Ranking
Original Post
Reinstate a Past Ranking System (An Argument for Change)
Please think clearly about what I'm going to say about the ranking system before you just say no.

This ranking system was a cool attempt at making the "better players" have a higher rank but it simply didn't work.

To quote [RAWR]Dargon:

The problem is ELO systems don't work in a game like toribash.

My main argument is that the current ELO system supports the absolute opposite of what Nabi Studios would want to have in an atmosphere to acquire new players. It also casts out enthused players who want to try lots of different things and learn from better more experienced people.


1) The current system rewards those who don't try a variety of mods.

Most high rank people (Read: 1-35) are there because they played the hell out of 1 mod and didn't venture off to try other mods. The point being that it's way easier to go 60 wins 2 losses in a game like jousting with one decent opener against new players and have a super high ELO (proof... well me) than it is to go 20-5 in a slower mod like Wushu.

Playing MORE mods should be what the game encourages; however, if you start playing aikido and only have an ELO of say 1610, when your jousting ELO is 1700, your rank plummets. Thus playing more mods currently is a bad thing.

2) The point system doesn't work and frustrates members.

A good example is what happened to me yesterday. I played brushu, and won a game against [fl0w]Deprav (a highly ranked brushu player), then a game against [Alpha]Logic (the #1 ranked brushu player in toribash), followed by a loss to the ranked 120th player or somewhere in that region. The net result? I actually lost 2 ELO points. I won 2 games, and lost 1, my 2 games were incredibly quality wins, and actually got a WORSE rank.

This just goes to show the math simply isn't working here. If you can beat the absolute best player, a fantastic player, and then lose to a great player, and be worse off when you started... well that's simply counter-intuitive isn't it?


3) The current system discourages playing people who aren't good (the Ambassador argument)

Better players of toribash are really the ambassadors for Nabi studios more than even GameMasters from time to time. They give new people a chance of what could come of them and the beauty of highly skill play. But the current system deterrs amazing people to play those who aren't good because one lost game can make the great player lose a LOAD of ranking. Getting a streak of 5, then losing once, only to have the same or worst ranking as you started is completely disheartening. You should want great players to want to play with not-so-great-ones to really show what your character can look like, what toris can do, and learn from them.

http://forum.toribash.com/tori_ranki...?username=Mojo This is the #1 Ranked player in Toribash. Check out the stats. Notice anything? Outside of JOUSTING and KATANA this player, the player who will represent all of the thousands of thousands of players who some started in 7 years ago as NUMBER ONE has a 1600 ranking in almost every skill mod out there. Has Wushu3, aikido, taekkyon, you name it. 1600 is the starting elo...

4) Our current top ranked leaders aren't role-models (a continuation of the Ambassador argument)

SEVEN of the top TEN players ranked globally in toribash haven't reached 3rd Dan Black Belt. Two of them haven't even reached black belt yet. These members aren't well-known good people in great clans that people aspire to. There are absolutely amazing players in clans like [RAWR] whos rank is near the 2000's meanwhile players you and I have never even heard of are sporting the highest of ranks. Is that really who you want to learn is the "best"? Who would you feel more comfortable being rank 5: TIcux, or "BigClitor" or "BigPrick" (I kid you not, those last 2 are both in the top 10)

5) Promotes rage quitting. It's simple: if you have a 1700 mmr in jousting and someone has a 1590 mmr rating, and they are about to lose to you, they'll lose a shit ton of ranking unless they ragequit. We should be encouraging people to stay the whole match.



TLR Summary

The current system makes unaccomplished players look like heroes to new players, tells people not to play a variety of mods, encourages the play of simple fast mods like judo and jousting over a variety of mods that might take more skill (aikido, aikidobigdojo, lenshu, wushu, taekkyon, judofrac) to name a few, mathematically seems to not work, and discourages the great players who should serve as ambassadors from playing with new players, and RAGE QUITTING.



The Solution? Bring back the QI system!!!

The highest rank people should be the people with the highest QI because that's what actually works in Toribash. Why?

1) Because rage quitting sucks and we should encourage people to stay through the whole match. Rank 15 whoever should want to accept defeat against rank 500,000 white belt honorably because he might be getting closer to Rank 14. Meanwhile, that white belt's DAY WAS MADE beating you.

