free points from me to everyone :)
and i won't be playing serious games till its updated for the better

im going in whenever you do now :)

Fizzer end his sadness and fix this.

YOU let us help you make some great changes when you brought this about: https://www.warlight.net/Forum/53597-ladder-changes-polls?Offset=0

Now it seems your only trying to monetize warlight. I and the rest of the community are very appreciative of what you do and would love for you to make some honest money from the game =) At the same time we would like the ladders offered to be improve so that we keep playing and make you more coins. Ryiro has played many coin games for you to take a rake off..... Can't you at least make us a poll and say you will consider making changes in X Months????

Better yet...

Mercer you should change this. You seem to be more proactive about being involved with the community than Fizzer is.... (Fizzer prove me wrong here cause I love ya)

@Ryiro, that's nice of you for giving people free ladder points, even though it counts against your profile.

Ryiro,
Can you be more clear. What needs fixing? Thanks

1. All Templates should be on a different map.
2. "174431: Season III: East Asia and Oceania map" is a template that is (often) decided on luck (and what ,I believe, Ryrio is protesting). The map is great for RT ladder, the template is not.

EDIT:
@Mercer, Here are some relevant links for you :)
https://www.warlight.net/Forum/90264-east-asia-oceania-template
https://www.warlight.net/Forum/86187-request-removal-eao-template

Edited 5/18/2015 01:35:36

Temates are bad.... it doesn't take a ladder #1 pro like Ryiro to know that!!

Heavy Earth (Season III) is bad because each starting spot has 1 army on it. This makes the game very luck based on how you picked and if you get a lucky counter.... Change the starting number of armies or remove the template.

Turkey LD Its local deployments and takes a while to complete. Also when two strong players play the settings can be a bit confining....

There are too many templates on the Medium Earth template. Season IV is good as it is No-Luck Strategic 1v1 and balanced. Season I with light fog on ME is a little excessive...

MOST OF ALL: East Asia and Oceania is luck based. The 3 army neutrals make it interesting and I like it; however, the luck settings 16% WR make expansion luck based. Making a 5v3 attack (100% success in SR luck games) can fail on a good ammount of the time. At the same time, a 4v3 attack has decent odds of success which is totally stupid! To resolve this you could: A.) Remove/Replace the template. B.) Change neutrals to 2's. C.) Change the luck to 0% WR. D.) Change the luck to 0% or 16% SR.

Thanks Mercer for reading this. I know this cant/wont be a hard thing to fix and its only a matter of getting the approval of the right people.

Edit: With all do respect..... THANKS FIZZER! THANKS MERCER!
https://www.warlight.net/Forum/76516-thanks-fizzer

Perhaps that thread will better appeal to you Mercer.

Edited 5/18/2015 01:51:13

There's many disagreements regarding which templates and what should be changed, but I believe there's one point 'everyone' agree on.

East Asia and Oceania; 5v3 have a very high chance of success and you often depend on them working (especially early in the game). Losing a game because you failed a 5v3 attack while your opponents worked doesn't feel skill based. Neither does winning if you're in the opposite situation, while luck doesn't necessarily decide every game it has a very high impact and often feels like the deciding factor (not to mention it sometimes is). There's many ways to change it, Turtle mentioned a few options, and whatever the change is there's no way it'd end up worse than it is right now.

Ryiro,
Can you be more clear. What needs fixing? Thanks

I was shouted at for questioning your advertising for memberships half way through a thread. I said fix your broken game.

This proves my point mercer. This has been a going problem that has been well documented on the forums and you're telling me that as the "Customer Experience Officer" you haven't been reading the forums like a hawk to make sure that the customer experience is good?
I really do think that you and Fizz have massive time-management problems.

at first when i joined the ladder i found it awesome and only with very few things to dislike
i accepted that luck can be a part of the game and the games could still be fun and challenging at the same time
there are few major and minor events occuring in the ladder that players dislike.
i realize i'm in no position to speak on behalf of everyone,so i'll state the factual reasons first:-

1.rating system-
any 2050+ rated player who has a low standard deviation(SD) cannot obtain any points against any 1500 or lower rated player with similar SD
while one can say that 2050 rated player should not lose in the first place i can also say what is the meaning of assigning a 2050 rated player a game with a 1500 rated player
same goes for a 1900+ rated player against any 1200- rated players and so on...

when the same player plays against a lower rated player,he even LOSES POINTS even after WINNING the game which is a complete turn off for anyone who wants to play in the ladder,while it gives no benefit to the winner even in a long period of time

2.Alts making ladder runs-whenever a player makes an alt and wins his first game against a top rated player with very low SD while they were on similar level of skill,the top rated player loses a lot of points
suppose a 2000 rated player was to play against an alt of the same caliber as him-he loses about 10-15 points and its tough for him to recover
he has to win about 8-10 games against an average player IN-A-ROW to get to his rating back again

the ALT players can also SURPASS that player without even playing against any other player of their caliber,just win 20 games in a row against 1750 rated player and there you go-rank 1
and such players are not limited to just 1 alt
while i am not against anyone who wants to make an alt and score in any ladder and keep his main inactive,it is a pain for any main account user to deal with it

3.East asia template-while some say that 5v3 attacks do not fail most of the times that makes the template even more unpredictable because you have the opportunity of doing any one of the following things when not facing opponent in the start:-

1 turn luck based unsafe triple pick 8 income-the follow up varies a lot based on luck

2 turns safe 8 income-(safest)
into 3 turn luck based bonus into 4 turns luck based bonus

