Edward Nygma wrote:

It should definitely be under its own tab though, not on the home page.  I like the Training Grounds/Boot Camp/ War Room idea.

That was what I was envisioning...new orange tab next to "Create Game"

Hugh wrote:

The original suggestion of +/- N ranking filters is interesting. It's not an easy system to game because at best, you're only controlling variation, not the expected outcome. The dissenters have said they dissent, but not why, so I'll guess:

My dissent: If I win a lot or lose a lot, I could become in a bracket all by myself or with very few player and there wouldn't be any games to join. 

For example: with a 2000+ ranking on Wargear warfare, there are only 14 players with a 1600+ ranking.  The lower end is worse.  I can lose too many games and not be able to join anymore. 

For Five, Seven, and other niche boards, the situation is actually worse because of how few those that want to play are.  Further filtering would make it so it would be hard to start games.

Alpha wrote:

My dissent: If I win a lot or lose a lot, I could become in a bracket all by myself or with very few player and there wouldn't be any games to join. 

For example: with a 2000+ ranking on Wargear warfare, there are only 14 players with a 1600+ ranking.  The lower end is worse.  I can lose too many games and not be able to join anymore. 

The proposal is that filtering be an _option _upon creating a game, not something that has to be applied to every game. While there should be a minimum N for +/- N, you should be able to cast as wide a net as possible. (Or, if for simplicity we want a discrete number of options, +/- 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000 should cover most situations in practice.) So, those with 2000+ could still apply a meaningful filter, if they so chose.

I too would oppose an enforced ranking filter, but that's not the proposal.

Hugh wrote:

I too would oppose an enforced ranking filter, but that's not the proposal.

Correct, this thread kind of got away from me a little bit--

This idea wasn't something that would be imposed on everyone, just an optional feature.

Chogyam wrote:

Hugh wrote:

I too would oppose an enforced ranking filter, but that's not the proposal.

Correct, this thread kind of got away from me a little bit--

...

That's been known to happen on these forums :)

Hugh wrote:

Alpha wrote:

My dissent: If I win a lot or lose a lot, I could become in a bracket all by myself or with very few player and there wouldn't be any games to join. 

For example: with a 2000+ ranking on Wargear warfare, there are only 14 players with a 1600+ ranking.  The lower end is worse.  I can lose too many games and not be able to join anymore. 

The proposal is that filtering be an _option _upon creating a game, not something that has to be applied to every game. While there should be a minimum N for +/- N, you should be able to cast as wide a net as possible. (Or, if for simplicity we want a discrete number of options, +/- 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000 should cover most situations in practice.) So, those with 2000+ could still apply a meaningful filter, if they so chose.

I too would oppose an enforced ranking filter, but that's not the proposal.

The proposal of an enforced filter was made in this discussion, but that ended previously so that aside. 

I agree with your bit above and I think that this would make be a great option for un-ranked public games only, for which I think there is no debate.  However, I contend that is a problem that on a board like Seven (or any board, I am just familiar with Seven), there could be hundreds of public filtered games being played with a (optional, yet selected) +/- 200 filter that Mongrel (at 1475) and Conan (at 1494) would never see.  (Everyone else on the site is below 1234 currently.)  Conversely, I find it a problem that Mongrel could create a public game of Seven with this filter that only Conan could see and join.

I think Alpha has a very good point.  Ideally there would be some sort of automatic calculation and the filter would just set itself so that 20% of the active players would be included within its bounds. 

Then when you start the game, you would have a checkbox that says: "limit this game to players within 20% of my skill level".

And just to bring in another possibility.  How about if instead of the filtering being applied by the game host, it was applied by players and affected what games they see to join?   By default it could be on, so that a newbie would just get other beginning players.

Alpha wrote:

Hugh wrote:

Alpha wrote:

My dissent: If I win a lot or lose a lot, I could become in a bracket all by myself or with very few player and there wouldn't be any games to join. 

For example: with a 2000+ ranking on Wargear warfare, there are only 14 players with a 1600+ ranking.  The lower end is worse.  I can lose too many games and not be able to join anymore. 

The proposal is that filtering be an _option _upon creating a game, not something that has to be applied to every game. While there should be a minimum N for +/- N, you should be able to cast as wide a net as possible. (Or, if for simplicity we want a discrete number of options, +/- 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000 should cover most situations in practice.) So, those with 2000+ could still apply a meaningful filter, if they so chose.

I too would oppose an enforced ranking filter, but that's not the proposal.

The proposal of an enforced filter was made in this discussion, but that ended previously so that aside. 

I agree with your bit above and I think that this would make be a great option for un-ranked public games only, for which I think there is no debate.  However, I contend that is a problem that on a board like Seven (or any board, I am just familiar with Seven), there could be hundreds of public filtered games being played with a (optional, yet selected) +/- 200 filter that Mongrel (at 1475) and Conan (at 1494) would never see.  (Everyone else on the site is below 1234 currently.)  Conversely, I find it a problem that Mongrel could create a public game of Seven with this filter that only Conan could see and join.

Well, that sounds like the whole point of the filter.  The majority of players with that filter presumably wouldn't want to get beat up on by Mongrel and Conan.  I thought these filters were always an option...meaning you could set them as narrow or as broad as you like.

Yep, what ATH said. Conan and Mongrel would set no filter at all if they wanted to maximize their chance of getting a game.

Alpha does have a point about the numbers though: Filtering schemes work smoothly for popular games, but I haven't seen it tried for less popular games. My guess is that people will still join Conan's games. Getting a game going trumps filtering for most people.

No one has a problem with the fact that low ranking members can effectively lose the opportunity to play with high flyers?  I'm not saying I have a problem with it (though I think I do); I'm just asking.

I'll be a broken record...I do not like the idea of filters/restrictions for who can join a public ranked game public ranked tournament.  I'm lost to if the discussion is still just around public non-ranked games (which I wouldn't care about, although still think they are probably not a super idea) or applying this to public ranked games.

M57 wrote:

No one has a problem with the fact that low ranking members can effectively lose the opportunity to play with high flyers?  I'm not saying I have a problem with it (though I think I do); I'm just asking.

I do have a problem with that, except when the mismatch would have created an unfun game.

I'm fairly confident it wouldn't go this way, for several reasons. One is that people would rather play now than have to wait for their filter cohorts to show up. Another is that the filters wouldn't be used by everyone - most will start unfiltered games.

Another is that high flyers reach 1500 well before they reach equilibrium. When lower than equilibrium, you still get good bang for your buck against lower rated players. (Here I'm assuming ranking filters would be map specific and not global.)

Yertle wrote:

I'll be a broken record...I do not like the idea of filters/restrictions for who can join a public ranked game public ranked tournament.  

Inclusive over exclusive - got it, loud, clear :)

You'd be surprised how well it works in practice and how much people like playing within their own ranking bracket for certain games. I don't think your enjoyment of the site would be reduced at all.

That said, we're split enough on this, and it's unnecessary to implement, so I'm pretty sure your position will win out for now. I'm glad the idea was put forth.

Hugh wrote:

Another is that high flyers reach 1500 well before they reach equilibrium. When lower than equilibrium, you still get good bang for your buck against lower rated players. (Here I'm assuming ranking filters would be map specific and not global.)

I'm not sure that I understand your point.  If there are a lot of high flyers who are "on their way" and still in the 1500 range, wouldn't you prefer to play these people once they have reached or achieved equalibrium?

Consider the 1600 player who might think.. "I should avoid playing 1200 and below players, many of whom are probably much better than their current ranking because they are on their way to their equilibrium of 1500 .  I'm much better off playing players who are ranked higher than me; more of them are likely to be above their equilibrium, so I'll use the filter as much as I can."

M57 wrote:

I'm not sure that I understand your point.  If there are a lot of high flyers who are "on their way" and still in the 1500 range, wouldn't you prefer to play these people once they have reached or achieved equalibrium?

