I was thinking of adding a seperate league table called The Elite League. Basically it would be for players who have played more than, say, 10 games, and it would judge players on what % of games that had won. Does it sound like a good idea?
Posted by SteveSmith 14 years ago [Login to reply]
I've been trying to think of a better way of doing the League Table myself, but have struggled to come up with anything I felt 100% happy with.
The only problem I can think of with your idea is that if you get a good win ratio early on then there is little incentive to keep playing more games as you are bound to hit a bad run sooner or later and drop down in the table. At the moment at least there is an incentive to keep playing more games as it will keep you climbing the ranking. It doesn't matter so much if you lose. If you are active enough then you will always have a chance of being at the top as I have proved myself. I didn't think I would ever catch Victor when I signed up.
I know at the moment the League is flawed and the top ranked player is not necessarily the best player but usually the most active, but at least it keeps everyone competing and playing leapfrog catch up.
With your suggested method then a newish player could sneak a quick 10 out of 10 victories against other new players and there is no incentive to keep going. If they stopped there then they would be virtually impossible for active veteran players to ever catch.
I think the fact that at the moment it doesn't matter so much if you lose is a great part of what is fun about Stellar Forces right now.
Sorry, part of your thoughts on that might have been my fault.
I haven't won a game yet, I've been quite active, and deadlime has had the (mis?)fortune of being my opponent for a good chunk of them. That meant a few easy wins, and that was based on activity.
There are two reasons I haven't been worried about it: i) the way I understand it, the league tables are rolling tables, so over time your oldest games go away; and ii) I expected that getting people to play practice games with me would be difficult, because they don't count for anything.
The first point is self-correcting, if I understand how the league tables will work, because deadlime will lose his easy wins on me, and everything else will average out. Everyone else will keep playing each other, and everyone is more likely to play with fresh meat to bump their standings (if they actively care).
The second point is also self-correcting, in theory: If I keep playing good players who are only interested in ranked games, I will get better myself (that second part is the "in theory part" ;-). Then I'll start winning, and then the easy wins from me will stop happening.
Have you considered something like a chess rating system, rather than a league table? The math gets more complicated, but with enough games or a large enough sampling, player rankings become more meaningful, because your ranking goes up more for beating a higher ranked player. It also makes me have a hankering to set up a swiss style tournament structure, where n players all play each other, and the players are ranked against each other on those results.
Is that true about the league table being rolling? I didn't know that if that is the case, and I don't really like the idea of it. Regardless of whether a win is easy or not, it's still a win which a player has earned and in my opinion shouldn't be lost over time.
But regardless of whether or not that is true, Kael will never suffer from his losses under the current system. As soon as he starts winning he will start stacking up points.
Under the new proposed idea then Kael would be better off quitting and signing up under a new user name if he ever wants to climb the 'Elite Table', which is something I would hate to see people having to do.
Thanks for all the comments. I think your both right; I had a "solution" in search of a problem, and having this "elite league" wouldn't have solved anything. I like the current league table the way it is for the reasons you say, I was just casually of thinking of adding something, but it may actually put people off playing which is the last thing i want!
The Chess system was suggested by Cornmaster and I had a look at it, but basically it's too complicted and would take too much time for me to implement.
Kael's right about the league table being rolling; it has to be this way, or else any new players would have to win (as of now) about 17 games to get a chance at being top of the league (and hope that whoever was already in the lead didn't win any games in the meantime).
Posted by SteveSmith 14 years ago [Login to reply]
I don't know how I didn't see that the League Table is rolling... I guess that explains how I caught up with Victor so easily.
Well with that in mind, how about having a 'Current Form/Standings League Table' and something like a 'Legends Overall League Table'? I don't know if it's necessary but it's just an idea.
And Steve, how come you are not in the League Table?
They're not a bad idea, but suffer from the same problems as my original idea, in that they might put new players off due to the sheer number of games that would need to be played to get on them.
As for me not being on the table, modesty prevents me from showing how amazing I am at this game. ;)
Posted by SteveSmith 14 years ago [Login to reply]