Elo Ratings in Competitive Melee

[Nintendude]

I don't think there should be any kind of rating decay. If that person is only worse in a relative sense, then the people that are surpassing that person should just be increasing their ratings while the inactive player remains stagnant. If his skill deteriorates due to inactivity then he'll lose and his rating will be corrected.

 

[ES Lite]

The way I'm hearing it, I think it should work something like this:

Every 6 months or so, there will be a series of tournaments, maybe like 3 or so over a course of 2 months.

These tournaments would be named like...Elo Rating Refreshment I, II, and III

You can only enter one of these tournaments, and you play about 15 or so matches.

After determining your Win-Loss Ratio, the player is then issued a Elo rating from then on.

The reason why there is 3 tournaments, is to allow people who don't have the time to go to one of the tournaments, to be able to go to another and get their rating.

So after all is said and done, there could be 2 types of tournaments:
-one that seeds brackets based on elo ratings obtained from ERT (elo refresh blah blah..)
-Others that don't.

What this does is create a more hardcore method of seeding and tourney-going with ELO ratings tagging along for those who opt to do do, and other, less intensive tourneys that are there more for the lulzies.

After these tourneys follows 6 months of people playing with their ratings, and then they get reset from the ERT. This is done for those who might've done bad one half, been inactive, etc etc. This also allows for more flexibility of the ratings at hand.

Tell me what you think

 

[PEEF!]

The way I'm hearing it, I think it should work something like this:

Every 6 months or so, there will be a series of tournaments, maybe like 3 or so over a course of 2 months.

These tournaments would be named like...Elo Rating Refreshment I, II, and III

You can only enter one of these tournaments, and you play about 15 or so matches.

After determining your Win-Loss Ratio, the player is then issued a Elo rating from then on.

The reason why there is 3 tournaments, is to allow people who don't have the time to go to one of the tournaments, to be able to go to another and get their rating.

So after all is said and done, there could be 2 types of tournaments:
-one that seeds brackets based on elo ratings obtained from ERT (elo refresh blah blah..)
-Others that don't.

What this does is create a more hardcore method of seeding and tourney-going with ELO ratings tagging along for those who opt to do do, and other, less intensive tourneys that are there more for the lulzies.

After these tourneys follows 6 months of people playing with their ratings, and then they get reset from the ERT. This is done for those who might've done bad one half, been inactive, etc etc. This also allows for more flexibility of the ratings at hand.

Tell me what you think

Here is what I think.

THIS IS SUPER MARIO YOSHI BROTHERS MELEE and nobody would go to an ELO rating refreshment tournament because nobody cares except the 7.5 people posting in this thread. You can have your big time meaningless ratings while all the good players chuckle and stay home to have a good, non pretentious time with their friends.

The ratings would matter if playing smash meant something. Competitive smash (especially competitive Melee) is small, has no money, will never have any money, and to set up a rating system is nothing more than pure masturbation. Smash is held together by it's hardcore community, not by power rankings, not even by anxious new smashers, and ESPECIALLY not by some goofy ratings system. This thread is nothing more than a circle jerk of people who are good at math, good at programming, good at chess, good at being full of themselves, and super mega tryhards desprately trying to make themselves seem like "good" players. You know exactly where you belong on this list.

Although you aren't damaging and cannot damage the Melee community with this scheme, nobody will ever give a **** about what it says. You can quote some number, and you will be quickly asked..."great uh...who have you beaten?" AKA the exact same question anyone asks when you want to know how good someone is.

So you can continue the circle jerk, it won't hurt anyone (other than waste your time) but know that it is just that, a circle jerk.

 

[MTKO]

^hopefully everyone just ignores that post lol. Someone's not in a good mood.

The Elo refresh tournament idea sounds pretty good. I think the whole system would only work if applied to larger tournaments like regional or nationals. The only major issue I can see that would effect tings in a negative way would be how serious some people take the ratings. If you've ever played on gamebattles or xbox live you know how super serious some of the people take the ranking systems and placements. Some people get very very upset when they go down in rank/rating and take it out verbally on everyone else. There's people that already do this when they normally lose, but when you add in the extra system of rating, then it's just one more thing they have to get upset and complain about. But in no way does that make it a bad idea to use the rating system. I'm just trying to point out that there might be an increase of rage quitting scrubs. :D

 

[Sraigux]

Actually, despite how hard his point came across, peef has the right idea.

