New Rankings! Pennsylvania Player Finder and Power Rankings (10/31/07)

[Nakamaru]

I have an idea to solve this power rankings issue with little argument. In talking with mow he said something interesting. Some states putting themselves into tiers instead of top whoever. So people are grouped with general skill level rather than worrying about if player A is better than player B because he beat him in a tournament match.
1st tier would be pros and the like, which PA really doesnt have
2nd would be Mow, Cacutar, Javi, triad prodigy(?), Cape
3rd would be Komo, Vagabond, Swift, and the like
4th would be Majority of pittsburgh such as MCC and SCS (lol havent used that in a while)
5th would be everyone else.

This is just a thought, if it flys we can flesh it out later.

 

[pockyD]

because jumping up tiers is very difficult in that kind of system, and it is impossible to justify dropping someone a tier

the purpose of the rankings is to encourage activity and improvement; eventually everyone (and i mean EVERYONE except maybe 3-4 people) will end up in the same "tier" because you can't drop someone a tier, you can only bump them up

maybe it sounds unreasonable but seriously, when will anyone ever "get worse" enough for them to drop a whole tier? it's much easier to be able to point out that X people improved

it's especially unfair to get dropped a tier because, while you improved, others just "improved more" and are now in front of you.

point is: it sounds nice in theory but it's even more difficult to implement and maintain than a straight list

 

[Nakamaru]

Worth a shot.

 

[A-Laon]

I'm a proponent of tiers, personally. Quite frankly, it's a ranking system with fewer ranks and more people to each one, giving people fair and unarguable ranking amongst their relative equals. By establishing definitive tiers, placing the majority of players in the state will be made far more easy, and the statement of their ability will be far more reasonable.

Anybody can make an argument regarding numeric placings and collective tourney results, but there are very concrete and obvious distinctions between established groups of similarly-skilled players. With this serious of a difference between tiers, it will be very obvious which rank an individual is deserving of. Rather than having perpetual argumentation regarding how X beat Y during a tourney match way back at Z, we'll actually be able to place people without having myriads of insignificant little details *****ed about.

Creating tiers has the benefit of ranking people based on those who they generally go the most even with, a testament to the individual's overall ability and consistency. Anybody on the list probably has the potential to score wins against most anybody else, tourney or not, but those particulars don't prove the player's overall level, whereas their typical performance against a defined level of players does, creating the basis of tiers.

No matter what, it's better than what we have now.

 

[Nakamaru]

for the last time im not mming you mow, and for the record i never said my game and watch was amazing i said it could be ultima scout so your all hyping it up to be nothing cause i never did just cause mow has a big mouth and likes to talk about himself and cape we can do 5$ vs doc on all your chars if we have time i got better things to do then waste all my time playing you all day theres a tourny too you know if u wanna mm me a hundred times come to my house

Dude seriously, use some punctuation for god sakes. It makes you look a lot less of a ******. But hey if you want to keep doing it despite the fact that you learned it in 2nd grade (or were there to many stabbings in your area that you never learned anything) its fine with me.

][10:25] Velocity2985: i have 12 mms with the cape
[10:26] horizonflash: isn't it 13 o_o
[10:26] Velocity2985: w/e hes going to run outa moeny b4 its all over
[10:26] Velocity2985: i own half of those chars and he doesnt use them enough
[10:28] Velocity2985: i have a chance to put cape in his place wish me luck cause u know if he beats me even once everyones going to be like cape top 5 in pa or something stupid
[10:28] Velocity2985: so my goal now is to train so hard he doesnt win ne

Oooo what do we have here? Everyone take a look-see.

 

[pockyD]

did you hack my AIM or something?

anyways, tiers are
1) easy to do
2) easy to satisfy everyone. everyone will be happy with their placement

however, after a few months everyone will look at it and realize that it has become completely meaningless.

what's wrong with having discussion? what's wrong with talking about X beats Y consistently? that's what it takes for a state to improve; for people to seek out people that others perceive as better than them and challenge and prove themselves. tiers will make everyone lovey dovey but it won't help the community at all, nor will it have any real show of skill besides what we already know

edit: if this is what everyone else wants, so be it; don't think i'm an overlord trying to shut you down or something (i really don't and shouldn't have any more power than anyone else), i am just expressing my opinions the same as you, so (i know this hasn't gotten to that point yet, but i feel that it soon will be since people like to take everything i say personally) just keep in mind this is just my opinion and the state can do whatever it wants if that's what most people want

