October Discussion of the Month: Battle.Net Wishlist

[BirdofPrey]

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb169/ghostbirdofprey/ODotM.gif

As you might have noticed October is here. That means the next discussion of the month is here. This month, Karune is asking for our thoughts on the current Battle.Net system and ways to improve it. Blizzard is also taking feature suggestions.

Incase you want to talk about Battle.Net on Battle.Net here is the official thread
http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=sc2-general&t=41975&p=1&#post41975

Of course you can leave your suggestions here and one of the higher-ups will compile a list and send it to Blizzard. Either way your voice is heard so get to brainstorming.

[quote]Thank you to all those who have participated in last months discussion about the Protoss Mothership. It was a fierce debate over what the community felt about the Mothership being unique or no unique. I will relay feedback from both the Battle.net and Fan Site Community to the Dev Team and give you an update later in the month.

October Discussion Topic: StarCraft IIs Battle.net Features and Wishlist
As our Dev Team works hard on StarCraft II, so is our Battle.net team, in creating an online experience that will achieve the same pioneering spirit of the original Battle.net, as well as evolve the StarCraft II Community in refreshing and innovative ways. One of many new features that have been included in Battle.net is voice chat, providing better communication for more precise attacks and counterattacks with your teammates. Tell Blizzard what else you would like to see!
If you have a StarCraft II fan site and would like to participate, please email me at Karune@blizzard.com.

Battle.net Questions for Fans:

* What did you love about the original Battle.net?
* How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?
* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

* Additional Feedback you would like to give

Each StarCraft II fansite will be featuring different types of questions, so be sure to also visit those sites. All of this feedback will be compiled and sent to the dev team and I.

Please structure feedback as follows:

-----

<question you'd like to answer>
<your answer>

<question you'd like to answer>
<your answer>

-----

Looking forward to some great discussions and requests for Battle.net.

[BirdofPrey]

I hope Battle Net gets integrated voice chat since it is so helpfull in team games.

Also I hate having to type in system commands (/msg) to send messages. I think a true friends list button interface is necessary. Also it should be integrated with X-Fire in the same way some games are integrated with Gamespy

[IO]

What did you love about the original Battle.net?
The oringal was a very good system and helped many of us easily find and play matchs with friends or other players from around the world.

What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

An ability to see the map before joining a game (while in the main lobby). Also another interesting ability would be to allow us to make our own tournaments from time to time on a special server.

Among these i highly recommend that battle.net could be included with some form of a user commentary function where players could upload commentaries of matchs (that reminds me an observer function should also be included in multiplay) that they have observed and post them directly on to battle.net.

note: I know the thing about the replay commentaries may be alittle complex for a multiplayer service but it would add much more content to battle.net and may be a rather interesting thing to see happen.

[BirdofPrey]

The rumors are just paranoid people. It would not be economical viable for Blizzard to impose a fee because they would lose more money from people not buying the game. The cost to run those servers is low enough that they can make enough money from game sales to support it. Besides RPGs like Diablo 2 use more server power so it would be more likely for D3 to be pay to play than SC2 since RTS games are almost completely client side

[Shadow Templar]

I really like the friend tab in WCIII, it made it so much easier to find out about my friends. However, I do wish they kept the feature from D2 that lets you add an account and it follows all characters in that account. Also, I would like a separate tab for friends and one for others. That way i can see if someone for a rematch is on but not have it bother me in game displaying messages I don't care about.

[Quanta]

* What did you love about the original Battle.net?

I guess that depends on what you mean by the original Bnet. I never played WC2 over the internet since it got SC at the same time and I never felt there was a point so I never saw the original Bnet. However, I did play SC on Bnet, as well as WC3 and D1 & D2. Overall, the thing I liked most was the ease at which Bnet was navigatable.

In SC, all one had to do was go to the find game section, select your filter and off you were. If you were looking for a UMS game, there was no fuss. If you wanted TvB it as simple. Another feature I liked were the built in chat rooms. It made it easy to arrange things with friends or even with strangers.

