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Ranks - Seasonal Ladder Revamp



Ladies & Gentlemen... and the rest of you guys!

This blog will cover the details of the changes we are doing to the seasonal ladder along with some other fundamental changes to the overall progression in the game.

This blog is part of a series to inform you about all the upcoming changes:



National Progression

[h2]National ladder no more[/h2]

Because the current seasonal ladder incentivises players to play different nations and offers a lot of rewards depending on the nation being played, we feel it overlaps too much with the new national specific progression system. Having both national ranks and national levels is confusing and not ideal from a game design perspective.

So we have opted to simplify the current ladder, making it a single, non-national track where it will be more competitive to reach the top and more about status and bragging rights than rewards.

It didn’t really make sense that the most advanced and experienced players with big collections were getting the most cards from this system while players outside of the top few hundred players were struggling to get cards they needed to complete their decks. In the new Kards ecosystem, the national progression system is the main driver of your collection, while ranked play drives your status through prestige, and is reflected with gold card rewards and other equipment & other decorative items later. Overall the amount of rewards in the game will be higher and more consistent, hopefully allowing for a great player experience.

We have heard your concerns about this leading to less diversity in decks on the ladder. What our experience with the ladder so far shows is that players tend to have their favorite nation or nations and split their games between that and whatever might be popular in the meta at the time, therefore we are confident moving forward with the change. This is, however, something we will keep a close eye on in the future and take action on if needed. A diverse and fun game experience is something we will always strive towards.

[h2]The Ranks[/h2]

The number of total steps (stars) to climb the ladder to the top will remain very similar to the current system. However instead of having to get to the top with 3 nations, the progress is non-nation specific. There are 25 ranks, starting from 25th rank and reaching rank 1 of Field Marshal at the top. Each rank has 5 stars to complete to rank up to the next except rank 1 of Field Marshal, which only has one star which you get as soon as you complete the 5 stars of rank 2.

While you are still in ranks 25 - 21 you can not drop down between ranks, which should help new players off to a good start.

Most other aspects of the system will work as before or very similar, such as “safe points” at the bottom of each rank and winstreaks etc. However, these are parameters we may or may not change and fine tune as a result of testing and feedback so we are not giving out the exact details yet.

The seasons will remain 1 month seasons bound to calendar months and at the beginning of a new season, all players will drop down in rank as in the current system. Exactly how many stars/ranks will be dropped, will also be configured after more testing and feedback.

Rank icons, names and stars.

[h2]Matchmaking changes - What you see… is mostly what you get[/h2]

As many of you may know, we have not been matching players based on ranks in the current system. The main reason for this is that everyone has different ranks in different nations and thus the rank in the nation you are playing at any given time, says nothing about your overall position in the ladder or your skill level. So instead we have been using a behind-the-scenes Elo system which we feel has worked very well for the purpose of matchmaking but offers no visibility to players.

With the new and simpler, single-track ladder, we are changing this so that the rank (ladder position) is the main matchmaking factor and the Elo system only a secondary matchmaking tool for more granular matchmaking within the ranks. So with the new system, you will ideally be matched against players with a similar rank (maximum 2-3 ranks up or down depending on number of players in the queue).

And finally, both players will see each other’s rank while in Battle.

Rank icon and name in battle.

That’s it for now in this quick summary of changes to the seasonal ladder. Keep in mind that we can expect some bumps in the road to begin with, especially when it comes to matchmaking and queue times, so we will be monitoring the system very closely and adjusting the appropriate parameters and fine tuning the system as we need for the system to work as fairly and efficiently for all players alike.

Please share your thoughts on these changes with us, we really appreciate your feedback.

Provide feedback!

Also, make sure to keep an eye out for the transition blog, where you learn how your current ladder position and rewards will be affected when the new system lands.

Finally for more information on all of this make sure you tune in to the Bunker Chat, where we cover all these changes and more, on the 29th of January at 16:00 UTC on www.twitch.tv/kardsccg