Dear Human Players,

Hello everyone!

Over the years, we've received feedback from some of our more hardcore players who want the game to be more challenging, and to have more exciting challenges.

Previously, we raised the level cap to 150, but some players still managed to reach it within just a week (wow)! As for the battlepass, it’s designed so that most players can earn the final reward, meaning we can’t make it too difficult.

We’ve been considering that simply relying on level cap increases or battlepasses may not fully satisfy players looking for more of a challenge. That’s why we’re planning to introduce a new time-limited mini rank mode.

About this mode:

  • It will run on a two-week cycle, with a uniquely tweaked game mode each time.
  • Each game mode will feature slightly modified versions of classic mode maps.
  • Players will earn points based on their in-game performance and be ranked based on their cumulative points.
  • Points only increase and never decrease. Winners of each match will receive more points, with additional performance-based adjustments based on how well they played.
  • Rankings reset every two weeks, and high-ranking players will receive exclusive rewards.
  • To ensure a good matchmaking experience and gather players who enjoy high-challenge gameplay, this mode will only be available during limited time slots on weekends, scheduled to accommodate different time zones worldwide.

We are considering a few things and would love to hear your thoughts:

  1. Since the ranking system is cumulative point-based, players who don’t play for a while will naturally drop in rank. Some might find this frustrating. This type of system is common in high-ranks in other games but isn’t typically applied across all tiers. What do you think about this?
  2. We initially considered a point system instead of a traditional rank-tier system for the following reasons:
    a. Players will be replaying the same modified classic map for the duration of the two-week cycle.
    b. Because of that, we want to keep the event fast-paced to maintain freshness, hence the shorter two-week period.
    c. To ensure challenge-seeking players can match together, this mode is only available during limited time slots, naturally capping the number of matches per cycle. However, traditional rank-tier systems essentially require a minimum number of games, and when combined with this limitation, it could perhaps start to feel like a job?
    d. With a pure cumulative point system, the more skilled players will naturally earn more points. However, this also leads to the issue mentioned above.
  3. If you have alternative ideas beyond these systems, please share them!
  4. Any other questions or suggestions about this mode are also welcome.

Since this is our first time implementing a rank-like system, we’d love to hear your feedback. Our goal is to provide long-term objectives for our dedicated, hardcore players, and we want to ensure these objectives (and how they are achieved) are widely accepted by the community.

Let us know what you think. Let’s make Party Animals even better together!

Nemo
March 28, 2025

Nemo stickied the discussion .

Cool thing, just some things that come to mind.

...a uniquely tweaked game mode each time.
...slightly modified versions of classic mode maps

I doubt making modifications to the game mode itself every time is necessary or desired by the potential players. I believe it would be preferable to have it close to the regular game mode at least since the players primarily interested in it will have quite a few hours and muscle memory built on the "default" style. As I see it people want to know how they rank against others playing the regular style. Map variations can totally be implemented. But then it would make sense to release them to regular matchmaking too, or custom.

Players will earn points based on their in-game performance and be ranked based on their cumulative points.
Points only increase and never decrease.

Not a fan of this. This means someone who plays more will rank higher than someone who plays better than them but plays less. This doesn't measure skill this measures primarily playtime as it sounds. Which is not the reason to have a ranked system even if timely limited. Not being able to lose points is mainly at fault here. There are a lot of thoroughly tested ranked systems in other games. I'm not a fan of Party Animals copying other games (Crisis, Nemo Kart, ...) but in this case you could just rely on an already tested system. Please do it. Because like this:

Winners of each match will receive more points

it doesn't make any sense. So even when you lose you gain points too? This makes no sense in this case. At this point it's just a regular event and not a "rank mode". It's there to pretty precisely measure skill. Not playtime/Amount of games.

Rankings reset every two weeks

This feels very strict. Have you considered extending the time a bit? Regular ranked "seasons" will be maybe 2-4 months long. 2 weeks sounds very uncomfortable to me as a player. More on it below.

