The main issues currently, to add to Zeckar’s post:
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There is no way to Search the ladder - this is annoying for the average user, but people running events can eyeball it, or they have other ways of Searching already.
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The biggest destructive factor right now, is that the ladder doesn’t extend beyond 100 players. If you are not in the Top 100, you do not exist. If you are on Softcore currently, but have not pushed over 300 waves, you do not exist.
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This means, the longer a Patch goes, the more difficult it becomes to place in events, AND the more unwelcoming it becomes to new players, because you are expected to push high waves in order for your time investment to even be recognized.
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Mastery-Focused events aren’t possible - We can’t do a Necro focused event, and then also a Lich focused event the week after, because this fills the ladder. The subsequent event will become tougher to place.
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Since we are not able to separate events into different Masteries, a spotlight is put on class and skill imbalances. Forcing Bladedancers to compete against Marksmen. Constant restrictions are needed to artificially balance and this becomes a frustration to participants.
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With the previous Ladder, I was able to filter my events using a tag in the Search bar, and pull a list of every participant, even those that had not placed in the Top 100.
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We are not able to do community Races - if you are not in the Top 100, you do not exist, so until you are pushing waves and meet a certain threshold, you can’t compete against others or see your competition.
So, next let’s assume that the database is expanded to include more than 100 Players, there are more issues:
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The ladder does not sort by Level, it sorts by Arena Wave only.
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This means, that if you are a level 2, there is a chance that you will accidentally place higher on the Ladder than for example a Level 78 with 0 Waves.
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This also damages our ability to do races - You can’t watch a group of players start fresh and watch the placements change in real time - You would see random players getting bumped all over the ladder with no actual sorting until they have Arena Waves.
There are more issues beyond just this though:
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A character that dies in Hardcore, can continue pushing and updating their Rank on the Hardcore ladder.
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Also, a character with the exact same name shares the same Shards, Gold, Stash as the previous character. So, in a Solo Hardcore event if your character dies, you can delete and recreate and start with a Stash full of Uniques and gold, getting a free advantage.
I see that there is a lot of focus here on Cheaters, they are currently the least concern in regards to Community Events.
It looks horrible, don’t get me wrong, but those of us running events are able to ignore them. The one way that they do affect us though, is by taking up space away from legitimate players. We are limited to 100 Ranks - and this is most punishing to New Players, looking to be involved and take part and interact - because they are forced to meet more and more difficult requirements for their time investment to even be recognized thanks to the 100 Player Limit and lack of Level Sorting.
