Official Ladder game rule book

The ladder game is a rating system developped to keep track of official duels arranged between players.

Goal: The goal of the game is to maintain the highest rating of all participants at the end of the season, and possibly to win in a playoff competition to be crowned the World Champion of the league!

Here are the rules:

1. This game is point based. Each participant has a number of points, and this number fluctuates depending on the outcome of the battles participated. Each participant begins the game with 1000 points. After each battle, the rating increases for a win and decreases for a loss.
   
2. The formula used to calculate the change of rating is as follow:

Also note that the points gain of the winner is the same as the points loss of the loser. It can be seen that this formula takes into account the relative strength of the participants involved, and gives a fair distribution of points depending on the battle.

For example, two battlers with rating 1000 will lose or gain 50 points, since the ratio of their rating is 1.0. This can symbolically be denoted as the odds of the battle, 50:50. If a person with rating 2000 fights a person with rating 1000, the odds become 88:11, meaning the person of rating 2000 only gains a mere 11 pts if s/he wins. However if the 1000 pts person upsets, s/he gains a big 88 pts.

People can arrange a battle in any way they want. In other words, they can use any mean to unofficially conclude a battle. To make it official however, one must challenge other(s) in an official "Challenge" thread. The challenged must then accept or decline the invitation.

After a battle is engaged, a UBR (referee) must approve of the battle and confirm submission dates. Afterwards, the public vote is initiated.

The players may agree on special terms. For example, they may agree to battle on a special theme. The details of these special conditions must be clearly outlined in the official Challenge thread and be approved by both parties. A challenge thread expires after it's unanswered for one week.

By default, a battle is two weeks long and is based on the 'Overall' theme under anonymous public vote, using the rating formula pescribed above.

A battler can only participate in one battle at a time and there is a limit of one battle per week per battler. If a battler is inactive for two months or more, s/he is disqualified.

A battler can enter the league at any time, and start with the rating of 1000. If a player removes him/herself from the league and decides to rejoin, s/he must wait 2 months after s/he first left.

Here is the format of the Challenge thread:

Subject of the thread: [LADDER] (underdog's name) challenges (favourite's name)

Message body:

Insert miscellaneous comments (battle taunts, etc...)
At the end, SPECIFY the special conditions of the game, if any. List them in a numbered format, ex:
1. Theme is speed.
2. 1 week deadline.
3. ....

Challenged's reply:

The challenged can accept or decline, and then must accept or decline one or several special conditions specified. The challenged can also reply with its own conditions. The challenger must then negotiate the conditions under an agreement is met. If there is no agreement, the battle is DEFAULT or CANCELED.

Challenge title legend:

[LADDER] : Challenge issued.
[LADDER-A]: Accepted, in progress / videos received (vote pending)
[LADDER-P]: Battle completed, public voting taking place
[LADDER-X]: Battle judged
[LADDER-C]: Battle canceled

No video penalty:

If you don't turn in your video, it is considered a forfeit and a loss for you.

If you don't turn in a video for two (2) consecutive battles, you suffer a penalty which amounts to 10% of your ranking (i.e. if your ranking is 1000, you lose 100 points). This penalty is LOST and will not be added to your opponent for that battle. This is in addition to the rating lost for forfeiting the battle.

If you don't turn in a video for three (3) consecutive battles, you will be kicked out of the ladder. You will be able to rejoin after two (2) months.

The penalties apply even when both battlers have not submitted anything.

As this is still in testing, some rules are subject to changes.

SEND YOUR VIDEOS TO FLIP BY PM, INCLUDE YOUR BREAKDOWN (optional). WHEN YOU SEND YOUR VIDEO, PLEASE WRITE AS TITLE: [LADDER] "YOUR NAME" VS "OPPONENT'S NAME".

VIDEO MUST BE IN A STREAMING FORMAT (YOUTUBE, PUTFILE).

Removed the "underdog" requirement for challenges. It's just pointless.

Added some more guidelines for sending emails. Some people send their email without specifying who they are and their email address sounds like they are selling viagra or something.

added explainations on what the title [LADDER] means (LADDER-X, LADDER-C, etc..)

DON'T SEND TO ME, SEND TO FLIP. FLIP IS THE ONE TAKING CARE OF THE LADDER.

Don't send videos late. If you're 1 second late, I don't care, a deadline is a limit, not a target to aim for. SO DON'T BE LATE!

And if you both fail to hand in a video, the result will be a tie. Therefore, the higher ranked player will suffer. SO HAND THEM IN!

we have implemented a penalty system for people who don't submit videos.

If you don't submit once, it's just a forfeit and loss of points.

If you don't submit twice in a row, you lose 10% of your current rating.

If you don't submit thrice in a row, you're kicked out of the ladder.

You can no longer have double/triple points on a challenge (up the stakes) because it makes it too easy to battle easy spinners on such challengers to gain points.

You can battle as often as you like, as long as you wait until you current battle is finished before accepting another one. Old rules stated max 1 battle/2 weeks, but I can see a lot of people want to battle more often than this and see no reason why not.

I think we should keep the maximum limit otherwise it's gonna get out of control and ppl will try to battle as much as possible (possibly 5-6 times a day) in order to rack last minute points when we're closing in on the season deadline.

it also gives a fair chance to ppl who can't battle that much to stay on top of the ranking. It's still a competition of skill, not of "who can battle the most"

The rules have been somewhat tweaked in the last few days guys. It also seems some people have not read them at all. I suggest you take a quick read, it only takes a minute or two. If someone constantly minorly infracts rules because they haven't read them, it just becomes annoying, tiresome and time-wasting, so please take a minute to look over them guys.

we've settled to having a limit of 1 battle/week now, instead of 1battle/2week