[SUGGESTION] Tier List

Discussion in 'Suggestions / Bugs' started by Elysian, Jul 16, 2022.

  1. Elysian

    Elysian Member MVP

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    I already said this on the discussion thread, but i feel like it is an actual suggestion and needs to be here.

    Soders, with the help of some people, made a tier list for maps based on the difficulty on the physics of BB servers. There are many changes from tiers originally assigned to the maps, making it more fair and realistic. Here is the original post: https://bbservers.co.uk/forums/index.php?threads/tier-list.16181/

    My suggestion is for this list to be available on the !menu wiki page, or even better, to show up with a command like /tiers. Its very common that a new player wants to know the easiest maps on easy server, a experienced player wants to know the easiest maps on hard server before trying it out, or a player just wants to know the tier of the maps to understand levels of difficulty.
    Even though in my opinion the difficulties assigned may look very realistic and fair, the list is still open to changes if its needed.
     
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  2. Ari

    Ari New Member

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    + 1 i think the tier list is a great idea to give players a hint of guidance and while they can be subjective it can be a great help for people wanting to get better while doing maps that aren't unrealistic for their current skill level, many times this would have helped me so much and would give me more incentive to play the hard server
     
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  3. Kaiden

    Kaiden Administrator Community Manager

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    The issue I have is it's somewhat limited in how useful it is, certainly at the lower end. Telling players both Andromeda and Beyond are Tier 1 doesn't mean a lot; one is notably harder than the other, with Beyond incorporating air strafing, long jumps and a bhop, and the other a straight forward short map with no real surprises.

    Does telling players these are both Tier 1 really give them insightful information? To me it's almost unhelpful to say they're the same difficulty, when to new players they're going to have a much harder time beating Beyond. Not to say Beyond is hard, but in comparison to Andromeda it's certainly longer, more complicated and incorporates more complex mechanics to beat it. I choose these maps at random, but I imagine you could draw similar comparisons between i.e. Love Tunnel and Whiteout.

    I'd argue as players begin to get better and begin to play harder maps it becomes more useful, notably when starting to play on Tier 2-6 to gauge which are more accessible, but certainly at the lower end it seems quite limited to me at least in terms of usefulness. Teddi and I have made no secret we think the Tier system is mostly redundant aside assigning arbitrary somewhat-vague numbers to maps (as seen the 'established tiers' don't even apply to our server), and is why you don't see it mentioned on the map vote screen. If maps were graded 1 - 10 on accessibility and playability for example I think that'd be more useful - saying "these 30 maps are Tier 1 start with these" while maybe somewhat useful isn't exactly insightful.

    To add I think the list being compiled is great and it's also great to see discussion around it, I just question how much it really helps new players which I think is the main intention - could be good to see what people think.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2022
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  4. Lisa

    Lisa [BB] Admin Admin

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    I'm not sure how insightful or helpful my opinion is going to be here, but here it goes. I am unsure how much work this would take, or how hard it would be to do, but even on the /maps command, I do think it would be useful to maybe show the tier as well as a grading system, (1 -10 as Kaiden mentioned). There are maps of the same tier that can vary in difficulty as mentioned above in Kaiden's post as well, and I could see how a grading system could help new players figure out which maps to vote for by how easy/hard they are. That said, we have to look at the downsides as well. Lets say someone would like to try to get the rank of Vanquisher, they would need to beat all the easy server maps, however, if new players see that Veggies is like an 8 compared to say Andromeda being maybe a 2, that player would struggle to beat all the maps needed because they wouldn't get voted as often I'm sure, (I used random rakes/maps as an example). Now, this may not be the case, however, it is a possibility for sure.

    This next part is just speculation on to where this could lead, not where it will lead, i.e. if a ranking system were to be put in place.

    I personally would like something like this for the hard server, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who would like this on the easy server as well. I won't lie, I haven't personally looked at the list made here on the forums myself, so I am unsure of exactly what is on it, but I'm sure it is done well. But this raises another question for me, " Even though in my opinion the difficulties assigned may look very realistic and fair, the list is still open to changes if its needed. " Who will be in charge of these changes, and who has the ability to change it? My biggest issue is that someone like Bigdogmat, Day, Ray, Etc. will have different opinions from say someone newer who may think the rankings are bad, Would the new player be able to push for change on this ranking system, or would the better players have full control of it? That also being said, whomever changes it on the forums would have to be active, as well as whoever has to change it in game on the commands/menus, if changes were needed.

    To finish up here, I would have to say I am neutral in this. I personally believe things are fine as-is, But I also wouldn't be opposed to see something like this implemented. The best advice I could offer here is to implement a ranking system with the maps on the list provided in Ely's post and see what kind of feedback it gets.

    My last point is this: If this is just a push to show tiers alone, I am not against that at all and 100% support it, sure it won't really change much or do much for anyone, but for me personally on the hard server, I struggle to remember the tiers of most maps and typically have to ask Ely or anyone else on if I want to know because I'm lazy and don't want to look it up. XD

    Hope this helped, Love you all<3
     
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  5. boolamp

    boolamp [BB] Sub Admin Sub Admin

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    As a relatively new surfer i personally would like to be have been able to see the tiers when i was going up thru the completion list on the easy server. I improved very fast because i asked around to see what tiers were which and slowly made my way to the harder ones. I took a similar approach to the hard server, it was very helpful for my personal skill progression knowing exactly where to start. I feel like it would be a generally beneficial thing to the server and to new players if tiers were visible to some capacity.
     
