Ladder (experience scoreboard)

[tangar]

I've already posted this idea there, but I suppose its worth discussion in separate topic.

Idea:
As there are more than 2000 characters @ TomeNet, it would be interesting to add "Ladder" — scoreboard that keeps track of experience. It could be demonstrated at the website and its big honor to be there at first places.

"Ladder" - list of alive charecters sorted by experience amount (TomeNet already have "highscores" http://www.tomenet.eu/scores.php with list of dead heroes).

While you character in Ladder you could compete with another players constantly in-real time (in contrast to "highscores" where your character showed only when he is dead).

Why ladder is fun?
1) its a competition ---> new emotions: venturous hazard, gambler's high, excitement
2) its a new goal for players - stay alive as long as possible (you don't need to die, so everyone would know about you)
3) its good for casual and new players (like me) who didn't beat Morgoth and don't have their names @ "highscores" (may be it would never happen ) but want to have some credit and participate in competition
4) it give possibility to watch over another players progress (betting gold who would survive )
5) and finally its perfect motivation to achieve something

For example:
It would be great to see that my 32 lvl character at 919 place.. After I play one day more he would become 896. Its good stimul to continue playing, to have some competition with other players.

Types of ladder could be similar to game mode:
1) Normal (3 lifes)
2) Unworldly (no ghost)
3) Everlasting (ressurection possible)
4) Hellish
5) PvP
6) IDDC
7) IDDC Hellish
8) IDDC PvP
9) Overall (all modes mixed)

It gives another feature of ladder - to give people motivation to try another game modes - if there are not much players even new player could compete to be in top 10, for example.

Other characteristics:
1) Ladder size. There could be minimal exp quality to get to ladder (so fresh lvl 10 characters woudn't be there).
2) Ladder refresh its state every day (or more often - its depends at server resources and volume of data).

Optional stuff:
1) Make existing "highscore" rating bigger
2) clans ladder. if there would be possibility to create a clan, it could be interesting to have a competition between them (criteria: exp summ of members)
3) add possibility to look at character inventory or add comments (as there http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-browse.php?v=TomeNET )
4) Another variations of ladders:
- classes and races filter (for example, who is the best Maia in TomeNet? Or paladin? Ladder give you such answer).
- who killed most amount of monsters? Who is the Great Orchunter?

Please, discuss!

[tangar]

Its very sad that there is no option to show only NE characters in ladder: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-browse.php?v=TomeNET ).. When I add my character ~40 lvl at oook.cz , its 250+ place.. If it would be NE-only ladder my place would be much higher and its good motivation to play more and more Competition is very important part of gameplay - people would risk and play at high lvls more often (and its more dangerous and interesting) just to get a bit higher

Also it would be nice to have another ladder - of "active characters", who logged in-game last 6 months, for example. Right now ladder is a bit outdated, with all respect to all winners. There has to be ladder-of-all-times of course... But ladder which show current situation also interesting to have.

[PowerWyrm]

There's a ladder somewhere on these forums, usually updated every 6 months or so. You should check that instead of the oook ladder.

[tangar]

Also fun to make some more ladders, not only exp-based for example, by gold amount, by char timelife, number of wins in DK and other events, PvP ladder-score (it would motivate players to participate in PvP) & etc %) May be even miners ladder - who digged most amount of the gold lol

In online games competition is one of the essentials of gameplay

[Lightman]

I agree with more scoresheets. Personally the scoresheet I want to see the most is the highest % of unique monsters killed. I am willing to bet that nobody killed them all.

[Lightman]

Every time you overtake someone on a particular scoresheet you could get an in-game message (like you get for killing a unique or gain a level.)

Another way of keeping score is to have a list of medals. When you press n the list could come up looking like this:

Greatest xp medal held by Tangar
Most experienced thief medal held by Zop
Most experienced bat medal held by MABat
Most experienced troll medal held by Johnny
Most uniques killed held by Lightman
Most experienced hardcore cup goes to Nutta
Deepest IDDC medal goes to Bobby
Award for deepest diver goes to Tim

etc.

[tangar]

TomeNET ladder enhancement


The problem of TomeNET ladder (https://www.tomenet.eu/scores.php): there is only top 100 players and most of entries are from 2012-2014 years. “Noteworthy Occurances” also don’t give any sutisfaction when you get there – because they are not permanent. TomeNET ladder are not newbie friendly and focused at ‘elitism’ atmosphere. But ladder should motivate players, and especially new players – give them feeling that they could achieve something and be inscribed to the history of the game.

Suggestions:
I really like 'Scores' (https://mangband.org/scores) in MAngband. They got two main ladders:

High Level Dead - which includes all chars 20+ lvl (so far it's 2300+ chars) which are dead
High Level Alive - includes all chars 20+ who is still alive (228 chars)
Also they got such ladders specially for IDDC.

This is very friendly and newbie-orientated approach. There is, of course, top players, but at the same time newbies also could get their piece of fame after making some efforts.

Why is it fun to include more players to ladders?

– You feel your progress. Even if you are new player you could be able to achieve certain results.
– You feel competition. After each game session you see how you climb the ladder and compete with others, which greatly motivates player.
– You feel yourself part of the community. You are not just no_name player which are completely ignored by the game – your results are noted, they are public and available on the board of honour.
– You do not die in vein. You got your name written on the grave.

TomeNET should expand it’s ladder’s system to make it possible to much more players to get their names remembered.

Also it would be great to see additional ladders: ladder by race/class, for ‘soloist’, for ‘soloist IDDC’ & etc. The more ladders – the better. To make it not overload server resources – lets this ladder updated once per 24h.