I like the idea of ELO ratings, however they should only be a passive thing, not an active thing. True skill should be looked at before ELO skill.

 

[Divinokage]

LOL, why so serious? omg. *laughs*

 

[Derkis]

What the heck is "true skill?" A rankings system is one measurement of skill, and a useful one at that. Nobody is suggesting that it's the ultimate arbiter of 'who's better than who', but it's information that can prove useful and is an indicator of both the caliber of player you've beaten before and who you've got a good chance to beat in the future.

Hosting tri-annual, elo-specific tournaments is a pretty silly idea, but gathering data (whether or not you choose to use it) from nationals and major regionals is not. Ultimately it can do no harm and has potential to do some good, so why not try it? I fail to see how anything about that is pretentious or masturbatory, especially when you contrast it with the idea that the current hardcore, tight-knit pillar of a community is the only thing that will ever capable of supporting Smash. How is that even possible to know?

If it grabs new players, let it, and eventually they become part of the hardcore, tight-knit community. If it doesn't, then it was still better to try than let the community slowly fade as the current generation of hardcore players ages out (not to mention that the people who contribute learn something, which I guess is circle-jerking).

Absolutism is dumb.

 

[Nintendude]

Derkis pretty much summed up all my thoughts on "true skill."

The way I'm hearing it, I think it should work something like this:

Every 6 months or so, there will be a series of tournaments, maybe like 3 or so over a course of 2 months.

These tournaments would be named like...Elo Rating Refreshment I, II, and III

You can only enter one of these tournaments, and you play about 15 or so matches.

After determining your Win-Loss Ratio, the player is then issued a Elo rating from then on.

The reason why there is 3 tournaments, is to allow people who don't have the time to go to one of the tournaments, to be able to go to another and get their rating.

So after all is said and done, there could be 2 types of tournaments:
-one that seeds brackets based on elo ratings obtained from ERT (elo refresh blah blah..)
-Others that don't.

What this does is create a more hardcore method of seeding and tourney-going with ELO ratings tagging along for those who opt to do do, and other, less intensive tourneys that are there more for the lulzies.

After these tourneys follows 6 months of people playing with their ratings, and then they get reset from the ERT. This is done for those who might've done bad one half, been inactive, etc etc. This also allows for more flexibility of the ratings at hand.

Tell me what you think

I'm very confused about the advantage that this system presents over allowing any tournament, no matter how local, to be rated. Ratings become more accurate as you increase the amount of data, so why limit the amount of rated tournaments?

I'm also confused about why you bring up win-loss ratio. Win-loss ratio is related to rating, but has no direct influence on it. The only thing that matters is your own rating, who you defeat / lose to, and what their ratings are.

I don't think we'll see negative attitudes as a result of the ratings system. Almost everyone tries to win every tournament set, and encouraging more people to play seriously in pools / brackets is in no way a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a GOOD thing since top pros will take pools more seriously and stop creating unfair deathpools due to apathy.

 

[MTKO]

Derkis pretty much summed up all my thoughts on "true skill."

I'm very confused about the advantage that this system presents over allowing any tournament, no matter how local, to be rated. Ratings become more accurate as you increase the amount of data, so why limit the amount of rated tournaments?

I'm also confused about why you bring up win-loss ratio. Win-loss ratio is related to rating, but has no direct influence on it. The only thing that matters is your own rating, who you defeat / lose to, and what their ratings are.

I don't think we'll see negative attitudes as a result of the ratings system. Almost everyone tries to win every tournament set, and encouraging more people to play seriously in pools / brackets is in no way a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a GOOD thing since top pros will take pools more seriously and stop creating unfair deathpools due to apathy.

