Level decay

I think it would be good to have a player's level decay over time because, for example, my true level is probably half of my stated level since I haven't played Zero-K in about a year. I know it seems petty, but the whole point of the level is to help players determine the appropriateness of an opponent, so if it isn't an accurate representation of skill level then what is the point?

So I propose something like this: A player's level decreases by 1 for every month they are inactive.

Level means almost nothing here as far as I know.

Elo decay has been discussed, but no (positive) decision has been made. Vote for this, if you want your reported skill to decrease over idle time.

I vote for elo increase when a player is inactive. Whenever I come back to ZK after taking a break I suddenly play much better.

Level also dictates your commander unlocks so losing levels might cause you to go into tech point deficit, or cause you to lose upgrades. That would be very bad.

ELO decay (or increase!) after a break is effectively dealt with by a player playing games at their new level. Their ELO might be somewhat misleading for a handful of games but it should stabilise reasonably quickly.

There's a limit to how accurate ELO can be to your current skill anyway; my best guess is that I vary from somewhere around 1600 to 1850 based on time of day, factory matchup and whether I'm on my game. Obviously ELO can't keep track of those kinds of factors when they change from game to game.

To clarify, that's the numbers you see in the top 50 ladders. There's a wikipedia article on Elo. In short: Your elo number increases if you win and decreases if you lose. Your chance to win (ie elo difference between winner and loser) affects gain and loss numbers.

reason were that some thought newbie bashing is caused by visible elo.
one of those threads http://zero-k.info/Forum/Post/47803#47803

Maybe problem is that people misunderstand what level is and what ELO(wtf is this shit?!! some sorta imaginary points?). Specially when most new players dont see theyr ELO.

Like omg he is level 99 mage and I m only LVl20 peasant he must be better 5 times.

quote: more rage cause half the people don't try hard because they never found out about elo

[citation needed]
Rage at newbies only happens because people are teamed with newbies.

Hiding Elo is a bad attempt at fixing the symptom because the newb is still going to play terribly.

To instead fix the cause, people would need to be segregated to play with others of similar skill, but that cannot be done under the current 1-room system and would require smaller games.

[Spoiler]

Hmm I dont have CD rom for years, and I think others too.