Fizzer, any way to change the system that determines 1v1 ladder match ups for players rated 1900+, to make the top players play each other more often? For example, maybe allow players rated 1900+ to only play players ranked within 10-15 of their own rank?

Check Zaeban's games as an example:

- 4 of his 5 games lack excitement (in terms of rank): I want a piece of Zaeban! Maybe others in the top 10 do too. But we can't play him bc he's playing guys ranked 30 and below.
- Zaeban (2150+ Rating) vs 4 Guys (1650 Rating). That's a difference of 500! With so many players rated 1600-1700, Zaeban could play 25 games before anyone who really wants to play him has a chance.
- This is a no-win situation for Zaeban: win, and his rating increases 1-3; lose, and he drops 50-100!
- Most importantly, each of these 4 matches could take 1-2 weeks: I'm sure Zaeban is a competitive guy; if he is like me, he'd want to use that time competing against guys closer to him in rank.

Imagine if Zaeban's games were these (and each player listed also had similar match ups against guys ranked nearer to them):

- Zaeban (2150+) vs Unknownsoldier (2150+)
- Zaeban (2150+) vs Monsenhor Chacina (2100)
- Zaeban (2150+) vs NuckLuck (2000+)
- Zaeban (2150+) vs Yuanshuai (2000+)
- Zaeban (2150+) vs [中国阳朔] V (2000+)

That would be exciting. Personally, I have a few losses expiring and could jump to the top spot in 2 weeks. I'd rather earn the #1 spot by beating the best than have it handed to me...

to solve this my own way: i decided to quit the ladder. i will pick and choose my games. whenever a guy in the top 10 needs an opponent (and i am around to act), i'll rejoin the ladder just to get a game with him (or her, if bytjie is back in the top 10).

Of course by being at the top of the ladder there is no where else to go but down. It is inherent to the concept and designed that way. What you are proposing would mean that no one new has a chance to knock anyone off the ladder above them. Probably playing invitation only games is the best way for you to handle the desire to not play anyone below your level.

Player Rated 1900+ only plays people within 10-15 ranks of himself.

Key word = within

Thus, if Player Rated 1900+ is ranked 10, he could be matched up with anyone ranked #1 to #25.

My proposition is to make the ladder more dynamic, allowing for more players ranked in the top 25 to have more competitive games. As a consequence, a rating in the top 10 would be more meaningful. And the ladder would become less of a static 'marathon' (Fizzer's word of choice, I'd call it a race of sailboats) and more like a soccer tournament. (Though Jim Rome considers soccer tournaments to be boat races...)

I guess the change you want isn't clear to me. You want to not play people lower on the ladder so that you don't risk losing so many points. Or as you put it "just play competitive games only". Then how would anyone climb the ladder? Not that it concerns me because I will probably never be up there, but sounds like maybe you should just start a "Awesome" league to save you the trouble of too many easy games. Which I get. But why mess with the ladder?

Actually I'm not a member yet, but I have an idea that'd work very well for seasonal ladder and one idea for the ladder. Those idea's are based upon chess rating system.

How it works in chess, people that have 2000+ ranking will never play with 1500+ since there are simply different tournaments for different players(C-tournament, B-tournament, A-tournament, Open tournament). You could easily divide the ladder into <1200, 1200<rating<1500, 1500<rating<1800, 1800+ or similar. New games would be only from the category you are currently in. That is really effective in minimizing the risk of a loss with a low-rated player and does not create many chances to abuse the system. For example player dropping from 1810 to 1790 would not benefit from going from 1 to 5 games at a time since those losses would not improve his rating greatly.

Another idea is for a seasonal ladder in a swiss-system tournament model with 1vs1 ladder as a basic rating. Read more on this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament

Swezen, for our [20] league tournaments I have something like a modified Swiss tournament in mind: each game won in the RRs is worth 1 point. Total points determine who goes on to the double-elimination tournaments.

Thus:

- 1v1s: 2 RRs of 9 players each --> top 4 in each RR play a double-elimination tournament of 8
- 2v2s: 1 RR of 7-10 teams --> top 4 teams play a double-elimination tournament
- 3v3s: 1 RR of 5-7 teams --> either top 2 play a best of 3/5 series or top 4 teams play a double elimination tournament

One reason I'm waiting to start the tournaments is I want to have an equal # of players in each 1v1 division...

and total points in the 1v1s, 2v2s, and 3v3s determines overall rank (which is why i stressed having balanced teams in the team games)...

I understand your complaint. It's a delicate balance between starving people of games and giving them games outside of their competitive range.

