I've made this thread to attract public attention + reaction to the real-time ladder. Late last year Fizzer promised during his twitch stream that a RT Ladder poll of the templates would be handed out to the community. I'm hoping to have a in-depth discussion which has been long overdue about the RT Ladder templates and to get a rough selection of templates we would like to see voted.

The Real-Time ladder is 10 templates, The community are not 100% happy with these templates. So what I would like to know is the popularity of each of the templates. To roughly figure out using the community forums what templates are truly in demand of being kicked out and which are in guard to stay!

Lets just have a discussion on each template individually..

China: It's an ok template nothing I would consider fun about it, Though it is strategic and I'm content about it.

Treasure Map: I like the template, Maybe a bit biased on the picks < Play but again I'm happy with it and could consider it as a alright template to play on.

Season I: Light fog with in-distribution neutrals set to 0: It is an interesting concept and unique templates with unique settings should not be removed imo, Imo heavy on picks but I like the template and is very pick based on strategy and you must plan effectively. I like this template it is a mental hard game.

Season III: East Asia and Oceania map: The luck is not enjoyable but it is a factor if you can win or lose based on a 5v3, This is simply not good enough. I would much enjoy this template SR > WR, Games have been decided too much on 5v3s..

Season VII: Heavy Earth : It is an interesting concept and unique templates with unique settings should not be removed imo, I think the template needs some tweaking or some refreshing new settings, Maybe some more armies for starting would be cool! But as it is heavily based on picks > play which is why at its current state i would vote to remove it.


Season IV: No-luck strategic 1v1: Since we have a new 1v1 Ladder? Do we need it? Does it stand against the variety of the RT Ladder? Let you be the judge of that..

Season V: Battle Islands V map: Fun, Refreshing it is strategic and there are no problems with it. Very enjoyable i would like this to stay.

Season XII: Turkey Local Deployments: If Turkey wants to survive it needs to get rid of LD.. LD on Turkey is imo too luck based on picks and can lead to some of the longest RT games you could ever play on one of the smallest maps in the ladder. I don't like it, It disgusts me.

Guiroma: Good template, People do like it. I would not want this being removed. Solid and no clear flaws to it.

Strategic Greece: A test of picking skill! I like it, Good test of overall skill. No need for this template to go.

Edited 3/16/2016 03:26:12

In my opinion, without going into detail:


China - keep
Treasure Map - keep
Season I - remove
Season III - remove luck or remove it entirely
Season VII - more armies per pick
Season IV - change map or remove
Season V - keep
Season XII - weaker wastelands or remove
Guiroma - keep
Strategic Greece - keep


I feel as though most of these templates are half decent, but I would like to see a higher influx of more unusual and less frequently played maps. There are plenty of strategic little maps out there that would be great to play on more. Maybe even a novelty map? If not, at least another fictional map or two, just to mix it up a bit more.

1)quina ok, but i would add some wastenads to make it more strategical(MODIFY)
2)treasure map ok
3)season1 REMOVE
4)season3: some modifications would be great but a good map for 1v1(MODIFY)
5)season7 REMOVE
6)season 4 ok but agree due to the 1v1 ladder maybe change smth(MODIFY)
7) season 5: ok
8)season 12:might be ok but i really dislike it so REMOVE
9)guiroma: keep it
10)greece keep it pls

Edited 3/16/2016 15:21:34

China: KEEP

Treasure Map: This template is tied for my favorite template. KEEP

Season I: Not my favorite, but not bad enough to get rid of it. KEEP

East Asia and Oceania map: Too much luck included in this template. 1200+ rating can beat 2000 + rating on this template and has happened before. Not exactly a template that accurately judges a players skill or not. REMOVE

Heavy Earth : KEEP or REMOVE either way works. I like it sorta, but winner is usually decided off picks.

ME SR 1v1 : REMOVE since this template is the same as the 1v1 ladder. Only difference is this one is ME instead of MME.

Battle Islands V map: KEEP

Season XII: Turkey Local Deployments: REMOVE the template/Make it like the one in the coin games.

Guiroma: KEEP

Strategic Greece: KEEP

Edited 3/16/2016 15:43:41

Turkey - LD makes games long and tedious. Remove this setting and it's ok.

Season I - With 16% WR it's the last remnant of the Old Ladder settings. Light fog is weird so some might want change to normal.

Season IV: ME 0% SR - Really the same as current ladder, too much ME for my liking. Remove.

EA&O - Absolute nadir. Remove.

Heavy Earth - Another Earth map. Remove.

Other five is all good.

In exchange something along the line of: British Raj, French Brawl (my favourite, also the Season XXII), maybe Poland Big.

Does anyone have any template they would like in the RT Ladder to replace some of the templates people don't seem to be happy about?

