More than 300 players are playing 1v1 and Seasonal ladder. Is playing with 5% of these players enough to see quality of a player? Warlight is growing and maybe next year we will see 1000 players in ladders. Will we still continue with this system? My suggestion is that;
1. You have to finish minimum 10% of number of players in ladder to be ranked.
2.(number of Players)/2 days for expiration date.

Why Pulsey's keen on keeping the system as is:

He's dying to take #1 in the 2v2 Ladder in order to stall both ladders with his friend Pulsius. He got himself as high as #3, but now he's losing in our game and at least one other. So what to do? Here's what he's trying:

- Put one of his profiles on vacation
- Wait for EZPickens and marc2013's rating to rise
- rejoin ladder

So it's not even a matter of driving slow. It's parking.

Don't you think it would be a huge disadvantage if a player improves a lot while he joined the ladder. Old losses against very bad opponents would take down his rating forever.

@mod,I believe newer games are given more weight. That's the case in the rt ladder at least.

None of those are problems that people want fixed though sze. Noone cares if the stalling problem is reduced to almost 0 after a few months, thats already the case anyway, noone can stall for months...

Just go with your first suggestion, you have to finish the first 15 games you get allocated before you get ranked.

i think sze meant the problem is solved forever, but before the new system impacted to ratings, will take a few months.

I agree with MoD completely, I've always been against removing the expiration. One of the main features of the ladder imo is the ability to track your improvements and if you start right down the bottom of the ladder would bar you from reaching decently high rankings. Even with a system like the RT ladder it would still make it harder.

I like Sze's idea. It is, in my opinion the best alternative I'm aware of presently to the current system and I'm all for increasing the minimum number of games to 20 to make this more effective.

The seasonal ladder also needs work, perhaps some kind of new matchmaking system that priorities giving similar rated players similar rated opponents for the same game number (if that makes sense) instead of prioritising drawing you against players with the closest rating to you. For example, if you were on your second game the ladder will look at players who had a similar rating to you when they were on their second game, and choose opponents with a similar rating to those player's opponents. This could, if done correctly reduce the frequency of scenarios that destroyed the chances of people like Ottoman emperor.

But I don't believe any fundamental changes to the rating system should be made to already established ladders as it would invalidate all past records.

Edited 5/31/2014 16:17:37

Oh, well then hes wrong. When someone first joins the ladder then they can delay as much as they want, and when theyre done they can just use an alt. Pulsey, beel, gnuff, pulsius all made runs from 0 unexpired games, 3 on totally new alts. So again, youre solving the wrong problem.

I like the idea of no expiration. It makes the ladder much more viable as a measure of skill. However, the rating system would have to change; for the sake of viability (otherwise ELO would inflate/deflate as other players do at an increasing rate), and for the sake of the server (imagine it trying to keep up with 200 different opponents affecting one players rating).

For those worried about the difficulty of improvement, how about this: A proper ELO, where a game affects your rating once. This allows you to improve just as (if not more) quickly. Stalling would remain a problem but nowhere near as bad.

Also, to get rank on the ladder instead of just a rating, you should have to play a considerable amount of games (something like reducing your potential deviation on a TrueSkill system). Otherwise it becomes easy for a new player to get a couple of wins and dominate.

Edited 6/1/2014 13:54:46

Well, it seems I've been already judged. Thank you guys.

I'll just say that, as you can see, I only started to stall when I was number 2 with Pulsius I The Great stalling and winning more than suspiciously (http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=6217891)

For me it wasn't fair not being number 1 only because of that, so I started to stall, but only till I beat Pulsius. Now I'll just surrender in the games I've stalled. If this turns me into a cheater, ok, but it's quite lamer judging people without asking and without having the full picture. Congratulations

Without stalling neither of you would be number 1, I would.

1.- Angry Beavers is #1 over you, with and without stalling.

2.- I surpassed you on 17/18th of May and I've been more than 60 points over you stalling only one game, you can check it.