Yeah I was just thinking it may be a possibility from a long experience with other games that have rating and ranking systems. But now that I'm thinking about it the majority of the melee community are really cool and nice people, so I don't think it'll cause a problem. Not that it would be a big issue anyway.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

Peef, it seems to me like the only one wasting their time is YOU. If you don't care about ratings, DON'T POST IN THE RATINGS TOPIC. Don't waste your time reading it. It's obviously got your panties in a bunch and in all honesty, that's 1-0 for us dude. You think your pathetic comments on the internet are going to dissuade us from wanting to challenge our community and implement a system that has been extremely successful in growing and maintaining chess? Chess has a community relative to the sun, whereas melee would be relative to your tiny left nut. So gtfo and let us nerds be nerds. You're obviously much too cool with your "don't care" attitude, so why even bother posting in here? You obviously take the game serious enough to stream a smashfest every single thursday night. Makes me think you have nothing better to do...but of course you do right. You're important and too busy to take "SUPER MARIO YOSHI BROTHERS MELEE" seriously. Who's pretentious now?

Anyways, no offense to Lite. but your idea is totally contradictive to what an elo ratings aims to accomplish. That is, an accurate (yet flexible) numerical value used to reflect skill after and during a tournament. If a player does bad at a tourney and their rating drops, it will reflect in their rating. When they pick it up next time and play well, it will reflect in their rating. Of course nothing will ever be perfect, if there was a perfect system for rating players on a maximum potential basis and was absolute, there would be no point anymore in playing right?

Smash needs to grow up and mature to stay alive and I'm not talking about the players. It's the community. It ticks me off every time I see how organized and professional Starcraft is because melee has the potential to be that and more. Topics like this might not be the answer, but it's the discussion that will spark the answer and keep this game alive. It will most likely take several answers to fix the problem of melee dying out and it's not going to hurt to try this.

 

[PEEF!]

Peef, it seems to me like the only one wasting their time is YOU. If you don't care about ratings, DON'T POST IN THE RATINGS TOPIC. Don't waste your time reading it. It's obviously got your panties in a bunch and in all honesty, that's 1-0 for us dude. You think your pathetic comments on the internet are going to dissuade us from wanting to challenge our community and implement a system that has been extremely successful in growing and maintaining chess? Chess has a community relative to the sun, whereas melee would be relative to your tiny left nut. So gtfo and let us nerds be nerds. You're obviously much too cool with your "don't care" attitude, so why even bother posting in here? You obviously take the game serious enough to stream a smashfest every single thursday night. Makes me think you have nothing better to do...but of course you do right. You're important and too busy to take "SUPER MARIO YOSHI BROTHERS MELEE" seriously. Who's pretentious now?

First of all I AM wasting my time, but you collectively are wasting more. You could always say in any case that letting someone know they are wasting time is also a waste of time in itself. BTW I want to argue for a living so this is somewhat a legit time usage, but IDC I might be wasting my time.

Nobody. 0 people. Perhaps maybe M2K takes Melee seriously in the sense that they dedicate their lives to it. Nobody can because there is no money in it. We go to school, we get jobs, some of us have girlfriends/boyfriends/whatever and oh yeah, we play Melee sometimes. I take this game as seriously as is reasonable. I stream every Thursday, Fri and Sat, give tips to n00bs and take advice from players as good as/better than me. I host big tournaments and contribute significantly to the IC metagame.

It is also laughable that you suggested that Chess has a big community because of its 40 year old rating system. Chess as we know it has been one of the most played games for the past 500 years! Hahahaa.

 

[ES Lite]

I see what you guys are saying. Maybe 3 tournaments every 6 months is a little too much for a community such as this one.
Maybe instead, whenever someone new comes to their first tournament, not only do they get placed randomly, but their rating gets issued immediately after they get eliminated/win. The only problem with that is if people start hosting tournaments with Elo-Seeding, that new person might get unfairly placed with the wrong type of skill group...for instance, what if a brand new player, who just nearly got the hang of wavedashing, gets placed with M2k, Mango, Dr Pee Pee, etc. Thus their rating will forever be tainted with all those losses he got with those players.

The reason why I bring up win/loss ratio is because this is how some of the computer games I played used to place people. Like starcraft, you play a series of random matches, and then get placed according to how many games you loss and won. I think melee can use the same system.

