SpielByWeb

[markmist]

I think it would be neat if the ranking system could be revamped to a points-based structure. The reason I suggest this is that it is currently advantageous to your ranking if you play in games with fewer players than with more players. All else being equal - in a 2-p game you have a 50% chance to win, in a 3-p game - 33%, in a 4-p game - 25%, 5-p - 20%, etc. Since % won and total wins are the only stats used for the rankings - there is no incentive to play in games with more players. How it is right now - a player with a 75% win pct may be misleading because he has played all 2-p games or a player with a 40% win pct may be a better player than the one with 75% because he has played mostly 4-p games.

The simplest system would be:
2-p game - winner gets 2 pts
3-p game - winner gets 3 pts
4-p game - winner gets 4 pts
5-p game - winner gets 5 pts

However, it would also be neat if you got points for placing higher in multi-player games. In order to keep the system balanced, players finishing near the bottom would have to lose points. Of course, there is no system that has perfect balance - but this is what I came up with:

2-p game - winner gets 4 pts, loser gets 0 pts.
3-p game - winner gets 6 pts, 2nd gets 1 pt, 3rd gets (-1) pts.
4-p game - winner gets 8 pts, 2nd gets 2 pts., 3rd gets 0 pt., 4th gets (-2) pts.
5-p game - winner gets 10 pts, 2nd gets 3 pts., 3rd gets 1 pt., 4th gets (-1) pt., 5th gets (-3) pts.

Then, players can be ranked based on total pts as well as pts per game. Of course this system does not take into account the strength of your opposition or margin of victory, but trying to develop such a system would be terribly complicated and probably not worth the effort.

[fteplin]

Interesting ideas. Check out similar discussions here:

http://www.spielbyweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=316
http://www.spielbyweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=405

And here, at Mabiweb.com:

http://www.mabiweb.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=80

Here's Mabiweb's administrator answer, which I like:

[markmist]

Thanks for posting those other links. I have read through most of the posts now. I am aware of the ELO system and I am personally not a fan of it because I find it too complicated to understand and it promotes segregation of players.

What I am proposing is just a simple change to the current ranking system. And this is not an argument of whether to have a ranking system or not, because SBW already keeps total wins and % won. My idea is to just make it more equitable based on the number of players in a game.

When looking at the rankings - I want the person ranked #1 to actually be one of the best players and not someone who has played 19 games and won 17 because he played all 2-p games and against a weaker opponent. Otherwise, why even rank players based on % won???

[helgaella99]

I get 30 points