[tetrinext] Scoring revisited

[Jared Johnson <solomon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

greetings,

i think i've just found the best way to do individual and team scoring; and i'm
pretty sure there's a way to do individual scoring in a team game with this, as
well.

let's go back to what I was saying about the rating system used in the game of
Chess.  you can find information on this rating system at:

http://www.uschess.org/ratings/info/system.html

This rating system is simply the coolest around for two player games and thus
has been adopted by alot of sites that host games like chess, backgammon, yada
yada.  It's based on probability:  a player's rating represents the best 
possible
estimate of the player's ability to win.  A player that is rated 100 points
higher than his opponent has an estimated better chance of beating the 
opponent. 
This is exactly what we want, except that there are possibly 6 or even more 
people
playing against each other at once.

Then it occured to me:  tetrinet is primarily a game of survival.  Though there
is no clear winning or losing aside from first and last place, if I outlive a
player, I have beat him.  So, by that logic, anyone that I outlive is considered
someone who I have beat, and anyone who outlives me is considered to be someone
that I have lost to.  In this way, you can boil it back down to wins and losses
and thus use the same method to rate players as the method used in Chess.  This
means that a player's rating reflects as well as possible that player's ability
to WHOOP YOU =)

The same method can be used in team play, by simply averaging together the
ratings of the players in each team and considering each team to be a seperate
entity with that average rating.  I think it would be best to use the average of
every player that is on that team (assuming that we have control over teams, as
someone was suggesting a bit ago), and not just use the ratings of the players 
that
are playing -- this would make for a very erratic score for the team.  Obviously
the rating system for teams requires alittle more thought.

There are a few disadvantages I can see with this.  First, I still haven't
figured out how to adjust an individual player's rating based on the results of 
a
team game using this model.  I think that this can probably be done though, if
some other people will just think about it alittle =)

Also, I don't know if it is objectionable to assume that the player that came
in 2nd has beat the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th players.  Personally I think this
makes sense but i don't know if everyone would consider that fair.

Okay, that's my $0.02.  Somebody please make some suggestions for alternative
systems or enhancements to this system.  And be sure to read that link above to
find information on just what that scoring system is!

-- 
Jared Johnson
solomon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

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