And even if Elo is perhaps too hardcore for melee, I don't think so. Elo ratings can show whos who. Like when someone is giving advice; I think its better when someone with a 1900 elo rating gives you advice than when someone with a 900 elo rating does. I'm not saying that the person with 900 elo isn't smart, but the higher rating user is most likely going to be more knowledgeable of the topic of discussion

 

[PEEF!]

Elo ratings can show whos who. Like when someone is giving advice; I think its better when someone with a 1900 elo rating gives you advice than when someone with a 900 elo rating does. I'm not saying that the person with 900 elo isn't smart, but the higher rating user is most likely going to be more knowledgeable of the topic of discussion

And hence, the damage of a rating system becomes obvious.

The best players rarely make the best coaches, and the best coaches rarely make the best players.

 

[G. Vice]

Peef is a meanie.

I think it sounds cool. The way I see it, it serves as motivation for "weaker" players to play people rated higher than themselves, and in doing so raise their rating, which makes people want to play them etc etc.

And unlike on Chess, you don't have to worry about some newcomer loading Chessmaster 3000 on you and cheated you out of points. It'd be legit.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

Peef, dude if you're majoring in anything that would earn you experience in argueing we could do this forever lol.

But just an FYI, I never said chess was the monster truck it is because of elo ratings. I will however say that elo ratings has had nothing but positive impact on the game is is pretty evident in the fact that tournament goers have increased exponentially since the rise of the elo system, and so many aspects of how tournaments are played, rules, attendance, venues, ect are based of ratings of the community and those in anticipation of participation.

I am married, have two kids, and work 40 hours a week and take good care of my family. But that doesn't mean I can't be pationate about this game and take it more seriously than you might. I truly feel blessed to be able to have a balance in my life where I can spend time with melee because it is in all actuality my drug. Some husbands drink. Some do drugs. Some gamble. I play melee. It is my stress relief and my holiday. My ME time. And I'll take it as seirous as I want. And right now I'm more serious about it than I've ever been, and at the same time this game and it's community is on the verge of death. I can chose to be a part of the problem, or I can use what I know to be a part of the solution. And I know about chess and elo ratings, and that it can have a positive impact on the community. You are NOT a professional level player Peef so why are you speaking on behalf of professional players? A rating system can drastically increase tournament attendence by segregating noobs from pros in brackets and allowing both groups to win money. More attendance = more money. This is why there are half a million dollar prize pot tournaments for chess and why few other games will ever have that. It's SOOOO EASY to say "It's just melee, who cares?" And I understand you're a successful tournament organizer, but guess what? Chess TOs make money too. There IS money in melee but it is going to have to step up and do something more than what it is now. I like you Peef so don't get me wrong, but you're opinion is not going to help melee last much longer and if every one shared it we might as well quit now. My opinion is that there is money in melee, we just have to find it. And why not at least try?

 

[Cactuar]

Haters...

gonna...

hate.

 

[MTKO]

So I'm going to try to start using this today for maybe like 4 or 5 serious matches after playing with my friend for a while later. But what should I set the K value to? I wanted to rate some of are matches at the end of each day when we practice and add some of my other friends into it as well, but I'm not sure what K value would be the best for that.

 

[Rubyiris]

Peef is the bigger tryhard, imo.

Hey peef, when you gonna get good? I don't think you have any say in how the better players will treat something like this, and trying to debunk it before it comes into fruition is a dumb idea.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

Set the K value to 50 until you play at least 25 games. Or go to the link I posted a few days back and enter whatever starting rating you're using and click "show k"

 

[AlphaZealot]

I think this is a really good idea. The Brawl community has a ranking thread that has 5,000 + players in it and the thread has had over 85,000 views. More rankings are better than few or none, and the more accurate and with the more removal of bias the better. I don't know why PEEF is QQing all over this idea when it is a good one and the benefits far and away outweigh the only negative - which is someone getting their feelings hurt by not getting the respect they think they deserve because an objective system shows they are a weaker player.