2 turns safe/unsafe 9 income with combo picks
into 3 turn luck based bonus into no income next turn or 4 turn luck based bonus(based on the position of combo)

2 turns luck based 10 unsafe triple pick-(most unsafe)
into 4 turn luck based 2 more bonuses or 1 more bonus

there are few more starts possible but these occur mainly
but there is not a single of them that can be calculated over a period of 4 turns to ensure proper expansion

unlike medium earth where we attack with 4 for taking a territory,here taking a 1 turn or even 2 turn bonus with 6 armies each or 5 for 1st turn and 6 for 2nd turn limits your expansion in your 3rd bonus
if your 3rd bonus is not a counter to your opponent it stays like that for 2 more turns before you take it
without risking 5 v 3 in 2 turns you cannot complete another bonus next turn
if your opponent risks it and you don't and he succeeds you're behind
if both of you risk it,the one who fails in any 1 attack is behind


the one who gets behind does not have any chance of getting ahead back again cause it is not about being behind in INCOME it is about being behind by 1 whole TURN against your opponent

when the picks are spread wide and both players are close to each other anyone who gets unlucky on their 1st bonus basically loses the game

4.Turkey local deploy:-
if you were to play this game few times you'll find out atleast 1 out off 10 times that a game lasts for more than 1 hour,sometimes even more than 2 hours
cyclic order makes the game luckless and we have to think more which i like,but the distribution sometiems leaves no choice but to not attack your opponent
its not that this template is bad as a whole but perhaps if the wastelands were less than 10 we could have more open and complex games whcih don't last more than 2 hours
there are very few circumstances when this happens but its basically a DRAW and no one likes to play after the game is a DRAW cause any agressive move which is anticipated correctly can be and is fatal
so you get scenarios where no player wants to attack but you still have to commit and game goes on forever

5.Light fog with in-distribution neutrals set to 0
this the worst of the 3 most disliked template for me since you and your opponent both get to realize who is doing what and losing what and what not to luck,0 recovery chance once you get unlucky in the start,its not fun to play at all.

I dont like China, EA and O, Turkey and light fog medium earth templates. Remove it!!!

Losing the 5v3 on EA&O early is basically game over. I hate that template and the Heavy Earth with 1's.

yes i almost forgot heavy eartheven that template is commonly disliked
that makes 5 out of 10 templates which are not quite strategic,fun or liked

Mercer/Fizzer,
What are your thoughts?

Mercer/Fizzer,
What are your thoughts?

I said fix your broken game.

What needs fixing? There are hardly any bugs, now. Things only need to be improved, that's all.

I do not like Turkey Local Deployments, but I would be fine with playing Strategic Turkey (the template played in the 80 coin games).

East Asia & Oceania is an awful template right now, but it could be greatly improved by changing it from 16% weighted random to 0% weighted random. With 0% weighted random, 5v3's will not fail. While I still don't think this template would be great, it would greatly decrease the luck involved, and most people would enjoy it more.

These two are the worst two templates on the realtime ladder in my opinion, and both should be changed or removed.

I am also in agreement that the light fog Medium Earth template should be removed, or changed. Perhaps with 0% Straight Round, this template would be more enjoyable for many, and become less luck-based.

Heavy Earth reminds me of the 2v2 Final Earth template. Both are on large maps with relatively few picks. (3 on Heavy Earth, 4 for each team on 2v2 Final Earth). With the low amount of picks on these maps, it really turns into a rock/paper/scissors picking game, meaning that there are no dominant picks, and that a player who picked worse can often end up in better position at the start of the game. I personally like the idea of the 1 neutrals, just as I like the idea of the 3 neutrals in East Asia & Oceania. Both keep the game interesting and add a new layer on. I am not sure simply adding a couple picks for each player on Heavy Earth would work. Perhaps this template should be experimented with in order to minimize luck and maximize enjoyment.

China is a large map, and it is hard to cover the map in 4 picks. China 2v2 is one of the more popular 2v2 templates but includes 8 picks for each team. The 2v2 template makes covering the map much easier, and brings more skill into the picking stage. I would propose a possible change in China 1v1 to 5 or 6 picks for each player. That said, I still enjoy the map a lot, and am fine with keeping it as is.

Greece, Guiroma, No Luck Strategic 1v1, Battle Islands, and Treasure map are liked by nearly everyone.

What I would like to see is more templates tested, and variations of the current templates tested. Most of the realtime ladder templates that people do not like have nice ideas with them; there are just better variations of the template that should be used instead. What we as a community can do is test these variations, and when we find one that seems much more enjoyable, we can ask Fizzer and Mercer to change the template to the new variation.

Ryiro, since you're the most vocal about it, please show us multiple examples of your games where you think it was "unfair" that you lost, preferably a game you think you can't improve on in terms of play. I also had my personal likes and dislikes, however in general, i think being exposed to multiple templates helped me become a better player. I actually think local deployments can be strategic although you need very patient and clculated play (previous ld template was better imo). When it comes to ladder in general, well, it's no surprise i'm saying it is the best ladder by far. Also, all people that I thought would do well did and based on my experience with multiple top players, it really feels like rt ladder rating is getting close to a relistic assessment of overall skill. EA&O, i'll always support 0% luck, however people saying it has no strategic value are wrong, 16% luck just puts some bias towards safer expand options.

i'm guessing what ppl are asking is for another template poll round to take place asap :p

and bans for alts ruining the fun.