SpriteClub FAQ

[Arxos]

Specifically for the M.U.G.E.N stream, a more detailed and prettier FAQ can be found here.

Is this real money?
No, all the money is fake.
Furthermore, a bailout is in place, a minimum amount that you cannot drop under. In other words, you can't go broke!
Your bailout amount is based on your level, read more below.

Experience
Experience is earned from betting on matches.
For each bet you gain at least 1 XP. If you win, you will also get XP equal to the odds on that fight (so if your payout is 4x your bet amount, you will gain 4 XP).
Lastly, your winstreak acts as a multiplier on XP earned. For every winstreak, XP earned is increased by 50%.

Levels
Once enough experience is earned, you'll gain a level. Levels affect your bailout.
Your bailout is equal to 190 + 10 * level (=200 on level 1) for matchmaking and tournaments.
During tournaments, your bailout is increased to 485 + 15 * level (=500 on level 1). Tournaments use a separate balance from other game modes. Your money will be summed together once the tournament concludes.

What is this weird talk in chat?
You might be wondering what all the ZPC and CatfishBeater is about in chat. We use FrankerFaceZ (available here), or just FFZ, to use custom emoticons. A full list of the custom emoticons available from FrankerFaceZ can be found here.
If you're interested in using FFZ, a convenient extension to FrankerFaceZ is the 'FrankerFaceZ Add-On Pack', which you can check out here.
None of these extensions are required to bet on SpriteClub, but they may improve your chat experience!

How do I set my avatar?
SpriteClub is integrated with Gravatar. Simply sign up for Gravatar with the same e-mail address as you've registered with on SpriteClub and you'll be able to change your avatar.

Profile options
SpriteClub users have a number of customisation options. For one, SpriteClub will automatically ping you whenever a match opens for betting. The volume for this can be controlled in your profile, found by clicking on your name in the top right.
There are other settings in your profile as well, so check them out!

[Arxos]

This post explains the basic of the game modes and matchmaking logic and some of the not-so-obvious things the stream matchmaker will do.
Feel free to post in this thread for clarification or discussion. Nothing is set in stone regarding the matchmaking logic!

Before I begin, a number of general points should be clarified:

• Prior to the launch of this stream each character played a minimum of 25 rated matches in internal preliminary matches. The ratings each character had at the end determined which Division (s)he started in.
  
• Within matchmaking each character is typically limited to using palette 1-4, but a number of characters are limited to other palette's. You can view the palette's that each character is restricted to on their respective pages, for example here is a character with a number of special restrictions on the palette's.
  
• Matches will be timed out after 10 minutes.
  
• Matches in which the in-game time has been stuck for 3 minutes will also be timed out.
  

Matchmaking
Matchmaking will randomly generate matches using one of three criteria's. Each criteria has its own stats. All modes can generate 1v1, 2v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 matches. Note that 3v3 and 4v4 only supports turns-mode, not simul mode.

Free
This mode is 100% random! Anything can happen and any palette that isn't banned explicitly can be selected.
This mode doesn't show up very often and is unlikely to generate fair matches, but there's potential for some crazy things to happen!

Rated
This mode uses rating to determine good matches and is generally the most even mode.
The ratings are mostly hidden right now, but characters earn more rating if they win convincingly or if they beat characters with a higher rating than their own.
The algorithm starts by selecting a random character, and will find a good match for that character afterwards. Thus, this mode is biased to generate matches for ratings where there are a lot of characters around that rating.
On rated mode 2v1's will only occur with the characters on the team side are 1000-1750 rated. As for the solo character, his/her rating is based on the team's rating through an algorithm that usually generates fair matches. The difference in rating between the team and the solo player is larger at lower ratings, as lower rated characters have more difficulty fighting 2v1.

Divisions
There are a total of 5 divisions, with 1 being the stronger and 5 being the weakest. In order for characters to move between divisions they must win or lose subsequent matches and gain a high win/loss streak. A character's win/loss streak is indicator by the number within brackets once the match starts. Characters can move between divisions in the following ways:

• Characters with a win streak of 5 or more will be matched against a character of a higher division. If they win, they will be promoted into that division.
  
• Characters with a loss streak of 5 or more (i.e. -5 winstreak) will be matched against a character of a lower division. If they lose, they will be demoted into that division.
  
• Characters in 1st Division cannot promote.
  
• Characters in 5th Division can demote to F Division by going to a winstreak of -9 and then losing again. Although the last fight is also called a boss fight, it is still against a regular 5th Division character.
  

Note that characters cannot move divisions outside of 1v1 matchmaking matches. This includes custom modes such as King of the Hill, but does not include tournament matches.

Divisions is the mode which is selected most often, with there being an additional bias towards specific divisions. Currently, these bias' are 3rd > 4th > 5th > 2nd > 1st, although considering the size of the 2nd division you'll see characters from the 2nd division more often than those from the 5th.
Due to extreme unbalances in different divisions, 2v1 mode is not used for Division-based matchmaking.


Tournaments
Tournaments come in a number of variations as it'll randomly determine the matchups in a similar fashion to Matchmaking. For the most part everything is identical but there are a few restrictions:

• 1st Division tournaments will not occur
  
• Ranked tournaments range from a minimum 1200 rating to a maximum of 1850 rating, or 1750 for 2v1's
  
• For larger tournaments than 16-bracket, the minimum rating/division requirement is higher.
  
• Just like matchmaking, any non-1v1 tournaments will contribute to free stats and will not affect rating or winstreak.
  
• Each character will use the same palette throughout the entire tournament
  

Tournaments can occur in both single elimination (with third place decider) and double elimination format (lower bracket is best of 3).
Sizes range from as little as 8 characters (guaranteed double elimination) up to a maximum of 64 (guaranteed single elimination).

Additionally, when a tournament match crashes, times out or draws the match will start anew (no payouts will occur). If this occurs 3 times in a row, the total round score across these 3 matches will be used to determine the outcome if possible. If the score is equal, a winner will be randomly selected.


Exhibitions
Exhibitions are matches requested by the users, currently there are 25 exhibition matches in a single rotation.
All exhibition matches will contribute to free stats and will not affect rating or winstreak.
Character palette's can be banned from selection, and will be done so if a certain palette is very prone to crashing or timeouts.
Turns mode is available in exhibitions as well, but demands that both teams are of equal size. If you wish to do a 1v4, I recommend just adding useless characters such as "The Kid".

If you wish to select a random character, simply type 'random' in the character field and the autocomplete will give you several choices.

[Arxos]

Debut Mode
Debut mode is a special mode that, currently, starts bi-weekly on the first matchmaking session after Friday 7 PM UTC.
During debuts mode characters are gradually added to a 'NEW pool'. This pool will add up to 25 characters to the NEW pool. Once the NEW pool is filled, no new characters will be introduced until one completes its debut matches.

Each new character starts at the default of 1500 rating and after a total of 10 rated matches against the existing roster, the character will be assigned a Division. The exact rating -> Division numbers are:

• 1400 or less: 5th Division
  
• 1401-1550: 4th Division
  
• 1551-1700: 3rd Division
  
• 1701-1800: 2nd Division
  
• 1801 or more: 1st Division
  

During debut matches the new character gains/loses rating at a greatly increased speed, gradually reducing to a normal speed as it approaches the end of its 10 matches. The existing characters that they are matched against do not gain or lose any rating for debut matches.

If you wish to see the list of characters that were added during debuts, you can check the session page for one of these debut session. For example: https://spriteclub.tv/session?id=2569