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  6. Ari

    Ari New Member

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    with what kaiden said, while i agree with the argument of limited usefulness for new players, this isnt a problem that can't be addressed, so I agree with kaiden's 1-10 tier list for new maps completely or something a long the lines, its a great idea. After all it doesn't have to be an "official" tier list, its not like BB is like all other servers, for example the gravity so i think a separate tier list is a great step in the right direction.

    Also with what Lisa said, I think it could cause a problem with people only voted the lower tier maps, and not only make it hard to get a time on the >8 tier maps on easy server, it may also make the map selection super repetitive each day, even with the 6 hour cooldown between maps, as to the argument that people will disagree with the where a map belongs, I don't think that's a problem, why should someone thinking a map is easier than another stop us from trying to help players find a map they can beat, this isn't a super official list being ranked by pros, its just a bit of guidance to help players find their way, people will always disagree on tiers in surf because its all subjective, but that's okay, its surf.
     
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  7. Elysian

    Elysian Member MVP

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    - Not to say Beyond is hard, but in comparison to Andromeda it's certainly longer, more complicated and incorporates more complex mechanics to beat it.
    That list is also ordered by difficulty while inside their respective tiers, as u can see Beyond is way closer to being a tier 2 while Andromeda is on the literal start of the list, its not a perfect list but it helps a lot on understand difficulties. Same with the lovetunnel and whiteout.

    - If maps were graded 1 - 10 on accessibility and playability for example I think that'd be more useful
    By being ordered by difficulty, this is very easy to fix by just changing the numbers, keeping it as it is now is not a big problem because they can grasp the difficulties and use it outside of BB, when they search the hardest map they are going to find out its a T8 map and wouldnt be confused with omnific being a T6, while that might happen if it has a difficulty level 10. That might be arranged if needed tho.

    -if new players see that Veggies is like an 8 compared to say Andromeda being maybe a 2, that player would struggle to beat all the maps needed because they wouldn't get voted as often I'm sure.
    Kitsune2 is the most played map even though its one of the hardest maps on the server and players being aware of that. That might happen but i dont think its going to be very different from now.

    -Who will be in charge of these changes, and who has the ability to change it?
    A lot of opinions were used for that list, and that will still happen. As a example, i got some opinions from T7 players from the SK server, and even if those players you mentioned were to give their opinion, it would change like 3 or 4 hard maps maximum.
     
  8. Lucretia

    Lucretia New Member

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    Imma keep this short and sweet, personally I think tiers depend on the server settings, etc.
    I really like the chart soders did of the tier's for the maps on the BB servers as they accurately display the tier's for the servers settings. If there was to be some form of displaying the tier's I think it should be based off soders chart

    I would like to see a form of displaying the tier's whether its displaying them on !maps or giving the player a link to Soders list he made.
     
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  9. Kaiden

    Kaiden Administrator Community Manager

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    Ah ok I didn't realise that, that's good to know and makes more sense.

    It's somewhat personable to the individuals experience, I can imagine someone will ardently say Kitsune2 is a Tier 3, then someone insist it's a tier 2 for whatever reason - you then have to decide who's right, whether that's by whichever tier is most agreed upon etc.

    Considering i.e. having this on F1 as a clickable link (like we do for the Rank and Crafting guides) that takes to a Wiki page, it's unlikely I'd have the inclination to update this when new maps are added or when people collectively change their mind on a map's tier. I don't think the Wiki at present allows accounts to be created either. So it's one to consider how that'd be presented to users.
     
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  10. Elysian

    Elysian Member MVP

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    About the tier thing, if its a minority insisting on weird stuff we can just ignore it, its not like the list is perfect, its mainly for comparison in difficulties and to help a majority of new players. New players dont know enough to complain about it lol

    Not gonna lie, i think almost no one actually reads the stuff on F1, it would be ideal if it showed up when u type /tiers or something like that, just like /maps and /social shows up. It would also be great if it was one of the yellow reminder messages that shows up on chat. And about the update thing, i dont think its too big of a problem because both servers already have lots of maps, they dont need many changes. Even if a new map is added its not obligatory to update the list, its still going to have like 129/130 maps which is fine.
     
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  11. Kaiden

    Kaiden Administrator Community Manager

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    I think if you did /tiers (/tier) it'd just open a page on the Wiki so original point stands it'd be a page that would be difficult to maintain/become out of date with map changes/change in perception. Like said majority would remain up to date I guess. End of the day a complex GUI like /maps isn't going to get made for this so a Wiki entry is probably the best hope.
     
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  12. Elysian

    Elysian Member MVP

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    Will it show up as an actual wiki page? or can it just show the pic that is in the wiki
     
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  13. Kaiden

    Kaiden Administrator Community Manager

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    So can have a /command open a page in the Steam Browser (like we do with /donate) which could be the image hosted somewhere, although can't do much about the warning prompt. Will have a chat with Teddi if it's a route want to go down as again he's not the biggest fan of Tier classifications.
     
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  14. Elysian

    Elysian Member MVP

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    U can do this kaiden, persuade the big man! And if possible get the prompt :^)
     
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