To ensure a good matchmaking experience and gather players who enjoy high-challenge gameplay this mode will only be available during limited time slots on weekends, scheduled to accommodate different time zones worldwide

This sounds like corporate talk for "since the player base is so small we can only have it in peak hours where the most players in the whole week play". Which I guess is fair but also makes me rather uninterested in the mode. I don't think players wanted this when they asked for a ranked mode. They want a playlist to play instead of casual. All/Most of the time. I can see it being restricted to all peak hours (evenings) but not only evenings on weekends. And what about people who work during these times but would like to participate? Can they.. just not?

Since the ranking system is cumulative point-based, players who don’t play for a while will naturally drop in rank. Some might find this frustrating. This type of system is common in high-ranks in other games but isn’t typically applied across all tiers. What do you think about this?

What about static ranks and the stats reset every few months? This together with gaining and losing points makes a lot more sense to me. Also you would be able to "lose" your rank if you don't play for a while but regain it if you play well in re-ranking games. Not sure how many ranks there will be but if we assume it's 5 then make the lower 3 static and the 2 higher tiers "dynamic" as in the example. In the end it wouldn't really matter if people could also lose points. I think that's my main critique.

We initially considered a point system instead of a traditional rank-tier system

Yeah just do it. Longer (example 2months) seasons. Every day while peak hours at least. Being able to lose points.

Players will be replaying the same modified classic map for the duration of the two-week cycle.

Boy we have been playing on the same unchanged maps since, idk almost 80 weeks now? We don't have to rotate them now to keep them "fresh" every 2 weeks. Make several slight iterations of a map and have every game play on one of those different versions.

... it could perhaps start to feel like a job?

Yes probably. The fixed time slots make it very uncomfortable already. This all sounds more like you guys would be better off making automated tournaments at set times like some other games (Rocket League for example) do.

Questions

Q: Will there be separate queues for 1v1 2v2 3v3 4v4?

Q: What will be more important for gaining (and i hope also losing) points, overall team performance or individual performance?

Q: Will there be a minimum level to play? (Would probably make sense)

Q: Will there be leaderboards?

Q: What will the resets look like? Full reset makes sense for bi weekly "events" I have a hard time calling that a ranked mode. But soft resets would make sense over longer terms with an actual ranked mode.

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Recommendations

R: Adjust the rounds to win if there is a 4v4 playlist. 3 points make the games feel quite insignificant and sometimes random. Make it a BO7 or BO9.

R: Display the MMR in this mode.

R: Map picks and bans for higher tiers.

R: In that thought make it an overall BO3 and make 2 teams play against each other for multiple maps in a row.

And all of the above...
Please give it a thought.

Pudding

If the whole idea of adding a ranking system is based on the desire to make the gameplay more engaging for hardcore players, maybe it's time to add some more servers across the regions as well?

For example, here in Europe, the only two cities where servers are located are Frankfurt and Dublin. That's quite an uneven spread for the European region.

I'm playing from Romania. I can understand when I'm playing on the Frankfurt server, where my ping is 50-60 (which is already noticeable when we are talking about competitive gaming), but when playing on Dublin, the latency issue becomes way worse. 70-90 ping is noticeable, to say the least.

The latency issue is pretty easy to hide when players are beating each other up (it does look and feel random enough considering the game physics). But when a player is trying to grab an item (weapons, balls) on the client side, the player sees that he has grabbed an item, but his hand slips, and it happens a couple of times in a row. We know this is not how the game is supposed to work because in tutorials (which are hosted locally) there are no such issues. It becomes clear that the server side is prioritized over the client side (which is understandable), but the client side has no measures to ameliorate the latency problem.

When I'm talking about possible resolutions for this problem, I mean two main ideas:
1) Implementation of movement prediction systems;
2) Addition of a higher amount of servers across the regions.

It is up to the developers to decide if/how they will resolve the latency issue. Ignoring it, will make the competitive aspect enjoyable exclusively for hardcore players that happen to be situated near the game servers.

Just for the record. It is a completely different story when talking about regular game modes, where not much is at stake. The game is fine being silly with goofy and cute skins, the main purpose of which is getting fun. But the moment this game turns competitive, where points, ranks, and skins a player acquires depend on their performance during the game, it becomes very important to make sure that conditions for fair competition are met.