there are four types of wl players: (1) medium earth solo artists (almost always play alone), (2) europe teamsters (almost always play europe team games), (3) bi-mapuals (tend to play either 1v1s on medium earth or team games in europe), and (4) gamers (play on a wide variety of maps. the first three groups are the most common type of players. currently, becoming a member is only appealing to two types of wl players.

if there weren't challenges to win a membership, i never would have bought a membership unless a europe ladder existed. and i know about 10 non-members who are waiting for a europe ladder before they buy a membership.

if one of the purposes of wl is to grow the member community and thereby make a little money, not having a europe 3v3 ladder is a mistake. if wl doesn't have such goals and instead has other purposes, then who cares what happens because it is impossible to predict what a business is trying to do if it is not trying to expand and make money.

also, with respect to the member poll a while back:

- it is only 2/3 to 3/4 of the issue
- 1/3 to 1/4 of 3v3 europe ladder players would be PEOPLE WHO ARE CURRENTLY NOT MEMBERS BC THEY'VE NEVER FELT THE CURRENT LADDERS ARE INCENTIVE ENOUGH TO BUY A MEMBERSHIP.

my impression is that the fizzer of oz is behind the curtain pulling the levers but does not have much of an idea of what non-members want most. low membership levels on any ladder are bc there aren't enough members to begin with. the first question should be to ask: aside from bi-monthly discounts of $10 on lifetime membership, what else do people want? i think a europe 3v3 ladder is one thing. maybe a real-time ladder is another thing. who knows. but without asking the non-members or being more involved in the non-member circles of players, i doubt a sudden epiphany will allow fizzer to make what the non-members want most to help his business.

there are two ways to know more:
- do a non-member poll (as a pop up like the annoying ads AND as a forum poll) to see what changes to warlight non-members would want before they would consider buying a membership. have a question about the 3v3 europe ladder.
- play more real-time games with people and just talk to them.

Sigh, I really really look forward for a Europe Map 3v3 ladder :(((((((((((

Would be nice having anything other than earth on the ladder.

"there are four types of wl players: (1) medium earth solo artists (almost always play alone), (2) europe teamsters (almost always play europe team games), (3) bi-mapuals (tend to play either 1v1s on medium earth or team games in europe), and (4) gamers (play on a wide variety of maps. the first three groups are the most common type of players. currently, becoming a member is only appealing to two types of wl players."

I most certaintly hope your estimation is incorrect..
personally I find players that fall under 1-2-3 to be quite boring...

It's like playing basketball and just doing constant free throws and ignoring the rest of the game.. or like playing baseball and hitting homeruns but refusing to run the bases...
why bother playing a game if you're going to limit yourself to such trivial games? Imho ofc'..

Ofc' I speak as a complete anti-meta gamer.. I find that ladders are just a reward for being a meta-gamer, and that is, as I think I made clear earlier, boring

i agree perrin, which is why the ladders are a bit of a disappointment.

- 1v1 ladder: medium earth solo artists love it.
- 2v2 ladder: if you are a medium earth solo artist, this is basically the only team game that you can play and still get by on your 1v1 medium earth skills (ie, memorize patterns, situational strategies, picking strategies, etc.) without having to know too much about team strategy, since the games are largely played out as a two team FFA rather than a more cooperative team game. this is the closest the ladders come to please 'europe teamsters' (player type #2).
- season i, medium earth: medium earth players' wish come true (in the sense that they don't have to learn any new strategies, but merely have to adjust their 1v1 ladder strategies to account for the change in fog)

'bi-mapuals' (player type #3) become bored with the ladders: only one map.

'gamers' (player type #4) dislike the ladders for many reasons:

- two 1v1s and a 2v2: lack of variety
- medium earth, medium earth, medium earth: it's a fine map, not the best, but the only game in town
- settings: same card settings in the 1v1s; similar card settings in the 2v2 (lack of variety)

Most people don't fall under 1, 2, and 3 or more people would play the ladder and buy memberships. As it is, few care or get tired of it quickly. If their were a wider range of maps/templates then more would play the ladder. Fizzer thinks things should be kept nice and simple though as far as the ladder is concerned, which is very boring and why people don't buy memberships to compete in. m Earth has never been a map I enjoy, but sadly I am one of those meta-gamers Perrin speaks of so I play the ladders :/ So hard giving 100% on such a boring and played out template.

the primary problem with making a ladder change too drastically is the measurement of skill..
since the ladder is meant to be a measurement of skill, it has to stay constant, and relatively balanced on either side...

personally I think that any half-way decent map could be used for a seasonal ladder and could show that players relative skill level for that map/settings..

If the rating system ever did come into effect, \*there's a uservoice I think to rate maps* then Fizzer could possibly make a seasonal ladder that each season would choose a random map at rating X+, with perhaps some administrative exceptions, and then we would have variety and a more active ladder.. albeit it's activity would ebb and tide depending on how many members like the map..

A skilled player should be able to adapt to random games at random maps with random settings. The ladder is repetitive, while it should be crazy and exciting. It doesn't test ones skill, it tests ones ability to stay awake.

