Ladder Points

[Moonknight]

I think the ladder points should be based on where teams are ranked at the end of the game and not at the beginning.

A team could tank a bunch of games early in a season on purpose, and then start 10+ games when at the bottom at and end up in a better ranking than if they hadn't tanked any games.

[KGB]

Then the reverse problem happens.

You can suddenly be overly penalized if you lose a game if the points between you and your opponent dramatically change between when you start and when you finish (ie same points at game start but by game end you've won 5 other games and he hasn't. So you lose too many points while he gets too many points).

I would then delay my wins if I thought my opponent was about to win another game and improve his ranking since I'd then get more points for my win.

There is no perfect system given that games finish at various times unlike a chess tournament.

KGB

[Moonknight]

Yes, but teams will normalize to their ability over the course of a season.

If a strong team loses games in the beginning, they will most likely win more by the end of the season. If a lesser skilled team wins games in the beginning, they will most likely lose more by the end of the season.

You can delay a game from finishing in either situation.

[KGB]

Except delaying a game doesn't help generate more ranking points under the current system.

Maybe the solution is to only update rankings once a month. So that all games started by a player in that month have the same rank value regardless of how many you win/lose that month. Then at start of next month everyone's ranking is recalculated based on games completed. Then it's fixed again for games started that month.

This discourages tanking games for points unless you want to tank a whole month worth which is a significant portion of the season. It also discourages delaying games for more points since the value is fixed at game start as it is now.

KGB

[Moonknight]

If you can hold onto 31% of resources until the next ladder season, you can delay a game so you lose the points at the beginning of the next season is what i meant. I see a lot of delayed games that get carried over to the next season even though it's one-sided and then immediate surrenders at the beginning of the new season.

The month interval updates is a step in the right direction. First month everyone will be neutral for all games started (I see a lot of delayed games to the next season and then immediate surrenders).

Didn't know if there'd be a way to include historical end ladder rankings as well (or maybe just the previous ladder) to modify the points for the first month? If you weren't ranked at the end of the previous ladder season, than you'd be the standard neutral.

[KGB]

If you can hold onto 31% of resources until the next ladder season, you can delay a game so you lose the points at the beginning of the next season is what i meant. I see a lot of delayed games that get carried over to the next season even though it's one-sided and then immediate surrenders at the beginning of the new season.

Now I see what you mean. Realistically only the top 2-3 players should be doing this in order to protect from losing the ladder season. If you are far enough ahead that a loss or two doesn't matter then no one should be attempting this.

The month interval updates is a step in the right direction. First month everyone will be neutral for all games started (I see a lot of delayed games to the next season and then immediate surrenders).

The other thing that would help is if everyone didn't start out equal at the start of a new season. Right now top players obviously are in a big rush to beat weaker ones (or surrender a few games as you note) since they acquire more points when both start out equal even though in reality the 2 players are not equal.

If instead of starting everyone out with say 1000 points it started the players based on skill from prior seasons it would help with this problem. For example top 20% of players could start at 1200, next 20% at 1100, middle 20% at 1000, lower 20% at 900 and lowest 20% at 800. Winner of the season is person who accumulates most points relative to their start (so 1200 going to 1300 is 100 points but 1000 going to 1200 is 200 points and thus scores higher for the season). Brand new players start at 1000 points.

KGB

[gil]

chess type ladder system

each player starts with 1000 season ladder points which will have no effect on amount of points gained from the game. the amount of ladder points per game is from total ladder points from all season.

i think the chess ladder score is the best it will solve delayed games and also give a fair season start to all.

it will also allow you to tell the player the amount of ladder points this game will make him win\loose and that will create more transparency.

[Moonknight]

I definitely think everyone should start off with 1000 ladder points each season with the points available differed by previous ladder season(s) end-rankings.

Since teams can be fluid, probably shouldn't use more than 1-3 historical seasons to determine points available.

[tabanli]

In chess each rating change is calculated immediately after the game and depends on the actual ratings of players at the moment. There is a change variant RD which makes the rating of new players to change faster than the established players. So established Player1 can win 4 ratings points while new Player2 can loose 6 and vice-a versa. It is also possible to come up with a seasonal rating concept which may depend on the rating average of opponents and cumulative score.

[KGB]

The difference is in Chess you are only playing one game at a time so player rankings at the start and the end of the game are exactly the same so its easy to add/remove points from the winner/loser.

In Warbarons players can be involved in any number of games simultaneously that take varying amounts of time to complete. A game may start with 2 players having the same number of points but by the time it ends days (weeks/months) later they may be separated by hundreds of points. So what works for Chess isn't appropriate for Warbarons if you try to award points based on rankings at the end of the game.

That's why I suggested only updating rankings once a month to help alleviate that problem.

KGB