Blood God Ratings

[Dainoji]

The point is what Stormcloak says I think. Ussually ELO ranking is used when theres a lot of players playing in the same ranking so as everyone is there (the good ones, the average and the worse) so if you are good you will rank up easily and stay there, because if for some reason you are kicked down in ELO you will start fighting less skilled players normally and as you are better you will get your ELO up.

The point is that when the amount of people involved in the ELO ranking is small and the level is quite similar between then geting high ELO is very difficult as even when you are fighting people that by ranking are supossed to be worse than you you have high chances of losing and you will tend to lose more points when you lose than earn them when you win as this is how ELO works when you are over the average) so staying high is very difficult in this cases.

Thats exactly what happens in blood games I think. The problem relies in the ELO ranking itself. If you want people to be able to get higher ratings when they are only fighting other top players you need to think something arround, but thats very difficult. And maybe the movements helps motivating people so one or a few glad doesnt just dominate. But it can be very frustrating on the other hand as Cyna said.

I think there is a lot of truth to this as well although I'm not sure the number of participants matters as much given the sheer volume of fights in the Blood Gods bracket.

EDIT: Nevermind, after some thought, number of fights doesn't matter so much. Lack of glads does.

[Dainoji]

I see what your saying Dainoji, and I agree we have a system that is trending to the top glads gradually increasing.

What i don't like is its a system that punishes you for doing good and being the top guy.

Yeah, it's rough but that's how the system is designed. As Storm pointed out a top ranked player is simply not supposed to lose to an opponent much lower than them and if they do they're punished. The more I think about it I don't really think the elo is the problem, the problem is we only have 40 or so blood gods so getting matched up with someone near your own rating is a lot harder at the top. If we had 1000 blood gods there would be a lot of glads around 1400 or 1500 right now and they wouldn't be getting 1 or 2 points per fight. This is not a problem that is solved quickly since it takes time to get glads up the rankings ladder. My vote would be to see this season though and see how it plays out and then offer up alternatives for the next season if it doesn't feel right.

[Cynaidh]

Would probably help.

Also got to remember ELO was made for chess, in chess you do tournaments, in the tournaments the number 1 ranked player doesn't do 10 matches in a row vs the number 2 player, they get matched up with lower level players and then will meet topped ranked players at the end of an elimination tournament. So for every match they have vs someone who could beat them they already played 3-4 matches vs lower ranked opponents. That doesn't happen in our pits, all our high rank guys do is fight each other, so they have no chance to "pick up points" from lower ranked players like how it happens in a chess tournament. That's the biggest flaw to me with our system.

[Narol]

I agree with Cyn, the system would probably work better if you could meet randomly any other glad from the blood god category and not just the ones close to you in rankings...

Seasons should work kinda like a championship, if you play enough matches you would meet everyone in the competition and the leading glads will be those with the better W/L ratio overall...

[Nate]

We've had quite the lively discussion recently regarding the new Blood Gods bracket haven't we?

The long and the short of it is there is no perfect solution, even the MMR that some games are moving to have their issues as well. Is it better than an elo system? Maybe, maybe not. We won't really know what is best for us until after we play enough seasons and collect enough data to make informed decisions. Having said that it's clear that one main concern is the lack of variety with a low population bracket and strict matchmaking. In addition there is some concern that Seasons could afford to be more tournament like. So to that end I've made a few changes, nothing drastic and all to do with how matchmaking is handled.

The old system tried to match gladiators up with similar ratings, since we don't have an abundance of gladiators in the Blood Gods bracket this lead to a lot of similar matchups and a lack of variety. The change I've made basically turns Seasons into a Round Robin format. Every gladiator will fight every gladiator one after the other and circle back around when they've reached the end of the list and this will continue as new gladiators are introduced or removed.

What to expect and what not to expect:

- Since this is now a round robin tournament format, gladiators from the same stable will be getting matched up against each other when it's their time to face off.

- High rated gladiators losing to low rated gladiators will lose a good chunk of points just as before. That is simply how elo works and most other rating systems out there that try and factor in the participants level of skill and mastery.

- I would not expect to see the #1 gladiator create a large gap between themselves and the #2 unless they figure out how to win a heck of a lot more than they lose.

- Legendary items are very rare and as such will be very difficult to attain, don't expect to have one tomorrow, probably not next week either. If you brush your teeth every night, make your bed in the morning and clean you room you might get one later though...but I'll have to talk to your parents first and see if it's ok with them!

- As someone mentioned in one of the threads the real prizes here are the BGP you earn and the gear you buy with them. We'll have titles and achievements for the top spots for sure but the main prizes are the ones you pick up on a weekly/bi-weekly basis.

- BGP are not awarded on a liner scale, the higher your rating the more BGP you are awarded so maintaining a high rating each week is definitely worth it.

One thing I'd like to bring up is in creating seasons one of the goals was to create an environment that any glad could jump into at anytime have fun and feel like they had a chance to do well and if they happen to be the biggest badass around they move to the top where they belong. We already have the Blood Games which are a closed tournament with nobody being added or removed for the length of the tournament, hence, Blood Gods is a dynamic environment with gladiators entering each week and some leaving at anytime. Would it be possible for a newcomer to finish the Season in the #1 spot? Maybe, but I doubt it and as mentioned earlier they will have missed out on the main prizes and rewards the old timers had been getting for many weeks or months.

As always, thanks for your feedback and I hope you all find this change pleasing. I'll be focusing all my efforts on conquests now so major bugs aside I don't have plans to make any more changes to Seasons until Conquests is much further along. We'll learn from Season 1 and make changes accordingly down the road for Season 2.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[oedi]

the old system tried to match gladiators up with similar ratings, since we don't have an abundance of gladiators in the blood gods bracket this lead to a lot of similar matchups and a lack of variety. The change i've made basically turns seasons into a round robin format. Every gladiator will fight every gladiator one after the other and circle back around when they've reached the end of the list and this will continue as new gladiators are introduced or removed.

What to expect and what not to expect:

- since this is now a round robin tournament format, gladiators from the same stable will be getting matched up against each other when it's their time to face off.

awesome

[Alba Kebab]

Round robin? I like.

[Prinny]

- Since this is now a round robin tournament format, gladiators from the same stable will be getting matched up against each other when it's their time to face off.

I love you

[Cynaidh]

Ha, I did my morning fights before reading the forums, my first fight was Belgarad vs Belwraith, I actually thought my wife had spiked my coffee or something.

Cool change! Got my ass kicked a lot this morning, but they where all new fights so that's a plus, got to change up some strategies now to be more generic instead of running counter defensive strategies since all i normally fought where Oedi's defensive monsters.

[Narol]

Nice change, Nate, thank you !

The way you listen to the feedback of your player base is what makes PoW so great and enjoyable !!