Ranking Reform

[Vein]

Not taking sides or anything but I have seen a ladder system used before.


The person in the #1 spot constantly avoided fights against people who were suspected of being stronger than him and was getting challenges from all directions.

To help stop this, the ladder was changed so you can only challenge the person just above you.  Same problem though, the person just above would avoid fighting if they thought they could lose their spot and then insist on fighting the person just above them.  If the person above did accept the challenge of the person below and lost, they would then immediately try to challenge the winner and the winner would usually not want to fight again.  This would lead to lots of bickering.

I'm not saying that it won't work but it could lead to lots of problems among forums if not perfected.

[Killah Zillah]

Neither method is simpler than the other to the point that you should base your whole argument on that, if anything, the infinite ladder is the easiest because you are just moving the clans around like shapes in preschool while the ratio actually takes math and knowledge of numbers. It's more familiar to the new players, who're used to numbers judging victories. Look at GG2 itself, it calculates who wins each type of match via NUMBERS. Number of captured intels, number of captured CP's, number of remaining players in Arena, numbers make it feel more real for the players and makes it all the more satisfying when they succeed. Imagine if CTF didn't choose victors by how many scores you've made, but who scored first. That's not fun, is it? And again, ladder method isn't used by any popular game. I keep saying that over and over, the point isn't which is the best at choosing who's the best team, it's which is the most FUN and FAMILIAR to draw in new players.

It may be unfair to assume that some clans will rig matches to gain a decent ratio, but it is very accurate to say some clans have a tendency to have rivalries and fight many many many times against each other without really testing the waters outside. This much is true, but is that a BAD thing? Fighting amongst your rivals is fun AND challenging, and doing this ensures that even clans who have a disadvantage against the tougher clans have a chance at the big 3 ranks.

Ladder systems get used everywhere in life and very often in sports and it translates easy into any sort of competition Like where? I've never ever seen it in any popular video game, I've never even seen it.. EVER. Football, soccer, baseball, hockey, bobsledding, every game I've ever heard of used numbers in SOME WAY to determine who's the victor.

Prizes can be given regardless of what type of system But the purpose of RBY's idea was to make it relate to the new system in order to give BOTH more of a reason to exist, as well as provide something new and interesting that the clans section has never done before.

I cut out the unrelated stuff, your suggestions for clan activity rules shouldn't be in this thread, no offence. They're just out of place here.

Not taking sides or anything but I have seen a ladder system used before.


The person in the #1 spot constantly avoided fights against people who were suspected of being stronger than him and was getting challenges from all directions.

To help stop this, the ladder was changed so you can only challenge the person just above you.  Same problem though, the person just above would avoid fighting if they thought they could lose their spot and then insist on fighting the person just above them.  If the person above did accept the challenge of the person below and lost, they would then immediately try to challenge the winner and the winner would usually not want to fight again.  This would lead to lots of bickering.

I'm not saying that it won't work but it could lead to lots of problems among forums if not perfected.

A couple fine points, but I believe you're thinking of this in the short term. This ladder would continue until the end of time (basically), meaning that it would never change and would always deadlock you into challenging a small group of clans above you. And again (Jesus I'm getting tired of saying that X_X) there's strong and weak players in every clan. Sure, some have more skilled players than others, but how many clans actually CARE and would refuse to fight a skilled clan? Even if they do shy away from skilled clans, there would be people challenging them occasionally from stronger clans, thus ensuring they wouldn't be stuck in the same pattern forever.

[Phantom Brave]

Having tourneys place you as #1 solves the issue.

[Killah Zillah]

Having tourneys place you as #1 solves the issue.

If we go with the ladder option, the tournament is made just as pointless as it was before the reform. Being at the top of the list is the main prize of RBY's proposed solstice tournament, but with the top of the list being so NEBULOUS and open to random fluctuation at absolutely any time, it would mean that it's far less of a reward to bother showing up to compete for when they could get the same thing QUICKER AND EASIER by just warring at random whenever they feel like. Tournaments would be just as pointless as they are now, and the point here is to - again - entice new players to come join the clans section.

[Vein]

A couple fine points, but I believe you're thinking of this in the short term. This ladder would continue until the end of time (basically), meaning that it would never change and would always deadlock you into challenging a small group of clans above you. And again (Jesus I'm getting tired of saying that X_X) there's strong and weak players in every clan. Sure, some have more skilled players than others, but how many clans actually CARE and would refuse to fight a skilled clan? Even if they do shy away from skilled clans, there would be people challenging them occasionally from stronger clans, thus ensuring they wouldn't be stuck in the same pattern forever.

