Ranked tourneys used to be good when newbies weren't allowed because people didnt reset and make new accounts so often and you could gain rank in them even if you didnt win.
Now you can win a tournament, beating good players and only dropping a couple of frames along the way and be worse off on ranking points.
If you look at the ranking tables there are hardly any pros compared to how it used to be, you need the tourneys to be unranked or no newbies in them to fix the ranking system and make it possible to get somewhere again.

Aye, and when there are pros they're noobs like me!

The 'Pros' 'Virts' etc are irrelevant to the ranking tables. It is where you sit compared to everyone else that matters.

Regarding newbies in tournaments, you need to allow everyone in to try and get players hooked from day one. If you lose even one newly registered player because they dont get to experience the fun of tournaments then that is a major negative.

Losing to so called fake newbies can happen to everyone so in theory over time evens out for all.

People like to try and improve their highest ranks though chris, doesn't matter where you sit in the table to most.
Nothing evens out either, you beat the best people on here for 0.3 points in tourneys and lose a couple of frames to someone on virtually the same rank and lose 10 pts
Real newbies wouldnt last long in tourneys anyway so would hardly rope them in and looking at the numbers on the site it has hardly worked has it?!

very good comment i agree

People want different things on here though - the trick is trying to cater for as many as possible. Those that do want a genuine ranking table competed for on a reasonably level playing field now have that. It did not exist before. Similarly there are few players unable to improve their highest ranks under the current system. Generally they are the ones that achieved high rank scores under the old system. In hindsight, resetting (or adjusting) everyone when the changes came in would have been the best thing, assuming people could have got over their outrage at the time!!



Not quite sure how that works? You beat the 'best' people (presumably higher ranked players?) for 0.3 points and lose 10 points for losing to someone on the same ranked score? I have not experienced that - maybe an example of where that happens exactly?



Not necessarily true. On my very first afternoon on this site I won an 8 Ball Pro tournament on here against lots of very good established players. Hooked me!! I think falling numbers is a different issue - not related to Newbies in tournaments - and debated elsewhere in this thread. But I stand by the point that if you lose even one person by them not being allowed to enter tournaments immediately then that is a mistake.

Edited at 22:40 Mon 26/11/12 (GMT)

I remember when everyone over 800 had a percentage of their rank removed when there was changes to the rank system. Can't remember when it was, but it happened...

Loads of the best players on here reset all the time chris or are constantly on new accounts...obviously you havent noticed but tournaments used to be the only deterent for people doing that now there is none.
Cant see how you won an 8 ball pro tournament on your first afternoon on here when you used to have to play 50 ranked games before you could enter one.
How is it a genuine ranking system when half the best players reset all the time or are on new accounts every 5 minutes?

If you made the tourneys all friendly then people would play ranked games again, against people on a similar rank.
Would be less resetting and more people would play tourneys just for the tourney win again...bigger numbers, more prestige and tournapoints would still be an added thing to go for.

I have to admit that as a funkypool player I much preferred the game a few years back: reason being for me

1: it was much harder to win a tournament - take 8UK marathon there used to be known good players on the site logging in to win this, we'll till ouna logged in and there was a far better challenge and reward from winning this game, I used to enjoy waiting for the challenge !?!
2: it was much harder to win tournaments as there used to be 100+ playing in every game and to win a tourn was classed as a decent achievement back then
3: it is hard these days to get a decent ranked game as most players on here play for the silly daily cup, so you find that most players can pick and choose from the 100+ tourns per day to win for just points
4: I don't know the stats but basically 95% of friendly tournaments end in DQ unless someone wants to be on the win list and not risk rank?!?

For me I think Nick needs to review funkypool / snooker to try and bring these great games back to where the popularity was a few years back? Taking the chat rooms as an example I remember the days we used to be sat waiting to join in the members bar!?!? There is no doubt the site popularity has reduced for whatever reason!

is there anyone on this site , that dosent prefer it as b4

Also chat rooms have died due to the constant tournament schedule imo , its now a ghost town in there

That first sentence is me all over lol

No comment

The old way was the best way for me...why try and fix something thats no broke...seems to be broke now and fewer players...1 tornie per hour id say..bring back the old ranking system!...love chris post about giveing the newbies a chance to get hooked lol..are we trying to make funky a new drug or an enjoyable pastime?!

Precisely!

Nay! lol

Touching slightly on what chris mention near bottom of page 2..what if we could say..bet ranking..sort of like "Killerpool" you could agree on oh say 1 through maybe 15 in rannking points..or 1-10. Set your rank and play..that would be very interesting! And i don't want to see arcade games be in hourly tournaments, if it gets changed. Maybe keep those at micros, and open the door of "Friendly" tournaments to guests and players. That way guests can play actuall members and get a feel of tournys! So far all i got.

Whilst every idea is important it doesn't mean every idea is good.

So sniper let me just show a few small problems with your last idea...

Whether money is involved or not this is still gambling, and I believe would need a gambling licence to do (maybe not) also would need to make sure those gambling are of legal age. Now this is somewhat of a grey area as some will say it's only points not money blah blah, but it was playing online poker and roulette with play money the got me addicted to gambling and a lot of parents would agree it's a bad idea on a family site.

Say you were in a 15 man killer, everyone gambled 15 points each that is 225 points available to win from one game, say someone was 675 newbie, they could be 890 rank within one game (gaining the 210 points from other players plus their 15 back) now do you think that is sensible?

I know players who at the minute and in very recent past have cheated to get to top of the rank boards getting friends to lose to them on purpose. Would be a lot easier this way with 15 points at stake per game. However it isn't always easy to spot as everyone can have a bad day for example yesterday I beat foxy147 who is a cracking player 4-0 at uk his best game type. There was no cheating but in this system you propose I could be 60 points up, there is no justice in that.

Finally the 1000 rank would be possible and the way the current system works it is impossible I believe and this would take an edge away from the game.

I still stand by the idea of scrapping micro's for tournapoints and rank, however keep them for guests and newbies, this would mean we can take newbies out of tournaments but they would be able to still play some, but only small ones until they lose their newbie tag. This would involve guests a lot more and would possibly encourage more signups, more signups generally mean more entrants in tournaments, more people on the forums and in chat rooms and more fun.

Keep tournaments ranked, but just reduce the amount of tournaments available, I like the idea of ranked tournaments and tournapoints, but with over 130 tournaments available per day as it is at the minute it is just too many. If they were just hourly over a 48 hour period, that would mean you would have 9 of each tournament and have 3 spare so you could have a marathon tournament in each 9 ball us8 and uk8, what many regard as the main game types.

Again I believe the reduction of tournaments but the introduction of newbie and guest only tournaments would introduce a lot more interest from new players and thus having an effect on the numbers of newer players maybe rising and this would have an effect on the number of entrants on the main tournaments.

Would also solve the "problems" as some would describe them of lack of activity on forum for example general chat, and in the chat rooms.