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The FGM Ladder for 2016

Do you like Ithikial's idea for the FGM CM Ladder?

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
Ithikial

Ithikial

FGM 2ND IN COMMAND
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Nov 28, 2011
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Age
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The FGM Ladder has the ability to be tweaked between years to refine it to best meet the expectations of the FGM community - all while not being out of actions at any time.

The biggest complaint about the ladders rules (which were initially copied from another club I might add!) was that it simply favoured those who played and reported most games rather than the best player for that year. Given that member's ability to play and post games varies widely, we'll never be able to set up a balanced roster similar to a sporting league. In addition it would likely go against the ethos of the FGM of being a bit more laid back less competitive that other CM clubs. Not saying that's a criticism of the wider community, it's just the culture of the club that's developed over time.

- Enjoy Wargaming
- Enjoy History
- Enjoy Good Sportsmanship (have a laugh)
- Wonder at the magnificence of Kate Upton and Taylor Swift.



Therefore I propose three main changes to the ladder for 2016:
- That a minimum of five games need to be played by each individual to be counted towards the ladder. (This is not very difficult considering it's less that one game every two months! However can be increased or decreased).
- That the points scored is averaged out over the number of games that have been played by that person. The points awarded per game stays the same as it does now to reflect degree of victory and battle size.
- That the website will only display the ladder rankings and not the points tally during the year. (To encourage healthy competition and some suspense in the second half of the year).

This process will require a few extra steps on the part of myself and Bootie, particularly to keep an eye on members who have since left the club for whatever reason. I'll have to build in an 'Inactive' status into the ladder to remove dormant users from competition.

Below is how the current ladder would look under the new system but with points displayed.

Ladder%20Idea_zpsr6j2dscc.jpg~original


Thoughts?
 
I Voted in Favour of the Changes.

I like the idea of averaged scores as proposed above - OTOH I'm not HUGELY bothered where I come, occassional bragging rights maybe.

My main use for the ladder would be to see who is likely to finish a game and to get a handle on who is a challenge to play.

Purely for ME I would like the ladder to give the following info - either directly or via clicking on the user profile.
1. Some idea of how many games that player had LOST by default would be handy- ie. How reliable they are.
2. Which versions of the game they played - CMBS, CMBN etc

In the long term I'd like to see more data available on the type/size etc of games played by ladder members. This would be useful (to me) for the following reasons.
1. Size/length of games they normally play.
2. Gives me an idea of whether the player prefers scenarios or QB's - I prefer scenarios.
3. A Database of scenarios played and results therof.
 
I voted no mainly cause i think that ladder system should reward payers which are posting games rather than reward players that simply play 5 games with a clean seat and then stop reporting.
After all ladder gaming is about participating and playing a game in a competetive manner.
IMO the ladder system in the previous format is better and if we want to highlight the "best" CM player we could do it by using an ELO system (not sure how difficult this is).
We could have a point winner and an ELO winner for each year's ladder, so both players with a good win-lose history but also the players with many games under their belt will be rewarded.
We can even decide the UBER CM player by hosting a match between the ELO and Points Champions at the end of each year making it the "CM Event" of our club.
 
Averaged score is little bit better then current ladder system but not enough.I think the clearest solution is Elo system. Averaged score says nothing about it how difficult matches the players won. As said Cargol, somebody could make fine averaged score against poor opponent and then stop to report. And that is not our goal I think.Elo system is the best option...

I like Zinzan's ideas about additional infos in ladder very much!
 
I agree with Cargol. For me the ladder is not and will never be a representation of the best player. Our best players either don't post to the ladder or post rarely. Having said that this ain't chess, the system is open to huge abuse, unbalanced scenarios, people who choose the axis always, people who 'game' the weaknesses of the game engine etc, so why not have a tournament that all players can join to determine a best of 20??, whilst everybody is encouraged to post all games to the ladder, to get the info about what we play, how we play etc...
 
There are quite a few problems with ELO systems - apparently - I'm no expert but a good search of forums here & on Blitz forums will give lots of data.

