Ranked / Unranked games

It seems like the point system has divided the players into two categories :

1. Ones who take their points seriously, and only play with people of the same rank, when they have time to think about their move,
   also mostly in low-risk games like Join order 2 vs 2.
2. Ones who don't take the points seriously and have a wildly varying score over time. (like me)

I think it would be nice to have an option during game creation to make a game ranked or unranked.
People could play unranked games for fun (or between two meetings), without the risk of losing any points.

That reminds me of Rocket League, Competitive vs Casual. Interesting idea.

i am certain this is the best and easiest thing to implement that will boost Live game activity in a most positive way on various levels
The "'point serious'' people will have the best of both worlds, their point pursuit plus freedom from it whenever they want to risk only a win or a loss
The experienced people are more likely to enhance the Live game arena, and be great teachers for the novice player as a side effect.
I have even, on occasion, seen suicidal behavior based on point concerns {as well as Standings concerns} [verified].
If the Live multiplayer game arena becomes more robust, and more new people stick around, it should prove a better business model for selling Premiums...

I like this idea

This forum discussion is going nowhere...
It was proposed a year ago, and still crickets.
We have a divided community between high rank and low rank people,,
We have a declining population and people new to the site don’t stick around if they come here looking for a Live multiplayer game and can’t get one. 
I think to solve this we need to experiment with a few tweaks here and there. It may be a matter of small fixes/ changes that add up, a small percent at a time.

I personally play long term games because I think they're more fun and generally don't have time for live games. It has nothing to do with points or the rank of my opponents. I will (and do) play anyone in long term games; I never look at the rank of the opponents first and never put point limits on games I create. Most games I play have both high and low ranked players in them, so I'm not seeing the divided community that I guess must exist in the live game sphere. In other words, this change would not cause me, for one, to start playing live games more often. I don't know if that would be the case for others, but I'm skeptical of the assumptions underlying this thread. Most people I play with don't fit into either of the 2 categories in the first post here.

That said, I also disagree with the proposal because I think all games should impact points whether the player cares about rank or not. I find the points economy to be interesting and like seeing where people end up relative to others. For the people that don't care about points, it's either just fun or at worst does no harm. For the people that do care about points, it gives them some incentive to be strategic and try to improve (and I've always argued that only playing higher ranked players does not help your overall points, so if people care about points they should stop doing that anyway).

Would be fantastic and probably healthy for traffic on this site to opt playing unranked games.
Newcomers do need some time and training to get acquainted with it and why not?

But is it even possible?

The only reason you need points or no-points game is if you CARE about points. I remember as a noob I knew I was gonna suck....but I also knew that this was part of the learning process if I was going to get better. If you like the game, you will learn and find it an incentive to improve. I did this by:

1. joining and watching how top-ranked players play
2. teaming up with a top-ranked player in team games.

Unfortunately, the points calculation for team games does not benefit top-ranked players playing WITH noobs on THEIR team. (at my old digs, you see jedi/padawan pairs because it was beneficial for you to play with noobs in your team in a team game. This is where all the training was done for many new players) 
It is difficult to train someone in a singles game. Much easier to train someone in a team game.

Until there is an incentive for someone like me to team up with a noob...then it's a "free for all" place. 

In terms of live verse long term game....well...as slackbatter said. i don't have the kind of time for live games.

Edit: incidently my old digs did have a point or no-points option. It was nice. We did do some training or experiments.

If you really want a no-points game, just declare that in the game chat. Then have a game attendant end the game in a draw once you are done experimenting/training. That's a work around for now and it works too.

Observational notes: it’s rare to see lieutenants, captains, colonels and generals in Live games. Likewise, it’s rare to see people ranked lower than master sergeant in Long term games.

Considering Draw stress and game length.

I don’t know what the average Live game length is. Let’s say there are 2 types: the Tidy game, and the Marathon game.
I think tidy average is 1-2 hours (waiting to fill it can take minutes or hours), if we pass the window of tidy, and everyone gets well stacked,, we get the dreaded marathon. Then some call for a draw. Note the draw-call introduces other certain problems.
Yet rating point concerns are generally behind draw desires, otherwise people would resign when they want to quit instead of asking everyone to resign and save their points.

Would people resign more easily from an unranked game? I think so. ..
That gives remaining players more of a chance to finish the game with a satisfying win.
It also relieves some stress to those that suffer not wanting to continue But also not wanting to lose the ranking points.
Also consider the stress for a player not wishing to resign when others do. We sometimes see suicide play from those pressing for a draw.
It may be a great stress reliever. 

95% of semi-active players are currently in long term games, irrespective of ranking.

You need to be in long term games to realize that the lowest ranking players are actually in these games. They'd be chopped to pieces in live game chats for their gameplay and strategy and would be on your avoid list if they were playing live

As for players resigning, without doubt there would be a much higher rate of that happening in non-ranked games ... and there would be no policing of such games by admins.

Un-ranked games would mainly be for a laugh, as the risk that players would take in them would be disproportionate and unrealistic to what you've gotten used to. In other words, m/s would be fair game.

 



 

Please Note: When we refer to high rank vs low rank, we are actually referring to Rating points,, Not the insignia you buy with tokens.

See also: https://dominating12.com/forums/6/suggestions-feedback/1022/pointless-games?page=4