Ladders

it's sucks like it's badly spead out? too many mass points clip set pieces and are unusable? it has bad values?

This is what I want to see!

4 ladder ranking systems is plenty at the start, and should have a good spread to allow people lots of options

1v1
2v2
4v4
and a 4 or maybe 5 player FFA

yes most people wont take the FFA ranking in as high regard as 1v1 or 2v2 but a lot of players like FFA, and there is a lot of skill on when to attack, who to attack first and when to not expand so you dont get flanked by 2 or 3 players

Also mirrored maps are needed, this is already something I asked in the "livestream questions thread"

You speak of a ladder, which is interesting. MyLeague.com support ladders as itself. It depends on how you want it. I would recommend a Teams league. It is set up as a ladder but for teams which would work 2v2 3v3 4v4 5v5 and 6v6, plus some other variations. Each team has a captain and can hold mammoth tournaments. They are based in washington and I happen to be senior support on the site.

Neutrino, pm me if you are interested to hear what they can do (might save you guys a lot of time and energy).

Steve

You're right, except you don't get to play many matches in a tournament setting. 1v1 ladder and 1v1 tournaments are very closely related.
That model will work fine for ladder, but no good tournament will have outcomes governed by chance. If you're playing a best of three and one game is skewed due to map generation, that's a very big deal!
Then, if tournaments use standard preset maps, no one will play 1v1 ranked with randomly generated maps.

I hope you can make that connection and I don't have to further explain myself.

What we can try doing, is presenting both players with the planet and their respective spawn points. At which point each can decide if they are willing to play on that map. This way, even if the metal distribution is skewed, it's the other players fault for agreeing to play on that map.

Please tell me where you think I'm wrong.

Can we get the sim to attempt to place a T1 and T2 mex on every point? Then, every point that can't accommodate a mex gets removed?

Sure, but I think when people say an unranked 1v1, they mean a 1v1 with a hidden rating. This way, you can play with people of similar ability without stressing over the outcome of the game.
This idea has been proposed to make SC2 more casually accessible.

Plus, it helps with testing strategies. If you have an approach to the game and you're not sure if it's going to work, you don't get a false positive by winning against some random.

On that note though, I don't think it serves its purpose. Because people playing unranked 1v1s won't stress as much over game outcome, they won't be as fervorous in trying to overcome their opponent.

What this will do though, is increase queue times because less people will be playing ranked 1v1 at any one time.

With that being said, what if we combine the two? You queue for 1v1 and decide, before the queue pops, if you want the outcome to affect your rating. Wouldn't this be a really good platform for emergent behaviors?
Do you guys see any problems with that?

Hum i think the community will be too small for getting all those 4 or 5 different rankings working well.
Maybe it's better to only get a 1v1 and 2v2 ladder, with less than 4min to find a game rather than 4 different rankings where you have to search an opponent team during 15min .


Btw which system is planned to be used? Elo, TrueSkill or some other?

It wasn't just proposed, it's in the game right now, and has been since a bit before Heart of the Swarm launched.

This is exactly how Starcraft 2 works, as far as I am aware. The only downside with SC2 is they don't allow you to do ranked FFA.

Really? I quit a while back after hitting platinum. That's actually really great! I want to give it a try now.

1v1 up to 4v4 on symmetrical would seem to be what the average competitive player is into when it comes to balance comfort.
It would be interesting to have an option in planet generation to "Make Symmetrical Map" which generates East Vs West maps that blend decently. Perhaps for the 2v2v2v2/4v4v4v4 maps, a drop down that provides the symmetry break into quadrants. These maps would look pretty freaky though haha. Assuming that the planets are rounded cubes, the 4 faces around the equator would be where generation symmetrizes. North and South pole faces would be empty for expansion for the 4 teams to fight over.

I think only the starting maps would be necessary for symmetry, and then the rest of the system could by asymmetrical.

