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Elo
Aug 15, 2013 14:43:10 GMT -8
Post by Agent Syrup on Aug 15, 2013 14:43:10 GMT -8
Some people (usually when they are talking to GGFan) say that the OU ladder doesn't mean much. So why is that? Do you think the ladder is indication of strength or not?
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Elo
Aug 15, 2013 15:53:55 GMT -8
Post by jorgen on Aug 15, 2013 15:53:55 GMT -8
I wouldn't say it's worthless; if you can consistently bring alts to the top of the ladder, it's an indicator of the fact that you're a pretty good player. But it's hard to use that as a measure of GOAT or anything because it's tournaments (particularly larger tournaments) where a good number of the really good RBY players show up. Ladder, on the other hand, is populated by garbage players and maybe a select few good people against whom you're playing a totally different sort of game because you play them so much.
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Elo
Aug 15, 2013 17:21:05 GMT -8
Post by GGFan on Aug 15, 2013 17:21:05 GMT -8
It doesn't mean much after you realized that you couldn't reach #1 while I played (and probably when I didn't), not when people talk to me. People who talk to me on PO respect me, ask me for advice, and consider me one of its most valuable commodities due to my experience and hundreds of tournament wins.
If you beat somebody, it doesn't matter where you do it. People have a propensity to use tournaments as the measuring stick because, until we had the ladder, there was no other tangible evidence of one's success. RBY is an exception because most of the relevant playerbase populates the ladder, and tournaments are few and far between anyway. Hiding on Smogon and playing in one or two tournaments a year because they're "big" doesn't make you great.
We also have to remember that tournaments are a small sample size--and this is coming from somebody who has won more tournaments than every registered member of this forum combined, which include the biggest RBY tournaments of 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2007. This especially applies to RBY, where luck often plays too big of a role. Consistency is what matters the most.
Edit: There's also the fact that several people on the ladder are probably alts of well-known people who are afraid of losing.
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Isa
Member
FOREVER SECOND
Posts: 1,479
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Elo
Aug 15, 2013 21:39:31 GMT -8
Post by Isa on Aug 15, 2013 21:39:31 GMT -8
I think the ladder is a decent indication of skill up until a certain point - at the top it can often become a grindfest. Who can play the most games against poor players without getting haxed and lose 30 points? However, until you're at the top, I think the ladder is decent. Most importantly though is the fact that it lets you play games with ease, not that you get a rank of how good you are.
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Elo
Aug 16, 2013 17:11:44 GMT -8
Post by lilith on Aug 16, 2013 17:11:44 GMT -8
I think the ladder is a decent indication of skill up until a certain point - at the top it can often become a grindfest. Who can play the most games against poor players without getting haxed and lose 30 points? However, until you're at the top, I think the ladder is decent. Most importantly though is the fact that it lets you play games with ease, not that you get a rank of how good you are. i feel like this is pretty accurate - it seems like the PO ladder rewards beating randoms 100-0 more than it rewards beating similarly-skilled players 60-40 (to the point where it's like a mistake to take any risks and instead just waiting for your opponent to make 10 mistakes even though you'd lose if they didn't make those mistakes if that makes any sense), and that seems a bit off to me i feel like playing for elo actively made me worse and moar patterny and it showed when i played games against experienced players...
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Isa
Member
FOREVER SECOND
Posts: 1,479
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Elo
Aug 16, 2013 23:38:33 GMT -8
Post by Isa on Aug 16, 2013 23:38:33 GMT -8
There's more than one way to beat poor players. I have started to ladder a bit in order to keep my skills fresh, and I don't think that I play (or at least think) differently when I play poor players in comparison to how I play and think when I face better ones. It's still prediction and evaluation involved, it's just easier to make the predictions since poor players tend to leave very obvious patterns (attack what's in front of you).
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Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Elo
Aug 17, 2013 7:03:54 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Aug 17, 2013 7:03:54 GMT -8
Ladder is definitely a test of skill, it's just that your rank doesn't necessarily reflect your ability.
I can normally tell the people who don't ladder much. They often think only tournaments matter skill-wise, and rate niche pokemon, usually lower OUs.
What people don't understand is that laddering and tournament require different skills. When you're playing sets, it's better to have multiple teams, so you can counter their teams. It's also normally better to play defensive and make more generic switches game 1 so you can work out their switch pattens, thought processes etc.
When you ladder however, most of that goes out the window. It's better to master one specific team, with a composition and strategy that can consistently get wins if you outplay your opponent.
That's why often non-ladderers rate niche pokemon. It's because they don't need to have a more advanced team strategy with consistent pokemon, because they normally chop and change a lot.
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