SmashBoards Ladder and Tourney System

[Gideon]

Hello,
In celebration of the upcoming Brawl release and for SmashBoards anniversary coming up in Aug (or pick some other occasion ), I am thinking about adding a tournament ranking/ladder system to SWF.


I need your help, however, before it is created. First, it would be nice to know if you guys would even want a ranking system like this.

My idea is to have an area where tournament directors can add their tournament to the schedule, kind of like how they add their tournament to the calendar now. Users will be able to search through the database for tournaments based on different criteria (date, state, region, etc...).

In addition to this, when the tournament is over, the director will have a place where he/she can put up the results. This would take the place of the tournament result rooms. The ranking system would then award points based on the results.


This would be integrated with the forums, and users would be able to display their smash bros. ranking below their avatar and in their profile, etc.

So the main question is how should the ranking system work? Basically I think dividing tournaments up into classes would be the best way to do it. For example, level 1 tournaments would be the smallest, level 2 tournaments would be a bit bigger, while level 3 tournaments would be the biggest events. For finishing 1st in a level 1 tournament, the user would be awarded a certain amount of points. Level 2 tournaments would be worth more, etc.


This would probably be the best way to do it, but what should be the criteria for level 1,2,and 3 tournaments? Size alone? Prize money?

I am not a tournament player, so I would really like you get the opinions of you guys before I do this. Please note that this system will not create tournament draws or anything like that.

If you have any additional features that would be useful to add to a system like this, feel free to suggest. For example, I might suggest that the system keeps the smash bros 64, melee, and brawl tournaments on separate ladder systems.

Please be reasonable with the suggestions!
Thanks,
Gid

 

[Omni]

The Class idea you suggested sounds okay, but what about small tournaments that have a large turn-out of high level players. For example, in the MD/VA area, there was a tournmanent that had Mew2King, ChuDat, Chillindude, KM, Neo, and a few more very good veteran players. That idea would heavily effect regions with a large amount of good players and regions that may not have too many.

I suggest determing the level of a tournament by:

1.) The amount of players.
2.) The calibur of players.

Any tournament with a huge prize pot will most likely be a LVL 3 tournament. I think a good idea for judging the calibur of players would be to base them off Power Rankings.

 

[Gideon]

True. I'm trying to think of a way around this though. The best bet might be to only count the big tournaments where people come from all over, but I dunno. hmm.

 

[chillindude829]

When we did the National Power Rankings, we tried to give the largest tournaments the most weight, but we also largely considered smaller tournies with a high skill level. Only considering the largest tourneys causes a problem because there are certain people in every region who place well at local tournaments but rarely travel (ex: KM, Bum, SilentSpectre)

 

[Omni]

Well determing rank shouldn't be too difficult simply because of the Power Rankings. If we increase the amount of panelist (making sure each panelist is well-qualified for the position) and update regularly by including a point system based off recent tournaments, the point system should be set.

 

[Master WGS]

*Likes the idea*

Gideon, you're the coolest.

 

[vZakat]

I think that having 4 levels would work better. City, State, Region, National (Multi-Region). Maybe certan regions/states could award you more point than anothers because of that regions/states overall level of skill. North Dakota wouldn't give as much as New York. I'd be rather hard to determine how much each state should give, and some state might think they are being misrepresented by this.

Showing what region/state you are from could help people judge the merit of your points. If someone is in Wyoming and wins first almost every time, and someone else only gets about tenth every time in California, you can sort of asume that the Cali player is better, not necessarily though. I'm asuming this ranking system is to help players guage others skill.

Just throwing in my two cents.

 

[Seanson]

I think all this would do is re-emphasize how good the pros are compared to everyone else.

Would this system represent skill? Tourneys in different places might have different levels of skill, such as Minnesota vs East Coast. Sure we may have as many tourneys with as many people, but obviously East Coast is a bit better than us here in MN.

Finally, would there be a security system of sorts to prevent abuse?

 

[nealdt]

A site like this already exists, Gid. http://tia.nealpro.com/profile.aspx?id=1 . I've posted about it in the back room in the past... have you seen my thread?

 

[Frozenserpent]

You can base the points system off of fencing, where ratings are given depending on placings on categorized tournaments. The category of the tournament depends on 1.) the number of fencers, and 2.) the ratings of the fencers participating.

