I know that there has been some talk of changing how CP is calculated, but, I've always felt that one of its weaknesses is less how it's calculated and more for the fact that it doesn't compare well against the other ranks because they are all GR based rankings.  With the new parallel general-ranking system that Tom has put up to assess generals, it has got me wondering if it might also be possible to just take the existing CP formula and apply it to every ranking such that every GR has a corresponding CP?  If implemented then there would be the CP/GR as there is already, but also a tourney CP/GR, a team CP/GR and a team-tourney CP/GR.

Advantages:

1) Sometimes it is pointed out that the tourney rank is too reliant on being an antastic specialist score.  Something similar might be said for any of the other GR based ranks which do allow for specialization if a player desires to take that route. By creating a corresponding CP to each GR then there would be another rank that emphasizes play on many boards for all areas of gameplay, just as by having the CP score right now encourages regular game play on a wide diversity of boards.

2) As the CP formula would not be changed it might be a quick thing that Tom could apply to give more balance to all the 4 ranked areas of game play and make them less divisive as each would be calculated by both metrics.

3) If the way CP is calculated were changed down the road it could be applied in exact the same way to all the new CP ranks to maintain balance between all the ranked areas.

4) Each of the then 8 ways of ranking could be given a rank for assessing generals thus increasing generals to a maximum of 8 and the chance of having 5-star generals to a maximum of 4.

5) If it is indeed something that Tom could do quite easily, which it seems like it might, it could be applied and tabled with a link so as to give everyone an idea of how it works out and to see how they feel about it just like the 5 rank general system is being linked to right now.  Essentially, the existing link that assesses generals would just become an 8 rank general system with CP's for all areas.

Disadvantages:

1) Many new players complain that they don't fully understand how CP is worked out and suddenly there would be 4 such ranks.  Of course, figure out 1 and you figure out them all.

2) The existing complaint that players are able to accrue "easy" CP points by playing lesser played boards would now apply for all the ranked areas, but, that would also mean that lesser played boards would pick up interest and gameplay in all the ranked areas.

3) Some might complained that CP is a flawed ranking system, hence the talk of mending it to trueskill, or what not, and that applying it to all the ranked areas would be increasing the influence of a flawed rank.  Of course, as pointed out in the advantages, this could be seen as only a temporary effect since if the CP were revised it could be applied throughout.

4) Some might complain that by being proficient in any one area of gameplay that someone might be able to take a stranglehold as a five-star general.  I don't really agree with that otherwise the current CP/GR rank might be locked in or threatened to be locked in as the same player, which it is not.  As said earlier, GP seems to favour specialization in many ways whereas CP encourages diversification, which are opposite playing styles and this tends to fight the initial assumption.  That said, if someone was able to hold both GR and CP in any one area, I reckon that they have earned it by being stellar at exceeding at scoring a high GR while simultaneously playing a wide diversity of boards to build up their CP.  It would also put a pressure on them to keep playing diversely to maintain that CP while simultaneously trying not to hurt their GP.  For whatever ones preferred style of play is I reckon they would probably be better off trying to put a stranglehold on two different GR's or CP's, or a CP coupled with a different GR, if they wanted to be a five star general?  Also, if such were initially applied, since the current GR ranks don't encourage diversity of map play, the initial results might be one and the same?, but this should quickly change since by having a CP rank players would be encouraged to play a greater diversity of boards whereas the GR holder might be less inclined to diversify as it would be a greater risk to their GR score in that area.

So, that's my initial brainstorming on it.  My hope is that it could potentially be easy to implement and put up in a parallel manner for all to evaluate.

Please feel free to add to the pros and cons and hash out the idea, or, if you just think it's a good idea and have no pros or cons to add, then say so as well because if it can reach a positive review then it's more likely to be adopted!

Also, Tom, if you could give a quick statement on if this is something that could be implemented somewhat easily or not?  Or, if you feel it works into what he you are currently working on with the general ranking system? That would be appreciated as I don't want to deviate you too much from what you're currently working on but at the same time I think that this idea could be complimentary to what I've seen so far?

Thanks for reading!

Regards,

Erick

 Some might complained that CP is a flawed ranking system, hence the talk of mending it to true skill

A TrueSkill-like system is a proposed replacement for GR - not CP.  TrueSkill works on a game by game basis, while CPs are accrued board by board.

With the new parallel general-ranking system that Tom has put up to assess generals, it has got me wondering if it might also be possible to just take the existing CP formula and apply it to every ranking such that every GR has a corresponding CP? 

Isn't this is pretty much what Tom has going on right now? What's missing?

Anyway I think the way the Ranks are presented will go a long way toward explaining how they work.  For instance, if the percentile is posted right next to the The GR or CP - it might be easier to see what it takes to get to the next rank.  I also find it very hard to differentiate the difference between ranks - I like the look, but the badges are perhaps too small and definitely too similar.

