New ranking system design

New ranking system design

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Betalord
Former Engine Dev
Posts: 543
Joined: 29 Jun 2005, 09:31

New ranking system design

Post by Betalord »

I'm posting here a design for a new ranking (and ladder/tournament) system for you to comment on and to suggest possible improvements and to tell if you want such system at all. There have been some requests for more ranks lately in the forum, and since I think having more ranks based on in-game time doesn't make much sense, I am willing to implement such system as proposed here (especially since I am a little tired of fixing/expanding lobby all the time :).
However I found out today that we are doing some game project at the uni this semester so I won't be so actively involved with lobby development in next couple of months, and will postpone this a bit.

Anyway, here is the draft that I posted in the private forum some days ago, comments are welcome:

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The ladder system would be a classical online league system (like http://www.esl.eu/, http://www.clanbase.com/ , http://www.spring-league.com/) where every mod will be able to have it's own ladder (or more of them). There would be some lobby integration which will make it more smooth to organize such ranked games and enter the results (I was thinking of the same system as ESL use ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ one of the two players schedule/create a battle, once they've played it one of them enters the results and both upload their replays of the battle, and then they both check ├é┬╗I agree with the results├é┬½ option before the battle is officially closed ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ any disputed would be handled by the ladder admins). Player rating would be based on the ELO rating from participating in the ├é┬╗official├é┬½ ladders (note that this rating would be ladder-side based, it won't be integrated or visible in the lobby directly). There would be two type of battles: 1on1 and clan-on-clan. This is for practical reasons only ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ there is no accurate way to rate 2on2 (or n-on-n) games using ELO rating that I know of. So clans would be a single entities with a list of players in it (of which 1 or more would be marked as clan founders, giving them access to add more players to the clan etc.). Clan-on-clan games can then have arbitrary number of players (2on2, 3on3, etc.) and the ELO points would be assigned to the clan entity and not to the players themselves.

The other part is the tournament system. Tournaments would be the main form of competition (games played in a tournament can be automatically listed in the corresponding ladder as well). There could be different types of tournaments, but the most important thing is that there would always be some sort of tournament in progress, possibly even more of them (perhaps some specific to US timezone, some to EU timezone etc., so that player can arrange matches more easily), so that players will be able to acquire »norms« needed to progress through ranks (described later on).

The last part is the lobby ranking system. I think that there should be room for players who want to compete as well as for those who don't prefer that but still want to progress somehow in the manner of a ranking system. So I thought the lower 5 ranks based on in-game time would remain the same (perhaps only raising the limits a bit). This way new players can quickly progress through the ranking system without actually bothering with participating in ranked games / ladders, especially since they are beginners and don't dare to compete on a ranked level yet.
Next 3 levels would be reserved for the »veterans« and would involve some participating in ladders / tournaments. I'll refer to these levels as classes A, B and C (where A is the top one). They could be named »veteran classes« or simply »commanders«, where first class could be »commander«, second one »high commander« (or »supreme commander« :) ) and the last one »warlord«. If you come up with some better names, feel free to suggest them :)
Classes C and B would not be limited in the number of people in it, although the requirements to achieve this ranks should be balanced so that not too many people get it (or at least not to fast), so class C should probably represent the upper 5% (or so) of the active community (which is ~2000 players, so 5% is 100 players). To achieve level C title (»commander«, or whatever), there could be 2 ways: you could get it automatically for being an old time player, like having your account registered for at least 6 months and an in-game time of more than 200 hours or so, or by being at least a rank-5 player (I am refering to in-game time based ranks) and having defeated at least 5 commanders (those are class C, B or A players) in one of the official ladders / tournaments (the exact numbers are not important right now, I give them just as an example).

Class B would be reserved for more competitive players and would ideally represent the upper 2% or 3% of the active community (~50 players). In order to achieve it, you would have to achieve at least an ELO rating of X points (where X would be chosen so that it would reflect the upper few percent of the best players on the ladders) as well as collecting 3 ├é┬╗norms├é┬½ (├é┬╗norms├é┬½ as in chess ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ where players have to collect 2 norms to achieve grandmaster title I believe. They get the norms by beating some other grandmaster in a tournament. In SLO chess they are called ├é┬╗BALs├é┬½, not sure how they are called elsewere though).
The idea for class B title (├é┬╗high commander├é┬½, or whatever) as well as class C is that once you are awarded these titles, they stay (you can't loose them). This way players don't get ├é┬╗punished├é┬½ for not being as good as they used to be or whatever, but it is more reward oriented system (like on xbox ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ somebody on the forum mentioned how it works exactly). Same is with chess ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ all titles (including grandmaster) are life-long and you don't loose them if your ELO rating drops bellow master limits.
However, class A (├é┬╗warlords├é┬½, or whatever) is different in this regard ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ it represent the top (the elite) of Spring players and it only has n places reserved. It should represent the top 1% or so of the active community (~20 players. If half of them are logged-in in avarage, this means 10 players in the lobby which should be enough I think. The point is that it is truly elite and that not anyone has it). To achieve this title, you would first have to achieve class B title and then you would be able to challenge the ├é┬╗council of warlords├é┬½ (one of the class A players). In short, if player believes he should be in this elite group of players, he should challenge one of them and prove it that he is better than him ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ in order to do that, he would have to win this player 3 consecutive times (2 of which the defender of the title would get to choose what mod to play or what map ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ where he would be able to choose only among ├é┬╗official├é┬½ mods so that this way he can't choose some completely unknown mod at which the other player is no good at. The other player would then choose the starting positions or so, the details are yet to be worked out). So this is similar to ├é┬╗king of a [insert mod here]├é┬½ title that some people were practising in the lobby. If the player would beat the warlord 3 consecutive times, he would take his place as a warlord instead of him.
However, all ex-warlords (players who were once warlords but aren't any more) could get assigned some »retired warlord« icon or so (a special honour title), in order to go with the spirit of reward-oriented ranking system as I explained before.
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FoeOfTheBee
Posts: 557
Joined: 12 May 2005, 18:26

