There is a reason many organizations choose not to use the ELO ratings. It is because certain players choose NOT to play games in order to secure their standings. Or cherry picking specific categories to ensure their ratings. One game a week, a few a month, etc. It seems to me as if a rating system encouraging you not to play (and in fact rewarding you for non-action) is not a good thing for this site.

I continue to stay in the top ten of FMI although I have not played in almost a year. That makes it a lot harder for people to pass me, as they never get the points from beating me. The whole basis of the system is about getting extra points for beating people ahead of you and losing more from people below you who win. This puts an incredible hardship on the top ten players that do play versus the ones sitting out most of the month.

Why not add in an extra element to change this. How about if a person is not in the top 25 or 50 of the monthly standings, their ELO rating is set back to 1500. That would garner a lot more competition at the top, alleviate calls from others about a reset, and make the system much more reflective of the competition I think we want here. Why should someone playing so few games remain at the top? And this is an easy fix to ensure more play from all.

Just some thoughts.

Actually, I disagree. Resetting a player who is provenly good but then fails to play for a while only punishes everyone else when the pro starts playing again and now costs the others too many points on the way back up. Besides, any partial resets undermine a key feature of ELO which is that the average rating of all players always remains a constant 1500.

The much better way to go with this is to use the rule from chess - you need to play to keep your rating active. A chess Grandmaster's rating is only in the lists if they have played a certain number of rated games over the past year. We could implement the same in FT - only show those players in the top lists who have played a number X games since the start of the previous month. Let's say we put X at 30 for the hourlies and a player rated 1850 has played 27 games in October and so far 9 in November. He's good and considered active for the rest of November (since the total is 36). Now he tries to preserve his rating and doesn't play any more games. On December 1, the October games fall off the list and he is now sitting on just 9 games and off the list and loses all rating benefits (can't use it to qualify for badges, etc.), requiring at least 21 games in December until he does show up again. However the rating is still there internally, so when he starts playing again, his opponents will still receive the points due for winning or losing to an 1850 player, not a 1500 one and his skill will still be adjusted starting from that 1850 value.

Wes

I sympathise with what you're saying, Bubblesfun, but for purely selfish reasons I'm opposed to tinkering with the ELO set-up at present.

I've been second in Word Wizard ELO rankings for AGES, with the Number 1-ranked player rarely if ever playing. It's got to the point where my ELO increase from winning a set with c.50 players is often less than 1 point, whereas I get practically no increase for second place and actually lose marks for coming third. For getting 14/15 - even in the fastest time of the set - I lose up to 15 points, which takes more than a day of playing and winning to make up.

Without the Number 1-ranked player to play against it's INCREDIBLY hard to make up ground ... BUT I am going to do it (at some point!) and therefore I don't want a system tinkering that'll take away the challenge I've been playing so long towards!

At some point in the future I do think the ELO weightings need to be looked at for the top players, as the points that can be gained for winning a set or coming close to the top are SO outweighed by the penalty accrued from a slow time or occasionally getting 14/15 that it's next to impossible for regular players at the top to make progress.

When I read some detail on the ELO ranking system a while back I got the impression that in some sports that use it there is some sort of favourable weighting that compensates for the fact that there's far fewer (or none!) higher-ranked players to beat.

Maybe that could be looked at in the future, as an alternative to the penalty against non-players that you're proposing ....?

But not yet!

LOL, since you said it so nicely, I hereby amend my request for any changes to be held until AFTER you achieve your goal!

As to Wesley's points, I have no issue with ratings being ineligible rather than reset, it accomplishes the same goal. Although I don't understand how the ratings can be held at an average of 1500 as it is. We constantly have new players in the various games that come in with the new ranking of 1500. How is that addressed within the system and couldn't that same formula be applied to some members being reset?

I DO know in the ATP tennis rankings, it only counts what was done over "the immediate past 52 weeks". We can adjust the time period, but I think it prevents players from just resting on their laurels. I don't think what a player did over a year ago is relevent to what's going on right now.

In the Flemish quiz ranking for quiz teams (Murphy quiz nights) the ranking is also based on a period of the last 52 weeks. If one has reached the first week of November, all points from the last week of October of the previous year are lost.

What a fascinating debate. I didn't even know these statistics existed, let alone where to find them - I have searched and failed. It's like being on a different planet.

On the Champions Division page for some of the Hourly games (e.g Word Wizard), the box at the top right which reads 'Top 7 Rated Champs' is based on ELO ratings. Over towards the left there's a clickable 'Champion Ratings' button which gives a fuller list of ELO rankings for players over the 1500 average. At the top of that page there's a message that says 'For a full description of the ELO rating system, click here'.

Aren't the standings in the Global Challenge also based on this assessment system?
No 'time based adjustment' would seem to apply there since the values reset at each challenge. In other venues though, a limited time period would seem appropriate. I'm likening it to a dissolved gas in a liquid in a closed container. Currently it (rated value) bubbles out of the gas but stays there at the top and thus puts a lid on subsequent efflorescence, preventing other molecules of the gas from bubbling out. A time of no action reset (putting the gas back into the liquid) would work to allow current leaders to be at the top of the mixture. The inconvenience attributable to re-rising through the ranks on continuing players is not as burdensome as it is when they are kept from rising by no room at the top as a result of non-players holding top ranked positions.

