has anyone else experienced the early surrender where your opponent surrenders before deploying?

i have had this a few times now and its always when the season first begins and i know i cant be the only one. my opponents reasoning is always because they didnt realise they where registered to the new season.

it seems to me that if someone surrenders before they have deployed then this game should be chalked off as if it didn't happen and a new game created for the player that "won" and the other player removed from the ladder (if they haven't already left)

which wouldnt apply to the game in this season because he just got booted.... that might be for several reasons and not mandatorily because he didnt want to play in the season

I still think Seasonal Ladders should be an opt in. I do see this happen because lots of people just don't like the format, but got a bunch of games because they had played the last season.

Another option is rather than get a large workload on day one of a new season (4 games). have the ladder create the addition games after a few days, that way people will have dropped off that didn't like the settings.

I'm not sure it is a huge problem. It isn't like you'd get a large boost from the win since that player's rating will be junk anyway.

That's actually part of the problem Chris. Due to the way that ratings shoot upward as the season goes on, beating someone who quits immediately (especially after taking their four initial losses) will be a completely wasted game. If you've got only a limited number of games to play in order to get as many good wins as you can, it can be the difference in your placement to "waste" an early game to someone who might never top a 1900 rating when the top players are breaking 3000. Contrast that with someone who plays a strong and interested player for game one, and the winner gets rated much higher for the next round of games. Being rated higher means more chances to get strong wins again, and move upward in the ranks. Even losses against those higher rated players don't count as badly as they would against lower ranked players, so just getting into those games is a nice way to help cement your position.

One additional thought, also. A player who manages to lose most of their games but play all 20 will be rated much higher than someone who plays fewer games in the season. A win against a player who can't seem to get a win but is active is better than a win against a great player who drops out early, even if they have a good win percentage in the few games they do play. That doesn't seem fair or desirable to me.

Pink, Booting is ever so slightly different. As you said this could be a number of reasons and you generally don't get to talk to someone who isn't actually around and gets booted. im talking about people who specifically surrender because they don't want to play the season

Ultimately as duke says it does screw with the final result and for this reason i think something should be done really. i too think it should be opt in, maybe there could be a pop up that asks members if they want to join or not before it starts, this would help keep the numbers up

Duke of Ben: Not only will it be a waste of game, but winning it will actually cost you points in the rating system used. Unless the rating system has had a big revamp since I last played a seasonal ladder (season 2), a very important determinator of your final rating is whether all your opponents played all their games.

It doesn't have to be like that, of course. It'd help if rating calculations didn't at all take into account the number of games finished (the point bonus), and just added those points in the end after all rating calculations are finished. But all in all, given how flawed the rating system is, just simple win-loss record with the rating as tie breaker is probably better.

Yeon if you have win-loss ratio takn into account then the player who got the msot boots early on in the season from inactive players from last season, or who played the weakest players, should be able to win the season easily enough, even with a very low rating.

hedja: If you rank by win-loss, then after the first four games won by boots, you will receive a game number five against someone else who also won the first four games, and so on. You'll face top players if you rank high.

With the current system, if you win all games early, you may face other high rated players who'll turn out to be very low rated players when season ends because they quit halfway, and that will mean you will rank low in the final standings even if you beat them.

I didn't say ranking by win-loss is a good system. I said that the current system is so bad that win-loss is "probably better".

what about getting your "top dog" opponent on the early games, you managing to beat him and he rage quits the seasonal ladder leaving behind a crappy rating with no particular advantage to who beat him. :)

Well, like I said, why not have the ladder only create a couple games to start out each and then catch up later (maybe after a week into it)? Then you would hopefully get the bulk of your games with active participants

and then catch up later

But that exposes another huge flaw in the ladder system: the automatic finishing of games at the end of the season, and the penalty for unfinished games.

Pushover: Is it correct that if some opponent delays your game to the end deadline, you lose a lot of rating points even if you win?

No. There is a points penalty for unplayed games (under 20).