Views on Ladder from possible Player Councillors

[Sir Prize]

Hello all

Apologies for derailing the nominations thread with ladder philosophies. I know Player Councillors could have more effect than just managing the pool, but at this point I'm seeing no concrete examples of what these other things may be. And I actually don't care, I am going to be voting based on your vision for ladder, 1v1 is the only thing I really give a shit about and I think I'm not going to be the only one. I will consolidate all opinions here for a future voting resource. Debate as you see fit

I've taken the liberty of underlining the important bits, as I see them, and consolidating the summary of your answer to my two questions below. Sorry if I've misrepresented you, dear candidates! Happy to edit. My two questions:

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

What will you do with this system?

Blodir:
Philosophically wants players to know what they're doing, or know the meta, which he argues will promote creative play. Also wants to ensure a variety of maps, and map types. More broadly, wants to ensure the needs of the silent majority are given equal priority with the high rated players who are more active on forums. He's wants a small map pool (max 15) with total rotation every fortnight. Is not in favour of a finding a midpoint between the current pool's size and a much larger pool, which he is hypothetically open to if the map quality was there, but doesn't think it is.

Kalvirox:
Wants a diverse map pool and wants to see the end of maps getting overplayed. Would like to see maps that have less standard meta, as well as a variety of overall play styles represented in the pool. He's in favour with at least some increase to the size of the pool, automating the selection of the pool (not necessarily preferences), and vetos. Also posted in another thread that (possible) ladder players' attitudes need to change, not the pool. May have changed his mind since then? Is currently leaning towards a smaller pool (undetermined size) with an opt-in/opt-out system to play a larger pool.

Morax:
In general wants to encourage competitive and casual play and would seek advice from better players on various issues, including 1v1 (and therefore ladder?). Wants ladder to be popular, to discourage BO whoring, and to test general game knowledge. This would include avoiding maps with a clear meta, prefering to see people under pressure from the start which he argues encourages creativity. Is therefore in favour of a larger map pool with a mix of “simple” 5k maps and more strategic maps (but no high reclaim maps), including new maps which he would actively find. Would link divisions to rating and probably do something to stop players frequently getting the same map. Has since proposed using the WWPC pool, without a couple of high reclaim maps.

speed2:
Wants ladder to have more incentives to play, including for people who currently don't, and trying to please as many people as possible with the map pool design. The incentives would include promoting existing ladder avatars and introducing more avatars, for example by (re-)adding challenges, and meaningful ladder divisions. The map pool would revert to the Zep system, with a small number of vetos, and changing the algorithm to avoid getting repeated maps, while having preferred maps played more.

Kalvirox's poll: http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=56 ... ccafb44a8b

Blodir quotes:

Spoiler: show

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.

Hey I absolutely agree, the top level playerbase should be on even grounds with all the other playergroups even though it's a smaller portion of the player pool. My point was that we should not disregard newer/average players even if they are not very vocal.


Again I agree! Maps play a much more important role in FA than they do in SC2 for example. However I think this is all the more a reason to take out the extremes and have a nice map pool that everyone can learn to play satisfactorily in a relatively short amount of time. I don't think it's very enjoyable to play a game that is one sided one way or the other. We need to find a good balance between basic and experimentative. Maps like Pyramid and the original Seraphim Outpost (with jammers) are examples of maps that I feel like are too far from the basic 1v1 map to be included in ladder.

I like strategic diversity and you can be assured that any map pool that I create will support this notion. However I do not think that weird/gimmick maps add to strategic diversity in any meaningful way.

To point out, that poll suggests that people want to pool to be bigger. But its very even, so I would make the pool bigger but not too much.
Considering that poll is so close it might be possible to satisfy 70-90% of people.

As I see it, a compromise is the worst option. A compromise (like 20 maps in the pool) will just lead to players having BOs on half of the maps and getting rekt on the rest. Either the map pool has to be small enough that newer players can learn it, or it has to be big enough that old players don't have a large advantage from map knowledge. The map pool would have to be extremely large for this and IMO we just don't have enough decent maps for it.