It is true that you'd want to avoid a player on the rise. But, there's too much meat at the bottom to pass up.

What I have in mind is someone in Conan's position on Seven. After 42 games, the rating is 1494 at an 88% win rate. Just to get a _lower_ bound on his equilibrium rating, let's say his average opponent is rated 900. His equilibrium rating is at least 2437 (see http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/474/Ratings_Equilibrium for how I got that number.)

The point is that until he's 2437, he gains (fairly well) playing 900 rated players. Sure, right now he only gains 12 points versus losing 33, but it's an 88% win rate!

So, if motivated by just playing a game, you'll avoid a filter and join any game you want. If motivated by points, the high flyers shouldn't use a filter and should avoid joining games with other high flyers in them.

I was thinking of trying to achieve the same intent of ranking caps / filters without the disadvantages.  As an alternative, what do you think of capping the points that can be won or lost in a game?  For example, set the point range to be won or lost as min 10 to  max 30.  So, for example, if a 2000 rate player loses to a 1000 rate player, the new ratings would be 1970, 1030 etc. 

This would avoid the hassle and exclusionary issues of ranking filters while allowing a wide open choice of opponents without the fear of high ranking players losing a ton of points.  I would think that the vast majority of points awarded in any game is in this range already - not sure though, someone probably has that stat.

SquintGnome wrote:

I was thinking of trying to achieve the same intent of ranking caps / filters without the disadvantages.  As an alternative, what do you think of capping the points that can be won or lost in a game?  For example, set the point range to be won or lost as min 10 to  max 30.  So, for example, if a 2000 rate player loses to a 1000 rate player, the new ratings would be 1970, 1030 etc. 

This has been discussed/proposed in the past.  For some reason I think there's currently a 200 point cap on how many points you can win or lose, but this only has impact in the case of a very high ranked player (2500+) losing to an extremely low ranked (<500) player.

I'm not a huge fan of caps, but I could support a kind of progressive system. - E.g., one that awards or penalizes 80% of the current calculated points.

M57 wrote:

SquintGnome wrote:

I was thinking of trying to achieve the same intent of ranking caps / filters without the disadvantages.  As an alternative, what do you think of capping the points that can be won or lost in a game?  For example, set the point range to be won or lost as min 10 to  max 30.  So, for example, if a 2000 rate player loses to a 1000 rate player, the new ratings would be 1970, 1030 etc. 

This has been discussed/proposed in the past.  For some reason I think there's currently a 200 point cap on how many points you can win or lose, but this only has impact in the case of a very high ranked player (2500+) losing to an extremely low ranked (<500) player.

I'm not a huge fan of caps, but I could support a kind of progressive system. - E.g., one that awards or penalizes 80% of the current calculated points.

@SG : +10000 about your 10 - 30 limits.

@M  : The cap is presently at 100 point, which is much too high IMO.

A long time ago, Tom agreed for a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 50, but this was unfortunately never implemented.

To clarify, I was suggesting min 10 - max 30 per player, I was not thinking of multiplayer games.  The main point being that a player could not lose more than 30 point no matter who he played. 

Alpha wrote:

 I am just familiar with Seven), there could be hundreds of public filtered games being played with a (optional, yet selected) +/- 200 filter that Mongrel (at 1475) and Conan (at 1494) would never see.  (Everyone else on the site is below 1234 currently.)  Conversely, I find it a problem that Mongrel could create a public game of Seven with this filter that only Conan could see and join.

Am I missing something here?  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the term "enforced". As long as all of the above examples are unranked, who cares?  The second example is no different than if Mongrel invited Conan to a private game.

If the debate is about the difference between a private game, and an unranked public game with a filter (which is what I think it is about), then I don't really see much of a difference.  Right now, I can go into the rankings and invite all of the players who rank within 200 points of me to a private game, so why not have a filter that makes it easier for me?

Come to think of it, this could be a Premium feature.