After results are one year old they are only worth 75% of the original value, after two years they are only worth 50% of the original value, after 3 years, they are worthless.
Funny how many times “just play for fun” is mentioned, and yet, here you are making new rules because you care about the rankings.
Can we stop pretending points is not, atleast to some degree, part of the fun?
And since that’s the case, you are now making sure less people will travel for events. I for one have already decided not to go to two tournaments I planned to, because I think it’s ridiculous to punish people for being active. I have just been to an event in Finland - lots of people said they would no longer play classics. Way to go 
I would prob. end up around 100 % excess if I kept playing as much as I do - i’m already at 60 % and I have only played pinball for 17 months (imagine if I had 3 years of tournaments?). When you know 100 % of your points will be reduced, you just lose motivation and might aswell go and have fun at the local arcade instead - we’re just playing for fun anyways, so why not?
Another idea (this will still have some problems with people staying out of tough fields and classics, but atleast it’s a better option imo):
Why don’t you just boost points a bit instead for having a good eff%?
As an example, divide eff% by 200 +1 and multiply with the top 15/20 results.
So, a player with 1000 points and 50 % eff. would be ((50/200)+1)*1000 = 1250
And, a player with 1000 points and 10 % eff. would be ((10/200)+1)*1000 = 1050
That way, you would still benefit from being better than those playing lots of tournaments, but you would not actually punish people for playing.
You could even make it more extreme and only divide by 100 (so it would be 1500 and 1100), for all i care, just don’t punish people for participating in tournaments.
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Not to be pedantic, but isn’t this the exact same result with nothing more than a semantic difference? Either way, you’re ranked higher for having a higher efficiency percentage and “punished” (which I find a pretty ridiculous word to use here) for playing more and not doing as well.
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I’m going to go ahead and jump off the bandwagon and point out that … holy effing hell, FINALLY. I try not to fuss too much (except about losing pingolf) but if there’s one change that the rankings have needed, for probably a decade now, this is it. Thank you Josh!
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I talked to someone who said they were now planning on going to three more tournaments since finding out about this change, so we’ll count that as a net +1 with the two you’re skipping.
I also heard from a bunch of people that are now more interested in playing classics with the lines being shorter from all the people no longer playing classics. We’ll call this a push
We’re not punishing people for being active. We’re punishing people who show to be wildly inconsistent in their play. There are plenty of very active players out there who play at a consistent enough level that they will see no adjustment. I could throw example after example after example out, but I also don’t expect people who don’t want to hear that to ever actually hear that.
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Nah, I don’t think it’s the same. Keep how much you play out of it, and focus on how well you do instead.
Anyways, my oppinion doesn’t really matter, also I’m having trouble making myself completely clear in a second language - so, i’ll just leave this thread and hope the new rules will be beneficial for the community.
I am also now starting to see the potential issue of looking at players excessive play to calculate how much of the total WPPR points should be adjusted.
It would indeed be a shame if players started to go to less tournaments and therefore not supporting the scene as much as they would like to.
Also, would the average amount of reasonable play be adjusted over time if these numbers change?
Then if more players play less tournaments, that average would be lowered and therefore the risk of having excessive play getting higher?
So those players would then again play even less?
Of course all this is still just speculations, as we don’t know how it would play out.
But I am starting to understand some players concern a bit more.
I am all for trying to find a more accurate ranking, as not everyone has the same possibilities.
But then again, you still have to play for your rank to be judged.
It would just be a shame if we see people play less tournaments. (Yes, I know that was the same fear when implementing the dollar fee.)
Just realized they aren’t going to be reading the thread anymore so I’ve deleted my responses. Apologies.
It’s interesting that some people are so worried that bad results will harm them that they will no longer play as much. My attitude is that this is a kind of buffer against the “pump and dump” mentality. Though such qualifying tournaments will still exist, one can’t expand that to include trying to play every event to hope for a good result for their top 20.
I also find it ironic that some players will play in fewer classics. Those tournaments actually offer an expanded range of who can actually win or finish high given that the Eschers and RayDays are going to win most of the regular stuff.
The new rule changes also has the possibility to motivate you for the entire tournament even if you start poorly.
If you are scared of bad finishes, maybe this game isn’t right for you. Or perhaps you will look at future tournaments after a bad result as your opportunity to improve and try to offset your bad result. AND you might be overestimating just how much one bad result will hurt you. These rule changes, and correct me if I’m wrong, is to cull a distinct minority of players who play a ton, have some good solid finishes, but also have a slew of not so good ones. If you think that picking and choosing is really going to help you, I don’t think you will find playing less actually helps your skills or helps you finish more consistently. Only by changing how you play, the types of flipper skills you use and how good you are at using them, and game knowledge will do that. Then you will find you will raise your average finishes no matter where you play or what format it is.
