I know you can't have a ladder being completely 100% legit all the time. But we could try. And do something like demote rank if inactive 3 days, that way there is constant movement and dodging isn't a big issue. No one will get rank 1 and go smurf or go inactive because he will lose rank quick. I think that's a good start. I'm not sure how the ELO or MMR systems work to know what's best or if there is another option.
What then happens though is that a hypothetical top player might only play one game every few days and it's always against Paladin664 or something. The other thing that happens is if we say, well, you have to play a top 5 or top 10 player every 5 days, then the top player could log on for a few hours a couple different days and go "anyone here? need to play a top 5 person. anyone here?" and there's no one around, and then they get demoted unfairly.
Anyway, though, this is something we can try. (Equinox, I am just trying to get feedback before deciding how to proceed. I'm not trying to stop this from happening, I'm just trying to think of all the components of it.)
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Maybe we should do a summer season. On June 1, we can have iL delete every player on the ladder's rank. The rest of their info can be left as is and I think it should work... Season could end August 29. I mean, ladder won't be turned off after August 29, but on August 29 we'll see who is in first place and won the season. Maybe we can schedule a series between #1 and #2 for that day, whoever it may be.
This gives us until June to work out how to deal with dodging or inactivity or just difficulty finding opponents!
Since you want some feedback, then here mine.
- Six Months season is too long, what we need here is to bring peoples to enjoy the ladder, after only 3 months peoples gonna get borred because they gonna see basicly the same top 10.
So what we want here is to always reseting the ladder the fast as we can so peoples cant forgot that season and start back on a new one. It's kinda a refresh way to always say to ourself, ok i did a bad season but this one gonna be better... But if you let six months, peoples just gonna give up and will not cares about it anymore, a new season mean '' new goals '' 3 months season would be the best!
- Map Pool... 8 maps pool every 3 months. 6 Maps should always stay the base of the map pool, untouch map.... GoW, PoS, Gold Separate East and West, B2B, FOC, HSC... The 2 other maps would be 2 randoms map every 3 months. Created map, so peoples can create map during the season, send it to forum, people cant talk about those maps and give advices, fix bugs, found name for them, and then 2 weeks before the new season start, people can vote for the 2 maps they wanna see in the next season pool.
- The website... Now you must use that damn website, because this website is basicly dead, while it will suppose to be the most important part of this server, when new players join us, they dont go on the forum, they go on the website and they see last activities where 6 months ago, they basicly think this game dead and they just give up. This website should be ALIVE, like massive updates all the time... Now everytime we get new map in the new ladder pool, you make a great presentation of them, An image of the map, the name map, type of map, tips to play that map etc etc.. You help to make those maps popular, you created a buzz around them, and the best way for that is to using the website himself! You also can rewards peoples who have play those map the most during the season. Maybe a cash prize, maybe a special icon for random map player, maybe a tournament between most active player on those map..
- Hall of fame records... Now you also can created a kind of Hall of fame records page on the website... Where every winner of each season will be show, best win streak, best wins on random map etc etc. Just a way to give importance to those players, a kind of achivement that push player to be on that list. You can find alot of different records for alot of different peoples, just need to be creative.
We can do so much with this game, but if we stay here thinking we too old, we will get no where, let me told you lol.
Better trying thing and fail, because staying here doing nothing it's already a fail.