 

[Deleted member]

for the last time im not mming you mow, and for the record i never said my game and watch was amazing i said it could be ultima scout so your all hyping it up to be nothing cause i never did just cause mow has a big mouth and likes to talk about himself and cape we can do 5$ vs doc on all your chars if we have time i got better things to do then waste all my time playing you all day theres a tourny too you know if u wanna mm me a hundred times come to my house

I'll pull in this~

I'm serious its only disrespectful if u lose and i mean you seem sure of your self you could ask all the other falcon players in pa and nj about my g&w and even then im sure your much better then them right.

This is addressed to ultimascout, who is actually better than NJ falcons, since no one in NJ plays falcon besides sensei, who barely plays him. You never said your GAW was amazing, that part is true, but you also took a jab at tim, and other falcon players based off of him.

Mike you're a cool guy but you're just setting yourself up at this point. Even if you're not money matching me and you're money matching cape, that's fine, but we go to college together and you know I'm going to make him doc-proof in that 2 weeks pretty easily. I don't care about people boasting, if I did I would by hypocritical, but at least you could make it accurate, because I actually DID ask PA/NJ falcons about your GAW and none of them knew you played GAW at all. It's other stuff too though, like you have your tournament results on myspace but you excluded my event. I could list the 61 tournaments I've won in a list and look mad good too, but that just isn't the truth.

You can call me names or whatever, it won't change our tournament matches. But now you have komo renth and cape gunning for your money, and they're gonna be ready for your **** more than you think, cause when people want to win a certain match, they come visit me, and both renth and komo are coming to visit me in a little over a week.

I have already told komo I'm helping him run the tournament, and damon180 will also be there, making this thing appx fluid as ****, so we can make lots of time for you to $ match cape and tape it if you so wish.

 

[pockyD]

i hope someone gets *****

i don't care if it's cape or velocity but i'd love to see someone lose at least 10 out of 12

edit: PLEASE get TIO for the tournament -_-; the program last time sucked =[

 

[A-Laon]

what's wrong with having discussion? what's wrong with talking about X beats Y consistently? that's what it takes for a state to improve; for people to seek out people that others perceive as better than them and challenge and prove themselves. tiers will make everyone lovey dovey but it won't help the community at all, nor will it have any real show of skill besides what we already know

Beating a higher-ranking player doesn't make you better. Being better makes you better, and that's something traced purely by those you compare to.

Besides, if the purpose of rankings is to provide a perpetually fluctuating run-down of who beats who, it would be updated (or, at least, necessary to be updated) so frequently that it would completely fail to show any consistencies in the players' abilities. Rankings should prove overall skill, not who you beat in the last two weeks.

 

[pockyD]

how do you prove overall skill aside from assessing who you beat or lose to?

of course beating a higher-ranking doesn't 'make' you better, but it's a 'notch on your belt' so to speak and as stupid as this sounds, does help prove yourself to others

 

[A-Laon]

I'm simply saying that judging by particular results of given scenarios isn't as substantial in proving skill as the very obvious fact of who you most closely compete with is.

Ranking-wise, successes against higher tiered players definitely help your chances at boosting up a rank, but again, I'm supporting tiers, not ranks.

 

[pockyD]

I'm simply saying that judging by particular results of given scenarios isn't as substantial in proving skill as the very obvious fact of who you most closely compete with is.

can you clarify this

are you saying who you go even with is more important than who you beat?

 

[A-Laon]

I'm saying that consistently going even with a group of people is a better example of your skill than the size and number of "notches in your belt," per se.

 

[Deleted member]

I disagree. You can go even with the same people all the time, which is fine but it means you're not getting any better. Beating better players makes you go up.

 

[A-Laon]

Then beat them consistently and go even with them to. That's truly "moving up," and worthy of a higher ranking.