For example, here is the classification chart: http://www.askfred.net/Info/eventClass.php

Here, if there was a tournament of 15 fencers, all unrated, then it would be a D1 category, and the winner will receive a D rating, and ppl who placed 2nd to 4th will receive a E rating.

Of course, for smashing purposes, we will ahve to alter the numbers, and convert ratings into points, but this system could easily carry over to smash, seeing as how fencing tournaments are also structured with pools into double elimination.

 

[Gideon]

A site like this already exists, Gid. http://tia.nealpro.com/profile.aspx?id=1 . I've posted about it in the back room in the past... have you seen my thread?

No, I hadn't seen this before, but I really like the layout of it. Very nice. Even so, I would really like to consolidate things on one domain and integrate it with people's smashboards user accounts. This goes along with our plans this summer to consolidate the wiki and blog onto the smashboards domain.

Perhaps we could try to integrate your system already? Hmmm.

 

[Sizzle]

Once the online feature comes with Brawl, we could do it like a real ladder system where people on the higher part of the ladder are challenged by the lower part of the ladder and the rank is given by wins and losses etc. It would be huge, but I think they do it like that in other online games. The only problem would be there would have to be a central place to report scores and provide proof of those scores, which is easier on a computer than for Smash.

 

[Keitaro]

Perhaps we could try to integrate your system already? Hmmm.

Would be nice.

And if you guys helped Nealdt, then some of the smaller tourneys that are occasionally missed on Tia will be put on in the future.

@Nealdt: You gotta have FC Diamond and OC3 Pearl on your site btw. Looking forward to it.

 

[Xsyven]

I think it'll apply well with Brawl, and online rankings.

But with SSBM, not so much.

What you're saying, is the more tournaments you go to, the higher your rank will be. In Southern Utah, we don't go to a lof of tournaments, because we have to drive two hours to even get to one.

Though we don't go to a lot of tournaments, we're about middle tier every time we go to one, so we're definately not the worst. But those that ARE the worst will have a better ranking, since they go to to more tournaments.


Until there's online play (that hopefully comes with some sort of proof of a win:lose ratio that can somehow be integrated into our forum accounts), I think the idea is sort of unbalanced.



Maybe just a power ranking by state that displays under our location?

 

[Zombie Lucille Ball]

Integrating Neal's site with SWF? um *drools*....

 

[AltF4]

The most accurate way I can think of is to consider not tournament placings as the determination of ladder points awarded, but rather who it is that the individuals played. In this way, you could deal with ladder points much the same way as the chess point system, with a tournament just being a series of individual matches. If you just have people upload full bracket results in some form like Neal's tia, you could gather all the necessary info from that. Heck, I could write that script myself.

Honestly though, I find the 3 tier tournament system you described to be adequate. Though I would make a large emphasis on tier 3 and 2 tournaments over 1's. Making a point distribution in the ballpark of 1-4-10. This would be easier to implement. And I think the aspect of encouraging players to participate in as many tournaments as possible will only help the community.

 

[artifice]

The Artifice System Yo!

halla.

I liked a lot of the ideas listed before me and I think I have a way of incorporating them all together. That is incorporating a "level" for each tournament and giving players credit for beating someone that is ranked higher than them, although I beleive we cant take up something like the chess rank becouse I dont believe we can report every match in a tournament Most importantly the system deteurs cheating, has a way of balancing out the points so the point scale isnt the skys the limit, Players joining the system late, even much later will have a chance of making it up the ladder relatively quickly based on there skill.

[[Registering for participation and having a rank]]

Wanna get ranked? gatta sign up. more importantly get some sort of short code when you do. like say mine is "475224" everyone has a different short code. Pridy simple but comes in handy when you want to verify tournaments actually existed and how many people were actually there and inputing who won without scrolling down large list of names. If i was posting a tourny on smash boards I would say, "make sure everyone has there code on them when they come" and i would write down there code when i get peoples money.

on the other side of the system when I go to a tourney and it later got reported that I entered the "tournament name here" tourney, I would get an email notification that I did infact join it, and the email would have a cool link, "if this wasn't you, click here" and then admins can check it out and pwn face if someone said i showed up and didn't. The email will also include a 'This wasn't a SWF sanctioned tourney" link, and ill explain that one further down.

