State of the V:EKN - October 2013

johannes wrote:

fredsct wrote:

First of all we're not debating "rating" system. The VEKN ranking system doesn't rate at all. It just awards points for various feats (and then takes them away some number of months later). The points are awarded for skillful feats, it's true, but no attempt is made to correct for things like quality of competition. We said all these things 10 years ago, Johannes. You already know them.

Yes, my argument for quality of competition was and is that this evens itself out over a numbre of events.

You may be right about that or not. I think it really depends on whether events transpire to create some incidences of sufficiently rewarding "soft" tournaments that a player could take advantage of or not, such as the level of competition on one particular continent or geographical area varying a lot compared to others.

But never mind that. As I pointed out at the time, the issue is less likely to be "players at the top who aren't good". The issue is much more likely to be "extremely good players who are nowhere near the top" because those players simply haven't made the effort to go play in lots of tournaments in the past 18 months (or whatever it is) - because, in turn, the amount of effort it would take them is far greater than what it might take other players elsewhere. I mean, look at Ben Peal at 118 points and Brian Moritz with 355, both far out of the top 100 list of players and tell me, with a straight face, that this number reflects player skill.

johannes wrote:

I was not talking about you personal motivations, no hard feelings

Sure. None taken.

johannes wrote:

I agree with you that we have to be careful about "rewards" from the ranking system. I still think there are valid rewards with a seemingly "unfair" (sounds so negative, let´s say sub-optimal) system. Like having a Legendary Vampire tournament. Or like awarding a small subset of 2nd day spots to the top X (small being <=10%). Card art portraits are probably the best option of all because this is a non-monetary value outside of the competition.

The tournament is obviously totally reasonable. Limiting the number of 2nd day spots to a small tournaments strikes me as limiting the damage - like, "I'm not going to cut my whole arm off, I'll just cut my little finger off instead." I don't see the reason to do it all myself but if you're going to do it, I agree, a small number is far less likely to bother anyone. As a guy who already got on a piece of card art by just being at the right place at the right time, I probably can't tell you folks what you should do about that.

Fred

fredsct wrote:

The issue is much more likely to be "extremely good players who are nowhere near the top" because those players simply haven't made the effort to go play in lots of tournaments in the past 18 months (or whatever it is) - because, in turn, the amount of effort it would take them is far greater than what it might take other players elsewhere. I mean, look at Ben Peal at 118 points and Brian Moritz with 355, both far out of the top 100 list of players and tell me, with a straight face, that this number reflects player skill.

Is the problem with the current ratings system or with the fact you stated ("because those players simply haven't made the effort to go play in lots of tournaments")? Which should change?


Compare our system to that of Diamond League:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAAF_Diamond_League

Sure, someone at Diamond League might make a new world record at one game but if they don't really attend that many games, they have zero chance of ranking high at the league.

Lönkka wrote:

fredsct wrote:

The issue is much more likely to be "extremely good players who are nowhere near the top" because those players simply haven't made the effort to go play in lots of tournaments in the past 18 months (or whatever it is) - because, in turn, the amount of effort it would take them is far greater than what it might take other players elsewhere. I mean, look at Ben Peal at 118 points and Brian Moritz with 355, both far out of the top 100 list of players and tell me, with a straight face, that this number reflects player skill.

Is the problem with the current ratings system or with the fact you stated ("because those players simply haven't made the effort to go play in lots of tournaments")? Which should change?

Erm...you left off the full quote:

fredsct wrote:

...The issue is much more likely to be "extremely good players who are nowhere near the top" because those players simply haven't made the effort to go play in lots of tournaments in the past 18 months (or whatever it is) - because, in turn, the amount of effort it would take them is far greater than what it might take other players elsewhere.

Mind you, I'm not saying anything should change all. I'm just saying that this system does not rate skill. It's just an arbitrary reward system for doing "good things" and it has very bad flaw when used to compare people in different areas of the world. So the guy who pointed out that using it to hold a contest between all the players in the same city would be OK was correct, as far as that went. But using it rank players between different geographical areas is completely unfair and therefore should not done in situations where fairness is required.

Fred

This discussion seems to run in circles, and honestly, im not sure its helpful.

Its made me realize maybe vtes should be televised

Seriously though, ive had the debate as to who the best player ever is. Good luck ever proving any one person.

Its easy to use ratings to support such arfuments. For example, around when the Newark Ohio playerbase dwindled slightly, we had biweekley tournaments for a few months. The Bells drove in for many of them. Connor and Mindy did well at many of them. John won a rediculous ass ton of them. I think we may have had a running joke of "come play! Add to John Bells twda entry list!"

And i think he was highly ranked then for a spell. Before a final table with him( i remember it kinda well. He and Loughman had mistress/carna and carna wall, respectively. I played 2nd trad for dom tha with dawn op, weather control, burst of sunlight, etc. We were the last three, and i lost due to refo motus in his hand after ousting loughman.) We discussed who the best player ever was. He said arguably Ben Peal, and i said Hugh. At this point, John was numerically ranked the highest. Ben hadnt been on the top of the list in awhile, due to things in real life. Hugh had been high on the list within a year or so of this converaation, and everyone played stickmen for a minute because of his decks.
Also, i recall TTC master being perpetually high on the ww ranking list due to apparenly a glitch. He didnt win as many as would explain never moving at that point. Loughman was also in the list in top 5 for awhile.

Point is, in previois times, we have had a rotating top list, and the only last 18 months should have served keeping it that way. If i win 8 tables annually during the WoN and NAC, i retain my points unti lthe following year, as long as origins isnt moved forward six months.

If we keep the system and grow playerbases, smaller groups can get more points, and larger groups have potentialto unseat top players by them losing. The best in the world lose sometimes.

Maybe we add support where we need bigger draws, if we can. My strategies all were Pod dependant, but its possible to help playerbases.
Then in a year and a half, we see things slide some.

I cant blame location on my rating, although it seems lower than it should be due to table sweeps and attendance. My city amd state have players. My inflexible real life schedule with work and my family make me a hard peraon to play with most weekz, but that may change once things settle more.
My wife would play more with a sitter. She ignorez rating alltogether, because she enjoys playing and deckbuilding more than talking about it. Life happens to players. New ones are harx to get.

I say we:
Keep current system and add a "legacy" system of some kind.

Build playerbases, especiay by stealing players of ccps mmorpg, to add value to our game being printed to the holder of our source IP.

but i see both sides of the argument, and no easy solution exists

Thanks to Johannes for his work and to Gines for taking over.

Personally, the ratings are fun and I like them.

I say forget about the rankings issues and work on making the game easier to get people into. without the ability to buy cards its a massive undertaking. the only real option isto buy specific cards to build a deck, which a new player cant really do. the website magiccards.info/ makes getting a proxie deck together quick and easy to do testing with. why doesnt V:tes have the same thing? a better "how to" of deck design covering each clan and deck archetype to help anyone new get their new deck going. now at that point it might be easier getting them to play casual. getting them into a tournament where they have to go buy 102 cards probably isnt going to happen... especially when there are no card limits so they may need 10 copies of a $10 card. im not sure on what tournament proxie allowneces are for V:tes but being out of production there needs to be some allowences (if there arent already) we have a 7 person gaming base with 5-10 who show an interest, proxies may be enough to get them on board casually, and after that interested in events.