There’s no denying or avoiding the fact that Lockdown has become a major part of Spiral Knights, perhaps an even bigger part than 3 rings first envisioned. Therefore, it is high time that 3 rings gave us leaderboards that reflect the importance of this aspect of the game.

When the leaderboards first appeared, many players probably rejoiced to have some record of weekly achievement while simultaneously being disappointed in what exactly was being measured. The point system is “pointless” – a toilet paper thin disguise for a mere record of who plays the most games. Any players with the time to burn and the obsessive desire to do so can sit atop the leaderboards regardless of skill or merit.

Furthermore, there is no realistic way of stopping “cheating”. Any guild can create an alternate to guild to play against in order to inflate their numbers. This is true whether the leaderboards simply measure number of games played, winning percentage, damage points, or anything else. Guilds could even selectively limit their play to much weaker guilds, even going so far as bribing other guilds to roll over.

There are a few things that Spiral Knights could do to give meaning and integrity to the leaderboards.

First, in order to make the leaderboards a meaningful measure of skill, make the leaderboards a measure of highscore winning average. Limit games to 5 minutes or whatever. The leaderboards could reflect the highest winning score for a guild that has played at least 20 games (or whatever) against at least 5 different guilds (or whatever).

Second, the Game Masters need to treat “cheating” of the system as they would other games violations. Cheating in this case would be using a guild of alts to inflate one’s standing, or selectively playing only a few guilds repeatedly for the same effect. If the programming gives Game Masters a record of who guilds are playing against, they could easily spot abuses.

Response to violations would follow the system Game Masters currently use.

1) a warning: post it in the guild’s daily message on their guild hall console. It could stay there for 3 days (or whatever) and could not be changed or removed during that time.

2) a temporary ban FROM THE LEADERBOARDS ONLY: this would be from a Sunday to Saturday.

3) Should the warning and temp ban fail to stop the cheating, the offending guild would be permanently banned FROM THE LEADERBOARDS ONLY. They could still play lockdown as much as they wish, but would forfeit their privilege to appear on the leaderboards.

NOTE: This is not a rant against or attack on The Jempire. They are almost certainly the most skilled guild in Lockdown and with so much of a headstart that no other guild will likely catch them anytime soon, but the current system does not give them a chance to prove this, while leaving them open to criticism, fair or unfair as it may be.

3 Rings, please remove the current leaderboards that only serve to clown you and frustrate your player base, and install oversight and replace the leaderboards with those that reflect skill and reward merit with integrity.

Thank you.