From "Ladders" to "King of the Hill"

Let me preface this “suggestion” by saying that I have only been playing here intermittently, and I have only recently renewed my membership. So while it’s good to be back, my “suggestion” may have been previously proposed or may be altogether irrelevant or inappropriate. But I still thought I might put it out there.

I just joined a ladder, and I am indeed discouraged at the amount of time it would take me to reach a place on the ladder at all representative of my skill level (which I would humbly argue my rating does not reflect). So I thought I might propose a way to side-step some of the waiting time.

Why not turn the system into more of a tournament bracket? For example, let’s say that the top fifty players within each ladder timeout division would remain unaffected. After that, the next 100 people on the ladder would be divided into two branches (50 players each) that would split off from the original ladder, and the next 200 people would be divided into four branches (50 players each) that would split off from the two original sub-branches. This process would continue until all players had been randomly distributed along the ladder. (See my attempt at illustrating this below, where each line segment represents 25 players. Also, please excuse the periods, but I needed them for formatting purposes to keep the lines in the right places.)

....................|
....................|
.................../\
................../..\
................/\.../\
.............../..\ /..\


Players would continue up their branch until they reached the top 10 of that branch, at which point they could challenge any player at the bottom of the branch above them. This would allow for a player at the bottom of a branch effectively to advance anywhere from a few hundred to a few dozen places by playing concurrently with players at the same “height” of the bracket but in different sub-branches. Thus, the playing field would have width as well as depth, and as a result would be better served with a name such as “King of the Hill,” in my opinion.

Also, as a bonus, I would suggest that players not be allowed to challenge players ranked more than 150 points below themselves, and in the case that a high-ranked player not have any potential candidates to challenge because of the 10-rung limit, the next-available candidate for challenging within 150 points would override the 10-rung limit.

I am sure some of my thoughts are unclear, in which case I would be happy to elaborate. Furthermore, I’m sure some ideas could be improved upon. But I still wanted to make the suggestion.

Wonka: I think you've got a good idea. I had a similar suggestion titled ladder timeouts or something like that . . . I've been sitting for over a week waiting for someone to challenge me on the 7 day ladder. There should be, seems to me, a penalty is someone has a vacant challenge and sits there for weeks on end . . but that's just me.

Originally posted by wittywonka
Also, as a bonus, I would suggest that players not be allowed to challenge players ranked more than 150 points below themselves, and in the case that a high-ranked player not have any potential candidates to challenge because of the 10-rung limit, the next-available candidate for challenging within 150 points would override the 10-rung limit.

How about, the further down the ladder you are, the more positions up the ladder you're allowed to challenge?

For example, if your position is 32: You can challenge up to 8 positions ahead and if your position is:
64: 16
128: 32
256: 64
512: 128

I picked those numbers because they would mean you could challenge one half-level up if the ladder was a tree structure like the following:


...............0
.........../ ..... \
........./ \ ... / \
......../\ /\ . /\ /\

Originally posted by adramforall
The problem with that is that you get a 2,100 rated player joining say the 1 day ladder today (492 nd place) the first person they could challenge is in 447th place. After that you are looking at 407th place and the next is 356th place.

This is just too quick a move up the ladder in my opinion and unfair on those who have maybe had to play 10 or 12 ...[text shortened]... places. This encourages players to make sure they have at least one game ongoing at all times

Originally posted by bosintang
How about, the further down the ladder you are, the more positions up the ladder you're allowed to challenge?

For example, if your position is 32: You can challenge up to 8 positions ahead and if your position is:
64: 16
128: 32
256: 64
512: 128

I picked those numbers because they would mean you could challenge one half-level up if the la ...[text shortened]... ...0
.........../ ..... \
........./ \ ... / \
......../\ /\ . /\ /\

Originally posted by Frijole
I like your idea . . . move down 10 spots if you don't issue a challenge within the number of days of the ladder you're on. I don't think players should be able to "cherry pick" weaker players by challenging someone way beneath their ranking, but higher on the ladder just to zoom up quickly . . . the 10 player jump seems about right to me.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Why allow a challenge period?
Why not have a automated system give you the player as far up as possible as soon as you are able to play on.
You'll always have a couple of games going that way.
If you time out because you don't play who was asssigned to you, you lose.
I don't bother looking at ratings or names anyway, I just picked the player as far above me as possible anyway.
Kelly