Qi's idea is nice, but it also hurts normal players, if someone wants to get rated early 2 games at a time is not enough for him. Same goes for my original idea of pure chronological order, that fails due to someone potentially stalling you on your 15th game. Imagine if a new player comes in and gets a very high rating and he plays his 15th game against current #1, that game could go on for months. Taking all that into consideration I sincerely believe if there are no core changes (like no expiration+TrueSkill, same as on rt ladder), the solution I proposed is best since there is little to no impact on normal players who do not want to stall.

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

You win 19 games. 20th is against leader(or just troll). He stalls it for months. You can't get ranked for months.

Yes, my idea punishes players who want to play more. If the only options were the 1v1 and 2v2 ladders, it would be a worse idea. But now the real-time and seasonal ladders exist. If somebody wanted more games, they are there to be had. Make the changes I mentioned and add a multi-day rotating template ladder (identical to the real-time, but multi-day and using the 1v1 ladder's adjusted rating format) and there would definitely be more than enough options for those who would want to play more games.

Edited 6/3/2014 12:45:42

I might adjust the max gamecounts somewhat from those Qi proposed, but I have to say I like his idea very much. It's very similar to the current system so ratings in the current and future system are quite comparable, and the effects of the change are pretty easy to predict. New problems arising from this solution is unlikely.

To have many games in a fast tempo, there is the rt ladder.

Implementing this idea doesn't even prevent some other solutions from being implemented as well.

Very interesting to read the umpteen topic about the gaming-, stalling-, cheating the ladder :P

My opinion about it:

• I think, to reach the first place of any ladders even with stalling is still a good performance.
  
• Reaching the first place without stalling is a better performance.
  
• Reaching and holding the first place with much more than 15 games is a much better performance.
  
• But they are nothing... reaching the first place without picking (I mean get autodistribution while our opponents can choose their picks!), well, that would be the perofrmance of the performances :P

maybe we can have some kind of auto finish for games, nothing that will effect normal non-staling players
something like if after turn 10 a player has triple the income of the other players and more free army on the board the game auto ends and he gets the win,
this of course is just an example I am sure the math geniuses can come up with a good formula.

What happens if you can play max 2 games and your rating is like 1900. You play your 9th and 10th game in the ladder. You play against high (almost) ranked players who can play more games then you and starting to stall against you. Then you wont be able to finish your 9th and 10th game for a long time. if you are unlucky your first games are already expired before you even finished all 20 games and you will loose those points. Then you are kinda fucked :) so i dont think Qi's solution will solve this problem.

Maybe this has been suggested before, but here it comes. I was thinking a way to go about the 1v1 ladder would be to have a minimum number of non expired games to get into top 100. (I suggest 75) and a minimum of 120 non expired games before u can get into top 50. So if u have a rating of 2000 and only 25 games u are placed according to your rating after top 100. If this could be implemented I think a lot of the problems we see now are avoided. If this suggestion sounds good I also think the number of max games should be increased to 10. What do you think?

Edited 6/21/2014 11:52:29