On the WGL 126 stream (http://www.twitch.tv/psenough/v/51129063), Fizzer stated that Warlight is moving to a 'no more randomness' model in the future, which is his main reason for not bringing back the old 1v1 WR settings.

So, does this mean that the luck setting (and other forms of randomness settings) is going to disappear altogether, or just that it will be default 0%?

Removing the luck feature completely would make no sense.
I interpret what he said like it is right now: a default luck of 0%sr

Hmm. Then I still don't understand why there can't be two ladders, one with WR, one with SR.

The more there are ladders the less they will be valued. Ladders position and/or trophies exclusivity comes from scarceness. Secondly we could ask then why there are not versions for LD, Multi-attack, no-split, army-cap an so on... Thirdly which of those should be superior, because at moment 1v1 ladders pretty much dictates the skill and superiority of players - if some want to perceive it that way.

If I recall right Fizzer mention in previous Stream that he wants to shift towards normative style - as standardize the game-play. It seems obvious from developers point of view. Would make things easier for newer players and offer a tool to measure players by certain parameters. I do hope you misunderstood him, and luck would stay as "optional" as well WR, but I agree on standardizing 0% Luck with SR! It is much easier for newer players to fathom that concept than explaining WR and how luck would affect it extra - especially if Warlight wants to appeal to majority and younger population!

The more there are ladders the less they will be valued.

Then what's the point of the CLOT framework, which is about creating all sorts of ladders and tournaments?

I disagree. The more variety of ladders there are, the more general interest there will be in ladders. A rising tide floats all boats.

If random warlords/random wastelands are removed from the 1v1 ladder, I quit warlight.

Edited 2/28/2016 22:17:16

If random warlords/random wastelands are removed from the 1v1 ladder, I quit warlight.

I won't think it'd come to that lol. Plus the randomness of those things don't make the game unfair provided one player is luckier then another one. The same isn't arguable for WR and luck.

@wct, There is a limit to how many MD games most people are willing to play. If you already are doing 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 + seasonal you already have many games.

@TBest, that doesn't invalidate my point. I'm not saying that if there were more ladders, then the people who currently play ladders will play *all* the ladders. I'm saying that if there were more ladders, then *more people* would play ladders, and those who already play ladders would also play *more* ladders (on average) than they do now.

Of course there will be some ladders with very little activity, but there will be, overall, a lot more ladder activity all around.

So you are arguing that total ladder activity will go up? (e.g add number of players from all ladders.)

Well, maybe since people can play on the settings they prefer. But each individual ladder would be worse off, in my opinion.

Say a new ladder drags 50 new players. Well, now the average number of player in a given ladder goes down. Therefore the ladders would be less fun, assuming players are evenly divided. (And what is the point of a ladder with few players) This is why I think there needs to be a limit on the number of similar (1v1,2v2 etc) ladders.

The way these things usually work is they get distributed according to Zipf's Law, which looks like a power law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law). In other words, you'll get a few ladders that are very popular, such as the standard 1v1, and a WR 1v1, and then you get a 'long tail' of smaller, specialty ladders.

So, no, for the big popular ladders, number of players per ladder will increase, due to the influx of players. Whereas for the specialty/niche ladders, they will of course have a smaller number of players. But since all other 1v1 ladders currently have 0 players, then a 'smaller number' is still a net increase.

There is difference between "Official" and "Unofficial" ladders. Some CLOT could be valued even higher and seen as more prestigious (for example when joining would restricted highly) than Official game functions, but this does not change the fact that the more we have official Ladders the smaller would be each proportion in recognition market and therefore value. The more the players in one Ladder - the higher would be its worth.

I am all for CLOT and even feel bad that I do not have that much time to work/participate on those. But what I mean is that game on official sense should be clear, easily understandable-fathomable and not utterly time-consuming. As pointed above, each new ladder requires +1 game to be open. Therefore probably most players would not have time to compete in all of them. This reduces each Ladders standing just by because some good players will have to make hard decisions. Even 3-Ladders + Seasonal + Real Time seems too complicated and much - no clear sense how to distinct those. I do not think there should be Specialty ladders - can you imagine how many game-play-styles origin from settings, and soon you here Role and Diplo players screaming for Trophy.

That why we have CLOT and Tournaments if enough players are interested in particular game-play or Template they have option to pull it off in good environment. But to become official Standing-Ranking measurement it has to appeal to more or just to Fizzer to be implemented :)

Edited 2/29/2016 07:21:52

Does Amazon suffer from having a wide variety of products, or does it benefit from it? Does Facebook suffer from having a wide variety of pages and groups, or does it benefit from it?

Currently the 1v1 ladder has about about 500 active people in it. It's the only 1v1 ladder. If there were 4 other 1v1 ladders, with various settings, you would *not* end up with 5 ladders with about 100 people each.

First, you would attract new players to ladder-playing in general, so the total of 500 would maybe go up to about 1000.

