What makes a gladiator a Legend?

[Nate]

Greetings Pit Masters!

There has been some discussion publicly and privately on what makes a gladiator a champion with some Masters questioning the Hall of Legends rankings. So as I often do, I'd like to get input from those interested in what they think makes a gladiator a legend. You are free to offer up anything you like however keep in mind that a gladiator who is mediocre or above average most of his career and then dominates for a month or two at the end is of course a great gladiator maybe even a legend, but do they deserve to be ranked above a gladiator who proved their entire career to be awesome but maybe never won a championship? What are your thoughts? How do we handle this sort of thing in today's sports?

If an athelete come in 2nd place in 5 straight Olympics and never wins a gold is he more deserving than the athlete who wins one gold metal? What if it is only 3 straight Olympics?

If a team goes to the superbowl 5 times and loses each time are they just as good or better than the one who only went once and won?

If an unkown fighter with a mediocre record knocks out the undefeatd champ should he be ranked higher than the champ on the canvas or somwhere lower with a footnote?

There are of course no perfect answers, but as always I like to try and involve the community as much as possible when I can.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Alba Kebab]

Greetings Pit Masters!
If an unkown fighter with a mediocre record knocks out the undefeatd champ should he be ranked higher than the champ on the canvas or somwhere lower with a footnote?
-Nate-

If this was true Nittz would be a legend for killing Laharl twice, and he's not mediocre either, more like semi-decent.

Seriously though, I do think a general rule of thumb of what the players accept to be true, but, that's hard to quantify and don't always make perfect matches with statistics.

[Dainoji]

I think the way we are doing it now by using the achievement points is good but perhaps some of the weighting needs to be modified. If for example winning the throne achievement in the lower brackets are the same weight as winning it in the upper brackets that probably shouldn't be that way since it is much harder to be the top later in the game. A Blood Games victory should probably place you in the top 40 at a minimum and now with Seasons a #1 finish should also place you at least in the top 40 if not top 20 considering a gladiator must round robin their way to victory.

Looking at the current hol rankings I see Gator in there and honestly have no idea who that gladiator even is. He must have won a lot of lower ranked titles and maybe even some of the higher ones but I don't think there is a manager out there that would agree he belongs in the #2 spot. As a general rule I think the weighting of achievements should be such that you cannot even be in the top 10 unless you have placed 1-3 in the blood games or seasons at least once. That might be too strict but the spirit of the message rings true I think.

To answer your question about how it is handled in sports, I can't think of many teams or athletes that get talked about who did not win a championship or big tournament. Magic Johnson, Michael Jordon, Shaq, Kobe, etc. All won big victories in addition to being awesome in their college years. The golfer Greg Norman was known as the Bride's Maid for his numerous #2 finishes but he dominated the rankings in the 80s and 90s but just couldn't seem to pull off major victories very often however he still did win a few. I think the sign of a true legend is someone who MUST win something major at least once otherwise you are just great, not a legend. If a team goes to the Super Bowl 5 times and loses it makes them a very, very good team but to be a legend you have to do something legendary, simple as that. I suppose losing 5 Super Bowls could be considered legendary but more in a negative way, lol.

I don't follow swimming but I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't know or hasn't heard of Michael Phelps. Why? Because he has won 18 gold medals (double the second highest record holder), can anyone even name the the swimmers who came in 2nd place?

Currently Lahral is ranked #1 but he is actually not the best gladiator to enter the arena that honor probably goes to The Returned but Lahral is much more deserving of the #1 spot based on his many wins in the Blood Games. I think if you revisited the weighting of the various achievements being mindful to give harder to achieve ones more value you can come up with numbers that make sense for the rankings.

[Sotc]

Good post Dain. I agree that BG/Seasons wins should be weighted much more in the points calculation. I think our major complaint is that the ranking system is inconsistent; Aside from the strange case of Gator, I believe Prinny noted that his Flonne currently has MORE points than Laharl which does not seem right. Perhaps a points multiplier for multiple BG/Seasons wins is appropriate given how hard it is to win one, let alone multiple times.

