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I've been having a running argument about this. I contend that an ELO system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system ) would be much better for determining the strength of any particular player than a points-based system. Tournament winners could still be decided by points, but national rankings would be ELO. Let's face it, most Rankings HQ standings are based on quantity of play not quality of opponent. ELO systems would stop rewarding people for clubbing baby seals.

I dont think the Rankings HQ people will change much at all. But the good thing to come out of Rankings HQ is a definitive place to see past tournament coverage.

Its a shame that the GW GT coverage is mostly lost.

I personally know and play against the guys who started Rankings HQ and the system has been used for at least 5 years here in Australia for initially WHFB tourneys and later 40K ones, before being formalised under the Rankings HQ website.

It has allowed us to work out which players get invites to the 'Masters' where the top players play against each other.
And that was its aim - to rank tourney players so they can work out the best.

I've yet to see a bad player get high enough to get in, no matter how many tourneys they play at.

There are problems with it, but it is a system refined over many years.

There's not enough regular head to head gaming between any players nationally for elo or really any ranking system to have a place. I do not know many who put stock in US standing on rankings HQ ... it is still a useful tool, however, in terms of tracking and proving the veracity of people who make boastful claims about their GT experiences.

Very true mvbrandt, but what about in a small country? A one day, threebgamebtournament aginst top players should be more important for rankings than a five round tournament where my first two opponents are not old enough to drive. An elo system would also allow one-off competitive games to affect ratings. Would be hard to implement though.

Some people use ELO in small scale situations, like KN in Cali. It works, I suppose, as long as you have consistency and enough inter-player games from in the system.

I don't think 40k really caters itself to it, though. I play a more competitive group of players in my local gaming group than almost anyone I've ever run into at a regional or grand tournament. The "Best" 40k players are not all running around playing in tourneys to begin with, so the purpose of ranking system is difficult to evaluate. Not to be cynical, of course.

I was excited about rankings HQ here in the states after hearing about how it's used down in NZ from the guys at Battlefront. I sort of lost interest though when they made Overlord3 such a stupidly high price for the software. I don't mind buying a piece of software, but having to pay for it based on how many people come to your tournament is just ridiculous.

olympia wrote:I've been having a running argument about this. I contend that an ELO system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system ) would be much better for determining the strength of any particular player than a points-based system. Tournament winners could still be decided by points, but national rankings would be ELO. Let's face it, most Rankings HQ standings are based on quantity of play not quality of opponent. ELO systems would stop rewarding people for clubbing baby seals.

Surely the answer would be to base the draws for the first couple of rounds on rankings rather than being random -

for example, split the players in the tournament into those in the top 50 in the rankings and the rest

Round 1 any players in the top 50 in the rankings are paired randomly together and anyone outside the top 50 in the rankings is paired randomly.
Round 2 any players in the top 50 in the rankings are Swiss paired against each other based on the 1st round results, players outside the top 50 are Swiss paired against each other based on 1st round scores
Round 3 resort to strict Swiss pairing based on the results of the first two rounds

This should reduce the amount of chump bashings in the first round. In the second round players from the top 50 in the rankings who got a pasting in the first round can't get paired against a chump and so don't get a free trampoline back up the rankings thanks to playing someone from lower down who also got a pasting. Likewise, someone from outside the top 50 who got a good result in their first game doesn't suddenly find themselves facing off against a top player.

This game is already not going to have the same rulings every tournament you go to, not even considering that it takes too long to play a single full game to get a comprehensive look at which player is absolutely better or that the terrain is random from game to game and changes the odds of everything. I just don't see any system working, honestly without changing game systems first.

I think a better question is 'who cares, it's a bit of fun that doesn't really matter to anyone?'

MVBrandt wrote:Some people use ELO in small scale situations, like KN in Cali. It works, I suppose, as long as you have consistency and enough inter-player games from in the system.

I don't think 40k really caters itself to it, though. I play a more competitive group of players in my local gaming group than almost anyone I've ever run into at a regional or grand tournament. The "Best" 40k players are not all running around playing in tourneys to begin with, so the purpose of ranking system is difficult to evaluate. Not to be cynical, of course.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:This game is already not going to have the same rulings every tournament you go to, not even considering that it takes too long to play a single full game to get a comprehensive look at which player is absolutely better or that the terrain is random from game to game and changes the odds of everything. I just don't see any system working, honestly without changing game systems first.

We use it for our circuit but I sanction all games submitted to ensure that everyone is playing by the same rules, using the same missions and scoring tournaments the same way. If they weren't doing that then the rankings probably wouldn't mean much.

But yeah consistency is important. Having a standard is important if you care about these sorts of things.