In WC3 I liked the automatic skill matching system for the normal game. The profile stuff was alright to. The thing I most like about it though was the completely seperate section for custom games. To be honest, I didn't like the normal game of WC3 as much as I liked SC but the custom games in WC3 were great. I loved alot of the classic UMS games from SC but there were so many more things that you could do with WC3's editor that you couldn't wiht SC's.

* How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?

To me, Bnet raised the bar on all the other services. So many games have very generic and bland multiplary services. They are alright. A list of servers and some filters and maybe a favorites list is all you really need but compared to all the extra stuff that Bnet offered it just seems lacking. Bnet just gives a more fullfilling gaming experience.

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

There are plenty of very basic things that could be added. It would be difficult for me to list or even think of them all so I'll leave that to others. There is one specific area that I want improvement on. That is the area of custom/UMS games.

The biggest thing I would like to be able to do is have very indepth and very customizable filters. This is difficult since the content is user generated but I think it is one of the areas that has a great deal of room for improvement. In WC3 for example, there are some custom games that I don't like or that I am tired of, namely DOTA. If I had a way to filter out all the DOTA maps in WC3, that alone would make me feel that Bnet had been greatly improved. Filtering out something like DOTA would not ba as simple as selecting a item from a drop down menu saying it, though that would be nice. To do it, I think you'd have to set up a system to allow a user to customize a large number of filters. For example, there should be filters to select out specific maps, or classes of maps. As in filtering all maps with certain key words in their file names would be a nice way of doing this. Another way would be to filter out specific authors. To me, the ability to filter out specific maps is more important than the ability to specify specific maps to include in the list. This is simply because, there are maps that I almost never like to play but there are many more maps that I do like to play and if I am feeling in the mood to play one type of map but can't find it and see something else I like alot, I am not usually disappointed.

Another thing I would like to see is the ability to see what maps are currently being played. This is would be helpful for many reasons. First, alot of the time, a single person may host a map repeatedly over several hours. If I for some reason miss the cycle of the game being played. Say, I have to leave for a while, the game ends and a new game begins before I return, it would be nice to check on that game from time to time and see if I can catch the next cycle. There are also more general purposes for being able to see what games are being played. It may be just to see if a certain game I like is being played very much so I can know whether to expect it to be hosted again any time soon, or there may be one of dozens of other possible reasons why I'd like to see a list of games currently being played.

So to summarize

1: I'd like the filtration system for custom games vastly improved. Increase the depth and customizability of the filters and specifically make it easy to filter out certain maps.

2. Allow users to view a list of games currently being played . There are a number of reasons why this would be helpful.


* Additional Feedback you would like to give

None

[Trooper34]

the current bnet is good but maybe some improvements could be helpful. Maybe make it so that custom games have there own set of wins and losses. such as risk or diplo. but the voice chat would be good. and yeah maybe integrating it with xfire would be userfriendly. but overall bnet was a good system. so keep it the way it is with maybe a few changes here and there.

[10-Neon]

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

I would like to be able to add a description to a game- not part of the name, but viewable when it is selected.
That way, the host can put the more notable stuff in the main title, and details, rules, etc, that won't fit/aren't critical, in the the description.

Game Title: 3v3 No Mercy!
Description: 3v3 On the sweetest map ever! May do 2v2 if we don't get 6.
...


--I would like to see a "history" list of games played. This list should include all of the information that would be available before a game as well as information on how players ended it. For example, I played a game with a bunch of friends a while ago, but died early on, Thulium's really good, so he's been holding the other two off for quite a while:

Game Title: 3v3 No Mercy!
Description: 3v3 On the sweetest map ever! May do 2v2 if we don't get 6.
Game Type: Top vs Bottom
Status: Active
Host: 10-Neon
Map: Nova Platform
Players:
10-Neon (Defeated)
69-Thulium (In Game)
11-Sodium (In Game)
17-Chlorine (In Game)
Duration: 18:24 (Active)

I'd prefer to see just a list of game titles, and be able to click on them to expand the list fully, over having a list of lists.


--Map preview viewable from the game list.

[DontHate]

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

Well, i think battle.net is pretty good as it is, but there are some minor things I want added. First of all, the ability to search for games while still in chat. This isn't in SC1 or WC3 but it is in D2. It just simplifies things a bit.

