got 80 hours of play time in Elite in the past two weeks, I'd say earlier it was similar. Basically I spent most of my spare time honking and mapping. For over a month. I got a standard 8 hours a day job and I don't have kids, so I got plenty of spare time.
And this doesn't mean it was just the two of us - we all pitched in.
When Dark Enterprise got ahead of us we initially wanted to get back to the top, but then they crossed 20 billion points... well, we can try to stay second. Then The Winged Hussars entered the fray, Distant Worlds and Distant Worlds 3 caught up and even the third was uncertain. For exploration leaderboards you need either a lot of people, or a lot of time, preferably both. It puts small squadrons like ours at serious disadvantage and I don't really see how to level the playing field here. Also, even if we came up with a way we think would work, 1) we couldn't know for sure it would, 2) we're not the ones who could implement it, so I guess we're stuck with what we have.
But still, we did get the bronze, and it's far more valuable to me than the one I got in Distant Worlds 2 squadron mostly for being there at the time.
Anyway, congratulations to Dark Enterprise on their second place, and to The Winged Hussars on their 1st - that charge on last day of the season shows you're truly worthy of the name! o7 CMDRs.
To give you some idea of the effort it was: the biggest contributor for us was our squadron leader, CMDR Voodoo Le Strange, who took long way back from DW2 and sold several months of data in this season. It gave us 1st place for a while.
I was probably second - I took a trip over 100k ly long, starting early september and ending this week, so over a month in the black. Steam shows I got 80 hours of play time in Elite in the past two weeks, I'd say earlier it was similar. Basically I spent most of my spare time honking and mapping. For over a month. I got a standard 8 hours a day job and I don't have kids, so I got plenty of spare time.
And this doesn't mean it was just the two of us - we all pitched in.
When Dark Enterprise got ahead of us we initially wanted to get back to the top, but then they crossed 20 billion points... well, we can try to stay second. Then The Winged Hussars entered the fray, Distant Worlds and Distant Worlds 3 caught up and even the third was uncertain. For exploration leaderboards you need either a lot of people, or a lot of time, preferably both. It puts small squadrons like ours at serious disadvantage and I don't really see how to level the playing field here. Also, even if we came up with a way we think would work, 1) we couldn't know for sure it would, 2) we're not the ones who could implement it, so I guess we're stuck with what we have.
But still, we did get the bronze, and it's far more valuable to me than the one I got in Distant Worlds 2 squadron mostly for being there at the time.
Anyway, congratulations to Dark Enterprise on their second place, and to The Winged Hussars on their 1st - that charge on last day of the season shows you're truly worthy of the name! o7 CMDRs.
That's not salt, it's not even a salt substitute. I am genuinely entertained by the compulsion of those who make graphs and charts of such odd bits of data, for whatever reason compels them to do so. I have my own little quirks too - you should see my collection of spread sheets and data bases... I just don't publish them - except for my Guardian Site checklist sheet, but it's at least utilitarian for those who opt to engage.