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The Future of Rankings - Discussion Thread


Joel

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As has been said, the larger tournaments (in numbers) should run 4 rounds to stand more chance of getting a clear winner. Although in theory this is 16+, in practical terms 24+ is probably OK. (LOEH ran with 23 players and had a clear winner on 9 points, but 4 players on 7 points). Of course, it is not practical to make this compulsory so we have to accept, I think, that there will be some 'randomness' in the results of a 3 player, large player event.

At the end of the day, whatever is done, the good players who go to multiple event will always come out at the top of the rankings.

In terms of understanding the impact on our hobby maybe we should consider either changing the min number for 100 points or the number of scoring events in 2014 to be able to analyse the impact.

The comment that only around 20% of events should score max points sounds reasonable, and I like the idea that the magic 400 should be an extremely rare achievement. No bad reflection on Joel's potential 400 (2013 retrospective) but getting to the 400 should perhaps contain more then 4 wins i.e. winning a >100 scoring event gets you the tin cup but not max points. I hope that's clear - not sure that it is - I blame it being Friday!

---------- Post added at 06:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:38 PM ----------

Just out of interest I checked out the Warmahordes rankings (as they have a much bigger tournament player pool). Seems like they score over 4 events, but also can a) score >100 and B) score >100 with just 16 players. Any comments from those in that rankings group?

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My major issue with upping to 28 players is that having just looked online at the 4 biggest events from last year, they are:

Hockley

Hockley

Birchintgon

Coalville

So 3 of the 4 are way down south, with 1 being 'midlands'.

Obviously location can't be a factor in how much an event scores, just random musings. I really don't care tbh :)

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Personally I can't quite see why this is an issue just yet.

Is there a problem with differentiating the top players currently? If not then why change it?

Yes I can see the community is growing, but has a few people have pointed out, the number and geographical spread of 30+ player tourneys to me doesn't warrant a change just yet.

Still I guess its good to talk about it now and put a plan together for when it does hit that critical mass.

---------- Post added at 09:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 PM ----------

Jimmy at the outpost will be running multiple events too I'm sure.

I didn't think the outpost could get many more than 24 players?

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I think that's a good part of the discussion, do we need to change right now? We could probably go on a little longer, but the way things are seeming to trend, looking at some future-proofing now is probably wise.

ive not been to the outpost personally, so I'm not sure of its numbers.

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ive not been to the outpost personally, so I'm not sure of its numbers.

I'd be very surprised if it is anymore than 24, having been to two tourneys there.

I do personally know of two other potential larger venues in the midlands though.

Sanctuary at Sutton in Ashfield and my own clubs (Derby Wargames Society) venue in Derby, which has hosted some big Warhammer tourneys in the past.

Not sure how many players Chimera in Nottingham can hold?

Edited by Pierowmaniac
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Hopefully Stockport can run 30+ player events (Massacon?) and there seems to be a fair amount of interest in the North East as well, so I don't see the geographical spread being a problem, though those who live in the Midlands are always going to have an advantage from a travel point of view.

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Here is a wild thought from the far side of the world.

Maybe the UK could consider using a modification of the FIFA ranking method to do rankings.

I would guess most of you already know how that works, but briefly:

Teams gain points for games played.

Points over a year are averaged for that year's score.

Scores over 4 years are combined, with depreciating values as years get older.

Points gained for games played depend on result (W-L-D), importance of game (friendly, qualifier, WC), strength of opponent (opponent's ranking), and strength of confederations (which means European teams don't gain as much from beating up on Oceania teams).

I think this could be implemented in the UK ranking system by doing the following:

Substitute Players for Teams in the FIFA methodology.

Count only games played at "ranked tourneys" for gaining points.

Modify the points gained for playing games by:

-Use Tournament Size for the "Importance of Game" modifier

-Drop the "Strength of Confederations" modifier (no confederations currently, maybe add back in if this system becomes worldwide)

-Consider modifying the timeframe related to keeping/adding scores (ie: the 4 year depreciation FIFA uses could be reduced in number of years, and naturally would have no prior years in the first year implemented)

This would take a fair amount of bookkeeping and reporting from tournaments (you'd need details of who played who and who won/loss/drew for each game from each ranked tourney). Which is probably the biggest reason for not implementing this.