Back to ladders,
Ladder categories? While using a ladder for every possible combo would be great, I think keeping it relatively simple with some ladder type restrictions. (this isnt including the possibility of 3rd party ladders though)

Perhaps splitting the map type by symmetry.
Starting on the same planet together
Two-team games
-1v1 up to 4v4 SYM
-1v1 up to 4v4 ASYM
FFA
-4 player FFA SYM
-4 player FFA ASYM
-10 player FFA ASYM (due to map size symertical would be awkward/impossible map gen)

GALACTIC LADDER
I dont know how galactic was is going to work so I wont say much.
Clan warfare is screaming its name at me though. This seams to be the best.
Galactic FFA would be also awesome, and would be either a ladder based on either:
- number of systems conquered.
-Points system based on each solar system having a points value. Once a system is conquered, you get the value of its combined planet values. So each planet based on metal amount or size, or if its a gas giant (adding a value to gas giants) etc.
-Points based on planets (same as above) but not restricted to full system control, just tallied per planet. This is dependent on the depth of galactic war. Bonus points for full system.

The war would be based on a time frame. Perhaps a few weeks to a month for a galaxy.
The galactic ladder would use asymmetrical maps, as is the unique nature of this game. I think people need to get over "fairness" for larger games as adapting to your situation vs the opponents situation is a major skill. On games of this scale, the fair factor would be less significant anyways, also it gets rid of the "build order for this map" dynamic. Where players identify this certain kind of map and its common strategic locations like in starcraft, and so play it a certain way. Not knowing what is where, and adapting to a new world should be PART of the game so that we let go of this boardgame mentality.

Cheers

Can we have a ladder scored strictly on how convoluted your victory/defeat was?

>You have destroyed the entire solar system, except for a few asteroids
>The enemy has been wiped off the map
>Your last base is on a small asteroid orbiting a destroyed planet
>You've won, right?

When suddenly - an enemy transport screams through the planet's atmosphere towards the moon - it must have somehow survived the explosion! It swipes your Commander, and jets off into space. It deposits you on a decent sized space rock in the outer belt where an army awaits you.

An army of Skitters.

I agree with Luxun, maybe one more 4vs4 Ladder. I also think it's not worth to run a FFA ladder. FFA is only luck (most of the games). And ELO please

Ideally, I would love to see something similar to the ladder and match making service that you find in StarCraft 2.

With galactic war: Systems are not static, they move around. So we can build on 'moving' systems close to other players and groups of equal skill.

The only real issue is how skill level will be determined.

FFA ladder is definitly a must have

I am for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5 , and mayve a 20vs20 to support those jumbo games.

An FFA ladder would be AWESOME and I think more or less unheard of.

Apart from that, standard 1v1 2v2 5v5.

Re: Random Maps.

Random maps in ranked is a MUST. Absolute MUST. Why on earth would we let you guys put all that effort in to awesome procedural generation and then screw it up by saying "only when it doesn't matter to me".

Instead, what I would say is give each player a "re-roll" for the spawn/planet. Limit the number to say, 1 re-roll every 3 games in a 1v1 and steadily reduce the chance in bigger formats (to prevent endless re-rolls in big games).

I think back to the Age of Empires random maps for ranked play. That was awesome, map screw sucked but with a re-roll system like the above you could minimize the damage.

I don't get it why you would like a FFA ladder. You could play with your friend and kill all other players. Then you can talk about it who will win. So it's super easy to reach the first spot.

This is where I think your wrong. Ladder games are not tournament games. Ladder games are about playing with people at your skill level. They are about playing the game to your highest ability. In ladder games you will play enough for the lucky and unlucky spawns to even out.

Tournaments are about winning. The winner is the player who played the best in a limited amount of games. You don't go and say "this person is a better player, he lost because of a fluke, therefore I am overruling and making him the winner because hes better". That is what ladders decide.

The idea that ladders need to follow tournaments is a silly idea. Tournaments aren't about fun, there about winning at all cost. People will get board of playing with tournament settings too often.

Symmetric maps for tournaments then.

There are lots of types of symmetry that can occur on a sphere. For example, you can have 4 players equidistant from each other which is more "fair" than the 4 quadrants you propose.

I don't see what's so awkward about dividing a planet into many symmetrical pieces. Okey, it might not look good or be a little confusing but it's been done with rectangular maps over and over again.
Anyone got a link about different symmetries on a sphere suitable for FFA?

A tournament map doesn't need to be symmetrical. It just needs to balanced.

I too amy only really interested in an official 1v1 ladder, preferably with a set of rules and systems in place that are agreed upon by the community via voting or whatever.

Cola Colin's point about mirrored maps is a good one, this would almost certainly be necessary for the sake of balance. It would also guarantee that you'd be a fair distance apart and not spawn next to each other (although that can be interesting!).