Just been looking at the ranking system for killer. The main aim of killer appears to be to play as many games as possible. I think the ranking system needs an overhaul, to make it more like the other games.

At present ab_rfc is miles clear at the top and unless i get sacked from work ill never catch him up, cos i dont have the time to do it. Fair play to alan, he won the games and he is just playing within the copnfines of the current system.

What i thought was if the ranking system was more like regular pool it would make it fairer for everyone in the same way you can log on a couple of times a week in 8 ball and stay near the top.

If everybody started at 450 and the max rank was 900 and the minimum rank 0, you have 450 points to play with. Instead of everybody putting ten points in the pot, why not have a % of your current score instead.

Ie/ you have a score of 500, you put 2.5% of that score in the pot (12.5 points in this case). Someone else has a score of 200 and so

they put 5 points in the pot. The last guy is ranked 800 and he stakes 20 points on the game. Winner takes 37.5 points. But if you go below say 100 points then the edge modification kicks in and same for if you go above say 800 points.

It would just make the ranking table look a lot healthier for people who dont have hours on end to devote to playing it but want to do well at it!


Also: i just lost a game for an illegal break. Apparently two balls hit the cushion and three need too. Yet, i potted a ball so should that be a foul?

Edited at 23:58 Sun 13/07/08 (BST)

God mike your a sore loser give the winner some credit... oh thats me..

lol but yeah i agree

Edited at 00:05 Mon 14/07/08 (BST)

As Killer is new, there is every possibility a different ranking system may come along. After all, there have been many changes to the pool one over the years to get it where it is now.



This is mentioned on the "main" killer thread, so i'm sure Nick wil be bearing it in mind.


Edit - regarding Killer "rank" again, i think its important not to focus too much on the one table of stats.

We're used to doing that with the "normal" ranking system, but even then, the highest ranking player isnt necesarily the best.

In fact, swapping the first two tables on the Kiler rankings page around may be all thats required...

Edited at 00:33 Mon 14/07/08 (BST)

yeah I agree Mike, i was hinking exactly the same, maybe he amount of rank won/lost should bear in mind other players ability as well.

Oh and whoever came up with that 3 balls hitting a cusion rubbish should be shot... oh wait that was me, don't shoooot

Edited at 00:33 Mon 14/07/08 (BST)

well i think killer is a perfectly good game nick thanks for putitn ti on here the other 4 games started to gett a bit boring itz good how you cna have 10 people in killer aswell makes the game alot me intrestin

A system reflecting opponent skill would been good. Other than that it's no biggie IMO, the points are just points. Move that table to fourth position and it's perfect IMO. Points per game and pot success are by far the best way to measure this game. The only reason for a weighted system would be to remove the current incentive to play as weak opponents as possible

so what your saying is that someone thats played 75 games and has say 16 pts per game and pot success is say 82% is better than someone thats played 300 games and has 15 pts per game and pot success is 81%, I don't think so
I agree the rank system is not perfect but this is not the best way to measure this game.


Edited at 10:43 Mon 14/07/08 (BST)

I agree, it should be changed, there is not much incentive to get better, I mean there is like nothing to achieve, because the points could just go on and on, dont see the point of it.

killer is supposed to be a fun game so why not as a way of stopping someone running away at the top of the rankings make the stats a monthly thing, all killer stats get reset on the 1st of each month, have the monthly tables but also have a table with the all time highs from each table, that would give members a target to aim for each month, i think this will keep all members interested in the game instead of getting fed up because their points have got so low they dont see the point in playing anymore, members that are not high up in the tables throughout the month could still have competitions with their mates to see who does the best each month, all members could have their monthly score and their best monthly score in their profile, gives you a target to beat each month.
lets keep it a fun game


Edited at 11:20 Mon 14/07/08 (BST)

I Think Thats An Awesome Idea I Agree With You Lets Keep It Fun

Im Ready To Give In Lol

I agree, however 9 ball, 8 ball and 8 ball UK are 'fun' but they are also competitive, cant we add that aspect to killer?

either the way i laid out at the start to bring it in line with regular pool or alans point about it being monthly with a hall of fame type thing would be great. I just feel along with many others that it is just an endurance test

Agreed

When I was adding the game I considered (and still am considering) using the same ranking system as currently in place for the games.

The ranking is calculated against each opponent in turn. So the winner will get 2-9 ranking gains. The loser will get 1 ranking loss.

I didn't implement as it required significant change to the ranking code which seemed too big a change at the time. Killer is a lot more fun than I expected so wouldn't mind going back to change this.

For consistency I think the same ranking system across all the games is desired. The weight factor of the ranking can be altered for killer as necessary.

Monthly (and daily) totals would be good too. A monthly and daily winners table would be required too. (Second place across a month or day would get nothing though?)

EDIT: I guess a future doubles game could use the same ranking system as mentioned above too. Each doubles winner takes a rank gain across each loser... but please only discuss about rankings in this thread.

Edited at 13:40 Mon 14/07/08 (BST)

I'm with Ab on this, if we had a "league ranking table" added to for whoever finished at the top of the ranks for that month.
As for the rank issue, i don't see anything wrong with it at the moment if the monthly leaderboard was introduced.

If you make the killer rank system the same as the other games you could kill it, you will get more and more players picking and choosing games where as at the moment most players will play no matter who is in the room, my idea keeps the game fun but at the same time competitive.

This is why we have a floor for the minimum number of games and pots for those tables - to ensure a large enough data sample to provide a stable basis for the percentages listed - and avoiding lucky, incorrect scores based on too few games/pots.

Since the floors are set, and more than high enough, the player with the higher percentages is likely the better player yes, despite having played fewer games.

50 games and 500 pots is normally more than enough to establish the true level the player performs at - and certainly more than enough to rule out lucky new-comers from the table listings.

Of course games played is an interesting number - the more games, the more stable and representative the data are, but the floors are more than high enough to ensure quality data for all players IMO.

In terms of the point table - yes it is. For all I care, that table could just as well be removed (see no need to alter the other ones tho)

In fact (arcade_fire inc lol) a weighted ranking system SHOULD do the exact opposite.

Currently, the system provides great incentive to pick games with easy opponents. You gain the same points as you would against pros, but with a much better chance of winning. Also your pot success and safety success is obviously better while playing bad opponents.

In a weighted ranking system similar to the other games tho, playing good opponents means the chance of winning more points IF you win.

Given that the weights are sensible (which they will invitably be over time since a two-sided system will be self-balancing no matter what you do), playing a game vs pros will over time be exactly as rewarding as playing vs lowbies.

Pot success and/or safety success could obviously also be weighted based on the player before/after you and their respective scores from earlier games. (it's worth more "points" to successfully snooker a player with a former pot success of 80% compared to doing it was a 50% player, for example)