Ranking system

Hopefully it goes without asking that there will be a ranking system....

I have but one request for such a thing. That it be a true ranking system. Not like the games of today where you eventually reach rank by just playing. If someone with a lower rank than me beats me I want my rank negatively impacted and vice versa. This will lead to much better match made games.

That is all....

Bagsy being at the bottom of the list....

This is why I never really get into rankings is because of that. I would love a true ranking system like this to be incorporated. The only problem with a ranking system like this is if someone new gets an account but has been playing on his friends account, the system will not be able to correctly judge his rank and could devastate someone else's for no reason... but as I write this I realize that with a good ranking system the new account would still have to climb the ladder till they are able to play against them, or something like that.

But still, I would love to see a true ergonomic ranking system be implemented.

a similar discussion was had if you're interested : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/elo-vs-true-skill.49426/

Can you guys give an example of an RTS where this is not the case? Because i have not seen a single one.

that topic got way off hand talking about brands and re-naming and .........

It also needs to be better where the current unofficial one where players can get into the top 5 and not play for 2 months and remain in the top 5.

Well, I played a ton of StarCraft 2. The had a great system, it acted like so:
When a user entered a ranking system for the first time they would have no rank. Then to get ranked they'd have to play 5 placement matches. The first match was with low ranking players. The second was increased ranking. It went on from there. Usually the 5th match was with the top of the "food chain". that Avoided the problem of skilled players destroying the ranking of lower players.
It was point based... with a bonus pool. It's mechanics are relatively complicated (I would suggest research if you want to fully understand it). If PA wants a solid ranking system I would personally model it off of StarCraft's. Another function I like from Sc2 was Divisions, Bronze, silver, gold, etc. When joining a game somewhere near a user's name should display there rank/division.
Well, that's my take on PA ranking. It's only an opinion

That's usually a sign of "too few players playing"

While you are right, this has been an issue even when people were playing ranked.

But at the same time

..


If no one beats no. 1.... and he retires, he's still historically number 1. Because noone showed they could best him.

Promotion to the hall of fame?

really doesn't work like that. generally n°1 is n°1 because of how much he plays. he looses points if he doesn't play for a while. that's how it works on faf.

Exactly. That's bad. It should be that you are number 1 because you are the best. Not because you sit at home and play all day, every day, and just spam your way to the top.

If you stomp multiple players who try for the top spot, or the same player multiple times, and then you retire, that doesn't mean you are 2nd next week, 10th the week after and 100th the week after that. it means you retired, and now your proficiency cannot be measured in the ladder.



Think about BF4. If you spend all your playing hours repairing vehicles, stop playing, someone else can overtake you for top spot. Despite the fact that they have played a million hours, you played 3, and they have one more repair than you do.

Enter the idea of the hall of fame.

actually, due to season resets, players lose their spots on the ladder if they dont play. But yeah, rating degradation would help a little.

actually it's the exact opposite.

Our current best at faf doesn't play non-stop, he plays occasionally but has never stopped playing.

It is clear to us that he is the best and no one would go contest his seat in the ladder because we know him, we see him play today and it doesn't leave a shadow of a doubt. (the ex-n°1 from gpgnet is only the shadow of his former self)

If it were a player who'd stopped playing a year ago, everyone would doubt his authenticity as n°1 as the winning strategies constantly evolve. (the former wasn't really able to adapt)

The whole community is progressively getting better.

if you stop playing for a while you'll notice when you come back (beyond just the fact of getting rusty) that all the scores of the people you play deserve an extra 200 in your opinion. and that is because the strength of each and every player in the community has gone up.

our score is actually limitless and endlessly going up (very very slowly, but still)

Yes.
And if he 'retires'?
Does he enter a hall of fame? Or just become a shadow of his former self. You know. Like Pele. Or Zidane. Or Beckham?

well considering everyone relatively ancient in the community remembers them all, and constantly prophesise their return (most of the time accurately) then yes, they do enter the hall of fame.

You know how Pokemon fans can sing you the song of all the the pokemon names in one go from memory?
Well I can do the same but with famed FA players. (I'd say Zaphodx as well)

I happen to be relatively fresh though, so I don't have such an extensive knowledge as, say TA4life or Ruthlessone. but I try, and Ruthlessone, regularly narrates me the tales of the days of old, the days past, the days of gpg.

What do you guys think of divisions? So that in the ladder you have steps to thrive forward to. Specifically I'm very fond of Starcraft 2's 20%/20%/20%/20%/18%/2% split. Or is stepless better?

The leagues in SC2 are just a system to prevent people from seeing that they are actually not even among the top 10k players in Europe alone. It just sounds so much better to say "top 2%" than "top 10000"

I am not sure if PA would need such a system. It might be helpful to get people playing, but not as necessary as in SC2.

There's a big problem with that. No 1 can now never play again and stay at no 1.

All anyone needs to do is get to no 1 and never play again.