Can we please have a more competetive ladder?

from Offworld Forums

Please reset the ladder and implement a more competetive scheme before the game is released. I believe my current stance as #2 on the ladder is a clear indication that it does not accurately reflect skill level. Although I have a postive win record against a few of the top ten players and am improving, I know that i'm just an intermediate player, who is nowhere close to the skill level of other active ladder players like Cubit, BlackMagic, and InSync whom I only have 1 or 2 wins against.

As a tournament chess player, I am accustomed to letting my rating tell me if I am improving. Like other competetive people, this is a large part of my "enjoyment" from any game. Right now, I have no idea who my equals are (KingMorgan, MMOGOG, ?) because we don't know how much the system grants points for wins vs. beginners and wins vs. experienced players. I suspect this is the primary reason that some very good players (Blues, GameSlayer, PBhead) rarely play QM. It is precisely because the best players are turned off the QM system that I have to play so many beginners while I wait for a good game.

I realize there are some games (WoW, etc) where the typical player is more concerned with achievement points than relative skill rankings. But, I suspect the long-term followers of this game are much more analytical (it is an economic sim after all). When RTS was in it's infancy, everyone used the ELO system from chess, which worked fine. They only issue was the realative speed (online) that a player could achieve a high rating. Some silly kids would acheive a peak rating, then never play the same account again... making it impossilbe to supercede their status. So, I understand if you want to implement some sort of rating decay scheme. However, allowing a player with a large raw number of wins (me, currently) to surpass those with higher win rates makes the ladder useless for those who are interested in measuring their improvement.

21,046 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Offworld Forums Top

I believe they will not release the game before there is a working ladder system with ELO or some equivalent and also that they're working out the infrastructure that is required such as dedicated servers (instead of the peer to peer matchmaking we have atm). Naturally that is not a guarantee as I'm just another player.

Reply #2 from Offworld Forums Top

I'm simply not playing quick match because I'd rather play 4 or 8 mans and don't see the point of raising my skill level since it's gonna get reset at some point in the next few months. Besides, everyone already knows I'm the best! :P

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Offworld Forums Top

Yep, I asked to review the ranking formula a long time ago, because it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Of course volume should count, but also win rates and opponents' rankings. At the moment it feels like volume's weight is too high compared to other two key components. 

Reply #4 from Offworld Forums Top

The system definitely should change because it is absolutely impossible to catch up with Cubit in the number of games and thus surpass him on the leaderboard.

 

As for the rating decay, I believe on most chess websites (decent ones anyway) if you do not play for a while your rating becomes inactive at which point you won't be accounted for in any of the "top x" lists, which makes that high rating kinda meaningless.

I doubt that a new rating system will be implemented any time soon anyway (and actually hope it won't) as it's probably not at all that high on the priority list currently.