SSGX Seasons for competitive play

[dreadofmondays]

So this is an idea that we came up with that ties in with our rankings and competitive play.
Basically, SSGX will feature 'seasons'. Seasons run all the time, and during a season, event wins from all players will be tallied up. At the end of each season, a rankings list is created that shows the most successful pilots and teams that season. Then, a season win is added to that player's profile and a new season begins.

Seeing as there are lots of competitive wO players here, I wanted to know your opinions and suggestions for this idea. In particular, there are a number of things to consider:
Length of each season (1 month? three? something else entirely?)
Should everyone be included in the season all the time, or should people have to opt in for each season?
How to make a distinction between speed classes and ship classes? Should we have multiple 'winners' at the end of each season, or should we restrict it to a particular class...
Which events should count towards a season? Should we allow racebox ones, or only online matches? Should we allow or disallow specific game modes?

The idea of this mode is to provide a more 'official' area for good players to compete that isn't too separated from normal play. So you don't have to attend a tournament to prove you're better than everyone - you can do it over the course of playing the game normally :)

So yeah. What do you think? :P Feel free to suggest changes or point out problems.

[clojo733]

Hey that'd be really fun! Games are always best with a little competition! :D
I like the idea of 'official' online tournaments- there could be different categories for different speed classes so everybody could join in, and maybe some Eliminator matches too.
Racebox challenges would really add something to the game too. :)

[AquaAura]

Very good idea, and I think it'd work! Personally I think so long as you don't get reprimanded for not competing (e.g. you're on holiday) you won't have to opt in or opt out of a season because there's an advantage of competing but not a disadvantage.

But yeah I'd love that.

[Richochet]

Honestly I've been dreaming of this kind of thing in WipEout for years. Two ideas.

1. Active Competition
I've always liked the idea of manufacturer competition, but we don't really see this outside of the WipEout backstory. It would be cool to have players sign to a team at the beginning of a season and race for their team throughout. Under this system I would say base ranking on online races only. One thing that always bothers me is that in TT and SL one team usually dominates. Icaras (HD) and AG Systems Speed (2048 A+) for example. In online races, however, any team can come out on top and it really comes down to driver skill and split-second decision making.

2. Passive Competition
But what about people who don't want to get involved in online races or be confined to a single team? We could also have a separate ranking for TT/SL results during a season where you aren't confined to any particular team. I'm thinking all players could have a persistent rank throughout a season based on each class. What I mean is, on a player's profile you would see something like:

A-Class: Gold
B-Class: Platinum
C-Class: Unranked
D-Class: Gold

Like this, except SSGXified (instead of 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, you have speed classes)
7975

Where the classes refer to speed classes and Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Unranked, refer to a player's current standing in the overall leaderboards for each speed class. For example, Platinum could be top 1%, Gold could be top 10%, Silver could be top 25%, Bronze could be top 50%, and unranked is for people who either haven't played the requisite events for that season or who are in the bottom 50%.

Overall rank for each class could be assigned in a few ways. One would be to only rank players who completed all the SL in a speed class and average their ranks in each to assign an overall rank. Another way would be to only take a player's top SL ranks (for example top 3 ranked SLs). This way you don't need to do every single SL just to be ranked.

Another nice thing about this setup is that you could have players ranked in each mode without conflict. You can take this system and give players separate pages for their SL ranks, TT ranks, and whatever other modes the SSGX team adds.

This means that all players can compete in a season regardless of what their preferences are. You have something for the people who enjoy online racing and also for players who enjoy TTs or SLs.

As a bonus you could also have a Trophy Room where you can see your end of season medals for all previous seasons.