Battle Ball – the first tournament

First, I want to thank everyone who participated in the tournament. I had a blast dropping in and out of spectating a number of your games. Battle Ball has been something that’s long been requested by the Habbo community, and to be able to bring it back for you all in Origins, is something the team and I have been super excited about.

❗ The team is currently looking through the top 40 players on each hotel and verifying the scores. We hope to have the final rankings published later this week!

The future of Battle Ball

Having listened to your feedback and thoughts over the past week, it’s also obvious that we dropped the ball, and need to improve the game in a number of ways. We told you that we wanted this competition to be about skill, and not pure time-commitment, and due to oversights in the scoring system this didn’t hold true, and for a number of you that meant an inability to compete seriously because of the time required to do so, we want to improve on this.

We want to recognise the time, and dedication spent by the thousands of you playing daily to try and reach the top ranks, by sending all competitors a new Battle Ball Trophy, inscribed with your name, and final standing in the competition. We’re not quite ready to show this yet, but will have them all sent soon. We plan to make this a staple reward for competitors within these seasonal games, but may adjust the requirements to receive one in the future.

Battle Ball will be moving to a season style setup – we want to routinely run these competitions but we will be making changes season upon season to keep the game fresh, and the competition fair, some of our immediate thoughts for the next season include things like:

1. Improving our scoring system, so that you really do lose points upon defeat.
2. Modifying the behaviour and spawn mechanics of certain power ups, for example:
   1. Changing spawn locations of power-ups so they appear in fixed areas at certain times.
   2. Changing mechanics of power-ups, for example, changing the Bomb so it stops when you bump into another player, or updating the Harlequin so that everybody switches teams.
   3. Randomising the spawn locations of players, so you do not always start in the same locations.
3. Looking at lessening lobby restrictions, so we do not have players joining late unable to compete.
4. Limiting the number of games a player can play during a season, to ensure a flat, even field.
5. Removal of the customisation mechanic in lobbies, ensuring players cannot fix games in a way that ensures maximum points.
6. A switch to a game queue system, ensuring players cannot simply play off against alternate accounts to climb in the rankings.

While we cannot promise all changes, give a definitive list, or tell you exactly what will change season to season so far ahead of its launch, I can promise that we will continue working towards a system that remains competitive, but is fairer to our player base across the board.

We’re looking forward to seeing you bounce in the first Battle Ball Season, coming soon!

- Macklebee