TrackMania Forever rules of ladder and formula

[Florent]

Hello to high skill players,

Here are the first rules of ladder and picture of the creation interface

Servers 0=>50000 can be created by anyone with any rules



Nadeo may change these rules later.
Nadeo can also adapt ladder points limit of hosted servers.

When you name a server, you do a deposit in coppers. It is to limit the number of high ranked servers and to have a moderation tool in case of abuses.

If a host break the rules or have an inappropriate behavior, Nadeo will keep the coppers deposit and close the server.

When you decide to close your server by yourself, you get back your deposit.

if you have more than the maximum, you can enter but you will win no points
if you have less than minimum, you can not enter as player

For all the +50k servers :
- public server means that players and spectators don't have to enter a password to login.
- no guests lists system
- no kick or ban for bad reasons
- at least 6 spectator places for the servers between 40k and 80k.

Three changes for the +50K servers :
1. You can now open +50K servers with the following limits (the previous limits can still be chosen) :
- 0 to 60 000 Ladder points
- 20K / 70K LP
- 40K / 80K LP
- 60K / 90K LP
You have to respect the server rules of the maximum limit. For example, if you open a 60k/90k server, the rules of the 70k/90K servers have to be respected.
2. You can now run the 80K / 100K server Sunday from 15 GMT to 18 GMT.
3. The ladders points won on a Trackmania United Forever server are now multiplied by 1,5.

Some changes for the Tracks length of the +50k servers :
- 0k/60k : no minimum length required
- 20k/70k : length >= 20 seconds
- 40k/80k : length >= 30 seconds
- 60k/90k : length >= 45 seconds
- 80k/90k : length >= 45 seconds

Ladder rules have been edited on 2010/11/23:

-envimix tracks only allowed for 0/60k servers
-For RoC servers :
-> at least 4 rounds
-> tracks should become from different environments for the United servers
The RoC admins already knew these rules, so that's not a big change for them.

The ladders points won on a Trackmania United Forever server are now multiplied by 1,4.

Cheers,
Alinoa

last edited 2010/11/25


FORMULA

We just switched the ranking formula for the zones: countries and regions.

The new way to compute is to take into account the top three players of each country into account.
We have observed this formula and the results are interesting and change more often. The most important thing is that it focus more on some players.

So, here is the formula:
Country points = 0.5 * Country 1st points + 0.333 * Country 2nd points + 0.166 * Country 3rd points

The current ranking is:

1. Hungary [97448.00]
2. Germany [96916.88]
3. Greece [96303.99]
4. France [96195.15]
5. Poland [95435.46]
6. Spain [94827.27]
7. Netherlands [94156.59]
8. Austria [93842.63]
9. Italy [93190.56]
10. United States of America [93122.26]

And the top 3 of these countries are:

Hungary:
1 kajczy 98458.72
2 nagy_mester_b 97293.53
3 davsonic 94724.76

Germany:
1 andreas_hitz 97385.49
2 djkueken 96821.41
3 hubsi_gll 95702.01

Greece:
1 mietsel 97043.53
2 subarakiasxxx 96348.76
3 leothegreek 93995.83

France:
1 naloun 97537.99
2 speeddu53 95229.14
3 zepset 94098.66

Poland:
1 dawid-dada 98458.72
2 plastunio 94073.92
3 olekjudo 89088.79

Spain:
1 nengg 96017.86
2 mario311 93733.09
3 c4t4__ 93443.85

Netherlands:
1 zooz 97748.45
2 mighty-mike 90762.10
3 cagieracer 90169.98

Austria:
1 prayer 98021.63
2 uebersoldier 89977.09
3 zuckerfrosch 89036.70

Italy:
1 are777 95412.10
2 falchi_davide 91748.92
3 babazz 89409.20

United States of America:
1 _evan_ 94336.42
2 solonar2 93613.50
3 tebylla 88497.31

We tested this formula on the 10/09 also, and the top 5 countries were:
1. Germany 97394.50
2. Hungary 97286.59
3. France 97277.00
4. United States of America 95527.25
5. Spain 95271.76

[Zooz]

That is indeed interesting

So, 16 players max = the player limit must be 16, or only the top 16 players are counted for points?
I'd prefer the second one really, 16 players always feels a bit empty and it'll be so hard to get in, especially without a waiting list system or something.

