Should the ranking system be linked across the different game types
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16 years ago
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The current system maintains rank for each game type, without any relation to the user's rank in other game types.
Technically and logically this makes little sense, and leads to a few problems we could do well to avoid.
On the logical level:
A player who is pro or better in any single game type isn't going to be hopeless in other games on the same table. You can obviously pot, and depending on the rank level, probably have a decent understanding for strategy and positional play as well.
Whenever we add a new game type (or a user resets, a feature that I deeply wish we could removed, but sadly not feasible), everyone starts at 675.0. This means we have a ton of pros playing their way up from that rank, at the cost of others. The newbie status somewhat alleviates this, but far from completely.
Now what I would suggest:
Let rank be comprised of two factors:
1. The current part which is earned from each game type.
2. A basis, calculated as a factor of the best rank in any other game type.
These two would have to be weighted in a sensible way, personally I think 50/50 would be fine.
What this means is that whenver we add a new game type (or an experienced user decides it's time to try something new), you start at a rank that somewhat reflects your true skill.
The the opinions fly!
(and someone please edit the subject to illustrate this being a debate rather than an already decided change)
Technically and logically this makes little sense, and leads to a few problems we could do well to avoid.
On the logical level:
A player who is pro or better in any single game type isn't going to be hopeless in other games on the same table. You can obviously pot, and depending on the rank level, probably have a decent understanding for strategy and positional play as well.
Whenever we add a new game type (or a user resets, a feature that I deeply wish we could removed, but sadly not feasible), everyone starts at 675.0. This means we have a ton of pros playing their way up from that rank, at the cost of others. The newbie status somewhat alleviates this, but far from completely.
Now what I would suggest:
Let rank be comprised of two factors:
1. The current part which is earned from each game type.
2. A basis, calculated as a factor of the best rank in any other game type.
These two would have to be weighted in a sensible way, personally I think 50/50 would be fine.
What this means is that whenver we add a new game type (or an experienced user decides it's time to try something new), you start at a rank that somewhat reflects your true skill.
The the opinions fly!
(and someone please edit the subject to illustrate this being a debate rather than an already decided change)
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16 years ago
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How would this account for people who only play tournaments and friendlies from the beginning?
Would they just start from 675.0 and be ignored from this system?
Even if they were planning to play ranked in the new game type.
Would they just start from 675.0 and be ignored from this system?
Even if they were planning to play ranked in the new game type.
16 years ago
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Yes.
Lets do an example, skipping the latest game types for sake of keeping it simple:
Player A has the following ranks in the current system:
8: 800
9: 675
UK: 700
In the proposed system, the same player would have:
8: 800
9: 675 + ((800-675) * 0.5) = 675 + 62.5 = 737.5
UK: 700 + ((800-700) * 0.5) = 700 + 50 = 750
In essence, the best rank you have, in any game type, "flavors" the rank in the other games by a factor, in this example by a factor of 50% (hence the multiplication by 0.5)
I've put a great deal of effort into elaborating weaknesses or flaws in this yet so there may very well be things to address (newbie status for one thing), but all in all, this is the direction we should go imo.
Lets do an example, skipping the latest game types for sake of keeping it simple:
Player A has the following ranks in the current system:
8: 800
9: 675
UK: 700
In the proposed system, the same player would have:
8: 800
9: 675 + ((800-675) * 0.5) = 675 + 62.5 = 737.5
UK: 700 + ((800-700) * 0.5) = 700 + 50 = 750
In essence, the best rank you have, in any game type, "flavors" the rank in the other games by a factor, in this example by a factor of 50% (hence the multiplication by 0.5)
I've put a great deal of effort into elaborating weaknesses or flaws in this yet so there may very well be things to address (newbie status for one thing), but all in all, this is the direction we should go imo.
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16 years ago
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Ah, makes sense.
Would it be based on current rank, or maximum rank reached?
Would it be based on current rank, or maximum rank reached?
16 years ago
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I'd say current.
It would have to be, to avoid the possibility of this to elevate any rank beyond the highest current rank.
