No, the point of making a good template does not mean to eliminate every variable, but eliminate variables we cannot control, like high luck setting. 75% luck is even worse in cities with all the early close combat and possible elimination. 0% luck is basically the same as 16% luck except you avoid nasty situations when you get negative net income when you shouldn't or you are liminated from a certain spot despite deploying enough. Don't mistake creativity for playing with high variation.

Although I am not sure if we make ladder we want classic random warlords, I think Gui's recent idea with making cities combined with warlords may prove to be more fun and balanced at the same time, so if anything you can make the poll about that, 0% luck is the obvious choice. I guess warlords is easier to choose since more people are familiar with it.

http://poll.pollcode.com/s72ng

example of gui's temaplate:
http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=4127702

why is your choice the obvious choice? i truly prefer random teammates 75% luck.
1. more fun
2. more varied games and results
3. no dull, boring super teams
4. more participation = more community chatter
5. more people to play and chat with
6. more skills needed to adjust to the luck settings, different opposing teams, different teammates
7. individual ranking = a better indicator of actual skill (since certain players can join a super team and be carried by better players and appear to be just as good)

maybe you want to enter into a reliable monogamous relationship with gnuff. i'd rather play the field and have different types of games with any playertthat meets the prereqs.

I'm good with random teams, with decent calculating algorithms it is better, I don't agree with 75% luck and I have no idea why would you want it...

sze: no clue on algo for rating, for now will just be wins-losses, then later i'll figure out something better.

Qi: only this one for now. template will eventually change on the eastasia 3vs3 random anyways.

ok. i'll wait for the random teammates ladder to change and maybe join the sze/gnuff fixed teams, fixed rank, non-inclusive ladder later.

one reason why teams quit the 2v2 ladder: once the ratings become more or less fixed only 0-3 teams can vie for first. a fixed team ladder will involve a little bit of that. i think the 2v2 ladder would have more players if it were a random team ladder.

Gui, what is fun about losing your stack of six against an attack of seven? Both sides are going to feel that the game is cheapened whenever one of those outliers changes the game. If you remove the outliers that potentially ruin games, you're back to a lower luck%. I'm having trouble finding an outlier that benefits the game, especially if the ladder is meant to be competitive.

I guess it could be a handicap on teams who actually plan how many troops to put down, but that's anti-competative (pushing the better players closer to the mean). In addition, it's just as likely that the good player would gain from positive luck as the bad player, sometimes causing an otherwise close game to become a steamroll. That doesn't seem like a positive either.

Care to articulate what benefit a high luck percent has? Randomness? Hilarious hijinks?

sze: i listed why 75% would be more enjoyable, more or less in order of importance to me. do you want maximum participation and fun or maximum possibility that your team will always be ranked 1 or 2? 75% random teammates ensures the former, 0% monogamous teams the latter.

if you play 75% as if it were 0% you will be frustrated. if you play the luck to add more armies for important attacks you won't be frustrated as much. play the settings. if you want a hypercompetitive ladder, 75% isn't the answer (and neither is anything that only allows members and doesn't allow the many good non-members to play). if you want fun and optimal participation, it is the only option (there are more non-members than members).

how many truly good (ie capable of holding 1st place for longer than a week) 3v3 teams can be put together with only members? 2? 3? how competitive is that? the best 2 to 3 teams smoking everyone else? that is just playing old style #Elite! realtime games with the occasional game against one of the other top teams. sounds like the static 2v2 ladder but with greater certainty that the better team beats the teams that will never reach 1st.

Qi does have a point, which was why i initially aimed for random teams. but not many folks joined in on the eastasia 3vs3 random ladder :S

Gnuffone says this one will have more participation, i'm testing that theory.

I wasn't thinking of 75% luck as the pre-requisite for non-members, but only as a standalone settings. If it's required to get more people involved, then that makes more sense in a lot of ways.

i like random team too.
but only 19 people join other CLOT, and i was thinking that at least 50 people was interest.
so:
A) maybe they don't like template
B) they don't like random team
C) they aren't interestend to join an unofficial ladder.

also allow non-member = 75% --> some people member they will not join bc dislike 75%...

I agree with QI I don't understand why you would make it fixed teams unless you will have more than 20 teams what is the difference between this and a RR tournament

http://poll.pollcode.com/58gx4

PS: I love the random teammate idea, but I'm not a big fan of the template so I decided not to join.

Gui, I always wanted 3vs3 ladder to be the ultimate competetive scene and I stated before, I'd prefer random teammates. Recently I exchanged a few e-mails with Fizzer about the possibility of making europe 3vs3 random teams for season X and I sent him my proposition how to calculate ratings (note that it is easier to do in the seasonal form).

In any case ps, tell me is it possible to implement the following pseudo code:

1) Have the 1vs1 algorithm from 1vs1 ladder (let's call it L(a,b) where it calculates the increase in rating of the first player given ratings a,b and deacrease in rating for the 2nd player)
2) Draw random teammates when possible from my range (similar range to 1vs1 ladder)
3) After drawing make temporary team ratings equal to the mean of teammates' rankings
4) Use temporary ratings to pair up teams within range
5) With participants A,B,C vs D,E,F with respective rankings a,b,c,d,e,f player A after winning gets L(a,(d+e+f)/3) points and the others respectively the same
6) Update ladder standings after every game

That is imo the best possible setting to utilise random teams ladder (actually it'd be more accurate to use quadratic mean instead of arithmetic mean, because since there is the team chat allowed, the strongest player can help weaker players, so there should be a small deviation towards highest ranking in the team).

I'm in this one if teams are random.