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What if Blizzard gave out WCS points for high rankings on ladder?
One of Blizzard's arguments for the allowance of Koreans into the NA/EU regions is that it would raise the level of play in that region. The counter-argument is that if it's online for the qualification and early rounds and the Koreans continue to live and train in Korea, that won't raise the level of the other regions at all.
But if Blizzard encouraged ladder play for their WCS region by giving points for high ladder rankings, that would encourage the Koreans to actually be a part of the NA/EU scene. And the foreigners would get to compete and practice against the Koreans over the course of the entire year instead of just a few elimination tournaments.
And this solves another issue that Blizzard would like to correct, the prevalence of barcodes on ladder. Blizzard has said on occasion that the mass barcode players are not ideal. They want people to be able to look at the ladder and identify the better players in the region. There will still be barcode accounts where players can practice with some anonymity, but if it's worth WCS points, they would need to maintain their primary account as well.
The downside of this is that Blizzard will have to be a lot more diligent with hackers and account sharing, but that is a task that they need to focus on anyway, especially since there is still online qualification. I believe the upside far outweighs the downside, and this would be one step towards raising the skill level in all the regions.
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I already think there should be some sort of "ladder requirement" to play in a region... However, it's just really hard to ensure that the correct player is the one laddering =/
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If you watch Polt stream, he has to switch away from NA ladder because there are not even enough people playing at high level to have acceptable waiting times. The problem seems to be missing activity here.
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I think someone had already brought this up... not only will there be endless issues with hackers and verifying accounts (and Blizzard doesn't immediately ban them; they get banned in waves), but many of the best players don't even play ladder religiously (they find custom games with practice partners to be a more efficient way to learn and practice).
Furthermore, if you're good enough to make it to top GM, you can always consider going to the actual events that reward you with real points. (It'll surely separate those who are only good in an online setting from those who can make it in a true offline setting.) It's not like top GM players aren't allowed to get points if they play (and win) in the appropriate tournaments, right?
I'm just worried that giving points to top ladder players simply by being good at laddering may water down the system a bit.
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If I see something good with it, it is that it could stop the rampant IIlllIIIlllIIIll names in gm korea, with more progamers having their real name
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He has a point tho, that korean players participating in the current offline wcs tournament will not raise skill level in that region AT ALL in the current format. We should wait till season 2 until judgement, i see season 1 as a pilot in which blizzard gonna make alot of mistakes and learn from it i hope.
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Just enforce a residence requirement and you have to ladder to practice.
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sounds like a good idea to me
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