A skirmish ladder where a new rank is protected for a few games
Rank points go up with wins and down with losses, and a player who just reached the next league drops straight back after one bad evening. That feels terrible and teaches people to stop playing. This entry shows how promotion carries its surplus, how a short shield works, and what happens at the bottom and the top of the ladder.
Why this works
A newcomer to a league is the least sure of belonging there, so one bad night says little about them. Short protection gives time to find their feet, and carrying the surplus over means a big win is never wasted. Nobody should quit over bad luck.
When not to use it
Skip it in a serious ranked mode where the rank must show true skill right now, or where players could farm the protection. There, protect with a visible rank that moves slowly, not with a shield that hides results.
In the full entry
- What to build, step by step
- Starting values and the reason for each
- 4 common mistakes and the fix
- A diagram of every state
- 26 lines of example code with 4 checks that pass
- How your AI shows you that it works
Say this to your AI
Use the Spielerando entry "A skirmish ladder where a new rank is protected for a few games" (read_entry ladder-promotion-with-a-shield-against-immediate-demotion) in my game. Build it step by step, and show me how you checked that it works.Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP