TITANS 1v1 Ranked Ladder Season 2

Discussion in 'PA: TITANS: General Discussion' started by panews, January 25, 2019.

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  1. panews

    panews Planetary News Official PA

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    Hello Commanders,

    Season one of 1v1 ranked has ended, so let us give our congratulations to [TNC] [Nik] NikolaMX, a player so humble he put his own name in a clan tag.

    Fighting off many worthy opponents he has dominated the Uber league, holding the #1 position for most of the season. An Invictus statue will be on its way to our deserving season 1 winner.

    Season 2 – 2019-01-25 to 2019-04-25

    It’s season 2!

    All ranks have been reset; everything is up for grabs again.

    A new season needs new maps. As you know we introduced four new maps mid-way through the previous season, and they’ll be carrying over to season two. But the rest of the maps have been taken out back and… retired. Sleep well old maps, you’ve served your time. Replacing them are eleven brand new maps.

    Season 2 Map Pool (15)
    • Aquilaris (WPMarshall)
    • Bulkhead (WPMarshall)
    • Canyon (WPMarshall)
    • Centax-3 (Grand Homie)
    • Disparity (WPMarshall)
    • Enfer (Grand Homie)
    • Geonosis (Grand Homie)
    • Lost Temple (WPMarshall)
    • Lugaan (WPMarshall)
    • Niflhel (Grand Homie)
    • Riddler (WPMarshall)
    • Singe (WPMarshall)
    • Tartarus (Grand Homie)
    • The Ardennes (Grand Homie)
    • The Marne (Grand Homie)
    New maps mean new strategies, and everyone is on an even footing because no one has had a chance to practice these before. We look forward to seeing what you make of them and hearing your thoughts on how they play. These maps will also be made available to play in custom lobbies in the near future.

    Prizes!

    Of course, what season is complete without prizes? And what could possibly top an Invictus Commander statue? Like that relative that doesn’t know what to get you as a present, we opted for cold, hard cash. Nice.

    The player who holds Uber #1 at the mid-season point (2019-03-08 00:00 UTC) will be awarded US$500. The player who is Uber #1 at the end of the season (2019-04-26 00:00 UTC) will receive US$1,000.

    But what about those of you playing in Bronze reading this and thinking, I’m never going to hit Uber so what do I care? Well we’ve got you covered too.

    We will be awarding US$100 to the three most active players in each of the five leagues, both mid-season and at the end of the season. Doesn’t matter where you rank in the league, only how much you play. (UPDATED)

    Summary of Prizes
    • Mid-season at 2019-03-08:00:00 UTC
      • Uber #1 - US$500
      • Three most active Bronze players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Silver players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Gold players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Platinum players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Uber players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
    • End of season 2 at 2019-04-26:00:00 UTC
      • Uber #1 - US$1,000
      • Three most active Bronze players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Silver players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Gold players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Platinum players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
      • Three most active Uber players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
    Maximum annual winnings for Uber #1 is US$6,800 if you hold the position all year and play the most!

    All prizes are awarded at the discretion of Planetary Annihilation Inc. Players in breach of the Planetary Annihilation Community Rules and Guidelines may be disqualified. The decision of Planetary Annihilation Inc is final.

    tl;dr

    Seriously? We spent a lot of time writing all that. Millennials are ruining the patch note industry.
    • Ranked season 2 has begun
    • New ranked map pool
    • US$4,500 to be won this season (UPDATED)
    Let the soothing voice of WPMarshall take you on a guided tour of this season’s maps:




    1v1 Ranked Leaderboard Update 122835

    [​IMG]

    Hello Commanders,

    Our ladder uses a tried and tested ranking algorithm, with numerous best practices for implementation. To oversimplify, all players have two scores: stable and volatile. The former is a rating which the system has a high confidence in and should be used for ranking, avoiding placing a player too highly based on a few good games. The latter is a lower confidence rating, but looks at the potential of the player.

    Volatile and stable are used for matchmaking to find opponents of the right difficulty. Think of stable as reflecting how good we know you are, while volatile is how good you might be. Over time these two ratings will converge.

