Rank S: How to potentially fix the headache that is ESEA Rank S

TL;DR: I’ve outlined how to potentially fix all these Rank S problems and below are some spark notes. If you want a more in depth discussion on the notes, just scroll down.



1. Improving lower ranks (A-D)



2. Improving how players get into Rank S



3. Improving how teams are picked / captain ( A / BB / AA / B / A / B / A / B)



4. Some type of punishment system



5. Rank S Player Council



6. Product Manager of Rank S / Rank S Liaison





To make Rank S better, we need to first improve how people are ranking up and actually getting into Rank S. Right now, you get into Rank S a couple ways and these need improving.



1. Improving Lower Ranks (A-D) - There needs to be a different ranking/elo system. I’ll write something up to go more in depth later, but ESEA needs to basically copy how League Of Legends does their ranking system. Have a Ranked queue where you can only Solo/Duo queue and then have an un-ranked queue of 3 or more people, but still have hidden mmr for 3 or more queue. After each ESEA League Season, everyone would get a "soft" reset in their rank and would have to do their placements again.



2. Improving how players get into Rank S - There needs to be a separate rank A+ queue that players can queue into and play seriously, we’ll call it Rank S Challenger for now. Right now, there are 1,000 people in rank A+ currently, and that is too many people to do what I want with Rank A+.



The dream “Rank A+ queue” or “Rank S Challenge” would look like the following:

-500 or so people, this way you have queues all day.

-Everyone required to have a microphone (common sense) to make comms. If you don’t have a mic, you can’t play. If a player doesn’t have a mic, player will be kicked.

-Required to either be in a VOIP (TeamSpeak/Mumble/Discord) with deadtalk off, or no requirement to be in a VOIP and have a 10 second callout people like it is now. This way, players learn to comm with others.

-Top 3(?) performing/points get into Rank S at the end of the month.

-Maybe free ESEA Insider to top 20 or monetary compensation so people keep grinding.

-miminics Rank S, just less skilled players in Rank S Challenger.



In Dazed’s “Rank S Thoughts” TwitLonger, he said players that get added aren’t ready and are “extremely hesitant” and I believe this Rank S Challenger would help get players ready by playing with players at their skill level. Once these players get familiar with everyone they kind of have their own "challenger community" where they can start forming teams and trying to rise through the ranks to premier (thanks autimatic!)



Another way for players to be added if this “Rank A+ Challenger” queue doesn’t work out, is we could have bi-weekly discussions with the Rank S Council in a Whatsapp group and have them veto or accept new players.



After making Rank S a little harder to get into, we need to fix the actual Rank S problems.



3. Captain Fairness / Picking teams - Right now, captains are based off of highest points. 10 players are in queue, the captains are picked by highest points, which is fine. The problem lies how players are picked by the captains. Currently, teams are picked like A / B / A / B / A / B / A / B, it should be changed to ( A / BB / AA / B / A / B / A / B), which is a much better way. Currently, if Stewie and dephh are captains, Stewie will get first pick, he’ll get someone like autimatic, Dephh will get the next best player, then stewie will get another insane player, leaving teams a little stacked.



Currently: A / B / A / B / A / B / A / B

Proposed new way: A / BB / AA / B / A / B / A / B



4. After the match is live, Rank S runs into other problems. Sometimes, someone is afk or doesn’t join. As Dazed said, the grace period should be 5 minutes. However, we run into more problems during live Rank S games. Sometimes, one person isn’t feeling it that day, either they aren’t making callouts for whatever reason, so players get mad at them.



Rank S needs some type of punishment system - Currently, Rank S only has 1 ban reason “Rank S Conduct Violation”, which is fine, but that’s all we have. We need to have a punishment system that works for Rank S, something that Rank S Players Council deals with, then the Rank S Coordinator signs off on it. If a player breaks a rule, he needs to be warned, then banned, then removed from Rank S, in that order. Rank S players need a way to anonymously report players too.



5. Rank S Players Council - There should be a Players Council that helps with Rank S Coordinator make decisions and other Rank S things. One thing a player who is in the Rank S Players Council be is active in Rank S. If needed, the player can be paid in monetary compensation for actively helping Rank S.



6. As of right now, Rank S has one person managing everything, which is Few. He has said many times that he isn’t the right person for the job, and I agree, he has too many things on his plate to run Rank S. He is the Product Manager of ESEA, he has many many other things to worry about, so it’s very understanding why he can’t also safely run Rank S by himself.



Product Manager of Rank S / Rank S Liaison - This person would be in charge of Rank S of NA and EU, and also would be on 100% of the time Rank S pugs are going on, and be on call other times. The Product Manager of Rank S would make themselves always available to Rank S Players when needed and would help police the Rank A+ Challenger. Also needs to be respected by the pros and is able to go to most NA/EU events to help grow/gain feedback for Rank S in NA or EU. Basically, this person oversees anything Rank S / Rank A+ Challenger related, such as cancelling matches when appropriate.



I’m not writing this to make Rank S perfect, because it will never be perfect, but I can always try to improve it and make Rank S a better experience for everyone involved. I know a lot of other rank S issues weren't addressed in this post, such as disconnects and other stuff, I'm just trying to outline the most important and pressing stuff.



If you have any suggestions to this, feel free to contact me on Twitter - https://twitter.com/PriusCSGO

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