Lets say you had a 950 max in a game type from a really good period, and are now playing at 800, and lower in the other games... If using that all time high, even the worst games would be placed higher than any of your current ranks if you follow me. That should of course never happen.
So yes, must be based on current best rank.
Edited at 23:32 Tue 12/05/09 (BST)
It would have to be, to avoid the possibility of this to elevate any rank beyond the highest current rank.
Lets say you had a 950 max in a game type from a really good period, and are now playing at 800, and lower in the other games... If using that all time high, even the worst games would be placed higher than any of your current ranks if you follow me. That should of course never happen.
So yes, must be based on current best rank.
Edited at 23:32 Tue 12/05/09 (BST)
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16 years ago
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This is all to encourage me to play ranked again isn't it!
16 years ago
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Dang, read like an open book
Nah, it's more a matter of seeing the flaws of the system after playing a lot of killer - where you typically get a lot of pros playing from low rank.
The newbie system is meant to somewhat serve the same purpose. My suggestion would merely take it a bit further towards solving the same goal.
Nah, it's more a matter of seeing the flaws of the system after playing a lot of killer - where you typically get a lot of pros playing from low rank.
The newbie system is meant to somewhat serve the same purpose. My suggestion would merely take it a bit further towards solving the same goal.
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16 years ago
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Yeah, I see what you mean and it sounds like a good idea for games on the same table like you said - as peoples' preferences will differ between UK and US tables so it couldn't really be generalised.
16 years ago
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I agree. Contrary to my example, I guess UK and US tables should remain completely separated in the rank system since they are so different.
16 years ago
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Sorry to put a spanner in the works, but you must remember that rank is not necessarily a measure of skill, though that has always been a common misconception.
Rank points are something you can chose to play for in order to make the game more interesting.
Applying the same logic to tournaments makes the point clearer - should someone who has won 250 US8 tourneys should have a few wins of the other game types played on that table added to thier profile so it "looks right"?
Sure, they may well have the skill to win them, but they should still have to earn them just like everyone else..
Rank points are something you can chose to play for in order to make the game more interesting.
Applying the same logic to tournaments makes the point clearer - should someone who has won 250 US8 tourneys should have a few wins of the other game types played on that table added to thier profile so it "looks right"?
Sure, they may well have the skill to win them, but they should still have to earn them just like everyone else..
16 years ago
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Well, it tries to be - and it should be
No one (at least not me) are trying to claim rank being a correct reflection of skill (but please lets not derail into THAT debate for the 99th time), but some of us (me) would like that to be as much the case as humanly possible.
As for the tournament comparison, that doesn't hold water at all. The tournament wins is a simple statistic. Rank is a weighted result between wins AND losses.
The simple fact that I never feel I got you to understand or appreciate Dave, is that any player playing at a lower rank than his skill level is undermining the system. Just like a golf player who enters a competition with a higher handicap than his skill suggests, will have a falsely high chance of winning it.
A simple example would be if I were to reset my stats and work my killer rank back up to 900. It wouldn't take me long, it might be fun as heck for ME, but it would come at the expense of a lot of points lost for the opponents unfortunate enough not to know to stay away. Points they normally should not have lost since I should have played at 900 all along and those losses hence costing a fraction of what would be the case in this example. Sorry if it sounds big-headed, but it's an extreme example well suited to illustrate the problem.
Edited at 00:58 Wed 13/05/09 (BST)
spinner said:
Sorry to put a spanner in the works, but you must remember that rank is not necessarily a measure of skill, though that has always been a common misconception.
Well, it tries to be - and it should be
No one (at least not me) are trying to claim rank being a correct reflection of skill (but please lets not derail into THAT debate for the 99th time), but some of us (me) would like that to be as much the case as humanly possible.
As for the tournament comparison, that doesn't hold water at all. The tournament wins is a simple statistic. Rank is a weighted result between wins AND losses.
The simple fact that I never feel I got you to understand or appreciate Dave, is that any player playing at a lower rank than his skill level is undermining the system. Just like a golf player who enters a competition with a higher handicap than his skill suggests, will have a falsely high chance of winning it.
