New Update 11/18/2013: Blood Gods Team Rankings & Chamber of Power Gear Changes

[Nate]

If you think adding a new glad to a group of loosers will add to their points you do not understand your own ranking system very well. What will happen now is that all other better factions will have a new punching ball, who they most certainly will have a 90% w/l against, which in turn will boost their ranking, and the few points the new glad himself will get will be nothing in comparison. If you put that new glad on the winning team, it actually would make sense.

Actually that is not the case, however, I understand how one might come to that conclusion. The points added to last place team with the addition of the gladiator will usually be greater than the points lost by the top ranked team. It is variable because it depends on the new gladiator being added. Some do well right from the start, some don't.

Good luck in the pit!

-Nate-

[Kreegan]

Well, why not make the new entries less likely to fight the top gladiators in Blood Gods but more orientated toward the the bottom of the bracket where they have an actual chance to win a few fights? Respectively, when they climb the ladder, they'll meet more powerful opponents more often and eventually will start facing the top dogs on regular basis. Right now the matches seem to be completely random and way too often the newly arriving "Blood God" is matched against some monsters in full orange gear where the best he/she can hope for is to get no more than 1-2 serious injuries and remain alive in the end. To ever win such a match, you need to have the exact counter-build of whatever you are fighting and even then the chances are not incredibly high. So in the end these are just free wins to those who already win a lot and hell of a beating to the rookies for a few months until they re-equip themselves.

[Prinny]

Kreegan it isn't random it's still in a round robin format. I just verified it by going through 2 rows of full bracket fights on asatsuo and the glads he fought himself keep occuring in the same order.

[Kreegan]

Well, even if it's not random, the fights of a top gladiator in full orange against a new entry still in his Primus gear and eventually not even fully trained are quite predictable and rarely result in a loss for the former. The bottom of the bracket (the last 15 or so) has win % ranging from 6.5% to barely above 30%. The 50% performers start somewhere in the middle of the ranking and almost all of them have spent some time in Blood Gods and have managed to equip themselves (Krom Ironfist seems to be the only partial exception). This alone says enough for the match-ups. There's certainly something that can be done to lighten the handicap on the newly entering gladiators, which will also result in more intensive competition between the top performers.

[Sotc]

I can't figure out how the teams are being assigned or how the team ranking is calculated. Weekly winners seem to be most strongly influenced by however teams are assigned which takes the competition aspect out of it.

[Nate]

I can't figure out how the teams are being assigned or how the team ranking is calculated. Weekly winners seem to be most strongly influenced by however teams are assigned which takes the competition aspect out of it.

I explained above how teams are assigned, however, I will explain it again since there seems to still be confusion. The last season's final ratings for each gladiator were used to create the new teams. This had the effect of creating 5 teams who's rating point earning potential was roughly equal. Since the community voiced a strong opinion to have gladiators from the same stable be on the same team this created teams with unequal numbers of gladiators. This isn't a problem in and of itself though as the teams with fewer gladiators are made up of stronger gladiators. For example a team with 10 strong gladiators can outperform a team of 25 average gladiators in regards to total rating points earned. While they will have less fights overall their w/l ratio will be higher and thus earn more rating points. The larger team of average gladiators will stay competitive even though their w/l isn't as great because they have the advantage of a larger team. It is really that simple. The smaller team get the advantage of stronger gladiators, the larger team gets the advantage of numbers.

New gladiators promoted from Primus are assigned to the same team as their stablemates if they are already present in the Blood Gods bracket. If they are the first of their stable then they are assigned to the last place team. Why? Because statistically they will help the last place team more than hurt the first place team. Putting them on the first place team would "punish" the top team for coming in first place which is not what we want to do, we want to "help" the last place team because they need it.

The above system was designed with balance in mind, it keeps all 5 teams in the running each week (assuming everyone plays their part by being active and trying to do their best each day). With the way things are setup it makes each gladiator important, each win or loss important regardless of where that gladiator is ranked. If your team has a handful of stars at the top that's great but those stragglers at the bottom are going to pull you down and they should since "team" standings are based on the entire "team" not just the star players.

Balance is the #1 priority, so the alternative is to remove the restriction of keeping gladiators from the same stable on the same team, this would allow A LOT more flexibility in assigning gladiators to teams with roughly equal numbers and equal power. As this option was not favored by the community it was not used. I'm more than happy to use this method instead. Another option is to simply remove the Patron Blood God teams. I implemented it because I thought it would add some nice flavor and was fairly simple to do. It's just a little thing with a token reward but if nobody likes it I'll remove it and we'll go back to every gladiator for himself with no team affiliations. It's a fairly simple change. If you have an opinion one way or they other you're welcome to send me a PM.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Sotc]

I think I understand now, thanks Nate.

[Apoca1ypse]

I'm liking the current format. 5 gods is making things much better than when we had 3.

[Prinny]

Ya I like it quite alot aswell apoc. Just sad to see Drajaka-Zul so low in comparison to some other like the great Tagro-Zul, one of the only two true blood gods!
Would be nice to have both stables on the same team but I like this format alot more compared to the old one

[Dainoji]

+1 from me as well, new format is a lot of fun! Drajaka-Zul suffered last week because last I checked Oedi stopped fighting his glads after Nate explained how the teams were created. Sucks for Apoc, since he is now on his own but it is what it is. Perhaps Oedi is trying to come in last so they'll pick up some more glads. Eventually I'd like to see a draft or something (check your PMs Nate, I sent you an idea on this) but for now I can see why you automate it. The point system you used to create the teams worked good but teams with just a handful of players can get crippled if one player stops running their glads for whatever reason as evidenced by Drajaka-Zul.