Sucks to be a slow player then, I guess

MDL is down to 65 active players which is the lowest it's been in 4+ months. Why are people leaving? Something to do with ladder or just plain bored?

I think there was effect of 'something new' and it's passing. Many people joined out of curiosity just to check it, but then they left to reduce game count or because they don't like the idea of playing different templates every game. i wouldn't expect much more drop.

I think MDL might have more drops when we'll have other CLOTS (Like the "meta"CLOT that Hydra's Knyte is working on) or the 2v2 ladder rotating CLOT you are working on. I would think also that it must be quite intimidating for a new strat player to join MDL because the level of competition on this ladder is quite strong compared to like the 1v1 ladder (A lot of templates and a lot of very very good players are on this ladder and there are very few bad or below average players).

A player that loses most of his games will probably drop-out of this ladder because it is frustrating to lose all the time. 1v1 ladder or such ladders have way more different level of skills compared to MDL; you have elites on top, then super good, then good, then decent, etc. until you reach the very bottom of the ladder where you have quite below average players against whom a newbie to strategic gaming will be able to win probably 40-50% of his games, which is motivating.

I saw that you are putting ps's strat guide videos now on the MDL ladder pages. That is very helpful!

Edited 4/6/2017 03:21:57

i just rage quit when i lose games that were already won

maybe do a poll to all warlight players asking why they don't join. possible answers:
a) not that interested in strategic gameplay
b) too many templates to learn
c) too hard competition to reach top 10
d) too many games already
e) don't like multiday
f) had never heard of it before

Ya a poll would be great indeed! The possible answers seem quite accurate too. We have to take into account also that during this time of the year, students usually are in their exams and stuff. Maybe it could explain a bit of the drop-outs right now. I would have maybe c) too hard competition to reach top 10 but also an other option where it is just too hard competition overall.

Edited 4/6/2017 03:38:46

On top of reasons Ben said, I would also add the start of CL.

For reasons to not join, the 2 minimum game for me is already too much. I don't like MD, but I do like to be in one tourney + 1 ladder at a time. So have to make choices. But I definitely plan to try this ladder (rather than RT ladder for example) because it does look interesting, and competition can be a reason to drop out, but not a reason not to try it. Other people could be in my shoes too.

My suggestion is allow 1 game at a time, at least to attract new players ("special offer" lol).
If your point is to prevent players from stalling top position by minimizing games played once on top, you could state "during your first 3 months (or 20 games), you are allowed to play only 1 game at a time". Then see how it goes, if it works better, if it could stay permanently, or not.

d) for me, and for several other players I suspect. My game count is simply too high. Or to be more precise my game count of games where I need to think a lot.

The MDL is great and I love it, but it is one of many warlight competitions. CL9 has started and team games take a lot of time and effort, a new Seasonal Ladder season started too, as soon as the Elitist Africa one ended, a new AWP tournament is created every week...

And the reason I put MDL on hold isn't because I like it less than the other competitions, but because it was the only one I could put on hold. :p
CL9 and Seasonal Ladder XXVIII have to be played now, but I'll still be able to join MDL in two months if I want.

Anyway, I suspect the new Seasonal and CL9 are to blame for this decreased activity on MDL. It wouldn't surprise me if the number of active players on the 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 official ladders had decreased as well.

rak president

A player that loses most of his games will probably drop-out of this ladder because it is frustrating to lose all the time. 1v1 ladder or such ladders have way more different level of skills compared to MDL; you have elites on top, then super good, then good, then decent, etc. until you reach the very bottom of the ladder where you have quite below average players against whom a newbie to strategic gaming will be able to win probably 40-50% of his games, which is motivating.

Yeah. I agree, although I'm not sure what I can do to bring more players in.

My suggestion is allow 1 game at a time, at least to attract new players ("special offer" lol).
If your point is to prevent players from stalling top position by minimizing games played once on top, you could state "during your first 3 months (or 20 games), you are allowed to play only 1 game at a time". Then see how it goes, if it works better, if it could stay permanently, or not.

I'm not a fan of 1 game at a time. It will reduce the games played on the ladder significantly.

And the reason I put MDL on hold isn't because I like it less than the other competitions, but because it was the only one I could put on hold. :p
CL9 and Seasonal Ladder XXVIII have to be played now, but I'll still be able to join MDL in two months if I want.

Anyway, I suspect the new Seasonal and CL9 are to blame for this decreased activity on MDL. It wouldn't surprise me if the number of active players on the 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 official ladders had decreased as well.

Hmm. That is actually disheartening. Seems like the "never-ending ladder" format isn't as attractive to people. The 1v1,2v2,3v3 ladders seem to have the same problem as well. People usually aim for something, and once they achieve or fail at their goals the team stops playing(since they can always play again at a later time?)

I think MDL has a good core of players who will continue to play. I doubt the player count drops below 50(in the future). This is a good enough number to run this CLOT(even if the experience isn't as great as it would be with 100 players).

However, this does influence the team ladder I was planning for. I'm not sure people will stick around long enough if it has a similar format(even though a lot of people have expressed interest). I'm going to have to rethink that.

Yeah. I agree, although I'm not sure what I can do to bring more players in.

Players adore the achievements ;)
Make different achievements for the different player levels.
Or I don't know, it is only a brainstormed idea :D

For me it's b) + d).

I don't like playing a template without putting in a decent effort to learn it. And learning 30+ new templates is daunting.

Yeah some people just don't want to risk themselves on a template they don't know, because they could eventually lose on it, and it would affect their win rate. Stats are important you know ! :/

My opinion is:
1. MDL not known enough. I myself was asking, what the hell is Guiroma and Balck see? An advise was to go MDL to see and practice them. A solution could be get into achievements, e.g. on player page I can see his record on RT, 1v1, seasonal ladders, but not on MDL.
2. Very strong competition, some kind of elitist ladder. And elitists can be to much.
3. A bit to much templates. As templates to CL and even to some extent to seasonal can go from MDL, smaller number would increase possibility to master them and be prepared for CL as well as seasonal.

If the number of templates is an issue, then maybe every month swap out some templates? Then the total number of templates are lower but overall there is still enough variation.

Maybe decide which templates to swap in and out by whatever clan plays the most games, or has the most players in the top 30 etc

Maybe some drop out of most vetoed templates, that the number not increase?

It's not the number of template at any time, it's the number of template to learn and know during your trial to reach top rank, which takes more than one month. So if some templates come back the month after, you still need to master them if you dont want your rating to be impacted.

If players could choose a few templates, say 10, and then 1 is added randomly from the rest (no veto), then diversity of template is here (you'll just discover new templates slower) and impact on your rating is low.

The large number of templates is not a problem in my opinion. As a matter of fact, it's a draw for some players (me included) who joined the MDL in order to discover new templates.

And while I understand that some templates can be dropped at some point, I wouldn't recommend choosing them based on vetos or on community votes. If we did that, we could probably say goodbye to all LD, MA and special-settings templates.


@motd: I don't think there's much you can do to quickly bring in new players, short of mass-spamming people playing in the other ladders. Perhaps ask Fizzer if he can promote the MDL somehow, through the Community page, a blog post or an announcement? He's probably the only one who can reach the players who don't know the MDL yet.

Ekstone's idea of achievements is interesting though. It could be a good way to get some of the less-skilled players to stay. There could be achievements for playing or for winning on 5/10/15 different templates for example.

Achievements would be a fizzer task as well