Inactivity decay

Decay keeps ladders honest: if a strong player stops showing up, their standing shouldn't block the players actively competing below them. So while you're away, your visible standing gradually drops — but your real rating is never lost.

Visible rating vs your real rating

PickleFriend tracks two things:

• Your real rating (the true measure of your strength). Decay never touches this.
• Your visible rating — what shows in standings — which is your real rating reduced by however much decay you've accumulated while inactive.

Standings and movement use the visible rating, so an inactive player slides down over time and can eventually be relegated. But because the real rating is untouched, nothing is actually lost.

It snaps back the instant you play

The moment you play a game again, decay is fully and instantly reversed — your visible rating jumps straight back to your real rating before that game is even scored. One game erases weeks of accumulated decay. There's no slow climb back; you return at full strength.

The rules in brief

Players with zero games have nothing to decay, so brand-new entrants are skipped entirely. Play even once since the last cycle and your decay is wiped — you're fully active. Miss the cycle and more decay accumulates. Drop a division purely from inactivity and you're protected from a second decay-driven drop until you play again, so a long absence can't free-fall you through multiple divisions in consecutive cycles.

Decay schedule: when it applies

How often decay runs depends on whether your group is a ladder or a standard group:

• Ladder leagues — decay applies per cycle, during the same automated step that calculates standings and movements. The organizer triggers cycles manually; there is no background timer between cycles.
• Standard (non-ladder) groups — decay runs on a weekly schedule via a background job. The inactivity window is seven days: play at least once in the last week and decay is cleared; miss the window and one week of decay accumulates.

Either way, your real rating is never written during a decay event — only the accumulated percentage that reduces the visible number.

Decay settings (organizers)

When creating or editing a ladder, organizers can configure decay under the Rating Decay section:

• Enable/disable — decay is on by default. Turning it off means standings reflect pure Elo with no inactivity penalty.
• Per-cycle rate (%) — the base percentage applied each inactive cycle. Default is 1%. You can set any value from 0 to 100 in 0.1% steps.
• Decay curve — two options:
  • Exponential (default) — each consecutive missed cycle the penalty compounds: a short absence barely dents the visible number, but a long unbroken absence accelerates quickly. The intent is to leave room for occasional absences while creating real pressure on sustained no-shows.
  • Linear — every missed cycle applies the same flat base rate, regardless of how many cycles in a row were missed. Predictable and easier to explain to players.

For standard (non-ladder) groups, decay configuration lives in Group Settings → Ratings tab (decay toggle, base rate, and exponential/linear curve).

Double-decay protection and the parachute badge

When a player or team is relegated because of inactivity — not because they lost games — they arrive in the lower division with a protection flag set. Until they play at least one game in the new division:

• They cannot be relegated a second time by decay alone in the next cycle.
• Their visible standing stays where it landed, even if more decay would otherwise push it below the relegation line again.

On the public standings page this appears as a 🪂 badge next to the player's or team's name. Hover over it and you'll see a note explaining they decayed down and are currently protected. The badge disappears the moment they play a game, at which point their rating is fully restored and the protection is no longer needed.

This guard prevents a long absence from sending someone through multiple divisions without a single game played.

How decay appears on the public standings page

The public ratings page signals inactivity at three levels:

Signal	Condition
📉 light decay marker (faded chart icon)	Some decay accumulated, small drop
⬇️ moderate decay marker	A more noticeable drop
⏬ severe decay marker	Large accumulated drop
Row greyed out	Missed at least one ladder cycle in this division
Row hidden (behind "Show all")	Missed two or more consecutive cycles in this division

Hovering over a decay marker shows the exact percentage lost and the number of points the visible rating has dropped from the baseline. The markers are on the visible rating column, next to the number.

Players with zero games in a division (for example, someone just transferred in but not yet played) are also hidden by default and appear under "Show all."

The tradeoff

A summer away shouldn't permanently wreck your rating — but it also shouldn't let you camp at the top of Div A while never playing. Decaying the visible number while keeping the real one untouched is how the ladder gets both.

Next

See Promotion and relegation for how a cycle uses these visible ratings to decide who moves, and Spares and cross-division play for how filling in for another division interacts with your home standing.