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LEit wrote on Wed, 24 March 2004 08:24

So, how would your system rank me?

Initially, the player is asked to rate themselves, they choose their starting point...

The games in which they play from that point onward would then either confirm or deny their personal rating.

If you play a game with players who rate themselves similarily, and win then your rating moves up incrementally by 1.

If you play a game with players who rate themselves on the whole at a lower level and win. Then your rating moves up but by an increasingly smaller amount as the players with whom you play are rated lower than yourself.

If you play a game with players who rate themselves on the whole at a higher level than yourself and win. The your rating will jump to the next level or higher depending upon the game level you were in.

Basically, your history is your own, and with it you decide what level you start with.

Personally, I would probably start my cycle with intermediate, but would expect that within a few games I would be beaten down to lower intermediate rating. (which is honestly how I view my gaming skill in stars!)

[Updated on: Wed, 24 March 2004 11:00]

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[Updated on: Wed, 24 March 2004 16:41]

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Kang wrote on Wed, 24 March 2004 12:30

My results of a cursory search found threads from 4/97, 97/99, 99/99, 99/2000, 2000 6/2001 all attempting to defind player rankings or skill level rankings. Based on the system we are still using to determine player rankings for participation in games and the fact that all these past attempts were fruitless I'd say the system works fine now.

Yes, there it is in a nutshell. I haven't had time until now to get back to this thread (sorry), but Kang pretty much expresses what my opinion is on this particular subject. It's been done. It's been tried. It's been discussed to death. What we have works.

Why break it?

Answer: because we're human and we can. OK.

If we are trying to create a Stars! ladder, and that's all it can be because you will never get everyone to subscribe to this, and you are going to do it with multi-player PBEM games (no one has mentioned another way just yet), then you have to "weigh" a lot of game factors to get anywhere close to an accurate, honest method of rating players in your multi-player games ladder. (Whew!)

If you want to make it simple, then you do it on a win/loss scale, like football and soccer, which means you have a series of one to one games. Each race is a "team", the player is the "coach". Wait, Edog is already doing that. Sorry.

So, you have to setup your ladder games to have very restricted goals and you weigh how the players do in achieving those goals. But wait! Why are we trying to do all this? It is for the beginner/mentor games. The purpose of these games, in my mind, is to help promote the game. Bring in the newbies and the beginners and give those players a bit of help in bringing them up to speed so we can have a larger player base to create new games with. We're simply offering help and education to basically benefit ... US!

So now I'm missing the point, and I'll admit it. A ranking system is a way of excluding other people. (i.e.-I don't want to play against a newbie cause I want a REAL challenge against my PEERS and I don't want to go up against an expert cause I want to stand a CHANCE of winning the game)

Yes, it sounds very negative and I'm sorry for that but that is NOT what I'm trying to achieve here. I really want to play gamers better than me so that I can learn new things. That may not make sense to some of you, but the biggest lessons I have ever learned came from my failures, not my successes. So, even if you guys manage to figure out how to rank these guys (and gals), and you get a database up and running and you start offering ladder games, I will not participate because it has become my CRUSADE to pull more players into this wonderful but dated game so that I can have even more fun. If it means that I have to constantly create handicapped races so I can even out the playing field (no, I'm not THAT good, I just talk a lot) then so be it.

But if you guys want to do this, then by all means do so and ignore my pessimistic negativity. I'm just opposed to the rationale behind such an endevour (in my mind) rather than to the concept itself.

Seems to me, if we are wanting to promote the game, we could best employ our time by greeting new users through PM's as we see them sign up. We're chatty people. Some folks ain't gonna open their mouths unless one of us talks to them first. I for one am going to greet new sign ups and encourage them to participate in the forum and to sign up for games. Look throught the member list sometime when you have the time. There are members who have been on the rolls for years and never posted a message. For all I know, they have never played a game. I wish to alter that.

Cheers, y'all!

The long-winded and opinionated Crusader

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Crusader wrote:

If we are trying to create a Stars! ladder, and that's all it can be because you will never get everyone to subscribe to this, and you are going to do it with multi-player PBEM games (no one has mentioned another way just yet), then you have to "weigh" a lot of game factors to get anywhere close to an accurate, honest method of rating players in your multi-player games ladder.

Seems to me that yes, this would be a ladder; however, a ladder consisting of at least a good portion of the Stars! gamers who do web-play... It is impossible to know how many web games actually exist at one time; however, autohost must be the most centralized collection of Stars! web-games.

If a rating system was started here, then eventually a goodly portion of the Stars! players would be rated more or less.

But, concerning the reason.
Discrimination; yes, some players would say they will not play in a Stars! game with an average level below 5.

However, this group would have to be a dying breed. If they limit themselves to games in this category, the population of players available to them would be extremely limited. Also, they limit fresh perspectives, personally, I have no misconception that a starting player has nothing to contribute to my views of strategy and tactics within Stars! They need some guidance but you also don't want to squelch their possible contributions.

My first net game was with Art Lathrop as host and most of the players were well seasoned intermediates or better. I provided no competition within the game; however, I learned a lot through observation, and I lasted to the end-game (probably through the good graces of the players involved, which is rare in a Stars! game.)

The nature of the rating system is such that the value of the game is not determined until after the players have signed up. The host can "say" he wants an intermediate game, but how often does a host get ALL intermediates in a game? And how can a player know what the weight of the game truly will be until the game value has been determined and the game has ostensibly started?

Yes, there have been many attempts at setting up a player ranking/rating system throughout the years. But the Stars! sites in general are extremely unstable, and perhaps the ranking systems were not flexible and simple enough to ensure their use.

The beauty of this free-form ranking system is that the input can be any Stars! net-game and the inputs are minimal (average of players involved) and the outputs are also minimal (top 20%, bottom 20%.)

And thinking about it, even my weird games, Octagon, 12Gates, President, TicTacToe could also be rated based on ranking because it is usually the top placing players who are in a position to satisfy the requirements of a win. Therefore ranking output would still be similar.

Crusader wrote:

Seems to me, if we are wanting to promote the game, we could best employ our time by greeting new users through PM's as we see them sign up. We're chatty people. Some folks ain't gonna open their mouths unless one of us talks to them first. I for one am going to greet new sign ups and encourage them to participate in the forum and to sign up for games. Look throught the member list sometime when you have the time. There are members who have been on the rolls for years and never posted a message. For all I know, they have never played a game. I wish to alter that.

This is good and I already do it

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Staz wrote on Wed, 24 March 2004 17:53

OK, I'll bite. What exactly is the system we are using at the moment ?

Oh, heck! You know! The crappy non-system whereby we ourselves decide upon our own initiative just how great or crappy we are. That system.

Edog wrote on Wed, 24 March 2004 18:00

"There are two types of people in this world. People who play AR races well, and component atoms drifting lazily in interstellar space." -EDog Just had to get it out.

Bless you! Do you need a hanky?

OK. Now that I've got my smart-alec answers out of MY system, I'll get a bit more serious about answering Staz, and please, Staz, understand that I'm NOT trying to be negative nor am I just absolutely dead-set against a ranking system. If you guys get a system to working using some other criteria than what is currently being used, and it brings beginners into this game and broadens the player base once again, then I'll be all the way behind you. I'll let you rank me and place me in the catagory you think I should be in.

But to answer your question, let us jump into Mr. Peabody's Way-Back Machine. It may not be the system that most folks are using to rank players today, but it is the system that I have personally used since JC and others answered this question. I believe it was around 1998-99 (having been playing the unregistered version of Stars! off and on for years against the AI) that I started lurking the NewsGroup and playing PBEM's, so this particular post is still relavant to ME, though maybe not for a lot of others.

From: jasoncawley@msn.com (jasoncawley@msn.com)
Subject: Re: A Question of Skill
View: Complete Thread (16 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.stars
Date: 1999/02/02

In article <36B5E298.3BC3ADA9@abcde.cncfamily.com>,
garyseven@abcde.cncfamily.com wrote:

> In an attempt to prevent these massacres, it seems reasonable to group
> players of similar skill into games. The problem is, that there is no
> clear way to do this.
>
> While it seems quite reasonable to define a Novice as a player who has
> played no PvP Stars! games before, how does a 'Beginner' differ from an
> 'Intermediate' player?

A beginner has played only one or two *human* games, typically, and hasn't
won one yet. Usually a player doesn't belong at this level if he has a lot
of experience vs. the AIs (meaning months, dozens of games, that sort of
thing) or if he knows a reasonable amount of stars lore from NG, website
strategy guides, etc. If you know how to design a race that stomps AIs with
ease, you aren't a "beginner" really - though maybe for your first human game
you could try that (personally, I started with intermediate rated games -
doable). If you have beaten human players at any level (1 on 1 excluded,
perhaps), then you aren't a beginner. Most players should move up to
intermediate if they are playing regularly at all in human games.

Another useful dividing line is that a beginner will be hard pressed to break
10k by 2450 in an Acc BBS start. Seriously. The bar is low; lots and lots of
people (most of whom don't read this NG regularly) play stars 'cause its neat
but aren't geeky about it And don't know much race design. If you are in
that category, you can move up to intermediate after reading one or two
articles about empire management and race design, running one or two testbeds
alone to get the hang of it, and stomp the AIs once or twice using what you
have learned. You won't be under 10k long.

>When does one become 'Advanced'?

An advanced player has won an intermediate-rated, many-player (8+), human
PBEM. Not second, not alliance victory - won. By concession or last man
standing, or a reasonable hard set of VCs (not some 80 year easy to get
mark/simple "race"). Usually knows an extensive amount of stars lore about
race design, empire management, ship designs and tactics, etc. Can break 25k
in 2450 in tiny testbeds (not small - that is too easy Note - must

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Quote:

Oh, heck! You know! The crappy non-system whereby we ourselves decide upon our own initiative just how great or crappy we are. That system.

Oh, sorry. I thought you were talking about a system that works

Regarding JC's definitions, if they were posted somewhere obvious, referred to often and universally accepted then I would probably have to concede the point. Unfortunately they are not.

As far as I can tell, 80+% of players posting here class themselves as intermediate.

Quote:

I'll let you rank me and place me in the catagory you think I should be in.

As donjon has mentioned a couple of times here already, initially you would define your own rank. You would then play against other players who think they are about the same level, and if you do well then your rank would increase and if you do badly then it will decrease.

Finally, regarding bringing players into the game, I think that a decent ranking system could help enormously with that. While no-one argues that the primary point is to enjoy the game, human nature dictates that people like a challenge, and rising through the ranks is one of the best.

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Staz wrote on Thu, 25 March 2004 08:43

As far as I can tell, 80+% of players posting here class themselves as intermediate.

If I understand JC's post, that is the way things should actually pan out.

Staz wrote again on Thu, 25 March 2004 08:43

As donjon has mentioned a couple of times here already, initially you would define your own rank.

Sorry. Bad choice of wording on my part. I did read that, really I did, and I even understand it. Pretty good for a good ol' boy raised on the TN public school system.


Now, I will stop ragging about how it won't work, because that is not what I meant to state with my post. I merely contend that it will be very difficult, and that it will require (IMHO) "ranking" games separate from most other games, which I believe you have stated as well, so that "typical" games can not be weighed into consideration of a player's rank.

Is that a fair statement? Because I do not want to have to play a lot of separate "ranking" games. I like to play games on a whim kinda thing. Ya know?

Or are we really looking for that magic formula that will allow any game to be ranked? I'm sorry. I really am not smart enough, nor do I have enough time in my life, to figure that one out. I hope you guys can make that leap, however. It really could change the game enormously if you manage it. Possibly for the better.

You will lose some who disagree with where they actually wind up on the rankings. Guaranteed! It's the "human nature" aspect that so often gets in the way of anything attempted by two or more people. And I'm being negative again. Sorry.

Good Luck! I'll watch this thread, and any other related one, with great interest. If it looks like you get a system for ranking all games, I'm in!


The Crusader

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donjon wrote on Thu, 25 March 2004 08:12

This is good and I already do it

Ah! Excellent! So, as usual, I'm the slow, runt of the litter and have reinvented the wheel. I just started PM'ing folks yesterday.

Here's to the comradrie of intergalactic warriors! ( )

The Crusader

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OK, so now we got all our bluster and pre-conceptions, mis-conceptions, and a lot of our post-conceptions out of the way. Let's see if we can talk turkey now, as they say around here.

Donjon's system as a lot of merit to it. (Can't believe I just said that) But when you speak of finishing in the top 20% and the bottom 20% and so forth, what are we judging that on?

Resources?
Ranking?
Score?
# of planets owned?

How do we handle drop outs?
How do you rank a player who plays to a standstill an alliance of two other players who have decided to kill the first player (I suppose because he is aggressive and arrogant - sound like anybody you know? ) This player ranks 3rd out of 5, but is just beginning to go on the offensive when the other 2 leaders bail out and the game ends over an arguement concerning treaties and the handling of alliance shifts.

No clear winner there, is there? According to the rank system suggested, this player would most likely stay at whatever level he started the game at, but (in my opinion) he is clearly a candidate to move up, at least one notch. Destroying an HE while holding a late-game AR at bay with a super-slow HP SS is not an easy task, especially when he is caught between the two and fighting a two-front war. (Yeah, I'm talking about one of my previous games) And if your system had left me sitting where I started I would have protested the ranking. Possibly very loudly, even for me.

So, my point is, now that I've circled the bushes several hundred times, it is my belief that in order to fairly and accurately rank a Stars! player in a multi-player PBEM game, you have to "weigh" the many different aspects of the game in making your assessment. And this "weighing" does not always mean the player has the best rank, or the highest number of resources.

Your arguement is that if a player has good diplomatic skills, good MM skills, good race design skills, good strategic planning skills, good tactical fighting skills, and whatever other skill you can name, then that player will rise to the top 20% (of whatever) and will rise in the rankings.

I say, not necessarily.

I also disagree that the ranking should cause a player to drop back in rank - if you limit that player to playing in a game designed for his ranking.

OK. I'm rehashing the topic. All points have been made before by others and "answered", although somewhat cursorily in my opinion. A suggestion, not half-bad, has been made.

Since I haven't played a game in a while, I will initially rate myself as a low intermediate player and I will sign up as a mentor on ForceUser's site and under RainDancer's new thread. Let's see how this works.

Deal everybody? Who else will join me?

The Crusader

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Crusader:

OK, so now we got all our bluster and pre-conceptions, mis-conceptions, and a lot of our post-conceptions out of the way. Let's see if we can talk turkey now, as they say around here. Donjon's system as a lot of merit to it. (Can't believe I just said that) But when you speak of finishing in the top 20% and the bottom 20% and so forth, what are we judging that on? Resources? Ranking? Score? # of planets owned?

I believe the top 20% should be determined by the host, however, top 20% means top player in most games, and top 2 players in games with 15 or 16 players. (in cases with weird vc's the host determines the winner anyway)

Crusader:

How do we handle drop outs?

Bottom players should also be decided by the host, if a player dropped due to no fault of his (for example, all of a sudden he/she was in the hospital) then that should not be counted against the player, however, just simple disappearances (which happen often, especially with the newer players) should be counted against them. If a game is fraught with disappearances there should be no penalty to the lowest player who actually plays to the end (or the player who honestly plays and gets exterminated.) All these conditions are best determined by the host.

The rating agent is responsible for weighting the game (calculating the average of the players playing) and awarding the ranking advances and decrements.

Crusader:

How do you rank a player who plays to a standstill an alliance of two other players who have decided to kill the first player (I suppose because he is aggressive and arrogant - sound like anybody you know? ) This player ranks 3rd out of 5, but is just beginning to go on the offensive when the other 2 leaders bail out and the game ends over an arguement concerning treaties and the handling of alliance shifts. No clear winner there, is there? According to the rank system suggested, this player would most likely stay at whatever level he started the game at, but (in my opinion) he is clearly a candidate to move up, at least one notch. Destroying an HE while holding a late-game AR at bay with a super-slow HP SS is not an easy task, especially when he is caught between the two and fighting a two-front war. (Yeah, I'm talking about one of my previous games) And if your system had left me sitting where I started I would have protested the ranking. Possibly very loudly, even for me.

The host has the best view of all actions within his game and therefore is in the best possible position to determine who is awarded an advance.

Another interesting variable which could be associated with the player ranking is a count of ranked games played in. (ie. the validity of a self-proclaimed "advanced" player with one ranked game under his belt could be questioned in contrast to a player who has 10 ranked games under his belt and has progressed from intermediate to advanced)

However, the rating agent would only use the ranking of the player, not the history in determining the value of a game.

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What about replacements? I think i have played 5 times as replacement.. mostly starting at turn 30+ and mostly with races and in situations i did not like at all at beginning.

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Kotk wrote on Thu, 25 March 2004 19:43

What about replacements? I think i have played 5 times as replacement.. mostly starting at turn 30+ and mostly with races and in situations i did not like at all at beginning.

Hmmm....tricky.

If the player who drops is doing really well then there is not much of an issue. They won't get their rank increased because they weren't playing at the end, but that would just be one of the drawbacks from having to pull out. The player who takes it on effectively get a free rank increase (unless they really screw it up), but if their new rank is above their real level then they'll probably just drop back after their next game.

If the player is in a middle position then again, not an issue. The final results will depend entirely on the replacement.

If the player is doing really badly then there is a chance that they dropped purely for that reason, and we have to prevent that. My suggestion would be that the replacement has a grace period in which to hand back to the original player. If the original player doesn't take it back then they are deemed to have dropped.


Hopefully players dropping would be less frequent when rank is at stake. Also, replacements would have take on the job knowing what was at stake, so it might make it harder to find replacements.

On the whole, it will cause a few problems, but I'm sure it can be dealt with.

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Quote:

Assume all those games were ranking games, and explain how my rank would change after each game. I started as a beginner.

Quote

OK, I'll have a bash. But remember, if you had known at the time that these were the basis for ranking you may have played differently.

I will take a stab as well, since probably the concepts are clearest in my mind.

Quote:

CHoS 1, beginner game: started a war with a 3i HE in 2407, containing him to 4 worlds, then just sat on him. Went on to win the game.

Assuming this was a stock beginner game, you would progress by 1.

Quote:

Frost's game, beginner game: (I forget the name, Frost was the ID of the host) I played a CA monster, neighbor dropped. Had 2x 2nd place at 2450, won the game. Only battle I fought was with the player who dropped...

Assuming this also is a stock beginners game, at this point your rating is 2, low intermediate (previous to the game) and the advance for the game is .5*1 making your rank 2.5.

Quote:

AFON 1, 9 small races vs 1 large AR: I took over a wide hab, ARM SS on a team of 9... We won. I don't remember how I did compared to the rest of the team, but was probably in the bottom 20%.

The winner of this game and the decision to rank or not rank would be the hosts, however, you did not place high, so your rank still stays at 2.5, low intermediate.

Quote:

AFON 2, 8 small vs 1 large AR: Game was a joke, we won fast. Team was highly optimized to work together, and grew incredibly fast. Again, I think I played an IS, so I was probably behind the CAs and ITs on our team, and in the middle of the pack score wise.

Similar to previous, no effect still low intermediate.

Quote:

Center Warz, hold center for 10 turns: I played the only IT, and won quickly, after that went on to do well, 2 enemies dropped, however.

We don't know the average of this game, however if it was low intermediate you would progress by (2*.5) 1.0 and become an intermediate player(3.5).

However, if the game was intermediate then you would advance by 3*.5 giving you a rating of 4.0, high intermediate.

Quote:

FoP, 4x4 team game, 2x int, 2x beginner on each team: Game ended after one team dropped, My team and overworked's teams were doing well.

16 player game, (2 advances) (8*1+8*3)/16=32/16 a low intermediate game.

Assuming overworked's team won top two positions, no effect.
If you placed in one of the two top positions,

Two starting scores 3.5 or 4.0 (two cases above)
first case advances by (.3 * 2) 0.6 which is 4.1 (high intermediate) or
second case advances by (.25 * 2) .5 which is 4.5 (high intermediate)

Quote:

RWIAB 1, intermediate all -f game: Middle of the pack for a long time, won at the end. Several players were not intermediates, including at least two of my neighbors/enemies.

Four possible cases: (based on the possibilities in previous entry.)
Starting rating: 3.5
Advance: .3*3 = .9 or a new rating of 4.3 (high intermediate)

Starting rating: 4.0
Advance: .25*3 = .75 new rating of 4.75 (high intermediate)

Starting rating: 4.1
Advance: .25*3 = .75 or a new rating of 4.85 (high intermediate)

Starting rating: 4.5
Advance .25*3 = .75 new rating of 5.25 (advanced)

So, you can see your rating would be somewhere between high intermediate and advanced no matter what the real path was.

And its not just a simple advance of 1. It's based on the average level of the game, and how you compare to the average level of the game.

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