Dear adventurers of the World of Twelve,
A brief late-summer lull in our busy schedule seems like a perfect opportunity for another early devblog. As we mentioned at the start of the year and during Japan Expo, we're working on a Kolossium update that will be ready for the end of the year. So now the time has come for us to give you an advance look at the changes we're planning to make – and to address certain polarizing questions that have yet to be resolved. You'll find a survey at the end of this article where you can express your thoughts on these topics. So let's get started!
How do leagues work currently?
As always, we feel it's important to start by presenting the current system to provide a bit of context and history (especially for people who may be less familiar with it). The Kolossium is the system that allows players to face off in battle in a more structured and competitive setting than challenges. Since late 2015, we've had an Inter-Server Kolossium (ISK) that lets characters on different servers take part in these fights.
Note: In this devblog, we make frequent reference to the related but distinct concepts of a character's level (from 1 to 200), the character's Kolossium rating, and the player's skill level. We've done our best to keep the terminology clear, but please be sure to keep these distinctions in mind as you read.
Fight types
When a player is ready to enter the Kolossium, they start by choosing between 3 distinct game modes:
- 1v1 fights
- 3v3 solo fights (the player registers individually and their teammates are chosen by the system)
- 3v3 team fights (players register in groups of 3 and play together)
Character ratings
Each character has a rating that represents their "level" in the Kolossium. At the end of each fight, their rating is updated. The more fights a character wins, the higher their rating will be, and conversely, losing fights will lower their rating. Characters have independent ratings for different game modes (e.g. a character may have a very good rating in 1v1 but a bad rating in 3v3 solo).
There are two other situations that can change a character's rating. In DOFUS, unlike other games with a rating system, the character's level is also a factor in identifying how strong that character is. This is why, when a character levels up outside of the Kolossium, their rating also goes up slightly: We assume that since the character has gone up a level, they've also gotten stronger, so their rating should be higher. On the other hand, when a character changes classes, their rating is reset. Here, we assume that the player will be less familiar with their new class, so their rating should be reset to more accurately reflect their skill level.
In addition, the winners of each fight receive Kolossokens based on their rating. This resource allows players to buy various items (pebbles, cosmetic items, petsmounts, signal carriers, etc.) from the NPC Glad Yator in the "Kolossium" building.
Matchmaking
To find opponents / teammates in the Kolossium, the game uses a matchmaking system to put players together with worthy allies and adversaries and ensure a high-quality fight. Character ratings are one factor used by the system as it searches for appropriate players. However, this system also has to ensure that players don't wait too long to get into a battle. Therefore, it may sometimes choose to make a less optimal match-up in order to shorten the wait time. Finding the right balance between the quality of each match and the time spent in the queue is the heart of the matchmaking process.
Leagues
In September 2018, we added an additional layer to the Kolossium experience: leagues. Alongside the existing "rating" concept, a new "league points" system was added. Each character has both a rating and a certain number of league points, and these are tracked separately for each fight mode (except 1v1, which doesn't have leagues). When a player wins a fight, their character gains both rating points and league points. These league points are used to rank the character in one of the 41 existing leagues: Bronze (1 to 10), Silver (1-10), Gold (1-10), Crystal (1-5), Diamond (1-5), and Legend (1). An ornament is given to the character at the end of each season, based on the highest league they reached during the season.
League points and rating points vary in different ways. The more league points a character has, the more league points they will gain when they win a fight (unlike rating points). Conversely, upon losing a fight, a character's league points will decrease much less than their rating.
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| Bronze | Silver | Gold | Crystal | Diamond | Legend |
| 1 - 2500 | 2501 - 3500 | 3501 - 4500 | 4501 - 5000 | 5001 - 5500 | 5501 + |
Seasons
In connection with the league system, we also added the concept of seasons. Every 3 months, a new Kolossium season begins (typically one week after the update). The first season started on September 25, 2018. We're currently up to season 18.
At the start of each season, all character ratings are reset to their initial values. This initial rating is based on the character's level: the higher the character's level, the higher their initial rating will be. The player then has to go through a certain number of placement fights (5 placement fights for 1v1 mode and 10 placement fights for 3v3 solo and team). These fights are used by the matchmaking system to evaluate the player's level. Match quality is generally lower in these fights as the system adapts and learns to determine the player's skill level. League points are also reset at the start of each season.
Why are we changing the system?