[Prinny]

Really Dain...repeat after me, LA-HA-RL.

As Sotc said yea Flonne currently has more points than Laharl, this is because she has 6 undisputed titles and a 2nd rank in the blood games achievement. having that said she only has 6 undisputed titles because she sucked untill her build was finally completed a month or so after arriving in primus so she didn't rank very fast.

Some achievements are harder to get compared to others, stuff like tavern fights and arena challenges up to tier 4-5 achievements are fairly easy to achieve while placing 3rd,2nd,1st for the pit fights dozens of times would be hard as you play these against the whole pit. Same counts for blood games which is a monthly tournament and the blood gods seasons which lasts 2-3 months and have the best of the best gladiators in the pits participating.

I like Sotc's point multiplier system tbh~

[Lunarion199]

Hi Nate and hi all,

Thanks for the post. I would like to add my two cents:

* Achievement points are certainly an indication of a gladiator's feats. But not all achievements may be accounted for. e.g. finding green/blue/purple items in tavern contracts, healing serious injuries, resurrecting the gladiator etc. should not count towards legendary status of a gladiator.

* Tavern contracts currently being relatively easy, tavern contract achievements should remain having less weightage than pvp achievements. Else tavern contracts could be made more difficult than they are presently.

* Battle Royale wins could be added as achievements, just as pit fight achievements are.

* Achievements like Fresh Meat Champion, Amateur Champion, The Elite's Throne etc give very high achievement points. But in low brackets a good gladiator usually jumps from one bracket to another without completing these achievements; while a mediocre gladiator may still grab those achievements. Say, a 100 ranked but a good fresh meat can directly jump to a 100 ranked amateur within a few fresh meat fight wins without ever attaining the fresh meat champion achievement. So I feel these achievement should not be counted.

Or better, possibly the brackets should be based on gladiator level (e.g. level 1 to 5 - fresh meat, 6 to 10 - amateurs etc) and within each bracket the ranking should improve only by beating higher ranked opponents, and decrease only by losing to lower level gladiators. The movement in rank should happen only by one per such a specific win or loss. So if a gladiator ever climbs up to/ stays at fresh meat rank 1 before he gets to level 6 and thus amateur bracket, he will deserve the fresh meat champion achievement (or a throne achievement if any). But if he could climb only up to say fresh meat rank 15 when he became level 6 (amateur), he wouldn't get that achievement.

Request you to kindly give it a thought...

An example below, of possibly what should not be happening, a gladiator boasting fresh meat champion achievement when he has gone through seven successive losses while yet to score even a single win...




* If still the brackets are not to be based on player level, then maybe we could have achievement points for gladiators attaining higher brackets when at low level. e.g. a level 20 gladiator attaining pit lords bracket should be given more credit than gladiators who have attained that bracket when they were above level 30.

* There may be gladiators who have frequently recorded wins (occasional wins could be fluke, say lucky hit to opponent's sweet spot) against higher level gladiators. For example, there is a huge difference between a level 35 gladiator and a level 50 gladiator, in terms of possible skill points spent, gear, number of achievement slots available etc. So suppose if a level 35 gladiator consistently beats level 45+ gladiators in arena he should perhaps be given more credit in terms of achievement points than when he wins against level 25+ gladiators.

* Attacking the same lower ranked opponent (meatbag) consistently in arena every day should not be counted as wins, as required by various achievement milestones, after a certain number of fights a day.

* It may be nice if legendary gear is removed from street games and be allowed to be earned only through fights.. maybe Primus top 10 Battle Royale and above.

* It may be appreciated if gladiators are given more or less equal opportunity, say allowing all the achievement slots to be purchased by gold during crucial tournaments like blood games; and only gold achievement slots to be considered in underground pit fights.

* Just as achievement slots now unlock per gladiator level, the tiers in the skill tree should unlock also depending upon gladiator level, in addition to the other unlocking requirements. This may help in keeping all gladiators in a fair competition by preventing trophy-boosting the skills unnatural to lower levels which would be like taking steroids.

It is quite possible that I may be wrong or inexperienced in one or several of my opinions; request you to kindly bear with it.

