my system:
Good things in this system: people won't lose their points they have already gathered. They can freely test the level without losing points - though someone else might get more points by beating them.zebra wrote: ok, i was thinking about something like this:
at the beginning everybody has 0 points.
let p(x) be the points of the player x.
let d be the duration of the battle in minutes.
let b(x) be the amount of players the player x beat in the battle.
let k be a tiny constant, let's say 0.01.
let m be another constant, let's say 0.1.
let n be another little bigger constant, let's say 20.
players a,b and c play a 10-min-battle and a wins, b is second and c last.
before the battle, a had 300 points, b had 500 points and c had 200 points.
now, if p(b) - p(a) is positive (i.e. player b has more points than a), player a gets (p(b) - p(a)) * (d + n) * k points because he beated b. Likewise, if p(c) - p(a) is positive, player a gets (p(c) - p(a)) * (d + n) * k points because he beated c. Additionally player a gets b(a) * (d + n) * m points ((d + n) * m points for each player which he beated). These 'additional' points have to be there to get the points to rise from 0 to some bigger numbers.
In this case player a would get (500 - 300) * (10 + 20) * 0.01 + 2 * (10 + 20) * 0.1 = 66 points. That means that he gets 60 points for winning player b who had more points than him, and 3 points for each player which he beated.
Player b gets 1 * (10 + 20) * 0.1 = 3 points because he beated c.
Player c gets 0 points (the last player would never get points).
Now, player a has 366 points, player b 503 points and c has 200 points, so their ranks are 2, 1 and 3rd (assuming that there aren't any other players in belma at all).
Now, you wouldn't lose any points by playing, which make sense.
You could only get higher in ranks by playing, which make sense.
You wouldn't be punished from playing battles.
Good players would get many points at the beginning. When they reach their level, they wouldn't get any points so easily anymore.
Bad players would only get points from players which they beated, which is not much, but is still something.
You would get more points from winning a longer battle. By adjusting the constant n the effect can be made smaller or bigger.
About the problem that some players would get points easily by just playing against each other while no-one other is around: yes, they would get some points but not much, and the best player of those would get only the 'additional' points (which i mentioned above) which would be very low. Also, there won't be much times when such situation occurs, because everybody is welcome to join at any time.
The values of the constants k and m has to be chosen relatively small to avoid player points to go too big. And player points should be floats (or doubles) so that the pointing would be accurate. Ranks (positions) could be integers.
About the 0-apple problem, i think it's better to leave it out of the point system. Simply take away the 0-apple-players and the designer of the level from the results before making any kind of calculations, so they wouldn't get any points (and other ppl wouldn't get any points for beating them).
If more than one ppl gets for example 1 apple, those shouldn't be tied, but to give points in the order in which they got the apple (like it is now in the results). More generally, with this pointing system, the time/apple amount which you get in the level would not be relevant, only your position in the battle results.
Bad things in this system: you have to play a certain amount of battles to get to your level, and the people who play most will be little higher in the rank as they deserve to be.
milagros's system:
Good things in this system: your rank would reflect your skill level quite fast and you don't have to play much to get a good rank, if you really are a good playermilagros wrote: it was like this
lets say players on 1.-4. position had ranks A,B,C,D before
after balles ranks will be
A(n+1) = A(n) * (1 + k*exp(q*(B(n)-A(n)))) * (1 + k*exp(q*(C(n)-A(n)))) * (1 + k*exp(q*(D(n)-A(n))))
B(n+1) = B(n) / (1 + k*exp(q*(B(n)-A(n)))) * (1 + k*exp(q*(C(n)-B(n)))) * (1 + k*exp(q*(D(n)-B(n))))
C(n+1) = C(n) / (1 + k*exp(q*(C(n)-A(n)))) / (1 + k*exp(q*(C(n)-B(n)))) * (1 + k*exp(q*(D(n)-C(n))))
D(n+1) = D(n) / (1 + k*exp(q*(D(n)-A(n)))) / (1 + k*exp(q*(D(n)-B(n)))) / (1 + k*exp(q*(D(n)-C(n))))
there will be also some max/min value of exp(..) so it wont be any unstable
these rules would keep A(n)*B(n)*C(n)*D(n) constant
if someone much better beats someone who sax, it will increase his coefficient by some 1.000001 and decrease the others one byt same 1.000001, if someone much worse beats someone, ez increase weight a bit more, constants q,k will be some 0.01 or smth, simply somehow set (it means the speed of ranks changing), starting value will be some 1000 or 1.000 or smth, goodplayers will have >1, bad players <1
its not decided if 0 apples results are taken, if same times means same position or not and if same apples means same result (definitely for 0 apples)
Bad things in this system: you can't test the levels and then quit playing because then you will end up last and lose much points. It's better just to observe in battles if you come in late, which will not be so funny. And if you receive a high rank, you will easily lose points so you may choose not to play at all. Also new players who come in (total noobs) can be in the better rank than players (below average players) who have played much but lost all their points.
The biggest difference in these systems is that in mila's system you can lose your points.
It might be that in the end mila's system works better but I still think that my system is better.
Both systems need some kind of system which will reduce everybody's points slowly in the long run that peoples points will not go in the millions. In my system the total amount of points increases when battles are played, in mila's system the amount increases when new players register in.
I heard that there is a new spying mode in the new elma online which reduces the problem with 0 apples. But I still think those shouldn't be counted to results.
I base my thoughts to trackmania nations forever pointing system. There are nearly 2 million players and their system is working fairly fine. New players start with 0 points and you get points by beating better players. That means that you don't get any points from winning a battle if all the other players are noobs. This is not the problem there. But there has been some problems at the top and they have some weird system which won't give you more points if there are too many players who have 90000-100000 points (100000 is the maximum) and you have 89999 points. Also players without time (the 0-apple problem) won't be counted in in the results.
But I heard now that there will be at least two different ranking systems in the new elma online: the mila's system (battle skills points) and the old system (battle experience points) in which you will get 1 point when you are last in battle, 2 points if you are second-last and so on. In this way you can choose whether you play for skills points or experience points, so the problem about which ranking system is the best, is not so big problem anymore.
I hope this didn't confuse you only even more... I just wanted to clear out my thoughts and discuss about these things. In the end the ranking systems are not so important - we play for fun don't we? But now when it's very easy to change the ranking system it's time to think about those.
Comments?