Due to the ever increasing gap between Grandmaster and Ascended, the community requested a new rank in between them: Nova. We had to make sure that it would be difficult to achieve yet still exclusive. We decided to go with fixed scoring based on community feedback, this means, unlike ascended, the scores will not dynamically change based on the position of the leaderboard. Instead the scores will be predetermined just like Grandmaster and below.
Just like Grandmaster, Nova will require you to record video evidence. However, since this rank is even more difficult to achieve, we may require you to livestream or bootstream as well before granting the role.
In addition, you must submit your scores to the leaderboards volt sheet. We do this so we can keep track of everyone’s scores and video submissions in one place, as well as check if people still meet the requirements after there are necessary tweaks to the scores.
What about some benchmarks changes?
We have already planned a few changes to the benchmarks, that we will release as soon as the leaderboard reset happens (we have no ETA when this will happen). This includes slight buffs to some of the Grandmaster score targets as well as changing some flawed scenarios.
A few of the scenarios that we are planning to change or replace:
- Thin Gauntlet (due to favoring extremely low sensitivities)
- patTS (we can get better target switching scenarios)
- devTS (requires too little mouse motion)
- Pistol Strafe Gallery Sparky (not exactly the benchmark we hoped it would be, favors spam-clicking and too much randomness due to stairs)
- kinTS (some map optimizations)
- Pasu Track Invincible (will be optimized to reduce randomness in strafe patterns, smaller target size and possibly map change with larger angles)
We also had a few substitute scenarios in mind. Note that these may need to be edited or optimized still for them to be benchmark-worthy:
- Smoothbot Invincible Goated (potential replacement for Thin Gauntlet)
- Smoothsphere (potential replacement for Thin Gauntlet)
- Air II UFOs (potential replacement for Thin Gauntlet)
- Tile Frenzy Strafing 400% (potential replacement for devTS/patTS)
- Psalmflick ST Sparky v2 (potential replacement for devTS/patTS)
- Bounce CT Dodge Park (potential for Pistol Strafe Gallery Sparky)
- Pasu TI Sparky (potential better version for Pasu Track Invincible)
- kinTS NR v2 (potential better version for kinTS NR)
You can see the new rank changes live soon. The changes may take a few minutes to be visible live.
Check out the benchmark document here
Check out there volt rankings sheet here
Check out the progression sheet here
