Tournament points

[ZeroIncome]

Just read the news that tournaments will give you 1000 points for winning and 250 points for loosing. This seems crazy to me, I understand you obviously want to promote the idea of tournaments, but 1000 points? 

I think it would be better if you implemented an ELO system then the rankings would actually be based on how good you are compared to another person. For example with the current system I could just keep playing against a bad player and each time receive 1000 points! With an ELO system if the player is worse than you, then you earn diminishing returns.

I play another game and there they used to have the system you have now, fixed amount of points per win. So very quickly the "best" player become the person who had played the most times. Now they have an ELO system and somebody that has played 1000 or 100 times makes no difference. The rank is based on who you beat.


Side note: This system would probably be better for all of the servers in general, but I never really took the point system seriously so I never suggested it. Now that you are making tournaments I thought you might want to look into  better system that actually represents a players ability to play the game and not the amount played.


More info
wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
Lol wiki (I found some interesting info for values when I was implementing an ELO system): http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Elo_rating_system
Trueskill (Elo on xbox): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueSkill
Glicko (another version): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system

I think Elo, glicko and trueskill have the most documentation.

Here's a link explaining how to apply Elo in a game where there are multiple ranks possible (not just 1 winner and 1 looser): http://sradack.blogspot.be/2008/06/elo-rating-system-multiple-players.html
You don't need that in your current system, but if you for instance want to give every person in a game some points then you might be able to use that.

[alex879ro]

ZeroIncome, I`m pretty sure you have your reasons for criticising this, but the reward is awarded for a tournament that`s not so often. The idea is to stimulate the players. From the outside it might look like we`re doing a wrong thing, but take into consideration that so far there have been only 2 tournaments in a few months since we started the server.

2nd problem is that the operators and the admins have to agree on the challenge also. Once 2 players decide themselves, it`s not a done deal. So far, there weren`t any problems, but this doesn`t  mean that a players might only play tournaments.

3rd problem: think that #1 player is Naz who has about 28k points. This would mean that someone would have to play 28 tournaments in order to reach him. And anybody thinking something like this would have to be mad to think that we would agree. This would mean 1 tournament every 2 days (points expire after 60 days so if he would want to raise 28k in about 60 days....well, it`s obvious)

4th problem: Tournaments are subjected to a lot of difficulties because they need : both players to be online in a specific chosen day; and also an operator to be online on the same time date so he can make the necesary implementations.

My answer is that you`re worrying for nothing. Tournaments are very rare for the moment and they are not a source of cheating points. As I said, so far we only had 2.

About your proposal with the new points system, xOR is currently developing a new points system.

[YorVeX]

regarding regular scores: i know the Elo system and i've seen the practical implementation in multiplayer games too (e.g. CS:GO competetive games), but it is hard to realize when it's not only multiple opponents but when they are also able to hop on and off the running game at every minute (the new score system aims to give scores not only at the end of the game). also it would mean that players always need to have other players on their games which have an account and are logged in - a limitation i don't want.

that's why the new system won't be pure Elo, nevertheless the scores will be influenced by other players on your game and how much scores they got in comparison to you.

[imus]

I agree with alex and YorVeX here.

problem for normal servers:
- players hopping on later means a huge handicap
- players quiting half way through => did you really "win" from these players?
- you play alone on a server => you get nothing?

problems for tournament:
currently 2 matches since we created the tournament server ... elo works because it will balance out over time. Losing/winning 5 games doesn't say anything.

As for the current score system:
It's not meant to solely rank you for being good. In the first place it indeed shows how active you are and gives a nice bonus to the better players. My biggest problem with the current scoring is that it is really hard to balance the scores over all servers. In my opinion it would even be better to have a separate score and ranking for each of our servers. But since xOR is already working on a completely new system, it's not worth trying to change the current system too much I just hope he's able to finish it soon ^.^

[ZeroIncome]

Most of your "problems" can be solved by adjusting values in the calculation of the amount of points you receive when the match finishes.

Having such a system would mean you could do more tournaments without having to constantly have a referee. (it's just more streamlined)

Of course the openttd community is fairly small and so your way of controlling it works fine. It was just a suggestion.