If there is no norm, there can be no creativity

Kalvirox quotes:

Spoiler: show

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.

You have a good point. Maybe 10 maps is too small of a number.
We definitely need a greater variety of maps in the pool though. Its mostly 10x10 land spam maps (granted they are the most common type of map).

I mean, Crossfire Canal just got added back to the map pool. Its a map that takes some skill and practice to play with some weird and wacky tactics possible on it. We need more maps like this and less like regor or syrtis which are very standardised.

Forgive me, I was under the impression that the current system that we have was the more popular one since there was a number of threads ect in the past that lead us to the current system we have. Although, I don't want to take what you said as the truth.

Therefore we must have a poll!
http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=56 ... ccafb44a8b

I left out the option of vetos because that can be discussed afterwards, assume that whatever your preference towards veto's is included.

It's not ladder that needs to change, it's the attitude of the people that you want to play it.

This was posted in the context of someone necroing Mozart's latest ladder thread to flame Mozy (Mozy loves it, everyone flame him).

Also, this post was upvoted by a bunch of people, including Kalvirox:

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.

To point out, that poll suggests that people want to pool to be bigger. But its very even, so I would make the pool bigger but not too much.
Considering that poll is so close it might be possible to satisfy 70-90% of people.

The compromise was merely an idea.

So. I think I'll stick to my original position except instead of 10 maps I'll make it like this.

15 Map pool, you can veto up too 2-3 (yet to be decided) maps and you will not get the same map twice or three times in a row (I think I am going to have to talk to some people as to how that would be achievable).

This is how it will work.

There will be a total map pool of 45 maps. Every 2 weeks you will get 15 of these 45 maps, then the next fortnight you will get another 15 maps from the remaining 30, then you will get the remaining 15 maps. Then the whole system resets.

Every selection of 15 maps will contain some definite quantities of types of maps.
2 or 3 (Yet to be decided) will be 5x5 maps. This is because people do like to play 5x5 maps but you can veto ALL of them if you don't like them.

2 or 3 (Yet to be decided) will be maps that have some sort of naval aspect. I think I will make it so that you are garenteed 1 of Glaciers/Roanoke/PoRv4 (Maybe not PoR, but another naval map where there is not much land and its mostly island based. Maybe Open waters... Once again, yet to be decided) there are a few players that complain that they don't like big maps and that it is stupid to have them in the pool therefore there will be enough to Veto.

I did think about a third category but. I can't think of a good one, so I didn't bother.
As you can imagine, the rest will be boring 10x10 landspam maps and any maps that have navy in them that are not already in the 6/9 boaty maps.

I can write an algorithm that would give us the maps for every 2 weeks, its just a case of putting them in the pool.
I'm still in debate about the whole 2 weeks thing, I have been very "on the fence" with it being 2 weeks or whether it should be 3. The faster the rotation, the bigger the map pool will "appear".

I'm curious as to your opinions. Looking for tweaks that could make it better/more preferable. Don't say that the system is unnecessarily complicated. It is complicated granted, but you don't have to worry about that.

As far as divisions go, I have not really thought about them but maybe we could have a top 200 100 50 25 10 3 ladder position division system? I have not really put much thought into it but if its something that people want. Sure. Avatars?

Jagged, you are the main advocate of this, give me some idea of what you would like.

Ugh, sidenote time.

That poll, like.. there's 50 votes on it.. very close but slight majority on a big map pool.
Maybe I should not take it too seriously, but.... I'm torn.

I'm putting forward this system currently, the whole rotation and 15 maps ect. can be completely removed to leave us with a 45 map pool with a mixture of map sizes ect, then we just make sure that all of the maps are balanced equally and that we don't get repeats and a veto of an amount yet to be decided (maybe 10).

Yes, I believe we can get 45 maps. Might be a bit of a push but I believe we have enough "good" maps + a few new/undiscovered ones. I will test every map before putting them in the pool.

For the record, I can appreciate a good map whilst still not liking it. Crossfire is good, but I don't like it. Same with EOTS, Forbidden Pass v4 ect ect.