It currently gives games within 30% of the ladder, so anyone in the top 30% can be matched with the #1 player. This number used to be much lower, in fact, as you are requesting to be. However there was a lot of complaints, that fell under two categories: One, people would complain that they weren't getting enough games, since the ladder would basically wait until someone closer to them opened up. Two, people at the top of the ladder complained that they just played the same people close to them over and over, and they got tired of repeat matches and wanted more variety. Therefore, the range was increased.

Ok. Though now there are more ladder players than before (and more higher ranked players), so maybe the previous balance is now out of balance?

or maybe challenge and/or decline elements could be added?

for example, we can decline 1 game a month and make 1 challenge a month (which can't be declined)?

i'd challenge zaeban if i could...and decline my next game against you fizzer (to remain undefeated against you!).

would it be possible to first check the top 25 and if you have played everyone already, then match to lower players? This way, you'll still get the amount of matches you want, but the chance of playing higher ranked players is bigger.

challanging elements would be highly helpful in inflating ones own rating..


personally, I think that the seasonal ladder should be split.. considering we each get 16 games, out of 132, it would be easy for each person to never get a valid chance to prove his worth.
I suggest that *next* season, instead of providing a pure seasonal ladder, we take the results of this ladder and anyone on it will be divided into divisions.. a-b-c, roughly equally..
any new players would likely end up being put into ladder b, because the default score is generally under that range..
in subsequent seasons we could take the top 5-10% and bottom 5-10% and move them to the appropriate ladder, with variation being given for people leaving the ladder...
unfortunately, this may end up with alot of people starting in a ladder, and subsequently being pushed to b ladder, when alot of c ladder players quit, if they quit.

for the 1v1 ladder, I think that a % amount should be a secondary objective.. since 30% would be a rather large range if say we ended up getting 500 players active in the ladder.. something closer to Y% or X players.. X being divided by 2, or the top X+1 if they are within said range..

to reply to perrin: i think the equation needed is

(X + Z - T)/他妈的 = more games with guys we actually want to play

One thing to keep in mind is that lowering the downward mobility for the top 12 players also lowers the upward mobility of the other 100 players on the ladder.

I don't necessarily disagree with your points but as it is I'm hungry for games with people above me (I remember one rather frustrating run where I went on a 17 game win streak and my rating barely moved because I couldn't get a matchup with a higher rated player than me)

I dig the challenge idea although I'm not sure how you would limit it so that people like fizzer or zaeban don't get challenged by 30 different people at the same time.

top 11 are 1900+ (and about 5-8 of us are 1900+ but not a part of the ladder). so #1 plays only 2-16, #2 1-17, #3 1-18...#11 1-26. top 20 would be able to play pretty much everyone.

challenges: can only challenge someone not already challenged?

if i play an AI 100 times and win, my winning streak would be 100. that doesnt mean i'd beat 100 different people in my next 100...

As Fizzer said, the current system was put in place in response to complaints by the top folks of having to wait around too long for a game. Any changes have to be overwhelmingly positive to warrant making them, because the new situation will cause alternative issues. There probably isn't any optimal solution, in any situation someone will not like the implementation. Any changes could be put to a referendum of ladder participants, however, to make sure it is a popular change to make to save Fizzer's time/energy.

problem with challanges..
I have an 1800 ranking worth of skill "roughly"
I make 2 accounts because for some reason I want to pay 60 dollars to look cool \*people do it*
given natural time, my ratings would be somewhat like 1805-1795, because both players would play as good as me, but the one I want with higher rankings would lose intentionally against me to inflate rankings...
now add in challanges of me-me once every 3 days..
now I have rankings 1905-1600 *estimated*.. even though by skill I am still only 1800

I don't remember if this is the same thread that suggested elo for standard games... I can honestly, and without doubt say, if elo is implemented for standard games, I will have likely vacate warlight..
I joined warlight initially primarily due to frustration due to the fact that I would join a casual game, just to have fun for a lil' bit, and instantly would have 3-4 people attacking me because i had *a higher rating*
Personally.. this is not fun.. and neither is being forced to Meta-game every game I play, because I am expected to play at a certain level by everyone I play against

professional boxing: fighters compete to be the best by beating the best, challengers earn their chances to play the best. champs only take easy fights for money or bc they fear the challenger, but they are forced to fight #1 contenders every now and then to remain the champion.

this ladder: top players fight each other 20-50% of the time and engage in a cold war the rest of the time, fighting proxies.

my suggestion: make the ladder more competitive at the top.

perrin: you want to challenge yourself once every three days? i suggested 1 challenge per month. you don't want a universal rating for all players in all games? i've suggested that all stats have the option of being hid (what you mentioned happens to me in FFAs).

So what I'm gleaning from this is that its totally pointless to play people below you in rank? If that's the case is there a penalty for declining to play lower ranked players. We have that option right? So surely you can just use that?? I think I must be missing something here. Anyone know?