[ShasOkais]

The main thing I loved about Battlenet is that it is wicked fast. You can connect online, settle into several lobbies and join (and start) several games all pretty damn quick- probably all less than 2 minutes (short games you just want to check out and leave).
Compared to other games, just about everyone can con easily. If not the bad connector won't be able to join a game and will never hold up the rest of the gang.

[BinaryBanshee]

* Additional Feedback you would like to give

I never used battle.net enough to be able to comment on needed new features, however when I did use it the good features were very fast access and no monthly charges. If charges were introduced basic access should still remain free to preserve the community

[Darktemplar_L]

As of now, Battle.net if well designed. The latest update was about a year ago, adding the friends option. I think that was very smart. The create and join game should stay as well as the channel button.

Improve:
1) When somebody whispers to you, and you forget who, it's very annoying. Add a talk to last person who talked to you feature. Like: /T P Hi
T=talk P= previous

2) Of course, more friends. I hate it how when you need to add a friend in game, but the list is full. You press /f l but the list doesn't go up from about 1-15. Plus with people chatting. You should put like a feature that remembers a name for later use. like /S N Darktemplar_L
S=store N=Name

end of discussion for me.

[Lemmy]

Well I think that the old battle-net is cool cos it is simple. Just get in, select a category, and play.

I wanna keep it that way, simple. Intrincated crap usually ends up sucking.
The only improvement should be made for replays. At the time of a replay the player should have more info to order the replays, like number of players, game type, map, etc. All the rest is unnecesary.

Voice? Thats gonna take a lot of the connection, besides most people dont share a common language. Only game language like "go zerg expa". Things so short that need no voice chat.

[Trooper_Lozer]

As of now, i play starcraft multiplayer as my only gaming options. It is my favorite muliplay as it is easy to use, and as mentioned before, very fast. Out of all the games i have ever played it is the best. The filtering system is very easy to use, i like how you could join channels to chat with. Only thing i did not like is that to type to a specific friend you have to type /f (then their name). Most of the time i just typed in /f m because i am rather lazy. If you could make it easier, mayb assign friends numbers, so you can type in /f 4 , or something like that to talk to a specific person. Just a idea, and that is mostly for ingame play. I really like the idea of a voice chat system. That would really help alot in multiplayer missions, and would make it pretty kool and much faster. Now i know that this is just said to be false, but i would like to make this said to blizzard. If the their is a fee to online starcraft 2, i wont play online, but rather i would continue to play online starcraft 1 online. I use to play World of Warcraft, but i quit because i didnt want to keep on paying the monthly fee. So please, if at all possible, make it free. But other then that not much else i would like to make said. Great Job Blizzard! you have made me very happy. =)

[Wlck742]

Battle.net is functioning pretty well as of now. The only complaints I have is that of hackers. I'd like some better way to catch hackers and punishing them.

[moobox]

* What did you love about the original Battle.net?

-Simple and friendly user interface
-Filtering of servers by game type
-Chat and messaging ability

* How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?

-I have exclusively used Battle.net for playing the original Starcraft game as well as it's expansion for online play

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

-Improved chat lobby list (lobby name/description/active users)
-Ability to create permanent channel (if too much load/administration is needed, perhaps only clans/websites/supporters etc can be allowed permanent custom chat channel... request form?)
-Improved latency and ping information
-More in depth game filters (game type/not full/not empty/max players/host ping/text field for specific map)
-More information on games while in game browser ('Join' section) (number of players already joined and max players (in format such as "5/8"), host ping, maybe even list of all players in the game, elapsed time since game was created by host)
-Continuous lobby chat (when you play a game and come back to chat lobby the chat history is continuous)
-Improved buddy list with more features as well as improvements to options for customizing profile
-More in depth player stat information, ability to choose to keep stats and which kind of stats are viewable to public
-No additional cost other than purchase of game in ordered to use Battle.net

[WuHT]

1) in w3 .. if u were to type in a game name wrong (or join a game that doesnt' exist anymore) you basically get "stuck" for 10-20 seconds till b.net reports "game cannot be found". I'd like a quick "out" button that can cancel this b.net function instead of waiting for it to search the game out.

