Player Ranking/Rating System

[redrum]

So there has been lots of side discussions around this since warclub has been closed. If we are serious about this then we need to lay out a high level design on how this would work. Did most players like how the warclub system worked? Do other sites/games do it better? Here are some pieces that need discussed:

1. How ranking/rating/tier is calculated and works?
2. How are 'ranked games' vs 'non-ranked games' determined? Challenge system? Players report wins/losses? Matchmaking?
3. Do we have separate 'ladders' for each map? Each game (XML within a map)? Only certain popular maps/games? Is there an overall ladder?
4. How do things like tournaments or leagues factor into this?
5. How often if ever do ratings/rankings reset? Do we have a sense of 'seasons' or 'years'?
6. How to limit abuse such as 1 user with multiple accounts playing them self?

References
http://www.daak.de/
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?board=54.0
http://www.myleague.com/triplea/

[prastle]

@redrum http://www.myleague.com/triplea/tournaments

[prastle]

@prastle http://www.myleague.com/triplea/standings
http://www.myleague.com/triplea/help/ranking-and-skill-rating

[erik542]

1. You could implement a basic ELO system.
2. Ranked play could be agreed upon at the outset of the game and results reported to the forums by screenshot.
3. I think that only certain maps should count and a player's overall rank would simply be their peak rank.
4. Tournaments and leagues are defacto ranked games.
5. At this stage, probably not because games / year is low compared to most other games like LoL and OW.
6. Damned if I know.

[prastle]

@erik542 redrum will be laughing as my arthritic fingers type on this tiny keyboard built for midgets...

To clarify for all! We do have a ladder. We could have 20 or one hundred forFREE....! (The only issue is they require use and activity or they shut them down since they are a separate site.)

1. They use an elo based system which is adjustable as we used to in old warclub.

2. Explained here ---> http://www.myleague.com/triplea/help/ranking-and-skill-rating

(Their challenge system sucks but maybe we can work on it ? I turned it off and let them challenge here in our forum.)

3. We can have a thousand ladders or maps as long as they remain active see above.

4. Tournaments are run separately there but are still part of the players on their ladder. ( Not really needed since we have our own private tourneys here.)

5. They dont reset unless the admin of that ladder resets.

6. It is a private league. They can only join by invite to our ladder through our forum. Thus they have to request an invite. In our forum. Obviously they have to be an active member by pbem, pbf, or live.

[DayMar]

1. guess something like toc players and winners are set to 1500 pts.( no idea how that works ) experienced 1000 and newly to play 500,just as it was for bigmap ladders
   2.the lower settled can allways challenge the higher ones but not other side around , if not agree
   3.various ladders for various maps
   4 like .1.
2. once a year
3. couple might use more then 1 pc but instead isnt it possible to figure the stable IP once signed in ?

cheers

[prastle]

@prastle the downsides of the current revised ladder are

1. No one has helped me flesh out the free site they have given us.

2. It requires a direct hot link added to the lobby engine otherwise it is a bit of a process to first get started there. Separate site etc.

3. They have advertising. (We can pay to turn this off)

4. We need to add a hot link to their standings to our forum

5. We would need to make our own sub groups for each ladder with their own medals achievements.

[prastle]

@daymar Ya dm that's why I turned off their challenges we can do our own thing here
Basically they are just a list

[General_Zod]

@redrum Maybe add a timer to the list, GTO had timers. Here is one thread where we had some good discussion on it.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/539/add-an-optional-turn-timer-to-lobby-games

[redrum]

@general_zod While timers would be a nice feature to have, I consider that pretty tangential to having a ranking system as most likely the default for ranked games would be PBF/PBEM.

[Deltium]

Hi, and thanks for this very good discussion. As I was a very active member at GTO, timers were indeed a big part of the rating module there, as many live players preferred to play ranked games, and a timer kept everybody on track.

In terms of mechanics, if a person ran out of time (and notably, there were several default options for the amount of time per move, e.g. 2 minutes, 5 minute, etc.), the turn simply had a hard stop. This was an extreme time penalty, but the time clock did start flashing red, when you were down to your last 30 seconds, so everyone understood the consequences therein.

However, I will agree with GZ that a timer is a "nice to have"and not absolutely needed initially.

The key rationale for the ranking system is that it creates a very nice complement to the ecosystem, whereby people can play friendly games, or work hard to increase one's ranking, etc.

It's been proven on other gaming websites that a ranking system materially improves player RETENTION and FREQUENCY of gameplay, so I do believe that this is a worthy investment in time and effort.

Many thanks, Deltium

[General_Zod]

@redrum Timer should definitely be something to strive for eventually. Lobby /live games will benefit greatly from this.

@redrum said in Player Ranking/Rating System:

1. How ranking/rating/tier is calculated and works?
2. How are 'ranked games' vs 'non-ranked games' determined? Challenge system? Players report wins/losses? Matchmaking?
3. Do we have separate 'ladders' for each map? Each game (XML within a map)? Only certain popular maps/games? Is there an overall ladder?
4. How do things like tournaments or leagues factor into this?
5. How often if ever do ratings/rankings reset? Do we have a sense of 'seasons' or 'years'?
6. How to limit abuse such as 1 user with multiple accounts playing them self?

1. ELO is what GTO used, seems like a good system. But I also like the simple chess tournament scoring system for tournaments. Works like so.
   win= 2 points
   loss= 0 points
   draw= 1 points (if we also had a chess timer/clock draws would be common, in it's simplest form)
   The player with the most points wins the multi game tournament. Anyways that's up to tournament organizers.

2. Need an option in the game setup, that is selectable. "Rated Game = yes/no". GTO had this method.

3. I think to keep it simple just have 2 ratings. "Singles Match" and "Multi Match" ratings. GTO had this as well. But if it someone can do separate ratings for all games and not be too convoluted, go for it.

4. A combination of 1. and 2. should suffice.

5. I don't think they should ever reset for non tourney matches. Not sure how GTO handled this.

6. This will have to use our new security features that we discussed in the bunker.

[erik542]

1. I don't like that scoring system because it doesn't take into account your opponent. While in a tournament or league scenario that scoring system would be sufficient, but outside of that using it to establish some kind of ladder to try to establish who are the best players of game overall will inevitably fail because two people can just play each other a lot to propel both of them to the top of the ladder. Under an ELO system, losing ELO for losing games prevents that as well as reduces the effectiveness of farming scrubs for free wins.

[General_Zod]

@erik542 Correct, it would not be ideal for a ladder, I was primarily mentioning it for tournaments. And simple food for thought, maybe some kind of hybrid system can be devised.

But if not reinventing the wheel, ELO is the way to go for ladders.

[AdamF]

@redrum

I support a player ranking system. Design algorithm that combines number of games played, number of wins/losses and strength of competition. Not sure how to weight each but an approximation would be better than what we have today.

[odor]

@redrum said in Player Ranking/Rating System:

How to limit abuse such as 1 user with multiple accounts playing them self?
cant remeber how GTo did it, but i seem to remeber they found a way...maybe something like: cant join at the same time form same ip with double account.

[redrum]

@odor Need to also consider PBEM/PBF which are played offline.