How do you plan to determine these top 24 players?

MDL, 1v1 ladder, 2v2 ladder, 3v3 ladder or based on your experience?

It'll be a combination of these. My intent isn't to make an elitist ladder. Having reliable players who stick around is important to retain everyone who joins the ladder. If people keep booting or aren't motivated enough it will turn others off. I'd also like to have continuity on the ladder(= more motivated players), which is why there are more restrictions around leaving/vacations than you see on MDL. All of this is based on my learning from the previous team CLOT I did.

Edited 3/15/2017 00:05:02

i like the concept of team ladder with rotating partners and templates but i'm against the elitist eligibility criteria of being for 24 players at a time. so i'm not participating out of principle.

i believe a player should be able to join and leave whenever they want.

i can agree with the auto-removal on boot, and perm ban on recurrent boots.

but i can't agree with waiting on a list for weeks/months until a spot opens up for you to actually get games whenever you first register and/or return to warlight after holidays.

Edited 3/15/2017 00:36:05

How likely is it that someone will be booted in only 1 of their 2 to 5 games (or wherever the upper threshold is set) that they have going concurrently? I detest boots, but is 2 the right number for the permaban? 1 bad 3 day weekend or temporary computer problems and there's your permaban (with extra boots beyond 2 in all likelihood) for an otherwise reliable player...

Perhaps starting with the "top 24" participants is an ill-choice of words... perhaps you should collect as many "reliable" players that you know and choose from them randomly (and then add to the number accordingly)?

Edited 3/15/2017 01:01:42

but i'm against the elitist eligibility criteria of being for 24 players at a time. so i'm not participating out of principle.

Like I said, my intent isn't to impose an elitist eligibility criteria. It is to ensure reliability. I just made the assumption that top players are more reliable.

i believe a player should be able to join and leave whenever they want.

I want to avoid players signing up for 1-2 games and then leaving. My previous team CLOT had this problem as well and it just died off. Continuity is important, and I'd rather have a smaller group of serious players than a large pool of players who keep leaving and aren't committed teammates.

but i can't agree with waiting on a list for weeks/months until a spot opens up for you to actually get games whenever you first register and/or return to warlight after holidays.

I don't really expect a waiting period of months. If that happens, I'll revisit it. Ideally, I want every player who will be a good teammate(regardless of skill level) on this ladder.

How likely is it that someone will be booted in only 1 of their 2 to 5 games (or wherever the upper threshold is set) that they have going concurrently? I detest boots, but is 2 the right number for the permaban? 1 bad 3 day weekend or temporary computer problems and there's your permaban (with extra boots beyond 2 in all likelihood) for an otherwise reliable player...

Ah. I hadn't thought of this. Thanks for bringing it up. This feature is not built into the system and I was planning on enforcing this manually. We can just restate it to "If you boot on two separate occasions, then that's a ban. So a bunch of boots over a bad weekend amounts to '1 occasion'"

Perhaps starting with the "top 24" participants is an ill-choice of words... perhaps you should collect as many "reliable" players that you know and choose from them randomly (and then add to the number accordingly)?

Yeah. I was mainly going for reliability and making the incorrect assumption that the top players will be reliable. I like your approach better and we can use that. Ironically you had the 24th post ;)

I like the rewording of the ban policy. I withdraw this concern :-)

And for what its worth, I also wouldn't be opposed to a "1 and done" boot-ban policy either, but it would need to be clearly stated as such.

I would like to play

sign me up, b0ss. im a professional team player

the only problem is if you get paired with people that are horrible skill-wise and/or that you have blacklisted.

as long as we keep matching people up with only teammates of around almost the same rating area, overtime the luck balances out (whether you're getting a good or crap teammate)

the trick then is to know how to deal with bad teammates (team carrying is a real skill that actually comes into play in competitive leagues)

Edited 3/15/2017 03:32:11

To partially solve the "away on the weekend" problem maybe use 1d10h with 1d banked time? An average 2v2 game is at least 5 turns long, so 1d bank will average to only 3-4 extra hours per turn. I know most ladders don't have any banks, but 1d10h calls for one!

Also maybe add an ability to (privately) blacklist up to N players similar to how md-ladder allows blacklisting templates?

@Semice the problem is mostly when you get paired with people that cannot cooperate at all in team games and are extremely stubborn. A guy of lesser skills is quite more fun to team with if he listens to advices compared to an other with skills that will always do what he likes and not cooperate.

Edited 3/15/2017 05:02:55

i can test as well if you want

I take it 2 games at a time is the minimum?

@Benoit, keep in mind that the teams you play against also has the same chances of getting those "people that cannot cooperate at all in team games and are extremely stubborn"

as I said, the luck balances itself out over time

over an extended while, if you're a good player then you should be able to develop a positive win rate simply because of how everyone else sucks in comparison at dealing with trash teammates

as long as everyone is at equal handicaps, the games will remain skill-based

Edited 3/15/2017 16:01:31

sounds very good.

How often can I play on the same team?
Two players can play on the same team once every 20 days.

How many games can I play at a time?
Every player can play up to 2-5 games at once. You must sign up for a minimum of 2 games though.

I suggest to also change this to "Two players can play every 3rd game on the same team."

Otherwise since you finish at the same time and are likely to have a similiar rating you would often get paired with the same player again if your game lasts longer than 20 days.

To partially solve the "away on the weekend" problem maybe use 1d10h with 1d banked time? An average 2v2 game is at least 5 turns long, so 1d bank will average to only 3-4 extra hours per turn. I know most ladders don't have any banks, but 1d10h calls for one!

I was intending to have 3 day boot limits. But 1d10h with bank is also an interesting proposition. I'll have to think a bit more on what the appropriate bank time would be.

Also maybe add an ability to (privately) blacklist up to N players similar to how md-ladder allows blacklisting templates?

Yeah. This is what I was planning to do. But I'm not sure how much work it will be, so I don't want to commit to it yet. Such a blacklist would only prevent you from teaming up with these players. You should never be able to avoid facing a player(as an opponent), as that can be easily abused.

I take it 2 games at a time is the minimum?

Yes.

I suggest to also change this to "Two players can play every 3rd game on the same team."

Otherwise since you finish at the same time and are likely to have a similiar rating you would often get paired with the same player again if your game lasts longer than 20 days.

It is 20 days from the game finish date, so it shouldn't run into this problem. (MDL handles it in the same way)

I was intending to have 3 day boot limits. But 1d10h with bank is also an interesting proposition. I'll have to think a bit more on what the appropriate bank time would be.

I personally would vote for 3d instead of 1d10h with bank, but in general I think banking is an under-utilised feature on WL, and when it is used it is used badly (mostly in FFA RT games which forces people to needlessly wait for one guy who just left without surrendering).

At the same time if used with multi-day, it can be a more useful and interesting option, forcing faster play in general (which is what you want for the ladder it seems), but allowing to take an exception here or there. Think about different options such as 1d initial bank + 5% of time left, which would encourage people to play faster if they want to take a few days off later without taking a vacation

How about taking random team for each game? Thus, many people would be forced to know each other and probably cooperation will be obligation rather than an option.

Hasdrubal did you read any of the posts before you decided to ask this question?

The teams are random but matched by similar skill level