Luck always averages out over time, more and more perfectly as the sample size grows. As long as the ladder is in effect for long enough, auto distro will do nothing to skew the eventual rankings, there will just be a bit more volatility at the start of the ladder season.

but that would mean that really we would need to have series' instead of single games between players because you may have 0% cumulative luck over 20 games.. but if 10 games are average luck "+/-5%" and 5 games are both bad luck and good luck.. and you happen to get bad luck against a good player and good luck against players you could easily beat without it.. your overall results would be skewed 'despite' overall average cumulative luck..

The matchmaking system would compensate for that - as your ranking skewed down, you'd get matched against easier and easier players and you'd drift back up, and any match where you got the shaft on luck would eventually get countered by one where the luck went the other way.. The longer the season, the more accurate the standings would be, luck has nothing to do with it in the end. Not that I don't kinda like the idea of having a ladder where you played a series against each match :)

I disagree, if you get bad luck in the first game against say Impaller, you'd be classified as a very poor player, and your subsequent matches would be against relatively poor players and it would require, especially at the beginning, a greater amount of good luck to counteract one or two games of bad luck against good players.. the same sort of difficulty that was encountered early on in the current ladders, but you'd be further distorting it with increased luck..

I agree with a large enough sample that luck would even out in the end.. but you'd need to provide a large sample compared to every other player, which is ofc' why I mentioned the series idea since It would be impractical to judge someone and modify their rating/skill on one game when it could be determined purely by luck

In my understanding, since it's an Elo system that reacts to not only the games that you yourself won or lost, but also to the games that your opponents in those finished games win or lose after the fact, then this is untrue - Yes as you lose right off the bat to a good player, your rating will take a big hit, but that hit will diminish by itself as the good players win more games and increase their ratings.

That's the whole point of Elo, it reacts not just to your own games but also to a constantly updated accounting of the strength of the players you've faced. In the end the aggregation of your own performance and that of your opponents will result in a very good representation of your relative skill levels. Since everyone has the same risk in any given iteration of having good or bad luck, more iterations smooths out the relative rankings and renders the luck virtually irrelevant in terms of its ability to mask people's true skill. There's some jags here and there because of the fact that older games expire from the ratings, yielding ranking volatility that is related to something OTHER than skill (namely the rather random timing of when you finish your games) but if that were taken out of the picture I guarantee that over time the rankings would become less and less volatile as people found their natural place in the ladder.

Well this thread got highjacked a bit. Using two picks to go for a 1st move +4 bonus is effective. If you can counterpick it in 1 -- than it's not really an issue. Just spend a pick doing so and you'll be in good shape. If there is no viable adjacent counter-pick than you overlap picks.

I suppose the big change for me is even lookign at this picking strategy at all. I'm used to picking based on other factors (ease of bonuses, good expansion possibilities, bonus defense, maybe a coutnerpick, etc.). I have not been looking for a first turn +4,then assuming my opp would prioritize it and then thinking about how to counter it. It's just not how most of the people I play regularly make their picks.

Which is probably why it's worked so well. Few of the old guard players focus on countering that strategy when they make their picks. Generally speaking it was a beginners strategy that almost always failed on the big map. Players would go for Causacus or africa for the quick bonuses but would end up losign to an opp who spread picks and had safe bonuses when the concentrated bonuses where busted. It's different on this map because it's often over too fast for the safe bonus to matter.

I suggest when you analyze a board to decide where to make your picks, you make looking for available first turn +4s a priority and expend a pick countering it. I still think spread + pick is better, but if you fail to pick up the threat and counter it you'll lose games.

I skimmed most of this thread, but I thought I'd comment on it.

Placing 2 picks adjacent to get a turn 1 4 value bonus and then having 1 pick elsewhere on the map to attack your opponent is a strategy that people have been using since the beginning of the ladder. For the most part, it was players who didn't play as much on old earth--more the "new guard" at the time, rather than the old guard--who went for this strategy game and game again. I lost to it a bunch of times early on.

I started using this strategy occasionally myself, but I'm generally a very conservative player and I wouldn't risk it if I thought there was a decent chance of just getting blown out by a counterpick. So most of the time I stuck with the old school tactic of spread picks, and picking spots that interact favorably with where you expect your opponent to go.

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The main issue I see with this strategy, from a "fun" perspective, is that it breeds a lot of games where the game is basically decided one way or another on the first turn of the game. If my opponent went for the turn 1 4-bonus and got it, they generally won. If they didn't get it, they almost always lost. It adds in a lot of variance and luck to the game that I didn't care much for.

Before going on vacation, I was getting pretty frustrated with the random luck element of the game anyway, so that might be biasing my opinion somewhat. I'd rather lose from my own mistakes than lose because my opponent successfully made 4 3x2 attacks on turn 1, or because I failed to do that myself, or what have you. Not everyone is the same, but for me at least, I can learn from and improve from a mistake I made. There's nothing to learn when the game is decided on the first turn of the game by luck.

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Finally: I want to apologize to anyone I'm currently in a game with as well as everyone who is waiting on Impaller v. The World game. When I went on vacation I thought it was going to just be a week. However, my vacation coincided with the lease on my apartment ending, so I was forced to pack up everything I owned and move out. I am currently in the process of finding a new apartment with my future roommates. Additionally, I've been rattling off a string of good finishes lately in tournaments for a competitive card game I play called Magic, which has been funding my ability to travel for even more tournaments. That has been eating up a lot of my time, and I have extended my vacation a few times.

Between the card tournaments, apartment searching, and traveling, Warlight fell steeply in the priority chain. Additionally, I was burning out on the game and drastically needed a break from it. Anyway, I think we have finally found a place to live, and I should be back to playing early next week.

I'll be back, and I'll be hungry to reclaim the spot on the ladder I lost when I went on vacation.

@ The Impaller: Magic rox, but it drains so much time at the top level. I had to quit it 10 years ago but I miss the days of World Championship and Nationals and traveling to GP's etc. Keep up your winnings!

On topic, I think the best idea so far is reducing the starting armies by 1. (4 instead of 5) No need to change too many things at once imho.

Maybe host a tourney with this change and collect feedback from the players.

Chaos, It's already in progress..

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?TournamentID=1377

Imp -- couldn't have said it better. That's my point in a nutshell. Minor quibble thoguh -- it's only 3 3x2 attacks 1st turn -- the other one is a 4x2 :)

I had no idea Magic was still being played. Best of luck in your games and your apt. hunt.

I've been playing magic since 1994 and never looked back. The game is awesome, though many of the denizens of game shops are pretty immature and annoying so I am more into just playing with my friends over beer and bbq... I have thousands and thousands of magic cards, it's ridiculous..

I used to play Magic back during 4th ed and got irritated with the way they started doing things around 7th ed... still have a fairly large collection and play in casual games with friends/family but I avoid tournaments then and now like the plague..

@ Perrin: thx, didnt know there was a tourney already. I'm curious about the results/feedback

I like the four army/country start. It's really made a difference in the way people are playing imo. If you bundle your starting spots together, you put a lot of eggs in one basket. If you spread yourself out, it's going to take a while to get income.

I think we should double up neutral armies and see how that works..

more than one 1v1 ladders would solve this problem i think, maybe not fix it but give options without changing alot. if there isnt enough players in any given ladder then you would be able to change to the most popular ladder after enough time to determine whats best. I think it would also mix up the ladder system a bit, i pretty much only play ladder games now and i would like more than one setting but i dont like the idea of constant changing of the settings. There seems to be a good voting system in place so it would be easy to convince everyone to try the different ladders so they could choose what they like best.

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http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?TournamentID=1385

2x Neutrals RR tournament..
50 minimum games
15% maximum boot ratio
Open tourney

Feedback is appreciated.