I'm also VERY AWARE that the FGM has always been a fun place to natter, meet fellow gamers and history buffs. The ladder is simply for FUN, it was never meant to be a serious competition. In any case some form of knockout competition would be better for this (IMNSHO).

My major use for the ladder is to get an idea of how experienced an opponent is and whether they are "good" (this being very subjective based on win %age).

In short : Lets not get too wound up about this, the ladder is for FUN - if you want to get serious join in with the competitive campaigns (eg: CMRT : FGM V Ostfront Wargames Club) or join the Blitz and post battle results on their ladder (I do and I'm not alone)
 
I was aware of that Bootie ;) Also know many people here are refugees from Blitz. I just figured that the game needs all the support it can get. Also (of relevance to this discussion) the Blitz uses ELO and has a more Competitive feel to the ladder interactions.

I'd also say that this is a more responsive and fun site - though both have their benefits.
 
Cargol said:
I voted no mainly cause i think that ladder system should reward payers which are posting games rather than reward players that simply play 5 games with a clean seat and then stop reporting.
Click to expand...

Disclaimer: I have not (yet) played a ladder game.

I agree with Cargol here: the number of games played needs to be a factor if the resulting table is supposed to be of any significance. With only a few entries it would be to easy to game the ladder.

I suggest the following: adjust everyone's points according to the number of games played by that player with the average number of games played by all participants (with at least 5 games played).

In formula:
NOG - number of games played by player
ANG - average number of games played by all participants with >=5 games played
LP - ladder points

LP = LP * SQRT(NOG/ANG)

Applied to the above table it would decrease the players with the fewest games to 68% of their score while it would increase the most prolific by 168%.
If that is felt as a bit too much we could use 3rd root which would yield 77 and 141% respectively (I would prefer this option).
 
My miserable 2 cents worth, from a newbie (and yes, I am sure you see plenty of us come and go, hence I am happy to 'de-weight' this comment!! ;D ).

Whilst making 5 games the minimum to be 'ranked' on the proposed ladder makes sense in terms of ranking robustness, having no visibility of players until they have played 5 games I think will be problematic and possibly a turn-off:

  1. Your ladder would likely be empty (mostly?) till March at the earliest (by when only the most prolific players would have 5 games finished. Many (most?) others I am guessing would not get 5 games into the system till mid-year?

Zinzan said:
My main use for the ladder would be to see who is likely to finish a game and to get a handle on who is a challenge to play.
Click to expand...

2. Only showing players with 5 or more games makes it difficult to see the reliability of some newer players, as per Zinzan's comment. And particularly as the ladder would be mostly empty for the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the year (as per point 1), this would be even more pronounced; you wouldn't really get a feel for most players until mid-year...

3. Newer players (such as myself, and in fact all the 3 players I've played thus far) will have no visibility of themselves on that ladder at all. To motivate us and new (or infrequent or returning) players to submit match results, there does need to be some level of tracking/visibility of these newer or infrequent player results. And lets be honest, even with just a few games under our belt, we all like to see how we are fairing against those we have already played.

Remove this from players with few games, and I fear the ladder will become a meaningless and unobtainable thing to them.


So without entering into the ELO versus weighted average discussion (of which I know zilch, and is well above my pay grade!), I have a slight enhancement suggestion:

->

:) In addition to your ranked ladder (ELO, weighted, minium number of games, etc), either add to the bottom (either in the same excel table, or separate one, that is then cut-pasted as an image for forum-friendliness) a listing of all other players thus far for the year, ordered by whichever field takes your fancy (number of wins, number of games played (my preference) or whatever), but simply not have the Player Average column (or whatever the final 'ranking' field is) populated.

:rolleyes: OR still with the <5 game players at the bottom, but with their Player Average column filled, but colored red to indicate 'not competitive/counted yet'. As per above, even with a few games, we still a like to see how we are fairing against other non-ranked and ranked players....

That way, everyone is visible, so you can see who's playing, how often, etc, and once they hit the magic 5 games, they migrate from the bottom un-ranked list, into the top ranked ladder section?

