Oh my gosh, look at all this drama!

I don't quite understand, how is Gui gaming the system?

Ace, I think your argument is false for a much simpler reason, since you stated Gui played only with top players, and seeing he won last 10 games in a row, how would you expect to lose against someone weaker when he gets 100% wins against the best ;)

@Gui, fair enough. Thank you for addressing my point rather than spouting crap like you did with your previous post.

@sze, nobody's perfect.

Ace, all you had to do was look at my games (again) to see my most recent opponents and/or reread my original post. It's all there.

Such a sad state of affairs. Accused without evidence. Bad-mouthed behind my back. The truth is stated. Yet I'm still guilty until proven innocent. And MathWolf wants me to pray to the shrine of Fizzer. MathWolf and Ace seem to have a little totalitarian in their blood. Or are you high ranking Iranian generals who do your war games on WL?

More crap? Right, I said fair enough. You aren't gaming the system to a large degree. You did make sure or at least attempt to make sure you got certain games. That is evidence at the very least.

Don't call me totalitarian please. Your hyperbolic statements have never been an asset to you.

Fair enough: Yes, you said it. But you didn't mean it. Now that I've made my jokes, I'd rather end this discussion by saying the truth:

This is a site for games. A week ago in your congratulatory thread, I invited you to a match. #1 vs #2. The winner is #1, without doubt. That would be competitive and interesting. Hell, it's manly.

Instead of responding, you rejoined the ladder to spite me (without playing me) and talked shit about me in public. If you had accepted my match, I'd think you are a man worthy of respect. You reply to everything I have ever said to you; but when I ask you for a game to see who deserves to be #1 more, you gossip like a teenage girl in public chat about how I cheat the system, as if my wins against quality opponents were some fluke. That's disrespectful to me and the people I played.

After being attacked in public by you twice now, I have lost respect for you and no longer wish to play you. The only game you are willing to play is a verbal one. In this game, I surrender.

@Math Wolf:
|> Fair way to keep Ace on top: (..) Ask Fizzer to implement TrueSkill within those 9 days

So you have a problem with someone gaming the system by (attempting to) only play the highest ranked players (regardless of whether that accusation is true or false), but completely overhauling the entire scoring system counts as "fair"? Sure, it was planned already anyway, but you propose doing it on exactly the moment which suits you best.

---

@Gui

Ace Windu wrote:
|> @Gui, fair enough. Thank you for addressing my point rather than spouting crap like you did with your previous post.

Sounds like a fair attempt at closing the discussion. But you reply with another whiny post full of over-the-top statements. I don't care whether you're right in the post after that (AW: "Right, I said fair enough."; Gui: "Yes, you said it. But you didn't mean it."), you don't get to make statements like that *in the very same post* you yourself use the phrase "That would be competitive and interesting. *Hell, it's manly.* ".

Also, your entire reasoning "I wanted to play you (yadda yadda) you would have earned my respect (yadda yadda random-insult-for-good-measure yadda) *but now I don't want to any more" sure sounds like a cheap excuse for not daring to play him for fear of losing.

And finally, please make up your mind; *why* are you in the ladder? You're completely contradicting yourself (if "I don't like to" + "I'm only there as a courtesy" + "I play as few games as possible" + "I increased my number of simultaneous games from 1 to 5" isn't a contradiction then I don't know what is).

Does it still count as Godwin's Law if the totalitarian dictators being mentioned are Iranian, not Nazis?

This is crazy drama, I feel like I am back in high school. This is a game, people, just enjoy it! Being good at Warlight doesn't make you a better person, just as being terrible at Warlight (like me!) doesn't make you a worse person.

RvW, your response inspired me to make [a new thread](http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=3055).

TexasJohn, you might have me on a technicality. "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches." I didn't mention any dictators, but by mentioning traces of totalitarianism, I did open the door to your comment about the law, which fulfills the law completely. My comment "approached;" your comment explicitly "made a comparison involving Nazis." lol We did it together! Good job! (see my new thread's discussion of bonhommie to understand my enthusiasm).

I don't know if this was really going on or not, but I do want to enter my input about rigging the system so that you only play top-rated opponents. If that is actually going on, I think that is completely unfair and unethical. Taking a loss from a lower ranked person takes a good bite out of your rank. You can say "Yeah, but I would never lose to somebody ranked 300 points below me" but that is simply not true. Its a low probability event, but if that event happens it is quite harmful to your ranking. If you took out my worst two losses I would probably have been in the top 5 or so. But by only playing top opponents, while others have the chance to play lower-rated opponents, you get a completely unfair competitive edge. It destroys the integrity of the ladder.

It seems to be that the fact that Gui could manipulate the system to get the games he wanted at *any* percentage, proves that the system *could be* manipulated, if someone wanted to spend the time and money to do it..

although currently I see no way to prevent the possibility without reducing the flexibility each player currently has..