A simple example would be if I were to reset my stats and work my killer rank back up to 900. It wouldn't take me long, it might be fun as heck for ME, but it would come at the expense of a lot of points lost for the opponents unfortunate enough not to know to stay away. Points they normally should not have lost since I should have played at 900 all along and those losses hence costing a fraction of what would be the case in this example. Sorry if it sounds big-headed, but it's an extreme example well suited to illustrate the problem.
Edited at 00:58 Wed 13/05/09 (BST)
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16 years ago
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Surely it's more of a spinner in the works?
I like this idea a lot. It makes more sense to me than the current system.
spinner said:
Sorry to put a spanner in the works
Surely it's more of a spinner in the works?
I like this idea a lot. It makes more sense to me than the current system.
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16 years ago
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The simple fact that I never feel I got you to understand or appreciate Dave, is that any player playing at a lower rank than his skill level is undermining the system. Just like a golf player who enters a competition with a higher handicap than his skill suggests, will have a falsely high chance of winning it.
and the simple fact you dont understand jan is that for a ranking system to be just that everyone has to be competing against everyone else on a level playing field.
You yourself finally saw sense elsewhere in saying in 9 ball its understandable why top players dont play low ranked players and also that in 8 ball you can back your skill to beat low ranked players. There are players that adhere to that very strategy whilst others will play absolutely anyone. All that gives you is players that accumulate a points score in a certain way - it in no way gives you a ranking allowing you to compare one against another.
That is why spinner is so correct in what he says that ranking points are really just another form of tournament to try and get a high score.
A genuine ranking table simply compares one player against the next. The actual ranking points score on its own should really be an irrelevance other than a means to differentiate between placings on the table. But currently people are so uptight about what their score is - i guess thats the computer game culture as opposed to the sporting culture.
cont....
janmb said:
The simple fact that I never feel I got you to understand or appreciate Dave, is that any player playing at a lower rank than his skill level is undermining the system. Just like a golf player who enters a competition with a higher handicap than his skill suggests, will have a falsely high chance of winning it.
and the simple fact you dont understand jan is that for a ranking system to be just that everyone has to be competing against everyone else on a level playing field.
You yourself finally saw sense elsewhere in saying in 9 ball its understandable why top players dont play low ranked players and also that in 8 ball you can back your skill to beat low ranked players. There are players that adhere to that very strategy whilst others will play absolutely anyone. All that gives you is players that accumulate a points score in a certain way - it in no way gives you a ranking allowing you to compare one against another.
That is why spinner is so correct in what he says that ranking points are really just another form of tournament to try and get a high score.
A genuine ranking table simply compares one player against the next. The actual ranking points score on its own should really be an irrelevance other than a means to differentiate between placings on the table. But currently people are so uptight about what their score is - i guess thats the computer game culture as opposed to the sporting culture.
cont....
16 years ago
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Well, it tries to be - and it should be
No one (at least not me) are trying to claim rank being a correct reflection of skill (but please lets not derail into THAT debate for the 99th time), but some of us (me) would like that to be as much the case as humanly possible.
The fact is that this suggestion totally hinges on the acceptance of rank as a measure of skill, which it simply is not, and shouldn't be in my opinion.
If we were to introduce a second ranking system covering all games played (tourneys and friendlies), a "skill level" rank as it were, then this system would be ideal.
I completely understand this view, but again it is based on the misconception that rank is related to skill, which simply isnt the case.
Tournament wins are the result of wins and losses too, just like ranking points.
Lets try it another way - I have played for almost 6 years to get to my current rank of 745 on US 8ball. What you are proposing could see someone who has never even played a single game "earning" more than that by playing a different game on the same table...
janmb said:
spinner said:
Sorry to put a spanner in the works, but you must remember that rank is not necessarily a measure of skill, though that has always been a common misconception.