[[Geting points (the first way)]]

First you have points given to players for placing well in any tournament. A certain percentage of top players should be given points, like if its a 20 person tournment, top 4 should be given points, but if it was a 10 man tournment only 2 people would be given points. That ofocurce is an example of giving the top 20% of players points, this number can be up for debate, maybe the top 30% of A ranked tournys sence the competition at thoughs would be higher. The points given to each player for placing is figured out by what place they got and what level of tournament it was. placing 6th at a rank 'A' tourney would be equal to placing 2nd at a rank 'D' tournament (for example).

[[Registering a tournament and determining What "level" it is.]]

So you have a sheet for registering tournments, and they go on the calendar, and later you report who showed up and who won after the tourney has been decided. It dosnt realy matter how many levels there are, I like having four, A,B,C,D The level of the tourney depends on the following.

1. how many players
2. amount of players ranked in top ( 300?) attended the tourney. and possibly more importantly, the ratio of top (300?) ranked players to total number of players.


- The state can also be included (contraversal)
- I thought about having a list of special tournys that are automaticly rank A (like MLG), but thoughts tourneys should qualify for rank A using the first two criteria only and shouldn't need to be singled out.


[[anti-cheating]]

some sort of minimum credentials can be placed here, like at-least 4 SWF registered players went to the tourney (cant be a bunch of randoms and YOU), and at least 8 players total showed up. Reporting a fraudulent tourney ie. reporting a tourney with only 7 players total, saying it had 8 would make it so you would not be able to report any tourneys anymore, and anyone who was listed as going to the tourney and didn't click the link "This wasn't a SWF sanctioned tourney" (in the email) would lose points or get deleted.

If you are ranked in the top (300?) you must pre-sign up on the calander/tournament page, saying you are defenetly going to this tourney, if you do not you will not get points for going! this si to stop people form saying captain jack showed up and saying they beat him in the finals or using it to raise the rank of their tourney. Captain jack would proly have to login in and pre register for any tourney sence he would be ranked high, probably.


*trying to stress that cheating the system in anyway will have you not belonging to the system. anyone actually trying to cheat the system will not be missed from the rankings sence they prly suck anyway.*

[[reporting the results (geting points a second way, and losing points sometimes oh noes!)]]

This point is very important, there must be a way to level the rankings out, just adding more points the more tourneys you enter and do well in, will do nothing but reward the most active players. Players joining the system late, even much later will not have a chance of making it very far up.

The main problem is, with a system this big, reporting every head to head match in all the tourneys, is far to tedious. It cant be done, too much trouble. Im a director and i would not want to deal with reporting 50 matches.

SO! When you are reporting the tournament results you put in all the codes for peoples who was there (anyone on the top 300 should show up automaticly as they pre registered) , you put in how many total players were there, and you enter in the top (X) places (20%?) Also you need to put in who beat who in the finals match. If your ranked #1200 and you beat #500 in the finals you get the (X) points for winning the (X) rank tournament it is and you receive bonus points for an upset, the bigger the upset the more points you will receive, so you would end up with X+Y points. but if you were the #500 guy beating the #1200 guy, you would end up with just X points.

** also another bonus might be given for winning tournys of say rankd C with lower than 300 level rank, and winning a rank B with lower than a 200 rank. possibley a Rank A with lower than a 100 Rank***

More importantly if you are a top 200 player you are expected to place in the top 20% of any tournament you enter below rank C, and if you are in the top 100 you are expected to place in the top 10% of any tournament you enter below rank A. Not placing in the said percentages will lower your points significantly. (percentages and tourney ranks can be changed ofcource its the idea that matters)

also inactiveness loses you points, say the top 200 smashers loses a point each day not in a tourney after the first 3 weeks.

In short, you arnt geting points when you say beat mr. ranked #23 in the word in the middle of the tourney, if it wasn't at the final match no one will have a record of it, BUT having rank #23 in the tournament itself will increase the level of the tourney thus giving you more points for placing well in it, Im just trying to get around reporting every match.

Or just do what the previous dood said i duno =p

 

[MASAHIROx]

STICKY BUMP! guys this is a great idea...stop being lazy and post your input on this.

I would love to see this happen.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

nealdt already posted his site which essentially takes care of this issue.

Integrating it into this domain would definitely be awkward. Neal's site is Microsoft-based (C#, ASP.NET, etc.) while Smashboards is open source (PHP, MySQL, etc.).