M57 wrote:

a) A TrueSkill-like system is a proposed replacement for GR - not CP.  TrueSkill works on a game by game basis, while CPs are accrued board by board.

b) Isn't this is pretty much what Tom has going on right now? What's missing?

a) I don't know much about trueskill or any of the other proposals for GR and CP.  I miswrote that, and wish I could edit it now.  I was simply referring to whichever statistical systems were being proposed to replace CP, not GR.  Though, both could be replaced if new, better and more intuitive systems were available.  That's not what I'm getting at here though so just replace trueskill with whatever statistical/mathematical method was being proposed to improve CP within the point above?  Down the road both, either or, or neither could be redesigned within the broader framework, but, all I'm really looking at here is the broader framework and don't want to confuse the issue by delving into GR or CP methods/calculations.  Whatever such calculations are or may be are not important with what I'm trying to propose here.  Really sorry for writing that and confusing the issue!

b) As you had quoted from what I wrote, "such that every GR has a corresponding CP".  So, eight ranks instead of the five Tom has right now where all the 4 scoring areas regular, team, tourney and team-tourney would both have a GR and a CP score.  The existing regular gameplay GR and CP, then a Tournament GR and CP, a team GR and CP and finally a Team-tournament GR and CP.  Sorry if that was not clear.  So, instead of the five areas Tom has displayed now, there would be eight and what is currently missing from what he has now are a tournament CP, a team CP and a team-tourney CP.  Basically, we'd take the existing formula for getting CP for regular gameplay and re-apply it to generate a CP for all styles of play.  These CP ranks would create a niche for generalized play to offset the tendency of gr to favour specialized play in the same way that the current CP players have generalized and played many boards whereas some of the top GR players play far fewer boards.

Once the 8 category (4 GR and 4 CP) is established in your mind then re-read the Advantages and disadvantages I wrote above and I hope it'll make more sense?

Thanks for helping me clear up my thoughts M57!

+1 to having a corresponding CP for each GR.  Makes sense to me.

I also agree with this approach.  I advocated for something similar a couple of years ago.

It makes sense. Not saying that it is important to me, since it makes me wonder if I want a teamtourney ranking at all, with or without CP (maybe 0,00001% of my games are teamtourney). 

Also, I can't find my teamtourney ranking, and the teamtourney ranking list, where is it?

Thinking it through:

Lots of different rankings give us a good idea of a players skills and abilities. 

The top position becomes an even more elusive trophy because you now have to be good at everything. (I see this as a plus)

Player can chase rankings in many different areas, and therefore everyone can compete on some level in some place.

We still want to be rewarding players at all levels, and those that are good at their particular thing.  I see nothing wrong with rewarding the best Antastic tourney player. It takes a boatload of work to win those things.  So as long as the best antastic tourney player can still see their rank rise because their being good at something, I like it. 

The same goes for rewarding the exploratory player. So you played my worst designed board and won a few times? Good for you! You should be rewarded for that. It makes me feel good, it makes you feel good, it's good for the site in general. 

In those two cases - maybe we lose the forest for the trees? Can the exceptional specialist WGWF player still see themselves ranked higher than the mediocre board explorer? The advantage of separate systems is that we can reward vastly different things.  Combining them all together may lose that advantage.

We add a layer of complexity to understanding the rank system (thinking of a brand new player who knows nothing) but then again, by just having 1 system we also eliminate a layer of complexity. 

Some system for overall ranking (combining the 8 scoreboards) would have to be worked out and communicated.

Overall I like the idea.  It seems simple enough, and it has advantages. 

Can someone speak to how it will reward those that are good at certain things and compare it to how it will reward the well rounded player?

sportlust wrote:

Also, I can't find my teamtourney ranking, and the teamtourney ranking list, where is it?

 

Unfortunately, previous to Tom's latest update, it was an impossible to see team-tournament in any complete form.  It had to be looked at by clicking on each players individual stats.  But, with the 5 general system we can now see it!  Gen Monty is truly a General in WarGear!

http://www.wargear.net/rankings/show4ranks/Board%20Championship/1/?sortfield=rank_ttscore&sortorder=DESC

That's what got me thinking about the inclusion of these other ranks as well because they make sense, work with the underlying framework that derive CP, and that they should be displayable as well!

Like ratsy said, I also like how this would allow for all kinds of players to excel in many and any area of their choice!

Similar to what ratsy was saying, I think the 8-general/ranking system would reward players of different talents. (ie board explorer, board specialist, teamplay specialist, etc.) There are some players who do like to dabble in different boards, and while they may not be as good on a particular board, where someone could have played 1000 games, they should still be recognized for being above average on a wide variety of boards. The same can be said for players who tend to do better in team games, or tournament games, etc.

