Warrior General Games

The beauty of rookie and sophomore ladder matches is the protection that is provided. Every single week these tiers get quality matchups against each other. This provides great talk and it provides a chance for rivalries and top teams to face each other.

Once teams reach seasoned that all falls by the wayside. Top teams stop facing each other and any kind of rivalries or ladder talk is gone. The fun has been sucked out of the seasoned tier.

My suggestion is not to remove that protection, but to simply put in some type of change that makes it so same tier ladder matches are preferred. As things stand now, top seasoned or journeyman teams rarely face each other.

Seasoned Examples:

#1 Seattle SuperSonics
9 Ladder matches, 1 against a seasoned team
8 seasoned teams within 20 ranks

#2 Wu Tang Caln
9 ladder matches, 1 against a seasoned team
8 seasoned teams within 20 ranks

#3 Hub City Hustlers
9 ladder matches, 2 against a seasoned team
10 seasoned teams within 20 ranks

#6 Monmouth Evil Monkeys
9 ladder matches, 0 against seasoned teams
12 seasoned teams within 20 ranks

Ladder Records of the top 6 teams:
2-6
3-5
2-6
4-4
1-7
0-8

Journeyman

Just looking at my own team.

#1 Killer Kiwis
Haven't played the #2 team in the tier Logzilla Boys since season 7
Didn't play Milwaukee Beers or Ground Assault at all last season
Haven't played #4 team Inner City Kids since season 6

Pro

#2 Richmond Raiders
Haven't played the #1 or #3 teams in the tier since season 7


The way the ladder used to be, teams would play each other 4-6 times a season and people complained. Now it seems that things have gone in the opposite direction. Once teams get past sophomore it's common to rarely face teams in their own tier. Top 10 teams rarely face each other. A top 10 same-tier matchup is much more exciting than a top journey team facing a garbage pro team. Tier rivalries are important. The overall ladder is important too. I'm just asking for something to be put in where same tier opponents are preferred. It's also okay for top 10 teams to face each other twice. It just adds to the rivalry aspect.

The reason top seasoned teams get stuck playing higher tier teams is because of the Rookie and Sophomore protection.

Extending that protection further just makes the rankings even more distorted once it ends.

Originally posted by Corndog
The reason top seasoned teams get stuck playing higher tier teams is because of the Rookie and Sophomore protection.

Extending that protection further just makes the rankings even more distorted once it ends.

I think you're misinterpreting what Rob is suggesting. Extending protection doesn't make sense, but forcing ladder match ups against similar caliber teams within your own tier isn't going to distort anything.

The top teams in a tier deserve a right to play against each other. Its fair competition. It'll make the #1 ladder trophy an actual conversation.

Nobody is suggesting the #1 Seasoned team beat up on the #15 Seasoned team for funsies.

Originally posted by Corndog
The reason top seasoned teams get stuck playing higher tier teams is because of the Rookie and Sophomore protection.

Extending that protection further just makes the rankings even more distorted once it ends.

Rob's not asking for protection for seasoned tier teams and beyond. Just that there be some sort of preference to have same tiered matches. The severity of that preference can be debated/discussed but seasoned teams don't mind playing up in tier. It's just when we never play other teams within our tier that we have an issue. Some sort of balance is needed to promote tier competitiveness while also not compromising overall ladder.

From just a personal anecdote I find it slightly ridiculous how MEM hasn't played a single seasoned team in ladder this season up to this point. The fact that we keep playing up despite being 0-8 in those higher tiered matchups makes the game less fun for me as I'm sure it does for other seasoned teams who have lost that rivalry that was built up with other seasoned teams during our first two seasons together.

Originally posted by Absolut Zero
I think you're misinterpreting what Rob is suggesting. Extending protection doesn't make sense, but forcing ladder match ups against similar caliber teams within your own tier isn't going to distort anything.

Um...what?

I agree...somehow.

Seasoned teams should only play seasoned AND JMan. JMan should only play Seasoned/JMan/Pro.
Let seasoned teams play pro and vet is just wrong

Also...the tier ahead teams should be within 10 rather than 20 teams...but my upper post is more important

Guessing here, but do the ladder games fill out top to bottom? It seems that way.

