Ranking System RS

[[HUN]Oli]

Hey everyone.
Was just wondering for any future plans on making a ranking system to have tremulous a goal and to filter out deconners.

So, any way of creating a system?

[phaedrus]

You missed the "No, because there is no good way to do it option".  Because that wasn't available, I voted "Well, I don't care".  

I've read all the threads suggesting how to do ratings, and there is exactly one big problem with all of them.

Kills/damage is easy to measure and use for a rating, but building doesn't even have any good heuristics, let along algorithms for determining a metric.  

It's simple: builder strategy is complicated.  There is no single set of "good actions" vs. "bad actions".  Whenever you define an action in one set or the other, someone comes up with a common scenario where that action belongs in the other set.  

Were we to define a set of heuristics and measure builders by them, we would discourage certain options because they would hurt a player's rating.  

There is only one computer capable of determining a good builder vs. a bad builder.  That is the human brain.  

The only system that could work is one based on people.

We could setup a system of ranks, and you would have to be promoted into the higher rank by the players already in that rank or above.  The way to bootstrap the system would be to let the devs rank themselves, and then induct those they see fit, and with rules in place (like, you need 3-4 people of a given rank or above to say you are fit to get promoted), the system will work itself out.  

This would have a couple effects: tighter community, and it also gives something to work for besides just that one game.  

The rank data would need to be centralized.  The system would need to be written and admin'ed, probably by a high-ranking volunteer.  It could also be a tie in as a name authentication server.  Those trem servers which opt in to the rank system could also use the server to authenticate nicknames.  For instance, if I log into one of these servers, I could only use the nickname 'phaedrus' if I had the authentication token (password, private key) authorized to use the nick.  If I didn't have the token, I could use whatever nickname I wanted that wasn't under db protection.  (This would help with the griefers who impersonate other players, you don't want to be impersonated, sign up, get your nick reserved, and get basic rank.)

Anyway, computer/AI based ranking: BAD.  It won't work.  Stop suggesting it.  Community based system, might work.  

Jeff

[phaedrus]

One other thought:  You could register a 'name element' with the auth server.  Then, you can tack a rank and a clan tag onto that, something like:

[lljk]phaedrus {pfc}

Would be the in-game nick, but for authentication purposes [lljk] is ignored, 'phaedrus' is used as the username on the auth server, and then {pfc} is checked to make sure that it is my correct rank.  

Or, if I'm not in a clan:

{pfc}phaedrus

Would work exactly the same as above.  Also, whitespace would be stripped form the ends, so

[lljk] phaedrus {pfc}

is the same as

[lljk]phaedrus{pfc}

Just some more ideas.

Jeff

[[HUN]Oli]

I think that there can be a system.

Here is an example:

Leave everything as is, but make a few servers with ranking. Either by making championships or just having 1-2 admins rate players. I don't know the method, but the idea is that make a managable amount of space to let people get points-of-rank.

Or yes, a qualifying test would be ok also. And that would make people earn badges of some sort.

But a login would be so cool.

I mean there is no point other then for the fun of it to play tremulous. If only there would be a ladder challange of some sort.

[phaedrus]

There's been a lot of noise on the boards lately clamoring for an automatic ranking system--something which is effectively impossible.  I thought this was a poll based on that idea.  No one had really mentioned using human judges instead of AI (heck, I didn't think of it until I was a sentence into my post above).  

A ladder would be cool.

Jeff

[Stof]

Why do you say an automatic ranking is impossible ? If you use only controled servers in a game where nobody joins, leaves or changes team during the whole game, and where players have no choice with who or against who they play, you can easily get a fair rating of the players because good players win more games than bad players