Several factors have led us to the decision to change how the league system works, along with the Kolossium in general:
- The current system is not very clear for players. The combined use of ratings and league points, along with the different variations and the options specific to certain game modes, make the system more complicated than it could (or should) be.
- For both ratings and league points, there are various ways to manipulate the system to easily gain points in a way that doesn't reflect the player's true skill level. This leads to situations where the best players aren't necessarily at the top of the leaderboards.
- The current matchmaking system has certain shortcomings, the underlying system is aging, and the rules are no longer appropriate for the way the Kolossium is currently used.
In short, we want to simplify the system and make it more attractive for both veterans and newcomers. For veterans, our goal is to regularly refresh the experience and more effectively reward players' skill level and the time they put into the Kolossium. As for newcomers, we want to introduce them to a game mode that we hope they'll fall in love with, but we also want to bring in some new blood with more participants so that the matchmaking system can offer higher fight quality for everyone.
Updates to the league system
To fix the various problems we've identified, we've decided to simplify the system to make it operate more similarly to other competitive games. In the interest of transparency and clarity, we're going to explain the new system in detail, even though some parts of what we'll be explaining won't be visible to you in this update.
We'll no longer see players moving up quickly through the leagues and rarely down again, thereby unfairly winding up in a league that doesn't reflect their true skill level. As of this update, league points will be eliminated, and league placements will be determined DIRECTLY and EXCLUSIVELY by the player's rating. For example, if the player has a rating between 4800 and 4839, they will be placed in the Diamond 4 league. The rating itself will be calculated in the same way as always. At the end of each fight, the rating will be recalculated to reflect wins and losses, just as it is now. However, it will no longer be displayed to the player. The only way to know a player's ranking will be to look at what league they're in. Therefore, league placement will depend solely on their wins and losses, and a player's placement can go either up or down. The rating thresholds have been designed so that it will take about 3 or 4 victories or losses to go up or down a league.
In addition, a "buffer" system has been added to prevent frequent back-and-forth transitions between leagues. The idea here is to "confirm" a player's promotion or demotion when they're at the boundary between two leagues. To continue with the example above, if a player has a rating of 4795 (Diamond 3) and wins a match, their rating will increase above 4800 but they will still be Diamond 3. They will then have to win their next match to move up to Diamond 4. Conversely, if a player has a rating of 4805 (Diamond 4) and loses a match, their rating will drop below 4800, but they will have to lose their next match before moving down to Diamond 3.
Finally, a number of smaller changes have been made:
- The same league system has been added to the 1v1 game mode.
- The number of league brackets has been reduced: the Bronze, Silver, and Gold leagues will go from 10 to 5 brackets (e.g. Bronze 1 to 5, etc.).
- The Crystal league has been renamed to Platinum.
- The number of Kolossokens awarded at the end of each fight will now depend solely on the player's league, and will be the same for all players in a given league (e.g. all players in the Bronze 4 league will get X Kolossokens). Rest assured that this will have a very minimal impact on your Kolossoken earnings.
Vote to quit fights
As a result of the changes made in September 2021 aimed at preventing toxic behaviors, it is currently impossible to quit a 3v3 fight before turn 3. Players can quit between turns 3 and 6, but this may result in penalties under certain conditions. Starting from turn 6, players can quit without penalty. To add a bit more flexibility here, a new quit system has been added.
Starting from turn 3, it will be possible to call a vote amongst your teammates to quit the fight. Each player will then have 1 minute to vote for or against quitting. The number of players who have voted is displayed in the Push Up notification area. A unanimous vote is required before the fight is conceded. A player who has been identified as inactive will have their vote counted as "yes" (quit the fight) by default. If the team votes not to quit, another vote cannot be called for at least 2 minutes. In general, each player can only initiate one vote per fight. However, if one of their teammates is inactive, has left the fight or is dead, the player can call a new vote to quit.
A player cannot quit a fight until they have called at least one vote to concede. Quitting on turn 3 or 4 triggers a 30-minute penalty. Players can now quit without penalty starting on turn 5. In certain cases, a unanimous vote to concede can trigger penalties (between 0 and 10 minutes), depending on the turn number and the number of teammates who are dead or inactive or have quit.
The purpose of this system is to allow players to quit more easily if the fight is truly lost, but only if the fight has had a minimum amount of time to unfold. While some fights may seem to be lost from the start, there's always the possibility of a pleasant surprise, especially when every player gives it their all and plays seriously, with respect and a positive attitude. This is a competitive game, so it's perfectly normal to run into some difficult fights, especially when you start to reach your real level of skill and you want to keep advancing to higher and higher leagues.
