Player Rating System

[Tomisama]

Sometimes I wish we had a rating system. Not like a ladder based on wins, but more like a name color coding based on games played. This could be divided into 100 games increments and top out at a thousand.

0 - 100 Brown, 200 Red, 300 Orange, 400 Yellow, 500 Blue, 600 Green, 700 Violet, 800 Grey, 900 White, 1,000 games and over Black.

Your rating would follow you, being applied to any name you used.

Thoughts?

Edit: Ranking System would probably be a better name.

[Mithrandir]

yay

[Dionysus9]

What you are really going for is an "experience" ranking. Skill and experience are too different things, although related.

Personally I prefer anonymity and never knowing if your opponent named "JX2004" is a newb or vet.

[Tomisama]

Experience
Exactly Bach :)

What I’m looking for is an all around greater player satisfaction by better “experience” matching.

It would for the most part eliminate the “expert sharks” that pray on, and demoralize folks new to the game. I think a lot more people would become and stay “multiplayer active”, if they had a decent chance to crawl a while, before the walking trampled them. The less experienced would also know better who to trust, for advice and training.

Coding would enable players to both experienced and not, to seek people closer to their own level for a better quality game. This is especially important in team play, where one less experienced player can ruin the game for his team, and because this was true, even devalue the win for the other side.

An experience indicator would also serve to encourage people to play more, not only because they could more accurately choose from within their own range group, but also because status progression provides it’s own incentives. I can hear them now “Only three more games and I’ll have my red belt” (he he).

All-in-all I think it would improve the quality of game play, and also create a more enjoyable playing environment for everyone

[Nigel]

Quote[/b] ]What I’m looking for is an all around greater player satisfaction by better “experience” matching.

Experience is what you are measuring there. That's right.

But when it comes to matching, you really do want to match skill, not experience. I fully agree that games are most enjoyable when opponents fight at similar skills and it becomes a hard and exciting battle - not the strong slaughtering the weak.


Quote[/b] ]“Only three more games and I’ll have my red belt”
Nice thought, however I can also see players playing games just for the sake of their next belt. I can fight 100 battles and get beaten 100 times and not learn from it. So much better if you could actually rank on skill.

But yes, I know that is so much harder to do http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

[Tomisama]

I believe it is all self-regulating.

Skill comes with practice, the more you play (not necessarily all at one time, more like a weight lifting regimen), the better you will be.

Hey, if you can loose 100 games and still have the moxie to stick with it, I think you have earned your belt http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif

We have already had a winners ladder system years ago. It did not serve the purpose of building the community, in my opinion just the opposite. I think a players ladder will keep the focus on what this is truly all about, playing

Good Luck and Have Fun

[Dionysus9]

Well, I'm not opposed to the idea but I see a few problems:

1) Getting blackballed (or depending on belt colors "brownballed") because you are a newb. Take CBR for example-- he caught on REAL fast and could run with the big dogs after a few hundred games (maybe less). If he had been saddled with a "newb" belt it would be hard for him to find vets to improve against.

2) Exploits or other tricks--like playing 100 games and dropping from all of them just to move up a belt color. No matter what we or CA do, there will always be rats who try to cheat the system.


Those would be my two main concerns.

[ElmarkOFear]

If you had this color system AND something like in old STW. A list of wins/losses and (also add escapes this time). This would be nice and probably work well with tournament handicaping or ranking.

[Dionysus9]

It would be cool if all sorts of stats were kept (like they tried to do with MTW and failed [for whatever reason, I cant remember]).

If you were embarrased by your stats you could reset them and then they would show what date they were reset.

Hmmm...yes, add a competitive ladder...

..the biggest problem with the old competitive ladder was:
1) Fraudulent Honor: People with 2 P.C.'s created multiple identities, then beat up on their "slave" accounts to gain wins.

2)Intentional Drops: We all know and love these guys. Why people are still doing it is beyond me.

There is no easy "fix" that I can think of. As Elmo says-- recording all drops, out of sync's and otherwise unfinished games would help flag potential problem players, but bad connects and freak drops/sync happen to all of us.

Tying all stats to the cd key is a start because it makes it more expensive to cheat--and at least CA gets some sales out of it. But you could always buy 2 CD's and mine ranks out of one identity, reset the stats, and repeat. I don't see any way around this fundamental problem, but surely there must be a way-- other communities seem to maintain ladders fairly well?

[Tomisama]

We will always have folks who will try to beat the system, I think it’s inherent in human nature. And we will always have some who will succeed. Bound to happen I don’t think any system will be totally fool proof, but that’s no reason we shouldn’t have one. Hey, if the penalty were losing your key(s), and banning of future registration from any computer used, that might slow them down a little?

Anyway.

Blackballing? I may be the eternal optimist, but beyond some low level ranked juvenile puffiness, I don’t think there would be much of a problem. The upper levels of longer term players who appreciate and will be looking for talent, will still be judging by actual performance.

The coding is a crude tool, but does provide a basic backdrop to compare “time-in-game”. With more and more players from time zones all over the world, it’s very east to mistake someone you have never met before for a new player. How could you know, you can’t play everybody just to find out There are many benefits working for good in this.

Elmo, when I first read your post my mind raced to a vision of a player stat page. It was totally cool at first, but my smile began to fade as the possible problems started to come to the surface. The least of these is how do you figure team games? And the greatest, that I think the majority of folks may feel that that information should be private. That plus the cheating thing Bach mentioned, and complaint and error correction overhead, might have been the reasons for the demise of the original system.

The coding is very general, and should always be viewed as such. It can give you a clue as to who you’re talking to, or might want to talk to about a game. It can, directly for status, and indirectly for better matching, be an incentive to play more. It can save some embarrassing moments, and generally help us to put together more compatible groups for multi-partner games.

I hope something can be done with this idea, in whatever the form http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-smile.gif

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Hey, I'd be blue how appropriate

I am not sure I like that... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Louis,

[spacecadet]

"Black level players only"
Get out of my game you red newb
Kick the brownie

Space http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif