did the level restriction lower in the last months? I want to play :p

level restrictions is because all features the templates are using needs to be unlocked. MotD cannot change that so the level restriction to play on this ladder will stay the same most likely. If you want to play just participate in a bunch of lottery games and you have the required level within a week

Edited 4/9/2017 02:15:03

My criticism to packs is I find it harder to see how "fair" the ratings are. For example, say Player A is in 1st place, with a rating of 1800. This player only plays on the base packs, and does not bother to even play on the others. now player B is 1780. Player B plays on every single pack. Is player A really considered the "best player"? I am not so sure.

You could make the same argument with vetoes, however, I find vetoes okay, as each player does have their templates that get their ire and annoy the heck out of them, representing a disparity in their true skill. But in reality, packs can effectively act as a system of 10 main templates and 41 "vetoes". To me, this might encourage players to stick to the base if they want to make it to the top- It is certainly easier to keep track of 10 templates than 51.

An alternative might be to do an "entry curve" sort of idea. What I mean by this is when a player first joins, if they choose to, they can have their first 10 games could be only on, say 5 templates, with 1 veto. After every 10 games, the ladder adds 5 more templates to the mix, until the player decides to access all templates or all templates have been added (the last iteration being 6 templates). This would take 100 games, which is a lot, however, a player would have to remain unranked until they decided to take on all templates, and play at least 10 games with all templates. Deviations could be modified to be kept relatively high until all templates are added, so that they would not have an inflated rating when they did become ranked. Players already joined, or already have access to all templates, would not have this option. In addition, to further balance, vetoes would not be allowed throughout this period. Its crude, but I do believe it could be worked into something.

^I like the idea, maybe more depending on ranking than number of games and even consider no veto at all for top ranked players ? That may also let lower level players join with meeting pre requisite for entry templates.

Regarding level and competition topic, and lack of lower skilled / level players, couldn't the league be separated into divisions with promotion/relegation somehow, and not with seasons, but as soon as your rank beats a rank in a division above ? Then everybody would fight for a while against player of its level and only those who managed to improve will make it to the division above. Divisions would be a first time in a ladder and everybody would have its own and reachable challenge to top its division.

i dont really like the packs idea, think it would just fragment the player base further.

I agree with PS

I like the packs idea personally. i don't think it fragments the player pool, since they're all still playing on the same ladder and each player is no more or less likely to get matched against another player than they are at the moment.

It's also nice in that you can perhaps have a lower level pack in addition to a members-only pack, so that lower level players can join the ladder (perhaps not too low to discourage alts) as well as enable member only features like bomb and commanders on templates that have those and merit inclusion.

My criticism to packs is I find it harder to see how "fair" the ratings are. For example, say Player A is in 1st place, with a rating of 1800. This player only plays on the base packs, and does not bother to even play on the others. now player B is 1780. Player B plays on every single pack. Is player A really considered the "best player"? I am not so sure.

MotD said that you'd get some bonus points every time you play a game on a non-base-pack template so i don't think that would be an issue. If you want to get 1st, you would probably need to use all packs, but the huge number of templates needn't turn off the average player who just wants good strategic games.

If these low level players join the ladder they start with 1500 elo points and play against players, which are way better than them. This can be really frustrating.

On other WL ladders you start from the bottom, not the middle, which really makes more sense for a "ladder". It also helps discourage runs, since you need to play more games to get the games against top players quickly. I think this would be a good feature for the majority of players, though maybe less ideal for the elite. However, the problem isn't really a lack of elite players - more a lack of average strategic players.

"However, the problem isn't really a lack of elite players - more a lack of average strategic players".

Totally agree. I think the opinion amongst the non-elite clans of WL is that MDL is too hard to play on because there is a lot of top/elite/very good players against who it is hard to win games and few average/decent strat players against who it is not easy to win games but more possible. If there was a way to have more average or decent strategic players, I think it would make MDL ladder much better imo. I do not know how we could attract more average/decent strategic players, but it would add depth to this ladder in the short, middle and long term.

Some guys are like what Buns said he was, they do not care losing because it drives them to get better to eventually become an awesome player (like Buns). That being said, that kind of attitude does not, in my opinion, describe most of the players on WL. I think most people need a balance between very hard games that are super hard to win and games that are not easy to win but much more possible to win.

Some guys on this ladder are I think quite good and struggle to get 1500 or a bit better, which again can be discouraging. Having more average players could potentially maybe give those players more wins and hence, give a more decent rating which could be quite motivating.

I also think that Knyte's project he is working on right now, making an easier way for anyone to run their own league with a CLOT of some sort, might also satisfy more the members of decent strategic clans that aren't elite and might pull them off this ladder.

Edited 4/11/2017 02:47:50

^

Some people don't mind losing a lot to good players.

