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Hi all, following long discussions with multiple players, admins etc. It seems like there is very positive feedback to my suggestion in the other thread started by ccb regarding introducing a new format to the league, so much so that I was encouraged to write a dedicated thread to this. So here goes.. I will try to make this as concise as possible.

The new format to the league introduces an individual ranking system. This is based upon your ELO, which most of you should be familiar with from 1v1. What does this mean? As follows:

1. Any player can play an official match with any other player against any opponent.

2. At the conclusion of the official match, the average elo of team A and the average elo of Team B will be used to determine the +- elo for each player. Each player on each color will get the SAME +- elo. The amount is ONLY based upon CTF, not individual performance in the match.

3. A seasonal reset will be introduced, say, per 3 months, where the rankings will be reset to the default. This solves several issues: 1. Players who achieve high elo cannot camp the top score. 2. Selective matching is reduced as people aren't afraid of matching to lose elo. 3. Gives a chance for players who have lost alot of elo to reset, and improve upon their ranking for the next season. 4. A high elo player who goes inactive will not keep the first place (essentially afk camp top spot).

4. Teams and team rankings are retained. Team offi's will still be possible. This is explained in the FAQ.

5. At the end of each season, the top 10 ranked players will be announced on the website, as well as in a message on all LU servers in the game (think 1v1).

FAQ

1. What happens to 2in's during a match?

New rules will state that all current players must accept the 2 in for it to happen, and if so, the new average ELO will be calculated based upon all players who finish the match. This does not matter when the 2 in happens. Hence, it is the players' responsibility to allow 2 in or not.

2. Rankings reset will deter players from regaining high rankings?

This is an inherent issue regarding ranking resets. However, to alleviate it, player profiles will be updated with them winning a specific season. Season history will also be saved and can be viewed on the website. (other inputs to this appreciated).

3. How would team elo work in tandem with this system?

Please see attached the ranking logistics.

4. What happens if someone tries match fixing by having players allowing them to win over and over?

Ban-able offence (this should be taken very seriously by admins in the league).

5. What happens to FMs? Will it impact my individual ELO?

No. FMs will remain FMs, with zero impact on team or individual ELO.

At this point you may be thinking, "There's been a million other suggestions. WHY would this work??"

1. This system promotes competition once again. Whilst the league needs to be introduced to new players, the essence of what made it popular was competition. This is sorely lacking right now. The individual rankings system brings it back.
2. The system promotes activity, as anyone can match with anyone else. They do not require a teammate to be online.
3. It caters to just about everybody. You don't want to offi? Sure, fm still available. You want to be competitive? Yep. You just want to help new players out? Offi or fm with new players with lower elo to help them.

Any and all feedback are welcome. I will update the post if any suggestion is obviously a better solution to any issues.

I like the general idea, although some tweaks might be necessary. It seems like we have had a breakdown of the competitive team dynamic, so transitioning to individual ratings might make some sense.

So with this Idea all fun matches become official (or can be) ?

No, the idea does not affect fms at all. Fms will still exist and playing a fm will not change any elo for anyone. Elo will change based upon the description only if players /official just like now.

So what changes.... Today we have 12 fms a day and 3 official (on a good day). I'm not saying forcing fms to be included but tapping into those would increase activity.

NTH wrote:So what changes.... Today we have 12 fms a day and 3 official (on a good day). I'm not saying forcing fms to be included but tapping into those would increase activity.

Basically, people can play offis with anyone in order to increase their individual elo. It will promote offis for people who are competitive and wants to gain rankings.

I don't think we can do anything about fms because people need to have the option to play matches without it impacting their rankings.

I am a big fan of this idea on many levels.

I think the details of the ranking formula need to be made public so all know what factors attribute to their scoring.
Also, good to see (even if manually) a way to post yearly top players, like overall for 2017 based on past season totals.

-Indy

They way you explained it here is exactly what I was trying to suggest in the other thread - I love it! This will not simply make some fms being played as offis but increase the amount of opportunitis for more competitive matches since most players will try harder if the final score has results on their rankings. One thing that could be nice is showing players current elo/rankngscore in their emailstring by default so ppl roughly know what they are getting into without having to check the site for every 2in.

Monster wrote:They way you explained it here is exactly what I was trying to suggest in the other thread - I love it! This will not simply make some fms being played as offis but increase the amount of opportunitis for more competitive matches since most players will try harder if the final score has results on their rankings. One thing that could be nice is showing players current elo/rankngscore in their emailstring by default so ppl roughly know what they are getting into without having to check the site for every 2in.

I support the idea of having ELO as default in the motto string on LU servers. However, I am worried that some players will feel bad if their ELO is low and don't want to show it to everybody on the server.

I think I understand what you are saying.

So if bad company: miro, zaa, and. Monster would like to offi llrr, kierra, and etigah

And: llrr, kierra and etigah win the offi their elo and their respective clans would receive points for winning the official match?

and if they lose their elo would either drop and lose points from their respective clans?

click click boom wrote:I think I understand what you are saying.

So if bad company: miro, zaa, and. Monster would like to offi llrr, kierra, and etigah

And: llrr, kierra and etigah win the offi their elo and their respective clans would receive points for winning the official match?

and if they lose their elo would either drop and lose points from their respective clans?

In that scenario, what will happen is the following:

If llrr, kierra, and etigah wins, they will gain individual elo points. Similarly, miro, zaa and monster will lose individual elo points. This calculation will based upon the average of one team vs average of the other.

On top of this, BC will also lose points as miro, zaa, and monster matched as single team. This calculation will be based upon BC team elo vs average individual elo of the other team.

Essentially, matching as a team will result in your team gaining or losing elo, as opposed to only individual elo being won or lost. This is a direct consequence of playing as a team and thus the team elo change reflects that.

I think matching as individuals should also not just lose personal elo but their clans should also lose points. The loss of points would be devided up evenly. So if you official singularly your clan gains point and loses points upon a loss.

You won't win as many points as a unit or lose as many points as a unit but atleast your clan can rise and fall if you have no mates around which would be bad ass.

Just because bad company was on and had 3 mates present shouldn't mean the players with no mates on get nothing out of it besides personal satisfaction..

So what would be done is , minimalist, forest force and sg are the 3 teams you average their scores and base that off of how many points they win or lose.

And by doing it this way you don't need Team A , B or C..

So what I see is a possible compromise of two ideas, use your elo system, keep clans, allow all players to match vs clans or represent their clan as an individual and all participants can earn elo or clan points for the match!

So llrr and myself are brain storming ways to create some more activity, balance official matches, and have larger official matches. Please see the idea below:
-------------------------------------------
Kind of combing llrr' idea with mine here we go!!!


Bad company proposes a match: miro, Zaa and monster

Vs

Llrr (sg), kierra (ff) and etigah (minimalist)

Results are the 3 individuals win

All players will have a personal elo something similar to the 1vs1 league. Elo's will be effected, since the team of 3 randoms won their elo will rise
Not only does their elo rise but they earn points for their respective clans.
Since they were from 3 different clans their points can be averaged out and allocated appropriately..

The way you do this is with the current formula

bad company vs min=min win+-12
Bad company vs sg=sg win+-10
Bad company vs ff= ff win +-15

You take the average of the 3 which is +-12.3

That then +-12.3 is dispersed over the 3 winning teams
Sg gets 4.1
Ff gets 4.1
Min gets 4.1

Bad company losses -12.3 but the sg,ff, and min don't gain as much ground since they didn't match with their own teammates from their clan

If bad company wins their elo goes up and their clan win points and move up the ladder as well.

We won't need a team A,B, or C since all players can play alone but represent their clan and can earn points for their clans. Since those players are matching alone they won't win as many points as they would have if they play as 3 of their own clan members but yet they still get some points so it makes it worth while.


If no clans are on and just solo players for example:

Ccb (sg) and qd(min)
Vs
Kierra (ff) and miro(bad company)

If team ccb wins both sg and minimalist will gain points in the ladder and bad company/ forest force would lose points.

This allows for even officials, more officials, and LARGER officials not this 2v2 crap that's always occurring.

We will do this the same we do now with the /offi command

If no teams are willing to effect their elo or clans points you can do a regular fun match with the /fm command.

I really like this above idea actually. It sounds great.

I really like the idea on the whole. It would definitely exponentially increase the amount of offi's and would probably help to set up fairer fm's as well if each player had a better known baseline. Don't love ccb's idea as I think it somewhat eliminates the point of having teams at all

Kenshin wrote:I really like the idea on the whole. It would definitely exponentially increase the amount of offi's and would probably help to set up fairer fm's as well if each player had a better known baseline. Don't love ccb's idea as I think it somewhat eliminates the point of having teams at all

Thanks Ken. I assume that you're referring to ccb's original idea. I think we're merging the two proposals now into one. We use my proposal as the baseline for the new system. However, instead of having generic teams A, B and C, which would result in players playing for two teams (their own team and the generic team), I like the idea of individual offis affecting your own team's elo as well, just to a lesser extent. I would integrate this into my proposal.

What does this mean for team structure? Would there be a point increase for larger officials, or would it only be for the number of games? I would think encouraging bigger teams (instead of 2 peep exclusive teams) would make it more possible to find matches. It would make people want to reach out for more teammates or maybe even train somebody who has potential. There are so many teams that will only allow old players to match with them, but that is not the mindset that will increase activity. There are limited pros in this league (as many of them have disappeared into their busy lives...) We now have a great amount of players that just need to be trained and permitted the spot on a good team. I think that is where the real activity begins.

I know this is practically all I ever bring up, but our target is to make everybody more active-- not just the best.

I look forward to this being put into action.