As for ranks (general, captain, lieutenant, etc.), I still don't really understand how it works, but judging from the above comments, I'm assuming that it has to do with the 4 categories that berickf pointed out? "regular, team, tourney and team-tourney"

Lastly, +1 to the idea of introducing more rankings that measure different metrics

Misc: I can attest to the fact that players are rewarded almost too much for playing on lesser known boards. I, myself, played one (1) (ONE) game on Bloom with about 7 other players. I ended up winning, boosting my board ranking by almost 150, giving me some championship points. I haven't played since then, because I think the cards are too rewarding (personal preference) making it too easy to put together a chain of eliminations and win the game in essentially one turn.

I seem to hear someone complaining that the tournament score was basically an antastic score. If we add CP to each category, then that will reward the board explorer type for the tournament and team games as well. You would have to win a lot more than just antastic to be high ranking in tournament CP.

The only downside I can see is that by increasing the number of types of scores then it could get confusing. With the current preview (http://www.wargear.net/rankings/show4ranks) we have 5 different scores. Adding the rest of the CPs would be 9 scores. Is this too many?

I thought for a moment that it might also be a problem with fragmentation. But that should even itself out pretty quickly. If there are fewer people playing team tournament games then it will be much easier to get CPs for them, but if it is easier to get team tournament CPs then more people will do them (and if they don't that's fine too since team tournament is my highest ranking! :) ).

How hard would it be to add the other CPs to the preview? I would love to see how the scores compare.

Korrun wrote:

Adding the rest of the CPs would be 9 scores.

Make that 8. I've never been very good at basic arithmetic.

Global Ranking / Global CPs (should this be renamed? public ranking? standard ranking? solo ranking?)

Team Ranking / Team CPs

Tournament Ranking / Tournament CPs

Team Tournament Ranking / Team Tournament CPs

So far I like what I see of the new rankings.

If anyone gets top ranked in 5 or more categories they should get to steal tom's Commander in Chief title.

Korrun wrote:

Global Ranking / Global CPs (should this be renamed? public ranking? standard ranking? solo ranking?)

+1 for Public

If anyone gets top ranked in 5 or more categories they should get to steal tom's Commander in Chief title.

5 Star General is the top of the military scale ..only politicians (or site owners) can be Commander in Chief.

I agree. Commander in Chief is for Tom. 5 star generals for 5 or more categories. 4 star generals for 4, 3 for 3 etc.

As long as people don't find having more rankings super confusing, I like the idea.

berickf wrote:

M57 wrote:

a) A TrueSkill-like system is a proposed replacement for GR - not CP.  TrueSkill works on a game by game basis, while CPs are accrued board by board.

b) Isn't this is pretty much what Tom has going on right now? What's missing?

a) I don't know much about trueskill or any of the other proposals for GR and CP.  I miswrote that, and wish I could edit it now.  I was simply referring to whichever statistical systems were being proposed to replace CP, not GR.  Though, both could be replaced if new, better and more intuitive systems were available.  That's not what I'm getting at here though so just replace trueskill with whatever statistical/mathematical method was being proposed to improve CP within the point above?  Down the road both, either or, or neither could be redesigned within the broader framework, but, all I'm really looking at here is the broader framework and don't want to confuse the issue by delving into GR or CP methods/calculations.  Whatever such calculations are or may be are not important with what I'm trying to propose here.  Really sorry for writing that and confusing the issue!

b) As you had quoted from what I wrote, "such that every GR has a corresponding CP".  So, eight ranks instead of the five Tom has right now where all the 4 scoring areas regular, team, tourney and team-tourney would both have a GR and a CP score.  The existing regular gameplay GR and CP, then a Tournament GR and CP, a team GR and CP and finally a Team-tournament GR and CP.  Sorry if that was not clear.  So, instead of the five areas Tom has displayed now, there would be eight and what is currently missing from what he has now are a tournament CP, a team CP and a team-tourney CP.  Basically, we'd take the existing formula for getting CP for regular gameplay and re-apply it to generate a CP for all styles of play.  These CP ranks would create a niche for generalized play to offset the tendency of gr to favour specialized play in the same way that the current CP players have generalized and played many boards whereas some of the top GR players play far fewer boards.

Once the 8 category (4 GR and 4 CP) is established in your mind then re-read the Advantages and disadvantages I wrote above and I hope it'll make more sense?

Thanks for helping me clear up my thoughts M57!

+1

berickf wrote:

I know that there has been some talk of changing how CP is calculated, but, I've always felt that one of its weaknesses is less how it's calculated and more for the fact that it doesn't compare well against the other ranks because they are all GR based rankings.  With the new parallel general-ranking system that Tom has put up to assess generals, it has got me wondering if it might also be possible to just take the existing CP formula and apply it to every ranking such that every GR has a corresponding CP?  If implemented then there would be the CP/GR as there is already, but also a tourney CP/GR, a team CP/GR and a team-tourney CP/GR.