Ok, comments on that system as well please.

I'll give it a day for everyone's opinions to come in, and then I'll take a final stance (because I have been wibbling and wobbling around as to what my plans are).

I get the feeling that lots of people are going to want the second system suggested.
Like I said, Opinions please.

And, on a final note. I'll say this.
I like ladder, I want to play ladder more. What do I care about that makes me play ladder? I want more opponents. I don't care about anything else, the ladder can work whatever way it wants to work. Hence why I am trying to appease the majority. Because getting people to play ladder is all I care about.

So, in summary, I have put forward two ways of which I could make the ladder work, take your pick. I'll add a veto system and revamp the division system so that it actually means something.

OH. PS. Ladder challenges, revamp maybe? Maybe Avatar rewards for completing 5 or more?

"But there isn't any reason not to let people opt-in for a bigger pool if they like. "

That's an interesting idea.

Making an "opt in/out" of a big pool is a good idea so long as players can still play each other regardless of whether or not they prefer a small/large pool is a curious possibility.

Who thinks this is a good system?

Morax quotes:

Spoiler: show

I know Player Councillors could have more effect than just managing the pool, but at this point I'm seeing no concrete examples of what these other things may be.

I'm going to write a response to your post but first I just wanted to state that the player councillor should have these responsibilities:

1) Ladder management - of course, it is the will of the community to determine how its players will compete

2) Education of the game - someone who has the talent to teach the game to newcomers and the latter. It doesn't need to be someone amazing at the game but one who can at least bring people from new to a good level.

3) Game exploit prevention - it should be the responsibility of the councillor to determine with the council what is an unacceptable way of abusing the game code to get an edge in a game. One example is the use of UEF drones which cannot be targeted properly in their current state by certain anti-air units.

4) Actively encourage competition and casual play. Not everyone wants to exactly do one or the other, so it's important to make cases for ensuring that both thrive and generate a healthy balance in the community.

5) Select a cabinet of members of the community to be aides to he/she where that person does not excel. For example, let's say someone who is not a top player gets elected; it should be the responsibility of that person to admit there are more talented points of views on various matters. For example, I would go about and seek the advice of Zock, Petric, BH, Adjux, Kalvirox, etc on efficiency in 1v1 play as I'm not really the best at it.

6) Be ACTIVE with the game. It doesn't make sense to me that someone would accept a position of authority without actively participating in play. How can you possibly feel fit to lead a certain position and not know what's going on? For example, Gyle is a great entertainer and all, but no one looks to analysis much anymore. He's too inactive to really comment on these matters anymore. Sorry Gyle, but you are a popular name and it had to be stated ;D

There are probably some more things to consider, but that's a start.

Okay, so for the ladder, Kalvirox and I did make quite a nice list for the WWPC Best-Of-5, which you may have noticed is also being used for all the weekly tournaments (at the minimum). We did our best to filter out nonsense maps like "The Ditch," Desert Arena," that just resulted in ridiculous amounts of spam and/or 15 minutes nukes (The Ditch.... uagh...)

It's been my personal, firm belief, for quite some time that the ladder pool should be larger and test a player's general knowledge of the game. If the ladder gets reduced to a smaller pool people can "BO whore" and it gets to be absolute rubbish over time. The chances of remembering exact BOs with a larger pool are fairly small. Some people will still be able to do it, but kudos to them and with that trait they should of course be winning. For example, though, a map like Sera Glaciers, Bermuda, Pizza, Roanoake, Point of Reach all take advantage of a general "transport rush." I learned the hard way last night since Bermuda is a tad smaller than the others that a couple inties at the start can ruin a player's game, which is nice because it relies on a little estimation and game knowledge to do that.

As for the sizes of maps, it was argued by many that they want the pool to be mostly 5x5s so that matches didn't go beyond "20 minutes." I think this would be nice for more casual players, yet the "1400+ players" would get tired and annoyed by the endless amounts of draws and simple thinking. You can't really utilize too much strategy on a 5x5 so it gets awfully boring. The solution is to add a mix to the bunch.

