An Alternative to the Rankings?

[petedalby]

Jon - (EarlyDoors) showed me how to do the ELO rankings some time ago. I'm not the most competent IT person and it struck me as hugely complicated. It was made even more so by the number of players who played maybe 1 or 2 games and then disappeared.

In Jon's continued absence I've produced the following for what I perceive the current active players are. (Okay - maybe they're not all active.)

It's in alphabetical order and grouped into 3 classes. And it's entirely subjective based upon my own SCWaW games, recent results & who plays who. Some players seek out challenging opponents. Others don't appear to.

The intention, just as with ELO, is to provide a guide as to who is likely to provide a challenging game so we can select our games / opponents accordingly.

If you feel I've misrepresented your abilities, please send me a PM.

I'll review this list from time to time. It's intended to inform & to be a bit of fun. Please feel free to ignore it.

A Class
Cpuncher
DmitryN
Fanir
Taifun
Umeu

B Class
EarlyDoors
ElvisJJonesRambo
Harris45
HarrySmith
petedalby
ThunderLizard11

C Class
arcturusrising
arigokut
aquavita
boudi
ByNicho
DavidDailey
helmseye
Inbello
Jonny25k
MerlinXL
Old_Shane
Pekkavilamoura
wevilc
Zarevic

[HarrySmith]

Not a bad idea though I do like a ranking system. Maybe we can use a class group like you have put up and then a point system. Maybe with class you get bonus for playing class above yourself and a lesser score for playing below. You then get points for win and bonus points for how quick. Perhaps like posted by DmitryN ?? on ELO.

[petedalby]

I agree Harry. But unless / until someone steps up to produce a new ELO system we're kinda stuck.

[calcwerc]

You need to place Hamburgermeat in A class. Perhaps he is not active anymore, but he was such a dominant player until Fafnir began playing that he deserves a mention. He is also the only one to beat Fafnir, as far as i know.
Fafnir should have his own class, shouldnt he?

[petedalby]

If Hamburgermeat reappears I'll certainly put him in A. With yourself in B. And yes, you're probably right!

[Jonny25k]

I like this idea. Would reclass players quarterly based on sucess rate.

[ThunderLizard11]

Open to any new system as unfortunately EarlyDoors seems to be gone. What's the next step?

[petedalby]

So far no-one has objected to my subjective rankings. Taking into account comments about longer games I'll propose the following:

Points are for a win, irrespective of scenario. Beating a higher rated opponent earns you more points. Bonus Points are for both players. I need to work on the formatting but hopefully it makes sense.


A B C
A 3 2 1
B 5 3 1
C 7 5 1

1 Bonus Point if game goes to 1944+
2 Bonus Points if game goes to 1947

What do people think?

[Umeu]

Bonus points should not go back to both players. If you win, it makes no sense that a tactical victory in 47 is worth more points than a decisive victory in 43. I think it makes more sense to do something like this:

Winner bonus
Win (or force resignation) before 43 = +2
Win (or force resignation) before 45 = +1

Loser bonus
Last until 45 =+1
Last until 47 =+2

This way, the winner has some incentive to win as decisive as possible, while the losing party also has incentive to try hold out for as long as possible.

You should also consider whether your system will be like elo (what the winner gains, the loser loses) or whether it’s more like football, where a win has a set number of points (can be according to your tiered approach) but the loser does not lose points, just doesn’t get any extra. With the latter system, if you include bonus points, you could run into situations where a C tier player playing a beats any tier (if I understand it correctly?) and thus gains one point, however they didn’t win until 47, and so the opponent, despite losing, gets 2 points, which is more than the winner. Also, if you have a ranking, tiers should just be based on a certain number of points, rather than subjective opinion based on performance. ELO kinda does this automatically as losing will lower someones score and can thus lower their tier, but in the football system, there isn’t really a penalty to losing, unless you do something like a seasonal competition or tournament.

[petedalby]

Thanks for the suggestions Umeu.

I'm struggling on how to upload a simple Xcel spreadsheet on here. Any suggestions - please send me a PM.

