Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Corndog
You'll be able to filter the ladder page by age.

But what I mean is I'd rather play only ladder teams in my bracket. I don't like the idea of playing teams above and below me. At least not until builds even out

Originally posted by kjoe51689
But what I mean is I'd rather play only ladder teams in my bracket. I don't like the idea of playing teams above and below me. At least not until builds even out

You're already playing teams above and below you though

Originally posted by Corndog
Making teams not play across age groups just exacerbates the problem though.

Then the bottom tier sophomore's elo will continue to be at or below 1000, even though then they will be the next tier and even better than rookie teams. Then once they get to veteran level it's all thrown out of whack and isn't comparable to the current vets.

Sophomores kind of need to beat up on rookies to get their ELO higher than rookies, or we need to artificially inflate it somehow.

Another option is setting a 1000 base, and teams can't go below that. Then having a higher K value for cross-age play, so the awful sophomore teams would leave behind the rookie teams quicker.


Ummm, no. So good rookie teams will lose anyway and have a lower ELO then they should because they are facing teams with players that have more SP distributed. If anybody thinks this makes sense then pull your head out of your ass. How would you like your team to stop getting SP for one season, then still face the same teams? Not fair right? Right, so GTFO of here with that stupidity.

It may be a fact that the best rookie teams are better than the worst sophomore teams, that's just how it goes. Does this mean the sophomore teams should get someone to hold their hand for free wins vs newer teams or that the best rookie teams should get punished by playing teams that will surely have more SP distributed, that depends on how you want things to pan out.

If everyone is up for grabs in ladder games regardless of age, then obviously the oldest teams will be at the top and the younger teams will suffer - until the oldest teams have retired their players, and then the cycle goes on.

The sophomore teams that suck should in no way be even considered to get any kind of boost just because they are older - that's just funny it was even brought up, are we trying to make this totally and obviously uneven cuz that would be a good way.

Here's a great idea, start the new season's teams off exactly as the first teams so there is some consistency. Then, decide whether there will be a ladder for each season or just one. But don't don't give any team any sort of boost for any reason and call it anything related to fair.

Originally posted by Corndog
You're already playing teams above and below you though

Uhhhh, he O B V I O U S L Y means age. He doesn't want to end up playing teams above him or below him in player level. He wants an even playing field.

I'm sure he knows he plays teams above and below him in rank.

Originally posted by -Phaytle-
Here's a great idea, start the new season's teams off exactly as the first teams so there is some consistency. Then, decide whether there will be a ladder for each season or just one. But don't don't give any team any sort of boost for any reason and call it anything related to fair.

You kind of need to decide what you're arguing for, because your post basically argues both sides at the same time. Should Rookie teams get beat up by Sophomore teams regularly to prove Sophomores are better, or does having to face someone with a season's worth of SP on you suck enough that we should fiddle with the rankings to prevent it?

I believe their should be separate ladders to separate separate the age groups from colliding with each other. It wouldn't be fair for the good rookie teams to basically never see the top of the ladder for the light of day with sophomores (and beyond with future seasons). Just separate the age groups and make their own ladders, respectively. It might be some extra work, but it would be worth it in the long run. We are already going to be in our own age group category so let this ladder follow us up and create a new one with the new teams.

Plus, some teams are going for full reset or the team will go back to unowned so you will have some more teams joining in that brigade of new teams to compete in the ladder rankings. Giving the sophomore teams that are trying better not watered down competition.

Originally posted by redskinsfan1
I believe their should be separate ladders to separate separate the age groups from colliding with each other. It wouldn't be fair for the good rookie teams to basically never see the top of the ladder for the light of day with sophomores (and beyond with future seasons). Just separate the age groups and make their own ladders, respectively. It might be some extra work, but it would be worth it in the long run. We are already going to be in our own age group category so let this ladder follow us up and create a new one with the new teams.

