What do you want in a Ladder?

[AMP]

What kind of numbers do you think we need at a minimum? 20+? 50+?

If it's successful, I'm sure it will draw more later, but establishing a good starting level would be mandatory.

That would be a good start as long as we can draw more.

Our own working ELO system would be nice, but it's also nice to have replays of matches, know ones wins/losses, know if they are on a win streak and know who they played and when and how many times. I don't wanna look at someone and just see a rating on them and that's it... because if there can be so much more then there should be. When you look someone up it should have their ELO rating and stats... some or all the ones I listed.

The thing that makes it a grind is where someone who plays a ton more has a better chance to be on top of course, that's why you need stats as well to keep it more real and interesting. You also can't have someone milking out someone else playing them a tons, so there should be a cap on games vs the same person and after a certain time has passed you can play them again. Maybe a cap of 5 games vs the same person in a couple months and only can start playing that same person again as the last game vs him/her has passed that date and then not play again until the next game has passed that date etc.

Maybe have a cap where each player has to like 10 different people best of 3 and no more after that. Then you can put people in different tiers and continue the cycle having top players move up and bottom players move down in tiers. Something like the clan meta just ALOT better. :p

Maybe later down the road once it is establisted and running smooth to start offering prizes to help draw more people in and make it more rewarding to play.

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.

Whatever they have now isn't that great and of course the exploiting isn't helping and they lack so much info. I wanna be able to look up people and see stats like who they played , when they played them, how many times, results of the matches, and replays.

p2p = fail

[TinCow]

That would be a good start as long as we can draw more.

Our own working ELO system would be nice, but it's also nice to have replays of matches, know ones wins/losses, know if they are on a win streak and know who they played and when and how many times. I don't wanna look at someone and just see a rating on them and that's it... because if there can be so much more then there should be. When you look someone up it should have their ELO rating and stats... some or all the ones I listed.

If you look at the current system, the displayed stats are: ELO rating, Total Matches, Wins, Losses, Streaks, and Last Activity. There are also stats for Draws, Points Scored, Points Conceded, and Experience, but I have turned them off since they don't seem very relevant to what we need. You can also see a list of the recent matches, showing who fought who and what the score was. There's even a comment ability for each match for discussions about specific results. That would be a good place to link replays and videos of the matches. I'll see if I can add an ability to see a list of ALL match results, not just recent ones.

What other stats do you want?

The thing that makes it a grind is where someone who plays a ton more has a better chance to be on top of course, that's why you need stats as well to keep it more real and interesting. You also can't have someone milking out someone else playing them a tons, so there should be a cap on games vs the same person and after a certain time has passed you can play them again. Maybe a cap of 5 games vs the same person in a couple months and only can start playing that same person again as the last game vs him/her has passed that date and then not play again until the next game has passed that date etc.

In the current setup, players cannot challenge each other more than once every 24 hours. However, we can change that to any time period. Maybe no more than once per week against the same player?

Maybe have a cap where each player has to like 10 different people best of 3 and no more after that. Then you can put people in different tiers and continue the cycle having top players move up and bottom players move down in tiers. Something like the clan meta just ALOT better. :p

I've looked at the system more closely, and there actually is a built-in promotion/demotion function for leagues, so we don't even have to do that by hand. If we turn it on, at the end of every 'season' of the league, the system will automatically promote and demote the top and bottom players in each 'group' within the league. The current options allow for promotion/demotion of the top/bottom 1, 2, 3, or 4 players in each group, with the new groups starting in the next 'season.' In order to make that meaningful, I think we'd have to make seasons about a month long. If people are sufficiently active, that would be enough time for them to get a large number of games in, but not so long that promotion/demotion never happens.

As I said before though, leagues and ladders behave differently on who plays who. In leagues, all matches are automatically assigned to ensure everyone plays everyone. In a ladder, players are free to pick who they play. If you really want a completely fair setup, a league is probably the way to go.

Maybe later down the road once it is establisted and running smooth to start offering prizes to help draw more people in and make it more rewarding to play.

That's quite easy to do, and the Org would happily supply prizes if there was serious competition going. In fact, we can actually link small tournaments directly into the League/ladder itself. We can do even do small 'championship' tournaments of about 4 to 8 people at the end of each season or something, and award bonus ELO points to the winner, along with an official prize.

