This discussion about automatic ranks or having the token costs has been going on for a while. Personally, I agree with elysium. Tokens and skill points mean you both need a fair amount of played games and win a bunch of them to get a rank and you won't get there with a few lucky wins in a row.
The negative effect though is that people start skipping ranks or... they are actually seeing it as a vanity item.
This is an important point about ranks which has to be looked at closely: ranks fulfill two purposes:
1. They are a vanity item;
2. They show how good a player is.
However, they conflict with each other in a way. People only buy the ranks they like, but that means it doesn't show how well the player plays anymore, because the rank is not representative of the player's skill.
When we would make the ranks automatic this problem will be solved, but ranks will not serve the direct purpose of being a vanity item that well anymore.
I think a choice has to be made here: what will ranks mainly be used for? Of course, ranks will keep fulfilling both purposes like now, but I think one of the two has to take priority over the other one and frankly I don't really care that much which one of the two, as long as there will be measures to fill up the gap left behind by reducing the effect of ranks in one of the two purposes.
My suggestions for these cases are
In case of automatic ranks
In case of automatic ranks, there should be another way of spending your tokens on vanity items. "Badges" would be a nice idea. For example a "troops killed" badge: you can get a bronze badge after 250 troops killed, silver after 600, gold after 1500 and for the platinum badge you need 4000 killed troops. In the meanwhile, the badges get more expensive regarding tokens and you can require a player to buy all previous tiers.
Players can then select a badge to display in front of the name, right next to their ranks for example.
This will go nicely together with the stats overview requested by some of the players.
In case of paid ranks
In case ranks will remain as they are, the choice will have been made to make them vanity items. Even then the costs could be slightly reduced, but their main task will be to look cool. With this in mind, the ranking should no longer by sorted on rank but on skill points and there should be an additional way to see the strength of a player, for example by showing their skill points next to their name in the game too, as I don't want to check every player's profile to check how good they are: I want to be able to see the average skill of the players when just looking at the game interface immediately and as ranks will not suffice if they are considered "beautiful", the skill point total itself is probably the best alternative.
This discussion about automatic ranks or having the token costs has been going on for a while. Personally, I agree with elysium. Tokens [i]and[/i] skill points mean you both need a fair amount of played games and win a bunch of them to get a rank and you won't get there with a few lucky wins in a row.
The negative effect though is that people start skipping ranks or... they are actually seeing it as a vanity item.
This is an important point about ranks which has to be looked at closely: ranks fulfill two purposes:
1. They are a vanity item;
2. They show how good a player is.
However, they conflict with each other in a way. People only buy the ranks they like, but that means it doesn't show how well the player plays anymore, because the rank is not representative of the player's skill.
When we would make the ranks automatic this problem will be solved, but ranks will not serve the direct purpose of being a vanity item that well anymore.
I think a choice has to be made here: what will ranks [i]mainly[/i] be used for? Of course, ranks will keep fulfilling both purposes like now, but I think one of the two has to take priority over the other one and frankly I don't really care that much which one of the two, as long as there will be measures to fill up the gap left behind by reducing the effect of ranks in one of the two purposes.
My suggestions for these cases are
[b]In case of automatic ranks[/b]
In case of automatic ranks, there should be another way of spending your tokens on vanity items. "Badges" would be a nice idea. For example a "troops killed" badge: you can get a bronze badge after 250 troops killed, silver after 600, gold after 1500 and for the platinum badge you need 4000 killed troops. In the meanwhile, the badges get more expensive regarding tokens and you can require a player to buy all previous tiers.
Players can then select a badge to display in front of the name, right next to their ranks for example.
This will go nicely together with the stats overview requested by some of the players.
[b]In case of paid ranks[/b]
In case ranks will remain as they are, the choice will have been made to make them vanity items. Even then the costs could be slightly reduced, but their main task will be to look cool. With this in mind, the ranking should no longer by sorted on rank but on skill points and there should be an additional way to see the strength of a player, for example by showing their skill points next to their name in the game too, as I don't want to check every player's profile to check how good they are: I want to be able to see the average skill of the players when just looking at the game interface immediately and as ranks will not suffice if they are considered "beautiful", the skill point total itself is probably the best alternative.
“This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.”
- Speaker for the Dead, O.S. Card