I have a question, do the real time ladder games never expire?

nope

^ Double negative

Well, why don't they then? It's hard to get your rating up when you've played a lot of games :/

i believe older games have less impact on the average than the new ones do. it was written on the wiki or a page somewhere, don't know the exact math anymore to tell you the truth.

still, if you follow big numbers logic (or whatever it's called), the more games you play the more your rating will converge to your rightful average.

sure you can have flukes against low tiered players (or pulsey and dead piggy trolling you by surrendering to low tier players and playing properly against high tiers) but you will also win some by luck against higher tier players. also as your skill improves you will start to score more wins against higher tier players dragging your rating slowly up. i believe that's the logic behind it.

but yeah, if you can't consistently beat gnuffles and sze you won't get a higher rating than them any time soon ;)

Edited 4/14/2015 10:55:26

I think old games have nothing to do with the ranking. The rating is a result of latest result, rating of opponent and previous rating.

^ exactly what bjarke said

found the post where the rating system for the realtime ladder was officially described:

https://www.warlight.net/blog/index.php/2014/03/website-update-2-5-real-time-ladder/

Ratings for the real-time ladder are calculated in a completely different manner than the other three ladders. The real-time ladder uses the TrueSkill algorithm to determine player’s ratings.

Unlike the other ladders, ratings will update immediately after a game finishes. After every game, you can refresh your ladder page to see your new rating.

This makes the rating method much simpler than the other ladders. The ripple effect of the other ladders is not present — the rating change is affected only by the rating of your opponent when you played, not their future changes. Also, games never expire like they do in the other ladders, but the TrueSkill algorithm weights newer games more highly, so you still have the ability to move your rating over time.

It takes around 15 completed games to receive a rank. Unlike the other ladders, you get a rank even while you’re not joined to the ladder. If you don’t play a real-time ladder game for 3 days, you’ll lose your rank and revert to “Not Ranked” until you play a game again. This doesn’t affect your rating.

Also unlike the other ladders, the real-time ladder does not award points for ranks. Instead, each win gives 4x the points that the equivalent game would give if you just created it on its own.

Edited 4/14/2015 13:07:31