ALTS
I think we need to get rid of alts. They add very little to the game and cause a lot of issues with ranking and matchups even before we look at outright abuse.

It isn't easy to do that, but these could be steps:
1. Make them officially illegal, all accounts deleted if caught. May be tough to catch someone, but not worth the risk.
2. Require some form of account verification to create an account. Unique e-mail address at the least which just makes it take a little more work to create an alt. Checking IP's may be something people can get around, but it further adds to the effort of creating an alt. I believe there are even ways to do this using Credit Cards or Paypal that don't cost anyone much. Maybe there are better methods. I'm trying to remember how some of the old MU*'s I played on that banned alts did it. Even with their budget, Blizzard can't completely get rid of gold farming though...

LADDER
Change the point system so that it rewards playing more and against more people.
1. No negative points. You get a small amount of points for a loss, a large amount of points for a win.
2. Let Sim Player increase the range it considers as you wait. It starts by looking for a very close match, then every 30 sec or minute or so it broadens the search criteria until it finds an opponent.
3. Sim Player only matches you against people you have played that week if the range gets very broad and no opponent has been found. Basically, if anyone is looking who you haven't played, you'll play them first.
4. Since it would take you longer to match up against people you have played, there is little incentive to resign and lose that matchup for the week. However, I would also make it so that if someone resigns too early they dont get their points for the game but it still counts as played for the week.

Very good idea! I vote for it.

I hate you for this

But seriously, I think this could be a great idea. Especially if all of the money taken from the ladder was put into more frequent Expert Clashes, which are a lot harder to abuse then the ladder. And if this happens, then the "noob ladder" (named after myself) that someone else mentioned, with longer lasting phantoms as prizes, could be a good way to balance out the loss of gold in ladder. And yeah, I have to agree with most of the stuff cylone and Nighthawk42 said. Keep up the good suggestions guys .

Requiring someone to play different people in ladder is a great idea. I do think 20 people is overdoing it though, I don't know if I've ever played 20 games in a week. 10 games would be hard to put in even. And remember that at some rankings, you may not see more than 10 potential players online when you are that you could even play. Not sure how to get around that issue, but I do think having people required to play different players is a good idea overall.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing.
Maybe start it at 12 different people with 1 less person needed for every 100 rating you have above 1000 rounded down, to a minimum of say, 7?
Something along those lines may work

I think that's a great idea... More EC's. Less gold for ladder.

_________________

Altren wrote:

I agree with Keyser, and that's what I'm planning to implement actually.

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More EC's less gold for ladder hurts newbies. If we have some method to make up for this (phantom card leagues or something) I think it's a good idea.

Forcing people to play more games in ladder I do not like since it's already hard enough to find someone to play with higher ratings.

Monitoring every other week top of the ladder people is a very very good idea since that just screams BS.

Let the record state that I said that second sentence first .
However, I do disagree with the whole less gold for ladder hurts newbies statement, because every new player I have decided to help out and talk to can not get enough ladder points to make any gold, and not for lack of trying.At the moment, it is almost impossible for new players to make gold in ladder due to the higher points needed due to multi account abuse, and the fact most of the people "similar" to them are much better than them due to the tanking of rating....

Ladder is great!! u guys should play more and whine less.

Complaints about the ladder stem mostly from the fact some people feel other less ethical people cheat to win. Debate can occur about how common this is and rules or lack thereof, but if alt accounts are used in this fashion it is at the very least contrary to commonly understood rules of fair play. Protesting against that is not whining.
That said, I do like the present construction of the ladder. It is the only area of the game where new or less skilled players can feel they are competing against better, more experienced players. Also, it gives a small goal each week that can be pursued just by playing the game, instead of entering a contest or tournament. I like both things. I hope TFW keeps the present ladder format more or less intact.
To me, the fundamental question is not how to "fix" the ladder, but how to stop the abuse of alt accounts. The easiest way (this won’t be the most popular suggestion) is to make sim games available only to accounts which buy gold. Maybe if you buy at least 300 g, you are eligible for the ladder for the next 4 weeks. This is about $6 US and is a little less than the gold won if you win the ladder 3 weeks in a row. This eliminates the financial incentive for cheating, but not the current competitive aspects. The two biggest downsides are the one, most people would hate the idea and, two, I expect this would made it much more difficult to find a sim game.
Barring that, remember there is no system so airtight that it cannot be cheated if someone is determined. I hope TFW begins to devote some resources to watching for cheating patterns. That would stop a lot of abuse and hopefully discourage most of the rest. Past that, I think some cheating is something the TFW community will have to learn to accept.