Yo SWM'ers.

I'm part of a small team of interweb commandos that gain Cunning+20 from Crix and are working on the new SWMGPA Ranking System that will be in place by February 20 in a Beta-ish sense, and then by May 1st in an Uber-ish sense.

The Ranking System will be in the form of a website where a local representative from either your LGS/Playgroup or a Tournament representative will be able to enter in details of your games to have them tabulated and ranked. We currently have the math all sorted and are now trying to iron out the info entry.

As well as a comprehensive ranking system and a swath of statistics that we'll be able to draw out of it, we'll also have a succint FAQ and explanation of the system. That kinda begins here - you'll have the questions I need to be thinking of and my answering questions about it here will help me consolidate that jumble in my head!

FYI: SWMiniverse Episode #38 is the Episode that contains my rough/playful description of the way we rank things in NZ.
SHNN Episode #103 is the SHNN Episode that I was on recently talking about things Rankable.
SHNN Episode #101 is the SHNN Episode that discusses the our Save11 Magazine and the relate that to the ranking system (about an hour in).
Save11 SWM Vmag Episode#1 is our Save11 Vmag that has what the ranking system should look like (page 26).

So then. I'll answer anything I can and we'll see where this post gets us! Deal?

You rule. Especially you.

Thanks for starting the thread, Kez. First question that I raised on last week's show: You've explained your 3-2-1 scoring system, something I've adopted in my group, used at a convention tournament, and now Darph Nader will be using at Frosty Con. How do you plan on reconciling tournament results utilizing 3-2-1 scoring with the ranking system that is based on 3-2 scoring?

Second question... more like just looking for confirmation. 500pt Epic tournaments would be reported to the limited rankings, correct?

Hmm.. Well, in 500 point Epic format, you're usually required to play at least 1 Epic piece. That requirement is a restriction of sorts, but it's not really a restriction in what you "can" use, but a restriction in what you "must" use. In other words, you're restricted to playing squads that contain an Epic piece.

After thinking it through I think it can be interpreted either way, that Epic could be constructed or limited. Obviously you're the final say on this, but you might want to consider whether formats that require a certain type of piece would be limited or constructed. It seems to me that would require a "yes" to the second question, but it might not.

Ah, I didn't even think about the fact that standard 200 is "restricted" in that you CAN'T use Epics. So I guess the Epic sets just don't count as a "major set" for that second question. Makes sense.

Righto.

The Ranking System is loosely based on two things: one is a rough average of your score, and the second is the ICC Test Rankings (that's Cricket, folks). The process is that your game is given a score (3, 2, 1 or 0 points) and that result is logged with other results you have, they are weighted, an average is produced and then finally they are multiplied by 100 (purely because 231pts looks much better than 2.31pts). What you end up with is a record of what your average score in a game looks like.

Just quickly, the SWMGPA uses the excellent 3-2 scoring system. 3pts are given for a win within the allotted time, and 2pts for a win to time (first tie-breaker). For our system, we have added a 1pt loss that is awarded if you lose but manage to get half of the objective score. We find this helps differentiate players who have lost a number of games.

The simple explanation of the averaging process is that we add up all my pts from an individual's games, divide them by the ammount of games, and then multiply it by 100. The resulting number is their Ranking Score. Their are, however, a few "weighting" steps that are built in. The first is that while games played within the last six months retain their full score, games in the next six month steadily decrease in value until after 1 year they are worth zero. This "depreciation" step ensures that you continue to play to work on your score. Similarly, when we divide your total number of points by the amount of games you have played the weighting of a given opponent decreases as it goes beyond the 6 month limit.

A second weighting step is that there is a minimum number of games that you must play to get a full ranking. You must have five fully weighted games, that is 5 games within the last 6 months (or more games if some of them are older than 6 months, as long as the weighting adds up to the equivalent of five games). Your Ranking Score will be a percentage of your full score until you hit that mark. This prevents one player winning 1 game 3-0 and then being ranked #1 in the world for 6 months.

