Queen wrote:I am very new to Hydra, having started dueling entirely one week prior to Season 2 starting so a lot of the problems have gone over my head in this topic. However, I have fought duels during this Hydra season at multiple ranks and against nearly all ranks available.
I believe the biggest problem with the Hydra tournament is that
the point differential system is broken. The system favors select quality duels over the majority of duels in a weekly frame. The system works by taking the difference of the final score and adding it to a base value for your total gain of Hydra points.
Here's an example:
Let’s say you win four duels, with the final scores being:
It would take the differences in each (1, 2, 3 and 1, respectively) and would add them to a static base value (5). Those points would then be taken as your earned points for that week; in this example, the player would have earned 27 points.)
Let’s say you think you can do better, so you fight another four duels that went exactly the same way. However, you played an additional two matches that went 5-3 and 5-2, so these matches out-perform your previous 5-4 matches. In other words, your highest point gains would be: 5-2, 5-2, 5-3 and 5-3. So you earned a little bit extra,
but at the cost of 50% more dueling. This motivates players to attempt to play as many shutout games as possible in a given week and
this is, without a doubt, one of the leading causes of Hydra-burnout.
If a player is attempting to maximize their shutout games, then
fighting against lower-ranking duelists would be the best strategic plan for higher-ranking duelists. Due to the Rank disparity on any given night, you may simply not have the option to fight at-rank. There are two options:
you fight at-rank of a lower ranked duelist or you don’t. You may not want to take a risk by lowering your rank. The newer player may not fully grasp the whole concept and may just agree to it for a chance at a duel. Although there is no player who is ‘at fault’ in this scenario,
it is still a problem.
My Proposal:
What I’m proposing is we remove the differential part entirely and stick to strictly base values dependent on Rank. The idea here is when you win a duel at your rank, you receive the base amount of points. This will greatly reduce the burden on callers during the high-traffic dueling times in Hydra and will make it easier for duelists to keep track of their own points.
I propose that the base wins by rank, if you fight at rank, should be as follows:
So a Glass beating a Glass earns 5 points, an Emerald beating an Emerald earns 7 points, and so on.
Now we’re going to take a look at how this system will handle cross-rank dueling. The Point Differential system is designed where an Emerald has the best opportunity to get points off a shutout victory. This design will
benefit you picking easy fights, bottom line. In my proposed system
you will receive the most benefit by defeating someone at your current rank, or higher.
When a rank duels their own rank, they get no modifier. When a player duels a rank above their own (but their opponent
downranked) and wins, they get a small bonus modifier. When a rank duels a rank below it (having
downranked) and wins, they get a small negative modifier, as shown below:
Thus, when regarding the modifiers in the chart above, it is most beneficial for more experienced duelists to duel their own rank. The resulting points from a downranked win is slightly less than winning at your own rank, but
still worth the effort if it is the only option at hand. On the other hand, when a low rank player defeats a high rank player, their points will be modified to reflect the difference in ranks.
For example, a Sapphire-ranked player and a Glass-ranked player agree to duel. The Sapphire agrees to downgrade to a Glass rank. If the Sapphire-ranked player wins, he will receive a
-1.5 modifier on his final Hydra points. If the Glass-ranked player wins, he will receive a
+1.5 modifier on his final Hydra points.
This results in the final Hydra points:
Notice how it becomes very simple: If you beat a Glass, you get 5.0 points. If you beat a Jade, you get 5.5 points. And so on.
The goal of my proposed system is to take what has been considered the core of the Hydra Season 2’s faults and revamp them. You will no longer be scored on how well you perform but instead on who you perform against. You will no longer have to win at least four times a week to hit your point cap; for example,
Emeralds can cap in three wins. It gives players the choice on how to cap; you can beat two Emeralds and a Sapphire, or you can beat four Glasses. You could argue that this incentivizes players to play at the Glass level to ‘avoid’ Emerald players, but the impact on Emerald-level games will be negligible, while increasing the number of Glass games and opportunities substantially. The projected values are based on a weekly limit of 20, but can easily be tweaked and remain just as effective. You can argue that the lower ranks will have to duel more than the higher ranks, and that is true, only because they will have an advantage:
ranking up will yield a bonus, depending on the determined weekly cap, ranking bonuses will be applied after.
Ideally, with a much more direct scoring for duels, it will be easier to value Challenges and Tournaments alongside them. For example, winning a challenge could secure +15 points to your team’s total at the end of the week. These will be added onto your points, above the cap, just like ranking up. Taking this one step further, if you were to give bonuses for dueling in all three sports, a player can have that bonus added on past their/their team’s cap as well.
I truly believe this will give a better experience to all sides of the Hydra Tournament. Whether you're a returning Emerald, a first time Glass, a Caller or a third-party who wants to help out.
Yours truly,
Queen 
. I'll go back to being quiet now.