Second, they would *not* be evenly distributed. They would be distributed close to a power law. If people were restricted to only be able to play in one single ladder of their choice, then you might see them distributed like: One ladder of around 512 people, another at 256, and others at 128, 64, and 32.

Third, we wouldn't actually restrict people to playing in only 1 ladder anyway, so actually there would be crossover between them. If we conservatively say that on average the ladder players would play in 1.5 ladders each (some just 1, others 2, others 3, others 4, and the rest playing 5, but on average 1.5 each), then the size of each ladder would actually be more like: 768, 384, 192, 96, and 48.

Yes, the ladders which are 384 and below would technically be 'smaller' than the old ladder which was stuck at around 500 (let's use 512 for simplicity, as a power of 2), but the biggest ladder would actually be bigger than the old ladder, and all the other ladders would be decently sized and 'better than nothing', where 'nothing' was the status quo beforehand.

And that's just using conservative numbers. The reality would probably be much better.

Edited 2/29/2016 08:34:59

I guess I will end here, it has gone beyond absurdity already!

1. Do you really not understand the difference of Normal Good and Luxury good? No one gives a F*** if there are 1M or 100M Iphones or how many Tons of Bread you have in your backyard (or on sale in amazon) - these are normal goods. The question is how many Oscars, Globes, Gold-Medals in Olympic Games are given each year. With each new one introduced all rest will loose their value, because these are regarded as ultimate luxury goods. Same logic applies to Warlight Ladders and Trophies. If tomorrow we start giving out Grand-master Titles in chess with twice the lower requirements needed - how valuable would it be? Or if now we have 5-different organizations offering those with slight variation?

2. Have you done some statistical analysis, market-research that you can state with clarity.. player count in ladders will rise from 500 to 1000? I really would like to see that!

3. Whats the point of Ladder of 32 players..? 32 random players. Seems you do not understand what is the conceptual meaning of ladder. Its a way to measure and determine skill which is stated to be normative play-style by power - in this case game developers.

Basically what you are saying in human language is that: If there would be more ladders then the most popular ladder, in this case probably standard 1v1 would have more players than previously and this all due to new ladders - despite the suggested 1-ladder lock! To me this does not seem logical at all! If there would be 10 ladders - then people would distribute among them for 2 reasons: Just to get The Shiny Trophy or play their preferred Template! And this in my mind does not result in increase of main ladders player-base. I agree on increased numbers, but not in benefit of 1 and true ladder!

WCT dont get offended, but I think you are too obsessed with power-law and don´t understand in depth how and where to use it. In my mind Ladder is something that should determine the Best of Best: warlight with customization offers countless numbers of play-styles and it cant offer every ladder for each. It comes with a price of reducing their value alot. Being 1. in ladder should mean something, not just participating in event that no-one cares about or playing just against average players, just because the best were occupied in 1v1 Standard but not Multi-attack version of it! CLOT and Tournaments offer really great lengths and amounts of competitions, Ladders and their explicit should be determined by developers and seen as normative way to measure ranking and skill!

1. This is actually a damn good analogy. I wish I thought of it. So, "Good analogy, man!" But you got it wrong in the end, unfortunately.

There are literally thousands of film awards all over the world, most of them are small, niche awards. In the US alone, there are dozens of major film awards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_awards). The Oscars are *the top* in terms of visibility, and popularity, and -- in many people's eyes, though certainly not all -- prestige. This is a very good example of a Zipf's Law distribution, just as I have been describing.

But none of these awards are the world's or the United States' 'official' awards. The value of the awards goes along with the challenge of the award itself, not with whether it is 'official' in some universal sense or not. You see Warlight as 'the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences'. I see Warlight as 'the world'. You think Warlight should only have one (or a very very small number of) 'official' ladders. I think Warlight should not place any restrictions on which ladders are considered 'official'; they should all be supported equally. The 'officialness' should be associated with the ladder itself.

So, if you win the 'Official "Strategic 1 v 1" template ladder #1 Player Award for 2016', then you get the 'luxury value' of that elite award, because that ladder will be by far the most popular one. But if I win the 'Official "No-Split Multi-attack Local-deployment Heavy-Fog Commanders and Bombs 90% kill rate 1 v 1" template ladder #1 Player Award for 2016', then I would get the 'luxury value' of that extremely niche award, because that ladder will only be valued by an extremely small niche set of players.

2. Have you done some statistical analysis, market-research that you can state with clarity.. player count in ladders will rise from 500 to 1000? I really would like to see that!

No, of course not. I apologize for not being clearer. I was just making up an example, and simply figured "in the long run, with a whole bunch of ladders to choose from, I imagine it's plausible that we might see twice as many people playing in the ladders as we currently see today. Currently, we see about 500 people active in the (only) 1v1 ladder. Twice of 500 is 1000. So by this guess, we would see about 1000 people active over all in the pool of 1v1 ladder players."