Thank you, I've clicked the "champion ratings" link and it looks like the top seven plus more, a little like the "standings" list, but not quite. I'm trying to make sense of remarks like "I stay at the top without playing" and other things I've read in different places, and have yet to succeed. Perhaps the answer is to carry on doing what I'm doing and not try to make sense of statistics and strategy.

The bolded is what causes a lot of the controversey. Because, in many games, the top seven in the monthly standings are not the top seven in the ELO standings. The two lists rarely match. The point is that in order to gain significant ELO points, you have to beat someone above you in the standings. I can beat 30 people in a game and only go up three points, yet when I beat someone rated above me I gain many more points. At the same time, even if I beat thirty people in a game, but two or three people rated below me beat me, I can lose significant points, although my score was near the top. I could be at the top of the monthly standings list, yet still not gain significant points on the ELO player ahead of me, if he is not playing. So, when you are towards the top of the ELO list, and people above you are not playing, you never have a chance to gain those points, and the player not playing never loses any points. It is cause for a lot of frustration that you are actually competing against someone not playing, yet they will continue to hold their rank without a chance to take them on directly.

I will use as an example (again) the Fill Me in Game. I have not played since last Christmas, yet my name remains on the ELO Top Ten Board. That is, in part, because I have not lost any points since then, and others trying to move up do not get the chance to beat me to increase their points. The ELO list in that game obviously doesn't reflect the best players playing the game, because I am still listed without playing a game in almost a year.

Hope that helps a bit with what the issues are.

Aha - no wonder I was confused!

Thank you, I think I understand. The proof comes when I try to explain it to someone else, but it'll be all right if nobody asks me.

Thank you for taking the trouble to simplify it for me.

The intent is to reset these periodically. We did so a few months ago didnt we?

I think you talked about it, but I don't think it actually happened. For sure not in FMI, not sure about the rest.

If there had been a reset a few months ago, then Alex (bubblesfun) would not be on the FMI leaderboard from over a year ago, since she hasn't played as she said. I do not remember a reset in any game, to my knowledge, since ELO was instituted.

I think the last reset was in July of 2010. Yeah. It's been a while!

Was that a reset or was that when it all started? It all seems so long ago.

I think it was started in late winter/early spring of 2010. Remember how nine2five (sic?) used to dominate in WTS? He used to be up there on the ELO board back then.

I stand corrected. You are right, and nine2five was a teammate when he decided to leave FT after his full time grip on 1st place in WtS. He last peeked in, but did not play, in Sept. /10

So I checked back in the What's New Announcements, and there it is - June 12 and 14 of 2010 when the resets were last done.

If they ARE going to be reset soon (boo! ... only joking) I'd back Wes' suggestion that only players who play x number of games over a monthly period should have their rankings displayed. And they reappear when they begin playing again.

Simply doing a reset only resolves the non-playing issue for a few weeks.

Yeah, the non-playing issue is resolved in other games by not displaying players who haven't recently played. I think we can do something like that.

i.e. if you don't play in a game for 30 days, your rating doesn't get displayed. Soon as you play a game again, your rating pops back up.

Maybe we'll want a little more activity than one per month. I'd say 5 games in 30 days for dailies and 10 for hourlies should be enough to be considered active.

Do you mean AFTER you do a reset, or in lieu of a reset? You had mentioned back in June /10 that there would be a reset every 6 months or so. It's now been 17 months and really overdue. This in itself would clear out the inactive players and give the active ones something to shoot for again. It's the same as the last time it was done and the same as in GC and HC where everyone who wants to play starts all over in a new round.

Yeah, we'll do a reset soon. We should set a date and do it yearly.

10 seems awfully low. That's one game every 3 days. Even 2 games a day is only 60 per month. I've thought for a while all ELO's should be reset whenever there's a new Global Challenge. Just sync all of them on the Global calendar, and you get it all done in one fell swoop.

Some people have a hard time playing daily--it depends on their work schedule and other factors. I do think cubswin2323's suggestion of a reset on the same schedule as the GC makes sense though, and it would be easier to remember that way as well.



I think WesleyCrusher's numbers for remaining considered active are more realistic for many of the players who love FT and would play more if they could, but just can't.

It takes less than a minute to play one hourly game. If you're on the ELO leader board, chances are VERY likely you'd have the time to play two games per day.

Am I discerning two separate actions, blanking and resetting? Will both be done? Blanking after a month's inactivity. Resetting all yearly (or in sync with the GC)?

I've always rather liked "Strange Magic".
...oh wait, never mind, wrong thread : )

The standings get reset every month. Reset ELO every month too. The ones who don't or can't play as often as the ones who are complaining about the ELO won't have the opportunity to get into the top seven. Simple. Problem solved.