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.