 

[AlphaZealot]

This would be very easy if Neal included a sorta ELO system that automatically updated each players ranking based on their results. We could simply choose an arbitrary starting point (I recommend FC6), then give everyone 1200 points (and anyone who enters a tournament there after also recieves 1200 if it is their first tournament), then all you need to do is let a program make the calculations from each match up.

 

[nealdt]

The problem with ELO rankings is that things get messed up if people are lax in uploading their results. Uploading a tournament two weeks after it happened would create false ELO rankings for people who attended other tournaments during that time period, since ELO rankings are indeed sensitive to the order of matches taken into account.

 

[Grand Champion]

ELO rankings are a great idea. That's why people should send results in on time and give dates on when they happened to prevent false rankings.

 

[nealdt]

Well, a second problem with Elo rankings occurs when no-name players attend tournaments. These players are unlikely to have an account on nealpro.com, and thus it would be impossible to include them in Elo rankings. But what if that player later creates an account and attempts to "tag" himself in all the tournaments he attended? It would be impossible to create an accurate ranking for him because we wouldn't have the appropriate rankings for his opponents at the time they played.

It's a very difficult problem to solve.

 

[Nintendude]

You could always just prevent tournaments from before a person's tia registration date (starting after this feature goes into use) from counting. Then, before using this feature just give everyone several weeks to a month warning via stickied threads telling them to register a tia account if they want to be on the ladder.

 

[Rx-]

IMO you should wait and see what brawl does to the tournament scene. Applying this sort of system could turn out to be a whole lot of work for nothing. But thats just looking out for you. I REALLY like the idea, and fully support it, as I am one of those people who have trouble keeping track of the best players by myself.

 

[Doomgaze]

Hi!
I'd like to make an input based on my experiences as a ladder gamer.

Why not just integrate ladder and tournament into one rating based system?

The rating system?

Let me first just say that I've played many ladders in various different games. I've tried the Kyu/Dan-system in Go, the level system in Warcraft III, the official ladder in StarCraft and the externals WGT, PGT and Game-i and a few other minor games.

I think we all agree that a game played against a better ranked player should result in winning more points/losing less points than playing against a player with equal or lower rank. The major difference I've experienced throughout different ladders is if the points gained for the winning player should equal the points lost for the losing player, if they are both at the same rank or rating. I will refer to this as an "equal" system.

The pro of having an "equal" system is that the ladder becomes less dependant on the total amount of matches played, as all top rated players will have a bottom counter-part, so to speak. What I mean is that all points dealt in the skill chain derives from the very bottom. This may sound unmotivating for lower skilled players.

The pro behind the opposite system, in which more points are being dealt than lost, is that players only have to win a 2:1 ratio (for example) to maintain their current rank. This motivates mass playing and some may argue that those who play more games are at an advantage.

There are many arguments for and against both types of system, but I am personally biased toward the latter although both systems work fine, but I'd like to see a sub-discussion of some sort. The mathematics, unless ripped directly off of ELO can follow that eventual discussion.

Stanard ladder play

We could set up an iRC-channel in which people can challenge each other, by sending a "challenge request" to the other player on an internet page handling the ladder itself . The loser of the match will then report a loss for himself and a win for his opponent. If the loser fails to do so in a 15 minute time window (for example), the wining player can send a winning request which will be handled automatically. Abuse or non-reports will be handled through automatizated requests or contacts with any moderator of some sort.

Tournament play

The creator of the tournament can create empty brackets on the same webpage. Decide prizes, starting date, rules, allowed maps, etc. When other players join that tournament, their names will replace the empty brackets at random 5 minutes before the tournament starts, so that the players can wii-add each other and the like. Each match is then reported in the same way a normal ladder match, with the addition that the creator can be a moderator for instance by giving win to a player who won, but whose opponent didn't report a loss. These players will at the same time get BANNING points, causing their name on the web page and within brackets to glow red (so that other players can avoid them).

This way, even players who only attend TOURNAMENTS can challenge other high rated LADDER players, and the latter will still have their "REAL" rating upon joining their first tournaments.

Furthermore, it would be possible to create limits to tournaments, like only certain people in a specific rating-range can join. Like it would be possible to hold a tournament in which only say the top 16 rated playres can apply. Or the bottom 100. These could be either official (gaining ladder points) or unofficial (not getting any). You get the picture.

Also to keep the ladder going, prizes could be dealt to the top rated players at the end of the season. Getting sponsorship to a game and community this big I believe is a lesser problem.