Ladder Season Discussion

Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia

And in a sunless realm, the sun rose at last.
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Mother of Machines
Hello, this thread will serve as a public discussion thread for the newly announced Pokemon Showdown Ladder Seasons! If you have any questions or comments, this is the place to leave them. We will also be putting out surveys at some point to get players insight on this new system, and ways we can improve it in the future. Please be sure to check in on the above thread for updates as time goes on and any annoucements, and even if you aren't going to be playing be sure to look in on the PS room before the deadlines to see some high level gameplay!

Current season:

Season 9 April 2026 - June 2026: OU / Randbats / Ubers / RU / NU / PU​

Deadlines for each season depending on the months:

8:00AM GMT+0 on February 1st​
4:00PM GMT+0 on March 1st​
0:00 GMT+0 on April 1st​

8:00AM GMT+0 on May 1st​
4:00PM GMT+0 on June 1st​
0:00 GMT+0 on July 1st​
​
8:00AM GMT+0 on August 1st​
4:00PM GMT+0 on September 1st​
0:00 GMT+0 on October 1st​
​
8:00AM GMT+0 on November 1st​
4:00PM GMT+0 on December 1st​
0:00 GMT+0 on January 1st​
 
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Great concept! I think it would be complemented well by some sort of prize that lasts permanently.

Completing all the achievements in the various oldgen ladder challenges (example) gets you a custom avatar. Perhaps you guys could create a ladder achievements custom avatar that can be unlocked by getting 4 Gold metals in one session or X (10 maybe?) all-time. (I say 4 just because 5 or 6 top-3s at once, including OU and randbats, seems ridiculously difficult).

Screenshot 2024-04-01 at 11.02.54 AM.png
 
Sticking with official formats for the rollout rather than following the player-base is a bit disappointing, imo. I haven't added it all up, but at a glance, it looks like NatDex has more players than nearly every official metagame combined, only excluding OU and DOU. If noise or bad data is the concern, I would think a format that has a more consistent and more competitive player-base would be better. Obviously whatever's in the rotation is going to get more games, and this is a great way to shine a light on lesser played tiers. But for testing the system, flooding a ladder with significantly more players that have never played the tier before than those who have doesn't seem like the best way to nail down how the system should work.
I am a bit miffed because I do prefer NatDex formats, mainly NDUbers (which also has more play than any official tier excluding the same two as above), but even putting that aside I don't see how that makes sense.
 
I wish the medals would be permanent, it sucks that it goes away. Considering the huge numbers of players in OU and Randbats, getting top 100 is pretty exclusive.
Conversely, top 100 in PU is basically a participation award, but that's besides the point
 
I'm not really clear on what tiers are playable for the current season, the tiers in the announcement seem to be different than the ones active on PS right now? Asking because I saw PU ladder not giving medals

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Hi, I really like this idea and in fact I just spent the last few hours grinding up my main account to the Silver medal for OU. I know a survey is coming out soon but I just wanted to leave two suggestions I had off the bat, one big and one small.

The Small - is there a way to have the medals displayed on your user card? For example, in the free space here
1712163889055.png

As of right now, the medals only show up in battles, which imo feels a bit redundant because if we're in a battle together you already know my ELO with or without a medal. It'd be nice if someone clicked on my name in a PS! room or something they could see the cool badge I grinded for.

The Big - I would really prefer if when you earnt a medal, you got to keep it until the end of the season. It's a little disheartening knowing that even after grinding, I'll probably lose the medal while I'm asleep without getting a real chance to show it off, and I personally think it would be a lot better if I could show off my ladder peak for the whole month duration of the season. You'd still only give the prize to the top 100 at the deadline, whatever that prize may be, but I would just like the thing I spent time grinding for to last for more than an hour or two. If I hit like, Diamond in League of Legends it doesn't go away when other people hit Diamond, if that makes sense. It would also make laddering less stressful because I wouldn't have to worry about losing my top 30 position or whatever. Overall I think making the medals a bit less ephemeral would make them a lot more satisfying to earn.

Overall, I do like this idea and I think it's a great step forward for giving ladder a reward actually worth playing for, instead of being the Sisyphean fight against ELO Decay that it currently is. These are just two areas for improvement that stand out to me a lot, personally. Thanks for the hard work and all that.
 
Hi, I have a question. I've reached the 100th spot in the Monotype, Ubers and UU ladders. However, Monotype isn't showing, even an hour later. Why is this?
 
Hi, I just got 3 different ladder medals and noticed something: when you ladder or play one of the tiers you have a medal in, they show all three correctly, but if you play/ladder another tier where you don't have a medal, it only shows 2 medals.

I suppose this has something to do with the system wanting to show a medal of the tier you're currently playing, and thus not showing a third medal if you don't have one in that tier. But shouldn't it still show 3 medals in that case, if you have 3 medals in other tiers?
 
Fant'sy Beast said:
Hi, I just got 3 different ladder medals and noticed something: when you ladder or play one of the tiers you have a medal in, they show all three correctly, but if you play/ladder another tier where you don't have a medal, it only shows 2 medals.

I suppose this has something to do with the system wanting to show a medal of the tier you're currently playing, and thus not showing a third medal if you don't have one in that tier. But shouldn't it still show 3 medals in that case, if you have 3 medals in other tiers?
Click to expand...

From the FAQs:
Hecate said:
The first medal shown is always for your current tier if it exists, so even if you have 3 medals in other tiers, only 2 will show up if you play a tier you lack a medal in.
Click to expand...
 
This is a great addition! I think more medals should be given out though, if part of the intention here is to promote usership. Very few people reach top 100. Think about how hard it is for new players to even reach the ladder, let alone get top 100, for OU and Randbats.

Imo all ladder participants should be awarded a bronze medal, silver should be top 100, and gold should be top 5. Don't really care about the specifics, but even to middling/newer users, seeing someone with a bronze medal would be intimidating given they might not have even reached the ladder ever before.

I'm sure there are a lot of helpful stats that could inform the perspective here, but thought I'd at least open it up. Cheers!
 
Isaiah said:
From the FAQs:
Click to expand...

Ok I can get that for tiers that have a medal, but it also shows only 2 medals if you play a tier that doesn't have a medal at all. Shouldn't it change to showing 3 medals in that case?

Edit: comparing randbats and cc1v1 this morning under here
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Hello, what is the command for removing the medals?
I do not wish to get identified, it hampers prep for a tournament and also cause difficulties when I record for my channel.
Really appreciate a command which allows a user to either display or not display the medal according to their will.
Thanks!
 
Blimax said:
Hello, what is the command for removing the medals?
I do not wish to get identified, it hampers prep for a tournament and also cause difficulties when I record for my channel.
Really appreciate a command which allows a user to either display or not display the medal according to their will.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
There's no command, nor are we going to add one - defeats the entire point. Just alt instead.
 
Cool idea. Like people have said though making them permanent in some way would be way more eniticing. Then perhaps we could select which ones to display from the bunch?
 
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