What Makes a Good Rank System?

[Sengoku Strider]

One of the things I'm struggling with right now is elements like picking up power ups in Sōkyūgurentai causing the rank to jack up dramatically. I absolutely love the game, but this is annoying - it punishes new players for trying to have a fighting chance, though ultimately that's manageable, just makes it a tougher game. What kinda irks me is that cool weapons are one of the core appeals of the genre. Much of the time it's really the only method of interaction you have with the game, aside from just moving your ship around on screen. Disincentivizing that seems counter to good design.

On the other hand, I know Garegga does the same thing and people love its rank system. I can appreciate that it's like having a PSN trophy goal built in, clearing the game & scoring well with as little firepower as possible. But it kind of makes me think some games might be served well just by letting you toggle rank off, or at least dial it down - though I guess that's essentially what easier difficulty modes do.

What games do you feel handle rank well, and what are the elements that make them successful? What have they avoided implementing to become successful?

[Rastan78]

To me a good rank system adds to the long term interest of a game. Basically higher scores mean learning to play at higher rank.

I think a lot of times beginners are over thinking it bc without really pushing the game hard you aren't getting into extreme rank territory. In Garegga for example, staying a power up or two shy of maxing out with your shot and options is a good idea, but you will be rewarded with more ability to get points off bullet ticking on the bosses which will again increase rank. Certain bosses will have more destructible bullets firing which also gets a few more points. Leaving bosses alive to milk points longer, same thing. So its more when you start adding in all the scoring tricks that things will get rocky fast.

Maybe it seems daunting for beginners to have to think about, but there's a reason why some players come back to this game for years. Learning basic rank control is simple. Learning to play for score while also not pushing the rank past your current skill level is another thing and can take years to fully master. Get too greedy going for points and you might pay the price later.

Darius Gaiden works basically the same way. You won't really get into max rank territory until you are destroying every boss part and getting every enemy destruction bonus. More points means more difficulty. This keeps the game from becoming stale for good players who want to play the game for the long haul even after getting a clear is no big deal.

On the opposite side of the coin, I would say a bad rank design is one where the challenge becomes overly brutal regardless of what the player does, or there is no reward score wise for playing at higher ranks.

[Eaglet]

On the other hand, I know Garegga does the same thing and people love its rank system.

Garegga works very differently which I'll explain below. I also don't think that people love the game for its rank system. Most of all players love it because of its stage design, aesthetic and boss fights. Some weirdos do love the effects of the rank system though (as in added depth), but not the system itself.

In Garegga for example, staying a power up or two shy of maxing out with your shot and options is a good idea, but you will be rewarded with more ability to get points off bullet ticking on the bosses which will again increase rank. Certain bosses will have more destructible bullets firing which also gets a few more points.

Shot power doesn't really affect much in Garegga except for with Wild Snail max level and Grasshopper special level.
Destructible bullets also give virtually no points (I think it's 10 points each?).


Greg rank
The Garegga rank system is very different from the rank system in Soukyugurentai. In Garegga, pretty much every action performed by the player except for movement affects the rank. In Soukyugurentai, the only thing that has any controllable effect on the rank system is picking up powerups.
Garegga also has a means of decreasing the current rank level by dying/suiciding.
Soukyugurentai has no such means to my knowledge.


I think what makes Soukyugurentai's rank system a failure is not just that it's simplistic, but that it's coupled with the bomb count bug.
If there was any incentive on the players side to increase rank to get higher scores there would be room for interesting manipulation of the system and added depth.
In Garegga, there is such an incentive, even if it's not working as well from this perspective as something like Batrider.
In Batrider, higher rank will lead to higher scoring possibilities in a lot of places. In Garegga, the only place where higher rank is beneficial for scoring is BH2.
In fact, scoring possibilities mostly decrease quite massively for almost all ships without great rank control in Garegga.

Garegga is a great and loved game not because of its rank system but for other reasons.
Batrider isn't loved for its rank system either, even if it's much better implemented.