Also, what's wrong with Time attack

Ok, there are many good things to say about it but i'm Zooz so i'll mention some possible negative points:

- There must always be a referee? Who will do that? It is really boring. I don't think there will be enough referees. Or is it automated? Or will you improve it?
- TA is competitive too
- Those opening times. I can see the advantages, but people in, say, Australia or the USA might not be so happy with it. A few different time slots might be nice.
- Big Competition tracks arent always good. ET sometimes has fullspeed snow tracks for example, and ESWC tracks, can often be... ugh
How about a system for submitting league tracks, which could be tested and approved/disallowed by people who are good at testing tracks, like the ET admins? This would also cause a better variety, playing the same tracks all the time gets boring and it gives big advantages to those who know them and play them a lot.
- Getting coppers back? OK, but there's also a big transfer cost in moving that much coppers around. It still costs coppers even if you behave perfectly.
- Nadeo needs to spend time to maintain this actively... Players will complain when a response takes a few days ^^

...thats about it i think. Damn, I thought i would be able to come up with more ^^

edit: Also, steep copper prices... 80k coppers = 2 2/3rd games = just over €93 at €40/game = $147
And that's not counting the huge transfer costs ^^

Many teams will have trouble getting enough I think, while certain manialink owners can host 13 Races of champions

[Fleckman]

Interesting, but I don't understand what is meant by "validation seed". Could somebody please explain that?
Will the system be the same for both TMUF and TMNF?

Good thing I stopped wasting coppers a while ago^^

[Zooz]

I think it has something to do with checking runs for cheating.

[Fleckman]

Hmm, thx - sounds reasonable. But why not force every server to do that?
EDIT: And I agree with Zooz on the issue of referees - who would want to be one instead of playing himself?

[Zooz]

It's probably something that uses resources a lot, otherwise they would probably do that yes. And normal servers already have incoherence detection and referee option I think, so it must be something extra that is redundant most of the time.

[Phhere]

Thanks for this information florent
I think it is not OK that "Pro Racing" is only available if the server runs in Rounds mode.
And i am not sure about the fact that a referee is needed because then always an admin must be on the server which is impossible if you are hosting 3 or more server 24h per day like we at http://www.speeedaddicts.com/

[Fleckman]

About the steep prices: I guess the idea is to make it difficult on purpose.
Right now there are usually several times as many servers online as there are players and often there are just a few servers that are about full. Most have very few players, if any. Making the creation of an official server expensive should help concentrate the players on a limited number of servers that are busy most of the time.

[Zooz]

And not all official servers are expensive, anything up to 50.000 can be made by anyone without any restrictions I think.

Also, how will this work with the different environment ladders? Is it about the general ladder? What about TMN then? Or will there be an entirely new system?

[Florent]

In Forever, there is only one ladder

There will be one race of champions reaching 100K with Stadium only and one race of champions reaching 100K with seven environments cycling

Referee will be launch-able in command line window less. The goal is that with a multicore processor, you can launch your referee and still play. If it is too difficult, we will remove the need on "competitive" only to make them on Pro and Champions

Rounds mode is better for spectating a race. Logically, race of champions should be in cup mode. This will probably be the case later, but for now, to make rules and access simpler, we will use the rounds mode. Because for the cup mode, we will need to have a server that dispatch available competitors in one "cup" every week. The timeframe enabling US players and Chinese players to compete together, as well as European.

You ask for a no boost situation, and there is only with rules that you can really achieve that. Without rules: everybody is happy, but there is no ladder. With rules, everybody will complain, but there is a ladder.

[Zooz]

More rules = less happy people ^^
I'm sure boosters and lolmap players will complain about this one, for example. But almost everyone should agree that it's better than before.

I do like the system, just tried to find some disadvantages and ask some questions. The command line referee should make that part easy, assuming you don't have to look at it actively or something.

Maybe let players get used to Cup mode first, it's pretty complicated.

Also, I hope the one ladder thing doesn't mean everyone will end up playing Stadium only for the ladder top...

[Paris69]

dear Florent,

this (rulesofladdersy5.jpg) can kill the game (IMHO). it will sort and separate the players. it can kill teams, break the fellowships.

as (on the first sight) i take it, you forget, that not only speed built the community...

[Florent]

you better give arguments if you want to accuse me of such things

do you mean you prefer the TMN ladder?

[Gekko]

Hi Florent,

As you know i have many question for you....
1) Can the a player who have a skill of 70000 enter in Amateur Place?
2) Can i do alternative server with ladder but public?
3) How many player can i reach with a non official server?
4) Points or Ladder????

If i make a server of 500 players what i can do with this server?

Regards to Florent.

PS: Why you not make public till the "competitive players" and make the server admin choose time attack or round, but taking the level you decided?
I would help you in the decision to not make an error like the last with United.

[pobmaestro]

I don't quite understand this ladder. Is it that we have to pay 10,000C just to get points, and 20,000 to avoid lol maps? This seems insane, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong. The normal copper rate is 50 a day, which means it will take a minimum of 200 days to reach the mininum level, and you would have to choose between solo mode or multiplayer. Or this is for competitions only? So confused