FFG Forum Archive

Posted at Jan 2, 2016

Well, we did it guys.

The 2015 X Wing Vassal ELO Ranking system has ran its course. It started off strong, disappeared somewhere in the middle, and through some revival efforts by some random white dude (and some incentive from the TC Aces league) made some sort of comeback. I'm gonna do my best to summarize!

Summary of Standings!

Here's Top 10:

Great job to all the players that put in the games, and congratulations to the players who ended up in the top! Matt Shadowlord's 25W 2L record sure does look un-touchable (I tried and failed myself). Of course, hats off to Blairbunke with 26W 5L, that's also a lot of wins and very few losses (I DID give him one of them

). Everyone else in the Top 10 looks pretty cool too(16W-6L, 20W-9L, 13W-2L, 7W-0L, 15W-7L, 7W-2L, 8W-3L, 17W-13L), great job everyone, those are some impressive records!

The rest of the standings can be found here: http://www.challengeboards.net/boards/standings/2167

I think Mr Sunol and myself (Phildo) had an unspoken rivalry to get to the top spot for the chance to enter the TC Aces League, though even though we made the climb to the top, it looks like we missed our window on that! I was actually working on challenging him, and maybe streaming the match, though with holiday schedules and time zone differences, it wasn't much more than a pipe dream. Mr Sunol is a great player and it would've been a good match to play/watch! However, hats off to Mu0n for getting the chance to join the TC Aces through your ELO standings, though! He held his great record for quite a while. He only dropped his 1608 rating recently as he snuck in some additional games before the end of the year.

Of course, it's not ALL about the record. A lot of what this system was trying to accomplish was giving players an outlet for slightly more competitive games. Games where there was something on the line, where you couldn't just get bored halfway through and go do something else. I applaud and thank all players who signed up and played games! This was something that I desperately needed since I rarely have time for myself until 9:00 pm, and can't really make the drive to an FLGS to get games in that late. Thanks to all for my sake, and I hope you all got at least something out of it.

My own ELO Standings and Experience:

I feel great about my ending record of 16W 6L, rating 1628. Though, I had to play and win 2 very tough games late night on Dec. 30 against tigayo to jump from 1608 and match Mr Sunol at 1628. Thank goodness tigayo had hopped on Vassal and was willing to play ELO games to test Store Championship lists.

I also want to give props to KDubbs for some 2 really tough matches that ultimately ended in my defeat. My favorite was:

Kdubb's list:

Wedge + Swarm Tactics + R2 + Integrated Astromech

3 x Rookie + R2 + Integrated Astromech

My List:

Soontir Fel + PTL + SD + AT + title

Carnor Jax + PTL + SD + AT + title

Sigma + FCS + Agent Kallus + Stygium Particle Accelerator

Kdubb won it by lining up great overlapping arcs, never splitting up his ships to try and 1v1 an Interceptor, having extra defense from IA, using Swarm Tactics to prevent PS kills, and by actually rolling average evades with a T-65 X Wing (unprecedented, I know). I even took out one Rookie in round 1 with range 3 shots where I got all the reds and he got all the blanks (prior to his average evades kicking in

). Soontir tried his heart out to win it vs 3 remaining wounded X Wings (including Wedge), but finally got blocked and taken out

. He beat me again with different lists a week later, I think this guy is my kryptonite.

Besides this match, there were quite a few that went into my favorite matches played folder. Very few were easy, everyone brought their A - Game, which is EXACTLY what I had hoped for!

I was also able to recruit 6-10 or so players by just asking people on Vassal if they'd be interested. Strangely enough, most of my losses were from these new ELO members coming in with solid lists and bringing a surprising level of skill! Most of these players went on to play at least a few more ELO games in the short time frame they had. Not surprisingly, it was usually the new ELO members that suffered early losses that didn't get as many games in.

Closing thoughts on X-Wing Vassal using the Challenge Boards ELO system:
1. A lot of new players joined in the last 3 months, which was great! It seems our players are eager to play competitive games outside of tournaments. It didn't take me much more than showing players this system existed, and they would join.

2. However, joining has never been the problem, seeing as we ended with 167 players in the league. The real issue has been trying to get a large # of ELO games played. After all, it's really only with a large sample size that this sort of system actually works as intended. It seems players are a bit hesitant to ask for ELO games, or maybe are a bit nervous to play a game that might tarnish their record. I know it certainly feels MUCH worse to lose a game when something is on the line (feels similar to losing in the elimination rounds of a tourney) when instead you can just play an un-ranked against the same person. Committing to an ELO match also means coming into a match with a squad you are confident with, and in a mental state to play some serious X Wing, which can be tough at the odd hours of the day we get on Vassal. There were also only a limited number of ELO players active at any one time and testing your skills against the same player or against someone playing the same squad can get pretty dull pretty fast, especially if said player tends to beat you So, I understand why it is tough to find someone who is looking for the exact same thing as you at the exact time.This is why I'm thinking any system like this would be best if there was incentive to play more games.

3. To increase activity, I think the simplest and most effective step would be to institute some sort of ELO Decay. Players will have incentive to play more games if they lose some ranking after a month of inactivity or something. A ranking system like this really only works if a large number of games are played, after all. I mean no offense to players who joined early, got in a lot of games, then went inactive. It's not really your fault, the system has some faults that caused it to go dead for quite some time.

4. Lastly, I wish there was a better way for this system to remove all shady possibilities, or at least make them more difficult. I know it's all casual, and I have no inkling that the Vassal community is above using the honor system. But sometimes, entering a win against a new ELO member feels weird, since it isn't impossible to con the system, especially when I didn't see that player get on vassal again for quite some time. I sometimes considered not entering a match just because people might think I'm not being truthful or something. Even entering my last matches against tigayo on the last day felt weird (especially because he didn't verify them! I swear they happened though!!!!).

Maybe another ranking system exists besides challengeboards.net that we Vassal X Wingers can use that allows players to attach files, like the log files from the matches. Then maybe, an official X Wing Vassal ELO TO can be put in place to approve the matches by verifying the log files or by just being on Vassal pretty often to view games. Maybe it could be a community wide verification, so that players that might have watched the match can get on and approve the results or something. This is sort of stepping out of the realm of a casually competitive system, I know, but I think if we ever want it to grow (if that's something the community actually wants). At that point though, we might as well run a league!

Random Stats:

167 Players signed up

118 Players played at least 1 Game

710 Total Matches Played

355 total Wins

355 total Losses (Who knew math makes sense)

Highest rating achieved = 1742

Lowest rating achieved = 1385

(starting rating for all players is 1500)

Longest streak = 12 Wins

Most Wins = 28

Most Losses = 15

21 Players had 0-1 record

9 Players had 1-0 record

This means 88 of 118 (75%) of players played and reported more than 1 game!

Also, the standings bracket copies and pastes really easily into excel. I always applaud when things work out like I expect them to.

Will we start this again?

I don't know, maybe. There is soon to be a Reddit League started, which will be pretty large, also this year will have TONS of Store Championship events, so at least January - March will be packed for a lot of players. So, maybe the ELO system won't be needed, who knows. If anyone really liked it and wants to continue, make sure you let me know.

Special last minute thanks that I almost forgot about:

Thanks Stmack for starting this and being the original champion, and hopefully I didn't cause any grief by just jumping in, haha! I just really wanted to more of it!

Edited January 2, 2016 by phild0