As such, we want to make sure we don't encourage players to automatically give up as soon as they see an opposing team comp that they consider too powerful, since good communication and perseverance can lead to victory even in a match that initially seems to be "lost in advance". On the other hand, once an ally has died, is inactive or has left the match, your chances of victory are compromised in a real way, and in this situation we've made it so that the quit conditions are increasingly flexible as the fight goes on, eventually to the point where no penalties are applied at all.
Blocking your character's experience
Many Kolossium players prefer to play in a specific level bracket (e.g. level 60 or level 199). And indeed, since the classes and equipment are different from one level bracket to the next, certain brackets can provide a specific set of challenges. However, for players who want to fight battles in these specific brackets, there's no way to completely block their experience gains. As a result, they have to use indirect methods to minimize those gains (via guilds and mounts).
To eliminate this problem, we will be adding a new option in the game to allow players to completely block their character's experience. For now, we intend to add this option directly to the character's stats interface.
Detection of toxic behaviors
As mentioned earlier, a new system was integrated into the game in the September 2021 update to detect toxic in-game behaviors. Its purpose is to sanction players who engage in various "ungamerlike" conduct or undermine the combat experience. To ensure that the Kolossium experience is fun for everyone and to encourage players to keep coming back, it's essential for us to sanction these behaviors.
While this system has proven effective at discouraging this type of conduct, it still has certain defects, and may occasionally sanction legitimate behaviors – or, conversely, fail to sanction inappropriate behaviors. For this reason, we have made a few changes to the current system to fix these detection errors.
Amazingly awesome arenas
In the September 2021 update, we made visual improvements to all of the Kolossium maps. The goal was to allow players to engage in Kolossium fights without being required to use tactical mode. Looking at the data now, the fact is that tactical mode is still strongly preferred in many fights, and that the "integrated tactical" mode hasn't fully won people over, at least not on all maps. Even so, it's very encouraging to see that it's working really well for certain maps. So we intend to continue in this direction for all of them.
To this end, we've made changes to the integrated tactical mode to make it even cleaner and easier to "read". Here's an example:
We hope that this new improvement will convince you to give the "integrated tactical" mode a try. If you have any other feedback or ideas for improvement, please feel free to share them with us.
As our final point on the subject of maps, new interactive elements have been added in the Kolossium building, allowing characters to teleport to all of the maps available in the Kolossium (1v1 or 3v3). You'll be able to launch challenges on these maps for training purposes.
So what about matchmaking?
A lot of (digital) ink has been spilled on the topic of matchmaking, and this point alone constitutes a significant portion of all player criticisms of the Kolossium. Both from a technical perspective and in terms of the rules it uses, the matchmaking system is definitely in need of an overhaul. Unfortunately, as is often the case in DOFUS, our teams quickly hit a wall in terms of the technical choices that were made when the game was originally created, preventing us from easily making changes to the system. Certain rules are so deeply integrated into the system that removing or modifying them would literally break everything.
We're aware of the matchmaking system's shortcomings, and we want to change and improve it as much as you do. Instead of coming up with yet another Band-Aid that wouldn't actually fix the core of the problem, we've started a major modernization effort that can be summarized as "tear it all down and start over". The goal is for the new system to be much more flexible and easily modifiable so that we can readily add, remove and modify the rules that make up the system. However, as with many technical subjects, this turns out to be a long and time-consuming process. That's why, as of this writing, we still can't confirm that the matchmaking overhaul will be a part of this update. Our teams are doing everything they can to wrap this effort up as quickly as possible, and we'll keep you posted in the coming months on how their efforts are progressing.
Some questions for you
This devblog post is also an opportunity for us to gather your opinions on three important questions. They relate to what kind of experience you want to have in the Kolossium, and are therefore essential in helping us to bring you the best possible version of this game mode. To take part in this brief survey, click the link below:
Conclusion
We sincerely hope that all of these announcements have addressed your questions and concerns about the Kolossium. Whether it's for regular players, ex-regulars, or newcomers, we've tried to simplify the system and make it fairer and more attractive. We encourage you to share your detailed opinions and discuss the topic further in the comments to this devblog post. We're eager to read your feedback on the subject, and to let you test these changes in the end-of-year beta!