With only 10 games needed a week to stay in the running, 1800+ players can artificially avoid playing humans that might cost them serious rating by turning on Cardotron, and having an anti-AI deck. 10 games that earn you +2 ELO each are great when you're at 1830, and have little chance of losing them. A live-player has a much greater chance of costing you points. Can I suggest that the 10 games a week don't include matches against Cardotron 2000, as otherwise the selective queueing could end the league as a competitive event.
I agree the rules should be such that no one is even tempted to engage in stuff like that. Surely, though, no one playing at that level would lower themselves to such shameful behaviour? They are such a small, visible and well-spectated group that soon everyone would know about their underhanded ways. What value would a high placing have if they would become the laughingstock of the player community? What use season prizes if the price is their reputation and self-respect? Being a pariah for a few items and figures seems like an extremely poor trade.
Seriously, Paladin? How can you know for sure you will get Cardotron as an opponent? If Cardotron is, say, at 1400 rating, it is still possible to get 1100-rated opponents even with AI on and you know that. I don't know about others but I've been currently winning 85-90% of my games against human players so in no way has it been Cardotron who I've taken my rating from.
I'm definitely not saying anyone's doing it, it's just a loophole I thought of! It can be done to a degree, especially if you play say 15 games in one day, as when you run out of opponents you haven't played yet, you get Cardotron much more readily. This probably didn't deserve posting as a new thread, though. I blame my work avoidance It's a shame that you, Stexe and I are in different timezones: it'd be nice to get some overlap in our games.
Hey, good point Paladin, but very little I can do about it with current infrastructure. Folks who aren't in guilds could be getting games against Cardotron and I would have no way of knowing.
I have suggested that players who aren't in guilds could give you a print screen with their week results. That would take care of the Cardotron issue and it would give you a certain way of knowing how many matches they have played. I mean, the season's rules say a player has to play 10 games a week, so you should have a ceratin way to corroborate this, without minding if they are in a guild or not, and not be guessing with the win streaks and stuff. And I definitely agree with the Cardotron thing. Many players have said that, due to their timezones, they tend to play against Cardotron more than other players. This is an example: http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/the-cardotron-killer.5212/ So, as what Paladin said it's true, I also agree that Cardotron games shouldn't count for the 10 a week. Selective queuing+facing Cardotron often offers a big advantage.
Oh, I thought it would be much simpler that the actual system you use now to try to calculate non guild-members players. I mean, when you explained it to me I instantly thought: "Wow, he does all this to know how many games some players have played in a week? What a mess!" Haha. I just say that a thing like that would give more transparency to the whole pvp season. Maybe for the next one!
Maybe! The work I do takes about 1 hour/week and doesn't require anything of anyone. On the other hand, asking people to send in their weekly results? Now I need a deadline for that; I can't release stats until I get all the relevant data from people; they could collect their screenshots at different times or even photoshop them; a ton of people wouldn't send in their data; I'd have to dig way deeper into the rankings to find people to reward; people would complain that I'm punishing non-guild-members; the list of downsides goes on...
Yeah, there are a lot of factors that I didn't take into account there. Also, I think that casual games appear in your results without any differences with ranked games, so that would be another thing in that list
