The absence penalty in Ladder League
A player who keeps missing weeks slowly drops down the ladder, so regulars are not stuck below someone who has not played in a month. The rules are deliberately forgiving for a single absence.
This applies to both Ladder League variants and is on by default. You can turn it off per division.
The rules
Your first missed game day is free. Miss one day and your ladder position is unchanged.
From the second missed day, you drop 2 ladder positions for each additional missed day.
A bye does not count. If you opted in and the app sat you out that week, that is not an absence.
So missing one week costs nothing. Missing a second costs 2 positions. A third costs another 2.
What it does not do
It does not compound. The drop is applied once, on the round that completes that missed day, and carried forward. It is not re-applied every subsequent week — that would snowball someone out of the league after a couple of misses.
It never pushes you below someone who also missed. When several players are penalised in the same week, each still drops its full 2 positions past the players who turned up. Somebody who showed up is never left below somebody who did not.
Turning it off
Some leagues would rather hold everyone's position regardless of attendance — a social league where people drop in and out, for instance. The penalty is a per-division setting, so you can switch it off and absent players simply hold their slot.
With it off, the only thing that moves anyone is results.
How it interacts with movement
The penalty is applied after the week's up/down movement, as a position shift on the resulting order. Players who were present are placed by their results first; the absentees are then shifted down past them.
That ordering matters: it means a penalty never costs a present player a place they earned.