How to progress in leagues

[Nathalie]

I was mistaken. My husband said just now that they asked him twice to join the tournament, and he declined twice. So, apparently it’s optional.

Interesting. I've never been asked whether or not I want to join the tournament.

But even if you're in it, if you don't care, you could just keep doing your lessons and ignore your standings. The only pressure is the pressure you put on yourself if you keep comparing your ranking compared to other learners.

My husband and I both finished #1 last week. Again, he's not in a tournament this week. As for me, I never pay attention so not until 45 minutes into the lessons, I saw "Diamond Tournament" at the top of my screen. That's strange. Neither of us was asked to join.

There are only 15 people on the list right now. Will it increase to 30 later on?

[JudieLC]

I was mistaken. My husband said just now that they asked him twice to join the tournament, and he declined twice. So, apparently it’s optional.

Interesting. I've never been asked whether or not I want to join the tournament.

But even if you're in it, if you don't care, you could just keep doing your lessons and ignore your standings. The only pressure is the pressure you put on yourself if you keep comparing your ranking compared to other learners.

My husband and I both finished #1 last week. Again, he's not in a tournament this week. As for me, I never pay attention so not until 45 minutes into the lessons, I saw "Diamond Tournament" at the top of my screen. That's strange. Neither of us was asked to join.

There are only 15 people on the list right now. Will it increase to 30 later on?

I'm not surprised that you're in the Diamond tournament without being asked. I can't ever recall having been asked. I was kind of surprised when you said you husband was able to opt out, though I'll look for that the next time a new tournament starts.

Leagues started early in the week will probably increase to about 30 or so, I'm guessing. When I wait till the end of the week to join a league (by changing my profile from private to public), my leagues often start out at 10 people and finish the week with 15-20, depending on how late in the week I go public.

I finished the week with my expected 4th place in the Diamond Semifinals and an entered in the Finals. I'll go private tonight. Why wait, you might ask? I like to be congratulated by my friends, and you can't see that when you're in private mode.

[JudieLC]

I forgot to mention that the last time I joined a league on Saturday night, the league I was put in had only 3 people to start.

That later increased though to about 15-20, IIRC.

[JudieLC]

So I joined a league on Saturday night again. The league had 9 people when I joined and then another person joined to make it 10. I got into first place in short order by doing a lot of lessons last night, but someone had passed me by this morning. I got in first again, but the same person got ahead of me in the last hour. No way I could catch up with a Super user. So I settled for second place.

I'm done with this game of trying to be first. Going back to private mode tomorrow night.

[Stasia]

So I joined a league on Saturday night again. The league had 9 people when I joined and then another person joined to make it 10. I got into first place in short order by doing a lot of lessons last night, but someone had passed me by this morning. I got in first again, but the same person got ahead of me in the last hour. No way I could catch up with a Super user. So I settled for second place.

I also joined a late Saturday evening league this time. We had a grand total of 4 participants in the league. I finished third with ca. 120 XP (two days of doing my bare minimum which is set at 50 points). #1 had somewhere around 800, #2 around 500. #4 didn't even try to finish in the first 3.

I like that sort of leagues.

[JudieLC]

I haven't been in leagues in weeks. Kind of afraid to switch my profile to public. At my current rate of doing lessons I think I'd be demoted in no time.

[iklmkv]

Hi! My question is what happens with the Friend's quests streak, if you complete the quest the previous week, then go off to private on Sunday, after the league ends, and return to public by the next weekend (Wed-Fri)?

I believe each friend's quest starts on Tuesday. Will you be assigned a friend's quest that week? If not, will the streak of quests remain the following week?

[Pinta]

How do you get into such a small league ?

Mine were always 20,000- 10,000
Insane !

Try to stay in the league with least XP possible. For example, try finish the league in 25th place or somewhere close to the demotion zone. Then you'll probably get into an easier league next week. I once did this for 7-8 weeks and got into a league where 1# was under 2000 XP. But be careful, you might accidently get demoted...

[Pinta]

I still fail to understand how these levels work. There is someone in the diamond league with 28,064 XPs. 5 days in - that's 5,613 points a day! Is this even possible?

Maybe I'm not getting something because I'm fairly new. But getting 10-20 points for a lesson, and about 40 points to a story... my tally is creeping up slowly. But to get these totals, it would mean between 208-516 lessons or 140 stories a day!