[Rastan78]

Shot power doesn't really affect much in Garegga except for with Wild Snail max level and Grasshopper special level.
Destructible bullets also give virtually no points (I think it's 10 points each?).

Take a ship like Miyamoto for example. If you grab four options and max your shot rate to 30hz right on the first stage you can already see a decent increase in the amount of points you can milk from ticking the wings of the first boss. But then you have to deal with the resulting increase in rank however much that may be. So most players will try to find a balance between scoring and survival that works for their given skill knowing that the last two stages are pretty tough.

As far as destructible bullets, can't a character like Gain get a pretty good chunk off the second Black Heart at high rank if they have several bombs stored? Sorry if my memory is off on that one.

Also, I'm not sure which scoring opportunities go out the window at higher rank, but doesn't rank effect enemy durability? Doesn't this combined with the fact that you get tick points from your bullets hitting enemies add up to a significant difference over the course of the game?

Anyway I was just trying to make a general point that a good rank system has an interesting balance between scoring and rank that keeps things fresh over time. Even watching an expert run through of Garegga you are never quite sure of the clear bc the player may have pushed rank through the roof by the time they get to the final boss. So there's still that tension.

I would also say its good to remember that rank control methods are really more a reaction to the game design by players who have gained deeper insight into how the system works, not always part of how the game may have been intended to be played by the designers.

[To Far Away Times]

A good rank system is one that doesn't exist.

[Eaglet]

Take a ship like Miyamoto for example. If you grab four options and max your shot rate to 30hz right on the first stage you can already see a decent increase in the amount of points you can milk from ticking the wings of the first boss.

Those are tic points though, which are an entirely different breed than destructible bullets. You can also get quite a good tic point score using Miyamoto with as little as 10hz.

But then you have to deal with the resulting increase in rank however much that may be.

Putting 30hz at the start with Miyamoto will totally destroy any possibility of high scores. Might be possible to clear, but I'm skeptical.

As far as destructible bullets, can't a character like Gain get a pretty good chunk off the second Black Heart at high rank if they have several bombs stored? Sorry if my memory is off on that one.

Those are grenades, which are an entirely different beast. All ships can use bombs to "bomb the explosions" that the grenades give off when destroyed for a score boost.
Destructible bullets are orange/red and give virtually no points.

Also, I'm not sure which scoring opportunities go out the window at higher rank, but doesn't rank effect enemy durability? Doesn't this combined with the fact that you get tick points from your bullets hitting enemies add up to a significant difference over the course of the game?

Yes, it most crucially affects enemy durability.
No, that adds up to a miniscule difference, if any. Most of the score when it comes to dealing with enemies and bosses in the game come from using special weapons with very specific timing. When the durability is too high it's not possible to get max score from these instances.
Tic point milking also doesn't make any difference as the points where you tic point milk are in places where you shoot at something indestructible, and all bosses eventually timeout.

To give an example:
In stage 5, a major part of the stage score comes from bombing the propellers and engines on the flying platforms (correctly done it's a total of 960k just for the bombing). With a ship like Chitta, at minimum rank (requiring advanced rank control) this requires a minimum of 5 bomb fragments for each bomb (each platform requiring two bombs).
For a player who is not a pro it's more realistic for platforms to require 6 or 7 fragments at the least due to increased durability. This makes it impossible to bomb all engines since there aren't enough fragments to go around.

Anyway I was just trying to make a general point that a good rank system has an interesting balance between scoring and rank that keeps things fresh over time. Even watching an expert run through of Garegga you are never quite sure of the clear bc the player may have pushed rank through the roof by the time they get to the final boss. So there's still that tension.

The tension in Garegga comes more from randomness in my opinion. With good routing you can pretty much ensure the same rank throughout the run if you execute it well. Randomness however, makes sure that no run can ever look exactly the same.

I would also say its good to remember that rank control methods are really more a reaction to the game design by players who have gained deeper insight into how the system works, not always part of how the game may have been intended to be played by the designers.