Regarding this:

Also since skill level varies greatly from region to region, would it be fair for everyone to start at the same rating? For example: say group A has a much lower skill level than group B. Both groups host tournaments frequently in their areas, but are too far apart to attend or frequently attend each others events. They end up playing the same large group of people each time at these tournaments and some of them end up all being rated. Now Group A and Group B are finally able to attend a tournament together, and the seeds are based on the ratings. Even if some of the players form group A have really high ratings that are in the range of some of the top players from group B, group B is far more skilled. So would it be better to only apply the rating system for tournaments that have smashers from several regions or larger tournaments?

You should not be ranking anyone based on any other variable other than winning or losing and their opponents ranking, and all players in the system should have the same starting point (whether you do provisional rankings or not - you are still effecting players equally within the system). You have to look at the system in the broad sense, is area A really is better than area B, then when they finally play each other and when weighted equally against each other, area A will do better and have more highly ranked players, meaning the next time they play that will be a factor. Until this actually happens you should treat the players equally, and even after it happens you still treat the players equally and not as a group of players.

When it comes to seeding tournaments though people (TOs) will hopefully always do a mix of skill and of location because it creates a better tournament environment - not because it produces the most accurate results (quite the contrary, our use of location rankings likely causes severe bias at tournaments, but I digress and it is a practice not likely to stop).

I'm also wondering what people's thoughts are on what K value to use and how it should be changed depending on the players rating.

I can't say specific numbers, but the general rule of thumb that a player who has few matches under their belt should fluctuate rankings more than someone who has many matches should hold true (ie "certainty" like in true skill). Additionally you get more points for beating someone way higher than you and you lose few points for losing to someone way higher than you. Just as someone who beats someone way lower than they are should only get a few points, where as if they beat someone in closer rating they get more points.

 

[Zankoku]

Incidentally, AZ, a known limitation of the ELO rating system is indeed that players can only be rated relative to those they play against, which is to say that people outside of this region of players cannot be accurately compared even with the same rating system until they actually meet and play.

 

[Mahie]

They'll play eventually at a national or something, though, and if they don't, then the players won't be able to increase their rating a lot anyway, if they keep on playing the same guys over and over.

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

Incidentally, AZ, a known limitation of the ELO rating system is indeed that players can only be rated relative to those they play against, which is to say that people outside of this region of players cannot be accurately compared even with the same rating system until they actually meet and play.

This is truly only an issue at the beginning. The fact is, you can take a 1700 USCF rated player from California who has never left the state, and a 1700 USCF rated player from New York who also has never left his state, and their skill level will be surprisingly close. I mean, to the point where these two players will likely go 50/50 in a 5-10 game set.

As for the K value goes, AZ mentioned that number of games would affect it. That is definitely true, but it's not the only variable. Another one with equal or greater importance is the actual rating itself.

In chess, a player with a rating of 1,000 (pretty average-possibly even slightly below) would have a much higher K value of someone rated 2,000 (expert level). This is because someone rated 1,000 has the ability to rapidly improve and needs a system in place to track them carefully and also slow down with their development. A floating K value does just that. Basically....melee noob A has a massive amount of room for improvement and can very well improve at a rapid, almost prodigy like rate. While Dr.PP will no doubt improve, but is near impossible to improve at this point at the same rate as a fresh new player. Get it?

 

[MTKO]

Incidentally, AZ, a known limitation of the ELO rating system is indeed that players can only be rated relative to those they play against, which is to say that people outside of this region of players cannot be accurately compared even with the same rating system until they actually meet and play.

I was trying to explain that before, but I didn't explain it very clearly at all. Much more clear explanation there. I'm not quite sure how that problem will be worked around.

 

[Nintendude]

I was trying to explain that before, but I didn't explain it very clearly at all. Much more clear explanation there. I'm not quite sure how that problem will be worked around.

As Zivilyn Bane pointed out, this isn't actually a problem. The system corrects itself quickly if players are over or underrated. It also makes no assumptions about the strength of regions, which is great imo. The less bias the better.

 

[PEEF!]