Plus, some teams are going for full reset or the team will go back to unowned so you will have some more teams joining in that brigade of new teams to compete in the ladder rankings. Giving the sophomore teams that are trying better not watered down competition.

That's what I was trying to say on my phone. Thanks for clearing it up for him

Sometimes it just takes a few extra words to make things easier to understand.

I think the guys running whatever rookie team is taking sophomore teams out behind the woodshed are going to have a whole lot of fun seeing how high they can climb in the rankings and counting up how many sophomore teams they're better than.

The problems are:

There aren't enough games being played each season to allow ELO to really take hold. You get 16 ladder games a season, which are the only chances for 2nd year teams to play 1st year teams. USCF, for example, considers your rating provisional and uses special values when you have less than 20 games played, because it's not enough to rely on yet.

On the other hand, you want ladder games to be meaningful - one of the selling points of GLB2 is the Ladder Matchups being half (over half!) of your meaningful games in a player's career; you don't want to burn those in meaningless games just to let the ELO ratings work out to separate rookie and sophomore teams.

I think my favorite solution is separate ladders by level. Here's what you get:
Rookie teams play rookies, just like this season. The ladder works fine with one age group.
When S2 teams reach Vet, the ladder will merge with the S1 Vet ladder. This is going to be reasonable - S1 teams that won about 75% of their games are probably roughly as good as S2 teams that won about 75% of their games (to be fair, I expect S2 teams to be better, just from learning). And then they'll play each other in leagues and ladder and the ratings will sort out. And ELO is such that most recent games "count" the most to the rating, so your recent performance will matter more in the final rating.
Downside is that you don't have a site-wide ranking, and strong 3rd year teams won't get to compare themselves against 4th year and vet teams in ranked matches. Of course they can quick scrim, but it won't affect ratings.

Second solution is to give a boost to teams as they age. Thumbnail calculation I'm guessing about an 8*K boost to all teams as they become Sophomore, and then 4*K boost to all teams as they age again into 3rd year, and then leave it alone. The idea is that the biggest gap is Rookie->Sophomore (this may be false), so that's the point where we want to provide the most separation. And all teams will have gotten the same "boost" to rating by the time they reach Vet, so it's a level playing field. This way really strong teams will have a shot at picking off the weaker teams a year up, and once you reach 3rd year and above you're all in the same group. This should limit the amount of complete mismatch ladder games while still maintaining a single site-wide ladder. Downside is that you will get some amount of age-based mismatch ladder games, and when S2+ teams reach Vet level, they will have a lower rating from having been compared to Vet teams previously, even though we know they have gained in skill since those prior season games. It might take over a season for a newly Vet team to reach it's proper rating with only 30 rated games a season.

Originally posted by Corndog
It will actually probably be pretty weird for rookie teams.

All teams start at 1000 elo. Losing games make your ratings go down...so the teams with awful records will be below 1000 when new teams are added, despite being sophomore.

I'm not sure how long it will take to work itself out for sure. We may do some weird thing when teams go from Rookie to Sophomore where we add 200 or something to break them up from the new teams, though that creates other weird issues as well.

Or we could just let it work itself out, though a lot of rookie teams next season would probably lose their first few ladder games at least.

It is more the issue that Level 1 teams should never be competitive with Level 6 teams. Lower ranked level 25 teams will lose to high ranked level 20 teams, but there is just way too big of a difference between level 1 and level 6. The best level 6 teams will be able to beat the worst level 11 teams, so I think the solution is to ALWAYS keep the rookie teams in their own ladder.

Originally posted by Time Trial
It is more the issue that Level 1 teams should never be competitive with Level 6 teams. Lower ranked level 25 teams will lose to high ranked level 20 teams, but there is just way too big of a difference between level 1 and level 6. The best level 6 teams will be able to beat the worst level 11 teams, so I think the solution is to ALWAYS keep the rookie teams in their own ladder.



