Switching Zones to Push Others LP down

[Romain42]

From the beginning, there have allways been some kinds of strategies/tricks/ruses to climb in the ladder, as far as i remember. And the limit between the fair and the unfair has allways been a matter of interpretation. For instance, if you can fight your opponent on a map you trained a lot, and he doesn't know, you get an advantage. And you can use it as a strategy. I think it's unfair. Other players might think it's fair, might think it is normal that the ladder rewards the intelligence of the guys that can create the conditions of their own advantages. I think it's an endless debate and it will be very hard to have the whole community supporting a given system of ladder.

Furthermore, Nadeo is a small team and i think they have already a lot of work with all their projects. I don't want to blame them for such kind of choices, even if i disagree. Nevertheless, they made lots of different ladder systems in the past and i think the ladder will evolve again in the future. I mean, if you can make relevant and convincing suggestions, they might implement them.

But honnestly, i think any kind of ladder will hardly be fair. Even if Nadeo comes back to a global ladder (which would be great, indeed), there would still remain some biases. I mentionned the maps, but players could as well chose the servers with the less experienced rivals so that they can get easy wins. And it is really hard to offset those effects, without changing the whole nature of the ladder.

And there would allways be unfair players. Of course it is disappointing. You (edk) are probably right to open the debate here, maybe it will lead the community to imagine a kind of "fair-play use". But honnestly, i don't believe that much in self-regulation. Anyway, i wish you the best in the game. It can be really fun by lots of aspects and the ladder isn't the only target. Maybe you have to find what provides you the best gaming experience?

[laurens92]

Very nice post Romain! I agree completely.

[serujio]

hylis replied in another topic that if a player changes to other continent to get more lp, as a penalty he will go back to 60k, it was supposed to work but it is bugged or not implemented yet, so I guess we can expect this to come soon.

also, there is no world ladder anymore, if the world ranking still appears in the game, it seems to be a bug or lack of update by Nadeo. It´s all divided by continent now.

For the moment I guess players who knows the changing continent bug, should respect others that put more effort into playing RoC and not use it.

[serujio]

posted a bug report - http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic. ... 03#p162103

[edk]

On a side note, having a more static track pool, with bigger tournament tracks may help bring players back into the RoC.

I've played a ton of StarCraft 2, so that's where I'm basing this from. Initially Blizzard put it's own maps on the ladder, but top players didn't like them and tournaments didn't use them. Over time Blizzard realized that their tracks just weren't good enough for ladder play. They listened to the community, removed their own maps, and put on the maps which the biggest tournaments used. It brought more players back to play in ladder that previously had a low opinion of it. It's in quite healthy shape as of today.

Granted I haven't played TM as much as others, am relatively new to RoC as well, but from what I've seen this may help here as well. If largely tournament styled tracks were the focus, perhaps it would bring back players that have not bothered to continue playing. Tracks I've seen that fit this would be ESWC, Masters, TGC, TWL, ESL, etc.

Tracks with cuts need to be fixed or removed, like on Nirvana of Noise and The White Crow. I also don't think it's appropriate to have 14 clan specific tracks on an RoC server.

This is just my 2 cents.

I do have the impression (although I could be wrong) that the overall player numbers are such that letting players use whatever tracks they want is also viable. By that I mean there isn't much outcry for tournament tracks to be used and it makes more players happy to be able to use whatever they like. I'm not necessarily opposed to either, but it would be more competetive in the first scenario.

[laurens92]

That's why my server has those Big tournament maps.. but 80% of RoC players prefer luck instead of skill..
==> That's the RoC..

[hackie]

On a side note, having a more static track pool, with bigger tournament tracks may help bring players back into the RoC.

I've played a ton of StarCraft 2, so that's where I'm basing this from. Initially Blizzard put it's own maps on the ladder, but top players didn't like them and tournaments didn't use them. Over time Blizzard realized that their tracks just weren't good enough for ladder play. They listened to the community, removed their own maps, and put on the maps which the biggest tournaments used. It brought more players back to play in ladder that previously had a low opinion of it. It's in quite healthy shape as of today.

Granted I haven't played TM as much as others, am relatively new to RoC as well, but from what I've seen this may help here as well. If largely tournament styled tracks were the focus, perhaps it would bring back players that have not bothered to continue playing. Tracks I've seen that fit this would be ESWC, Masters, TGC, TWL, ESL, etc.

Tracks with cuts need to be fixed or removed, like on Nirvana of Noise and The White Crow. I also don't think it's appropriate to have 14 clan specific tracks on an RoC server.

This is just my 2 cents.

I do have the impression (although I could be wrong) that the overall player numbers are such that letting players use whatever tracks they want is also viable. By that I mean there isn't much outcry for tournament tracks to be used and it makes more players happy to be able to use whatever they like. I'm not necessarily opposed to either, but it would be more competetive in the first scenario.

+1