Well, it tries to be - and it should be
No one (at least not me) are trying to claim rank being a correct reflection of skill (but please lets not derail into THAT debate for the 99th time), but some of us (me) would like that to be as much the case as humanly possible.
The fact is that this suggestion totally hinges on the acceptance of rank as a measure of skill, which it simply is not, and shouldn't be in my opinion.
If we were to introduce a second ranking system covering all games played (tourneys and friendlies), a "skill level" rank as it were, then this system would be ideal.
janmb said:
As for the tournament comparison, that doesn't hold water at all. The tournament wins is a simple statistic. Rank is a weighted result between wins AND losses.
The simple fact that I never feel I got you to understand or appreciate Dave, is that any player playing at a lower rank than his skill level is undermining the system. Just like a golf player who enters a competition with a higher handicap than his skill suggests, will have a falsely high chance of winning it.
The simple fact that I never feel I got you to understand or appreciate Dave, is that any player playing at a lower rank than his skill level is undermining the system. Just like a golf player who enters a competition with a higher handicap than his skill suggests, will have a falsely high chance of winning it.
I completely understand this view, but again it is based on the misconception that rank is related to skill, which simply isnt the case.
Tournament wins are the result of wins and losses too, just like ranking points.
Lets try it another way - I have played for almost 6 years to get to my current rank of 745 on US 8ball. What you are proposing could see someone who has never even played a single game "earning" more than that by playing a different game on the same table...
16 years ago
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There's a subtle difference between a handicap system vs. a direct indication of skill, but yes, that's what it should be in my opinion.
If you want to include ALL games into that measure, to avoid any chance of players deliberately or not avoiding to get their skill correctly represented, that would be VERY welcome by me.
Moot argument as long as we allow resets though, which is a tough one to do anything about even if we wanted to.
No misconception - just desire to change it for the better. I WANT the rank system to represent skill - any handicap system needs to in order to work - but I have no illusions about what the current system does and doesn't do.
Tournament wins are the result of wins and losses too, just like ranking points.
No they are not. They are a simple accumulation of wins - no losses are counted. Yes, each win consists of wins and losses, but irrelevant as long as that is not recorded in any way. As long as only the wins are counted, without counting losses in any way at all, particularly the number of tournaments entered but NOT won, this is a simple number and will never reflect skill.
A tournaments won divided by the number of tournaments entered on the other hand, would represent skill to some degree (only missing the component of WHO and how many others entered the tournies you win)
Absolutely no problem with that. Yes, this would lift the average player rank for sure, but that's easily compensated by increased daily reductions and/or higher edge corrections.
spinner said:
The fact is that this suggestion totally hinges on the acceptance of rank as a measure of skill, which it simply is not, and shouldn't be in my opinion.
If we were to introduce a second ranking system covering all games played (tourneys and friendlies), a "skill level" rank as it were, then this system would be ideal.
If we were to introduce a second ranking system covering all games played (tourneys and friendlies), a "skill level" rank as it were, then this system would be ideal.
There's a subtle difference between a handicap system vs. a direct indication of skill, but yes, that's what it should be in my opinion.
If you want to include ALL games into that measure, to avoid any chance of players deliberately or not avoiding to get their skill correctly represented, that would be VERY welcome by me.
Moot argument as long as we allow resets though, which is a tough one to do anything about even if we wanted to.
spinner said:
I completely understand this view, but again it is based on the misconception that rank is related to skill, which simply isnt the case.
No misconception - just desire to change it for the better. I WANT the rank system to represent skill - any handicap system needs to in order to work - but I have no illusions about what the current system does and doesn't do.
spinner said:
Tournament wins are the result of wins and losses too, just like ranking points.
No they are not. They are a simple accumulation of wins - no losses are counted. Yes, each win consists of wins and losses, but irrelevant as long as that is not recorded in any way. As long as only the wins are counted, without counting losses in any way at all, particularly the number of tournaments entered but NOT won, this is a simple number and will never reflect skill.
