Inactive players hogging the top of MP ranking board

I understand ppl take a break from the game here and there. But I don't think it's right when the top 3 players on the MP ranking board have been inactive from anywhere from 5 to 30+ weeks already.

I know it's an accomplishment to go over 1800 ELO, but to stop playing completely to freeze your achievement in time turns the whole thing to a joke.

Is it possible for Jon or Farb to put in some type of rating decay due to inactivity so we don't have players resting on their laurels by going inactive? Thanks!

 

I'm kind of the same mindset, but rating decay seems like it could end up with someone coming back a good 100-300 ELO below where they were, and that could be exploitable for winstreak records. Maybe just put a little mark next to their name on the leaderboards if they've been gone for a while?

 

Why not just hide inactive players like on the meta site? Players only need to play 1 game per week to have their names reappear.

 

100-300 pts is not enough of a difference to have any major affect on win streaks unless someone went through the process of taking multi-week breaks between games which would be one tedious way to build up a win streak. It'd take less work to just play one game a day and hope for the A.I. every time. Another option would be to remove players from the rankings after a certain period of inactivity, but not change their Elo value so if they began to play again they'd return at the same point.

EDIT: Peonprop was faster. I'd make the time frame longer than a week personally, but yep would be an easy solution.

 

I think Peonprop's suggestion is a good one. There are different options to solve this problem, and as long as the devs do something about it, it's all good.

The top of the board should reflect the current player pool, not some guy who last played 13 weeks ago.

 

We discussed this at some point. @Farbs?

 

While we're talking about updating the in-game leaderboards; it might be good to add a link to the meta site/guilds in game somewhere, and the leaderboards would probably be a good place to do it.

Also, I am definitely in support of this. I think the "hiding players after x days inactive" is probably the better (and easier?) solution.

 

Currently there is a link to the Meta site from the game. If you click a name, then click profile, then you can click the Meta link.

 

Wow, somehow I never noticed that

Still, I think it would probably be worth it to have additional linkage like I suggested.

 

Now that I made number 1 on the Leader Board, I'm going to make a point of not playing ranked until you guys fix this feature.

League games, here I come!

 

No! Darial keep going! I want to see what the icons for 1900 and 2000 are! I think your icon should be the loot fairy if you hit 2000

 

I think 4 weeks would be a very reasonable timeframe if we're talking about ranked match activity. If someone can't even play one ranked in 4 week, they probably don't care about the game anymore.

If we're talking about any multiplayer matches, including league matches, then it doesn't solve this problem as I can play all the league matches I want without putting my ELO at risk. Thanks!

 

4 weeks seems a bit long. One week of inactivity on the meta site seems to work pretty well.

I think 1-3 would be most helpful for evaluating how any given player stacks up in the current MP environment.

 

I think if the meta site is using one week of inactivity, then it would be a good idea to keep the leaderboard on the same timeframe for the sake of consistency.

 

Comments:

1) If you remove a player from ranked list, what would be his rating on MP Lobby when he logs in? If that rating would stay the same, then it wont have that much effect (if effect at all) ..
I never look at ranked list, I just sort logged players by rating.. Imho, I have much more respect to currently logged player with 1780 rating than some player with 1800+ who didnt play/(log in) for months ..

2) Discussion here shows that there is a general problem with that rating logic, as (some of the) best players tend to stop playing MP because they dont want to ruin their rating.. do we really need that?

3) A lot of things that greatly influences rating is changing (new cards, nerfs, number of players.. ) .. so I think rating should change as well .. reflect the most recent "situation in the game" ..
I think that some rating-decay algorithm would be ok ... ( even pro tennis players have rating-decay ) ..

- My Rating Decay suggestion is -> every 10 days of not playing, lose 1% of your rating ..

its not much, but its is a lot for players who dont play ..
1825 after 10 days of not playing would go to 1806
then to 1788 after another 10 days
then to 1770 after month of inactivity
etc ..

(or a more "safe" but a bit more complex version, after 4 weeks of inactivity, rating starts decaying 1% every 7 days .. )

 

I think the meta site is at 10 days (it was a week originally, but I recall @Farbs changing it). Personally I think 4 weeks is a fine time frame. A single week would seem a bit short. I have no problem with someone who reaches the top basking in their achievement for a couple weeks. It's the players who haven't played a game in 3 months that are the one's that it doesn't make sense to leave up there. Anywhere between 2 and 4 weeks would seem reasonable to me.

 

I think you might be right. This page still says it's a week though.