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Ribbons question(s)

Funny how things actually go around in circles, now there are members asking for features like the ladder used to be when I set my version up back in 2014. :p *Cough* @Bootie *Cough*
The basic idea of a ladder is, of course, to reach the top. But if you just count the points, it is almost impossible for every newcomer to catch up to the top after a certain point.
I'm aware of this but this is partly to do with the ELO system and the fact that the majority of games reported are from only a handful of members that are actually interested in the ladder to begin with. You can count them on two hands.

Another approach is to use the ratio of victory to defeat. Here again, the problem is that on the one hand, players with few games counted have a very very clear ratio in one direction or the other, while players with very many games theoretically come closer and closer to the 50% range.
My idea is a combination of both. Like in the military, you have groups of ranks. You can climb the ladder by simply collecting points by reporting games. The comparison with reality would be that you do a certain amount of service and then you get promoted automatically. That's how I knew it from my military service. But of course that takes time, and as written above, at some point it is impossible to catch up to the top. My idea to speed up promotion is what I call 'field promotion'. A player has to be a member of a ranking group for a certain amount of time (a number of reported games or a certain number of experience points). Once this is done, his win:loss ratio is used to check whether he qualifies for a field promotion. If so, he will be promoted to the lowest rank of the next group. If not, he must continue to earn points. However, it is checked at every match report whether his win:loss ratio has changed in favour of a field promotion. However, I have not yet worked out which win:loss ratio is reasonable, whether it is fixed or variable, or whether, for example, only the last 20-30 games should count, and so on.
However, in this way one can make it to, say, Colonel. The top group of generals should be reserved for the best players. To get in there, you have to a) be a colonel and b) have an appropriate win:loss ratio. I haven't yet thought about how to proceed within this group.
What is being described here is verging on close to the initial version of the ladder (that I reinvented when I took over) that awarded points by both the degree of victory and the size of the battle. A simple matrix of points could be awarded to the winner, where a Total Victory in a Huge Battle gave a big number of points towards ladder rankings etc. The players scores were then averaged out given some players could fight 20 battles a year while others only 7 etc. You couldn't have a fixed number of battles per year like a true sporting ladder. A minimum of five games completed in a calendar year was required for inclusion in the final ladder for the year to determine the winner. I thought it worked well and we collected data on what type of battles the community played.

But a handful of players (that I think have since left the FGM) banged on for an ELO system that is usually used for Chess clubs. With Bootie and my own time diminishing as we got promoted at work etc, well we relented eventually and this is the system we have now. There is no nuance with the reported results or battle size that is sort of a CM 'thing'. It's just wins and losses. You might as well play 10 tiny battles rather than a handful of big ones.

In terms carving up the ladder into tiers, it was thought about for a moment years ago, but it was dropped just as quickly given a) time was a diminishing commodity for the FGM administrators and it would be another thing to manage, and b) there simply isn't the numbers of ladder participants that are here regularly to make it worthwhile. Red shaded bit is 30 members being part of 61% of all reported games on the ladder. Keeping in mind game count itself is doubled given there are two players in every game so a bunch of these is games between these members themselves most likely. Some of these members have also left the club.
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I was wondering for newcomers if there might be some sort of qualifying period, say the first five games - but was unsure how to work that into an ELO system, if in fact it is.

There is an issue in the current ladder whereby someone can end up at the top of the ladder on points alone, ie, farming those at the bottom, without actually having to prove himself against his peers at the top. I guess the sort of ladder you propose will address that.
Most newcomers disappear within a year. Cronjob run anyone? As for your second point - yep. I run updates apringly given the small number of members actually playing game means the rankings barely change. Honestly I never wanted to go ELO given CM is a little more complicated than chess! The end of year results are calculated by removing the previous year's results and re-running the sums.

What sort of parameters will this ladder require?
If it's going to allocate points dependent on the type of victory won (minor, major, total, etc) as well as the player rankings, it will mean a clean sweep of the current ladder (not that I have an issue with this, the current ladder is basically non-functional), however some of the games that have been reported could be used as test samples if the report also provides a screenshot.

We could run a trial for the remainder of this year, and launch live starting next year? Obviously that's more up to you, I can brainstorm ideas a-plenty, but you're the brain who can actually bring it into reality! :D
See above. What you are talking about is similar to what I had a few years ago. If you are a guru in Excel or Access I'd start working on building something and testing it to turn those ideas into reality because I'm not dedicating any more time to the ladder than I currently do. To many more other interesting projects lined up plus real life. :( I can provide dummy data from previous years for you to play with. A good few hundred battle reports.

Sorry to inject a bit of pessimism into this discussion but if you want to develop a new system and start running it, please go ahead! It may boost the interest in ladder reporting but don't go into this thinking you have 100+ current CM players playing regular MP games.
 
