@maudlin27 said in How come you don't play ladder?:
@cheeseberry You don't have to do a queue split - for example a simple implementation although it'd inevitably leave some people unhappy (but fewer than it would presumably make happy) would be to have a 'preference' system - you indicate if you would prefer to find a game faster, slower, or no different to default.
Then the algorithm calculates the most popular choice (you could even do a threshold, so it would only go with something other than default if more than 50% of players want the adjustment), and weights things based on thatSo, if 8 people queue, 7 indicate they want a game sooner and 1 indicates they would prefer to wait for a better balanced game, the algorithm will try and find a game sooner.
If 10 people queue, 4 want a game sooner, 4 want a game slower with lower rating difference, and 2 indicate no preference, then the algorithm will work as it currently does.
As a result, more people benefit than suffer, although it's not without flaws (e.g. 7 high rated players all indicate they want a lower rating difference, and 8 lower rated players all indicate they want a game sooner than later, resulting in some of the higher rated players being matched in a poorly balanced lobby, although I expect some tweaks could reduce the likelihood of this happening)
This sounds even worse than the current system and I’d probably never queue again if I would be getting forced into a 1300 average rating game because some dudes wanna play. I already basically only queue in a party since that allows me to artificially control what “average level” of game I want.