I agree that the way Garegga is played is largely a "happy accident". However, the game was designed with some form of rank control in mind. There is enough proof to suggest this.
Batriders rank system however was explicitly designed with rank control in mind (a prime indicator of this is the fact that collecting extends increase rank). It also irons out the weird bugs from the Garegga implementation (such as low value medals increasing rank in Garegga, when in Batrider/Bakraid it is the high value medals that increase rank) and bad design decisions (such as frame rank being permanently raised when increasing auto-fire rate).

[pegboy]

A good rank system is one that doesn't exist.

This.

Or if there is a rank system, make it obvious with a number on screen that shows how/when it increases or decreases. Magic rank systems behind the scenes that require disassembling the code to understand is a hallmark of terrible game design.

[Rastan78]

Eaglet, thanks for explaining the finer points. When I said destructible bullets I was thinking of the grenades so I used the wrong terminology.

I wasn't suggesting to actually start out with 30 hz and 4 options with Miyamoto on a normal game. Just saying that if you test this out on the first stage you will see that your score will be increased significantly for the first stage but then you will have to deal with a bad situation later. So it's about having a good balance between aggressive scoring and rank control. I did this before out of curiosity to see how the rank would change and to see how many points were possible on the first stage alone. Garrega caravan mode lol

I've been wondering about rank in Darius Gaiden and how it affects scoring. Rank in this game is pretty similar to Garegga in that most things you do in the game affect rank. A big difference is that if you are going for high score you basically won't do anything for rank control except limit when you level up and your amount of shots fired or autofire usage.

But whats confusing is I've seen high level replays where the player avoids shooting as much as possible and only uses 15 hz auto to try to contain rank and other high level replays where 30 hz auto is held down constantly to increase rank. The difference in final score is small so whats the advantage to increasing the rank? I think it may just be a few minor areas that lead to increased enemy spawns or milking potential. Unlike Garegga this game is actually manageable at max rank, its just a lot more difficult. Especially when it comes to capturing all midbosses.

[MathU]

Hellsinker has an excellent adaptive difficulty system. It's upfront, it allows the player frequent opportunities to reduce it, and has a ceiling that is manageable by expert players. Defeating Hellsinker at maxed difficulty without getting hit is no small feat though, and the rewards are immense.

I've been wondering about rank in Darius Gaiden and how it affects scoring. Rank in this game is pretty similar to Garegga in that most things you do in the game affect rank. A big difference is that if you are going for high score you basically won't do anything for rank control except limit when you level up and your amount of shots fired or autofire usage.

Careful control over how many and which boss body parts the player destroys is also important without rapidfire cheats depending on the route. The minibosses in the final couple of stages can have so much health at high difficulty levels that depending on the stage it's inconsistent to downright impossible to dislodge their control orbs without killing them without the assistance of rapidfire, and their bonuses are sometimes worth more than the potential point gain of body part destruction.

Edit for clarity, since I've been testing out stage 6 and 7 miniboss practice at maximum rank again lately.

[el_rika]

Daifukkatsu Black Label

No bullshit, no tricks, you know exactly what is waiting when you see all RED

[Herr Schatten]

I kind of like the simplistic rank in Trizeal. There's only two states, rank on or off, and they are only dependent on the number of powerups collected. It would be nice if there was a way of turning rank off other than dying, though.

Best rank system is probably Ibara Arrange, because it's an integral part of scoring there.

[Rastan78]

A good rank system is one that doesn't exist.

A lot of times a rank system is sort of a necessary evil. Think of a game like Gradius where it becomes so much easier when you are powered up. There has to be some way to compensate for this because it can feel very imbalanced (way too hard when underpowered and a bit easy when fully powered). This imbalance would be much worse with no rank system.

Of course you could simplify or remove the power up system in order to reduce this disparity. Balancing would be much easier, but then Gradius would have completely lost it's originality and identity.

You could say the rank system here also increases player choice and flexibility. Do you feel safer running with 4 options plus shield and laser rocking, but also having to deal with faster bullets? Or would you rather stay a bit underpowered? That's another layer of strategy that's up to the player to decide.