State of the V:EKN - October 2013

johannes wrote:

There is no way to design a fair rating system involving people that have a hard time playing tournaments because of circumstances. A rating system will describe who are the best performing players within an active tournament scene. People outside of that scene are not going to be high in the ranking, but how does it matter if everything that is given out is qualification to participate in international events? Does it matter to you that you don´t qualify for Legendary Vampire if you can´t go anyway?

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.

Anyway, are you seriously questioning why fairness is important to the qualifying system or just my motivations personally? If the former, its that the idea of reserving things like 2nd day spots for a privileged group of players who will have the inside track on obtaining them will tend to discourage the other players over time and decrease, not increase participation. The latter is not a relavent to the point I'm making - which is the same whether I make it or anyone else does.

Damnans wrote:

the1andonlime wrote:

How about making the entire idea region based?

I like the idea. After all, the whole point of making the ranking more significant is giving tournament organizers more reasons to report their events.

Then again, you already can filter the player registery to show only players in a certain country/town/something. So this can be done already.

I agree with the notion of the ratings not being really fair, though. Like, we were discussing the ratings a bit a few days ago, and it really struck me when my girlfriend asked if it's really fair or not; like, some people may have been super good back in the days and still some newcomers couldn't compete with those feats from years ago. And if you started winnin tournaments years ago some newbs, no matter how good players, might never reach the top.

I really couldn't argue those points, other than saying that it's a flawed system, should always be used within a narrow horizon of discourse rather than a wide one (as in, 'who's the best IN TOWN', rather than 'who's [just] the best'), and yeah, they did discuss nulling all the ratings a few years back.

What we were thinking was that there could be, like, three different kinds of ladders:

Overall best ratings (history; worldwide; filters for areas)
Overall best average (history; worldwide; filters for areas; average tournament scorings for players, not just accumulated points)
This year's ratings (nulled every year [two years?], worldwide; filters for areas)

Really, loads of extra work, but different statistics would be a bit more reasonable.

I don't know if I agree with Fred's rather aggressive tone of discussion (sorry mate, that's how it translates to me! ), but I do understand his point. If peeps have time and energy, the scorings could be re-evaluated.

Kraus wrote:

Damnans wrote:

Overall best average (history; worldwide; filters for areas; average tournament scorings for players, not just accumulated points)

I have an amusing anecdote for this one:
Few years back, Chris K. set up a ranking system for the ACT players in Australia. One fine day, my then girlfriend, now missus, came to visit me and joined in the weekly games. On her first ever outing for V:tES, she swept all 3 games she played in.

For months and months after that, before Chris decided to keep only recent data, she had the best average score in the entire ACT (100% GW).

Just sayin'

Kraus wrote:

What we were thinking was that there could be, like, three different kinds of ladders:

Overall best ratings (history; worldwide; filters for areas)
Overall best average (history; worldwide; filters for areas; average tournament scorings for players, not just accumulated points)
This year's ratings (nulled every year [two years?], worldwide; filters for areas)

Peetu, you might not be aware that the ratings only take into account, like, 18 previous months of points.

So older history is already only hearsay...

fredsct wrote:

This isn't sports, it's a hobby collectible card game named VtES and people don't behave the same way as famous athletes - so such comparisons are silly.

Actually, Chess is sports.
And when I reserved the ferry tickets to Team Finland for this year's EC we got a sports club discount which just proves that even mundanes think that we're sports...