Grand master league?

[GFX47]

Promotion from Master to Grand Master at 1400 points.
Demotion from Grand Master to Master at 1300 points.

We have nearly 50 players above 1400 points.
What do you think about activating it?

[mejorqvos]

1500-1600 maybe?

Those players have a flawless AI. I have playef against players with even 1900 points (having only 1300) and they totally destroyed me.

[pier4r]

I would say no since the activity of 1400+ seems to be low (one or two at time, max four ). But we can try for some days at least. Trying for little but enough time does not kill anyone.

[Botique]

Ohh common... let us get all the programming features opened... Or again we, who hasn't reached snipers or teamtags, will be competeing against dudes with additional perks. Let the ladder actually stabilize...

[pier4r]

But actually Botique, when you lose against me because you do not have the team tags (hint, TCT was 1700 without sniper), you just lose one point, whereas if you win me you take 24 (so I need to beat you 24 times to balance it). It is not exactly a torture.

I would understand if you would lose 10 points each time.

Although I agree that snipers should be unlocked some levels before. Team tags are not all this advantage, you will see.

[Shmalzbrot]

Definitely yes!
AI strength difference is pretty big between 1300 and 1900, so if there are enough players for an additional league: why not?
Also, this gives me a new goal to reach: grand master league

@pier4r: With cross-league matchmaking enabled, 1900elo-players will still match 1300elos, so there's enough cannon fodder left for you

[pier4r]

I don't care about the +1, really no offense but I get hardly new information from you (if I go down to 1700 at least I get some points). Just it is not the best to wait 2 hours for 10 games. This would not be true for the ones up to 1600. Because with the current matchmaking that I like, players under 1400 can be matched with players up to 1600 for the new league.
I'm not against it, I just think that we are not so much (active, that weekly activity means a little). There are plenty of inactive players (not playing since 24h) in master league that we do not know when they will play.


Moreover I believe the whining won't go away since being 1600 is the border of being hard to be beaten.

[pier4r]

Definitely yes!
AI strength difference is pretty big between 1300 and 1900, so if there are enough players for an additional league: why not?
Also, this gives me a new goal to reach: grand master league

@pier4r: With cross-league matchmaking enabled, 1900elo-players will still match 1300elos, so there's enough cannon fodder left for you

And anyway just checked. You have 51k points, you just unlocked the Mg and you are in league 6. It is super hard for you. Being in League 6 without sniper ( tags are not such a game changer) should be frustrating. On this I understand you.

[Ritter Runkel]

I like the idea of a master's master league. Problem is like pier said, it's hard to get me informations from matches you don't lose.

My only concerns are, that I will find less matches to play. Since the last update it got much easier to find other players but I almost never match other 1600+ players others then blitz.

[salt1219]

If there's enough players then, there should be a grand master league. Right now I at at the bottom of masters, when I get paired with a 1600+ it's like my bots are standing still.

[pier4r]

Unfortunately the top players are not so active. Otherwise would be cool.

[pier4r]

TL;DR: now I agree on another upper league.

Ok I think that after 12 days things are settled. It is obvious that under 1400 players do not have enough Xp levels and may be very frustrated. the ones xp level 7 that go down go up immediately against those.

Moreover the elo inflation extended the master league and while the activity 1400+ is not a lot, it is neither a little, considering than casual "+1" helps mostly no one.

So, after more experience I declare my statements void. I would create a "pre master" league (instead of grand master. Master is already pompous and does not give the idea that the players have to prepare for the next one) to collect those between 1200 (falling) and 1400.

So
Diamond: max 1300, min 1100
Pre Master: max 1400, min 1200
Master: unlimited, min 1300

Since the 200 delta score, this would mean that (a) a lot of people in the master league would fight the pre master, while the top would be really master; (b) limiting the score inflation even more (there would be still, but slower).

[Ritter Runkel]

How about Junior Master. Imho gfx should think about the names of leagues (big improvement in my opinion). Gold and diamonds are materials, Master is more capability driven. I would prefer something like ...

Cadet
Private
Sergeant
...
General

That makes sense in a way that many league features are about having more bots or more tools for planning and communication.

[pier4r]

Junior Master is nice and +1 for wording. Although bronze, silver, gold are obvious from various sports.

[pier4r]

The solution was quite quick, aside for the last matches not shown. Now it gets harder!

[ConsciouS-0nE]

Just got promoted to grandmaster league a minute ago,
Did you just turned it on gfx?

More question,
1200 matching 1900 hows that a thing?

[GFX47]

Wording will have to wait a game update.
In the mean time I enabled grand master league.
Also updated the manual.

[pier4r]

Some observations since league7 exists. The activity is ok, although way lower than before (as expected). The matches, at least for me, are all interesting (way better than before).

I still want to see how players "not level6" fare in this case. Surely there are some very creative due to the absence of the sniper, but still it is not working for everyone. I guess the XP revision in the next release will be extra welcomed.

[Ritter Runkel]

Just wanted to write the same age saw that pier was faster. Matches are much more interesting. So now I spend more time analyzing tactics and strategies then before. And I spend more time tweaking the AIs and less time spamming matches to get something interesting.

Only negativ side effect is, that testing a change in the AI is much harder. Normally after some basic tests I test in multiplayer. Less matches means for me also less testing in the same time.

[Shmalzbrot]

As a low XP guy, I also like the new league.

Before it, I would almost always get games against either too strong or too weak players, probably because the upper 10% were so much more active than players approximately my level.
With the new league, fighting against comparable elo players allowed me to see a couple of errors/weaknesses in my AI, which I could not see vs 1600+ players - the strength difference was just far too big to see anything specific (except “my AI sucks in all ways“).
Now that I have fixed those, I made it to grand master league. Mission accomplished.

However, I'm still without a sniper and proper team play, so here come the freebie points for you grand masters while I'm on my way back down to master league

Edit: How about displaying the current elo score instead of just “(top league)“? Is that worth a feature request?