https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=11143992 the game he played 2 day ago on the ladder against himself

everybody knows how to find this name is anonym. could you please stop commenting everywhere.

95 percent of the forum will be delighted if you stop responding on the forum

Edited 5/13/2016 16:36:31

Imo its bullshit, if he wants more games where players take it serious play tournaments where you just invite the top 50.

I would say ban him, but too many players have got away with this in the past to be fair. I'm pretty sure another player did this recently where they had two accounts which overlapped, and they were top 10.

Edit: Didn't realise how high his rating is, ban him! :P

Edited 5/13/2016 16:52:41

Let's check it: http://www.strawpoll.me/10201091/r

This is what I mean about runs, look how easy it is to get an inflated rating. His true rating, on AI, over a large sample of games is 1918, around 37th. While his other account has a shot at 1st. Even without the cheating, he's so over-rated.

@Hades remember he is stalling massively and he lost a game to himself.

I still agree with you though.

Edit: He is stalling against 2 people, rated 1404 and 1822. Admits it in chat too :/

Edited 5/13/2016 18:38:19

@ hades. thats why its good the current ladder is over 5 months. if he fails (which in 98 percent will happen if his true rating is 37th) he at least has to wait 5 extra months to try again.

though his true rating is probably higher than 37th because he learned during his games.

I'd say the 5 months rule brings down the long term ladder players more. I'm still being dragged down from games 5 months ago when I wasn't taking the ladder seriously. And I guess you could also say every long term ladder player has learnt over the past 5 months and should be rated higher.

Yeah he is stalling, but he can only do that since its a run. There's probably unintentional stalling in most runs, since I think players tend to think more on games they're losing, so will play a little slower.

I'd much rather prefer an expiring rule based in games than time. Games could start expiring after 100 of those, and you can keep the time rule for old games. In addition to that, maybe 30 games should be required to be ranked in the ladder.

All of this will discourage runs and also in a smaller scale, stalling (it's harder to make 30 games without losing any, even while stalling). Also, for players that prefer to remain in the ladder and play tons of games won't be penalized, knowing that every 3 months or so (with 5 games at the time), their older games will have expired and won't drag them down anymore.

The closer the amount of games required for a rating and the amount counting towards a rating for a long term player, the fairer it will be. I guess the ideal situation is the amount of games required for a rating, is the same amount that will count towards for a long term player. Like, if the last 40 games count towards a rating, and 40 games are required to obtain a rating.

Theres problems with that, long term players will have a more volatile rating, and it will take a while for new ladder players to get a ranking. But it would atleast make it fair.

Well after reading this, I couldn't agree more with Buns, Hades, and Mister T. AI is a 1900-something level player. To try and manipulate the ladder system to get an inflated, unrealistic rating is ridiculous...it not only is awful sportsmanship, but it undermines all of the good competition and hard work that us other players go through. I've won around 43 of my last 50 ladder games, mostly against top 30 competition, and move up slowly from having a lot of unexpired games in the past 5 months (more losses a while back). Seeing people threaten to get the top stop with so FEW games played, mostly from beating up on low level semi-noobs, is unfair. 20 games is simply too few to be ranked on the ladder, it needs to be 40. We saw someone else do this recently, he made it to number one for a week, then lost EVERY game he played against top 10 (unlike me, who has beaten a lot of top players), and then he quit the ladder! Totally unfair.

^ +1 Buns, Hades, MisterT, HBB

I'm very disappointed in certain people now. :L

The problem is not the amount of 20 games or the fact that people make ladder runs. True it is harder to stay on top for a long time then to make a ladder run. The main problem of ladder runs is that people tend to stall games when they almost made it. IF i see someone make a clean run of 20 games and get first place i don't see any problem with that. No stalling means he deserves first place. Lots of players, like myself, make runs once in a while because we don't have time to play ladder permanently or (probably a bigger reason, at least it is for me) motivation to keep playing the same template over and over again. At the end of a 20 game ladder run i am usually bored as hell. Same reason I will never win a seasonal (assuming i would have the skill to do so if i am on top of my game) Last games i cannot bring up the motivation anymore to stay focused. So I can see why people hate ladder runs, but its because of people like nicklas that they do so

The problem is not the amount of 20 games or the fact that people make ladder runs. True it is harder to stay on top for a long time then to make a ladder run. The main problem of ladder runs is that people tend to stall games when they almost made it. IF i see someone make a clean run of 20 games and get first place i don't see any problem with that. No stalling means he deserves first place. Lots of players, like myself, make runs once in a while because we don't have time to play ladder permanently or (probably a bigger reason, at least it is for me) motivation to keep playing the same template over and over again. At the end of a 20 game ladder run i am usually bored as hell. Same reason I will never win a seasonal (assuming i would have the skill to do so if i am on top of my game) Last games i cannot bring up the motivation anymore to stay focused. So I can see why people hate ladder runs, but its because of people like nicklas that they do so

Or you lose to me :)

shut up noob! Grown ups are talking

Won't TrueSkill solve this? If you're just winning against low-level n00bs, your sigma (the range your actual skill might be in) isn't going to narrow much until you finally encounter people on your own level.