I don't expect everyone in this thread to like what I say but I've talked to a few "top players" about it via AIM/Skype. (I'm talking on their behalf because they don't really care about this thread. You don't have to believe me, I don't care, they will chime in or not.) They usually think it sounds like an idea that might be okay and can't hurt, but Melee is not dying, it doesn't need saved, and most top players aren't going to give a sh*t about this system. If they want to chime in then they will, and if they don't then they won't.

I think it's just a waste of time, and the consensus I get from them is that they won't care what this system says, won't take it seriously, but they don't think it could hurt to try.

EDIT: I just realized I'm probably giving this alot more attention than it deserves.

 

[Vts]

I just realized I'm probably giving this alot more attention than it deserves.

This allows different brackets and more fair seeding

if this does do what we want it to do it would be so much easier to have seeding and possibly other brackets

bracket for ELO rating 1500+, 1000-1499, and 1000> for new players.

allowing this system could be a small problem if data is incorrect or people don't use there smash tag but it could be cool.

Personally I would love all results from everyone doing this so I can use the system for 2012 Circuit for melee/brawl.

Now i'm having problems using this but then again i'm being dumb and didn't read anything so far just DL'd the program and opened the zips so will mess with it right now.

edit- Reading through the thread titles would be sweet idea and i would support it just so i can be title "good but not enough" :D

got it working needed to dl java 6

 

[Nintendude]

I'm having trouble using the program. I made a simple 8-person bracket and tried to run EloCalc on it. It added only the first player I entered into Tio and then didn't update any results.

edit: I got it to work but I had to manually add every entrant to EloCalc first.

Also, for the Name, Handle, and Elo fields, you should make it auto-highlight any values there if you tab and shift-tab between them. It's cumbersome to add a bunch of players through that because each time you tab to the next field you have to manually delete what's already there. You should also make it so we can press Enter and it'll act like pressing the "Add Player" button. Right now I have to click twice (once to exit the entry field, and once on the button) for it to add the new player.

 

[Derkis]

I don't expect everyone in this thread to like what I say but I've talked to a few "top players" about it via AIM/Skype. (I'm talking on their behalf because they don't really care about this thread. You don't have to believe me, I don't care, they will chime in or not.) They usually think it sounds like an idea that might be okay and can't hurt, but Melee is not dying, it doesn't need saved, and most top players aren't going to give a sh*t about this system. If they want to chime in then they will, and if they don't then they won't.

I think it's just a waste of time, and the consensus I get from them is that they won't care what this system says, won't take it seriously, but they don't think it could hurt to try.

EDIT: I just realized I'm probably giving this alot more attention than it deserves.

People don't like what you say because the manner you make your 'points' is inflammatory and tends to consist of nothing but quick little jabs about why you think this project is pointless rather than well-reasoned, constructive arguments about how time could be better spent elsewhere.

 

[Nintendude]

I had a chat with nealdt about using this with tio and got a lot of insight about a better way to implement it. To summarize, the next release of tio will feature the support of plugins that can do things like add bracket types, change seeding methods, add player information fields, etc. So, rather than developing a program that fetches information from tio files, it would be better to simply develop a plugin for tio that adds all the features we want. The plugins are to be written in any .NET language (C# or VB.NET), which nealdt says is similar to Java.

from neal: "tell [the developer] his plugin would be able to interact with a full Object Oriented model of tournaments; would be able to extend the object model with custom properties and events; and will be able to respond to events from the model and UI in order to accomplish specific goals through custom methods."

 

[Yo$himan]

Just saw this. I'm a huge chess player and I completely support this. I really think this will help the community to grow by urging players to travel and play others outside of their state.

If we do implement this system, I think that players should not be allowed to use alternate names. Alternate names really mess up brackets and would make the list of players, for the rating system, too big. If players insist that alternate names be allowed, force them to give you their real names to some how connect with their fake one.

Anyway, I really like this idea.

