Rank system is not for active

[Igor]

We have 7 players of top 30, who has only 4 or less won games. And 11 (!) players of 30, who has 6 or less won games. In the same time I see some players who played much more games and who won more games than players discribed above.
Nobibla 8 won games (rank 31), Darkh 39 won games (rank 38), Flash 10 won games (rank 136). These players have more than 6 won games (Darkh has very much more), but they are not in top 30. And many other players won more than 4 games. All the are not in top list. I think this is not rightly. Something very wrong in our raiting system.
Much more rightly, on my opinion, to count ladder points only for won games and not count for lost games.
More games must give not reduction but growth of rank. If players have no won games, he will have 0 ladder points. And if he won even 2 game and lost 10 games, he must be higher than who has only 1/0 won/lost games.
This will be more interesting to play more games. Every one new game can bring ladder points and cant take them back. Good stimul to play more.
I think we need to change raiting system so that Ilja (5/45 win/loss, rank 186, the bottom one now), Felix (4/25 win/loss, rank 184), and also TulkasAstaldo (4/26, 179), Zarocksus (5/22, 180) and other players who won 4 or more games could see themselves at top 60 at least.
Situation which we have now is that active players are at the bottom and many who has 1/0 win/loss are much higher than them. I think, that's not right. We need fair rank system which encourages players to play and does not repel by defeats.

[Finite]

Much more rightly, on my opinion, to count ladder points only for won games and not count for lost games.

How is this a fair ranking system? It measures the ability to play most games instead of the ability to beat your opponents more than they beat you...

If anything, could make an argument that only the ranking points gotten from people positioned above the average ranking would count for any possible rewards (if there is an issue of someone abusing the system).

[Moonknight]

It's about who you play and on which map and how quickly you win...

So someone who wins 30 times with 100 losses should be ranked higher than someone who has 29 wins and 0 losses? Yeah, that sounds very rightly...

It's funny that the person who complains about the rankings the most is the guy who's way out in first place.

[Igor]

The salt is that everyone probably wish to see his name at the first sheet of ladder. That means he must be in top 30. Or though in top 60 (second ladder sheet). If an active players have many completed games, and looses are much more than wins, he will be at the bottom of ladder. And another one who have only two games and both are lost, he will be much higher then player discribed above.
Such system give stimul not play many games. And some people who whished to play, will be forced to left the game. I am affraid of this, because I think the more active players the better for the game. I would like to see active players in top 30 and top 60, and passive, who plays only a few games, below them.

[Maze]

Igor,
I read your posts with much interest as they come with experience and show out of the box thinking most of the time. Although I do not always completely agree.
In this case I do not agree at all. People should play the game because they enjoy it, regardless of ladder or non-ladder. I even believe people who are ranked low do not care that much what rank they have either.
Now, I am also convinced competition is a positive part in the game, including the idea of ladder stats. No-one plays to lose a game, no-one would be unhappy if he would be first on the ladder.
I second the other reactions: The major reward comes from playing games in your proposed system and Warbarons would turn from a strategy game into a clicking and other no-brain time-spending game. At least the ladder part of it.
Cheers!
Maze

[Moonknight]

I think the new pool system will fix some of this difference, since you'll be playing someone closer to your ranking instead of random players.

[piranha]

Yes the reason for the pool thing is to give players who actually play a better chance to rank higher. I think it would be to extreme to not count losses at all.
Some people don't care at all about ladder but for a lot of people it's a lot more exciting to play just because it's a ranked game and I agree that for those who like ladder, for them it's also important that there are someone to compete against on the ladder. I've seen ladders die due to too few players and not enough activity going on. The number of active warbaron players isn't very high but as the game gets more and more complete and we can divert some time from coding to "marketing" I think it will be possible to get a bigger community of active players. So far I usually did some posting here and there for 2-3 days after a new beta and it often lead to a injection of new players, but only a few of those become active players in the long term. Polishing the game should help but in the end I think we will have to spend more time on marketing. Try to get the game into some magazines or online review sites and things like that.

But we always have new important improvements to work on first so I don't know when that will happen .

[Igor]

Piranha, I never doubt about your ability to develop marketing and I hope it will be the best in future.
I talk about what is right now. A row of active players is under passives, even if some of active players is not such strong. But I saw that you feel this problem good and you consider what to do to stop pushing out of community by current raiting system for row of active players who is not so strong. Have fun anyway.

2 Maze. You touched the philosophic question. I think that most of people wish to be the best in what they do. If they have hobby to make little buildings of matches, they visit the competitions where other people show their works, and first one gets a diplom and he is proud of it, he shows it to his wife, children and friends.
Only if you drink beer and watch TV you do it only for pleasure. By the way, some of people compete who drinks more beer, or who can more long to seat in sauna etc.
Competition makes life interesting and is the driving force for our Earth community, isn't it?

By the way, what about to make all the games ladder games if they go on ladder maps? So, melee games could go only on non-ladder maps. This can make clear "hidden activity" of players.

[Finite]

By the way, what about to make all the games ladder games if they go on ladder maps? So, melee games could go only on non-ladder maps. This can make clear "hidden activity" of players.

Don't like forced ladder games.
- There are too few good maps and all the balanced ones are naturally made into ladder maps anyway so there would be only bad/untested maps open for casual play, leading to bad experience for newcomers.
- Some people prefer non-ladder games since they like to see stats. (I would support adding visible stats as an option that can be toggled on for ladder games as well, though.)
- There has to be an option to set up a casual game. If a new player wants to get a game going they pick a non-ladder game and hopefully get casual players to have a balanced fight together. Whereas if a new player would open a ladder game some top-ranked predator would zoom right in for an easy kill and a few more points to boast to their friends/families about. So the new guy would get trashed and again have a bad experience.
- Forced ladder games would mean even more people playing casually against friends would rise to the top of the lists even if they don't care about it, just by constantly beating same friends and newcomers in friendly games.

Probably Piranha and others were thinking something similar with the pooling, but maybe some sort of tiered ladder would work? Maybe even so that in order to participate in the most competitive league you would have to apply to it before season starts, and then would only get ranked for games against other people in the league. Maybe just something on top of the general ranking list?

[Igor]

Every newby, as I understand it, when he just join the community, or even before the joining, looks how much active players are in this community. He will open ladder information and see that in top 30 9 players have less than 10 completed games. It can be "cold bath" for his wishing to join/to play.
Ouh... marketing is Piranha's area, though

2 Finite. No pride to beat a newby like you... Only to teach a little.
Your player's ladder/normal statistics are less than your forum activity. Experience, which you probably need, will not come to you without games. Play more to learn more.
(By the way, if it is possible to make little off-top, is it possible to show game stats, ladder or both ladder and normal, near the date of registration on forum? Just to see more information about participants of the forum.)

Strong player is able to play any map, which balanced good to be a ladder map, even if it is the first game on this map. Almost it is stimul for leaders to put a look on non-ladder maps because some of them probably will be a ladder maps soon. So no problem for players, who play for ladder, to play on a new ladder map. And who doesn't play for ladder, probably has no difference is his game ladder or not. So, no visible problem to make games ladder games. On my look, of course.