Just a rookie-only ladder would be okay - you'd still get some weirdness as good S2 rookie teams will get the snot kicked out of them in S3 as sophomores going against the good S1 3rd-year teams, and *bad* S2 rookie teams will get slaughtered by the bad S1 3rd-years. And it will take at *least* half a season to work that out, and I would be willing to bet more like the whole season.

Still better than just throwing the rookie teams to the slaughter. Maybe Rookie, Sophomore, and 3rd-year+ Ladders?

Originally posted by NiborRis
The problems are:

There aren't enough games being played each season to allow ELO to really take hold. You get 16 ladder games a season, which are the only chances for 2nd year teams to play 1st year teams. USCF, for example, considers your rating provisional and uses special values when you have less than 20 games played, because it's not enough to rely on yet.

On the other hand, you want ladder games to be meaningful - one of the selling points of GLB2 is the Ladder Matchups being half (over half!) of your meaningful games in a player's career; you don't want to burn those in meaningless games just to let the ELO ratings work out to separate rookie and sophomore teams.

I think my favorite solution is separate ladders by level. Here's what you get:
Rookie teams play rookies, just like this season. The ladder works fine with one age group.
When S2 teams reach Vet, the ladder will merge with the S1 Vet ladder. This is going to be reasonable - S1 teams that won about 75% of their games are probably roughly as good as S2 teams that won about 75% of their games (to be fair, I expect S2 teams to be better, just from learning). And then they'll play each other in leagues and ladder and the ratings will sort out. And ELO is such that most recent games "count" the most to the rating, so your recent performance will matter more in the final rating.
Downside is that you don't have a site-wide ranking, and strong 3rd year teams won't get to compare themselves against 4th year and vet teams in ranked matches. Of course they can quick scrim, but it won't affect ratings.

Second solution is to give a boost to teams as they age. Thumbnail calculation I'm guessing about an 8*K boost to all teams as they become Sophomore, and then 4*K boost to all teams as they age again into 3rd year, and then leave it alone. The idea is that the biggest gap is Rookie->Sophomore (this may be false), so that's the point where we want to provide the most separation. And all teams will have gotten the same "boost" to rating by the time they reach Vet, so it's a level playing field. This way really strong teams will have a shot at picking off the weaker teams a year up, and once you reach 3rd year and above you're all in the same group. This should limit the amount of complete mismatch ladder games while still maintaining a single site-wide ladder. Downside is that you will get some amount of age-based mismatch ladder games, and when S2+ teams reach Vet level, they will have a lower rating from having been compared to Vet teams previously, even though we know they have gained in skill since those prior season games. It might take over a season for a newly Vet team to reach it's proper rating with only 30 rated games a season.

I would agree with the first solution. Merge the teams in the ladder at Vet or whenever the pyramid starts.

The alternative, as I stated, was to always keep rookie out of the main ladder. Even then, I suspect that if you had a 100% age seperation, people would be a lot happier. If they want to prove they are better than some team in a higher age range, they can send a scrim.

Originally posted by NiborRis
Just a rookie-only ladder would be okay - you'd still get some weirdness as good S2 rookie teams will get the snot kicked out of them in S3 as sophomores going against the good S1 3rd-year teams, and *bad* S2 rookie teams will get slaughtered by the bad S1 3rd-years. And it will take at *least* half a season to work that out, and I would be willing to bet more like the whole season.

Still better than just throwing the rookie teams to the slaughter. Maybe Rookie, Sophomore, and 3rd-year+ Ladders?

Yeah... giving teams an artifical ELO push when they age over each season would help keep the best S2 teams playing the worst S1 teams and the other best S2 teams.

Originally posted by NiborRis
You kind of need to decide what you're arguing for, because your post basically argues both sides at the same time. Should Rookie teams get beat up by Sophomore teams regularly to prove Sophomores are better, or does having to face someone with a season's worth of SP on you suck enough that we should fiddle with the rankings to prevent it?

I'm just trying to discuss it and trying to point out why one could be chosen over the other.