Season 5 PC Squadron results - graphs and analysis

[Jmanis]

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.

Yup, including the development of skill itself[1]. That's why our group don't care at all about the squadron leaderboards... because we know full-well we'll never be able to compete with this:

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.

... to even 10% of that effort. It's totally out of our league. But if there was a mechanism for that competition to occur between a division of similar-abilitied squadrons (and as we've already mentioned, that measure is one of how much free time you have) then we might actually care about the squadron leaderboards some more, and by extension the achievements of groups like that might actually resonate a bit more with us.

Just curious though...

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.

What odd consequences can you think of? In a basic setup like this (what's the reward? Some bobblehead right?), I can't see any odd consequences:

• Divisions broken up into blobs of 100 based off last (currently implemented) season's standings, i.e Division 1 = Rank 1-100, Division 2 = Rank 101-200, etc.
• Rank 1-10 within a division automatically promote to the next higher division
• Rank 91-100 within a division automatically demote to the next lower division
• Div 1 1st/2nd/3rd get the icecream-with-chocolate-sprinkles-on-top bobble trophy for that placing plus 50 gajillion credits... down to Div 9 where 1st/2nd/3rd get the wooden bobble trophy plus 10m credits.
• Div 10+ just get a 5m credit reward and a pat on the back.
• Resolve draws by the order that squadron obtained the score (so if Squad A gets 100 points, then Squad B gets 100 points, and the season ends, A beats B)
• If a squadron in a lower league scores better than a higher-league team... too bad so sad... that sort of thing happens in the real world too.

Tweak the "gold/silver/bronze" tally in the squadrons interface to separate by the divisions you've won in (and for simplicity, lets lump 11+ all into the same handbasket).
I really can't see any "odd consequences" coming out of that, since it's basically a copy-paste of every other basic leaguing system I've ever experienced in comparable games. I'd even recommend chopping the length of time of a "Season" down to something like two weeks. Two months of effort is a long time to carve out for sustained effort... but if the squadrons got leagued it'd at least put apples with apples.

[1] I disagree that performance of activities in squadron leaderboards at an individual level is independent of skill. Just as a single example, someone who can solo a Hydra will have a distinct advantage on the AX leaderboards compared to someone who can only pop scouts or a Cyclops. Or, to keep with your trade example, the ability to identify, exploit and sustain/create a good state-based trade route will easily outperform simply shifting palladium back and forth.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

What odd consequences can you think of? In a basic setup like this (what's the reward? Some bobblehead right?), I can't see any odd consequences:

• Divisions broken up into blobs of 100 based off last (currently implemented) season's standings, i.e Division 1 = Rank 1-100, Division 2 = Rank 101-200, etc
• If a squadron in a lower league scores better than a higher-league team... too bad so sad... that sort of thing happens in the real world too.

Broadly the issue is speed of promotion. There are just over 10,000 squadrons active in Season 6, on the "generalist" leaderboards. Presumably after this first division-based season, any new squadron would come in at the bottom, in division 105 for Exploration, and therefore, even if they were throwing in the 10 billion scores that would give them a decent chance at Bronze in a quiet season ... would first have to spend 104 seasons (4 years, on your accelerated schedule, 16 on the current one) getting promoted to Division 1.
Even in the quietest board - Powerplay - a new squadron would need to spend 5 seasons getting promoted. (In the real world, regional and local feeder leagues in a pyramid structure avoid this problem, as does the ability for human judgement to insert a team other than right at the bottom)

Even higher up it gets a bit weird, since any squadron that put the effort in could get a top 100 finish in any season and board. But at the moment they can just get that top 100 finish - under this scheme, if their last rank was 820, they'd need to spend at least seven seasons working on promotions first.

And, of course, what happens if a squadron takes a break from the game entirely for an eight-week period ... easy enough for a smaller squadron. Does it get kicked out of the league entirely, or does it just fall a division at a time? In the lower divisions if there are 11 squadrons on 0 points, which ones get demoted? Do the divisions right at the bottom where all the squadrons are on zero count as ones which new squadrons have to promote through (so Powerplay has at least 100 all-zero divisions before you can even start competing with squadrons which actually play that game), and if not, how does that juggle the divisional structures if some of those zero-score squadrons get some points near season end?

A "division 1" (1-100), "division 2" (100-1000), "division 3", (10000+) might just about be workable, but the promotion/demotion zones would be a bit weird, and you'd likely have an overlap of 50+ squadrons in "division 2" scoring higher than at least some of the ones in "division 1" - sure, it happens in real world leagues, but not usually quite to that extent, and if only ten of those squadrons can then be promoted...

I'd even recommend chopping the length of time of a "Season" down to something like two weeks.

I do agree that shorter seasons - two, or four weeks - would be much more dynamic and allow a greater number of groups to have a potential shot at the top by not having to commit to all out effort for quite so long. Two weeks might be a bit short - especially for boards like exploration and AX where it's practical to stack up points but not cash them in immediately (and therefore also subject to powerplay-style sniping, as demonstrated on Exploration just now by the Winged Hussars).

[1] I disagree that performance of activities in squadron leaderboards at an individual level is independent of skill. Just as a single example, someone who can solo a Hydra will have a distinct advantage on the AX leaderboards compared to someone who can only pop scouts or a Cyclops. Or, to keep with your trade example, the ability to identify, exploit and sustain/create a good state-based trade route will easily outperform simply shifting palladium back and forth.

To stick with the trade example, however, someone who does basic Painite mining at a double hotspot will beat even the most optimised trader by about 5x. There's skill in knowing what activities give the most points per hour ... but they're rarely the activities which require the most in-game skill to actually do.

 

[wielkimagik]

Agreed on all points with Ian, especially about divisions. In exploration a squadron like ours - small but active - would easily end up in division 1, but first place most likely would be either out of reach or it would require crazy grinding from all of us. Take last season, for example - even if we all sold as much data as Voodoo did, most likely we would end up third anyway... and who knows how burned out. I actually enjoy long flights while listening to podcasts/music or watching formula 1 or gaming related stuff on youtube, but this past month was still a little taxing and now I need a change of pace. We sure as hell won't be trying again this season.

Also, take longer expeditions into consideration - at least three of us (half of our squadron) are planning to participate in Perseus Reach Expedition between february and july. With promotion/demotion system we'd probably end up a couple divisions lower, or even further with shorter seasons (which I agree would be a good idea). As a result that icecream-with-chocolate-sprinkles-on-top bobble trophy would still be out of our reach, even if we all went, mapped like crazy and sold the most data of all squadrons - we'd get 1st place in 3rd/4th/5th division and a promotion...

 

[MUSKETEER]

That mysterious 2 people squardon that won silver in cqc without even trying hard was me and my alt lol . I deleted that squadron and rejoined TWH. @Ian Doncaster

 

[rootsrat]

That mysterious 2 people squardon that won silver in cqc without even trying hard was me and my alt lol . I deleted that squadron and rejoined TWH. @Ian Doncaster

There you go then, I told it wrong!

 

[MUSKETEER]

Last season it was practically only me playing CQC for TWH and we won gold again.. It was a quiet season, probably why.