What do you want in a Ladder?

[TinCow]

Leagues is a must

We can do that too, the ladder system has a built-in League option with promotion/relegation abilities. How many Leagues though, and how do we determine which league each player starts in?

Ignore these questions, I've just made a test league and it works a bit differently than I thought. The groups option is more of an NFL-style division that keeps smaller groups playing each other, it's not a promotion/relegation system like I thought. A system like that would link in well with a final tournament that would then take the winners of each group and pit them against each other for the league title. However, we could also just run the league with a single group so that everyone plays everyone. The main difference with the league is that the system assigns the games itself, so people do not get to pick who they play. In contrast, the ladder lets people pick their own opponents by challenging each other.

The biggest issue I see with this is making sure the games get played. Since the match-ups are automatically assigned, you could not avoid fighting an inactive player. We would need some kind of screening process to ensure that only serious players were allowed into the league, and there would have to be some means of policing the players to ensure that games get played. Maybe have two separate leagues? 'Hardcore' and 'Casual' (Samurai and Ashigaru?) Perhaps in the Hardcore/Samurai league, all entering players commit to playing their scheduled matches within 1 week, while Casual/Ashigaru league players get a longer time period? Failure to play the game by the time limit results in a Draw for both players maybe?

Ladders shouldn't be based on just grinding your way to the top by the number of games played, lol. It should be who you played against (their skill rating) and you should go up in rating with win streaks (which can be people of all skill ratings including lower) and beating people with equal skill rating and higher skill rating. You should go down in skill rating when losing against people of same skill rating and lower skill rating. It really can't be that hard to come up with something.

I'm pretty sure that's what the ELO system does. I think the number of points you gain for a victory depends on who you beat. If you beat someone with a much higher score than you, your rank goes up a lot. If you beat someone with a much lower score than you, your rank doesn't move much at all. That said, I haven't actually tested the system yet. I'll try and find time to run a test ladder this coming week to see precisely how the ELO rating system works.

[AggonyKing]

ideally this is what i was thinking:

Have different leagues that players can go in and out off and you can only play players from your league or the bottom portion of players from the league above you. (perhaps also top portion from the league below you)

that way players will get a chance to rise through leagues, improving their skills and will get points based on opponents. Basically, the way its done in SC2. We can also have leagues for different countries (or else one clan will just dominate the leagues >_> ) and then pit the top players from each league in a team contest to see which country or region has the best players that time around ^_^

[AMP]

I'm pretty sure that's what the ELO system does. I think the number of points you gain for a victory depends on who you beat. If you beat someone with a much higher score than you, your rank goes up a lot. If you beat someone with a much lower score than you, your rank doesn't move much at all. That said, I haven't actually tested the system yet. I'll try and find time to run a test ladder this coming week to see precisely how the ELO rating system works.

That's not 100% what I said though. You should only be able to gain skill rating beating lower ranks through your win streaks and also you lose skill rating when losing against people of equal skill rating and lower skill rating. There is abit more to it then that, but that's just the basic idea.

Since we're not gonna have thousands of players it can be something different anyway. Maybe what king is suggesting.

[TinCow]

ideally this is what i was thinking:

Have different leagues that players can go in and out off and you can only play players from your league or the bottom portion of players from the league above you. (perhaps also top portion from the league below you)

that way players will get a chance to rise through leagues, improving their skills and will get points based on opponents. Basically, the way its done in SC2. We can also have leagues for different countries (or else one clan will just dominate the leagues >_> ) and then pit the top players from each league in a team contest to see which country or region has the best players that time around ^_^

As I understand it, leagues and ladders have a major difference in our current system. For ladders, players 'challenge' another person in the ladder. If the other person accepts, a match is setup and they play it and report a result. All matches are done by this method, so players get to pick who they fight. For leagues, all matches are created by the system itself, which tells everyone who to play, though scheduling and result reporting are up to the players themselves. The idea of a league (as I understand it) is to ensure that everyone in the group plays everyone else in the group, so you get an even distribution of competition.

So, what you want sounds like it would actually be best accomplished with ladders and some manual organization. Essentially, have multiple ladders with rules about who can sign up for the ladders. Ladder competition then continues for a finite period of time, with players competing as per a normal ladder system. When the time limit expires, the top players from the bottom ladder move to the top ladder, and the bottom players from the top ladder move to the bottom ladder. This would have to be determined manually, but would not be complex. New players would enter at the bottom ladder and would have to win to move up to the top. Add in more ladders (2/3/4/etc) depending on how many tiers you want.

If we can get a small group of people, say 4 to 8, it might be a good idea to simply run quick tests of both systems. Create a test ladder and a test league, put all the volunteers in them, and have them use both system as they're designed to work. Afterwards, review what worked and what didn't, pick one system, and make any necessary tweaks, then create a full system for large-scale use.

That's not 100% what I said though. You should only be able to gain skill rating beating lower ranks through your win streaks and also you lose skill rating when losing against people of equal skill rating and lower skill rating. There is abit more to it then that, but that's just the basic idea.

Since we're not gonna have thousands of players it can be something different anyway. Maybe what king is suggesting.

Automation is the key, as it simply won't work if we've got to have someone doing the math on every match. So, we're kind of constrained by the systems available to us in the current utility. I could certainly ask the developer of the utility to add in another system, but I'd need to be really, really specific about the kind of methodology needed before making the request.

[00owl]

Doesn't the ELO account for losing games by removing skill points already? Unless I'm mis-understanding AMP I think that the ELO (as implemented in say, chess for example) causes people to lose ranking when they lose. They lose more ranking when they lose against someone who had smaller rank and lose less ranking when losing against someone of higher skill level. The ELO includes that sort of handicapping element already, however, that isn't to say it can't be abused, as is evidenced in other online games which utilize this scoring system where people will create games only play against noobs in order to get a high ranking.

If anything what I would like to see in a competitive atmosphere is the guarantee of sportsman-like conduct. I have found that when people get competitive it ruins the 'fun' atmosphere of the game because they end up resorting to verbal abuse and other non-game related means to win.

[TinCow]

That sounds right, but I've never actually used an ELO system so I can't say for sure. I'll run a test with it on monday or tuesday to get some solid answers.

Sportsman-like conduct would be an integral part of any official Org ladder/league.

[AMP]

You might be right about losing skill rating, just I couldn't understand how someone with so many losses and not that many more wins than me could be on top on the ladder, something isn't adding up. Just looked broken to me...

[Swoosh So]

The best league format is a football league (no amp not some oval ball u throw around) with relegation and promotion.

[00owl]

You might be right about losing skill rating, just I couldn't understand how someone with so many losses and not that many more wins than me could be on top on the ladder, something isn't adding up. Just looked broken to me...

Yeah I think the current ladder version that is live in-game, is a mixture of the ELO and some messed up half-baked system.

Though it is technically possible in the ELO system that someone with more losses could be higher than someone with more wins if the wins of the first person, though few and far between, were all against the highest ranking people, and the wins of the second person were against the lowest ranking people.

200 wins at 1 point each is less than 50 wins at 10 points each.

EDIT: *Historical Note*
I believe that the ELO was designed specifically for, and is still used by, professional chess leagues.