Pam wrote:What does this mean for team structure? Would there be a point increase for larger officials, or would it only be for the number of games? I would think encouraging bigger teams (instead of 2 peep exclusive teams) would make it more possible to find matches. It would make people want to reach out for more teammates or maybe even train somebody who has potential. There are so many teams that will only allow old players to match with them, but that is not the mindset that will increase activity. There are limited pros in this league (as many of them have disappeared into their busy lives...) We now have a great amount of players that just need to be trained and permitted the spot on a good team. I think that is where the real activity begins.

I know this is practically all I ever bring up, but our target is to make everybody more active-- not just the best.

I look forward to this being put into action.

Thanks for your input Pam. The proposal does aim to increase activity. However, we must consider the balance of matching as well. Currently, teams are free to add new players (like SG and TRON have done), but when a match occurs between a team of fully experienced players vs a team of mixed players, blowouts happen. I think activity is very important, but activity for the sake of activity without balance is a big issue. Players don't want to match knowing the outcome will be 10-0 every time.

My proposal tries to fix this as described in the original post:

1. Individuals can match with anybody vs anybody. This should help with activity tremendously. It does not require a teammate to be online.
2. The ELO system will allow players to try to get better at the game, which is what a league should be about. On top of that, players can try to make matches more even by trying to even out the ELO between teams. This would not be possible in the current team based system because you cannot even out the skill levels in an offi as players are stuck to specific teams.
3. The system is definitely not just for the sake of catering to bigger offis. We want to increase the number offis, but at the same time ensure more even offis, so that playing an offi is competitive and not simply for the sake of activity.

Hi all, please see an attachment I've added to the original post. It is the logistics for how the rankings will be calculated using the new format, for both individuals and teams. If any questions or feedback feel free to comment. Thanks!

ccb: your idea of team rankings being affected from all offis is included.

Outstanding write up, I think this is a great idea and it's the best we are going to get. It literally combines the best of both worlds. It would be an amazing experience to be able to play with players like consti who are not on my team for an official match while staying on my current clan.

I ask all admins and players read the attachment uptop to get a good understanding of how it all would work.

Thank you

CCB

In my opinion offis should be only team vs team, a system like this defeats totally the purpose of a team.
Any player would be able to join any team and gather points for it just by never playing with their team mates. Would the team mates feel rewarded? I don't think so, if my team has a rank I know its a group effort that i'm part of it,
and not thanks to someone else. It doesnt feel like an achievement for me when you can win and give other teams the points too, and i think this mixed system would also be confusing for new players.
I like llrr's idea but for the league to implement individual rankings the teams have to go, making a compromise wouldnt work for me.
Apologies for my bad english

miro wrote:In my opinion offis should be only team vs team, a system like this defeats totally the purpose of a team.
Any player would be able to join any team and gather points for it just by never playing with their team mates. Would the team mates feel rewarded? I don't think so, if my team has a rank I know its a group effort that i'm part of it,
and not thanks to someone else. It doesnt feel like an achievement for me when you can win and give other teams the points too, and i think this mixed system would also be confusing for new players.
I like llrr's idea but for the league to implement individual rankings the teams have to go, making a compromise wouldnt work for me.
Apologies for my bad english

That is a very good point miro. It actually brings me back to one of the earlier ideas which I was thinking of.

If we implement the individual rankings system, then the ONLY time team elo is used is when it's a team vs team situation, i.e. when both colors have players from the same team.

In this case what will happen is the following:

If a match contains ANY random player from a different team, then individual ELO is changed at the end of the match.

If a match contains two sets of players from two teams, then individual ELO is changed at the end of the match, as well as team ELO, based upon their individual and team ELO scores respectively. Therefore, when a team gains or loses ELO, it is because everyone from that team contributed in a official match.

I agree with miro's point which is why I suggested the following earlier:
-Implement an individual ladder next to the team ladder.
-players will gain/lose individual points on any official match they play respective to the average elon of their opponents.
-matches between individuals and teams are allowed
-matches between teams are allowed
-matches between individuals only are allowed
-a mix of individuals can never earn/lose points for their teams
-teams can gain points for their teams if they play vs other teams or vs individuals (latter calculation might be problematic)

So all in all the latest version of what ccb outlined, minus the effect on teamrankings for mixes of individual players

I agree with miro

miro wrote:In my opinion offis should be only team vs team, a system like this defeats totally the purpose of a team.
Apologies for my bad english

And your english is fine!

llrr wrote:That is a very good point miro. It actually brings me back to one of the earlier ideas which I was thinking of.

If we implement the individual rankings system, then the ONLY time team elo is used is when it's a team vs team situation, i.e. when both colors have players from the same team.

In this case what will happen is the following: If a match contains ANY random player from a different team, then individual ELO is changed at the end of the match.

llrr wrote:If a match contains two sets of players from two teams, then individual ELO is changed at the end of the match, as well as team ELO, based upon their individual and team ELO scores respectively. Therefore, when a team gains or loses ELO, it is because everyone from that team contributed in a official match.

Just to clarify, that its an official match, and not just the coincidence of 2 teams in fm with each other.

I am SO NOT INTERESTED in a mixed official impacting my clan's standing.