Vicier
Phase
Sunny Suzuki
Fading Memory
Estylwen
Izurich
TheNoCoKid
Creative Chaos
Lexisheeps1: Your ranks mean jack shit. There's no value to those records. Step One is doing a hard reset on all player scores. You want change? It starts there. Next, ACTUALLY HAVE LEGIT RANKS... What you have is just a stupid Leaderboard. What you want to do is have actual established "Ranks" that have requirements for each the higher you go that progressively get more difficult. Back in the community where I started, we had a pretty clear cut system in place.
-E Rank; Entry Level, everyone starts at the bottom.
-D Rank; Acquire 5 Wins using a Martial Archetype Character. (What you would know around here as RM, I believe?)
-C Rank; Acquire 10 Wins using a Tech Archetype Character. (Whether real world technology or sci-fi technology)
-B Rank; Acquire 10 Wins using a Magic Archetype Character. (Anything Fantasy based)
-A Rank; Acquire 20 Wins using a Hybrid Archetype Character (Mix at least 2 of the 3 Basic Archetypes in one character) in ADDITION to completing a Level Up Exam administered by an Arena Mod. (The Level Up Exam is meant to test your Problem Solving Skills, Combat Tactics and how Creative you are)
-S Rank; Granted the Title of "ACER" for completing this challenge, the only requirement necessary is for you to actually defeat a Team of A Ranked Fighters. (3 Person Squad)
There will be a list of pre-made Battlegrounds for each Rank. Players can ONLY participate in the Battlegrounds listed for their Rank or below. A Rank Battlegrounds will include special conditions, environmental hazards, Hostile NPCs that can randomly be controlled by an Arena Mod at any time during the fight along with other potential gimmicks to further encourage creative approach to challenging situations.
IN ADDITION, if you LOSE a fight, your score suffers. Yes, there is a damn good reason for that. It discourages you from simply quitting a fight and provides legitimate risk involved for losing. Once you manage to hit a milestone and Rank up, though, you can't be DROPPED a Rank. Your score also doesn't go into the negatives, it just stays at 0.
I'm late to the party as always... Chiming on this because it piqued my curiosity while I was scrolling through the weeks of headbutting.
What exactly invalidates a leaderboard format for establishing a ranking? It more or less functions the arena in a similar capacity to other competitive atmospheres. Though, I'd even go so far as to say that a ranking set should simply be gleaned from a recorded log of everyone's win-draw-loss numbers, and disregard the concrete 'score.' Or at least use something in the difference between the number of wins and losses to yield a more definite number (8 Wins against 2 Losses = Net Score of 6). Of course, stalemates could throw that number for a loop, though maybe those sorts of battles just serve to leave the combatants stagnant and wouldn't get factored in the final score... bleh, I think I'm rambling there. I just don't see the 'flaw' inherent in that sort of way of going about it.
Does your proposed E-S ranking involve barring competitors from using certain character builds (in ranking context) until they've achieved the adequate ranking for them? IE, and E-Rank fighter can only use grassroots, melee characters until reaching D-Rank, at which point they can use characters with tech as they pursue the C-Rank? Or would everyone be able to pursue each Rank designation at their own desired pace, thus making the Ranks more comparable to achievements?
Other point... I've never agreed with the practice of dropping a person's 'score' from a loss. That enforces that a loss invalidates a prior victory. Given the mechanism of ranking up that you've outlined, is exactly what would appear to happen: a loss removes a win; there's literally NO other competitive (thinking even professional level sports) in which losing a match or a game results in a person or team's victory/victories being taken away. Plus, in a system like yours, it seems like being stagnant in a rank through constant losses would be motivation enough to get a person to either remove themselves from the formal competition, or buckle down, grit their teeth and just get better at battling.
For the record, I do believe that the most recent ranking system here DID in fact dock points from combatants for losing their matches. Someone can correct me on that if I'm wrong.