I guess I just don't understand the reasoning behind this. The DCI system is flawed (as is any ratings system), but it is the one which encompasses the most players. As such, with this new idea of a system coming, how large of a playgroup do you anticipate having? 100 people? 200? It just seems to be a lot of spinning wheels with not much to show of it.

I rest well knowing that the DCI rank is all but meaningless, and I anticipate my gamer's ranking to be 'null'.

Huh, I don't play DCI, so I was just suggesting what I know from years ago (chess). Didn't know that was ELO.

Learn something new every day.

I dont think that frequency of play should be a part of the rankings. The reason being is that there are some people whom for whatever reason; work, school, family, other incidents with life in general, that are not able to play as much as others. Those people should not be penalized because they have other things going on in their lives that they deem as having presidence.

I do like the ELO/dci/chess way of assigning points based on w/l and overall rank differencial. I also agree that the "major" tourneys should have some sort of extra weight to the points awarded, whether it be bonus points or double points awarded or some other method to entice more players to go to the major events.

The current DCI system pretty much already does this though. It doesn't actually penalize people for not playing enough (though, if you go more than a year without playing I believe you are reset back to 1600). What it does do though, is it gives you increases to your ranking every time you win a game, regardless of how tough the opponent is. Might only increase by 1 point at a time, or something like that, but for people who play 20-30 a month, that racks up quick, in comparison to the people who are lucky to average 1 game a month, if they even win it.

So, what we're trying to do is see if we can come up with a way to do a rating system that would be fair for both types of people, regardless of how often you play, period.

[/quote]I do like the ELO/dci/chess way of assigning points based on w/l and overall rank differencial. I also agree that the "major" tourneys should have some sort of extra weight to the points awarded, whether it be bonus points or double points awarded or some other method to entice more players to go to the major events.[/quote]

From what I understand, DCI currently does this as well, since Jim told us at GenCon that those events were weighted heavier, and had a larger impact on our rankings.

Perhaps this is why the Masters has not been recorded as of yet

In all seriousness, the other Gencon events were rated as normal, and this would be the first I have heard of them doing anything to change it. I really think you were misinformed Lobo, as there is nothing in the DCI system that allows for extra weight, and why on earth would DCI give that to SWMs at Gencon anyway? They don't do it for any of their other games, and if anything, it would have went to the PAX event, not the Masters.

You guys may be right. I don't pay attention to my rating enough to notice if it gets weighted or anything like that. Was just relaying what Jim told me. I probably heard it wrong though or something.

Well I'll throw my $.02 in. First off, I don't love the system. The risk/reward system (as if there is risk or reward in seeing your name beside a number) is too harsh. The penalty for a high ranked person losing is not comparative to the reward of a lower ranked person winning. I understand the theory behind this being in favor of the lower player, but in practice it is far too unbalanced for a game that, one has to admit, has a decent element of luck involved. Here is my real life example:

At one point a few months ago, I had a good win streak. I think it was like 8 straight, or 2 months worth of weekend wins, all sanctioned. Obviously, I didn't get a heck of a lot of points per win, but they added up. Then came Legacy, and I tried something new. In the very first match-up I played one of the lowest ranked people in my state (ok ok, it was a little kid... this is going to get embarrassing). In about the third round he won initiative and critted me 3 times out of his 4 shots. Just like that, game over. Sure, hindsight is 20/20 and I shouldn't have been in the situation, but the truth is, stuff like that happens. Net loss? 15 points. Undid a whole 4 round tournament win the previous week. Next round, I get paired up against a mirror match, and in the end lost to gambit. Minus 10 more. Then the dreaded and unhelpful bye, followed by defeating a nobody as consolation for 2 points. Net loss on the day: -23. Though I hadn't lost in months, one bad tournament and some unbelivably bad luck (and I want to think it was unavoidable) resulted in nearly an entire MONTH of tournament wins being negated by two helpless losses.

I don't usually look at the numbers, but I was curious as to how I would be docked for this tournament. Upon looking at them and saw just how brutal the risk/reward system is at high levels, I realized that it's not a very realistic system in a game where one roll of the die can win or lose you a game. Furthermore, I realized that experimentation with squads isn't a very good thing to do in a competetive environment, which I feel hurts the game overall. One shouldn't be intimidated to try something on the fringe of competetive due to an arbitrary scoring system. At the same time one shouldn't feel that any ranking system, regardless of how arbitrary it is, reflects the caliber of one's play to others when you just feel like having some fun every once and a while.

And of course, you have some players who know how to play the game well, but aren't DCI ranked from the get-go (ahem, 2007 Gencon winner) and even though they are great players, they start off with a 1600, and will destroy a high ranked person's score if they lose to them. This also happens with people with multiple DCI numbers (yes it happens).

The point is, either the system needs to be more forgiving for a loss (maybe less points for a loss than the person gets for a win) or the scoring should not take ranking into consideration at all. A win is a win, and a loss is a loss. Taking into consideration how much someone plays will always factor in in any system, so that part is unavoidable. It may not seem as competetive or accurate, but they don't really mean anything anyways in a game where each region and LGS has different levels of gameplay, and in some cases, rules.

Ok, that was a little more than $.02.

Admiral Ace I can see your point about two bad games ruining a whole week worth of wins, and would be a little disheartened as well after getting all the possitive scoring. However, and this is just my personal belief, that if I were a highly ranked player, then playing another highly ranked player should see an even split of the points up and down. But, if I were to play a player that has a low rating/history of poor performance, then I should be expected to win, and if I fail to do so, then I should have a bigger penalty to my points. And the opposite is true, if I were a low ranked player and beat a high ranked player, I would want to be rewarded for overcoming the odds and improving my game to be on a more competative level. It pushed people to better their game while still keeping it a friendly even competition at the top tier. And I think that is the overall goal, to have a competition that is concidered good/great, while still being a light hearted friendly atmosphere that encourages continued support.

I think that its a good idea dean, just one question though. You said that you can copy and paste rating history from dci report to you, so are you saying that if a person plays in a dci game, and that site is not with this program but the individual player wants to be that they can still get credit for it?

Thats cool, being able to have games in areas that I could bring my 1 yr old to, like the ones you host or finding someone out here that would be willing to host every once and a while(have a small group in Jasper wanting to start playing), would help me to be able to play more when it actually counts

I really like the ranking system idea that Dean mentioned.

I like what you have so far. Let me take a crack at some mathematics and see what I can come up with.

I'll post a longer note when I have something that I think works. But keep the ideas coming.

WOTC has used this in the past. To encourage DDM and DB participation in the first DCI regional tournies, 100 or 300 bonus points were awarded. Extra product (a booster) was given to all players in events who's DCI rating was above such a level.

I agree with this post. There is a lot of sting (points wise) from trying out a new squad and is preforming poorly (ie my new Vong meta and no one plays Jedi that week).

How about full points awarded for wins and half points removed for losses?

I would also like to see a public list for each players total number of games and total number of wins.