Yesterday, while I was sitting in clan RoC, guy called Crab started an interesting conversation about current situation in Random Team (RT) ladder. In short, he expressed his disappointment caused by the nature of players majority who care more...
...about their stats and easy wins than actual ladder rankings and good games. Because of this trend that constantly gains popularity while ladder constantly lose players, the number of high quality games on top level is decreasing, or better, vanishing.
Crab started this conversation because RT is "his" problem. As an RT player who aims for good games rather than stats and doesn't abuse to snitch an easy win against players who are not at his skill level, he is unable to find games of his skill even after half an hour of searching. He even tried to gather players of highest ELL and to synchronize searches with them. That worked out few times but he was unable to proceed with this plan because it was very demanding for one person. Now, when he realized that it doesn't matter how hard he tries, changing people is the devils task, he quit playing RT before reaching his goal - level 40 without abuse.
Why do players abuse the system and what is the actual skill level in current ladder games? You think that this is simple question that leads to simple answer? Actually its not. It goes far beyond the obvious reasons which these players are using when you ask them why do what they are doing. I bet that 90% of ladder abusers, when asked why they abuse will answer that they are doing it because that is the only way they can find games.
Now wait a second. The ladder experience tells me that only the players of highest ELL and the highest skill have problems finding games. So when 90% of ladder abusers tell you that the reason they are abusing the ladder is because they can't find games they are basically saying that they posses the highest skill level, right?
So what the hell are they saying? That 90% of ladder players who abuse the ladder posses the highest skill level? Nonsense, and they know it. They abuse the ladder because of other reasons that they feel ashamed of naming so they use the one that allows them to continue what they are doing without looking like miserable newbies to other people who are not abusing the system.
To be continued in Part 2.
The highest quality of games have disappeared long ago in ladder. The top players are not supported by this ladder system (that's why you won't see pumppa, lno, raping, etc. at rank 1 without abuse).
ReplyDeleteMore people abuse to find games QUICKER than to assume they possess the highest skill level. Although, players who abuse for stats do obviously exist.
The only solution for a functional ladder system was w3arena.