 

[pockyD]

plus, how often are you given enough opportunities to go even with someone in a state this size?

if i'm 1-1 vs some random philly guy, are we textbook even?

what about people i've never played? are they put in my tier because they go even with someone i go even with?

edit: so the whole tier gets better and the tiers don't change and so you have a stagnant (and therefore meaningless) ranking

 

[A-Laon]

It really doesn't take much to prove who you're relatively even with. Going 1-1 with somebody is obviously insubstantial, but sit down a play a handful of games, maybe some sets, with somebody you meet at a smashfest and see how it goes. If you two are comparable it ought to be obvious. Really, I doubt that determining skill levels is really all that technical.

As for the stagnant nature of tiers, well, that just goes to show the stagnant nature of people's skill levels. Mow, Tuar, Javi and the like have been long undisputed as the best players in the state, for example. Nobody has ascended to their level, so it's not like anybody else would be ranked up there anyway. Every jump in a tier would be a very substantial testament of the player's skill, something very meaningful to show truly how skilled the player is. One may consider the tiers remaining relatively unchanged to make them "meaningless," but how meaningful are rankings that are turned-upside down at the result of every set? Would that truly exhibit the superior players?

 

[pockyD]

absolutely it would

if someone wins a statewide tournament you can bet your *** it should affect the rankings

you seem to be suggesting we base it all on friendlies and observation while ignoring results, which i find a little bit questionable, but even more than that, impractical for a wide state where you will play philly players maybe 2-3x a year

 

[A-Laon]

There are 3 or 4 players in this state with the potential to win a statewide tourney. We all know who they are. They should be tiered highest.

For everybody else, those who aren't going to be winning big tournies, we need to take a broader look at their ability, not just their results.

 

[pockyD]

how are you going to settle a dispute about a player's "ability"? if i perceive player A as being really good while you (not "you" as in alaon, "you" as in anyone reading this message) perceive player B as being not as good (this happens a LOT), there is NOTHING to resolve this by

the conversation goes
"this guy is pretty good and belongs in tier X"
"wtf he sucks he should be in tier Y"
"ok wtf do we do now"

edit: you don't seem to think tournament results are an indicator of ability. is there any reason for this? if it's because people sandbag, then fine; if you sandbag enough to constantly lose to people you shouldn't be losing to, then you will be dropped =\

 

[A-Laon]

If people are so wildly contrasting in their opinions of a player's skill as to make a decision of something as major as a TIER to be difficult, how does anybody expect to make numeric rankings accurate?

Unless we decide to base rankings entirely off of tournies and MMs (something I really shouldn't need to get into the potential inaccuracy of) opinions and observations are going to be the basis of everybody's placement. It's better we give a general classification than try to specify the precise skill levels of all the state's players without a foundation and get another mess like we're stuck in now.

In response to your edit: I'm not trying to say tournament results aren't an indicator of one's potential ability, but unless you're consistently ranking high in bigger tournies, your results are pretty much only an indication of how well you did in lone sets against similarly-abled players until you inevitably get knocked out by those better than you anyway. Unless somebody can beat everybody in the state in tournies, their more general ability against the state's other players would be a more substantial indication of their skill than how well they did in one particular set during one particular tourney.

 

[D20]

I don't know what you guys are arguing about this time, but I hate you two.

<3

 

[pockyD]

their more general ability against the state's other players would be a more substantial indication of their skill than how well they did in one particular set during one particular tourney.

i'm just wondering how you go about obtaining this "general ability"?

 

[A-Laon]

Collective analysis of their tourney matches, MMs, sets, friendly sets, and the not-so-horribly-inaccurate friendly sessions. If there is a distinct difference between two players' skill level, it will show no matter how they play, and that distinct, obvious difference is what makes a tier.

If you were to play a good number of matches with another player and lose a considerable majority of them, and if that same player competed more closely with everybody else than you did, wouldn't you be able to identify them as a step above yourself?

 

[Cort]

This is Cactuar.


Friendly matches are not a good measurement of skill, especially when they involve players such as Mow or myself.

 

[Deleted member]

charles, bring to me the king of mewtwos,

 

[A-Laon]

Personally, I'm not very familiar with some of the PA players nor their tourney results, but here's just a general example from what I've gathered from other smashers. Feel free to object to a few placings, but the general concept is there:

-Cactuar, Mow, Javi
-Cape, Triad, Pacman, Vagabond, Komo
-Swift, Velocity, Wesley, Pocky
-Xyt, Dot Eater, D20

I think that demonstrates how tiers can be built fairly well.