I think once the bookkeeping (actual data entry) and reporting part is squared away, a spreadsheet or other method could be created to automatically generate the ranking points, based on information input. So that part might not be so bad.

This system would presumably give you more ranking points for beating the likes of Joel, Ukrocky, MythicFox, etc... on the way to winning a tournament, while not providing as many points for winning a Tourney via the lucky draw of Scrub 1, Scrub 2 and Lucky Mid-table guy who made the finals. Based on how you score points, however, winning a tournament should typically still provide a fair number of points, but that would be based on your strength of schedule more than simply the number of players who arrived.

Anyway, I'm highly doubtful this would get implemented, but I'm curious as to whether this scoring idea was ever considered.

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I would personally like both changes implemented: less 100 scores and upping the max to 400.

The Scottish scene generally has a more regular run of small events: The last tournament held up here (on the 18th) reached 16 players, as that was the max we could fit into the store. There are bigger venues available currently, and a new venue is promising to be opening in Glasgow sometime soon (landlord problems permitting).

In previous years none of the tournaments managed to hit the 16 player mark (GT aside) so the scene is definitely growing up here too.

If local players wanted to get into the top of the rankings then they would have options to do so: Travel to York and Stockport events or Organise larger events up here (which I am aiming to do this coming year).

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The upcoming vappa is already at 30, and that's York, and there will be another Coalville one too. Jimmy at the outpost will be running multiple events too I'm sure.

We have space at York Garrisom to run 30-40 players events (Monkeefaux last year was about 24 with room to spare). The Royal Armouries is potentially going to be available for tournament depending on how their 40k/WFB tournament goes in a couple of weeks which will also be another large North based venue for tournaments.

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Taking last year as a reference of number and size of tournaments gives maybe a slightly skewed result with the fairly long hiatus of the 1.5 to M2E transition period.

Is there any (not too complicated or time consuming) way of having a vote open to all currently ranked UK players?

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Isn't 28 a bit of an odd number?

32 would be an ideal number to aim at for a 4 rounder, and 24 is a sensible 'round' number even though it isn't ideal for Swiss scoring.

Why would we want to encourage Tournament Organisers to accommodate 28?

I can see that this would then reduce the points for every tournament with numbers below this, but if the aim is to increase the spread we could simply widen the differential between max and non-max events.

i.e. instead of -1 for every player less than 20 (or 24, or 28) we could lmake it -2.

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That's an interesting thought. It would make an 18 player event worth a maximum of 80 points (assuming a 28 player point cap).

We'd have to check with rankings hq if that is possible, but it certainly sounds worth looking into.

Assuming 16 players being good for 3 rounds, maybe a max point cap of 26 players would hit that happy medium?

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My only thought would be to plan and discuss this year, for implementation for the start next.

If we run a poll (as has been suggested) which i'm a favor of, by the time we are have results and are in a position to change anything we are 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the year.

As had been said a couple of times we are probably ok a the moment and are looking to future proof, so be all means do it, but I don't see the need to change the "rules" (for want of a better word) mid season.

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I'm right in thinking the ranking for the year (and therefore qualification for the masters) run from jan-dec and last year joelfaux was the last tournament that could affect the rankings? So if your looking at changing then yes I suppose it needs to be done before we hit a sub (26/28/whatever) player ranked tournament, which I think looks like it will be the one at Sheffield.

So from a purely personal point of view I guess I can say I could commit to 6 ish tourneys per year, most of which will be one dayers with the possible exception of the gt.

2 of these will more than likely not be ranked (lost love, although I'm not going this year, and mcc)

Which leaves me with 4 ranked tournaments that I can generally attend per year.

So this means if I have a bad tournament I can pretty much forget about going to the masters, not that I go to tournaments so I can get to the masters but it's a nice thing to aim for.

My vote for this year would be up the max to 26 and leave it at 300

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As people have now started voting on this I've moved the votes cast so far to keep them clear and separate from the discussion.

The new thread is here:

http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?51055-UK-Rankings-Voting-Thread

If you'd like to vote please post your vote clearly in the above thread.

---------- Post added at 01:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 AM ----------

Just to follow up on this I'm not entirely clear what 'the rules' of this vote are. I'm just trying to use my mod powers to keep whatever we're doing clear.

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