2) It give quantifiable reason to PLAY TORIBASH. The more you play, the more QI you get, the higher your rank. The old people who have given years and years don't feel like idiots with thumbs up where the sun don't shine because they're rank 3000, and the newer players WANT black belt, 2nd dan, 5th dan, 10th dan, WHATEVER to improve their rank! Isn't a line-up like Tripstone, DJ, TIcux, Nuthug, Kamiko, Dargon a better top 6 than .... Mojo, Kindercat, zaeby, PREY3R, and pedart?

3) It doesn't discourage you from playing any mod you want. Sure, jousting is faster than aikido, and a person who only plays jousting will get QI faster and have a higher rank. But at least if you like jousting, and you decide to play some aikido, you won't completely f over your rank playing it.

4) It encourages coherency AND LEARNING throughout toribash. When you want to get good at a mod, you typically surround yourself with people much better than you (ergo, want to be an aikido player? Play team sambo members. Etc). But you're going to lose a lot doing that. I don't think you should hate yourself from trying to learn a mod because it dropped your rank from 200 to 1700.



And I ALREADY know the major criticism. THIS SYSTEM PROMOTES FARMING!!!

Yes. It does. Having QI determine your rank absolutely promotes farming. But what sounds better of a problem? Farmers farming, and more than likely getting caught because we have ways to catch farmers pretty easily (check out that community ban list!) or having hundreds of people rage quitting to save their rank? Losing rank by the hundreds from trying something new? I think the choice is obvious.


A last point

All of toribash has ever been is playing more toribash. Since you first joined, you probably wanted to wear a color that required you play more games, or get a belt you want, even a custom belt, etc. Make the system reflect what toribash is actually about-> stress-free fun, punishment free, playing. We already have our win-loss ratio publicly posted. If you want to prove your skilled try to increase that. There's no need for this system which 100% DOESN'T work.




To those of you who have read all of that, thank you. I appreciate it. To those of you who didn't, I recommend you do, because you're going to probably make posts that I've already addressed in this argument.
Last edited by Bodhisattva; May 23, 2013 at 03:21 AM.
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A rank should be based on someone's skill, not their experience. That is why rank is no longer based on QI.

You need to give newer players a chance to have a nice rank as well. If they are talented players, they deserve the rank that they earn. Should a terrible football player be chosen for an all-star team just because he has been playing football for a long time?
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[23:24:29] <AndChat|700625> You know the one with 3 heads
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[11:35:40] <box> Hampa suck
[11:36:21] <hampa> not the first to tell me that today
Originally Posted by box View Post
A rank should be based on someone's skill, not their experience. That is why rank is no longer based on QI.

You need to give newer players a chance to have a nice rank as well. If they are talented players, they deserve the rank that they earn. Should a terrible football player be chosen for an all-star team just because he has been playing football for a long time?

If the rank of toribash players right now were based on skill I wouldn't feel the need to write out an essay. I'm sorry but you can't convince me that it's anywhere near a *great system to deduce skill* when there are established excellent players in great clans like Alpha, RAWR, RelaxAll, and Urban whos rank is in the THOUSANDS.

If your global was a cumulative figure based on... multiple mods maybe we'd have something more to talk about that. But currently, if you're to equate skill to rank, you're saying the guy whos ranked 1st in jousting and katana is the best player in toribash.

If it were decided that like your cumulative average in:

Jousting
Wushu
TK
ABD
Judofrac

or Something along those lines was your rank, then fine. But the whole system is discriminatory against the mods that actually require "skill" as you put it.
Last edited by Bodhisattva; May 23, 2013 at 01:04 PM.
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Creati0n says: still my favorite. <3
I sacrificed my firstborn for this great human being to join (M) ~R
Just Use Thunder!
If a very good player has a very poor rank, he or she probably does not play the game often. How can you have a good rank on a game you do not play?
[23:23:53] <AndChat|700625> Blue eyes ultimate dragon best card
[23:24:29] <AndChat|700625> You know the one with 3 heads
[23:24:39] <~Lightningkid> just like my dick



[11:35:40] <box> Hampa suck
[11:36:21] <hampa> not the first to tell me that today
Originally Posted by box View Post
If a very good player has a very poor rank, he or she probably does not play the game often. How can you have a good rank on a game you do not play?

It doesn't appear that you know too much about what you're voicing your opinion about. I used Logic as an example of the #1 brushu player in rank (actually I think it's 2 now) and he played like 3 days in the last 6 months. Not really an "active bro. Oh and in the top 10, 3 of the players haven't played in nearly a month.