For clarity, my table was trying to represent the following:

A beats A - 3 points, A beats B - 2 points, A beats C - 1 point.
B beats A - 5 points, B beats B - 3 points, B beats C - 1 point.
C beats A - 7 points, C beats B - 5 points, C beats C - 1 point.

But if it becomes too complicated it's probably not worth hassle.

[Jonny25k]

I think that makes sense but this points should be devided by the number of games a player plays. Otherwise a player who plays 100 games and wins 10 will gain 30 - 70 points, a player playing 10 games and wins 8 will gain between 24 - 56 points and is with his success rate of 80 % below the player with a success rate of 10 %

[ThunderLizard11]

When should we start? Jan 1?

[petedalby]

I'll step aside & let someone else do this. I don't think I have the necessary tech / IT skills.

[Old_Shane]

I am no tech/IT/Excel wizard either. But if someone builds it I can manage it and post updates.

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

There are free gaming ladders all over the internet. Nothing to manage.
Wayback, during SC-1, the ranking ladder was on a free 3rd party site.
Just enter the Winner/Loser, the computer Ladder would take care of the points, based on strength of opponent. There was no maintenance, no cost, no worries. Yes, one person had to set it up, put in some kind of settings to get started. But that's it. That admin, should just give everyone access. Why, with the age of everyone, they die or just move on. I'm surprised, Matrix, doesn't have a built in one on this site. I'm sure most of us could program it in a few days. With logins already to access this Forum, just use that.

[ElvisJJonesRambo]

Added a thread in "General Forum", feel free to add to it:

https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopi ... 4#p5249524

I've been playing SC-WAW since the Vaxx days.
We've tried to have a manual ladder system, dude disappeared or died. Okay, that happens.

Would it be possible that Matrix could create "Ladder system" for each game?
I'm sure you know what I'm asking.
Strength of schedule, like chess rankings, points and simple record keeping.
Seems likes an easy program to write.
Just use the logins from this site, and have a link in each game.
Players just report Win/Loss, that's it.
Program does the rest.

-Let me know

[ThunderLizard11]

Good idea from Elvis - would make sense to have Matrix manage or at least provide a set-up

[firsteds]

Hi folks. I miss ELO games and I have been reviewing the discussion. I am willing to volunteer to run a new ELO ranking system from January 1. This would be on a free website and I would just input the initial scores and results. I am OK with tech and have plenty of time.

However I think some of the proposals are too complex and won't add much to an ELO ranking. So I propose to just start from scratch on January 1 (everyone starts on 1000 points) and I will update wins and losses, with a few SIMPLE changes:

1. I am happy to give the super elite players a slightly higher starting points score - I will research / experiment a bit, but let's say we give the top five or ten players a 50 point starting bonus. Other suggestions welcome.

2. I am happy for a VERY SIMPLE bonus to be added to games that last until 1946 or 1947 to encourage some longer games. I am thinking about what this might look like. Suggestions welcome.

3. Some ELO rankings introduce 'decay'. For example, your score falls by 5% if you don't play any games for a year. I think I can manage the maths on that.

4. The free ELO websites are for a maximum of 70 active players, so people would have to drop out if they fell below rank 70 (or were clearly inactive).

I would be grateful if one other forum member would volunteer as back up just so that they have the login and password details to the site in case something happens to me.

Happy to have a general discussion on the forum about this. PM me if it is a more detailed idea and I can summarise for the group.

Chris (firsteds)

[Pekkavilamoura]

Sounds good! The old ranking list is totally outdated. There are some 120 players listed, today there are maybe 25-30 active players, so that decay should have been applied already a while ago.
So it would be great if you can go forward and we have a fresh start.
Re: Bonus for elite players - yes I think there could be a start bonus, I suggest for the top 5 'Group A' players - see list above in the thread.

[HARRIS45]

I would be happy with any update to old ELO ranking system and acknowledging I have limited technical knowledge I thought Petedalby's model had great possibilities.