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I'm aware of this but this is partly to do with the ELO system and the fact that the majority of games reported are from only a handful of members that are actually interested in the ladder to begin with. You can count them on two hands.
...
Sorry to inject a bit of pessimism into this discussion but if you want to develop a new system and start running it, please go ahead! It may boost the interest in ladder reporting but don't go into this thinking you have 100+ current CM players playing regular MP games.
As for what you say about the limited number of those who regularly submit combat reports, of course I have to agree with you. But then everyone can also stop the work they put into mods, scenarios, tournaments, and so on. It's usually the same few dozen people who are enthusiastic about it. So what's the point? ;)
... If you are a guru in Excel or Access I'd start working on building something and testing it to turn those ideas into reality because I'm not dedicating any more time to the ladder than I currently do. To many more other interesting projects lined up plus real life. :( I can provide dummy data from previous years for you to play with. A good few hundred battle reports. ...
Yes, and I'm pretty far along with it. At the moment I'm still working on an algorithm to extract the old gamereports from the ladder subforum, but I'm almost done with that. So I have enough data, even if they are partly very limited because of the shortened reports.

If I may come back to my questions then?
1) How are the gamereports actually created? After sending the form, is a corresponding thread automatically created in the ladder subforum, in which this data is then listed? I ask because the layout of the corresponding posting sometimes deviates from the standard.
However, if the thread is created automatically, is there anything technically against returning to the old, more detailed reports?
You don't have to do that right away. I'll just develop a little further and show you something.

2) How is the ladder created at the moment?

3) Is there any way at all to get, for example, an HTML table onto the FGM website? At the moment it seems to me that the only possibility is to upload a JPG or a PDF in the forum.
 
As for my questions, I found the guide for the 2014 ladder version. This already answers my question 1. I guess the problem is that some people correct or enter their report manually because they did not find the form.
I have finished extracting the battle reports, which gives about 1400 records. Few of them still need to be corrected manually. However, the good news is that the data extraction is generally working as I thought it would.
I have also already completed the next step: interpreting the datasets and filling in the missing data with some standard data (this affects all reports since 04th March 2017 where the only available data are winners, losers, and draw yes/no).
By the way, if you still have one of the old ladders that existed before July 18, 2014, I'll be happy to process it. Screenshots of the last current state would be enough for me.
 
If I may come back to my questions then?
1) How are the gamereports actually created? After sending the form, is a corresponding thread automatically created in the ladder subforum, in which this data is then listed? I ask because the layout of the corresponding posting sometimes deviates from the standard.
However, if the thread is created automatically, is there anything technically against returning to the old, more detailed reports?
You don't have to do that right away. I'll just develop a little further and show you something.

2) How is the ladder created at the moment?

3) Is there any way at all to get, for example, an HTML table onto the FGM website? At the moment it seems to me that the only possibility is to upload a JPG or a PDF in the forum.
1) The form is through the website which can be tweaked by an admin to suit. I simply plug in the details from the auto generated forum post into Excel which is running a custom ELO module.
2) As above. After plugging in the data I simply have to hit "Run Update" and excel recalcs everything in a few minutes. The spreadsheet is then sent to Bootie who makes a pretty version for the website.
3) One for @Bootie. The more stuff that relies on website tinkering means you are relying more on the admins with limited time and competing priorities including within our "CM Time". Not to mention any server/host side problem can destroy everything and we won't know until it's done. Having your own records off the website is a smart insurance measure.

As for my questions, I found the guide for the 2014 ladder version. This already answers my question 1. I guess the problem is that some people correct or enter their report manually because they did not find the form.
I have finished extracting the battle reports, which gives about 1400 records. Few of them still need to be corrected manually. However, the good news is that the data extraction is generally working as I thought it would.
I have also already completed the next step: interpreting the datasets and filling in the missing data with some standard data (this affects all reports since 04th March 2017 where the only available data are winners, losers, and draw yes/no).
By the way, if you still have one of the old ladders that existed before July 18, 2014, I'll be happy to process it. Screenshots of the last current state would be enough for me.
I don't have anything from pre-2014, sorry. The 2017 date is when we switched over to ELO, so only the 'Win/Loss/Draw' variable is of importance.
 
1) The form is through the website which can be tweaked by an admin to suit. I simply plug in the details from the auto generated forum post into Excel which is running a custom ELO module.
Would you mind letting me know how the ELO-calculation is working?
 
Would you mind letting me know how the ELO-calculation is working?
It's a macro plugin for excel. I just push a button. As per earlier post, is it suitable for CM? That's a different question and my answer would be no. It's great for chess but CM has far more nuance and degrees of victory that ELO can't account for.
 
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