This is of course just my opinion and could be way wrong. But I do think it's plausible. When people enjoy and value something, as they do with games and competitions, news and enthusiasm about them tends to travel by word-of-mouth. I really don't think 'twice as many active players' is an unreasonable guess. But you are free to disagree or argue for a different result.

3. Whats the point of Ladder of 32 players..? 32 random players. Seems you do not understand what is the conceptual meaning of ladder. Its a way to measure and determine skill which is stated to be normative play-style by power - in this case game developers.

32 is greater than 0. Currently, there are 0 players playing in the "Some niche-interest but still fun" template ladder. If there were 32 players in that ladder, that would be better than 0. So what if getting #1 in that ladder has less 'validity' as getting #1 in the top, most popular ladder (which will surely be the "Strategic 1 v 1" template ladder)?

I'm currently playing in a tournament with only 6 people playing in it. Warlight *fully supports* such small and niche tournaments. Why doesn't it *fully support* small and niche ladders?

WCT dont get offended, but I think you are too obsessed with power-law and don´t understand in depth how and where to use it.

I rarely get offended by anything said on the Internet. I may disagree strongly and at length, though. But almost never actually offended. I appreciate your taking the time to respond as you have, and I'm most certainly not at all offended by anything you've said (or, frankly, by anything ever said anywhere in this forum since I've been here -- not even personal insults directed at me).

But I do strongly disagree. I think I'm applying it in exactly the right kind of scenario. I think you perhaps don't understand the significance of it. But that's fine, I don't hold that against you; it's a pretty obscure topic for me to bring into the conversation; I don't expect a lot of people to have heard about it or understand it right away. Don't get offended either, and I mean that sincerely. :-)

Edited 2/29/2016 18:23:43

Will this also mean we will be moving to symetrical maps and no wastelands?

Yeah, I really think I was over-reacting in the OP. There's no way he could really have meant 'no more randomness' in some absolute sense. Although that is what it sounded like when I first heard it.

By the way, I just remembered: Which Oscar award were you referring to? The official "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" award? The official "Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)" award? The official "Best Makeup and Hairstyling" award? The official "Best Documentary Short Subject" award? Or one of the two dozen or so other 'official' niche awards?

Edited 2/29/2016 18:18:30

@wct

Thanks for fast respond. It was interesting read. I just took Oscar example just due to recent activity: I personally totally regard Oscards as worthless, because the choice-makers board is ultimately market-driven. Films are hardly regarded art or skill + regarding the recent racial topic! Every niche Film Festival Winners rank higher in my mind!

And this is the part wct where I agree with if we speak of new suggested "Ladders" as Niche. I would love it. I have myself small community Tournaments, just because there are no decent players or higher interest. But the point I am trying to make is that, when we speak of Who are Good players in Warlight, who are skill-strategic. Then all we need to do is to take a look in 1v1 Ladder: of course any players can be better without a rank, but that is how we determine it now - at least majority in Forum regards that as clear measurement. We already have 5-ladders, if we would have 10-15 ladders then it becomes impossible for many players to participate in all of them due to time-limit. The general aspect of Ranking Strategic Players in any board-strategy games should be done in a way that not just Time-spent should define a good player.

Secondly the big discussion what would be the other Niche ladders? We already have split community who wants 1v1 to SR or WR, with Luck or No-Luck. I have written more than 3 long posts on Strategy etc..

If those new ladders come, if ever implemented, should be seen as just Niche Sessions.. not as standard ladders. I am not against having 30-Ladders. And yes it riches the game, but in real sense Ladders Standing would lose its value, just because there would be thirty 1. Places Trophy holders, thirty 2nd and so on ...

The same problem runs through Sports field: There are Olympic games, World Champs, Eu Champs, Region Champs, Field-specified Champs.. all pretty much World Standing worth. In some fields its just impossible to participate in all of them. And thats why someone who gets 1rd in Certain Competition is not really first, just because the betters of him chose to participate in World Champ instead of Olympic or Vice-versa! This is core argument I am appealing, if we want a real ladder to show us who is what rank this should be limited or seen superior! Although as I stated I agree on some field having Niche version: But I see CLOT doing the job fine. It would just need more development to implement closely into Warlight Functions and with Tournaments.

Ok what if we have:

a) lots and lots of ladders (most of them 'niche') are 'fully supported' in the sense that they can be found on the website for people to join them, have their own ladder pages like clans have their own clan pages, rankings, and all the features that are currently 'fully supported' only with the "Strategic 1 v 1" template ladder,

but b) the "Strategic 1 v 1" ladder is renamed to "The Super-Official Warlight Universal Ultimate Strategic 1 v 1 Championship Ladder", and we just say to people, "You think you're good, huh? I don't see you on the SOWUUS1v1C ladder, bro. Do you even Warlight?"

[Note: I just realized my earlier example used an exponential law rather than a power law, by mistake. Oopsy! :-)]

Edited 2/29/2016 20:57:50