Post by FoeOfTheBee »

Sounds interesting. Ideally, I'd like to see it implemented in steps, to make sure each change works before adding another. The concept looks good to me though.
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Cabbage
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Joined: 12 Mar 2006, 22:34

Post by Cabbage »

no 1,000 hour rank? :cry:

You could call it "social reject" or something :P
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LordMatt
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Joined: 15 May 2005, 04:26

Post by LordMatt »

Which Private forum? It's not in the one here as far as I can see.
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AF
AI Developer
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Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Post by AF »

This is a kick in the teeth for the spring league.
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LordMatt
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Joined: 15 May 2005, 04:26

Post by LordMatt »

Not everyone feels that way about it AF. :|
Last edited by LordMatt on 27 Feb 2007, 02:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Neddie
Community Lead
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Post by Neddie »

We can roll with it, good or bad.
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Blah64
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Joined: 09 Jul 2006, 04:02

Post by Blah64 »

I'm happy that this at least keeps the time based ranks because I don't really like competing in tournaments but I can still get to a decent rank just by playing normally.
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Ishach
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Joined: 02 May 2006, 06:44

Post by Ishach »

I love you betalord


Integrated rankings is my #1 wish for spring and this sounds really great
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Lolsquad_Steven
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Joined: 27 Jun 2006, 17:55

Post by Lolsquad_Steven »

This is the best day of my life.
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Ishach
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Post by Ishach »

Lolsquad_Steven wrote:This is the best day of my life.
:')
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KDR_11k
Game Developer
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Joined: 25 Jun 2006, 08:44

Post by KDR_11k »

A problem with having both players agree on the result is that you'll invriably run into jerks who never agree to a result if they lose to boost their stats.
Uberleechen
Posts: 36
Joined: 22 Nov 2006, 23:48

Post by Uberleechen »

But with the dualposted replay, if it's important (eg. there's time, not too many spam) disputed replays can be quickly viewed to ascertain who is correct.

This would, of course, lead to the issue of replay-falsification, but generally that would be too much work. [I hope...]
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Maelstrom
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Joined: 23 Jul 2005, 14:52

Post by Maelstrom »

Actually, falsifying the names of players in a replay is rediculously easy if you know how, all you need is notepad and a calculator....
Betalord
Former Engine Dev
Posts: 543
Joined: 29 Jun 2005, 09:31

Post by Betalord »

Falsifying results would have no meaning since both of the players would have to agree on the match results, if they disagree however then one of the ladder admins would handle it. In worst case, if replays from both players differ and there is no way to figure out which one is falsified / who is telling the truth, the match could be replayed having ladder admin in as a spectator (or even better, in each ladder game a host bot would have to be present as a spectator which would then automatically upload the replay to the ladder system so that admins can examine it in case of dispute). Players would get penalty points for not submitting results / replays / confirming match results and could get assigned automatic loss if so etc., the details can be worked out as we go.
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Strategia
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Post by Strategia »

OH HELL YES

When are you planning on implementing this?
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ginekolog
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Joined: 27 Feb 2006, 13:49

Post by ginekolog »

sounds awsome.
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iamacup
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Post by iamacup »

are the ladder admins gona be the current lobby mods, if so you need a hell of a load more

from experiance we needed about 6 online for a tournament to go well and simply get people into games on time.
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drolito
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Joined: 06 Feb 2007, 09:44

Post by drolito »

how i can enter the class A ? Can we put an "ethical parameter" for these players to have the true best players ?

(Because it's not only win which make the best player but being humble, help the new players, don't say always "fcuk" in the lobby ... etc ...)

And we need to fixe the map attribution ... because i can always win if i always play speedmetal for exemple ...
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AF
AI Developer
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Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Post by AF »

yah, what sort of a timeframe are we talking about in development here and how long after that should it be finished?
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