It’s possible that many leaderboard players started grinding the respective game years ago
The leaderboard threshold continuously increases over time. While 1,000 wins in a game years ago could have landed someone on a leaderboard, if the threshold for that same leaderboard were at 3,000 wins today, someone would have to grind the game 3x faster than the other person did earlier on to reach the leaderboard in the same amount of time (in the case that the person starts at somewhere near 0 wins)
If someone grinds for a leaderboard with a lot of dedication and makes it onto it, how much dedication would it take for someone else to reach that leaderboard later on when the threshold doubles, triples, or even quadruples?
To add to that, after someone makes it onto a leaderboard, they probably have more confidence at that point to gain more wins to climb the leaderboard, but I imagine the road to reach the leaderboard being much more difficult, especially for those who haven’t reached one yet. I say this from experience from when I reached 1,000 wins in SkyWars: before I reached it, it seemed far off and somewhat unimaginable, but once I reached it, the idea of reaching 1,000 wins didn’t appear as difficult now that the goal had been confirmed as reachable
This is where seasonal leaderboards could be good. However, there are some things to consider with seasonal leaderboards. Firstly, I wonder what time period could define a season?
I’m concerned that seasonal leaderboards could make the threshold for the main leaderboards rise even faster, as the seasonal one might get lots of competition, resulting in players earning wins quickly (especially if those already on a leaderboard try to get onto the seasonal one as well). This could also make the seasonal leaderboard quite difficult to reach.
Since the regular leaderboards can be quite a challenge to get onto, many players might aim for the seasonal leaderboard instead, which is why I imagine there being competition.
However, I also think that the seasonal leaderboard could be a sort of “secondary leaderboard” for those who seek to place on the regular leaderboard but are far from the goal. It could function as sort of a “bridge” to the regular leaderboard. With this, players could feel the sense of accomplishment of being on a leaderboard without having to reach as high of a threshold
I think that the two concepts above should be balanced, which is where the time period of a season comes in.
I imagine players being more competitive when it comes to longer-term leaderboards (such as a yearly one), while short-term leaderboards could be seen as not appealing enough since, in the case of a weekly leaderboard, it’ll refresh next week anyway.
It should also be considered that the seasonal leaderboard should not be too similar to the main one, as getting onto the main one should still be considered a major accomplishment; this further makes the idea of a yearly leaderboard not ideal
I’m thinking that an ideal time period for the seasonal leaderboards could be a month or so
TL;DR: Over time leaderboards become harder to get onto, so a seasonal leaderboard might help with that. However, I’m not sure how a seasonal leaderboard could affect the main leaderboard, such as by making it harder to reach due to competition. Also, I was thinking that the seasonal time period shouldn’t be too long or too short
Overall, a seasonal leaderboard is a doable idea, although I’m still not completely sure about it