We are happy to present the new seasons of the Voltaic benchmarks, including a brand new energy system to acquire ranks, new scenarios to look forward to and better divided difficulties.
Below we’ll explain all the changes and elaborate on why we decided to create a new season and explain our reasoning for the rank reset.
Questions & Concerns
Why a new season?
It’s been nearly a year since we delivered a large update for our KovaaKs benchmarks and half a year for our Aim Lab benchmarks. By collecting feedback in the last 6–12 months we came up with come conclusive changes to improve the whole benchmark experience.
Why are the ranks getting reset?
With the improvements made to the benchmark scenarios and their scoring, combined with the sizable time gap between releases, this upcoming season’s ranks intrinsically hold little relation to the previous season. It also seemed evident by popular vote held in our discord, that Voltaic community members are excited to have new incentives to push themselves and compete to reach their potential within a new and refreshed system.
What happens to the old scenarios and progress sheet?
All of the old scenarios as well as the progress sheet will still be available. We will upload new scenarios with fresh new leaderboards for everyone.
All the updates for our benchmarks
Three part difficulty division & Iron Rank
When we first released our benchmarks with two separate difficulties, we expected that the benchmarks sufficiently covered all difficulty levels.
However after receiving feedback from our community (particularly on our subreddit), we found that beginners still felt excluded and outpaced at the lowest levels our previous benchmarks offered.
Our benchmarks are now divided in the following difficulties: Novice, Intermediate and Advanced.
Novice players can achieve the following ranks: Iron, Bronze, Silver and Gold.
Intermediate players can achieve: Platinum, Diamond, Jade and Master.
Advanced players can achieve: Grandmaster, Nova, Astra and Celestial.
More descriptive naming conventions
All our scenarios on both trainers now start with the VT prefix, this is done for consistency and to avoid having bloated scenario names.
On Aim Lab we decided to rename some of the scenarios that had names similar to KovaaKs due to the ambiguity for users that may not be familiar with this lingo.
Energy System
Achieving scores on our benchmarks now rewards users with energy.
How it works
- To achieve a certain rank you need to meet the energy threshold.
- Each subcategory awards energy for your highest achieved score.
- All your energy combined defines your final rank.
- Pushing your score closer to the next rank awards more energy.
- The amount of energy needed for each rank follows a linear progression, starting at 100 for Iron and increasing in increments of 100 all the way up to Celestial.
Why did we switch to the Energy System?
We noticed that players were being bottlenecked by some of their weaknesses a little too much. For instance someone could have Astra in all subcategories, apart from Static being Grandmaster, and as a result their final rank would be determined by their weakness, meaning that their final rank would be underrepresenting their actual ability. Since the benchmark’s objective is to measure your overall mouse control skill, it makes no sense for your final rank to be determined by your weakness, especially considering that players tend to be good at the subcategories that are related to their main game. The new system therefore complements everyone from various FPS titles as each title favors a different subcategory.
Scenario Changes
Aim Lab
Dynamic
Angleshot
- Movement is now smoother and more dynamic, also does not collide with walls anymore.
Waveshot
- Tall 120 degree map with bots that move in a wave-like motion.
- Replacing Floating Dots, because our team believes that the dynamic category should incorporate some sort of reactiveness/evasiveness in the bot patterns.
Arcshot
- Updated to have less bots jumping in your face, wider POV to make it incorporate more wrist movement, make it less possible for bots to spawn into your crosshair and more emphasis on precision.
Static
- Static is now divided in multiple levels: Sixshot for Novice, Fiveshot for Intermediate and Threeshot for Advanced.
Fourshot Wide
- Name change and only included in Advanced to add more options for the Advanced players.
Threeshot
- replaces 1w4ts, only 3 targets instead of 4.
Multishot 180
- 180 Static name changed to Multishot 120 for Intermediate and Multishot 180 for Advanced.
Precise
Suavetrack
- Smaller at advanced to put more emphasis on precision.
Steadytrack
- Replaces Angelic Sphere. 120 degree scenario with an orb that moves/floats around the map at varied speeds.
Minitrack
- Adjusted so it stays relatively far away from the player model and doesn’t become untraceable at times, increased speed to make the scenario smoother and more difficult.
Reactive
Blinktrack
- A better ZacXYZ scenario that stays on one wall and has varied hard to track strafes that require you to react constantly.