Simply presenting an idea.

 

[pockyD]

yes but those tiers are just as wrong as the rankings list

i'm not saying it's difficult to write down 15 names and break them in 4 groups; i'm saying that it's difficult to keep them both meaningful and updated

plus PA's middle class is huge and any tier break in there would just be really arbitrary (for example, try convincing either pacman or velocity that they belong in different tiers)

 

[Deleted member]

I wish I could convey how incredibly talented triad_prodigy is in tournament.

Speaking of which, everyone in PA under him in the rankings (5th and under) is about to go down 1 more place, since Reik is moving to PA next week.

 

[pockyD]

lord knight is as well

but at any rate i expect it all to be shaken up a bit after komo's

 

[Pakman]

i just got back from vacation and I hit a seagull with a frisbee.

Stop the drama.

 

[pockyD]

it's not drama yet, it's still a legitimate argument at this point

i don't see any new legitimate arguments or explanations for the 'tier' approach though, more just repeating the same things that were already said

 

[xyt]

um.. i think the concept of the ranking list is fine... and will be much better after Komo's..
ok.. that is all..

 

[Mogwai]

I'm gonna have to go ahead and call bull**** on the "Everything'll be OK after Komo's" argument that seems to be coming up(not just you sheik, I know I've seen it before). I remember thinking the same thing going into the shippensburg tourney/fest, but at the end of the day, it didn't do anything except give everyone their personal opinions, which varied very very widely. People are always going to have different opinions about who's good and who's not and to me, the idea of a rankings system is about getting a panel of people from different backgrounds with respected opinions to work out a placement.

I tried writing more, but I didn't like the way it was coming out. Long story short, I feell teirs are a bad idea because of the way they define a serious skill gap. After Mow Cactus and Javi, there is no serious skill gap in my opinion, so I don't feel comfortable defining tiers. Perhaps there's a serious skill gap between Xth and (X+10)th, but I don't think you can make a cutoff somewhere in there if it's just a steady stream of marginal skill dropoffs. That being the case, the entire group gets shoved into one tier where a level of detail is lost and gives the players no idea where they fall within that teir.

 

[Deleted member]

after me and cactuar there's a fairly large skill gap, since we can beat the rest of PA javi and down with multiple charactes. After that, I agree, there's not a large gap in middle-lower PA.

 

[xyt]

hmm.. i meant more in the sense that i support the system we have.
it's very obviously far from perfect but it's the also the best thing we have IMO.
i disagree with dividing this into tiers for the all the reasons already stated.
as Wes stated, "a rankings system is about getting a panel of people from different backgrounds with respected opinions to work out a placement."
this is the most unbiased/accurate way to do it if you ask me unless you want to take out human
opinion entirely and base everything on tourny results. which is also bad as everyone will probably agree.
if you wanna dispute. be a panelist! or bring up your opinions to them and have your voice heard.
don't whine because you share a different opinion than the rest of PA.
I have my discrepancies about the list too. But at least to me, it's good enough.
note that i'm not directing this post at anyone, just chipping in an opinion..

 

[pockyD]

I'm gonna have to go ahead and call bull**** on the "Everything'll be OK after Komo's" argument that seems to be coming up(not just you sheik, I know I've seen it before).

Everything won't be OK, but it'll certainly be better

 

[A-Laon]

Everything won't be OK, but it'll certainly be better

The panel and all who discuss rankings alongside them have already proven unable to reach uniform decisions, spawning the current list: based far more on negotiations between panelists than anybody's actual performance. Unless the panel can come to a standard of analysis, Komo's tourney will just provide more wood for the fire.

 

[pockyD]

The panel and all who discuss rankings alongside them have already proven unable to reach uniform decisions, spawning the current list: based far more on negotiations between panelists than anybody's actual performance. Unless the panel can come to a standard of analysis, Komo's tourney will just provide more wood for the fire.

the panel IS analyzing based on performance. that's why the panel all has velocity ranked moderately high while everyone else who seems to want to use other factors has him much lower; like him or not, velocity places as or more consistently than almost everyone in the state

you say it as having "more wood for the fire" is a bad thing; i submit that it's a good thing to have more events to judge by

 

[A-Laon]

So, what got Cape / Vagabond so low?

What got D20 / Xyt ranked without any placings?