And unknown, and Gui etc. Anyway, does anyone has sometihng constructive to say about my idea? Everyone is for, everyone is against? Some feedback is necessary here.

Its a good alternative at least, if Fizzer ever decides to actually change it though. If it stops stallers, I'm all for it.

I agree with all your consideration, but you forgot one thing, that IMHO, is the most important in the ladder as well the stallers thing: play less games possible, give you an important ahead.
I think the system should incentivate to play you more, like give you X more points for every game played after a certain number of games (like +10 points for every games after you played first 30). So in this way became too important play 50 or 60 games unexpired, and stall is useless, bc is better have 50-10 as record than be 15-0
LEt's make an example: a player with 50-10, probably would have like 2100 more or less.
so 60-30=30 * 10= +300 points = 2400 points, that is better or more or less the same of an actual 15-0 as rating

What do you think?
One easy tweak in the rating formula, that solve problems and incentive to play more.

The system cannot do that I think. With 3 months expiration if you want 50-60 games active, you have to be on warlight almost all the time, not everyone can/want to do that. I specifically designed that solution so that normal players that just want to play it slow don't get hurt. Also extra points for games is just not fair, even on rt ladder you don't get those points like that, the variation decrease is slowing down almost exponentially.

Extend the expiration date to six months and increase the number of games required to rank.

Sze, I think the penalty points idea is interesting but it seems like it's just patching up problems with the ranking system rather than actually fixing them.

"With the exception of a certain piggy noone has been no1 for months without delaying to some degree"

i mean in the last 3ish months noone but me has been no1 without delaying. Pulsius, beelzebub, pulsey and there was another guy who was below me in 2nd who loss deayed like hell whos name i forget.

My primary solution would be to not have any kind of expiration date, but it is frowned upon by many, thus I think it is the best solution if you don't want to change the core of the current system. So in a very roundabout way I'm saying you're right :)

leave the ladder as it is. I wouldnt have gotten #1 and such a high rating without stalling. There are plenty others who want #1 but aren't good enough to get it. I realize most of the people talking here have already achieved #1, but lets not ruin other's chances.

Edited 5/31/2014 14:35:18

What are the benefits of no expiration date?

Real ELO in the long term, overall reduced variation, stalling problem reduced to almost 0 after a few months etc.

More than 300 players are playing 1v1 and Seasonal ladder. Is playing with 5% of these players enough to see quality of a player? Warlight is growing and maybe next year we will see 1000 players in ladders. Will we still continue with this system? My suggestion is that;
1. You have to finish minimum 10% of number of players in ladder to be ranked.
2.(number of Players)/2 days for expiration date.

Why Pulsey's keen on keeping the system as is:

He's dying to take #1 in the 2v2 Ladder in order to stall both ladders with his friend Pulsius. He got himself as high as #3, but now he's losing in our game and at least one other. So what to do? Here's what he's trying:

- Put one of his profiles on vacation
- Wait for EZPickens and marc2013's rating to rise
- rejoin ladder

So it's not even a matter of driving slow. It's parking.

Don't you think it would be a huge disadvantage if a player improves a lot while he joined the ladder. Old losses against very bad opponents would take down his rating forever.

@mod,I believe newer games are given more weight. That's the case in the rt ladder at least.

None of those are problems that people want fixed though sze. Noone cares if the stalling problem is reduced to almost 0 after a few months, thats already the case anyway, noone can stall for months...

Just go with your first suggestion, you have to finish the first 15 games you get allocated before you get ranked.

i think sze meant the problem is solved forever, but before the new system impacted to ratings, will take a few months.

I agree with MoD completely, I've always been against removing the expiration. One of the main features of the ladder imo is the ability to track your improvements and if you start right down the bottom of the ladder would bar you from reaching decently high rankings. Even with a system like the RT ladder it would still make it harder.

I like Sze's idea. It is, in my opinion the best alternative I'm aware of presently to the current system and I'm all for increasing the minimum number of games to 20 to make this more effective.

The seasonal ladder also needs work, perhaps some kind of new matchmaking system that priorities giving similar rated players similar rated opponents for the same game number (if that makes sense) instead of prioritising drawing you against players with the closest rating to you. For example, if you were on your second game the ladder will look at players who had a similar rating to you when they were on their second game, and choose opponents with a similar rating to those player's opponents. This could, if done correctly reduce the frequency of scenarios that destroyed the chances of people like Ottoman emperor.

But I don't believe any fundamental changes to the rating system should be made to already established ladders as it would invalidate all past records.

Edited 5/31/2014 16:17:37

Oh, well then hes wrong. When someone first joins the ladder then they can delay as much as they want, and when theyre done they can just use an alt. Pulsey, beel, gnuff, pulsius all made runs from 0 unexpired games, 3 on totally new alts. So again, youre solving the wrong problem.

I like the idea of no expiration. It makes the ladder much more viable as a measure of skill. However, the rating system would have to change; for the sake of viability (otherwise ELO would inflate/deflate as other players do at an increasing rate), and for the sake of the server (imagine it trying to keep up with 200 different opponents affecting one players rating).

For those worried about the difficulty of improvement, how about this: A proper ELO, where a game affects your rating once. This allows you to improve just as (if not more) quickly. Stalling would remain a problem but nowhere near as bad.

Also, to get rank on the ladder instead of just a rating, you should have to play a considerable amount of games (something like reducing your potential deviation on a TrueSkill system). Otherwise it becomes easy for a new player to get a couple of wins and dominate.

Edited 6/1/2014 13:54:46

Well, it seems I've been already judged. Thank you guys.

I'll just say that, as you can see, I only started to stall when I was number 2 with Pulsius I The Great stalling and winning more than suspiciously (http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=6217891)

For me it wasn't fair not being number 1 only because of that, so I started to stall, but only till I beat Pulsius. Now I'll just surrender in the games I've stalled. If this turns me into a cheater, ok, but it's quite lamer judging people without asking and without having the full picture. Congratulations