A tournaments won divided by the number of tournaments entered on the other hand, would represent skill to some degree (only missing the component of WHO and how many others entered the tournies you win)
spinner said:
Lets try it another way - I have played for almost 6 years to get to my current rank of 745 on US 8ball. What you are proposing could see someone who has never even played a single game "earning" more than that by playing a different game on the same table...
Absolutely no problem with that. Yes, this would lift the average player rank for sure, but that's easily compensated by increased daily reductions and/or higher edge corrections.
16 years ago
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This is a misconception.
In an environment with as many individual competitors as we have here, everyone does not need to play everyone else in order to establish a correct handicap for each player.
This is mathematical statistics a little bit beyond basic (I have three years of this stuff in university), but in short, the samples are so many that the local inconsistencies are smoothed to an insignificant level.
It's just a matter of time before those variations settle down on the correct level for each player.
chris said:
and the simple fact you dont understand jan is that for a ranking system to be just that everyone has to be competing against everyone else on a level playing field
This is a misconception.
In an environment with as many individual competitors as we have here, everyone does not need to play everyone else in order to establish a correct handicap for each player.
This is mathematical statistics a little bit beyond basic (I have three years of this stuff in university), but in short, the samples are so many that the local inconsistencies are smoothed to an insignificant level.
It's just a matter of time before those variations settle down on the correct level for each player.
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16 years ago
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Come out of that stats world and dip your toes into the real world.
I never said everyone has to play everyone else - but everyone does have to compete on a level playing field. For your stats to truly even out everyone has to play all kinds of opposition something that simply does not happen.
In my opinion the only way to get a genuine 'ranking' table is to use tournament results. Yes that takes those players that dont wish to play tournaments out of the equation but thats life. The rewards for tournaments would eventually be weighted by the quality of the tournament won considering the entrants.
I appreciate this is so far removed from the current system but really is the only way to get a true ranking table for players under the current method of being able to choose who you can play. Remove that ability to choose your opponents and that may work in the long term too. But that is never going to happen.
I repeat again that a high score table and a ranking table are two separate things until everyone is subject to the same requirements - whatever they may be.
there is a very valid comment in the 'about me' section on lordpool's profile.
I never said everyone has to play everyone else - but everyone does have to compete on a level playing field. For your stats to truly even out everyone has to play all kinds of opposition something that simply does not happen.
In my opinion the only way to get a genuine 'ranking' table is to use tournament results. Yes that takes those players that dont wish to play tournaments out of the equation but thats life. The rewards for tournaments would eventually be weighted by the quality of the tournament won considering the entrants.
I appreciate this is so far removed from the current system but really is the only way to get a true ranking table for players under the current method of being able to choose who you can play. Remove that ability to choose your opponents and that may work in the long term too. But that is never going to happen.
I repeat again that a high score table and a ranking table are two separate things until everyone is subject to the same requirements - whatever they may be.
there is a very valid comment in the 'about me' section on lordpool's profile.
16 years ago
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Everyone does not have to play all kinds of opposition for this to average out, no. It's an advantage, and helps the player base adopt their correct ranks faster (if looking from a day 1 perspective), but it's not required. That's the beauty of any weighted handicap system - even those playing exclusively players around their own rank will get a correct development over time since SOME of those players in turn also play other rank groups.
Anyways this is turning way off topic so please start another thread for this if you want to continue.
chris said:
Come out of that stats world and dip your toes into the real world.
I never said everyone has to play everyone else - but everyone does have to compete on a level playing field. For your stats to truly even out everyone has to play all kinds of opposition something that simply does not happen.
I never said everyone has to play everyone else - but everyone does have to compete on a level playing field. For your stats to truly even out everyone has to play all kinds of opposition something that simply does not happen.
Everyone does not have to play all kinds of opposition for this to average out, no. It's an advantage, and helps the player base adopt their correct ranks faster (if looking from a day 1 perspective), but it's not required. That's the beauty of any weighted handicap system - even those playing exclusively players around their own rank will get a correct development over time since SOME of those players in turn also play other rank groups.
Anyways this is turning way off topic so please start another thread for this if you want to continue.
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Should the ranking system be linked across the different game types
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