Paramount quality of the ladder that must exist: NO REDUNDANCY! The veto system was never working in my opinion and I recall on a few days I got Blasted Rock 7/10 matches and was furious. I personally hate that map so it's even worse to see it so often. I don't think it's fun to play the same map so much regardless of it.

This as well gets a +1 from me:

When i avidly played ladder in the past my drive was getting into a higher division to reflect my skill. Now the divisions are meaningless except for showing how addicted you are. Return the division system to rating brackets rather than amount played.

I've accepted that barely anything I want is going to come true in FAF so it doesn't surprise me.

The last hope FAF really has is for the server to get to a state where visionik can launch an advertisement campaign and throw some heavy-duty $ tourneys. That is only rumor so it may not even be real.

I'm 100% nostalgic of 2006(beta)-2010 where I could hop on and get a ladder match within minutes, not hours.

Even if the ladder is not 100% what I want it to be, I just want more matches.

As I see it, a compromise is the worst option. A compromise (like 20 maps in the pool) will just lead to players having BOs on half of the maps and getting rekt on the rest. Either the map pool has to be small enough that newer players can learn it, or it has to be big enough that old players don't have a large advantage from map knowledge. The map pool would have to be extremely large for this and IMO we just don't have enough decent maps for it.

I disagree. I think after losing on the same map repeatedly people will be motivated to learn how to play them to cut back their losses. If they don't, that's just a bad player, not a bad ladder map pool

Also, this:

Morax » 21 Jul 2015, 10:13

Excuse me if this has been covered before, but equally as important as balance/server/etc councils, are there plans to make a "mapping council?"

I always poke in to the mapping thread to check out Lionhardt's (creator of Regor VI, Goodlands, and Crimson Feud) and keep thinking one of the critical functions of the community is mapping. We lack people in that dept as the editor is quite complex and the people putting in the time and effort for those maps should be receiving attention...

I covered this awhile back and said that as a councillor someone needs to work well with Lionhardt and the other map-makers to encourage new, fresh content to the best of their abilities. I won't post all my statements on the matter here, but please take a look at Lionhardt's WIP thread to see how the process goes. Lionhardt has been especially receptive to feedback and I am sure with all his and others' efforts that some more 1v1 maps will come out of the work being done.

We must make new maps appear in the ladder pool and that will only happen if we support and use positive criticism for the few map-makers out there. The ladder is boring to me as-is because maps like Syrtis Major (right side spawn vs left) and Badlands (bottom can use mmls/t3 mobile arty on sides against top spawn) are in it where there are known imbalances

100% agree with Lionhardt. I think the player councillor should, you know, "play" maps and see ones fit for 1v1.

Again, I'll state that Kalvirox and I did this for nearly all the maps in the WWPC 1v1 BO5 pool.

Having many maps does not only limit BOs but also forming of a meta, and takes away the possibility to come up with new strategies to counter that meta.

Allowing a "meta" to exist is also a dagger in this game's side as far too many people rely on that meta and don't come up with a creative strategy. Raise your hand if you tried playing a team game and got yelled at for "not following the meta." I bet most new players can say they've experienced some rage encounter where he/she gets scolded for doing something different.

You could argue both ways as to why it is good/bad to have this, Zock. I like to see people stressed out from the start and have to figure out how to adapt rather follow some rules.

For example, the "CrazedChariot build on Syrtis Major" is all you see and it's boring as hell. If a game gets to a point where there is one, true way to start then it's lost its meaning to me.

Creativity is dead with your suggestion.

Everyone keeps saying words like "larger, smaller, etc" rather using actual quantifiable amounts. No one, including myself, has any idea what will actually be "larger" or "smaller" since this is all far-too hypothetical.

How about everyone makes a proposed ladder pool? State why they want the pool they made, and from that they can show the rotation pieces from a week-to-week example.

