'Smurfing' on the ladder... very un sporting!

Let's also factor in that with the low amount of overall players that the Ladder matchmaker is not nearly collecting enough data to help refine the system. Though in that aspect smurfs do kind of hamper the data it does collect.

I don't like alternate accounts.
I find it unsporting, especially if you end up having two accounts in the top ten, it robs other players of legimate rankings.
If you want to do crazy stuff and try out unusual builds, play the AI or on custom skirmish, why do you have to be on a ranked game?

Maybe because they are looking for a real challenge? I never really understood how alts and smurfs hurt other players. Data gathering is one thing.

Perhaps the ranking system should not punnish players so harsch when they loose against a player with few games played. As the player that he was matched against was not properly ranked yet.
And as mentioned all these inactive players seem to have some influence on the easyer rank drops then gains.

I think the best way to solve this is to encourage good players who only want to have fun with the game to host custom lobbies. I would join a lobby called "derp with elodea" any time. I might also join one called "come at me brah, i'm elodea", if you want to do a game vs. a reasonable player but not have it ranked.

Another good thing to do is to check out the clans respective voice chats That would let anyone cheese vs good players in custom games without hurt feelings.

It actually uses Glicko, not Elo.

Another thing worth pointing out, in connection to elodea's repeated complaints about a "witch hunt", is that the problem with witch hunts was that witches did not exist, but there DO exist smurfs. So if the smurfs are determined to continue smurfing, which they seem to be, again going by elodea's staunch championing of the concept, I think that a smurf hunt is in order. I.e. a continually updated list of known smurfs, so that people can identify them in ranked lobbies and quit, before they lose a whole load of points for no good reason.

Note that I am not saying "do not play with players who smurf", I am saying "do not play with smurf accounts, if you know them". Play with those guys when they are using their real accounts.

So it seems that the following three accounts are smurfs:

mrpopopo
exodusesports.com
Rando

If you know of any more, post their names here and I will add them to the list.

That display name will probably be changing often, but I'm not really going to be keeping the name a secret. For now it is exodusesports.com because I was moderately amused by the chance to turn an account name into an advertisement.

This is a sentiment voiced by several people here, and it is despicable. It implies that top ten slots are more worthwhile to top ten players than top 100 slots are to top 100 players, and so on. It DEVALUES the FEELINGS of players who are not in the top ten.

Every single slot on the leaderboard is as valuable as any other, and artificially pushing people down is a bad thing to do no matter who those people may be.

PA actually uses Glicko 2 which is advanced Glicko which is advanced Elo.

So what kind of "feeling" would players achieve not ever knowing smurf accounts exist?

Also "ELO Hell" was a dig at LoL and the amount of smuf accounts that game has. Though it's f2p.

The feeling of playing someone who is out of their league out of the blue and getting knocked down to a lower rank than the one they deserve to be in, thereby judging that the competition is far tougher than it really is, and getting discouraged from continuing to compete.

All this has been stated several times in this thread by several people in several different ways. You are not paying attention to the discussion.

Technically uses a modify version of Glicko-1 or 2 but in 1v1 matches TrueSkill will act in a similar fashion.

Two things you quoted the wrong person and we don't know what version was actually used for the ranking system. Dev comment:

Which the next post which was me asked what version but no reply.

I have a suggestion: exodussmurfing.com

You run an organization which has the word "sports" in its name and yet all you've been doing in this thread is supporting the idea of competitors occupying multiple spots on a scoreboard. The game's current top 10 is even a top 8 partly due to your actions, and one player who could be on it is not because of you and your desire to advertise your site.

That is my only account in the top 10. I would of course not allow a second account of mine to occupy a top 10 spot at the same time. If my other account gets there, it will bump out the one I have as #10.

What about the top 20 then, or the top 30? Top 100? Top 500?

The most honorable thing for you to do right now is to log into PA with your smurf account and start losing on purpose until that account is the very last on the ladder, and stays there.

I didn't actually say it explicitly affected the top ten only. Of course, if there are duplicate accounts anywhere near the top, they will push ALL players down a rank or two, wherever they stand in the league. I dislike this also. But particularly, if you are trying to break the top ten, having one person in twice just makes it more difficult, unnecessarily.

But why "particularly" the top 10? What if someone is trying to break into the top 500? Why are his efforts less valuable than other people's? Why should his struggle be devalued? Because the top players have the empathy capacity of an amoeba and don't give a toss about anyone who's not on their level?

Because the top ten could be considered the ultimate goal of people playing ranked games, and will inevitably be the most recognisable metric of skill?
I'm really not trying to diminish others efforts though, so I essentially agree with you.

The ultimate goal of playing ranked games is to see where you stand skill-wise among all the other players. It has nothing to do with the top 10, or with any other arbitrary metric. Why the top 10 and not the top 11 then? Or the top 9? It's absurd.

Otherwise ranked play would be useless for anyone who is not genetically and culturally (i.e. through YouTube-watching) predisposed to achieve a top 10 ranking. You are in effect telling everyone else that they are wasting their time (which, when they play against smurfs and get knocked down way lower than they deserve to be, they indeed are).