Szeweningen killua delayed always the right amount to stay nr 1 or 2. Now i'm the nr one with one loss less than him but i think he will win the ladder because i was matched up with less good opponents than him. I've beaten all the top players on the seasonal ladder but my games against low ranked players who left the ladder after i beat them will cost methe win. Maybe it wouldn't have change anything if he didn't delay but there's still the chance that his matchups wouldn't be that good that he can beat my ranking with one loss more (what i think is a lot!)

Now that that is off my chest, shout out to Min and Hennns! They should have been #1 on the 2v2 ladder the one day the ladders weren't updating. They deserve a trophy!

This. Thanks for the shout out though :)

Seasonal ladder will always have small problems like that, exactly 20 games is not enough to get a reliable rating for everyone, however I don't see how your argument is valid:

He was playing better players but he got a slightly worse score than me, thus he should be rated lower? The argument about your opponents leaving the ladder thus getting penalty points and lowering your overall rating is more solid, however nothing can be done about it i think.

Edited 5/26/2014 16:36:37

Roll on the arguments.

I agree with Sirius though. Delaying is uncontrollable, you can't do anything about. So what's the points of arguing against it. Those that have delayed...be ashamed. Those that haven't live in pride, knowing you dont need to cheat(?) to win. As smple as bread and butter.

The argument about your opponents leaving the ladder thus getting penalty points and lowering your overall rating is more solid, however nothing can be done about it i think

Not true - penalty for insufficient number of games doesn't count. Rating for seasonal ladder is calculated this way:
1. Calculate elo rating for players.
2. Apply penalties.

So it's better to lose against player with 5 wins than player with 20 loses (despite 20 loses gives higher final rating)

Still, i can agree with MoD about gaming th SL with delaying lose - early lose(s) will impact your opponents average rating thus reducing chance for final success.

Edited 5/27/2014 10:37:10

I agree with Sirius though. Delaying is uncontrollable, you can't do anything about. So what's the points of arguing against it.

Also can't agree

I can see at least two solution for this:

a) by community: find stallers, announce what are doing and jointly stall against them - you can't delay your loses if everyone delay your wins. But, to be honest, amount of stallers doesn't give much hope for this solution.

b) by Fizzer - allow to commit only your longest awaiting games - you can't stall with such restriction. (maybe with exception for one/two games to reduce inconvenience - so you can commit game only if no more than one/two others game has longer awaiting time).

Awesome idea but would require some work (big ask on top of Fizzer's current projects).

I actually think I have developed an idea that could work very efficiently without changing the core of the current 1v1 and 2v2 ladders. My idea is to implement penalty points for games, however differentiate it between games.

Let's have an example on 1v1 ladder:

Suppose we have a new player with no games played yet, every player will start with 1200 penalty points. Now for every game played some of the penalty points will be removed. For chronologically 1st game, 150 will be removed, for chronologically 2nd 140 will be removed. Now, you are not ranked before you get 15 games, so if you finish your first 15 games, you will not have any penalty points, because 150+140+...+10=1200. Of course it is not ideal, but it'll definitely limit the scale with which you can stall (of course it does nothing after you finish 15 games, so stalling will be a problem, but not a big one).

I think a good middle-ground would be to have 2100 penalty points and increase the required number of games to 20 on 1v1 ladder. Similarily after finishing first game, 200 penalty points will be removed, 190 for 2nd game etc..

The main point behind my idea is that people who stall get more/less randomly those losses, so it is very likely, it'll be better for their rating to surrender their game if it was played early, rather than stall it. This gives motivation not to stall and it's relatively easy to implement.

I like that idea, Sze, but aren't top players more likely to be losing in their 10th game or so than their first, since that's when they will start playing against reasonably good players. 50 penalty points may not be enough to encourage them to accept the loss.

20 games before rank might force me to surrender 1 game to reach finished 20 games, but I would still be incentivized to stall up to 4 games. 25 games might force me to surrender 2-3 games, but I would still be incentivized to stall up to 4 games.