Basically I'm dumbing the process to this (removing anything that says I've already played them in x days):

'Ladder Rank 1' rolls a twenty-sided die to see what team they'll play. 'Game 1' made.
if 'Ladder Rank 2' isn't in 'Game 1', roll. 'Game 2' made.

And so forth. So the reality is that teams above ladder rank 20 actually have a higher chance of playing someone closer to them than those below rank 20. The chances of getting a game against a team right next to you in the rankings is going to be quite low, basically because you'll have had 20 chances to have had been picked for a game before you actually got to roll yourself.

If I'm sitting at rank 21, I will have to have been passed up on 20 separate rolls in order to roll myself, for matches with teams ranked 20 spots or less below me.

Or maybe this makes no sense

If it does make sense, I'm not advocating it should work bottom to top. Someone has to get the shorter end of the stick here.

Originally posted by Corndog
The reason top seasoned teams get stuck playing higher tier teams is because of the Rookie and Sophomore protection.

Extending that protection further just makes the rankings even more distorted once it ends.

Cdog, it's not about protection. Maybe a clearer request would be this:

A team at Ladder rank 100 is rolling to find out which team in ranks 101-120 they will play. Some of those teams are in the same tier. Some are above/below.

The Ladder game matchup should try and prioritize a team that's in Tier AND in Range.

Let's assume things are constant: 16 Ladder matches per season; Ladder game range of 20.

With the example above Team #100, is going to eventually play 16 teams from the range of 101-120. If 8 of those teams are in Tier, then they should play all of them. With the remaining 8 games, they'll play a mix of above or below Tier teams.

Rob isn't looking to change the range or protection, but rather choose an IN TIER Ladder matchup WHEN AVAILABLE over out of Tier teams that are also in range.

Currently the Ladder matchup is so random for the bulk of teams that we're losing all kinds of rivalries.

How do those teams move up playing within tier without playing up a tier? For teams like Minnesota Air Raid and Richmond you are forcing them to play down rather than up.

Originally posted by bhall43
How do those teams move up playing within tier without playing up a tier? For teams like Minnesota Air Raid and Richmond you are forcing them to play down rather than up.

We're not saying we shouldn't play up a tier. We agree that we need to play up a tier to help move in the rankings. But you need to have some sort of prioritization for same tier match ups or else you're going to have teams lose a lot of interest in sticking around and absolutely no rivalries between tiers. Is that something you want?

Originally posted by jfbueno
We're not saying we shouldn't play up a tier. We agree that we need to play up a tier to help move in the rankings. But you need to have some sort of prioritization for same tier match ups or else you're going to have teams lose a lot of interest in sticking around and absolutely no rivalries between tiers. Is that something you want?

But if you are prioritizing for those top teams in Pro Tier they are forced to play lower teams in their tier. You only get 16 Ladder games. Those teams won't move up the ladder playing down most of the season.

Originally posted by bhall43
But if you are prioritizing for those top teams in Pro Tier they are forced to play lower teams in their tier. You only get 16 Ladder games. Those teams won't move up the ladder playing down most of the season.

Not necessarily. If there are teams within a certain proximity of their rank within their tier then they should have priority for a matchup. If the top pro teams have some distance between them and the middle tier then I don't see why going to vet teams isn't a big deal.

Originally posted by bhall43
But if you are prioritizing for those top teams in Pro Tier they are forced to play lower teams in their tier. You only get 16 Ladder games. Those teams won't move up the ladder playing down most of the season.

Honestly, I'd make it mandatory that the Top 5 teams in each tier have to play each other. They can play up for the other 11 games. But why even have a #1 ladder trophy for each tier, if the top teams within a tier never play each other?

Originally posted by jfbueno
Not necessarily. If there are teams within a certain proximity of their rank within their tier then they should have priority for a matchup. If the top pro teams have some distance between them and the middle tier then I don't see why going to vet teams isn't a big deal.

Minnesota Balanced Air Raid right now is #38. If their tier was given priority they would have to play down to 6 teams below them within 20 spots. And that is only because they had the opportunity to play up this season that they are at 38. Priority within the tier is only going to group tiers together on the ladder until they hit vet. Which is ok for the lower top 10 teams in each tier but the higher teams are really getting the shaft on that.