Hey, I'm not saying that the ladder system won't work or that it is doomed to fail.  It is just that I have seen it used before and the higher ranked people would never challenge people ranked lower than them.  The person who was challenging the higher ranked person had nothing to lose were-as the higher ranked person could lose their current ranking.

The reason clans would refuse fights is either they don't want to lose their current rank or they have nothing to gain from fighting someone ranked lower than them.  The clans on the top would get the most fight requests and would refuse them all due to only having the time and ability to fight one clan at a time.  The clans that were refused would rather wait til the top clans can get the time to accept another fight than to fight someone else in which their is no real gain for them.

[Killah Zillah]

Hey, I'm not saying that the ladder system won't work or that it is doomed to fail.  It is just that I have seen it used before and the higher ranked people would never challenge people ranked lower than them.  The person who was challenging the higher ranked person had nothing to lose were-as the higher ranked person could lose their current ranking.

The reason clans would refuse fights is either they don't want to lose their current rank or they have nothing to gain from fighting someone ranked lower than them.  The clans on the top would get the most fight requests and would refuse them all due to only having the time and ability to fight one clan at a time.  The clans that were refused would rather wait til the top clans can get the time to accept another fight than to fight someone else in which their is no real gain for them.

Oh I know! You said that you were just remarking on how refined that system would have to be in order to keep things fair, I'm just saying that the ladder system wouldn't work in the long term. It would work in a single tournament perhaps, but as a permanent solution? I don't think it has as much lasting appeal as me and Trog's method, due to it locking you into fighting only a small group of people above you in the list.

That would be the reason why pubbies would, but you're talking about a whole different species of player. We're clanners, we enjoy new and exciting methods of competition, we enjoy challenging games!

[trog]

As you said, organizing a clan war takes a long time, so naturally spending all that time for a complete roll or an utter defeat is undesirable. It makes sense then that teams would aim to find someone to fight where the match is very close. Against a team that's exactly the same skill as yours, both teams would have a 50% win rate between themselves, so if you fight clans that have the same skill level as yours you will have a 50% win rate overall.

Using the logic that finding a way to create a 50% win rate creates the most fun matches for clans, and since there is nothing stopping them from doing so, we can say that most clans will have about a 50% win rate regardless of how good they actually are, because that's what creates the most fun matches. The exceptions would be a clan so stacked no other clan could defeat it, a clan so bad no other clan could lose to it, clans purposely fighting worse clans, and clans purposely fighting better clans. We want to discourage all but the last one, which win ratio actually discourages (although the third can be solved by mods).

As for popularity, no real tournament ever would have results based on win ratio alone, for the exact reasons above. It only works in tournaments where matches are assigned in such a way that every team must face every other team (round robin), but in these cases the point spread system is used instead because it is much simpler and can accommodate draws. Ladder systems are used anywhere where there is no or very little restrictions as to who you can challenge. The ELO scoring system is basically a form of ladder tournament which is extremely popular and is used everywhere from the top chess league (I dunno what it’s called) to RTS games like DOTA/LOL/SC2 (I know at least one of them uses it but I don’t play rts games so they all sound the same to me so I can’t remember which one I heard uses ELO).

Also Vein I wouldn’t worry about abuse of high rank, the current method works the same way and there were no problems when people actually played. It's easily detectable and can be easily dealt with by mods.

[trog]

Also if it's just about having some numbers somewhere to show progress, look at the rankings thread. For both win ratio and ladder it will look exactly the same, except without the points section.

[Killah Zillah]

As you said, organizing a clan war takes a long time, so naturally spending all that time for a complete roll or an utter defeat is undesirable. It makes sense then that teams would aim to find someone to fight where the match is very close. Against a team that's exactly the same skill as yours, both teams would have a 50% win rate between themselves, so if you fight clans that have the same skill level as yours you will have a 50% win rate overall. You forget, we war with challenging clans to have fun. We SEEK the challenge, we don't hide from it. Can you name at least 3 clans that have done this? Can you name even one that intentionally hides from war and STILL considers themselves a competitive clan?

