New Optional Ladder Rankings

[JimRocky]

How about a Ladder competition where people are free to participate in, or not as they choose.

The Ladder would have a separate rankings than the standard rankings.

Now the specifics of the Ladder joining requirements are up to debate. This is a new idea that I have not thought out thoroughly yet. I'd like to see if there is interest before I put great effort into thinking.

The key difference fro the Ladder ranking and the regular ranking is that Ladder competitors are placed into 'random' games.

There should be Singles, Doubles, Triples, and Quadruples ladders.

For the team ladders the teams are NOT random but actual teams, their opponent teams are random though.

However for singles and teams as a whole the games are matched in some pseudo random manner.
Exactly how is up for discussion.
It might be complicated but I think it would be best to start out with a simple approach.
Random games of all types could be created and people or teams would click a Join Ladder Game button and let the carnage begin. Everyone or every team can get in and play a random Ladder game and the chips will fall. No set ups or refusals to play.
High ranks can't avoid playing lower ranks. It's a truer test of skills.
The scoring system might be different on the Ladder, that needs some consideration.
Ladder games would have NO effect on the standard ranks and scores.
I would think only Sargent or higher ranks should even be able to join the Ladder.

All the details are of course up for debate or further thought.
I think it would be cool though. I can see it.
I'll be glad to help.

[The Neon Peon]

Interesting... although I would personally oppose this. I do not like many maps and many settings, and if the game are random, then there would be a good chance I would get a setting I do not like. I would personally never use this.

By the way, this should be in the Suggestions and Bugs Forum.

[Woodruff]

How about a Ladder competition where people are free to participate in, or not as they choose.
The key difference fro the Ladder ranking and the regular ranking is that Ladder competitors are placed into 'random' games.
There should be Singles, Doubles, Triples, and Quadruples ladders.
For the team ladders the teams are NOT random but actual teams, their opponent teams are random though.
However for singles and teams as a whole the games are matched in some pseudo random manner.
Exactly how is up for discussion.
It might be complicated but I think it would be best to start out with a simple approach.
Random games of all types could be created and people or teams would click a Join Ladder Game button and let the carnage begin. Everyone or every team can get in and play a random Ladder game and the chips will fall. No set ups or refusals to play.
High ranks can't avoid playing lower ranks. It's a truer test of skills.
The scoring system might be different on the Ladder, that needs some consideration.
Ladder games would have NO effect on the standard ranks and scores.
I would think only Sargent or higher ranks should even be able to join the Ladder.
All the details are of course up for debate or further thought.
I think it would be cool though. I can see it.
I'll be glad to help.

If you're going to talk about random games, then I think "ladder consideration" also needs to be given to each of the settings. For instance, I ONLY play sequential non-spoils games...it's just my preference. So I wouldn't be interested in the ladder idea at all if I were to be forced into any other types of games. But if that weren't the case, then I would be VERY interested and think it's a very good idea.

I think you meant to say "High ranks can't avoid playing high ranks", didn't you? We already have high ranks playing low ranks...it's called farming. (grin)
I would also say that "rank" shouldn't affect whether you can join a ladder or not. For instance, I play mostly 8-player games...so my rank varies WILDLY. I would say that a certain number of games under your belt should be required before joining the ladders.

Anyway...interesting idea for sure, but (as you admitted), it needs some discussion.

[JimRocky]

I agree discussion would be needed to determine the best implementation of my idea.
I'm think something similiar to the old styl Battle.net WC3 and SC ladders. Something akin to that but on Conquer club.

I think a simple way to start might be a person would decide for themselves what type /s of game they would like to play for ladder competition. This could be any array of combination's or just one or two.

All participants choices would be compared and ladder games would be automatically filled as the needed players for each type arrive. The crucial difference with this instead of players just joining games that they see have available slots is that the players are matched automatically. People can't pick or choose, or even see who their opponents will be for any particular game type they wish to engage in until the game has been filled and started.

In team games teams could be fixed and be placed as a team. There might be an option for random team ups if there was interest.

More discussion is needed to determine how scoring would be figured and other issues of course.

People can still play the regular games as they choose but those who choose can play ladder games as well. These would be people who want to see how they can score when they aren't playing stacked games, or aren't afraid to play someone who isn't a high rank like them. A truer test of skill.

It would be interesting to see how the high ranked players in the current system would do when they aren't able to pick and choose their opponents to exclude those they fear. The noob farmer would not be a factor in the ladder games either as there would be a minimum requirement of some sort to even participate. There might be a better way to state this; I don't mean to blanket impugn all high ranks, but I think my point is nearly clear. Maybe someone else can state it more concisely or eloquently for me.

What do you think?

[FarangDemon]

I think your suggestion is good. In fact, there have been numerous suggestions to try to make the game more competitive.

Your solution would work but would be drastic. It would limit the freedom people have to play settings, maps and players they want to play. However, it would definitely solve the problem - the best players would rise to the top of the ranking.

However, I think we can fix the system without having to lose all that freedom. I think all we need to do is create a 2nd ladder that only shows the scores of those players that tended (over the last 100 opponents) to play opponents about half their score or above. No farmer above Major would make it onto this ladder. Points would trickle down the ranks without unnecessarily limiting player's freedom.

Chipv has implemented a metric in MapRank called "relative rank" which is the average of your opponents score to yours over all opponents played. The next step is to make it a rolling average and create a 2nd scoreboard that makes use of the relative rank measurement in order to only include those players that play their peers.

my suggestions for a 2nd scoreboard (ignore the metric i suggested in this post, i now prefer relative rank) - http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=70978

relative rank metric thread - http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=57658

[porkenbeans]

This suggestion has been offered by me and others in many different forms. And has been rejected every time.