 

[Hax]

know what would be sick? if we could have some sort of world championships/tournament of champions at the end of a melee "season". seasons would start in september/end in august and only the top ~32 ranked players by the end of a season would be invited to this tournament (which would have a huge cash prize). the tournament could also have a last-chance qualifier as well as side events to attract non-invitees

each tournament throughout the year would have a different K value. a K value is a method of determining how many points a person gains/loses for winning/losing a tournament match, and it is dependent on the attendance/magnitude of the tournament. for example, a national would have a higher K value than a local and thus matches would have a bigger impact on one's rating.

but yeah im pretty familiar with this system and i like the sound of it. it would give us a more professional look, encourage people to try hard in tournament matches (because sandbagging/forfeiting a winners bracket match would cost someone points) and encourage interest in the game. hit me up to talk about this, nintendude

 

[crush]

know what would be sick? if we could have some sort of world championships/tournament of champions at the end of a melee "season". seasons would start in september/end in august and only the top ~32 ranked players by the end of a season would be invited to this tournament (which would have a huge cash prize). the tournament could also have a last-chance qualifier as well as side events to attract non-invitees

each tournament throughout the year would have a different K value. a K value is a method of determining how many points a person gains/loses for winning/losing a tournament match, and it is dependent on the attendance/magnitude of the tournament. for example, a national would have a higher K value than a local and thus matches would have a bigger impact on one's rating.

but yeah im pretty familiar with this system and i like the sound of it. it would give us a more professional look, encourage people to try hard in tournament matches (because sandbagging/forfeiting a winners bracket match would cost someone points) and encourage interest in the game. hit me up to talk about this, nintendude

this should definitely happen but imo seasons should start in august and end in july, so the world championships would be held in july (which is much easier for people to get to)

 

[Zivilyn Bane]

Ok a few things...

Plug-ins for Tio: This is a great idea. Plug-ins would be an awesome way to just get this done.

Titles: If we are to give titles that coincide with elo ratings, I honestly see nothing wrong with adapting the same title structure that chess uses. That is:
F<1000
E 1001-1199
D 1200-1399
C 1400-1599
B 1600-1799
A 1800-1999
Expert 2000-2199
Master 2200-2399
Senior Master 2400+

Then you can earn what they call "norms" to earn higher ranked titles like "International Master aka IM" or "Grand Master aka GM"

I'm not 100% sure how the system works to earn Norms, but I would create a system where you would have to earn three norms to become an IM or GM. To earn a norm, you would have to have a performance rating of equal to or higher than the average performance rating of the IMs or GMs in attendance, and there must be a minimum amount. This obviously wouldn't work in the beginning since no one has a title yet. We would have to find a different way to give these out that would be fair and without bias. Perhaps by winning a national or something like that.

I do believe that titles are not as beneficial to the growth of melee as a rating system would be, but class systems (basically everything except for IM and GM) would be, because they are simply categories of elo ratings.

Hax: Thank you for posting in here. I believe you are the first pro to post in here with some thought on ratings, and it's nice to see that you support the idea.

To the rest of the pros, or players wondering what purpose elo ratings would serve:
The MAIN purpose of elo ratings from a business standpoint is to be able to increase tournament attendance. How you ask? The same way chess uses it. The goal should be to be able to give a player a numerical value directly correlating to his skill level that tracks player growth and improvement by only focusing on individual wins and losses. It's a much better way to rank someone than just looking at standings. Because guess what? Standings outside the top 4 in a double elimination bracket don't really mean all that much, especially without a proper way to seed. Now how does this increase tournament attendance? Because once this numerical value has been around for a while, it will become a way to segregate players into different categories and actually win money while players better than them don't.

Sounds stupid right, that someone worse than you can win money? Well, believe it or not, they deserve it. They deserve it because just like the pros, they shell out the cash for the entry fees. The noob and average player outnumber the pros a million to one. The tournament could look something like this:

Tournament has four divisions.

Open: $10 entry fee. Prizes to top 5. Players of all ratings welcomed.
Below 2000: $20 entry fee. Prizes to top 5. Players of 1999 or below welcomed.
Below 1600: $20 entry fee. Prizes to top 5. Players of 1599 or below welcomed.
Below 1200: $25 entry fee. Prizes to top 5. Players of 1199 or below welcomed.

Lets say 300 people show up. 75 in each division. That gives us $5625 in prize money.

