skill points

I suggest increasing the amount of skill points earned for winning a game, while decreasing the amount lost. The odds of winning each game are very low, even if you are good. A lot of this game has to do with luck; where you are placed, and your "dice" rolls in battle. In a larger game with, say, 6 players, your odds of winning are low. Therefore, winning a game should reward more points. As is, it is nearly impossible for the vast majority of players to rank up at all, because even if they earn 50 points for winning one game, they lose 3 games for every game they win. The more "skilled" players will still be at the top, whereas the lesser and more casual players will still have the opportunity to to attain at least a mediocre rank.

You already earn more points in a bigger game. If all players have the same amount of points, then every losing player loses 20 points and all these points go to the winning player. So winning a 9 player game will yield 8 * 20 = 160 points, while winning a 2 player game only gives 20 points for the one player.

In general this means that if you win exactly the amount of games according to chance (so 1 in x for x player games), you will end up with keeping the same amount of points on average. This is good, because if you are winning exactly 1 in x games in x player games, that means the level you are currently on is the one where you belong and you should not keep ranking up.

However, now let's look at different ranks. If you win from a player with more points than you, that player will lose more than 20 points and you will get more than 20 points. If you win from a player with less points, less points are also awarded.

This means that if you win 1 in x games from players with more points than you, you will also rank up and if you win more than average, you will rank up.

I think the current point system is fine as it is, as it is really good at showing at what skill level you currently are. Slowly you will get better and better and you will start winning games. If you want to rank up faster, I suggest you start playing 8p games. You only lose 20 points on average per game, but if you win... I am usually able to win about 1 in 5 8p games currently (depends on the settings too), so I am currently gaining points quite fast.

I hope this answers most of your questions.

The best way to rank up is not to care about ranks in the beginning, but just play good players, loose constantly but learn alot.
Then at some point you will start winning, and then go for the 8 or 9 player games to earn big amounts of points.

But really the most important thing in the beginning is just to enjoy the game, and accept that in order to learn you have to lose.

Perhaps, as it has been suggested elsewhere, we should have other achievements besides rank so that players who deserve to stay at 1000 points because they aren't very good can still feel like they are earning something and progressing.

If you are a premium member once you purchase an upgrade, you can not be knocked below that purchased upgrade. Double the upgrade points for members, making it harder to get to upgrade. Leave the upgrade system as is for non premium members.

It is very frustrating to get to a rank and then keep getting knocked down because of losing play or unreal dice. I feel if this change was made it would be more inviting to people to sign up for premium membership and make existing premium members feel a bit more special beyond the cool insignia color change.

I don't think there should be a difference in getting ranks between premium and non premium members. I want it to be just as hard for both to get a high rank, otherwise it is not showing skill, but luck.

But, premium members can lose their ranks just as easily as non premium members.

Maybe most premium members (like me) do not have the max rank they can have, so that If I lose 10 consecutive games because of bad decisions I dont go up and down all the time