Regards

[Lunarion199]

Another example of one of the wins of a low level gladiator over a higher one. A 55-sized level 35 glad with not even all achievement slots yet available, vs a level 50 glad with 50% more stamina and about double health. No lucky knockout or hitting an already present serious injury. While determining what makes a gladiator a Legend, shall such wins, if consistent and against multiple opponents, be weighed just equal as say a win of level 35 glad over level 20?

But first, should gladiators with a big level mismatch be fighting in the same bracket anyhow?

Just trying to bring up some points I felt like expressing..
Thanks

[Apoca1ypse]

There is "the underdog" achievement for this kind of thing. IMO it's performance at the top end of the game that is what can make a gladiator a legend.

It's all well and good to do really well vs a bunch of lvl 50 glads when you are lvl 40 or something, but that just indicates that your gladiator has potential. If that gladiator then dominates at the top of the game, and is one of THE glads to beat for a prolonged period, then that makes you a contender to be called a legend.

You may have noticed that a bunch of people were scratching their heads about Gator Mcklusky being #2 on the HoL rankings as that gladiator was hardly a blip on the arena. While it indicate that Gator was a pit fight fiend, I dont think that that should make him be #2 on the list as he was not really a star in the main arena, and I feel that a bunch of other amazing gladiators should be higher placed.


My suggestion:

I think that with the new structure to Blood Gods/Seasons, it would be possible to increase the weighting of the Blood God achievements for placing in the top 1%, 3% and 10%, as placing in those percentiles indicates that a gladiator is la creme de la crop of the bracket that is already meant to be the game's top gladiators.

[Lunarion199]

The Underdog may be achieved even if a level 1 glad beats level 2 opponents or a level 30 glad beats level 31. It's a good achievement, but the question is whether well-built level 50 glads (with all achievement slots, skills and possibly all legendary gear) should theoretically even be allowed to fight a level 35 or 33 in the same bracket, or level 15 glads for that matter fighting level 1 glads. And then if a level 1 glad beats a level 15 will it be weighed same as a level 1 beating a level 2?

I would support Gator as I believe pit fights give more or less equal opportunity to gladiators in finding their true worth. Such gladiators may get doomed in main arena at the top for various reasons other than true potential.

But in the end Blood God fights may be given higher weightage over anything else anyway. They are the cream of the game.

[Apoca1ypse]

there are a lot of really bad gladiators that have been left idle and neglected by managers who have stopped playing or dont care. these gladiators will still earn xp and such for a little while till they die. these cruddy glads stay around in lower brackets because they simply do not earn enough points to move up, and that's what allows a low level glad to be paired with a high level one. This can result in, say, a lvl 40 gladiator with skills and gear equivalent to a lvl 30 glad. couple that with bad strats, and its easy for any decent lvl 25 glad to beat them.

Any lvl 40 glad performing decently should be in an indicative bracket, and any lvl 25 or lvl 30 glad going against them would need to be in the same bracket. for that to happen, the lower level glad would need a near perfect w/l ratio, and TBH any glad like that is destined for a good showing in the top end of the game, which is where they should be earning the points that would get them legendary status. beating up very poorly run glads that just have more HP however, is not something I'd consider something that makes a glad legendary, and so i do not believe something like that should be implimented, otherwise it just opens up the possibility for people to abuse the system with challenges etc, using a glad that isnt all that amazing.

(I hope that all made sense)

As for gator/pits, anyone with enough patience can wait around for pit rules that suit their glads and go for it, effectively cherrypicking their points. iirc back in the day sometimes the rules were such that the most losses won the pit fights. other rules where it's about kills, which are mostly based on luck, not skill. Again, I do not think this is indicative of a gladiators prowess on the wider scale. If pit fights were constantly set at +1pt for a win or kill, and -1pt for a loss, and just stayed at that forever, then yeah, ok, pit fights can have a higher weighting as you cant really cherry pick, but that would be boring format and reduce diversity to the game. I'm all for someone getting rewarded for their perserverance at picking formats etc, but i do not see that as being worthy of the legendary status.