2) Loading times : It would be nice if we could see the progress of the OTHER players loading, instead of the "all-or-nothing" approach. Sometimes i might be able to fit in a small break to the washroom if it appears the load will be long or not. I dont' see a chat system during the load screen (wouldn't hurt though)

3) UMS : I understand taht b.net allows people to leave games during the countdown .. but it shoudl also give the host of the game some extra seconds to "unstart" the game if a someone leaves at "3" of the 5 second countdown so he doenst' have to rehost it.

4)Woudln't mind a bigger friendslist available. At first 25 (w3) seems a lot..but after a few years it fills up fast.

[Lenga]

* What did you love about the original Battle.net?
It was free and there were always many games on and it was userfriendly

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
voice chat
choosable colors
people with much lag will automaticale change to a lower resoultion(make the game in 2 graphical quality levels)
antihack
a moderator for the forums
loading bars for all players
a cancel button if someone leaves
players getting rplaced by AI if they leave

[Hito]

Question: If a player leaves the game while the countdown is started there is'nt much time for the host to cancel the countdown.
Answer: Extend the countdown when a player leaves. Or, cancel the countdown automatically.

Question: When joining a game that no longer exists you will get stuck for 5-15sec where you can do nothing but wait for the Bnet to check the game.
Answer: Give an option to cancel this check, hitting the ESC button is one solution.

Question: There are alot of Custom Maps out there. It's hard to sort them all out and find what you want.
Answer: Create a filter for custom maps. A filter could work like this; When you create a custom map in the World Editor you can chose to put it in a sertain premade category, for example: Tower Defense.

Question: I meet alot of nice people when I play, and I also have alot of friends, my friends list gets big and messy.
Answer: Make an extended friends list. One that is called Friends and one that is called Aqcuainted.
Make an option to put notes on your friends.

Question: My friend just entered a game. I want to join the same game but I usualy don't have time to enter the name of the game and then join before it gets full.
Answer: Give the ability to easy join the same game as your friends.

Question: When im in the "Game/Server Room" looking for what games to join. I dont know if a friend is writing to me, I can't see if they came online or what they are writing.
Answer: Make a small chat window in the "Game Room" where private messages can show up. Maybe also show the chat from the chat channel your in.

Question: In the loading screen you can't do much then just sit and wait for the game to start.
Answer: Put in some nice features like chatting while loading. Make people able to see who has finished loading and who's not.

Question: When I play I dont always have time to write to people in my team.
Answer: Add Voice Chat.


Deleted posts. Please read the forum rules and do not double post. Or triple.

[Hito]

Also, if the game would to change the players resolution and graphics it will take some time to reconfigure it all, and most likley force others to wait for his computer. Wich could cuse him to lose his connection.

[DE.50]

* What did you love about the original Battle.net?
I only really played WC3 online, but I think that it is really well structured. I like the leveling and matching system, and think that it is as close to perfect as Blizz can make it.

* How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?
It has been my only experience and a very good one at that.

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
I think a uniform, or sponsored voice chat should be available, an improvement on the in game and chat commands for easier use, and people who can't host games, but try, should be weeded out of the custom games section so that I don't click on them and waste 30 seconds of my life.

Feedback

Currently there are many 3rd-party systems out for use with bnet.
I would like to see more of these integrated into bnet itself, autorefresh and ping/latency check are the two I care most about.

[Alukard]

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?
i would like to have an automatic replay save that will end as soon as the game is won or lost, also would like to see more player map support, like lounges that can unswear quastions about map making and other stuff, basicly Bnet for noobs. and more updates then the first game, other then that its all been said.

[beBoy]

Q: What do I like in the battle.net in SC1?
A: It's simplicity and command-based interface.

Q: How has Battle.net played a role in your online multiplayer experience?
A: It has been a healthy community and I really met alot of players, which some of them become real-life friends despite living apart in different province in a country.

