Now we only play people within 20% of us the ladder (I presume this is 20% of ranking not position).

I'll missing crushing the easy matches at the bottom of the ladder, but the real question is whether 20% yields a good diverse range of opps. A 1500 player gets 1200-1800 (which seems intuitively right to me). I'm 1950 now so that's 1560-2340. That's reasonable. It will likely result in me losing more games and averaging out closer to where R is on the ladder (low 1800s). Even Doushi at 2070 with zero losses can get matched with anyone 1656 or higher.

My fear is that with 75 players and 5 games going at a time, I'm going to end playing the same 10-20 people over and over. How is that any different than normal you ask? I don't know, but I was enjoying the diversity of new 1x1 opps. The solution is more players of course.

and how do you suggest to get more players?

Enlarge the pie. Get more members. Why haven't you joined?

because there is not monthly option

Duke, I don't think it works like that. There is no rating calculation (1500 + 20% = 1800) as your post implies.

Here's how it works, if I am understanding the blog post:
- Currently there are 75 people in the ladder. 20% of 75 = 15
- Possible opponents include the 15 players above you and the 15 below you.


One potential issue I see with this system is that the pool of possible opponents gets smaller as you get close to the top or bottom of the ladder. So Doushi only has 10 possible opponents, for example. Also, I don't know why we want to limit people to exclusively playing people close to their own skill level, anyways. That doesn't make the ladder more fun, in my opinion.

I think that as you reach the top of the ladder it should pair you with the same potential range as everyone else, for example like you said with 75 people, someone in the middle plays anyone 15 above or below them. If you are in first place on the ladder, you should then be placed with 30 people below you. and if you are in fifth place you should get paired with the four above you and 26 below you. this would make it so that people on the ends of the ladder (like me) can still get games just a s easily as everyone else.

and to back up crafty, I think that when the blog speaks of basing it on your rating it is saying that it recalculates your position on the ladder to include those players not placed yet (provisional period players) so as to get a more accurate ranking

I like that fix Eagle. Every player gets 20% of the ladder as potential opps. If you're first or last, it's the 20% below you or above you respectively.

I don't see why there can't be direct challenges on the ladder too. If players want to play a ladder game, why shouldn't they be allowed to? That would be a way to address wanting to get a match with someone outside the range.

Assuming you and Crafty are right and the 20% range is rank not rating (and I'm confident you guys are right), is that better than making it 20% of rating? If players bunch up a lot it would produce a greater number of potential opponants and conversely, if you're an outlier, you'll avoid facing opps that are significantly stronger players than you.

I'm sure if you tried it both ways and compared them, you wouldn't see all that much difference, but it might be worth the effort to see.

Duke, I absolutely agree that we should be able to challenge whoever we want to a ladder game. They don't have to accept the challenge. What is the rationale behind forcing all games to be decided by an algorithm? There should be no real fairness concern. The amount that your rating changes after a game is determined by your relative rating to your opponent. If there is some inherent advantage to playing players either far above or below you (and I don't think there is), then the rating system is simply not doing its job.

Duke -- I absolutely love the idea of Direct Challenges. That way, if someone is ambitious and wants to shoot for the top right away they can do a direct challenge. I think it would have to be limited to 1 per week or something so that someone isn't directly challenging the same person over and over.

But if I lose a game and I'm mad at the mistakes I've made, I want a rematch right then and there to get them back. I think it would also be cool to display on the dashboard the Direct Challenges people have made so people can focus in on them and watch them. Also, on your ladder games you could get a marker showing that that game is a Direct Challenge(DC) or not.

I think this function would be nice to have outside of the auto generated games. And the person that is being challenged has the option to join or decline the game. If they decline, then the challenge goes away.

I like it too, even though I would rarely use it.

one thing to add though: provisional players should not be able to challenge

Duke, the main problem I see with 20% of rating as opposed to 20% of rank..

say someone manages by some coicidence to get far ahead/behind.. far enough so that 20% of ranking includes no one? should they be restricted from playing ladders games, thus forced to keep their position, purely because they managed to do epicly good/bad?

also, the Idea of giving the top player 30 below to give him an equal pie of the games would be faulty to.. cause that would mean the player that is 29th would have 45 games open to him, thus making him again have a bigger piece of the pie *15 below and above for him being 29th, and then everyone 14th and higher would also have him, and anyone above him as an option* so you're not solving the problem, just changing how it's created.

Direct Challanges could be cool, but could see them being used to create a false Rating...

IE, Player A wants to be the best and has money to blow.. Player A buys Account A and Account B, Player A then Repeatedly has Account A and Account B playing each with with direct challanges, letting Account A win.. of course this could be partially solved by the way the ratings are calculated..

and Duke

"The ladder will only create games with people who are within 20% of the ladder from you. For example, if there are 50 players participating in the ladder, it will only look at the 10 players above and 10 players below you. "

Seems to imply that Crafty's assumption is correct :/

|>"say someone manages by some coicidence to get far ahead/behind.. far enough so that 20% of ranking includes no one? should they be restricted from playing ladders games, thus forced to keep their position, purely because they managed to do epicly good/bad?"

But it doesn't work that way, since it goes by ranking. Even if I were rated 1000 points ahead of everyone else, 20% of a 50 person ladder is still 10 people, so I would be eligible to play the 10 people below me.

Scratch that, I misread, I see now that you were arguing against using rating.

I just noticed that Doushi (1) drew a game with Boringmetaphor (19). How's that possible? Especially when we only have apx. 79 players on the ladder (counting provisional and inactive)

The Doushi-Boring Metaphor game started on March 7.

Your story checks out so far. But I'm keeping my eye on you fatguy.