Nominations for the new Councillors

[Softly]

I think being able to change your mind in the light of new evidence is an admirable quality

[briang]

Making snap decisions based on rash emotions is not.

[nine2]

I was joking you get my vote just for wanting to make change

[Sir Prize]

for the Players Councillor:

Kalvirox
speed2
Zlo
Blodir
Pwnable
Softles
Morax
Softly

Questions for these people:

What should the main priority, or priorities, be for the 1v1 automatch function in your view?

What will you do with this system?

I will 100% be making my vote based on these answers, and I probably won't be the only one so I will consolidate these answers somewhere.

[Kalvirox]

Message me in FAF anytime.

[Morax]

I vote for Kalvirox

[Blodir]

for the Players Councillor:

Kalvirox
speed2
Zlo
Blodir
Pwnable
Softles
Morax
Softly

Questions for these people:

What should the main priority, or priorities, be for the 1v1 automatch function in your view?

What will you do with this system?

I will 100% be making my vote based on these answers, and I probably won't be the only one so I will consolidate these answers somewhere.

First of all you must realize that the ladder system itself is largely out of PC:s control, only thing he can do is suggestions, but it is up to an enthusiastic developer to actually change the system.

That being said, I would not try to "revolutionarize" ladder as it is, rather I would make the map pool a little smaller (probably about 8-10 maps) and introduce biweekly map rotation. I wouldn't want to experiment much with maps, custom games already offer a great platform for experimentation. That does not mean I am against adding new maps to the pool, but their quality does have to be assured.

I want ladder to feel like both players know what they are doing. With too many, and too many experimental, maps in the pool; it is very rare to see even matches. This is especially important for lower levels of play, but applies to all ratings. I don't want to make the map pool boring, but some sacrifices have to be made. I'm hoping the biweekly map rotation will bring enough variation even for more experienced players. However you must understand that players with 1000+ games are the vocal minority, and while your voices are very important, we can't cater to you alone.

[briang]

I'm going to have an aneurysm if people keep up the "I vote for." FFS it isn't time to vote and Morax didn't even bother to day for which position.

PC is supposed to be do much more than "the ladder guy" and if you're voting purely based on that please go back and read what else they'll be doing. There are people on that list who would be decent at one and not the other that shouldn't be on anyone's short list.

Luckily you guys seem to have a stiffy for Kal who would likely be pretty good at it if his head is in the right place...

[Kalvirox]

I mostly agree with blodir.
A few things to add. One, I believe in a diverse map pool. With the current system we have atm, the "Core Maps" get overplayed and I get the feeling that this is what is putting most people off ladder. There are normally 2 reasons why people don't like a map. One is that it's overplayed and the other is that its "Cancer". Ignoring the second one, I believe that the first one can be fixed with a more diverse map pool. The rest of it can be done with the system that blodir has suggested. I have a few ideas of an algorithm which can achieve this easily and hopefully make ladder more fun again. I do remember a forum post by some guy who said that it was hard for people who don't play the game that often to learn the maps for ladder, his concerns need to be addressed as well. I think a smaller but not tiny pool should be fine for this. In fact I think that the only real complaint that we will get from this system is "BO whoring" becoming much more common. But on a 2 week rotation it shouldn't be too bad, it is always a factor that can be addressed later.

I also believe communication with the devs and the community needs to be improved a bit more. I really like the Devblog thing that is up now but I think there are a couple more ways that it could be improved.

I'll only state these for now because they are what I would address first. I see the job of the player councillor as getting involved in the player base. With these changes, I hope I can do that more and encourage others to play more.

[Mad`Mozart]

I heard sooo many times this arguement about top players being a minority but its just horribly wrong and let me explain why. Its as simple as counting from 1000 to 1. There is literally no scenario where top players would be a majority cause you cant fit say more than 50 people it top 50 list. I find it extremely stupid disregarding or giving less value to some player group opinion/needs only because there are not enough of them. People are leaving the game cause they have no reason to stay here but i have never seen some higher ups say they care about it. On the contrary, top arguement in every change discussion is making new players experience better so they will stay. Every stick has two ends.

Also i totally disagree with Blodir's view on ladder. Strategy and unit choice in this game heavily depends on a map even within certain map groups like navy/land/etc, so its not smart to limit players to little amount of maps. More variety -> higher skill cap -> better competition. Its not startcraft where you can execute your strategy on any map.

PS Kalv, i dont believe that someone in charge of map pool selecting new maps manually every rotation period is great idea. Already seen it before, people's patience is not limitless. TA had enough of this and now there's no rotation anymore. Zep had enough of it, but at least he was capable to put in a replacement system. Was a better choice and many people liked it, just lacked some maintenance which is obviously easier to do with big automated map pool vs small rotation every 2 weeks. And yes, i have no doubts that you will have enough of it too.