Q: What features would you like to see in Start IIs Battle.net?
A: tons, here's the list:

- Auto-Kick player by saving a ban-list with players' names in it and saved to the my profile.
- Friend List related:
- allow more than 25 friends
- allow assigning keyword to a friend, such as "dev" for #24 of the player in my friend list - Devin.
- allow using the keyword to p-m (private msg) that player such as /f dev hey wassup
- allow using some way to reply to last friend that sent a pm to me
- Better font or something to display letters I (cap i), l (lower case L) and | (shift + \) to make them distinguishable
- Often the time players do switch out SC to chat with friends on instant-messagings such as aim, msn, yahoo. It would be nice to have instant-messaging integration allowing friends to communicate from im clients to battle.net players while players are playing the game

These are my wishes for now. ;-) i couldn't find a better way to express my ideas on f list so..~

[Lenga]

i hope for you that was a joke

[Lenga]

im underage and i dont think our parents would enjoy this option

[Fenix]

Don't make me get out my machete.



I would really like to see a more graphics oriented Battle.net screen. Perhaps like the mission briefings screen. The one they have now is purely functional.

[Fenix]

Like AoE's trumpet? I was always surprised they didn't have it.

[Quanta]

They had a ping thing in WC3 so I would assume it would be in SC2.

[Trooper34]

they had a ping in sc1 too i think....

[longlivefenix]

NO MONTHLY CHARGES AND I WILL BE CONTENT

[Joneagle_X]

Yes, there is a ping in SC1. It's alt+click on the minimap. But it doesn't ever get used because it's tough to locate effectively. Also, newer players tend to abuse it quite a bit.

[beBoy]

Yes, there is a ping in SC1. It's alt+click on the minimap. But it doesn't ever get used because it's tough to locate effectively. Also, newer players tend to abuse it quite a bit.


Not really, but the pinging is constantly being abused cuz players could continuously click on it, to spam pings of allies' minimap. But it really gets someone's attention if it's used properly. ALT+Double-clicking the minimap would usually get my allies' attention and look at the pinged location and offer help for me.

But, it's not a battle.net feature. So I would prefer sticking to the topic.

[Silent_Sword]

What did you love about the original Battle.net?
The oringal was a very good system and helped many of us easily find and play matchs with friends or other players from around the world.

What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

An ability to see the map before joining a game (while in the main lobby). Also another interesting ability would be to allow us to make our own tournaments from time to time on a special server.

Among these i highly recommend that battle.net could be included with some form of a user commentary function where players could upload commentaries of matchs (that reminds me an observer function should also be included in multiplay) that they have observed and post them directly on to battle.net.

note: I know the thing about the replay commentaries may be alittle complex for a multiplayer service but it would add much more content to battle.net and may be a rather interesting thing to see happen.



It's possible.

[Joneagle_X]

Hi Silent_Sword,

Welcome to the forum! Please read the forum rules and guidelines before making a post. It is frowned upon to quote an entire post and then comment very little on it. As a general rule your writing should be longer than the quote.

Thanks :D

Also, about the quote that you referenced, that's what Blizzard came up with the leagues for. It was also an attempt at cutting down on hacking without doing any real work on Blizzard's part. :D

[Ensomgrav]

i liked how it worked with WC3 it was easy to find a melee game pretty quickly

[Lenga]

a power of -3 in only 8 posts, damn thats news

[Lenga]

its 15.36 at my position

[BirdofPrey]

What I like about BNet:
Ability to add friends just by typing their names unlike other services that you have to click on their name requiring them to be online.

System commands allowed messaging without obscuring view like happens with games that use a service with a GUI.

Custom channels are very useful
_________________________________________________
What I did not like:
System commands could get lengthy when the person has a long name. Especially annoying when you reply to a message in game

There is no function to join the same game as a friend/ invite a friend to your game.

No GUI for the friend chat in lobby meaning I have to query the system each time about friend status instead of opening a chat window. This also results in a lack of chat history which is useful when someone says they will be on later then gives a time (also for moderation purposes).
_________________________________________________
Suggestions:
Native clan support for SC2 and a separate "Clan Members" list in addition to the friends list

GUI for chat. Buttons in lobby for user list will allow you to easily add as a friend and squelch the person without having to use lengthy commands. Chat screen that will allow you to send messages to a friend just by clicking on their name and typing a message. Chat history so you can see previous conversations in case they said something important (Live a Ventrillo server address) People can send you messages while you are offline and it will be recorded in the chat history as an offline message.

