Leagues with not enough players

[Chris]

Players fight in leagues, the better/older goes to the upper leagues, the worse to lower.
Focus especially on degenerated situations (like not enough players), the solution should work all the time regardless of number of players, people quitting the game (so league can become emptier in the middle for not gameplay caused reason), etc.

I assume that there are +/- 10 players minimum needed per league (maximum is irrelevant). Everyone starts in league #1 (the lower the worse, so league #100 would keep higher level players than #1). There is exactly one league at the beginning (league #1) and further leagues are auto created as needed by the game.

The league system is best to be as general as possible, but for the purpose of the discussion we could assume that it is an arena gladiator match game.

How such thing could be implemented?


My solution (full of holes to fill...):
- everyone is set to league 1 at the beginning
- if there are mimimum 20 players then league #2 is created and the league system starts to work
- after each set of fights to 10% players are moved to higher league, bottom 10% players are moved to lower league (but no lower than #1)
- if the upper league has less than 10 players then minimum 10 players are promoted to that league even if they do not fit into top 10% winners (what if there is not enough of them and the bottom 10% losers would be required to be promoted as well?)
- each time there is more than 30 players per league, a new league is created (would not it cause moving inactives form the #1 to upper leagues?), then immediately top 10 players from ALL leagues are promoted.

[133794m3r]

- if the upper league has less than 10 players then minimum 10 players are promoted to that league even if they do not fit into top 10% winners (what if there is not enough of them and the bottom 10% losers would be required to be promoted as well?) Well if you have a group of 10 people in the league, then how could the bottom 10% be promoted?

That'd only be 1 person. And each league has to have atleast 10 people in it. So that means that for ANYONE to advance the league has to have at least that many people. And to your thing about the bottom 10% moving up. Well honestly if a league has only 10 people, there's no way that you'd just auto-move them up. And if they did then so be it i say. Since honestly if there's 1 person in league #5. And there's 9 people in league #4, then i'd move up all 9 of those people up to league #5. Or you could put that guy down in league #4. The other option is that you can make it so that the guy in league #5 is at a stalemate until one league has 30 players.

- each time there is more than 30 players per league, a new league is created (would not it cause moving inactives form the #1 to upper leagues?), then immediately top 10 players from ALL leagues are promoted.
Well personally, i'd set something on there to prevent inactives from advancing some bool. It'd make it so that you'd not have to move them up since your query would only do those who aren't inactive. Those who are inactive aren't allowed to move up. It'd be simple.

[Chris]

No one knows/is making a league game? Post if you have idea how league rules should work (can be completely different than those in the first post).

[Topazan]

It might help if you clarified why you want leagues.  Why can't you just have every player in the same 'league'?

If your goal is to keep powerful and weaker players separate, how about a straight up ladder?  Assign each player a score based on their win/loss record.  Rank them from best to worst, and make it so that they can only challenge the five players below them and the five players above them.

I'm just guessing at what you're trying to accomplish, but I think that would do the job of segregating strong and weak players.  It might be a little difficult if the matches involve teams though.  It could be done, but it might be complicated.  You might have to pick one player to be the 'center', and only let his range of opponents participate..

[Hawkins]

perhaps you could do a reset where all the players ar randomly put in different leagues and cannot change or leave? I know it may seem stupid but its worth a try

[Chris]

It might help if you clarified why you want leagues.  Why can't you just have every player in the same 'league'?

It took me a year to think of an answer for this

1) Flavour - in games like sport or arena fighting games leagues are not the mean but the goal. In short "there have to be leagues because this is a game about leagues, not because these are needed for anything". This alone is a sufficient purpose.

2) Separation of players - leagues are still good means of dividing players by power, althrough ladder seem better for most cases leagues have its benefits too, like stability and "getting used to your opponents". If league is small enough and the promotion to upper one is delayed long enough it might give additional strategic options (like decision to stay in a lower league for a longer while by losing on purpose, or saving healing potions till you get to higher league, also adjusting your short term tactics/composition of assets to the current league opponents).


I worry the most what to do in degenerated cases (1 player in a league) or how to prevent these cases.

[dbest]

If I understand you correctly, this is what would work for you.

Most of the sports based I have played have a fixed number of spots in each league. And mostly they have a pyramid style of leagues. For example: League 1 has 1 division while there are 2 divisions at League 2. Each of the divisions has 8 fixed teams/spots. If there are no users, then the teams/spots are managed as 'bots' or NPCs.
There are plenty of divisions based on user size and if no spots are available, then a waiting list is maintained.