The point is MMR is currently 1 to 1 between a mod as slow as aikido, abd, lenshu, brushu, wushu3, whatever. And mods that end in 40 seconds of typical play like joustingfixed. 1700 MMR in wushu3 should matter a little more than 1700 MMR in Joustingfixed if one takes 2 weeks and one takes years.

Kindercat is globally ranked 2 and there isn't a mod that he/she has touched outside of jousting fixed. Is that really skill? When you show new players how great a person can become, do you want to show off Kindercat? Really?



EDIT: Just so were clear, I'm entirely open to other suggestions. I'm merely pointing out our current system has a gigantic fault in that I made my jousting rank in less than 2 weeks results in higher MMR and global rank change than I ever did in seriously playing wushu in multiple mods in 5 years according to this system
Last edited by Bodhisattva; May 23, 2013 at 02:10 PM.
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Creati0n says: still my favorite. <3
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Well, Kindercat was probably a pretty good jouster(although I'm not a big fan of it).

Anyways, that kind of brings up an idea that I suppose could coencide with your proposition. I understand what you are getting at with the top "ranked" players earning their rank through pretty unfair means. It doesn't bother me much, but there is one thing you could do. It's pretty simple, just continue ELO rankings for the individual mods, and change the method in which a player is ranked globally. Therefore, if someone plays and wins a mod an obscene amount of times, it would show that in their mod rank, but would not reflect their global rank. As to how we rank people globally, I do agree somewhat with Dr., and I don't think based on belt would be the absolute best way to go. Also, although it would not be a huge problem, that could encourage QI buying. I'd like to hear different ideas of methods to globally rank, though.
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Originally Posted by Pamaaj View Post
Well, Kindercat was probably a pretty good jouster(although I'm not a big fan of it).

Anyways, that kind of brings up an idea that I suppose could coencide with your proposition. I understand what you are getting at with the top "ranked" players earning their rank through pretty unfair means. It doesn't bother me much, but there is one thing you could do. It's pretty simple, just continue ELO rankings for the individual mods, and change the method in which a player is ranked globally. Therefore, if someone plays and wins a mod an obscene amount of times, it would show that in their mod rank, but would not reflect their global rank. As to how we rank people globally, I do agree somewhat with Dr., and I don't think based on belt would be the absolute best way to go. Also, although it would not be a huge problem, that could encourage QI buying. I'd like to hear different ideas of methods to globally rank, though.

It really is the global ranking which is the bigger issue. It's not I think kindercat was winning jousting unfairly, it's that we shouldn't value jousting MORE than other mods. And we do that by awarding the same amount of MMR in it per win as we do games that take literally 10x longer. If you only got .5 mmr for ever 2 mmr points youd get for winning a brushu game, we'd at least see a BIT of equality.
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Well of course not unfairly, it's just more of a "shortcut" way of getting higher rank. As for wieghing % of points given based upon the length of the matches, thay just isn't very plausible, although it would work better.

Honestly, I'm overall pretty contempt with the rating system as it is. The current ELO ranking system has it's benefits/incentives and it's disadvantages, as does the traditional, or "old" system. I honestly don't believe going back to the traditional system would make a huge difference, and it could possibly even stir up the pot more as the higher belts flaunt their ranks although they may not be at the same skill level as some lower belts. Either way, I don't find it to be an issue of huge importance, as most of us obviously don't look up to the top ranked people, but rather our role models within the community. Even if we implemented the traditional system, this simple fact would still hold true. In reality, a rank is really just a number, and it isn't, nor will it ever, be completely accurate in determining ones skill level in the community. There's simply no perfect solution.

That is why I don't feel a change is needed. I don't completely disagree with you, though.
[i]nquisition
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What about a weighted ranked system considering your mod RANK by the amount of players who have played the Mod? Thus rank 1 jousting would hold only slightly more than say rank 1 wushu3, even though the mmr difference could've been over 100? And if it's weighted by how many people play the mod, you can't cheat the system by making a bunch of mods.
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Creati0n says: still my favorite. <3
I sacrificed my firstborn for this great human being to join (M) ~R
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Discussed this for a good hour with Hax, and I suppose I agree with him moreso than before.

That being said, I agree with what you just stated and I also believe mod rank should still exist and be organized a similar way to how it was previously and is currently. Overall, I see what you're getting at when it comes to global ranks.

Supported, when it comes to global ranking.
[i]nquisition
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