Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Manipulation of the Rating System of the 2007-2008 Season

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GinoLombardi21

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Ok we all know how this year you could get a worlds invite threw priemier rating. So after Regionals most of the top players with huge rating had fear of playing in battle roads of 32k events because a win gets you about 4/8 points while a loss is 25+ points. So overall it wasnt worth it.

(From experience I played in 1 Battle Road, I was 1955. I went 4-1. I was 1957 after the tournament. I gained 2 points and one of my matches was from cross age divisions because of the small attendance.)


Now some people just put a beat down on some battle roads with bunch of flunkies in it and gained X pts for there rating. Which would skyrocket them because no one was playing in battle roads to fear of losing points. As we know POP wants to continue the premier rating invite system for worlds 2008.

With having a huge rating. You could choose to not play in a tournament and just wait and see that no one will pass you. Then you grab a invite threw rating.

POP has made Battle Roads 8k for next year so you cant go lets say 30-0 and gain 300-350 pts. You'd gain about 120 maybe 175 tops. It also makes a loss not hurt you. Because you only lose 8 points max.

The thing im realizing is you can still manipluate the rating invite system.

1- Do good early in Battle Roads
2- X-0 at cities
3- Then for the rest of the year play 1-3 rounds in a tournament and drop.
4- The aftermath with 8 premier rating invites is your more likely to get in if you do this.

Another way is

1- Dont show up for the first 2-3 rounds of the tournament
2- When you dont show up for a round you dont lose any rating points(You still get losses but you dont lose any premier rating points)
3- Play in a round when your 0-2+ and your almost guarenteed cupcake matches for the rest of the tournament and easy pts.

IMO this is just slapping sotg in the face due to like "win, but in a almost cheat manner". Heres some suggests I think will help make next years season more enjoyable.

1- Make cities k value less
2- Make premier rating a last resort not a motive.(Give more invites not threw primier rating)
3- Do a Pro Points System


I like how POP does everything but if you see something out of hand broken prevention is key. Make next season more enjoyable then what it was this year. Lets get better not worse.

Thoughts?
 
k value for cc's and br's are critical, even if it's very little, so don't even consider that.

I am a HUE advocate of pro points. Personally I'm not sure how POP would want to do it if they ever did, but a system where you can only gain (and never lose) is a VERY positive way to keep people from ever sitting out at events.

Last of all, I agree that premier rankings should be a last resort. For example, my friend Jordan did all of the following in the 15+ back in 2005:

-2nd at three GC's
-3rd at a GC
-T32 Nats when trips trickled all the way to 17th place.
-4-1 grinder
-4th at a regional where 3rd got a trickle down

As you can tell, in all worlds qualifying situations except a single GC (6/7 tournies), he missed the invite by one place each time...that season, he was truly worthy of a wildcard/"last resort" spot, and I'm certain he would've benefitted off of a pro points system.

Even without a pro point system, points should NEVER be lost in a top cut for any reason. Otherwise, you'll *sigh* once again have situations where people who MISS the cut end up gaining for the day, while people who MAKE the cut lose points.
 
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you're assuming the TO will let you into the tourney 2 or 3 rounds in. not to mention that i'd guess you MIGHT get away with that ONCE...but show a pattern of it? you think POP is stupid?

*facepalms*

nice topic :rolleyes:

'mom
 
I feel there needs to be a way to lose points. As much as it would sound good to never have to worry about losing points, it would benefit those that can go to the maximum amount of tournaments. Even though those people are already benefiting from it, when you throw in the luck in this game and the chance you could lose because of luck and lose a good amount of points, there is some downside to going to the maximum number of tournaments. Toss out losing points altogether and the people who go to Worlds each year won't be the best players, or the ones that won the biggest tournaments. The ones that will go to Worlds that year will be the ones who had the $$$ to go to every tournament possible.

Let's keep the 'losing points' aspect. It keeps the system at least a little solid.

I feel there should be half the invites for rankings this year per age group. This year, there were 8 invites given out for rankings. That was more than any tournament this season gave out. So it was obvious which direction players were going to try to get a Worlds invite. Lower the invites, and it will lower the reason to focus directly on a rankings invite.

And I would like to see each regionals have it's own invite. But then I'd like to see all the Regionals happen on the same day too.

But yeah, going back to the main topic, there will always be ways to manipulate the system. Back in the day, POP had to enforce an 'One and Done' policy because players were manipulating the system. I wonder what POP will have to do now.
 
all regionals on the same day wont happen becuase there really arent enough judges to make that possible. but i do agree regionals need an invite. also, top8 at nats needs an invite with top4 for ranking, to ddiscourage manipulating the system by 3-0 dropping to get a 5-8 rating spot instead of playing it out
 
Now Prime, even if you disagree with the notion of a pro points system, do you disagree with the fact that it's outright wrong for a 3rd/4th place finisher to be punished by the rankings, while a fifth place finisher is rewarded at the same time?

More on topic, if a person is in a very good position to cheat the system by going into a tourney 0-2/0-3 with forced losses, then they will do it. 'Mom brings up some reasonable questions (will a TO even let that person play, will they get away with it again, etc...), but the truth of the matter is that unless POP blatantly bans entering a tourney 0-2 (or bans doing that for a certain ranking level), then this would be just like stalling: people know it's abuse and know it's wrong, yet the system does NOTHING to correct it.
 
I really wonder if there's a way to ensure accurate match reporting and calculation. Because really, blind ranking would eliminate all these problems...
 
An interesting idea is to eliminate point loss once you make the top cut. It seems dumb to be better off going 4-2 miss than 4-2 and then first round loss in top cut, or the classic top 8 > 4th place.
 
or you could just stop trying to cheat your way into worlds and simply play pokemon and have fun, with the invite a bonus if you do well
 
I do think something should be done about points in top cut. Since you're essentially playing for the prizes at stake at that point, I think it would make sense to do away with the point swings. Hopefully it would deter people from going 3-0 drop at events (which in turn affects their opponent's win %.)
 
Good to see there's a VERY large camp of people who think that 5th>4th is completely absurd. However, the right way to approach this is not to eliminate ALL point shifts...POP should eliminate all point LOSSES in top cuts, but KEEP the gains.

For what should be the last nail in the coffin as far as doubt goes, here's what the unadjusted system (aka ours) looks like:

[16 person CC, T4 cut, assuming the undefeated person wins the tourney. This also assumes that every ranking in the event is equal]

1 6-0 with a LARGE day gain
1 4-2 with a moderate day gain
2 3-2 with hardly any gain at all
1 3-1 with a moderate day gain

Many of you can see that 3rd and 4th place will, 90+% of the time, see a measly point gain, or even a point LOSS, while the 3-1 gets away with a nice amount of points for the day. Illegitimate!

[assuming undefeated gets second]

2 5-1 with above average point gains
2 3-2 with hardly any gain at all
1 3-1 with a moderate day gain

Same as the first example, only the fifth place finisher is homing in on the competition...yikes!

[assuming undefeated loses R1]

1 5-1
1 4-1
1 4-2
1 3-2
1 3-1

Jeepers! Now, the guy who MISSED the cut is gaining almost as much as the fellow who WON the whole thing, and is even closer to gaining more than the second place finisher!

As you can see, in EVERY situation, someone is losing a crapload compared to the fifth place. Most of us already know this simply by playing in/running tournaments, but by now, if you've read this post, you should be very aware of how bad this is for a system so bound to ranking invites.

Now, you may be wondering what it would be like for the adjusted system...it isn't that hard: just take these numbers I showed you, only negate the point loss.

Scenario one: 6-0, 4-1, 3-1, 3-1.
Scenario two: 5-0, 5-1, 3-1, 3-1
Scenario three: 4-0, 5-1, 3-1, 3-1

Now, notice a few things:

-people who performed well in swiss (the undefeateds) will get rewarded for the accomplishment, no matter how they do in the cut. The incentive, though, is that they stand to gain "more" points by winning more.

-people who lose early will NOT take more of a hit than the people who miss the cut by resistance.

-over time, while it may seem like giving first seeds who lose the first round a 100% win record in the rankings is a bit unfair, they still don't gain enough points usually to outdo the first place, or possibly even the second place. Getting first seed and losing is just as hard as winning an event, so it's more of a crime to punish top cut finishers than to reward a stellar swiss record.
 
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even worse is the fact that in some situations, 12th > 6th. two things solve this, imo: eliminate point loss in top cut as previously stated, and limit the amount of events a player can get points for.
 
Now Prime, even if you disagree with the notion of a pro points system, do you disagree with the fact that it's outright wrong for a 3rd/4th place finisher to be punished by the rankings, while a fifth place finisher is rewarded at the same time?

The system might not award everything perfectly, but even in a perfect world, the system would not award everything perfectly. There would always be the instance where something just doesn't make sense or it shouldn't be a certain way.

I don't disagree that 5th place shouldn't benefit more than 4th place, all I am saying is that if you take the losing points aspect out of the system, the system will...how do I put it...be really messed up. Every year, worlds invites will not be given out to those that won the biggest tournaments, but to those that went to the most tournaments. How will you justify a person going to 10 cities, and 20 BR's and 3 states ending up with a higher ranking than the person who top 4's two regionals, finals 3 states, and wins nats? This works with my first statement. There will never be the perfect system.

Lowering the value for BR's drastically was the first step in the right direction. Let's not throw out the system before seeing what other actions POP/PUI is going to take this season.
 
Not exactly. Or not to the same extent as it would if the above scenario happened.

This year, there were some people that did really well at a medium amount of tournaments that got an invite. Sure, most had to go to a lot of tournaments, but it wasn't as black or white on if you made it in.

If the above scenario ever happened, 99.9% of the players in the game would have no chance of getting an invite to Worlds at the start of the season because of the 0.1% of the players that could afford to go to every battle road, every city, every state, every regional possible. And with no losing points, those players's ratings would climb so fast, a player who won every tournament they played in and played in a medium amount of tournaments would have no chance of catching up.

It'd be like this year only 10 times as worse. At the beginning of each season, each player would open up his or her wallet (or purse I guess) and check to see how much money they have in there. If they have enough, they get to go to Worlds, regardless of how tough the actual tournaments they do well at are.

I'm exaggerating of course, and this is all pure speculation, but I do feel if the above scenario were to happen, players like yourself would WISH for a system like this year's. They actually would have a chance then.
 
I made a long post about this on the professor forums, so I'll shorten it to 2 major points here:

1. Pro Points should be used in favor of ELO. PUI already gives out prizes (worth thousands) based on a Swiss + Single Elimination format. Whatever rating system is used should make use of this same format.

2. Much Smaller Rating Zones. In the USA at least, each large state should be a seperate zone, and each small state *couchDelewarecough* should be absorbed into the larger ones. This would result in 20-ish rating zones in the US; each of these gets 1 or 2 invites based on size.

This one assumes (of course) that there will be enough available invites this year to do this.



There. Fixes every major problem the system this year had.
 
"But F_S, I live in California and it's not fair that Nationals is always held on the east side. The west side should get more invites to even it out!"

"F_S, HELP! The 2 invites we had in California were taken by players from Texas! That isn't fair!"

Can't fix every problem without creating new ones.
 
"But F_S, I live in California and it's not fair that Nationals is always held on the east side. The west side should get more invites to even it out!"

That is not a problem introduced by my idea. It is one already inherant in the system at present.



"F_S, HELP! The 2 invites we had in California were taken by players from Texas! That isn't fair!"

That actually is not a problem, as all "California" Invites will be won by California players. People in Texas (or where-ever) have no chance to win invites from other states.
 
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