Ladder points

[Cisz]

What do they measure?

If ladder points are meant to represent the skill level of a player, than many or most game results wont change the ladder score. Strong player wins over beginner? No new info gained, no points awarded.

If ladder points are meant to encourage play and to reward activity, even the most unimportant win will gain you at least a point. But by this, activity can compensate skill ladder rank wise. In extreme, a terrible playe could make it number one, if only he manages to find even worse oponents over and over again. If the points awarded for an unimportant win are few, the motivational effect is small. Maybe this could drive people to search for equal oponents.

And what about ffa games?

If I die, but leave behind me some others, do I get points? Or does my loss cancel out my gain?

[Guest Sancdar]

I feel like the system implemented by the creativecollective works pretty well. You don't get any points for beating low-ranked players after a while, unless you really dominate them, but a single win against someone above you really catapults you up.

[Cisz]

If you are referring to the casual collective, after their last ladder update the scores explode and now they are a classic example of how activity beats skill.

[Guest Sancdar]

Oh. Well, a modified version of that - less extra points injected per game. And yeah, I keep thinking it's creative instead of casual.

Edit: Oh, I see they changed the way their system worked a few days ago.

[Cisz]

This change was the reason for this post. Before it, the points grew very slowly and I had like 5 games in a row w/o a change of my score. After it the top players score went from 300 to 600 in a few days. O_o