Open gets half. U2000 and U1600 get 20% each. U1200 gets 10%.
Prizes:
OPEN-$2812.50 (50% of total pot)
1st-1124.8
2nd-562.4
3rd-421.86
4th-281.25
5th-210.94
5th-210.94

U2000-$1125
1st-$450
2nd-$225
3rd-$168.75
4th-$112.50
5th-$84.375
5th-$84.375

U1600-$1125
1st-$450
2nd-$225
3rd-$168.75
4th--$112.50
5th-$84.375
5th-$84.375

U1200-$562.50
1st-$225
2nd-$112.50
3rd-$84.38
4th-$56.25
5th-$42.19
5th-$42.19

We notice a few things that make this interesting. For one, the Open division has the lowest entry fee, yet the highest amount of prize money. This is because these guys are the pros, they get the big bucks. Anybody can play in this division but only a few can win money.
The U2000 and U1600 divisions get the same amount of money and we can probably expect the same amount of attendance in either. The also have a higher entry fee.
Finally the U1200 is where the noobs play. These guys might be beginners or whatever, but either way there should be a lot of them and they pay the highest entry fees even though they get the least amount of money in their pot.

Now you might be thinking "A pro should win more money with 300 players there." But the point is this might have been a 125 man tournament if it was just one big open. With the addition of the sections, players are enticed to show because ANYONE can win money.

This is how chess gets people to pay a $250 entry fee, and has tournaments with 2000 players and half a million dollar prize pots.

 

[Nintendude]

That's very ambitious but I don't think chess's tournament hierarchy would work at all in the Smash community. A lot of competitive chess players are adults with a steady source of income that take the game extremely seriously - much different than what we got here with the Smash community. It would also be necessary to wait a long time, such that everyone is rated near their actual skill level, or else there will be issues with good players in amateur brackets. I think we should focus more for now on just getting the system up and running.

 

[Acryte]

Hax, that would be sick, as an official tournament I wouldnt even mind having donations to increase pot size so that it could have a HUGE payout. Would have so much hype. It might even lead to the establishment of an official circuit for smash kinda MLG-esque which would be amazing.

 

[CloneHat]

Hax, that would be sick, as an official tournament I wouldnt even mind having donations to increase pot size so that it could have a HUGE payout. Would have so much hype. It might even lead to the establishment of an official circuit for smash kinda MLG-esque which would be amazing.

Who will be willing to pay?

 

[ES Lite]

Ah yes I completely forgot about divisions. Elo would work perfectly into that right?

It would eliminate all of those players who'd rather not enter tournaments because they know they're going to get ***** by a pro. But with divisions, their playing with their own kind of skill level. That should attract a lot of new comers; the fear of having to loose your $10 is no longer!

Only for the bigger tournaments, I would assume. Then the top player from each division go into a bracket of their own, the lowest elo bracket winner vs. 2nd to lowest. Winner of that goes to 3rd lowest, etc etc etc.

sounds good to me.

 

[DippnDots]

I think with the divisions, you'd actually see people purposely keeping a lower rating so they can participate in the easier division and gain a higher cash pay out than placing top 4/5 in a higher division


especially if the highest division is the best of the best, someone who's barely in that division would have an almost complete incentive to drop down to the lower division as they very well might not even place top 5.

 

[PEEF!]

We should have divisions within the divisions to be more fair, and maybe subdivisions within that to ensure nobody gets discouraged. Or we could have a division for each point, because if you are at the bottom point rating of a division that you've been placed into you're not going to have any motivation to compete against the higher rated players in your division, theyll all get discouraged and give up and we don't want that because as a community we should cater to punk-a$$ b!tches especially because they tend to stick with the community and become serious and lasting members with their quality attitudes and desireable traits. Oh and we should take out wavedashing and l-cancelling to make the game easier. Maybe we should add in Sonic because Super mario yoshi brothers melee needs more fanboys than it already has and we should add tripping thatd be good.

The above ideas should save the smash community because we know it's all in its last dying breath. Already dead really. Died like a hundred years ago. A hundred years before it's biggest tournament of all time oh wait that within the last several months wtf must be some kind of I Am Legend zombification procedure where it gets stronger after it dies WE NEED A MEDIC GOGO ELO plz save us all from zombification superstrength horrordoom.