From the Wiki page:

The ladder tries to match you against players near your rating, while also preventing you from facing the same people over and over.

The rest of this section describes the how the game-creation algorithm works for the nerds out there that want to follow along.

The algorithm starts by taking a list of all players who are participating in the ladder in order of their rating. It enumerates through them starting with the highest rated player and moving downwards.

For each player, WarLight constructs a list of potential opponents. We start by populating the list with everyone within 30% of you on the ladder or 10 players/teams on either side. For example, if the ladder has 100 players in it, we would look at the 30 players with better ratings than you and the 30 players with worse ratings than you (the game creation algorithm only sorts by rating - it ignores rank).

Yes, but there are ways around that. If you leave the ladder and then only enter when somebody ranked highly just finished a game, it would increase your chance of getting the highly ranked opponent. Same with adding am extra game.

The system only works fairly if players enter, exit, or add another game on a random basis as opposed to performing one of those actions to position oneself for a higher ranked opponent.

"while also preventing you from facing the same people over and over." I think would be the greatest deterrant to the form of rating inflation I was picturing

Thus:

- Player rated #1 can only play players #2-#31.
- The system tries to get make the games as competitive as possible
- Players #2 to #31 I have not played and am most likely to be matched up against: unknown (3), teddy (5), zibik (6), dr (13), MathWolf (17), alababi (21), angelic (23), hokkaidorider (29), Niko (30).


My ladder record against those I have played:

zaeban (2) 1-1* (I surrendered on turn 1 or 2 bc I wanted to quit the ladder)
WindowCleaner (7) 1-1
Rubik (8) 1-0
HHH (9) 0-2 or 0-3
PaniX (10) 1-0
Chris (11) 1-0
Nuckluck (12) 1-0
EmperorCornInTights (14) 1-0
Chas (15) 1-0
Aquaholic (16) 1-0
bytjie (18) 1-0
Mentysh (19) 1-0
Diabolicus (20) 1-1
Trockerz (22) 1-0
Samurai (24) 0-1
WL Fanatic (25) 1-0
JimH (26) 1-0
GuyMannington (27) 0-1
Red (31) 2-0

Personally, I think the only way I could possibly cheat the system is to avoid HHH!

Theoretically, this is an interesting topic.

I prefer playing the best. If I cared more, I would try to play the highest rated player every time, because the highest rated player is more often than not a damn good player. This is a game. I play to have fun. Playing the best opponents possible is fun to me.

What if a player did the opposite: Bob likes to rake up victories against weaker players because each time he plays a high rated player he loses. Each time a weaker player he has not played before has an open game, Bob increases his game count.

Based on Dr's and Ace's idea, this is perfectly acceptable, because the only thing that matters is the effect on one's ratings. Since Bob risks losing more off his rating by losing to the weaker player, this is the game of choice.

Theoretically, the system is the way it is for a reason. If you play a higher ranked player, you are more likely to lose. Given this likelihood, you are punished less. If you play a weaker player you are more likely to win, which is also reflected in the points gained or lost after the game ends.

If Bob is ranked #20 and tries to play the best players possible every game and ends up beating those players 90% of the time, has he cheated the system by playing and beating the best?

I think some people take the system too seriously. As players we have freedom of action. We are not a part of the system. We play games within the system.

my thought was more on a way to arrange yourself with people you know to get un-earned wins against players, good or not, hence why I say that part is the best deterrant..

That is not at all what I was arguing for. To quote myself:

"The system only works fairly if players enter, exit, or add another game on a random basis as opposed to performing one of those actions to position oneself for a higher ranked opponent."

This implies that you are letting the ladder system run its course, just like everybody else. You are not gaming the system to match yourself with a better or worse opponent. You, like everybody else, are subject to the ladder-matching algorithm.

OK, back to your argument: "If Bob is ranked #20 and tries to play the best players possible every game and ends up beating those players 90% of the time, has he cheated the system by playing and beating the best?"

Yes, completely. If Bob rigged the system so that he is only playing top players, Bob has unfairly altered the ladder-matching algorithm to his favor. If Bob wants to play only the top opponents, Bob could always play games with them outside the ladder and led the ladder do its job.

"I think some people take the system too seriously. As players we have freedom of action. We are not a part of the system. We play games within the system."

OK fine. One can always go back to the "its just a game argument." It is. And its really not important. However, I greatly enjoy my Warlight time, and it is a goal for me to be consistently rank highly. However, if others prevent that by what I consider an unethical method, it slightly annoys me. Not very much. Just enough to make a few posts on the forum.

Ok. So we are all part of the system.

Unethical is a bit strong. If I saw Dr. play Impaller, HHH, zibik, zaeban, Chris, and unknown and beat them all, I wouldn't care how you did it. It would be an amazing feat and I'd think you deserve any rating boost you got. If, instead, those 6 games were played against guys rated #30-36, I wouldn't really care.