From late May on it's true that you would have been #1, but there's been some days before where I've been over you regardless of stalling, if you cannot aknowledge that, it's your problem. Sooner or later everyone loses #1. Accept it with grace.

Changing the subject, someone kindly told me that it's said I'm an alt. That's not true. I'm not known because I don't like clans, teams and forums (because of situations like this one, where some people take things too seriously), but as anyone can see, this account is more than 2 years old. I've been playing auto games all this time (+1000) and I'll keep doing it once I leave the ladder, probably in a few days when I lose 2-3 games more. I'll never post again.

Enjoy the game.

Sorry if somebody suggested this earlier,

Perhaps you could make it so that games don't expire whilst you're not currently on the ladder. Or they expire at half speed.

Or maybe games just start to expire after you have a certain number of unexpired games.

I think every one can agree it's a filthy tactic - Thankyou JSA for bringing this sort of thing to light.

That doesn't stop brand new accounts from stalling the heck out of things

If I max out my game count at 5, I can blow by 5-8 weak players, beat 3-6 average players, beat 1-3 good players, and stall 1-5 games while I wait for my wins to accumulate and my completed games to reach 15. This is the most common way people game the current system.

The easiest solution: DECREASE THE GAME COUNT!

0-10 ranked games played --> max game count = 2
10-15 ranked games played --> max game count = 3
15-20 ranked games played --> max game count = 4
20-X ranked games played --> max game count = 5
X+ ranked games played --> max game count = 6+ (some people who play more want more games, why discourage them?)

Effects:

-1- You can't max out at 5 games and stall 2-5 of them while waiting for players ahead of you to lose or for your wins to accumulate. So it becomes much more difficult to game the ladder and reach first or the top 10 (which at least 90% of the stallers are aiming for).

-2- You have to face tougher competition earlier. Instead of playing 5 weak opponents, you play 2. You win and the level of your competition rises a notch. Win again, the level of competition rises again. Isn't this the very idea of climbing a ladder?

Problem solved.

If a fully comprehensive solution is desired:

(1) change the game count as shown above
(2) 0 completed games --> RATING = 1500
(3) min of 20 games completed to be ranked

Could such a system be gamed? Yes. Would it happen every week as it does currently? No. It would be rather rare to see such a system gamed.

easiest solution: chronological order. But of creation date, not finish.

Games are being included in the rating not sooner than games that have been CREATED prior. This way, you don't want to stall.

This would fix the problem of pumped up ratings, and the only problem left would be stalling against people ranked below you who you know won enough later games to jump in front of you. But this will not happen to often i guess..

also minimum amount of unexpired games let's say equal to the number of ladder players active at the moment, would also fix jumpers quitting the ladder and returning with clean account.

The current system was fine when Ladders were introduced, but is no longer..

I once thought that would be the easiest solution too. Then I thought about its implementation.

What do you do with later games won before earlier games? The winner's rating is put in purgatory? You beat the guy one day but the ratings aren't affected until another day? A guy in first could lose a bunch of games but keep first because those games don't count yet? Wouldn't that be odd too? I beat a player when he is focused. The game doesn't count yet. Then he reaches his JSA-like goal and surrenders in his other games...By the time I get credit for my win I don't benefit as much. Also odd. There are numerous situations like this that make it seem that the costs outweigh the benefits.

Edited 6/3/2014 07:30:27

fair enough - now - what if you did not recalculate ladder ratings every now and then like the 1v1 does, but took the ratings as were the time the game was counted, and never going back to it?

in that case - game never expires (as expiration definition is obsolete)
ranking is never recalculated
you need to finish the first 20-30 games (chronology of creation counts) before being ranked.

would that fix the ladders?

No.

Is there some problem with "you have to finish the first 20 games you get allocated before being ranked" that sze suggested first?

It is simple to implimet, will work, and wont annoy new players.