descentchampions.org

The Fall 2013 ladder season is coming to a close! The new season will start at 11 AM MST on Wednesday, March 5th.


Here is what will happen to the records and stats:

- The main standings, together with all of the statistics pages, your profile pages, etc., will be archived as results for Fall 2013. You will always be able to access this data, but it will no longer update.

- On the main standings, all records will be reset to zero. The nemesis and rivalry column will be wiped out; you will need to earn or declare those in the new season. You will KEEP your current streaks, ranks, ratings, and trophies.

- Pilots who no longer qualify for a skill rating will go back to unrated. You need 5 matches and 3 unique opponents within the last 90 days to carry your gold/silver/bronze rating over into the new season.

- Inactive pilots (anyone who has not played a match within the last 90 days) will be retired.


Here is what will happen with awards:

- All of your medals, ribbons, and other awards will be saved with your Fall 2013 profile. Your Spring 2014 profile will have no awards (except any trophies you currently hold) on it; you can earn everything again.

- Awards are given only for matches within a season. To get a bronze streak on your Spring 2014 profile, you need to defeat five bronze players in Spring 2014.

- Season-end awards will be given to those with the most Matches, Opponents, Levels, and Courage Games.

- Community-nominated awards are given. Anything that happened on the ladder during Fall 2013 that you thought was awesome is fair game. Awesome rivalry? Excellent overtime match? Incredible improvement in a pilot? Dominant record? We'll be using a nominate-and-second system on the forum to identify these; details forthcoming. If you get one, it will go on your Fall 2013 profile with a note about what it's for.

- Your featured match will be saved with your season profile. If you want to update it before it gets saved, now's the time!


Here are some of the changes we are making:

- The blind and disorientation trophies are being retired. The Complete Domination medal is being retired along with them, until we have enough trophies again to make it worthwhile.

- The core level list is being updated. Based on what levels were played throughout Fall of 2013, Flea is being removed, Take2, Lurk, and Nocturnal are being added, and both Vamped NYDP and Athena LH are being replaced with vanilla versions. The new list is Vamped, Logic, Athena, Black Rose, Nysa, Fuzed, Neptune, Take2, Nocturnal, and Lurk.



Here are the new features we're introducing:

- We are recognizing pilots who hold the very highest skill ratings with a "master" designation icon. This is not a new skill class; these pilots stay gold. It is like a trophy that identifies the very top pilots by skill rating -- who you should be trying to beat.

- We are introducing a retirement system. Retiring removes you from the active ladder while retaining your stats and history. You can unretire at any time. Pilots who have not played for 90 days are retired automatically. (Retirement does not affect whether you keep or lose a skill rating when the season changes -- it is just a way to get pilots who are not playing off of the front page / out of the report dropdown menus, etc.)

- We are introducing many, many new statistics. Check your profile page, compare pilots page, and the ladder statistics page for performance by level, by pilot, over time, and just generally more numbers and graphs than you ever wanted.



What we're not doing:

We have decided not to hold a season-ending tournament. The admin staff feels that the ladder season WAS the tournament, and doesn't want to artificially elevate a few games over the hundreds and hundreds that have been played.

ADMIN STAFF
-Jediluke
-Drakona
-LotharBot

Ah, two levels in the generator being changed to the less popular (counting all "less homer" versions as a single entity, at least) homer-heavy versions, and my two favorite trophies eliminated! Double bummer.

However, the new season sounds like a cool idea and that it will be well implemented.

Cheers for your hard work on this, guys!

Thanks, Clone! I'm really hoping the seasons work out well, and looking forward to a fresh record.

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About the core levels . . .

First of all, LOL @ homer-heavy Vamped. It's only two homers . . . you really are an NH kinda guy, aren't you? Nah, I know you mean athena. The Vamped thing is totally legit, though. Vamped beat out NYDP 60-42 over the season, which is pretty decisive, especially with NYDP getting a boost from being core.

Athena is tricky, as always. FH, LH, GV, and NH all put up good numbers, but FH was the most popular by all four measures. And it was crushingly popular in the last 30 days of the season, beating out the other three combined in three out of four measures. We talked about combining numbers for the other levels, but couldn't agree on a way to do it fairly; we really do have several independent Athena experiences going on. After checking that Athena FH had the strength of numbers to make the list on its own merits, we decided it was in.

I know it's not your cup of tea, but it's not that different from how it was before. LH and FH play really similarly; 8 homers is still a lot. GV is probably what you want. And what I want.

We do seem to have a strong dogfighting/NH culture on the ladder these days, though. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like Athena NH in the list next time. In the mean time, If you're curious, I can post the stats we went from on the Athena thing. I'll admit, there was a little voice in the back of my head saying, "Clone will object..."

But the best way to get the levels you like into the core list is to play them a bunch, and get other pilots to play them a bunch! *hint hint*

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The blind and disorientation trophies hadn't been played for at all in months, nor do those types of games happen much without the trophy on the line. As much fun as they are (and the blind trophy *is* a lot of fun), we felt they weren't getting a good reception in high level competition, and should ultimately be replaced with subgames the community takes seriously.

I will play with you in a confusing map Mr. clone!!!!!!

Ok, the new season's all ready to go!

. . . please tell me if anything breaks.

Fantastic job, Drak!

The new stats on each pilot page are absolutely amazing!!! Well done!!

Also, wow, those are some big blue orbs lol :)