Semi-Randomized Ladder Challenges

I understand that tournaments are the priority at this moment; this is just me thinking out loud again.

Right now we’re able to move up ladders relatively quickly by picking the weakest opponents possible. (I admit that I have done this at least a couple times.) I don’t think there’s anything wrong with stronger players defeating weaker players to move up, but shouldn’t there be some kind of mechanism that gets people at least a little out of their comfort zone (throughout the entirety of the ladder rather than just at the top)?

What if you could only move up the ladder by issuing a challenge to someone randomly chosen from a range of potential opponents? (The magnitude of the aforementioned range should depend on how much higher up the ladder the challenger wants to go.)

My thinking is this: if you want to challenge someone at least N positions above you, then the range should be N positions wide. When N=1, there’s only one candidate - the person directly above you. When N=2, there are two candidates - the person two positions above you and the person three positions above you. This pattern could continue until N is equal to half of the number of currently challengeable opponents (e.g. if you are currently able to challenge anyone out of the 20 players above you, then N=10 would fix the range to the upper half of those 20). (Note: N could be even higher to help keep the average rank increase per match roughly the same as it is now.)

Anyways, I would welcome any kind kind of ladder challenge randomness regardless of how/when/if it gets implemented.

Well, you could randomize your own challenges by, say, by always choosing the 10th highest player that you are able to challenge.

It’s true that I challenge people that I think I have a chance of beating. It’s just no fun playing an even game against someone 13 stones stronger than me.

I was actually considering the opposite perspective when I wrote this. I was thinking about the people who get challenged more often due to their lower sitewide rank. Spreading the matches out (roughly) evenly amongst all of the ladder members is ideal in my opinion. (In fact, I recently challenged someone I knew hadn’t played in ages just to get them off a ladder; it’s absurd that the player was still on the ladder after such a length of time.)

[quote=“Jamada, post:3, topic:1650, full:true”](In fact, I recently challenged someone I knew hadn’t played in ages just to get them off a ladder; it’s absurd that the player was still on the ladder after such a length of time.)
[/quote]

That’s an act of public service. Good for you :smile: