Proposal for a new ranking model

[C64 nostalgia]

I'm not sure what you're asking, Mega Byte.

I do know the major reason I am ranked 2nd is because I have played more games than anyone else. I do not think this is a good reason to be ranked 2nd. I want the ranking system to be more inclusive and ideally, more accurate. So, I share my thoughts to encourage movement towards these goals.


To add to my last post: To have all-time rankings (minus the current ones), year, season, month, week, or whatever is a great thing. Everyone can be a star this way.


[edit: modified to make my post more neutral]

[Mega Byte]

C-64, my earlier comment was, you said "Show me a player that has all humans that's #1, and that's a player who deserves to be there".  My response was, both #1 (Piete) and #2 (You) in particular both share that in common.  I live in Tokyo.  When I'm on and playing, I have very few people to pick from.  So, should I be punished because not so many people on the site?  I can see right now 1 game on, and 6 people logged in.  This is my evening (10:00pm)...

[data2008]

I think a "Daily Top" would actually encourage more people to play.  People want recognition.  It encourages more people to play, so they can have their name seen in lights.
-S

So you have been heard... we proudly present
The Weekly Top Ten.   

[C64 nostalgia]

AI's make it far too easy to win. Show me a player with a high win/loss ratio without AI's in their games, and I see a player that deserves respect. Winning those games required skill and talent. MULE is predictable and stale with AI's. Only humans perform complex planning and execution, in an effort, to win. This human ability makes a relatively simple game addictive. Humans make MULE a classic.

I firmly stand behind what I said. AI's are very predictable. Therefore, playing with them makes winning much easier. Thus, to encounter penalties and/or exclusions from playing with AI's is fair.

C-64, my earlier comment was, you said "Show me a player that has all humans that's #1, and that's a player who deserves to be there [sic]".  My response was, both #1 (Piete) and #2 (You) in particular both share that in common.  I live in Tokyo.  When I'm on and playing, I have very few people to pick from.  So, should I be punished because not so many people on the site?  I can see right now 1 game on, and 6 people logged in.  This is my evening (10:00pm)...

Using my 2nd place ranking as the basis for your argument is flawed. The current ranking system suffers greatly from the tendency of the more games you play, the higher your ranking. This makes it extremely difficult for new players to have top-tier rankings regardless of their ability. So, I am ranked 2nd, but I have also played more tournament games than anyone else. I do not consider my ranking to be valid because of this correlation. I hope no one else gives my ranking much credit, either.

As far as "punished": I presume, most everyone has trouble starting games at one time or another. I routinely wait (sometimes for long periods of time) to have enough players to start a game. Unfortunately in my experience, waiting to play on Planet MULE is a given rather than an exception, regardless of the number of players online. Additionally, people have not played with me because of my high ranking. That is their choice. Do I consider myself punished because I wait to play without AI's? I could, but I don't.


Last, nothing of what I've written singles you, Mega Byte, out specifically. My thoughts are what I believe. Parts of what I advocate will affect some more than others. That is the nature of measurement. I'm glad you voiced your opinion. Everyone should have a chance to be heard. Ultimately, it seems some voting will be a good idea. My only goal is to help create a better ranking system. So, I voice my opinion. However, my opinion is only my point of view. But, it is certainly not the truth or necessarily the best way to do something.


[edit: proofing]

[piete]

I like the new weekly ranking, I even made it to the 10th place on Tuesday morning!

Another quick ranking update (although it will mean that I'll lose my top position immediately looking at the number of games some people are still able to play  ) could be version-wise high scores (you could be able to see all old version-wise high-score lists and of course maintain the (current default) "all-time" high score list, but I think the default high-score should be for the current version).

What C64 nostalgia wrote about requirements for games to be ranked, I agree on the starting requirement, only humans (although this would be fairer when other than winner got points too and having ai's would decrease those points) but I still disagree on the requirement that the game should finish with two players. I already said it before, but if there are only 2 players left, the second player could just be nasty and disconnect in order the winning player not to get the point. So the winning player did nothing wrong, spent 1,5 hours and would not even be rewarded for his good game that he thought he would finish with 3 other human players in the beginning.

[Big Head Zach]

I think he was possibly referring to a tactic in which multiple accounts are used, and a game with several "humans" is started, then all but one of the humans "misfortunately disconnects", leaving one user to play against 3 AIs.

[Rhodan]

What if you had three separate ranks by the number of human players. In other words three separate ranks for 4 player, 3 player and 2 player. Start a 4 player game and if one drops out the game is rank in the 3 player tier and so forth. This might resolved some of the issues being discussed here and it would definitely make it easier to judge the strength of a player by his 3 separate ranks. You could still have a overall combined game rank.  So to recap you would end up with 4 different rankings. One rank each  for 4, 3, and  2 player games and a 4th overall combined rank.

[C64 nostalgia]

I'm not sure what this would be like on the back-end, but it would be interesting to have a separate ranking(s) for the best cooperative MULE game. I guess making teams and taking the highest colony score would be all that's needed. I'm not sure... but that's my rough idea.

[data2008]

we plan for a complete overhaul of the ranking system.
that said, currently all our time is spent on modding pm1 with ideas suggested in the "future of mule" board.

[maskdbandt]

unfortunately having so many different rankings just makes it hard to read and a busy interface... i think that starting with 4 humans is the only real option because people will leave for whatever reason... however if the host kicks when they didn't get a message saying not responding or waiting a couple minutes, then it should also not be ranked... i agree with piete that people would start disconnecting at the end if they knew that would make it so the other player would not get credit for the win

when are the high scores going to be reset?  i heard about this and felt i would just as soon know when and how often they are reset before trying to make it back up the rankings... honestly i don't care much for playing with newbs because it's not much fun... i like playing against people that know what they're doing... i'm sorry if that hurts people that are trying to start out but why should i waste 1.5 hours of my time if i'm not having fun... now if i'm really itching to play a game, i'll play with whoever but there is nothing more frustrating then trying to teach someone and then they quit after a round or two to have an AI take over their spot

[piete]

What I think would help bring more people to the site, and motivate them to play is a daily/monthly/annual/all-time scoring system.

If the only way you can ever get to number 1 is winning the most games, then anyone who didn't start playing in December 2009 is pretty much screwed at this point.

I second to weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual/all-time ranking (daily is maybe ott, not that many players must play more than 1-2 games per day)

Looking at the number of daily games for some players, it seems that I was wrong...

[trouba]

A wild idea - why not to have multiple ranks? One for all games, one for non-AI games, for four-players games, etc etc... It should not be hard to implement, and let the user choose which rank should be displayed on top of the web page.

[piete]

... The current ranking system suffers greatly from the tendency of the more games you play, the higher your ranking. This makes it extremely difficult for new players to have top-tier rankings regardless of their ability.

Well, maybe extremely difficult but not impossible, look at the number of games that for example kipley and rhodan play (and win)! I sincerely hope kipley gets a job asap!

[kipley]

I sincerely hope kipley gets a job asap!

How did you know that I was unemployed?  Oh, right, all the mule gaming pretty much gives it away....

[Rhodan]

FYI for Mr Piete because he has my respect as a player of our beloved game.

I work a 56 hour week. I have three grade school children and my fiancee has her three grade school children who live with me. I am able to play during the day while they are at school and in the evening when they are asleep, Eastern Standard Time. Unfortunately, none of the children are old enough to grasp the intricacies of Mule to be able to play with us. And the fiancee? well I spend to much time playing Mule and farmville on facebook is about all she can grasp which is fine by me. I doubt she could handle me denying her food and energy that she has come so accustomed too.
As for me, I first played Mule briefly on the atari when it first came out then extensively on the C64 when it made it to that system.