Hello!!! I have been really enjoying playing in the site ladders. Getting live games has been harder and harder, and even when you get them they can feel quite yolo. The correspondence games have really upped the quality of my games. That said, they are really slow some times…
I like almost everything about the current setup, but I think a faster option should be standardized. And I feel it would be fairly easy to implement. What I’m thinking is a “19x19 fast correspondence site ladder”. The time controls could be completely the same as the normal ladder except give ~12-14 hours per move instead of the 24. This wouldn’t even require you to play two moves a day if your opponent is taking their time responding, because of how the clock works… And the main time cushion +conditional moves should make it fairly easy to add in those extra move at your convenience.
Considering other groups and comments I have seen, I think this is something many people would like. And I believe setting it up as a site ladder would really really help support the format a lot, and help many people get the games they are looking for!
Thanks for hearing me out! Hope this is the right place to put this.
I appreciate everyone’s comments, and agree that custom timers would be cool for group ladders, but I feel I should point out it isn’t exactly the topic of my post… I think standard options would really help game quality. I am no expert, but something like
Normal:
7 days max, +24h per move
(0-1 move a day average, ~6 month commitment)
Fast:
8 days max, +12h per move
(1-2 moves a day average, ~4 month commitment)
Blitz:
10 days max, +8h per move
(1-3 moves a day average, ~2 month commitment)
I believe the higher max time is important for faster time controls to allow players to still have control of when they can play, and reduce timeouts because of life events. Lower max is important for slow controls so players don’t just ignore/forget the game.
Lastly, while I am here giving suggestions, I also think a half handicap option would be cool for group ladders. Full handicap would make a ladder pretty chaotic and almost pointless but half would still allow some balance/tension between players of differing ranks, which could be nice for the smaller size community group ladders. And I think it’s generally underemphasized how good just a few handicap stones can be for learning and exploring the game.
Why do we only have 3 sitewide ladders? Can’t we at least try some “fast ladder” as the 4th alternative and see if it becomes popular? I’d assume coding would be quite simple ‘copypaste with few tweaks’ type of thing?
