Contest logic?

[Dinocanid]

I'm in the process of creating a way for users to enter their pets in contests. The idea is that they enter a pet and the contest runs on a specific day. You can only enter contests on specific days as well, to prevent sniping. The pet with the highest of a specific stat has the highest chance of winning (there will be different contests for different stats or stat sets), but I don't want that pet to win all the time since then they could continuously enter and nobody else would ever win. Users can breed for better stats, but I don't want a situation where one person dominates the field and wins week after week. Here are some ways I think would prevent this:

• Contests are already divided into tiers (placing top 3 moves you up one), so each tier could have a maximum stat count. This prevents players who played longer from constantly crushing the newbies
  
• Cooldown times for winning. If you win a contest, you can't enter that same contest the next week.
  
• Retirement. Pets don't age on my site, but maybe one pet can only enter a limited number of contests? It adds to strategy, and gives more incentive to breeding more adopts instead of maintaining just the best one.
  

 

[Digital]

I would say that point 2 and 3 are probably the best to avoid abuse. My suggestion would make the cooldown also a little longer then just one contest cycle, like 2 or 3. It will be long enough that most won't bother to try and continuously put in the same pet. It will also encourage more planning when you have a month to win.

Retirement is also a great idea, as it will also help keep those dedicated to always winning even with the above.

 

[Anoua]

I think those are all great options. Having different tiers is nice for newbies or even more casual players, and then the cool downs and retirements force more dedicated players or ones with more time to keep rotating. 

I don't think making a 2-3 delay is bad, but depends on the retirement limit too. Would need to be a good balance so that people don't feel like there's no point in raising/breeding creatures. Honestly probably just requires a lot of testing to get the ideal balance.