That third bullet point used to work on old OGS. But I agree it no longer (for 10 years!?) does: I just tested by joining the main 19x19 ladder with my 9d account so top ranked player but was unable to challenge position 6 or even 100.
4 Likes
I think we can remove it from the wiki so 
(Edit: done)
Such a strong account for testing 
4 Likes
Or can we keep it in the docs and get a bug ticket to fix the logic to reinstate it. I think it’s a good rule.
It still exists here Ladders which is probably where it was copied and pasted from, and in this thread, and the github revision history for the wiki.
I’m ambivalent about whether it’s a good rule honestly.
It would probably be better to just kick inactive players from the ladder than need another way to challenge higher for example.
1 Like
I hadn’t thought about staying in the ladder after I lost interest in it, clogging the ladder. I will cancel my participation. How about adding a notice when someone becomes in active, offering them the chance to withdraw from the ladder? After a month of inactivity, or maybe a few months? Oh, never mind, I see I was removed automatically. Stupid me again.
1 Like
Currently there isn’t any auto remove, except from timing out of games. There are players that challenge inactive players in order to move up the ladder quickly. Once they timeout of that game, they get removed.
You could also choose to only eject players that are completely inactive on the site as opposed to just the ladder.
1 Like
Sounds like very inconsistent mechanics.
Move up should happen if you are better at Go, not if you are better at investigating profile pages.
And those who time-outed, if they return, may blame you for dropping out. OGS should protect users from such blame. OGS should remove all inactive users automatically instead of by using active users.
Just ping everyone who is in Ladder, not on vacation and was not on site for a month. If they don’t click “I’m still here” button for a week, drop them out of a ladder.
1 Like
That might even be feasible as a way to do it. There could be something to it anyway.
Does that mean that everyone who plays on third-party apps are going to be kicked out of the ladder after a week?
5 Likes
I believe most mechanisms to detect user presence work with 3p apps. (usually something to do with connecting on the socket, which 3p apps use for live games and chat)
Personally, I think the thing should be tied to the ladder though. Like “made a move in a game from this ladder in the last month”.
Edit: also… welcome back!
3 Likes
I’ve wondered in the past about an auto-challenge feature, which would help players that want to be in ladders to stay active, and would also naturally clean out inactive players that have become inactive.
The idea is: when a player finishes their last active game in a ladder (or last game where they are the challenger… either would be easy to implement), the server automatically starts a new challenge on their behalf.
It could just be “start a random game that’s a valid challenge”. We could add heuristics for finding a “good” match (far ahead, easy win, etc.), but different players will have different preferences… random is simple. And if a player really cares they can make an extra challenge or two themselves.
The timing of “when the last active game in a ladder ends” would be easy to implement server-side. The server can use “a ladder game just finished” as a trigger to check if each player is (a) still in the ladder and (b) out of games, and start a new one if so. No need for some new zombie cleanup routine.
EDIT: As an enhancement (maybe implemented as a 2nd step), we could add a per-user preference to auto-challenge more frequently. By default server auto-challenges when user’s last active game in a ladder ends (minimal ladder participation: always be involved in at least one game). But a user can choose to auto-start when there are fewer than 1/2/3 games where they are the challenger.
5 Likes
I’ve played such auto-ladders on littlegolem and liked it a lot. It nicely solves my dilemma of deciding if I should go for easy wins or rather seek a challenge. With an automatic system you get a nice mixture and never have to feel guilty!
3 Likes
There is another problem: if you never challenge anyone, with high probability no one would challenge you for a year. There are a lot of those who just join the Ladder and do nothing. But, they still move up, because users above drop out and new users join Ladder below them. I just seen user who moved from around 2800 to around 980 in just 2 years while having only 1 game which they cancelled.
2 Likes
With forced auto-challenge for those who do nothing for a month, all problems would be solved:
those who wish to choose opponents, still would have ability and time to do it
everyone would be active, those who are not, would drop out in less than 1 month and 4 days
if you cancel everything, you move down, not move up like now
Implementation is more complex with zombie collection (e.g. idle for one month). Harder to make it efficient and correct.
Also a bit less predictable for users since it’s not clear when the auto-challenges will happen. Continuous playing is easier to reason about.
The “someone joins without challenging” problem is simple to solve. Just auto-start a game immediately when someone joins a ladder to get them playing right away. They still have two challenge slots they can be choosy about.
For those that want to pick their first opponent, it wouldn’t be hard to add an interface for non-ladder members to “join and challenge” someone with one click.
2 Likes
This. I suspect quite a few people join the later not really knowing what it does and they see that nothing happens and move on to something else. With the auto challenge thing they will start a game right away and either play or freak out and cancel I guess. Might need to ask new joiners who do this if they also want my to drop out of the ladder. Otherwise with the auto challenge system they will find themselves in a doom loop of constant random new games!
For a Christmas surprise: with the new automatch thing, if someone uses correspondence automatch then join them to the relevant ladder and autochallenge from there!
forced auto-challenge only for those who have 0 active ladder games now. If you already have ongoing challenge from someone below, forced auto-challenge will not happen. So you never have 2 or more automatically started challenges at the same time. You will have more than 1 game only if you challenge someone on purpose or if someone challenge you on purpose. 2 users can’t automatically challenge 1 same user.
in other words: if you are active yourself, and challenge next before end of previous game each time, you will be able to play 0 automatically started games in ladder.
auto-pairing should happen only between those who both have 0 ongoing ladder games
active users should be free from being forced to be paired automatically
and those who paired only automatically should be free from too many games and have 1 game only to not get tired
I don’t think I agree.
If you’re in a ladder, you should be ready to receive challenges from those below you (up to the limit, which is between 3 and 5, depending on your ladder position). How does it affect you whether the challenger clicks the “challenge” button vs. lets the system do it for them?
Also, that could prevent the auto-challenge from creating matches for an idle user, even though there is a valid match to be made.
For being challenged side yes, you have to be ready. But not for challenging as you can chose according to your own wishes.
I do like this side of the ladder in which you can customize what kind of games you are searching. So I think it’s better to limit some automatch feature to players who don’t play at all.
1 Like