Advantages:

1) Sometimes it is pointed out that the tourney rank is too reliant on being an antastic specialist score.  Something similar might be said for any of the other GR based ranks which do allow for specialization if a player desires to take that route. By creating a corresponding CP to each GR then there would be another rank that emphasizes play on many boards for all areas of gameplay, just as by having the CP score right now encourages regular game play on a wide diversity of boards.

2) As the CP formula would not be changed it might be a quick thing that Tom could apply to give more balance to all the 4 ranked areas of game play and make them less divisive as each would be calculated by both metrics.

3) If the way CP is calculated were changed down the road it could be applied in exact the same way to all the new CP ranks to maintain balance between all the ranked areas.

4) Each of the then 8 ways of ranking could be given a rank for assessing generals thus increasing generals to a maximum of 8 and the chance of having 5-star generals to a maximum of 4.

5) If it is indeed something that Tom could do quite easily, which it seems like it might, it could be applied and tabled with a link so as to give everyone an idea of how it works out and to see how they feel about it just like the 5 rank general system is being linked to right now.  Essentially, the existing link that assesses generals would just become an 8 rank general system with CP's for all areas.

Disadvantages:

1) Many new players complain that they don't fully understand how CP is worked out and suddenly there would be 4 such ranks.  Of course, figure out 1 and you figure out them all.

2) The existing complaint that players are able to accrue "easy" CP points by playing lesser played boards would now apply for all the ranked areas, but, that would also mean that lesser played boards would pick up interest and gameplay in all the ranked areas.

3) Some might complained that CP is a flawed ranking system, hence the talk of mending it to trueskill, or what not, and that applying it to all the ranked areas would be increasing the influence of a flawed rank.  Of course, as pointed out in the advantages, this could be seen as only a temporary effect since if the CP were revised it could be applied throughout.

4) Some might complain that by being proficient in any one area of gameplay that someone might be able to take a stranglehold as a five-star general.  I don't really agree with that otherwise the current CP/GR rank might be locked in or threatened to be locked in as the same player, which it is not.  As said earlier, GP seems to favour specialization in many ways whereas CP encourages diversification, which are opposite playing styles and this tends to fight the initial assumption.  That said, if someone was able to hold both GR and CP in any one area, I reckon that they have earned it by being stellar at exceeding at scoring a high GR while simultaneously playing a wide diversity of boards to build up their CP.  It would also put a pressure on them to keep playing diversely to maintain that CP while simultaneously trying not to hurt their GP.  For whatever ones preferred style of play is I reckon they would probably be better off trying to put a stranglehold on two different GR's or CP's, or a CP coupled with a different GR, if they wanted to be a five star general?  Also, if such were initially applied, since the current GR ranks don't encourage diversity of map play, the initial results might be one and the same?, but this should quickly change since by having a CP rank players would be encouraged to play a greater diversity of boards whereas the GR holder might be less inclined to diversify as it would be a greater risk to their GR score in that area.

 

So, that's my initial brainstorming on it.  My hope is that it could potentially be easy to implement and put up in a parallel manner for all to evaluate.

Please feel free to add to the pros and cons and hash out the idea, or, if you just think it's a good idea and have no pros or cons to add, then say so as well because if it can reach a positive review then it's more likely to be adopted!

Also, Tom, if you could give a quick statement on if this is something that could be implemented somewhat easily or not?  Or, if you feel it works into what he you are currently working on with the general ranking system? That would be appreciated as I don't want to deviate you too much from what you're currently working on but at the same time I think that this idea could be complimentary to what I've seen so far?

Thanks for reading!

Regards,

Erick

+1

+1 - solid idea. Any incentive to play other kinds of games (team, etc) is good.

+1 good maths much arithmetic.

So I have been taking a bit of a break from Wargear but berickf asked me to weigh in.  To make a point I'll be a bit provocative:  Let's do away with CP and GR all together and just keep Board Ranking.

Might be the fact I've been away for awhile, but it feels like we've lost the whole sense of what the rankings even are.  The proposed (and current, to some extent) system seems like it's trying to basically reward everybody for being anything.  Board specialist, team specialist, board explorer, etc.  I think the Achievements system is enough to make people feel warm and fuzzy about the success they've had.

Now, if this isn't enough, then why have another ranking at all?  I'd think the purpose would be to truly understand where you stack up against the rest of the site, regardless of your achievements.  And that might be brutally honest to some people, but that's the way of the world.  Does 4 or 8 different rankings feel like it meets that purpose?  I'd suggest it doesn't, and that in the end where you stack up in the site is the CP score we have today.  Maybe the CP calculation could be improved, regardless it is what most players look at when they look to overtake the top position.