But many people just want some fun games, or want to play people around their own level. OR they just don't know of this external CLOT, or their interest drifted onto something else. I myself cannot seriously focus on more than a few games at a time. If I am "worrying" about practice games for Clan League, for instance, I will know I will do a terrible job on most other games I attempt. I'm sure there are many others the same way.

Honestly, this particular ladder never gets mentioned in Hydra Clan chat, but neither are most other warlight leagues and events, etc.... (Its RL, random stuff, or Clan League)

So, a significant portion of the middling-weaker players have a limited interest for warlight, so to speak.

Don't know if it is possible to get Fizzer to add this to his ladder page :P

But seriously, I don't think very many people get exposure to this section, anyways.

I see no reason to mention this ladder in the Hydra Clan Server. Mostly there is no advantage to me as a clan leader to promote a public ladder. My job is to run my clan. If you want to play a public ladder, its your prerogative to do so.

yeah better to promote a clan internal ladder here on the mdl thread

We as players or leaders should be promoting community events in our clans imo.. isn't that what being part of the community is all about??! Motd has stated he is trying to prevent the mdl from dying out and is trying to attract more people and more skill diversity, so it IS in the community's best interest to keep it going surely?! Therefore we all have a responsibility to promote it!

:P In all fairness, just ran a search and it does seem like we talk about MDL in the Hydra server at least once a day. I'd also rather not have my little pet project put up as some sort of alternative to MDL.

But just since I disagree with GrEx's logic (since when is it not in the interest of a strat clan to participate in the larger strategic community?), dw fam I gotchu covered.



Edited 4/11/2017 20:17:15

Concerning the promotion of MDL...Like many times I said, this ladder is made for top guys/elites/very good players/good players/very decent, depending on your definition of each of theses terms. It is not made in my opinion for the more average strategic player so it makes it difficult for us as leaders/players to promote such a tough ladder to some of our guys we know that don't have right now the skills to enjoy this ladder.

The more average strategic player in my opinion will not see the similarities between a lot of the templates on this ladder and not everyone has the will and the competitive nature to support losing a lot of games all the time and learning from all those games lost on a lot of different templates. 1v1 ladder or such ladders are way less interesting for good players but can be quite attractive to new/average strategic players because they can fully concentrate on learning the basics of strategical gaming on 1 template, without never thinking about particularities of different templates. It is easy to see similarities between different templates when you achieve a relatively high level of gameplay, but it is much more difficult when you are kind of new to high strategical gaming.

For those reasons, it is hard I think to please everyone with a same ladder because if there are too many templates/settings, it will appeal more to the good players and less to the more average players and if it is like 1v1 ladder, the good players will sooner or later be sick of playing always the same template. The kits MotD propose could maybe be a solution to this problem if the concept is alaborated well and take in consideration the different level of skills of players.

Maybe, for example, everyone could start with a same kit of let's say idk 10-15 templates. Once you have finished 20 games to be ranked, maybe 5 more would be added only because of the fact that you are ranked. Maybe some tougher to understand templates could be added as you reach a certain rating with 20 or + games over. Like if you have played 20 or more games and have 1500 rating, 5 more templates added and if you reach 1600, 5 more added. I don't know if that could be a solution or if it is even possible to do but maybe it could help make the ladder less intimidating for newer/average strategic players.

Edited 4/12/2017 03:04:34

@Ben, this is exactly the reason why Motd is thinking about introducing the template packs. Having a base pack of maybe 10 templates that have simple settings and then optional bonus template packs with more diverse settings, should attract more average/lower skilled players which is what the MDL needs. Having more average/lower skilled players on the MDL will in turn ensure that they have more games to play with people nearer their own skill level and they are more likely to stay, which will in turn attract more players. It's a circle and we have to get it started by promoting it.

Edited 4/11/2017 19:19:16

@MoD where was an internal ladder promoted or even mentioned here? If so, I would like to apologize for the digression. Otherwise, it seems like your bias against me is clouding your judgement.

@GE, I think Mod (correct me if I'm wrong MOD) was referring to Ben's post on the previous page:

I also think that Knyte's project he is working on right now, making an easier way for anyone to run their own league with a CLOT of some sort, might also satisfy more the members of decent strategic clans that aren't elite and might pull them off this ladder.

Edited 4/11/2017 19:29:24

@Styxie I brought that up not really for promoting, but more to also give more reasons to adapt this MDL because there will be some competition to this ladder probably if Knyte's CLOT project happens.

Edited 4/11/2017 19:35:11

I know ben, I know you love the MDL and want it to continue :)

Styxy and Mod. We have promoted every new ladder since the start of our clan to our players. What GrEx tries to say is that we don't push our players to say. We let them know it exist but do not repeat it every month.

Also: we are not trying to promote our own ladder in this chat nor to "steal" players to let them play on our ladder. We will have an internal ladder (so clan only). Knyte is building a framework to make it easier to host a ladder.