Pilltrack
- A horizontal exclusive reactive scenario with a cylinder shaped bot that rotates into different strafe profiles.
Spheretrack
- A sphere that strafe erratically on both vertical and horizontal angles and rotates into different strafe profiles.
Speed
Swayswitch
- Replaces pillTS. Very distinct and linear wave-like pattern with targets spawning at different elevations, sphere shaped.
Sphereswitch
- Will have sphere shaped targets and targets will no longer overlap, similar to switchtrack, but better.
Skyswitch
- Name change.
Evasive
Dodgeswitch
- Replaces siniTS and has a relatively varied and evasive pattern with higher ttk.
Angleswitch
- Added a slightly more complex dodge pattern, pushed the player model back, and increased the size of the map. Healthbars have been fixed, and the fire rate for the weapon has been increased so that the weapon is more accurate.
Arcswitch
- Same improvements as Arc 180, but with more horizontal bias and bigger targets.
KovaaKs
Overall changes
- Two scenarios per subcategory.
- The addition of strafe/movement, as a requirement for the complete benchmarks for advanced and intermediate players.
Vaulted scenarios
Scenarios that we will no longer use for our benchmarks
- Air Angelic
- FuglaaXYZ
- Popcorn
- Original Bounce
- Ww3t
- patTS
- SmoothbotTS
Dynamic
Pasu
- Back to reload to maintain a consistent scoring system.
Bounceshot
- Replaces Popcorn and Bounce.
- 120 degree map, bounce-like, but with smaller target sizes and more vertical bias.
Static
- Static is now divided in multiple levels:
- 1w3ts for Advanced
- 1w5ts for Intermediate
- 1w6ts for Novice
1w3ts
- Replaces 1w4ts, only 3 targets instead of 4.
Multishot 180
- Replaces both 6 Sphere and Wide Wall, larger angles and more variety in static.
- 180 degree map with various spheres spawning at different distances and angles.
Strafe Clicking
- Scenarios require you to constantly move, there is a max movement score that can be easily achieved as long as the player continues moving.
AngleStrafe
- Diagonal moving targets that switch directions periodically.
- 120 degree map with restricted movement to force strafes and max movement score to retain eliminations as the main objective.
BounceStrafe
- Bouncing targets with varied jump height.
- 120 degree map with restricted movement to force strafes and max movement score to retain eliminations as the main objective.
Precise
Smoothbot
- Increased border size around player, small amount of acceleration to the jumps so it’s not an instant upwards motion. Minimum time that bot moves in one direction so it consistently hits top speed. Reduces randomness and adds more emphasis on precision.
PreciseOrb
- Replaces PGTI.
- PGTI, but actually trackable, similar to where we have it in Aim Lab, target size change, and velocity not as extreme, so it feels more like you’re tracking enemies on jump pads and headshotting them.
Reactive
VT Ground Varied
- A horizontal exclusive reactive scenario with a cylinder shaped bots that rotates into different strafe profiles.
- Undesired randomness minimized due to target changing strafe profiles every 10–15 seconds. Scenario lasts for a fixed time and is less exhausting.
VT Air Varied
- A sphere that strafe erratically on both vertical and horizontal angles and rotates into different strafe profiles.
- Undesired randomness minimized due to target changing strafe profiles every 10–15 seconds. Scenario lasts for a fixed time and is less exhausting.
Strafe Tracking
- Scenarios require you to constantly move, there is a max movement score that can be easily achieved as long as the player continues moving.
PillStrafe
- Reactive pill shaped bot with varied horizontal strafes.
- Map with bots spawning and various locations for about 1 minute and 30 seconds, restricted movement to force strafes and max movement score to retain eliminations as the main objective.
SkyStrafe
- Reactive sphere shaped target that strafes on both horizontal and vertical angles.
- 120 degree map with restricted movement to force strafes and max movement score to retain eliminations as the main objective.
Speed
- Damage based scoring so leaderboard ties are less problematic and leaving bots unfinished isn’t as punishing.
psalmTS
- Unchanged.
skyTS
- Renamed and improved version of vox, by applying the same changes as berryTS on Aim Lab.
Evasive
- Damage based scoring so leaderboard ties are less problematic and leaving bots unfinished isn’t as punishing.
evaTS
- Slightly improved kinTS, with centred player model.
bounceTS
- 120 degree map, bots can’t get stuck in corners.
