Warrior General Games

That is another option:


Add a second ladder -- tier only to fill our current off day.

So:

League play
GLB2 Ladder Play
Tier wide ladder


The more games we play - and the more good games we play against good competition -- the better in my opinion. Even rematches -- or ultimately playing a team several times between the 2 ladders and the league -- will have to bring more parity among the teams that try - they'll try new game plans - find things that work - etc.


Yes - this means that Vet teams would essentially double their current ladder and likely play all of the other top teams 2 or more times (I'd say tier ladder can allow rematches). That is good. That is fun. That is good for GLB2--- and it is already programmed basically

meh, then the ladder just becomes kinda a spectacle. Is tier ladder important or overall ladder?

Originally posted by Mysterio
Personally I would prefer tier-specific ladder matches to the current system. If I'm number 1 in the ladder in my tier I dont want to play shitty teams a tier above me, I want to prove I'm #1 by continuing to beat everyone below me. If Im not #1 I want as many chances as I can to get matched up with them and beat them. Just put in a formula to discourage repeat matches against the same team and itll work fine. Who the fuck cares if #1 Journeyman team beats down on the inactive Pro/Vet teams, nobody wants to watch that shit. You dont see high school state champions playing against shitty Div 3 college teams, and you dont see the top college teams playing NFL teams. Games with such a talent disparity are shitty to watch.

Except you aren't just playing shitty teams if you moving along the ladder like it currently works. You would however be doing that with the suggestion proposed though. And if the ladder accelerated a bit more than it currently does you would definitely not find yourself in that situation under current standards.

for each team do decide for themselves. Just like now -- what is the % of teams who literally have zero chance of winning their league championship? 75%? worse?


What is the % of teams who have a chance of getting a top 5 ladder trophy? 25% or less?



I'm just for something to add on the off day. I'd prefer tournaments....but I can only guess the powers that be do not think the programming time is justified. Ok. So as a starting point -- add in a same tier ladder for the off day. Simply use the programming that is already in place for sophomores.


Now - all of the "same tier" people can be happy.
All of the "true global ladder" people can be happy.
A season goes from 30 games to 45.
At vet (at least) - same tier ladder games still impact global ladder #s so crappy teams and gut jobs get pushed down faster (because there are more games)
And good teams climb faster over the course of a season because more games


Simple. minimal programming

Tournaments make sense because they wouldn't hinder the ladder in any way and they wouldn't be mandatory. More like free scrims.

Another ladder is another element to the game. Which means it needs to be tied to skill points, AP's, length of a career. It also makes the global ladder look kinda jokey. Is there a global point? I don't see it at that point. Especially for vets.

its like playing 2 separate leagues and giving preference of time to the one you like more.

I'd prefer a tier-specific ladder system that resets at the beginning of each season, as to start everyone off on equal footing. Who cares if you beat up on weak Vet teams last season. Give new teams the same opportunity to get to the top of the ladder, this incumbent bullshit has to go. A resetting ladder ranking gives every team a fresh start each season and a chance to win a ladder trophy, whereas currently if they didnt find a groove or didnt develop a good system until they were out of rookie/sophomore, they are in a terrible ELO hole they cant dig themselves out of due to the rollover ladder system , forcing them to reset and try again, which is why we have so few pro teams. With a resetting ladder, teams are more likely to stick around and improve themselves through respeccing/free agency instead of resetting.

This could also help new member retention. Average joe buys a team for the first time, doesn't quite know what he's doing, goes 10-20 as a rookie. He figures some stuff out, goes 10-10 through the first half of season then finishes 8-2. He's finally got a system that works well, but he has no chance at a seasoned ladder trophy because he's so far behind, even though he's improved considerably. He is pretty much forced to reset, which requires a large flex reinvestment so he might just quit the game.

Maybe have a tiny ELO carryover from the previous season to establish initial ranking similar to the AP Poll maybe, but make the ladder rankings quickly reflect which teams are hot in the current season, because who cares how you did last season.

That actually promotes resetting more than the current option.

Originally posted by bhall43
Except you aren't just playing shitty teams if you moving along the ladder like it currently works. You would however be doing that with the suggestion proposed though. And if the ladder accelerated a bit more than it currently does you would definitely not find yourself in that situation under current standards.

Most cross-tier matchups are shitty actually. Generally any team that plays up a tier or two is playing against a worse built and worse coordinated team. The advantage the upper tier has is just SP based, which is often enough to get the win, particularly with a 2 tier advantage. Everything is great in rookie and sophomore and pretty good in vet, but Seasoned-Pro is mostly shitty matchups that nobody wants to watch. So that's like 6 months of garbage.

There's 16 Ladder games.

A roll could be made. Let's assume it's 50/50, but it can anything else.

Roll 1-50 and you pick an IN TIER opponent in the Ladder range.
Roll 51-100 and you pick an OUT of TIER opponent in Ladder range.
This creates 8 in Tier and 8 out of Tier matchups (on average) per season.

Don't like those numbers because teams won't move enough Ladder ranks?

Then make it 33/67 or something. Then you'd get 6 in tier and 12 out of tier.

Rob's OP is about how there are many teams in tier that aren't ever getting picked.

Isn't there some type of adjustment we can make that facilitates some more rivalry games as we move up Tiers over time?

Originally posted by bhall43
That actually promotes resetting more than the current option.

Sweet explanation

Originally posted by Mysterio
Sweet explanation

Take my team for instance. I don't reset because I want to continue to thrive to be the best team and keep among the veteran ranks. If the ladder was reset every season my team would have reset by now as there would be no real reason to thrive and continue being competitive season after season.

Yeah, I've pretty much gotten to the point where I don't even watch ladder games for SoA when we are playing up a tier. I would hope that this was not the original plan that the GLB staff had in mind when they made a global ladder system that works this way. The only thing that the current ladder system does is make people disinterested in the game.

As for SoA's schedule we have played 0 seasoned teams in the ladder, 2 pro teams, and 7 journeyman teams. Like many others have mentioned this just kills the fun out of the game.

Originally posted by bhall43
Take my team for instance. I don't reset because I want to continue to thrive to be the best team and keep among the veteran ranks. If the ladder was reset every season my team would have reset by now as there would be no real reason to thrive and continue being competitive season after season.

either that or improve through free agency instead Of lazily riding your ELO cushion

Originally posted by Rob.
Most cross-tier matchups are shitty actually. Generally any team that plays up a tier or two is playing against a worse built and worse coordinated team. The advantage the upper tier has is just SP based, which is often enough to get the win, particularly with a 2 tier advantage. Everything is great in rookie and sophomore and pretty good in vet, but Seasoned-Pro is mostly shitty matchups that nobody wants to watch. So that's like 6 months of garbage.

That wouldn't be entirely true if the ladder movement sped up. Those mostly bad teams would move down and the lower tier high ranked teams would be facing teams that are mid ranked in the next tier.

Originally posted by Mysterio
You probably should reset then because you don't deserve to be among the top teams

I don't right now. But next season I could certainly be.