By Gui's cathegory's I should be put around #3 since I do well on Europe and try my best on strat. 1vs1. What I've been able to observe the past few months playing with the best Europe players is that a high level Europe 3vs3 game is much more competetive than strat. 1vs1. In our [20] 3vs3 tournament my team's team-chat would fill a book easily. With random warlords distribution planning in first 2-3 turns required a lot of effort from each of the players, and the best part is it payed off. There was hardly any luck involved. While we can see top 2000+ players sometimes lose to 1700+, 1800+, I really couldn't see that on the 3vs3 ladder. By my estimate right now the europe 3vs3 (with manual distribution of course) is the most well-balanced, competetive and popular map. Though I can't speak for others, but if 3vs3 ladder is introduced the first thing i'm going to do is play a challenge with someone.

For a closing argument I'd like to say I must disagree with Dazed's last post. Although skilled player will definitely adapt to any map, not every setting is good for estimating their skills. For example everyone knows that auto-distribution is horrible at that. And applying your logic to chess, the chess tournaments should be played with random pieces on the board due to lack of diversity. I must say that random warlords distribution in both strat. 1vs1 and 3vs3 provides a lot of diversity in high-level games, as chess does.

let's compare boxing, chess, europe 3v3s, and 2v2/1v1 ladders.

in boxing, championship fights are 12 rounds. have one bad round, you can still recover. points are based on each round. for the best fighters (ali, roy jones jr, pakman, mayweather, tyson, etc.), the fighter's record tends to be 40-50 wins and 0-8 losses (or a 90%+ winning percentage, with most losses coming at the very beginning or very end of their careers, not in their prime).

in chess, the best players lose less to weaker players than in 1v1s on WL.

europe 3v3s: i agree with swezen. 3 of the best 3v3 europe players (each rated 2000+) would probably never lose to a team of 3 good/great players (guys rated 1700-1900). that is, when 3 of the best 5 are on one team, they are nearly invincible, like the best boxers in their prime.

2v2/1v1 ladders: picks matter 60-80% (100% according to zaeban) and actual ability can be masked by learning how to pick and play only the first few crucial turns.

so why are 2v2 and 1v1 ladders so open to chance?
- too few picks: the less picks you have, the more each one matters. get slightly worse positioning thanks to pick order, and that alone could determine the game.
- lack of recoverability:
- reinforcement cards: boxers can't legally get free punches. chess players can't add a lost piece back to the board. ladder players can get extra armies. this can disrupt the natural order of the game. it also requires attacks. ali beat foreman with rope-a-dope. he didn't attack until foreman was worn out. one of the four tenets of ancient chinese military strategy is 'don't move like a mountain' (ie, don't attack, defend strong and hold your ground). many times in 1v1s people make attacks simply to get the card sooner, not for any other reason.

why does a team of 3 players rated 2000+ win 95%+ of their games in 3v3s in europe but a player rated 2000+ on the 1v1 ladder can only win 80%+ at best?

- in europe 3v3 games, 3 generals each get their own order priorities. if a 1v1 could allow one player to control 3 separate colors that each have their own 1st turn, 1v1s would be more balanced. eg: we've all played 1v1s in which the other guy got first move 1-4 times in a row and this is the sole reason we lost. but if we had 3 separate uniquely colored armies to control, each with its own orders, losses based on luck alone would be less likely. this also is true for picks: by reducing bad luck when picking (ie, the enemy got my pick and i didn't) and ensuring that important areas are covered by an ally army, the luck factor would be greatly reduced.

Of course random dis has no place in a ladder match template. Not all templates are valid for the ladder, though we should have a much larger choice of maps/templates to play on.

I would like a 3v3 euro ladder as well

I think we should get an Euro 3v3 auto game

An auto game would be great for a whole bunch of reasons, including building up a fanbase for a 3v3 ladder.

I don't know if I agree on the 3v3 auto really broadening the fanbase. It could turn out the other way around.
Even with the 2v2 auto you get a lot of idiots/trolls who, for example, surrender during picking or won't listen to anything in team chat. I can imagine this being even more of a problem in a 3v3 auto simply because there are more open seats. Auto games have no prerequisites, so there's no protection from "bad" (as in both "sucks" and "evil") players at all...

Yes, the 3v3 auto-games can be nice feature but...

Full distribution/cities without any wastelands are the europe settings which i dislike the most. The picking phase is so boring, there are some certain spots that have to be picked and are picked. Starts of every game are very similiar to each other, many of terrytories aren't in use. IMO this map isnt balanced as well as medium earth is.

Better players would be unlikely to play an auto europe game if it has no pre-reqs. There's a point you reach where you no longer care about stats and just want to play interesting games, and no-req games would rarely, if ever, be interesting.

Same goes to the 1v1 auto games, to be honest. You don't find too many decent players on those either.

Would love this. As it is, only 2 of my friends (Chaos and V) are members, and this would be a great way for us to team up. This is the reason why I am not in the 2v2 ladder; I don't have any other friends to play with, and I don't feel like hamstringing a stranger with my less than stellar skills.

someone post a traditional 3v3 europe settings map..
I've already put out 1v1 and 2v2 strat's with pre-reqs, and want to put out some 3v3's to see how they are responded