Or something?

Thanks for reading!
 
Last edited:
An excellent suggestion, well-made and argued. The only disadvantage to your argument is that you chose to quote me thereby losing a certain amount of credibility as to your sanity. :)

Very good point about the low visibility of new members on this ladder and I whole heartedly support your point. For accuracy I would suggrest that most members who have been here a while will have several games ongoing over the Xmas period and these will only end after Jan 1st - so will be counted towards next years ladder.

Toot-toot
 
Gnarly said:
  1. Your ladder would likely be empty (mostly?) till March at the earliest (by when only the most prolific players would have 5 games finished. Many (most?) others I am guessing would not get 5 games into the system till mid-year?
Click to expand...

No, not the intent at all. The example is just to show who would be in the running for the top of the ladder for 2015 if the system was in place. The ladder would show everybody and with a note or colour code to highlight those that need to play more games.


To answer some other concerns raised...
- The behind the scenes ladder database can be used by members to find opponents and discover players habits. That was always the intent. We have enough records now to display something decent, it's just a case getting the material online in a manner that lets the FGM members interact with it.
- The idea that players will only record 5 wins and then sit tight all year (gaming the system) I don't think will be an issue for two reasons. 1) 95% of the time it's the winner of the game that lodges the battle result between two FGM members. The losses are going to be recorded. 2) By not posting the points values and only the relative standings will keep players in the dark about their 'relative safety' on the ladder. The only way to improve their position is to play more games.
 
Ithikial said:
No, not the intent at all. The example is just to show who would be in the running for the top of the ladder for 2015 if the system was in place. The ladder would show everybody and with a note or colour code to highlight those that need to play more games.
Click to expand...

Awesomeness!
 
Richtig said:
I agree with Cargol. For me the ladder is not and will never be a representation of the best player. Our best players either don't post to the ladder or post rarely. Having said that this ain't chess, the system is open to huge abuse, unbalanced scenarios, people who choose the axis always, people who 'game' the weaknesses of the game engine etc, so why not have a tournament that all players can join to determine a best of 20??, whilst everybody is encouraged to post all games to the ladder, to get the info about what we play, how we play etc...
Click to expand...


+1 to this post. I mainly use the ladder to show that I'm part of the FGM and for others to kinda see how much I play and what kind of record I have as far as wins and losses are concerned. But like Richtig rightly points out CMBN ain't chess.....I like to play scenarios for the sake of playing them out and not for "balance"

Cheers
 
I just posted in the other thread (http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgm...der-countdown-to-the-end-of-2015.23097/page-2 ), but probably here is the better place to add my 2 ct.

Regarding the problem that the number of finsished battles ofcourse should have an impact on the score: this problem is taken care of the ELO-formula.
Which is what at The Blitz is applied.

But the ELO-system has a huge problem: it assumes a balanced battle.

Around a year ago I developed an ELO system that solved the old problem that only balanced battles were good ladder battles. In fact it allows to play even the most extremely unblanaced battles, without punishing the player of the weaker side. I offered it exclusively (for free ofcourse) to FGM, everything finished with all formulas in an Excel sheet. No interest at all. :D
I am very interested to see the new system.
If I read "average" then I am a bit sceptical, because averaging is smoothing and I don't think it can be a good solution to the underlying problem, which suffers not from too steep transient signals (for that an ELO-formula already takes care), but also to get the (im)balance as weighting factor correctly into the equation (of the ELO-formula).
 
Volksgrenadier said:
If I read "average" then I am a bit sceptical, because averaging is smoothing and I don't think it can be a good solution to the underlying problem, which suffers not from too steep transient signals (for that an ELO-formula already takes care), but also to get the (im)balance as weighting factor correctly into the equation (of the ELO-formula).
Click to expand...

That was Waaaaaay above my pay grade :)
 
Nope it's fine, I trust you on that stuff - I DO NOT need to go learning maths/statistics stuff right now. Toooooooo busy! Thank You.
 
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