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Proposition for a ladder-based WCS system:
1) Seeding for WCS is determined by ladder ranking
2) A player can register for WCS for one region per season with one account only (containing current ID and team).
3) Only registered accounts are relevant for seeding.
4) Special seeds for successful players of the previous season are highly limited (e.g. top 4)
5) All other spots in WCS are determined through ladder.
6) WCS ranking is public and constantly updated.
Consequences:
- Competition and thus the level of play on ladder is increased.
- Barcode accounts become less attractive and ladder more transparent. More opportunity for rivalries and storylines.
- Streams become more interesting for viewers because the matches become more relatable and more relevant.
- Streaming could become more or less attractive, because of its higher relevance and forced identifiability.
- Stream cheating and hacking would become extremely potent and would have to be adressed effectively. Though that should be the case already with online tournaments.
- WCS and thus the prize pool becomes a lot more accessible, by essentially everybody having a chance to win each season.
- Taking away seeds makes sure that the currently best players compete.
- Better accessibilty functions as an incentive to compete.
- This also makes the KR region more attractive to Korean players who can qualify more freely.
- Players have to commit to a region they want to play on, contributing to the level of play there.
- The Premier and Challenger League format becomes irrelevant, as there are no more seeds to win. One unified league, with more participants would seem right.
Variants:
- Grant ladder points as reward for WCS victories, so successful players can still prepare specifically for their opponents
- Limit the amount of ladder points one can gain per day to accomodate good players with busy schedules.
- Have qualification through ladder take place only in between WCS seasons, so everybody has equal chances to qualify. That would take away a lot of the regional aspect though, as intense ladder runs would suffice.
- If the incentive of making Premier League immediately proves to bring an unwanted Korean dominance to other servers, one could still consider some sort of a regional lock.
- Major and minor league seeds are awarded by ladder ranking, with the minor league being played online and receiving significantly less prize money. Would be another opportunity for players.
Please, feel free to discuss and offer ideas of your own. I will modify and add new ideas or completely different concepts from the discussion. Ideally, think about problems of the current system and offer solutions or use constructive criticism to improve on points already made. I certainly wouldn´t mind some deeper knowledge of how the ladder works and how a qualification process through ladder could be abused.
 
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I like it..but.
How do you prevent cheating? (And I don't mean hacking - point trading, ensuring the correct player is indeed playing etc etc).
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meh, seeds should go to the best players, not to the ones who ladder the most.
people shouldnt be punished if they prefer custom games for practicing/dont ladder much.
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I dislike.
What if a player is 1st GM with his real account and 2nd GM with smurf account? I am sure, many players need an smurf-account because the same opponent will play differently against you.
I have heard that people dont like very high MMR because the waiting time (for searching an opponent) is super annoying/long, because of it they just quit the league. Demuslim got an offer by Blizzard to reduce his MMR, I dont know what Demuslim decided.
Many people play like a monster at ladder but terrible terrible at tournaments.
edit: even players needs holidays.
People like Hyun are travelling every weekend, so he has a much worse chance than people who are just laddering.
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Too many hackers, too easy to have 1 worldclass teammate bump your account a few spots, intentional throws. Can't have one teammate beat another just before deadlines/cutoff criteria (by which I mean random Acer player won't beat MMA if that means MMA drops crucial points at a crucial time).
Having longeviated leagues with 10+ player groups (NASL?), simulating something of a ladder would probably come closest.
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I always wondered how cheating in general is prevented in online games, because there are plenty, and some with plenty of prize money. Is it all merely played out in good faith or are there methods to check with or without an observer?
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
You can't know, there is only good faith and the knowledge that if you're caught you're fucked.
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Hong Kong9145 Posts
there is a different dynamic between the demands of play online and the demands of play in an offline tournament that make offline tournaments the best space to determine who is the best. couple that in with a lack of verifiability and the incentive each player would have to cheat in order to build their rankings, and it isn't a viable option to do what you propose.
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sadly hackers will rule WCS in that case.
Wouldnt work.
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United States2704 Posts
It gives value to the ladder sure. But it wouldn't work because of hackers. The ladder is fine, players have motivation to ladder and that is to get better. The real issue is Koreans practice in Korea, play NA and win, go back to Korea to practice. This doesn't help the NA scene at all. Now if they made it based on where you live, Jaedong has to come live in EG house play NA. All of sudden you see Jaedong on the ladder you are getting exposure to higher level of play, and that will elevate your play.
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I dislike it,
It forces pros to ladder, which is an inferior practice method compared to custom games against practice partners.
Can't hide builds on ladder, can't practice a specific matchup/specific build/against a specific build.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
People underestimate how much pros ladder. Customs and in-team scrims are for refining specific builds (for a BoX or a PL style team match), but pros ladder to practice mechanics, game sense, and general play.
Pros should ladder on the WCS region they intend on joining.
I'm sure we'll get an announcement about 2014 soon and I'm sure Blizz will change things for the better
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If this happens then the whole "show build order" thing needs to be removed
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On November 21 2013 00:29 Eggi wrote:
sadly hackers will rule WCS in that case.
Wouldnt work.
implying that if this idea was successfully implemented, there wouldn't be much more blizzard scrutiny on players who are high enough on the ladder that they could qualify... come on now
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So,
1. You force pro's to ladder. Their opponents have opposition research with which to prepare their games, up to the very moment that the tournament begins.
2. Grandmaster league is the crowning league, but is influenced by who plays the most during the week it is released. If a player plays an offline tournament during the league season interchange, you're forcing him to disqualify for WCS. That is not a good policy. Secondly, if high masters is included in the cutoff, how are you even determining who goes?
3. Under your proposed system, barcodes could just register with their ID & Number and the ladder is still filled with hidden accounts. Only when Blizzard inspects which barcode is who in their private registration would they do their seeding ... no benefit to using their real names because registration is Blizzard's. They're unique in Blizzard's eyes but not ours.
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So they did put in ladder wildcard spots, though I´m not quite sure how they work yet. Well, it means laddering in the target region, so that´s a good direction, but I assume it´s within a relatively limited time frame. Hacking could be an issue, unadressed as of yet.
As for ladder practice: Whenever a pro gets asked about training, whether foreigner, esF, kespa, they always say the same: I ladder a ton. "Forced" laddering would be a non-issue in any case, though I agree that build orders should not be shown, to get a little more privacy.
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The ladder system is way too non-transparent to base the results off of it, especially when so much is just a factor of how much you play (62-22 being higher than 30-2 or something, for example).
Straight up elim tournaments are much clearer and much less subjective/debatable/influenced by things other than skill.
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Moreover, the ladders are definitely at different skill levels overall, which is hardly fair (though I recognize the same is true of different regionals in WCS, it's not nearly to the same degree).
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EPT