    During work to migrate to PAnet we have been examining the code underpinning the ladder and identified an issue. Rather than using the stable rating for ranks the ladder had been implemented using the volatile rating, leading to wild swings in position and players being placed in high level leagues far too easily. This runs counter to the goal of the ranking system: rewarding consistency of play over time.

    A fix for this has been deployed and players have had their position on the ladder updated accordingly. All games played this season remain valid, none of your results have been lost or invalidated as a result of this change. The only change is to leaderboard ranks. This does not impact the result of season 1, we reviewed the data and [TNC] [Nik] NikolaMX was the clear winner.

    Players with few games in ranked will likely find they have dropped to a lower rank, or even league. The key to your rank now is consistency over a large number of games. You will no longer be able to obtain Uber status with only a few games.

    We debated leaving the ranking system unchanged for season 2, but decided as it was still very early in the season it was best for the health and integrity of the ladder that an immediate fix be deployed. This will lead to a better experience for everyone, avoiding the issue of players with a small number of games camping high ranking positions, allowing players who continue to play to see an improvement over time.

    You will see a significant change in the number of players within each league at first. These numbers should change over time as players play more games. Thresholds for each league have not changed and we will be reviewing the season 2 data for possible adjustments in season 3.

    Accompanying this change are three much requested features. Everyone’s stable score is now visible on the leaderboard, along with the number of games played, and you can view the top 500 of every league instead of just the top 10 both in-game and on the web at: https://palobby.com/leaderboards/

    Finally, players new to the ladder must complete 10 games before being assigned a rank. This allows the system to ensure a more accurate rating before adding people to a league.

    Bulkhead has also been updated with a fix for missing metal spots that were identified.

    tl;dr
    • The ladder has been updated to use the correct value for ranking players
    • The ladder UI has been updated to display your rank, games played, and 500 players per league
    • Players need to complete 10 games before being assigned a rank
    • Bulkhead updated for missing metal
    • https://palobby.com/leaderboards/

    Smurfs in Platinum / Uber and Player Behaviour

    For season 2 we are monitoring the use of smurfs and player behaviour. That may result in some changes, some warnings, some season bans and some permanent bans (a number of which have already been applied).

    To report an individual player please use: https://support.planetaryannihilation.com/

    We strongly recommend you play on your own main account, be respectful in chat and avoid impersonating other players.
    panews, January 25, 2019
    #1
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  2. xankar

    xankar Post Master General

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    $1000000!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    xankar, January 25, 2019
    #2
  3. stuart98

    stuart98 Post Master General

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    > Plays ranked

    > Gets matched against Nik twice

    as;ldf;ljasdlfioaupoeurpioqefoijapsoidvjaspdoivjasldvja
    stuart98, January 25, 2019
    #3
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  4. killerkiwijuice

    killerkiwijuice Post Master General

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    What happens if the #1 uber player also has the most games played? Would that be $1100?
    killerkiwijuice, January 25, 2019
    #4
    emarkus likes this.
  5. MrTBSC

    MrTBSC Post Master General

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    *prays for more casts*
    MrTBSC, January 25, 2019
    #5
  6. emarkus

    emarkus Active Member

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    I really like the new maps

    thank you map makers,
    and thanks uber for the wise map selection
    Last edited: January 26, 2019
    emarkus, January 26, 2019
    #6
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  7. lulamae

    lulamae Planetary Moderator

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    <cough> PA, Inc </cough>

    :)
    lulamae, January 26, 2019
    #7
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  8. panews

    panews Planetary News Official PA

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    Maximum annual winnings for Uber #1 is US$6,800 if you hold the position all year and play the most!
    panews, January 26, 2019
    #8
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  9. panews

    panews Planetary News Official PA

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    Please remove PAMM if you want to play 1v1 ranked.
    panews, January 29, 2019
    #9
  10. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    I'm assuming CMM is still OK?
    cdrkf, January 29, 2019
    #10
  11. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Yes. I think it wasn't meant as a "mods are bad", rather a "PAMM can cause issues, so make sure you've disabled all your PAMM mods and uninstalled it."
    Quitch, January 29, 2019
    #11
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  12. wmurderface

    wmurderface Member

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    just wanted some clarity if i would be breaching any rules if I played as my second account on the ladder
    wmurderface, January 30, 2019
    #12
  13. NikolaMX

    NikolaMX Active Member

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    That definitely needs to be addressed.

