A Note On Delaying Losses

[onealexleft]

We've been seeing people talk about players that are intentionally not playing their turns when they are on the verge of a loss. While we can't keep people from doing that, maybe a bit more knowledge of what's going on in the ladder system will discourage some of it:

Delaying losses does have a long term detrimental effect on your ladder points due to the asynchronous nature of the game that most may not be aware of.

Take for example 10 games I'm actively playing. 4 of them I'm on the verge of losing, and 6 I'm on the verge of winning. To delay the losses I'll put the 4 games on hold and try to win the other 6. The result? I'll win those 6, boost my skill rating then take the losses. Now that the system sees me as a 'higher skilled player' my losses will be more severe points wise as opposed to taking the losses earlier. If had I lost the 4 games first then took the 6 wins there's a good chance my net gain would've been higher.

Our placement algorithm has been a bit too generous as of late and we'll be tweaking it over the next couple of days as well.