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.