Voice chat. It improves teamwork and allows you to communicate while still being able to control your units

Keep the system commands but allow for us to set nicknames so when I want to talk to Tweakismyname I can just type in /msg tweak ... instead of te full name have it able to coexist because the current system and a GUI both have uses in different situations

[Ensomgrav]

its 15.36 at my position
wow , that sounded awesome.


This thread must be read at a later date and compiled into a report. Please refrain from spamming in it. Technically, this could arguably "have" a point, but I don't think so. Please refrain from making posts like this.

[CaptainPicard]

What I really would like to see on the new Battle.net is kind of a down-scaled, customizable version of Blizzard's WoW.

I'd like to be able to host multiple maps simultaneously in a sort of grand multi-player experience. Another way to say this is that I'd like the functionality of the multi-map levels in WC3's OrcX campaign to work on battle.net.

This would mean that multiple maps would be going simultaneously, and that the players who leave one map would then enter another to find it in the state that the other players had helped it evolve to. Now, there would have to be some sort of mechanism whereby the transition would be fast and not require everybody to pause ("oh, wait everybody, BoratMyHero is coming through the warp gate..."). This might be accomplishable by having all players pre-load the basics for all maps at the beginning of the online game, then have a brief update sent to each machine as players move, so the player warping between maps would only have to wait a few seconds and the other players could just keep right on playing, the warping player having paid a few seconds worth of penalty for his journey between maps.

[Wlck742]

Yeah, that level was pretty awesome. Sorta like a mini-Diablo if you ask me. It would be great to have something like that in multiplayer.

[Z-BosoN]

What features did you like/dislike when using Blizzard's Battle.net system? Why?

There are a couple of thinks I disliked. The first one is the Long time you had to wait when you joined a high-latency game. The waits took kind of long in SC, and even longer in Warcraft 3. The screen got stuck and it took forever for it to say: "Couldn't join the game". The other thing I disliked is that the squelch system wasn't too efficient. If you log out then log back on, you still hear the person talking and annoying you.

What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

Ah there are quite a few.

Replay Downloads - I was thinking of a cool system that could be used to give emphasis on replays. Friends always want to share replays with each other, but it takes someone to host the game (which not everyone can do) and you to DL. I thought it would be awesome to keep a list of replays on your profile (i.e. Favorites) and people can download them with just a click. That way you could see everyone's favorite games much faster and easier.
Latency/Country of Host - Like said above, I think it is essential to show latency levels next to a game. If not, too much time is wasted to join and leave laggy games. It would also be interesting to show the Country the host comes from, enabling you to join much lagless games and speak the same language as other people who join that game.
In-built Banlist and Statistics - I think outsider programs such as BWCharts.com and Wc3Banlist should be in-built in SC2. This way it opens up more options for the Host, to ban laggy people and to control the latency of the game, and for the player, to see his apm, how he is doing, comparing it to the last time he played, etc. This makes it easier to see progress in your playing and encourages you to get even better.


[color=orange]Additional feedback you would like to give

I'm all in for the new voice ip idea :D

[Joneagle_X]

Another note to self here.....

On Boson's topic there.... in WC3 players were allowed to chat and function while other players were "lagging." This should be implemented in SC2 as well, with the inclusion of a "vote drop" function that allows for all the players to vote for that person to be dropped immediately. (Unanimous vote needed)

I hated wasting a minute of my life for someone with a poor internet connection.

[longlivefenix]

there should be something like halos veto map :thumbup:
i mean like you make a playlist of maps then you just play till everyone quits

[MyLifeForAiur]

As of now, Battle.net if well designed. The latest update was about a year ago, adding the friends option. I think that was very smart. The create and join game should stay as well as the channel button.

Improve:
1) When somebody whispers to you, and you forget who, it's very annoying. Add a talk to last person who talked to you feature. Like: /T P Hi
T=talk P= previous



end of discussion for me.


its /r for last person who whispered in WC3 so that feature is in there.

* What features would you like to see in StarCraft IIs Battle.net?

I would like to see the quick match making ladder system that WC3 Battle.net runs put into SC2.

The major reason I could not get into sc1s ladder system is that many users just simply played computer games to boost their ladder rankings for free wins.