Mine is basically the WWPC BO5 pool spare Desert Arena, Canis 5v5, and a few others. I simply don't want to rotate maps from week-to-week or month-to-month. There will need to be code in place to prevent redundancy, divisions based on rating rather #games played, and incentive avatars/challengers/accomplishments etc.

My personal choice of the word "stressed" basically means that I find 1v1 games to be INTENSE and challenging rather expose someone's ignorance. If a person can't handle doing things on their own and don't like it they probably won't play 1v1 for long anyways... Does that make sense? I'm not trying to say people who are new should be subject some horrible, scientific experiment.

speed2 quotes:

Spoiler: show

I'm actually bit surprised that after all those ladder topic you still don't know what other people think about it Ofc that new PC (Principal) will care about ladder, but maybe I should warn you that it won't be an instant change as you might want to have (just from seeing on this topic. Only PC that could be good is the one who cares mainly about ladder... I don't know, well you're passion for that so why not.

Anyway changing the ladder will come down to how much time our devs wants to work on it since it alls depends on them. I guess Softly has some ability to code something himself but from what I've seen so far he wasn't that eager to contribute, by that I'm not saying he haven't done anything or haven't tried, but le't not talk about that, just my opinion.

And now to the actuall ladder change. Well, change is needed for sure. I still think the big map pool has the highest chance of pleasing most of the people, the one we had from Zep times BUT implemented in better way this time. That means not getting same map 10 times in a row. Veto system where you can mark some small amout of maps you just don't want to play ever. And then ofc mainly balancing the changes of what map you'll get so it's not 80% not selected.
That would be just picking maps, then ofc thee whole ladder needs some better system. By that I mean divisions are meaningless right now, they could actually reflect more than how often you play. By that the current ladder avatars would get some role. And on top of that you can add new avatars. There's plenty of room what to award there. Then we can have ladder challenges as we had long time ago, where you need to apply special/unusuall strategy to win. Not sure how much those can be checked by replay data or it would require posting the replays, but that's still a distant future to find out.

So thing to do would be to make the ladder more intresting for everyone (even for someone like me) Long time ago I played the ladder for avatars and I can imagine I would not be the only one who prefers team games but if the ladder would be better, there would be some reason to play it as well.

P.S. Hi surprise

[Lionhardt]

If I had made that poll I had made 5 options:

small pool (I regularly play ladder)
small pool (I do not regularly play ladder)
big pool (I regularly play ladder)
big pool (I do not regularly play ladder)
big pool (I do not regularly play ladder because the pool is small atm)


The way it is the poll is subject to major confounding! I highly suspect a lot of people that hardly ever play ladder to vote for a big pool. Therefore the poll is very unreliable, especially with only weakly significant differences in the votes for the two options.

[Sir Prize]

Yeah, that's the problem with quantitative data, if you want it to be really useful on it's own, you need shitloads of options (and participants). It's an interesting poll no matter what, especially if your assumption is correct that it's biased against the big pool.

Disregarding the possibility of vetoes, my personal preference is a diverse but very small, static pool with a massive opt-in/opt-out for the variety. It's not reflected in the poll, so I just voted for the Zep pool.

[Morax]

I know Player Councillors could have more effect than just managing the pool, but at this point I'm seeing no concrete examples of what these other things may be.

I'm going to write a response to your post but first I just wanted to state that the player councillor should have these responsibilities:

1) Ladder management - of course, it is the will of the community to determine how its players will compete

2) Education of the game - someone who has the talent to teach the game to newcomers and the latter. It doesn't need to be someone amazing at the game but one who can at least bring people from new to a good level.

3) Game exploit prevention - it should be the responsibility of the councillor to determine with the council what is an unacceptable way of abusing the game code to get an edge in a game. One example is the use of UEF drones which cannot be targeted properly in their current state by certain anti-air units.

4) Actively encourage competition and casual play. Not everyone wants to exactly do one or the other, so it's important to make cases for ensuring that both thrive and generate a healthy balance in the community.

5) Select a cabinet of members of the community to be aides to he/she where that person does not excel. For example, let's say someone who is not a top player gets elected; it should be the responsibility of that person to admit there are more talented points of views on various matters. For example, I would go about and seek the advice of Zock, Petric, BH, Adjux, Kalvirox, etc on efficiency in 1v1 play as I'm not really the best at it.

6) Be ACTIVE with the game. It doesn't make sense to me that someone would accept a position of authority without actively participating in play. How can you possibly feel fit to lead a certain position and not know what's going on? For example, Gyle is a great entertainer and all, but no one looks to analysis much anymore. He's too inactive to really comment on these matters anymore. Sorry Gyle, but you are a popular name and it had to be stated ;D

There are probably some more things to consider, but that's a start.

[Morax]

Okay, so for the ladder, Kalvirox and I did make quite a nice list for the WWPC Best-Of-5, which you may have noticed is also being used for all the weekly tournaments (at the minimum). We did our best to filter out nonsense maps like "The Ditch," Desert Arena," that just resulted in ridiculous amounts of spam and/or 15 minutes nukes (The Ditch.... uagh...)

It's been my personal, firm belief, for quite some time that the ladder pool should be larger and test a player's general knowledge of the game. If the ladder gets reduced to a smaller pool people can "BO whore" and it gets to be absolute rubbish over time. The chances of remembering exact BOs with a larger pool are fairly small. Some people will still be able to do it, but kudos to them and with that trait they should of course be winning. For example, though, a map like Sera Glaciers, Bermuda, Pizza, Roanoake, Point of Reach all take advantage of a general "transport rush." I learned the hard way last night since Bermuda is a tad smaller than the others that a couple inties at the start can ruin a player's game, which is nice because it relies on a little estimation and game knowledge to do that.

As for the sizes of maps, it was argued by many that they want the pool to be mostly 5x5s so that matches didn't go beyond "20 minutes." I think this would be nice for more casual players, yet the "1400+ players" would get tired and annoyed by the endless amounts of draws and simple thinking. You can't really utilize too much strategy on a 5x5 so it gets awfully boring. The solution is to add a mix to the bunch.

Paramount quality of the ladder that must exist: NO REDUNDANCY! The veto system was never working in my opinion and I recall on a few days I got Blasted Rock 7/10 matches and was furious. I personally hate that map so it's even worse to see it so often. I don't think it's fun to play the same map so much regardless of it.

[Morax]

This as well gets a +1 from me:

When i avidly played ladder in the past my drive was getting into a higher division to reflect my skill. Now the divisions are meaningless except for showing how addicted you are. Return the division system to rating brackets rather than amount played.

[Zoram]

just a note, not sure if it's off topic.
I'm a low average player and I don't like 5*5 maps. I don't see how it's noob friendly. If you don't have the perfect start, you're fucked, and in the 0-300 range, from memory, there were quite a few weirdos who will just walk straight up to the opponent and end the game in a draw at minute 3. (since you learn quite fast who does that, you end up building one pd, then you win at min 3, still not fun).

When I picked up the game again last year, I wanted to play with the toys a bit, not rush a game in 5 minutes.
Are there actually that many new people that complain about 10*10 being too hard/time consuming ?
Could there be a veto system by map size ?

[briang]

TBH you're missing any commentary from the most likely player councilor. Ask Softly what he thinks and this thread would instantly become relevant. (I think/hope Kal is promoter if anything...)

[Morax]

TBH you're missing any commentary from the most likely player councilor. Ask Softly what he thinks and this thread would instantly become relevant. (I think/hope Kal is promoter if anything...)

I spoke to Softly and he said that he doesn't even really play 1v1 anymore. Maybe this is wrong or right, but if that is the case why should we ask what he thinks? I don't want someone to be player councillor who is not involved in ladder.

[TheKoopa]

TBH you're missing any commentary from the most likely player councilor. Ask Softly what he thinks and this thread would instantly become relevant. (I think/hope Kal is promoter if anything...)

I spoke to Softly and he said that he doesn't even really play 1v1 anymore. Maybe this is wrong or right, but if that is the case why should we ask what he thinks? I don't want someone to be player councillor who is not involved in ladder.

This.