Using the logic that finding a way to create a 50% win rate creates the most fun matches for clans, and since there is nothing stopping them from doing so, we can say that most clans will have about a 50% win rate regardless of how good they actually are, because that's what creates the most fun matches. The exceptions would be a clan so stacked no other clan could defeat it, a clan so bad no other clan could lose to it, clans purposely fighting worse clans, and clans purposely fighting better clans. We want to discourage all but the last one, which win ratio actually discourages (although the third can be solved by mods). Are you really suggesting that there are clans that never win, and clans that never lose? Like who? Who among us is that perfect or that shitty? You've got to remember, we're not pubbies or MLG gamers, we've got good and bad teams, mixed muts of clans. The only clan I'd say has any extreme advantage is TSA, but do they only pick on one skill set? Do they NEVER lose? They lose same as anyone, nobody is perfect 100% of the time, OR shit 100% of the time, and the proposed wiping the slate clean every 6 months would ensure that no one clan stays at the top for too long. Same effect, but more impact and mass appeal.

As for popularity, no real tournament ever would have results based on win ratio alone, for the exact reasons above. It only works in tournaments where matches are assigned in such a way that every team must face every other team (round robin), but in these cases the point spread system is used instead because it is much simpler and can accommodate draws. Ladder systems are used anywhere where there is no or very little restrictions as to who you can challenge. The ELO scoring system is basically a form of ladder tournament which is extremely popular and is used everywhere from the top chess league (I dunno what it’s called) to RTS games like DOTA/LOL/SC2 (I know at least one of them uses it but I don’t play rts games so they all sound the same to me so I can’t remember which one I heard uses ELO). I've never heard of Dota or SC2, and LoL isn't strictly clan based I don't think. There's individual players among it, and I bet that even then, there's points taken into account for their ranks. You have to have SOME numbers take part in it, consider how many other games don't use this method and use our method. Consider how many of them are way way more popular and well known. I'll list 12 games right now off the top of my head that use a points system: Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield 3, GTAIV, Mario Party, Resident Evil 4/5 (the two most popular ones I add), Super Smash Bros., Star Wars Battlefront, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, golf, tennis, and many more that I'm not gonna list because I think I've made my point. Points systems work, they're popular, they're the time honored method, they're what people are comfortable and familiar with.

[trog]

Every clan I've been in has only challenged people we feel we have a good chance of winning against. Usually it's just our ego but regardless we still think we can win and get that really close match.

I'm just listing possible exceptions.

Win ratio isn't a point based system.

[Killah Zillah]

Every clan I've been in has only challenged people we feel we have a good chance of winning against. Usually it's just our ego but regardless we still think we can win and get that really close match.

I'm just listing possible exceptions.

Win ratio isn't a point based system.

As you said, that's a mind game and has no bearing here. No clan will outright refuse to fight a clan, and no clan will outright single out the weaker clans. Balance on both sides, but the victory method allows you to war ANYONE, not just people above you.

I know, and I'm glad you're defending the ladder system, same as I'm defending the points system! If nobody's debating the topic, then people are left wondering what the pros and cons are.

Yes it is, we judge based on how many times you've warred and how many times you've won. Those those wins are called points in the same way we call intel caps points, are they not?

[trog]

Then we can call the rank of a team their points, except it's like golf and you want to have the lowest number. Or we could make points be equal to number of clans - rank so you still want to have a bigger number. The presence of numbers doesn't make a system better because numbers can be added to anything.

[Footpöp]

KZ you are making bad arguments and I am getting salty.

[Killah Zillah]

Then we can call the rank of a team their points, except it's like golf and you want to have the lowest number. Or we could make points be equal to number of clans - rank + 1 so you still want to have a bigger number. The presence of numbers doesn't make a system better because numbers can be added to anything.

You're using mere wordplay, points are an accumulative number. Names aren't points because they're not numbers. Golf uses numbers, not a tournament ladder system because numbers are more exact and satisfying to see, they feel more rewarding and "real" to accumulate. Again, the point is what will bring in the most players, and you absolutely cannot deny that there's far far more games that use points rather than a ladder system to determine who's the victor.

KZ you are making bad arguments and I am getting salty.

He hasn't been able to deflect a single one of my arguements, and my arguements are based in fact and statistics. You are being a troll, please don't be a troll because we're having a serious discussion here.

[Footpöp]

If anything, you are being a troll by basing every single one of your points on magic, sprinkles, and edited versions of "I think it's right" or "I don't know what you mean".  You never directly addressed my points, and instead opted to reiterate your own.