A personal rating system

[Dieformason]

And as with any other cheat, that cloner would get a reputation. I'd rather weed out the occasional poser, just to have the other 95% ranked.

Agreed, plus anyone with a high score will be more likely to be attacked because their cities are worth more than someone who's new.

[sancheezy]

It just seems like you would be segregate long time friends (people with lower rankings) not wanting/able to play with higher ranked players.

You would also now cut down (even more) on the amount of active people in a world. You would have a lot of people not wanting to jump into a new world to simply not go down in rank. This should ultimately mean more active people (less semi-actives) but at the cost of EVEN LESS people in a world?

[LordFirefall]

It just seems like you would be segregate long time friends (people with lower rankings) not wanting/able to play with higher ranked players.

You would also now cut down (even more) on the amount of active people in a world. You would have a lot of people not wanting to jump into a new world to simply not go down in rank. This should ultimately mean more active people (less semi-actives) but at the cost of EVEN LESS people in a world?

I've been playing multi-player strategy games for close to 30 years. Players will join because they think they have what it takes to beat those high ranking players.

[Dieformason]

I agree with fire, people love to climb to the top.

Also not every world would be seperated by the players skill level just the lone wolf worlds. However points would be earned in all worlds

[sancheezy]

I've been playing multi-player strategy games for close to 30 years. Players will join because they think they have what it takes to beat those high ranking players.

30 years...hm...I don't seem to recall someone joining AD&D with a level 1 cleric to take on someone's really cool level 30 knight :P I really don't think people join to take on the highest ranked players, I think they join to have a rewarding gaming experience.

While I agree SOME people join to take on the highest ranked players, what about the other side of that coin? Leaderboards serve as a disincentive to some new players by the fact that they will never become a "top ranked player" and wont even pick up the game with a leader board present and a huge gap between a new player and the top dogs (someone already asked about being to hide their leaderboard stats which is somewhat telling). Again I think the bulk of people join to invest some time (and money) and have a rewarding experience for that.

A personal rating system goes against the team mentality of the game. While it should help with clean-up phase and keeping people active then. It will also have a lot of additional players simply playing for themselves and not helping that smaller guild mate out to simply climb "the board".

Now an all time KST (KSA/KSD), cities captured, win and time spent in game leaderboard would be something that would be more interesting in my onion. But that would be more for informational purposes only.

[LordFirefall]

Back when I started, it was D&D. AD&D had a few years before it would come out. However, my experience with ranking systems comes from an old BBS game called VGAPlanets. Some of the hosting systems we used had a ranking system very similar to what Mason has suggested. I had approximately 500 active players on the one I hosted (which was considering a large host back then) and the ranking system was right behind host reliability among my players when it came to reasons they chose to play on my site.

While some may shy away from going head to head against higher ranked players, most will not. Gamers are naturally competitive and like to think they have what it takes to reach the top rank. As far as hiding your ranking, that speaks to not wanting to be a target. Players do the same with their badges, but most do not. Regarding it going against the team concept, if the Crowns are doing their jobs, you won't have the lone wolf problem.

[Benfrom300]

i hide my titles in the first week or so in a world because people look at guildmasters and lick their lips... its a gift and a curse to have a bloodstone medal lol.

[sancheezy]

Back when I started, it was D&D. AD&D had a few years before it would come out.

I was wondering if you would take that low hanging fruit! Thanks for not disappointing :P

However, my experience with ranking systems comes from an old BBS game called VGAPlanets. Some of the hosting systems we used had a ranking system very similar to what Mason has suggested. I had approximately 500 active players on the one I hosted (which was considering a large host back then) and the ranking system was right behind host reliability among my players when it came to reasons they chose to play on my site.

While some may shy away from going head to head against higher ranked players, most will not. Gamers are naturally competitive and like to think they have what it takes to reach the top rank. As far as hiding your ranking, that speaks to not wanting to be a target. Players do the same with their badges, but most do not. Regarding it going against the team concept, if the Crowns are doing their jobs, you won't have the lone wolf problem.

I agree with a global leader board I guess I just question if an elo style system is best. I feel an elo system favors a more closed end game (such as your VGAPlanets example of 500). Having new people continually coming in at the median (1600 in the example) would mean that the players that have been around longer would all have significantly higher ratings than they possibly should. Its a disincentive for the people that drop below the average. Also, could someone rest their overall position (possibly if they elected to change their name)? If this was the case I could see it being a more compelling argument but again raise the overall average of players until the bulk of the "actives" were ALL rated very very highly.

If they fall to an extremely low tier I think that the work to just get back to a median level might prove to be monumental for some and possibly not worth the effort. When would people fall off the elo system or would they be kept in their bands in perpetuity?

I agree with the concept of assigning achievements points (or some value to certain stats) and possibly having a global leader board to show overall Valor greatness (converting KST, victories, cities captured and some other important factors of this nature as laid out earlier) into say Victory points or Conquest points and ranking people (with no cap) on their overall achievements in the game since they started.

Again I like the personal leaderboard concept just not (personally) sure on an elo system yet for this type of game :-/

[LordFirefall]

That's the beauty of and elo rating system. New entrants will rise or drop to their actual skill after time in game. If they are very skilled, they will climb fast.

Regarding reset, the easiest is to start a new account. However, even if they don't restart, if they focus on live players they can dig themselves out in time, because most players will be higher points than them (earning 5 points, vice 3 for most LCs they take).

[Dieformason]

I'd like to get an admins view on this if they still check the forums