    Smurfs create a toxic ranked environment and provide an unfair advantage to people who have one and are willing to abuse it.

    The main problem I have with smurfs is that a good player can make a mediocre account, loose 9 games against another Uber, win one, and that one game can turn the ladder on its head. The other obviosu issue is that it turns every single ranked game into an extremely stressing experience where you never know which if you are playing against a perfectly devised cheese from a top Uber, or a gold, which discourages a lot of people from being active on the ladder. Loosing is fine, as long as they person who beat you has the dignity to use their own name and not have to resort to a smurf account to get an edge.
    NikolaMX, January 31, 2019
    #13
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  14. killerkiwijuice

    killerkiwijuice Post Master General

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    In a team vs team scenario scmurfs can make games pretty imbalanced because they are placed with people of their same calculated rank but actually much different actual skill. Even at the highest levels of matchmaking (for any game) smurfs are bad because the top players are few and far between, and they are put on teams with lower ranked players vs a team of smurfs. This happens in LoL and Overwatch all the time.

    However there is only one way a smurf can negatively affect 1v1 environments. Sure, they might surprise you but every game should be played like your best game. But the real issue is that players can lose to smurfs and lose a lot of rank just because the system thinks the smurf is low-skill. The only fix i can think of is to match unranked vs unranked, but there are not enough players.
    killerkiwijuice, January 31, 2019
    #14
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  15. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    That's not quite how it works. Because Glicko-2 implements an uncertainty rating the system doesn't think a new player is bad, it thinks they could be anything within a wide range. This means loses taken to them will remove less points than a low ranked player who has a lot of games under their belt. Also, because you lost to someone the system didn't expect you to lose to you uncertainty rating is increased, leading to you gaining more points from your wins if you show the system this was a one-off, not the beginning of a decline.
    Quitch, January 31, 2019
    #15
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  16. NikolaMX

    NikolaMX Active Member

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    If i make a smurf account, fix it around mid-plat over 60 games and than beat Uber No 2 a couple of games in a row, even if its just increasign the uncertainty, that means that their statistically expected losses to lower ranked playwers will huurt all the more. Its not an easy or simple task, but its impact is significant given that it poses no risk to main account, and can only harm other contenders.
    NikolaMX, January 31, 2019
    #16
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  17. bthirteen

    bthirteen Member

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    How about just changing names? What if somebody changes his in-game name after every game? How should that be addressed?
    bthirteen, January 31, 2019
    #17
  18. river39

    river39 Active Member

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    it doesn't affect the rank change, as your rank stays the same. just expect your opponent to be good and there is no issue.
    river39, January 31, 2019
    #18
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  19. NikolaMX

    NikolaMX Active Member

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    You can still track the player through flubb's super stats or River's ladder. That's not plausible with smurfs. I agree that it sucks and ideally people would only use their own nicknames in ranked, or at least the top 10 Ubers, but priority problem is that they can unfairly derank you to prop their main account . + as Quitch and Kiwi said, you need to play every game in ranked seriously (the irony of me saying that, i know)
    NikolaMX, January 31, 2019
    #19
  20. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    If a player sets themself to DND you don't know when they're in queue. Even if you do know when they're in queue the rating difference means you'll be matched against any other queuing player first. Even if you do match with them there's no guarantee you win, and a loss is making it even harder to get matched up with that player. Even if you do win you're losing the ability to boost your own account further up the ladder because you're spending time on your smurf and then that means while you're smurfing some guy who isn't is off racking up more points than you.

    I think the economies of smurfing don't work out in the least.
    Quitch, January 31, 2019
    #20
    NikolaMX likes this.
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