Ladder challenge idea | Voters

Ladder challenge idea

planned

Nick Thorpe (denixuk)

How about requiring users to play a match against someone below them on the ladder to earn an upward challenge (except when first joining). I'd like to see the challenge icon next to everyone on the list!

November 30, 2022

Backgammon Hub Admin

marked this post as

planned

Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer]

Hi Nick Thorpe (denixuk), funnily enough I was thinking something similar last night - it would be nice to be able to challenge people below you.
How should it work though - if I challenge someone below me and they win, should they leapfrog me as if they'd made the challenge. Or is it more of a friendly? I think if it's the former, there is a risk that players with the higher PR are going to get lots of requests, because players will want to minimise their risk of losing. And these players might be the least keen to respond.
I like the idea in principle but there are some details to work out. I'd like to come up with a solution that encourages the upper half of the ladder to engage with the lower half, as it is much less active.

Nick Thorpe (denixuk)

Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer]: Yes, I think they should leapfrog, that would make the ladder more interesting and dynamic. You could make it so players can only receive one "downwards" challenge at any time. Those with the lower PRs can always challenge upwards anyway. Also you could implement automatically moving anyone down 1 place if they haven't played a match in a week (so if I go on holiday I might lose a couple of places but nothing significant).

Nick Thorpe (denixuk)

Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer]: Hi Alfie, any more thoughts on this? Do you think it is too complex to implement and check that someone has challenged (and then actually played) a lower rank? Is there a danger someone would create a "fake" low-ranked account to meet the requirement? I think there should be no limit on the number of challenges someone can make to players below them. It is a bit annoying when it is not possible to challenge anyone on the ladder at all, because all the players above have maximum challenges.

Alfie Kirkpatrick [Developer]

Nick Thorpe (denixuk): I hope to have a look at this over the Christmas break. I think in the first instance I'll just allow players to challenge anyone below them in the ladder and it'll behave like a regular match. And we'll tweak this based on feedback.