Remove:

China: Too many long ass games. RT ladder 1v1 games should be 30 minutes or less. Smaller maps lead to quicker games. Some people seem to like this map. So another option would be to keep it but allow each player to veto one map. I would veto this one. Sure, I made it. But if I play the RT ladder it is when I just want to throw armies around for the hell of it for about 20-30 minutes. I don't want to get involved in an hour-long click-fest. Don't torture me on my days off from work!

EA&O: Failing 5v3s and successful 4v3s are too frustrating. SR or just use old or new 1v1 settings on the map. The mapmaker made the map to be similar to ME in strategy. Just use 1v1 ladder settings.

LD Turkey: Replace it with Strategic Turkey! LD games last too damn long for a RT ladder. Strategic Turkey is an ideal template for this ladder: unqiue map, small map (quicker games), strategic settings, interesting.

ME 0% SR: Replace it with ME 0% WR!

Season I: Too much damn ME. Replace it with French Brawl. People seem to like that and it is something different. I don't think I'd want to play this in RT (lots of clicking/thinking on a day off when my brain is recovering from work), but games should be quicker than China and Turkey LD.

China: i like that one a lot. games shouldn't take as Long as gui thinks even if it's on a big map. the hotspots care about that.

Treasure Map: great template

Season I: season I is bad imo, because even if a Player picks and Plays better, he can easily lose due to bad luck on that template. light fog and wr is a combination that bites each other

Season III: as mentioned before on so many occasions by so many People

Season VII: Heavy Earth : I don't dislike it too much, but i'd still want to remove it cause it's highly luck based on picking stage. Heavy countering in Action. getting 2 picks in the same area is a killer.

Season IV: No-luck strategic 1v1: make it strat ME

Season V: Battle Islands V map: Not one of my favourites, but still enjoy- and playable.

Season XII: Turkey Local Deployments: agreed that LD has to disappear here

Guiroma: Great template

Strategic Greece: also nice template.

French Brawl: i love that one. it is almost always very short too so in that aspect it fits to the rt ladder

Bloody mess MA snowy mountains: probably too Long and many dislike MA. i still like that template a lot

Like:
Treasure Map
Guiroma
Greece
Battle Islands V
China

Dislike:
Heavy Earth
Turkey LD - I like the template but it can lead to long games so it is bad for a RT Ladder
EA&O - needs SR or at least 0% WR


Indifferent:
Season I
No luck Strat 1v1 - should change to 0% WR, since we already have this template on the 1v1 ladder

French Brawl would absolutely be an ideal template for the RT ladder. Games are rarely longer than 10 turns, which is perfect. Plus, it's a fun and strategic template.

Edited 3/16/2016 19:37:17

Remove Local Deployment from Turkey. Change Season III to 0% SR. Remove any templates that have luck factors (Season I, Season III).

Heavy Earth could also be switched for a better template.

What I would really like to have added would be the Modified ME Bonuses with 0% SR (Season VIII/Season IX), such as the template the CLOT ladder utilizing those settings uses.

Season XVI (No-split mode) and Season XVIII (Snow Mountains) could also be good additions.

Old Strategic 1v1 could be added, even though it has a luck factor.

A Multi-Attack template would be nice, but people will probably hate it about as much as they do LD.

-Miles Edgeworth/Master of the Dead
October 24th, 2015

I agree with all this except for what I would replace the "less desirable" templates with. Keep Season III with 0% SR to boycott 2 neutrals, although 0% WR with 2 neutrals is also fine.

I don't really mind luck. Season I isn't bad, but I definitely know many more templates that are way better.

I would love to see a MA template. For MA: BIV MA, Macro Land, My own 50% Luck EU MA template (might need some edits) or Poland MA would be ideal templates. Plus the Snow Mountains one that MoD already suggested.

We still haven't recieved the polls for reformatting the RT Ladder still...

Edited 3/16/2016 19:41:18

China - keep,even if I don't like it
Treasure - keep
Season I - change fog or remove
Season III - remove
Season VII - keep
Season IV - get it out of here.....
Battle islands - weaker wastelands
Turkey - remove LD. check https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10741998 and you'll know why
Guiroma - keep
Greece - less picks

Edited 3/16/2016 19:42:19

Greece: keep
Battle Islands: keep
Treasure Map: keep
Guiroma: keep
China: keep
Turkey LD: remove LD
ME SR: change to WR
Heavy Earth: change to French Brawl (<3)
EA&O: change to SR
Season I: Change to Snowy Mountains MA

An improved real-time ladder could be the cornerstone of Warlight and seems crucial for expanding its popularity in my opinion. Pretty much like blitz live chess games are crucial for a popular chess platform.

A good functioning RT ladder should provide:
1- a fun and strategic game that takes 20 +/- 10 minutes
2- against an opponent of more or less your level, with a rating system to keep track of performance
3- a game that starts as fast as possible, or at least within 5 minutes

Currently, the chance to get a match against an interesting opponent within a waiting time of let's say 10 minutes at a random time of the day is very very low. An easy step to improve this is by making the templates better. The effects on the overall RT ladder quality should not be underestimated; better templates --> more players, more players --> better and faster matches --> more fun, more players etc.

This is why easy implementable improvements of the RT ladder should be an absolute priority in my opinion for Fizzer.
The fact that EA&O is still not SR or 0% WR is almost an insult to the community. As far as I can tell, this should take a couple of minutes to change and would make many happy.

Different people seem to dislike different templates. It would be cool of course to have a few tweaks and changes, or to have the community voting every few months on which template should replace which existing template. But this seems like lower priority to me and doing it democratically will take time.

What seems obvious is that maps like treasure map, battle islands, strategic greece and guiroma are liked by almost everyone.
To me it seems like a great plan to add more templates like that. Seems in line with the RT philosophy to play on a variety of templates instead of adapting one style of playing on one ladder. This will then automatically lower the chance that one ends up playing an "annoying" template. Personally I for example dislike playing multiple games in a row on a standard earth map.

Good templates to add could be some popular seasonal ladder templates, list of nice 1v1 templates are posted elsewhere on the forum.
Adding these templates to the ladder and having a total of 15-20 templates would be very cool I think.
And importantly, it seems very easy to implement.

My personal thought is that it is nice to have a variety of settings in the templates. Thinking about 20 templates in the RT ladder list I could imagine, on top of the natural variations with starting armies, wasteland size, map size, no. of picks etc:
* one or two light fog ones
* some with 1 or with 3 neutrals
x peronally I like LD games, but they can easily last too long for RT ladder games
x personally I find altered kill rates and multi-attack a bit too different (hardly any experience though)
x personally I like the idea of some games with a commander, but probably also too different for now

Since more players would exponentially increase the fun -as I tried to explain above- it seems worth to make more people play it. Some ideas:
- allow people to play as guests, guests can play against guests on the RT ladder without getting a rating, members can play guests in a game that would not affect rating
- allow everyone to play e.g. 10 ranked games a month or 1 game a day or so
- allow people to pay let's say 10 dollar for a year of unlimited access to the RT ladder

Other things that would be cool:
- more stats
- more achievements linked to the RT ladder (personally I could not care less, but some people might)
- implementation of Muli's userscript "instant join button" and "time untill next round of RT games" on the main site
- slower removal from ladder rankings to have more players on the list and have more of a ranking feeling
- expiry of games that are very old so that results from e.g. 18 months ago don't influence a rating anymore and so that one cannot forever rely on performances from the past..

Another reason why the RT ladder would be very important is to make Warlight interesting to attract and keep new players that like a competitive strategy game. Currently almost all good 1v1 games are based on being in a network of people that are already around for a long time, based on invitations and connections. Personally I kind of lost interest in Warlight after some initial fun team games and FFA from the lobby. I then somehow ran into some nice 1v1s and got hooked.

Took me quite some time to write this, would be cool to know what some of you think about it. And especially to know if Fizzer reads this and if he is up for action, especially for the things that should take little of his time..

Edited 3/16/2016 21:37:04

I agree that the rt ladder could be an important and fun part of warlight. But quotes like 2 light fog/ 2 LD/ 2 commander templates are bad. We need templates people want to play, not templates that show everything warligt has to offer. Also so far commanders are probably fun, but not good for a ladder with 0 armies standing.

I really think giving every player 1-2 vetos on templates would be great! It would reduce everyones unhappyness about in their opinion bad templates

Also a slower removal from the rankinglist would be bad imo, at least for higher rated players. Already 3 days are a lot of time if you take in account that only one game has to be played in that time to stay ranked. Many players just played exactly that 1 game all 3 days to hold first rank. And since it's still super easy to pick opponents a player with inflated rating could easily hold the first place for weeks, if not months

Edited 3/16/2016 21:33:37

And more on topic:

I see it exactly like master of d and could copy paste his text.

Only changes:
* I do like the battle island map
* I do like the Turkey LD and don't often run into the wars between east and west than can last forever. But this should probably be prevented some way (ultimately by removing the LD ot the template)

Yea, the veto idea is very good. Maybe offering some kind of rotativity on the templates would be fun as well: every 2 months players vote one template out, and then one to replace it.

It would be also great if there was a bigger variety of maps.

LD is very bad for a RT ladder, please don't add more of those templates, turkey is already bad enough...

Edited 3/16/2016 21:34:08

I agree regarding the commander being too different and will edit it..

Veto-ing is an option.
But at the same time it might be harder to implement and will lead to for example 2 players that can only play eachother on (currently) 6 templates..

These threads pop up every month. In fact I remember seeing them from when I first started playing the rt ladder.

Nothing changes.

creating polls takes too much time, and it's not on fizzers immideate roadmap. Uservoice it.

Very good way for people who excel at a certain template to inflate their rating