The Legendary Level League offers an additional opportunity besides the traditional 1v1 tournament series to participate in exciting 1v1 games.
Reply until August 14 (Saturday) if you want to join. Signing up earlier is recommended - because if there is an uneven number of sign-ups, the last one will literally be the odd one out for this round
For the uninitiated: 1v1s are a fun challenge for new NP2 players and veterans alike. You will face off on an epic mirrored map with no experimentation so you have the exact same starting position as your opponent. No diplomacy - instead itās 100% strategy and game theory. Itās turn-based with only two players, so games can move along quickly - but if you need some more time sometimes, thereās also a very generous turn deadline (48 hours).
(some testimonials)
So whatās the gist of the format? You only ever have to sign up for one game at a time - and that game is likely going to be with a similarly experienced opponent. This makes it a perfect place to build your 1v1 skills in tight matches. The main goal is having fun games, but if youāre looking for a competitive one it will be rising to the Legendary Level over time and defeating the defending Legendary 1v1 Player to claim that title for yourself!
Although the game is turn-based with a 48h deadline, please make sure you can start your game within one week after itās set up and generally have enough time to keep the game moving along at a steady pace, i.e. at least two submits a day, preferably more (as itās 1v1, the game will move forward in absence of your opponent after you submit and you can submit your next turn already). No worries if you donāt have time for NP2 some days though.
Players sign up and get placed on a level according to their latest ranking (link) - new 1v1 players get the starting rating of 814 and likely play each other first.
They get paired up through the (active) ladder, 1 vs 2 (legendary level), 3 vs 4 etc., so will play others on a likely comparable skill level.
Winner of the top level match is the āLegendary 1v1 Playerā until next round.
Ladder gets re-arranged according to results (winners go up slightly (except #1), losers go down slightly (except last)). Players sign up for the next round -
ā¦ if previous ones choose not to, no problem: they wonāt be considered in pairings, but lose their position on the ladder (to encourage staying active even high up or as leader) - for come-back players the new-joiner rule will apply.
ā¦ if new ones join, they will be placed on the ladder according to their relative ranking with a slight malus (to encourage joining early)
After that, back to step 2 and repeat indefinitely. Iām thinking of one round happening every two months, giving ample time for games to fully play out without a hurry. If a match hasnāt finished when the next LLL round is about to start, the players will be warned and after another week a tiebreaker will be applied (stars, else ships) to determine the placement on the next-round-ladder. The game can continue on afterwards until itās settled though.
If everything works out, it will be an endless casual tournament with players never having to sign up for more than one match, but lots of interesting matches on all skill levels, with the top being particularly competitive and the lower end being a good place to gain experience and raise the level / staying engaged due to not facing impossible opponents, but similarly experienced ones instead.
The settings are the same as the KO tournamentsā ones (except starting cash). For detailed reasoning check @HULKās tournament thread.
Hereās all settings deviating from the default NP2 ones:
Potential setting changes for this round: Following @plugās suggestion, Iām thinking about making Scanning Research more expensive to increase the cost of extensive insights into the opponentās movements. This may not help break-up late-game draws, but may reduce the risk of them happening. Fixing Weapons at 4 is another prominent idea to encourage attacks (re-surfaced by @Solfyre). Any opinions on these are welcome.
I actually think making scanning more expensive will make draws more likely. At least with my playstyle, I like to have intel before I attack, so disincentivising scanning will make it less likely for me to attack.
My idea with the Scanning was not to make it more expensive to research, but to lock it at a low level (not researchable), possibly even level 1. That way players would have to do some guessing about where their opponent was building up forces, and could make bold strikes aiming blind for warp gates etcā¦ It would reduce the amount of information players have, and mean they must compensate for this by out-thinking (out-bluffing) their opponent instead.
I also like that idea about making the galaxies smaller - fewer stars and smaller distance between home-worlds. We probably need to speed up games, while allowing for a 48h deadline still. Given everything is completely symmetric, going small should still be fine.
Maybe we could try a test game with all the above and see what happens?
I may sit this one out due to some travel, but it would be interesting to see how W4 plays versus W3 ā¦ plus the other possible changes.
Locking Scan at 1 is a pretty wild idea - would be almost like a dark galaxy ā¦ although yea, could actually result in LESS attacking - Iām not sure. Another reason maybe not to do it is that means one less tech to choose to research ā¦ so youād be down to just 4 to choose fromā¦
Right now, itās helpful to research Scan to get Intel ā¦ and also see those Warp Gates ā¦ but Scan (and Hyper) do eventually top-out. I donāt know a good way to address this ā¦
Note that the downside of making the galaxy smaller is if you make a mistake, itās harder to recover from. I.e. if someone grabs a key stars, it may effectively be game over ā¦ since there arenāt as many other areas to try to grab.
The REAL solution is to modify the map generator so that there is more āclumpingā of stars at the border that results in multiple attack vectors for both sides. If you think some of the current 1v1 maps can lead to deadlocks, you should see the majority that I toss because they are even more unplayable.
BTW, since itās difficult to get a ātightā map, you could change the ājump timeā from 6 to 8 ticks ā¦ which would effectively ātightenā up the map a bit and open up more attack vectors.
But this makes the game more ājumpyā and random luck can play a bigger role.
Those that have played a 24-tick jump game can attest how that is just crazy!
I would like to put in my 2 cents as well. Making scanning more expensive or locking it at level 1 would only make games much longer and end at a stalemate. This is because all attackers lose more ships than a defender does, so unless they know they can win a fight, they arenāt going to attack. Raising weapons really doesnāt make too much of a difference so if thatās what people want to try, then we can if we want.
These were the things I was worried about when fixing Scanning, but making it more expensive and not locking may mitigate it partially or could make it even more likely to cause less attacks. Might as well go all-in if doing that change.
Some more cool ideas all around. The real solution of a code change is obviously hard for us to implement and as you say, we have to throw out a lot of maps already. One interesting idea by Gabrio on Discord was also to add one star in the exact middle of the mirrored galaxy, though itās questionable who reaches that star āfirstā and gets defenderās advantage.
Iām gonna start a poll (letās see how that works here) on potential setting changes and then implement the result for this round. At the end we can also do an āexit pollā how well the change was received.
@HULK: Give it some thought, youād only have to start the game within a week after the match-up release. Last round you earned the right to challenge @Solfyre for the title again
@BelSon: Thanks for the input! Can I count you in for the LLL?
