Warrior General Games

But I mean, ladder was never meant to, still isn't intended to, and probably won't be designed to figure out "who is the best seasoned team". It was never meant to be a tier based tournament to crown a champ. It was meant to rank all the teams in the game, and get decent matchups, regardless of tier.

Outside of a few outliers, it's staggeringly effective at that.

Originally posted by Corndog
But I mean, ladder was never meant to, still isn't intended to, and probably won't be designed to figure out "who is the best seasoned team". It was never meant to be a tier based tournament to crown a champ. It was meant to rank all the teams in the game, and get decent matchups, regardless of tier.

Outside a few outliers, it's staggeringly effective at that.

agree - it works pretty well -- and we haven't even seen it operate when there is more than one "vet tier" so to speak (we'll get that next season).

Originally posted by TxSteve
agree - it works pretty well -- and we haven't even seen it operate when there is more than one "vet tier" so to speak (we'll get that next season).

It should work pretty well.

If it favored tiers heavily, every season would be a giant clusterfuck of overrated teams merging with older teams, creating chaos and uneven matchups across the board at veteran tier.

Current season professionals will probably be slightly underrated when merging, but it shouldn't be that bad of an underrating.

Originally posted by Corndog
Alternatively, we'd get more 1 vs 34 matchups.

- Stunners are rank 1 in their tier and rank 38 overall.
- Cornhuskers are rank 2 in the same tier, and rank 62 overall.

Ok, that's fine - in situations like the Stunners, teams that are CLEARLY above and beyond their tier, they should be playing whoever is closest to their competitive level.

But in situations closer to the norm, it'll make ladder matchups with teams one to five ranks around you - ladder matchups that are going to be close and competitive. When you're playing a team that's about 15 ranks away, which happens sometimes, the game is much less likely to be tight. Slimming the range, late season, makes for some better games.

Originally posted by pottsman
Ok, that's fine - in situations like the Stunners, teams that are CLEARLY above and beyond their tier, they should be playing whoever is closest to their competitive level.

But in situations closer to the norm, it'll make ladder matchups with teams one to five ranks around you - ladder matchups that are going to be close and competitive. When you're playing a team that's about 15 ranks away, which happens sometimes, the game is much less likely to be tight. Slimming the range, late season, makes for some better games.

If there was a solid case of ladder matchups being complete blowouts, sure, I'd buy into that.

But I mean, even the OP of this thread is beating or losing close games with their matchups. Outside of veteran teams rolling up against Queen City, I'm sure not sure 15 ranks is that much of a difference. The majority of games end up being fairly close.

I'd guess Stobie with his super scripts could comment on the average scores of ladder games, and I'd guess there will be pretty good parity.

I think the existence of the awards for being the highest ranked team in their tier leads people to want it to be a tier level competition. I like it how it is though.

mrm - just out of curiosity - if I recall - you were the first generation of sophomore teams protected (meaning you only played other sophs).

In retrospect -- did you like that? good system? bad system? what were your thoughts?

Yea I liked that. One seasons worth of sp is a much bigger difference to an early soph team than an early seasoned team (i.e. soph vs seasoned is a lot more uneven than seasoned vs journeyman. Even the best soph teams would probably be killed by bad seasoned teams with default playbooks, at least in the first half of the season.

Maybe there could be an adjustment to overall ranking for rookie and soph though. I feel like our success soph season resulted in an overranking of my team which resulted in some bad matchups, but the beauty of the ladder system is it should have the seasoned teams properly sorted by the end of the season, so maybe a change isn't really necessary.

Originally posted by TxSteve
I don't like it. If as the season goes -- your range is constricted -- then you're also limiting your ladder potential that season. Beating a team 30 ahead of you improves your ladder position more than beating a team 5 ahead of you.

if toward the end of the season everyone is playing within 5 - then in a large way you're going to be minimizing ladder position changes for pretty much no reason.

In addition to that - when people call for more "1 vs 2" matchups -- that is just kind of silly. There are currently only 6 "1"s and 6 "2"s -- what about the other few hundred teams?



only playing teams in your tier (beyond rookie) is an incredibly dumb idea.
What you're talking about is getting rid of the world wide ladder --- and instead instituting a tier specific ladder. I can see why that looks like it would be fun to someone with only rookie experience -- but that would not be good for many others.

Ok. There are people like you that like the wide open Ladder system, but there are others that don't.

What if the funnel was reversed? At the beginning of the season, it's 5 and then grows to 20. Or it starts at 10 and grows to 20.

Or for brand new Seasoned teams the Ladder range is 10 and moves to 20 as the weeks progress, but it's the current 20 for Journeyman and up? That would give the Seasoned teams more time to catch-up to the Journeyman teams in SP effectiveness.

Right now there are Seasoned teams that are walking into some buzz saws. Maybe lessen the pain over the first few (say 5) Ladder games for them of the season?

Originally posted by TxSteve
Dude - just shut up. It is fun right now -- in rookie - playing active teams is fun -- but the experience changes dramatically as you rise in the tiers and develop your team / tactics and playbooks.


Kiss my ass Steve. I am a paying customer and I can write any damn thing I want.

I have never believed in combining tiers for anything...HOF or ladder. I think they should be decoupled and there should be a tourny at the end of each season to see who the best is "in your tier". If you keep your team around long enough, you will be able to play teams a tier or 2 above you when you get to Vet status. And all the inactive teams will be gone by then.

But whatever...for some reason, lots of folks around here think it is fun to play higher tier, inactive teams with boat loads of more SP. If you cats don't care what you are ranked in your tier, then why even bother to put your tier ranking on your page. Because if the top teams in a tier are never, or hardly ever, playing the top 10 or 5 teams in their tier, that ranking means nothing.

Originally posted by Corndog
But I mean, ladder was never meant to, still isn't intended to, and probably won't be designed to figure out "who is the best seasoned team". It was never meant to be a tier based tournament to crown a champ. It was meant to rank all the teams in the game, and get decent matchups, regardless of tier.

Outside of a few outliers, it's staggeringly effective at that.

Then why have awards for finishing in the top ladder spots of the tier? At least give a tourney with the top 10 teams at the end of the season or something. Right now it's coming down to who happens to draw the most favorable matchups instead of who can beat who H2H

Originally posted by Mysterio
Then why have awards for finishing in the top ladder spots of the tier? At least give a tourney with the top 10 teams at the end of the season or something. Right now it's coming down to who happens to draw the most favorable matchups instead of who can beat who H2H

have to agree if it was never intended to crown a champ... then trophies shouldnt be rewarded.

Originally posted by Mysterio
Then why have awards for finishing in the top ladder spots of the tier?

So you think the game would be better if I just removed them?

Originally posted by Corndog
So you think the game would be better if I just removed them?

You said it yourself the intent was never to have a champ crowned. The design of the ladder doesn't even suit itself to recognizing a true champion for a tier.

Why segregate ladders into tiers with tier rankings themselves and crown a false champion if it was never the intent?