Request for Ideas - Leaderboard Seasons

[fallen]

Many popular games use leaderboard "seasons" - a specific period of time (or new content) that you can run and your score is posted during this season specifically. At the end of the season, the winners' scores are immortalized, generally a new season starts. I don't play these games, so I am just giving a really rough statement about them.

However, there are lots of community-organized "seasons" being run on the forum (All Melee Challenge, All Ranged Challenge) and it makes me very interested in suggestions on how we could do a more sanctioned "season" with Heroes leaderboards.

For example, we could:
1. Create a new leaderboard called "Classic 4 Seasons - Ironman Hard" (and one for each reasonable difficulty combo).
2. New games started after the "Classic 4 Season" is opened are entered into the Season. As it is the "Classic 4" then only groups that have the starting 4 characters qualify to have their scores posted to these leaderboards.
3. We'd have to do some work to syndicate the scores across the different markets ... or maybe this just happens once at the end.
4. The Season runs for 1 month, and then the best scores are collated into a final score on our website / forum, immortalizing the winners.
5. We clear the leaderboards, rename them to "Storm and Blade Season - Ironman Hard" which require you to have Vincent and Selen, and you can pick any other characters, and a new Season opens.

The above is a rough example of something we could try to organize. It would be a fun way to invite a larger audience to participate in the these mini-Seasons, and a fun way to go beyond posting results to the form (really listing the winners and their scores at the end, cross market).

I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. How could we do this so its fun and engaging?

[ntsheep]

I think every thing you've said is great. Asking for input is like declaring open season on seasons

[Zhivago]

I think 'seasonal' leaderboards in addition to the permanent ones are a great idea! Monthly is a really good time period and you can always bring them back for players who, like me, were new to HoS.

Prizes can be as simple as a badge/title for the forum or something cool in game (I'm not sure what that might look like...)

[crimsonshadow]

Sounds great to me!

[thehowler]

This is an awesome idea! It would force some people to go out of their comfort zone to get scores in specific seasons.

[vintoks]

Seasonal boards would be a great addition.

[CdrPlatypus]

I think it's a great idea.

[anrdaemon]

It would need a significant precaution, othervise I don't see an issue.
The precaution I think about is persistence of the game mechanics throughout the season.
I.e. a way to limit certain game attributes on a per-party basis.

[contributor]

This sounds like a lot of fun. It seems like it would take some work on your parts to set up the mechanics for certain seasons. Of course maybe you've already got some deep stat/action tracking built into the game. One thing to consider is whether it wouldn't be best to have them incorporated directly in to the game such that it's not dependent on the player to follow the rules themselves. What I'm thinking is that it would be clear when you start that this is an "X season" group and as such will have certain things built in, or out, as it would be in most cases. So in the original four season, you would not even be able to choose the other four and in your team list they might have a special icon/badge. In an all melee season ranged attacks would not even be selectable. That would make it really clear and sort of dummy proof. Of course it's hard to know how possible this would be in every situation.

Here's a few ideas:
Various combos of characters
All melee
All ranged
All buffs and debuffs
All empowered attacks
No -AP curses
After level 18 every other point has to go into a level 18 talent
Completionist (though most of us on the forum already play like this)
Minimalist, i.e. fight as few battles as possible to advance the plot.
Hero X can only level talents Y and Z
Real life timer, fastest play wins
No potions for sale
No gear for sale, drops only!
Campsites can only be used once

[fallen]

My current view on the Seasons would that they would be limited by only certain aspects, otherwise w e'd be dumping too much development time into the Seasons and not into finishing / expanding the game as it deserves.

At the moment, I'd love to try Seasons based on party member requirements. The main menu would advertise the season and link to a website describing the rules. During group creation, you'd get a badge and a special notifier if you were "Season eligible". For example, the "Classic 4 Season" is only "on" if you start a group during February with the basic 4 characters. First groups can be made Feb 1, door closes on the last day of Feb -- best score wins.

I can see very similar seasons for 4X Empires, where you this month the season is about the Garden with all 6 enemies turned on (etc).

Thanks for all the great feedback, very helpful!

[ntsheep]

I think you should use the song "Time of the Season" by The Zombies as the theme song. It would really fit in with the City of the Dead part of the game


P.S. Feel free to ignore me fallen as I've most likely had to much Brandy tonight

[CdrPlatypus]

fallen sounds great. I'm looking forward to leaderboards coming to more TB games.
Also is classic four going to be the debut season?
Re HOS leaderboards. There are 16 possible groups atm, so character restriction only should last for or a good while.

[mataeus]

I think it's a reasonable idea, however it may be a good idea to rename them Tournaments.
'Seasonal Leaderboards' in general sounds a bit lacklustre - not the principal, just the name.
I think if you simply called them Tournaments, while only a change to the name, it may get people more interested in playing them. It's just about the psyche of the target audience: People of a competitive nature will be very tempted to play them, and people who are vaguely interested may dabble in them once in a while. I think calling them 'Tournaments' gives the impression of a timed event in which you can compete for a final position, whilst highlighting it as a positive and competitive event. Conversely, calling them 'Seasonal Leaderboards' may make people think 'Ah, what's the point of me working my way up a leaderboard which is temporary and will get wiped after 30 days?'

They are mechanically the exact same thing, of course. Everyone realises this. It's just that, I honestly believe something as simple as the name of the event can go a long way to casting it in good light and make it sound more fun, more exciting and more tempting to those who may be interested.

[fallen]

mataeus - yes, the language probably will ring better with the turn-based crowd vs. those who are playing MMOs and used to the language (I think).

[CdrPlatypus]

+1 Great idea mataeus I think tournaments is a better word