Penalty points basically mean that the more you play, the better your rating. It means that one kind of bias (more points for more games) tries to balance another kind of bias (more points for stalling surrenders). It may work to some extent, but I will still be motivated to count how many points I lose by surrender and how many I win by getting another game finished. If surrender takes me 60 points and finished game gives me less than 60 points, I will not surrender but stall.

the more you play, the better your rating

No, rt ladder has that using variation. I'm talking only about penalty points for first 20 games. Assuming those penalty points would be enabled for first 15 games, you are stalling your games 8 and 9, so you'd be 150 points lower than your current rating... And you're right, it's one kind of bias against the other. before I recommended just forcing to finish first 15-20 games, however that might also have other problems, other players might block you from the ladder. With that system (it can of course be tweaked with regard to value) it'll motivate you to finish your first 20 games. And if the system forces you to do that, you are welcome to stall, after 20 games the advantage of stalling is greatly reduced due to lower variation and increased overall game count. I'm still a proponent of non-expiring games, however if people want a system of expiring games, I recommend the system I just mentioned.

Just as a side note stalling does not equal cheating. So while #1 is #1 (since you did not cheat), it doesn't mean that stalling isn't a bit shady or should not be ridiculed.

It is like someone not lying, but also not sharing the truth either.

You're basically incentivizing people to finish at least 20 games instead of just 15. Stalling 4 losses out of 20 games still gives me an advantage, however indeed a smaller one than stalling 4 losses out of 15 games. Furthermore, stalling 4 games out of 50 games gives me an advantage, however a smaller one than if I stall 4 games out of 20.

It's true that one's rating gets more accurate after 20 or 50 games than after 15 finished games, the downside being that you have to play quite much to get that accurate rating in the first place.

You could argue that finishing at least 50 (or 20) games to get an optimal rating isn't too much for a pro. They play more than a beginner anyway.

A beginner will get ranked after 15 games which is good, he doesn't want to play 50 games to get ranked. He will not be able to fight for first place rating anyway before he has finished 50 - 100 ladder games.

Basically, stalling 4 games still gets you points after 50 or 20 finished games but much less than after 15 finished games.

Yes, is a general response to your last post. I still don't get what is your point. My point is the earlier you stall, the bigger the difference is, thus lets create something that won't force people not to stall, but will diminish its effects. I'm not saying you have to make a 20 game cutoff, it'll work almost as fine if you do the same with 15 games.

Ah, now I understand your last post better. I thought your negative points would just increase minimal gamecount from 15 to 20, with people having 15-19 games finished getting ranked, but with decreased rating.

Now I get the impact those different negative points would have. 1st non-expried game would give -150 points if not finished yet, 2nd -140 points and so on. So it's a hybrid of the traditional ladder where finished games count no matter in which order they started, and a ladder where chronology plays a role.

It's an interesting idea. I can't think of all the implications of that in such a short time.

I could game the system a little by first playing the maximal amount of games, ie 5, and at once surrendering in every game that is not looking good for me. Then, after getting 5 good-looking games, I would quit the ladder until my surrendered games are expiring, thus starting with 5 won games under my belt.

Edited 5/30/2014 00:40:29

Yes, they're far more likely to lose the 10-15 games than the 1-5, the 5-10 can potentially be losses as well.

The 1-5 though, despite being easier to win, are the losses you'd be more likely to try to stall since they'd be more damaging.

"I could game the system a little by first playing the maximal amount of games, ie 5, and at once surrendering in every game that is not looking good for me. Then, after getting 5 good-looking games, I would quit the ladder until my surrendered games are expiring, thus starting with 5 won games under my belt."

That's always been an issue of sorts.

Currently I am rank 24 on the ladder.

If I left the ladder and waited for games to expire, my most recent 13 games would put me at a 2055 rating. Assuming I win my next two that'd be last 15 at 2100ish. Which obviously would allow me to leave the ladder and return around rank 5-6 instead of 20-25.

Edited 5/30/2014 01:28:39

With the exception of a certain piggy noone has been no1 for months without delaying to some degree. It doesnt matter if one or two die hards can game the system, it doesnt have to be totally airtight, there just needs to be incentive enough to stop the no1 spot only ever being held by delayers. Any of the suggestions so far would do that.

Btw there is still the problem that if my opponent decides to stall, then I lose points even if I have the game won. If you use chronological sorting, you have to tackle this problem no matter what.

@Piggy - Are you forgetting The Impaller, Zaeban and Sze? I'm fairly sure they didn't delay.

Edited 5/31/2014 10:35:52