If you have TrueSkill with a sigma-based threshold (so you're ranked once the system is confident in your rating), that also helps when people drastically improve because then their sigma will widen again as their performance will no longer be consistent with where the model expects them to land.

Runs are still easier, even without the stalling. Less games mean you'll deviate more from your true rating, and you have more of a chance at getting over-rated. People do runs all the time, get 1st and cant hold it. Because they're true rating is actually not 1st, and as they play more games, they're rating converges on to its true value and they fall down the ladder. Meaning they took 1st, but didn't actually deserve it.

Stalling is an additional problem, and like I said before, I think people tend to unintentionally stall anyway, by having to think more on tough or losing games, and so taking more time.

And this isn't much of a reason, but people on runs will be more highly motivated. Each game they know is going to play a larger part in their rating and they'll take more care. Where as people in for the long run will be less motivated each game, as its just one out of several pages that count towards your rating.

MisterT's point as well, that people improve while on the ladder, and so even though they are at a certain skill now, will still be dragged down by their skill 5 months before.

If you needed 40 games to get ranked many people just wouldn't be able to be ranked because of their first games expiring before completing their 40th game. Just to make an example, in this moment on the first positions only alhazi has more than 40 unexpired games.

---

I think the problem isn't only with number of games.
The problem is the current Elo system, which has several big flaws:

• a WIN against a low rated player/team will drag your rating down until it expires
  
• a LOSS against a much higher rated player/team will bring your rating up
  
• a change to any of your past opponents' rating will affect your rating too
  
• having very few unexpired games and only play 1 or 2 new games at a time is the most efficient way to achieve and keep a high rating
  
• players can just make a run and get a high rating by just completing 20 games and delaying a few losses

How to solve: RT Ladder's TrueSkill rating system easily solves all these problems.

PROS:

• you need to play many games to achieve a high rating
  
• wins/losses affect your rating immediately as they happen
  
• TrueSkill rating and standard deviation are all that matters, your history of wins/losses doesn't affect your
  rating

CONS:

• since past games don't affect your current rating, a player's rating is going to stay the same even if they didn't play for long periods of time
  
• for the same reason, a player with high rating only needs to play the minimum amount of games not to get unranked in order to keep a high rank for as long as they want

How to solve: you only need to add a DECAY mechanic.
What's DECAY? Every player loses X TrueSkill rating every fixed amount of time (something like 50~100 TS each week for RT Ladder, the best thing is the amount is inversely proportional to the number of games played by each player in the last week).
This way a player who hasn't played the ladder for many months (or years) won't just come back and have the same rating as they had when they left; and no one can stall on top of the ladder by just playing the minimum amount of games not to get unranked.

---

tl;dr: The current Elo system is only fit for Seasonal Ladder. All the other Ladders should use TrueSkill, and implement a DECAY mechanic to prevent stalling.

Edited 5/13/2016 22:28:45

Odi et amo

MisterT is not any less noob then 5 months ago so i have no idea how he would know anything about that :P

I think people tend to unintentionally stall anyway, by having to think more on tough or losing games, and so taking more time.

For me thats not the definition of stalling. Stalling is not surrendering a game where you know you have lost. If a game looks bad but I know i can still win if i pull of a nice trick. Yeah then i don't see what is wrong with thinking for 2/3 days. I have won a lot of games where it looked bad and took a few days to consider every possible move from me and my opponent. And true that can be more then 1 turn. So you could say 2 or 3 turns of almost 3 turns is stalling if i loose it in the end. But if i win is it stalling?

Meaning they took 1st, but didn't actually deserve it.

If someone can wrap up 20 games without stalling he is worthy to take first place if his opponents were rated good enough. Ladders are a competitive arena as it says on the wiki and in sports its not always the best or the strongest that will end up on top. But same as there we should ban cheaters from the arena. Imo its not needed to ban niklas/ai from warlight but he should be banned from the ladder for some time