A third weighting step is that you can only achieve 67% of your total score (that is a maximum of 200pts as opposed to 300pts) unless you enter and play in a Sanctioned Tier 1 Tournament. What that means will be clarified at a later date, but GenCon, a US Regional or a sanctioned National level tournament (French/German Championship or New Zealand Tournament etc.) will "unlock" your ability to achieve a higher set of ranking points. What this does is two things: firstly, it encourages folk to attend the top flight tournaments to attain full ranking status (and exposes more people to a higher level of game play, raising the level of SWM all around) and it guards against someone beating 6 other people in his LGS consistently and being ranked #1 in the world without ever going to a major tournament.

The ICC Test Rankings (in International Cricket) work in a unique way. Test Cricket is such a long game that it takes roughly 3-4 years for the ten test-playing nations in the world to play each other, therefore a annual league is impossible. Their innovation is that the league table is ongoing, or that when a nation plays another, the ranking points they score in that game "replaces" the previous score. You are only as good as your last game against a given opponent. The Ranking System works in this way too. If I play theHutts (one of my local players) and win 3-0, I gain that score to my name and he logs 0pts against me. When we next meet, if he beats me 2-1, now my 3pt game against him is replaced by the 1pt and he goes up. What that does is limits the effectiveness of simply playing the same LGS folk week-in, week-out. You are encouraged to foster a competitive LGS setting or play against other opponents.

I hope this makes sense!

Now get to work on the US college Football BCS system.

Yes, good question! Initially I was planning to either rejig our system in NZ to come inline wi' the 3-2 system or simply work out a worldwide system and then run our own NZ ones separately. However, the two can live pretty nicely side by side as I see it.

My thinking is that, while official tournaments are still run using the simpler 3-2, that doesn't mean that slight adjustments can't be made to the scoring software to effectively "spit out" 3-2-1 results as a separate entity. That way, the 3-2 is still in effect for the tournament ranking, and a 3-2-1 list of results is also given to work wi' the Rankings System.

Having said all this, I am still checking this all out. This is my thinking on it all and we're still working on how the info goes into it (and comes out of the tournament reporting software).

More news as it comes to hand!

I have two thoughts about this:
i) Will you be able to filter it just for your own playgroup. Like if noone in your playgroup ever goes to GenCon, or another major tournament, can you still you it for internal rankings? (This is more a question for the developers).

ii) It does work for our playgroup (where Kezzamachine developed the system) really well. As a competitive person, I don't think I would have bothered playing if there wasn't a ranking system. I think it maybe deters some people, but it's a powerful incentive for others. It's a good measure of where people are at - one of our players who just started a year just made up to #3, after working hard on his game. It's nice to watch people climb up into the top tier of players, and I know other newer players are determined to get more skilled and get their ranking higher.

Great post, Echo. Incidentally, if anyone is interested in scenario play, check out our recent play reports. Most of our games recently have been home-brew scenarios that worked pretty well. I'd be interested to see outcomes if others play the same scenarios. Or if you have your own scenarios, post them.

I bloody well hope so. My reasons for working with a Worldwide Ranking System are two fold. First, and probably most importantly, I think its a useful tool that can be utilised by whoever wishes to use it. It creates some excitement about different games you play and can help infuse some more life into the LGS system. One thing I think I needs emphasise about the Ranking System is that it is ultimately an ability to track YOUR games. You don't get 'extra' points for knocking over a highly ranked player - you get the same amount you would if you had beaten your mate or the worst player in the game. That means that the Ranking score you get will show YOUR average game. Its essentially a record of that. What this also does is it can show you what that looks like stacked up against others. That's where it can be fun.

My second reason, and this is entirely selfish, is that I want to not have to maintain a local spreadsheet containing our rankings anymore. Not when I can have it done wi' an uber-flash website! (Well, a website... we're a way off 'uber-flash'.) What we are going to make sure we can do is give the Ranking website the ability to show you where you sit in your own LGS, your State, your Country and the whole world! (And further, if we can start a playgroup on the Moon or Mars. MoonCon2013, anyone?) That way the competitiveness is completely governed by you. You may not care about being 207th in the world, but saying your 2nd in Lower Hutt is pretty cool (well, it was... I just dropped to my alltime low of 8th...)

I think the competitive game can be looked at as being at different levels. International, National, Regional, Local... or even just me and someone else. I couldn't care less where I come in the world - just as long as I'm ahead of 'that guy'... (Sharron - I'm looking at you...)