Are there ways to get more points that I'm just not understanding?

I guess they used bots like this one?-https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/by-site/duolingo.com

[Corinnebelle]

I guess they used bots like this one?-https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/by-site/duolingo.com

They won't get anything out of it, just some nice fancy numbers. No knowledge, no ability to communicate in another language, no expansion of your memory. Who knows how safe any of these scripts are, you could be introducing malware by loading them. There's a few there that aren't for cheating.

[iklmkv]

Hi! My question is what happens with the Friend's quests streak, if you complete the quest the previous week, then go off to private on Sunday, after the league ends, and return to public by the next weekend (Wed-Fri)?

I believe each friend's quest starts on Tuesday. Will you be assigned a friend's quest that week? If not, will the streak of quests remain the following week?

So I did that experiment last week. I successfully completed the Friend's quest by Saturday, chose my next Friend's quest companion and then went off to private mode after finishing the league battle on Sunday. I came back to public mode on Wednesday and found myself in an ongoing Friend's quest with the chosen companion, who already made some progress towards the goal.

I believe some of my XP (or lessons) gained in private (probably for the same day) was added to towards the goal in the Friend's quest. The streak continued.

[Nathalie]

I still fail to understand how these levels work. There is someone in the diamond league with 28,064 XPs. 5 days in - that's 5,613 points a day! Is this even possible?

Maybe I'm not getting something because I'm fairly new. But getting 10-20 points for a lesson, and about 40 points to a story... my tally is creeping up slowly. But to get these totals, it would mean between 208-516 lessons or 140 stories a day!

Are there ways to get more points that I'm just not understanding?

Two weeks ago, my husband was in Diamond League with a person who ended the week with 53,000 XPs. The week after that, the #1 position went to a person with over 60,000 XPs.

A month or so ago, the #1 in the same Diamond League with me had a streak of 3.5 years and more than 3 million XPs in his total, but when I looked at his achievements, he was still in Level 1 Legendary. That blew my mind. There's no way anyone could avoid doing legendary while learning.

Every Mon and Wed, the Daily Quest requires me to complete 4 legendary challenges each, then on either Thurs or Fri, to complete 2 level challenges (2 levels would cover 2 legendaries if I'm at the right spot in the unit.) That's an entire unit each week, and each unit has 40-50 lessons and 8 legendaries. How did a person avoid doing legendary while earning 3 million XPs? By doing Speak review and only Speak review every minute he's in DL app? By buying extra time for Double XPs at 100 gems per 15 minutes so he can over-inflate his ranking? (CrystalXYZ, you can get between 400-500 XPs every 15 minutes too, by following that method, so 5,613 XPs a day is not just possible but also doable. If you don't care about learning, that is.)

The only reason I'm with DL is to refresh the decade of French lessons of my youth so I can communicate at the shops, restaurants, doctor offices, government agencies, etc. Oh, and to help my husband yelling at the kids who sneak into our yard for no-good purpose (yep, we're those grumpy old people you see in every neighbourhood ). That means I have to do lessons and exercises, learn, read, listen, speak, and review. The rest of DL -- XP, gems, badges, ranking, and tournament -- do not help me to achieve my goal. One week I'm at the top, the next week I'm at #10, what does it matter?

[iklmkv]

Duolingo is gamified language learning experience. As with other areas and other games, there are different types of 'players'. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_ta ... ayer_types).

For some users (maybe majority of hardcore ones with years of streaks, idk) it is all about language learning and developing skills, but for others it is a game of xp, otherwise there would be no cheating bots, and xp-gaining strategies (such as leaving undone legendary lessons at easier levels to be able to finish them quickly when you need +80xp in 1 minute, or doing speaking practice non-stop). Maybe there are also people who only use duolingo because of scarce, but still existing social component (to feel connected to their peers). And of course there is plenty of mix between those types.

Personally, I leverage my competitive gamer's side to get consistent exposure to my target language, on a daily basis. Leagues, badges and tournaments helped me a lot (not to learn a language, but to stay consistent). Especially when it was all new. Winning tournament for the 5th time doesn't motivate as much as unlocking it for the first time. And yes I am always running XP game the last 30 minutes of every week to secure the desirable result, no matter what. That's just my duolingo routine.

I also like when irl friends/family members use DL and I like following their progress and it usually gives me a little boost of engagement when I add someone I know to my dl friends.