[00owl]

This sounds like a really decent league/ladder system they got going on here.

[TinCow]

I just noticed another difference between ladders and leagues: in ladders, new players can join at any time, but in leagues new players can only join at the start of each 'season.' This is required because otherwise it would be impossible to make sure all players in a league group played each other.

Basically, the ladder is the easiest system to use, but the league is the better judge of skill and is more fair. A league would produce a very high quality result indicating which player really was the best performer, but the mandatory scheduling system would require a high level of activity from the players to ensure that the games really did get played. We would have to require that each player commit to being very active and playing games promptly. A league would truly be for the serious competitors, and all casual players would need to be kept out to keep it running smoothly. Ladders would be better for a more relaxed style of play with less emphasis on frequent gameplay.

Based on what people have been saying, I think the League is really what we want here as that's what is not being provided by the official ladder. If the rest of you think so too, we can start drawing up some rules for this thing. Once those are in place, we can go out recruiting to get a good group of serious players involved. I would recommend that the first 'season' not involve any groups, as we don't really have an objective way to evaluate player levels at the moment. After the first season is complete, we could then split it into groups and begin the promotion/demotion changes from then on out, as there would be a good baseline skill level established.

[lampekap]

I see some of the objections with the in game system but a new ladder is not going to change anything. The ladder right now actually works according to a system similar to ELO. It will always be a matter of how many games you play. Maybe some maths are a little different and maybe losses aren't punished strongly enough to your tastes but the system is the same.

Maybe the game should incorporate mini tournaments of 4/8/12 players with games that are fought in concession at the same time. And then make a ladder for wins like that.

[AMP]

Yes a ladder like ELO will always be a matter of games played, just a constant grind and not a real good indicator of skill.

League is the way to go for sure. If you put a cap on the amount of games someone can play each season and have it where that player can't be regulated until he's played the cap amount of games, then that's a more fair way. So really anyone can join at anytime, just will have to wait for maybe two seasons if he can't play his cap amount of games for regulation. In the end if we get enough players we'll probably only have maybe 3 tiers max, which is fine. The number of tiers should depend on the number of players.

The other stats which would be nice to are replays maybe linked to recent games played and player stat info of every game played such as name of player, the date, and end result screen shot. At the very least a link were you can add replays of your games for people to download and watch if they want.

I wouldn't award ELO points though for winning tournaments, prizes are nice, but some kind of icon for tournament victories would be better than ELO points. I'd leave that strictly to games played only.

Really it's looking good so far, just wish CA had something like this with *dedicated servers*. :p

[TinCow]

League is the way to go for sure. If you put a cap on the amount of games someone can play each season and have it where that player can't be regulated until he's played the cap amount of games, then that's a more fair way. So really anyone can join at anytime, just will have to wait for maybe two seasons if he can't play his cap amount of games for regulation. In the end if we get enough players we'll probably only have maybe 3 tiers max, which is fine. The number of tiers should depend on the number of players.

If we use a league, players will not have any options as to who they play or how many games they play. As I understand it, all players will play a single game against every single other player in their tier. When that is completed, the 'season' is done. Players cannot play additional games beyond those games within the league, just as sports teams do not get to pick and choose who they play during their season. It's all set out in advance and everyone has a pre-defined schedule.

The other stats which would be nice to are replays maybe linked to recent games played and player stat info of every game played such as name of player, the date, and end result screen shot. At the very least a link were you can add replays of your games for people to download and watch if they want.

The system has a built-in screenshot submission utility to allow screenshots of the final results screen to be submitted when the result is submitted. Replays would require a bit more work, but not much. Just upload them on the Org or somewhere else on the net, and then post a link in the comments section for that game. In order for that to work fairly, we'd need to make replay posting mandatory for the league and have Gamemasters regularly reminding people to upload their replays.

Really it's looking good so far, just wish CA had something like this with *dedicated servers*. :p

Honestly, I think the key to a good league is just going to be getting a solid group of high-quality players who commit to playing regularly. No matter how good the system is, it will never go anywhere unless it's got a serious enough level of competition to draw players in. I'll post a draft of prospective rules later today, so we can start on discussion there. After I do, please direct any players to it that you think might fit that description. It'll be very important to have the rules solid and agreed upon by a good group of the players, so that it's considered a proper high-level competition.