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They also do finish well in Classics - out of all the Circuit events with attached Classics this year, top 5 players have won the majority of them (with the other two being won by other high caliber players in Andrew Rosa II and Elwin). Raymond just won Pinfest, which is probably the most classics-heavy circuit event on the roster. There’s still a lot of skill that is required to play Classics well - it might not be game state awareness like modern games, but flipper skills and good nudging transcends era and still is mostly skill from what I’ve seen in traveling over the years.
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If I understood the changes correctly, nothing in those actually motivates any player to play more. Instead there are two new reasons to think about which tournaments to participate in: Don’t go to tournaments where you have lower than usual chance to do well (lowers your Eff%) and don’t have too many tournaments in your resume (punishes you via excess WPPRtunity metric).
If even a single player changes their playing habits due to WPPR6, this change leads to reduced participation. And that should be totally fine and understandable. Proposing these changes, and then blaming it on players if they change their playing behaviour because of them, is not cool in my opinion. Even in this kind of not so serious, snarky wink-emoji included reply.
In my opinion it’s way more than 1,6% of the players who are impacted by this. All players out of top1000 now could be top1000 players in the future. Also everyone in top1000 might be affected at some point as the average WPPRtunity metric and each player’s Eff% keeps changing.
Therefore, especially when you go more public with the change, please be prepared with better arguments against concerns like this. And most importantly don’t put the blame on players about the possible negative effects.
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This statement is NOT TRUE.
As I mentioned earlier, and will continue to mention to stop misinformation from spreading . . .
The WPPRtunity stat has nothing to do with how often you play pinball. That calculation is based on two things:
- WPPR points on your top 20 card
- Your Eff%
So again, the number of tournaments you played in or the amount of WPPR’s you actually had a chance to earn are NOT included in this statistic. We’ll say it again again just to be clear, “it looks like play less pinball” is 100% incorrect. The amount of pinball you play has NOTHING to do with this stat.
Anytime you play above the level of your current Eff%, you will increase Stat #2, which is the denominator in the WPPRtunity formula. That in turn decreases your WPPRtunity amount even if that play has no impact on Stat #1.
Preparing my arguments against statements that aren’t true is going to be a tough battle on this one, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to manage.
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Thanks for your quick reply. I obviously still doesn’t understand the changes entirely so feel free to ignore that statement.
But isn’t the other half still a valid concern? Players may have a new reason to avoid certain events, where they feel that they are more likely to play bad than in some other events. For example avoiding limited entry qualifying vs unlimited, avoiding classics and playing only modern, etc.
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I’ve always thought unlimited entry tournament were naff. That rewards people for having a bigger wallet to qualify and has little to do with pinball skill, or ‘less’ to do with skill.
Why would one think they might do worse on a limited entry event? I am curious about what some players might consider avoidable tournaments feeling they are likely to do worse. If that were the case, you’d never leave your home venue, which would also mean your ranking actually means less because you don’t venture out. The great players aren’t likely to come to you.
And it seems people are upset AND don’t really understand the changes well.
I remember the days, about 2014 when a venue could only have one full ranked event a year, and monthlies were divide by 12 AND they were all considered separate results. So even a win would be a 2 pointer and we’d have to wait a year or two until those monthlies were combined into one result for your top 15/20, whatever it was.
There was an exception made that year I believe for Python fund raiser tournaments, some of which had turnouts of 6 people, and the winners were still getting 25+ points (25 was the base no matter the turnout or strength of field). We had some people vault up the rankings without really doing anything.
Plus we’ve had some clowns trying to game the system. I remember one TD, once we had the 25 meaningful games as a thing for 100% TGP have a finals that was “best of 13” or whatever just to get the most points in a very unethical way (assuming they even did a best of 13). Fortunately those things don’t have much of a chance to work these days.
The way the rankings work have been worked and reworked and is ever evolving. Time will tell, and we’ll need to see data, but I don’t see this having a negative impact at all. If you are 900 or 1100 and actually worry about maybe skipping something on purpose, I’d worry more about figuring out how to play better. If that sounds rude, that’s not my intention, but it’s a better focus. You don’t get better by avoiding tournaments you might do poorly in. It won’t prepare you for when you might get better and find yourself in a high pressure situation in Stern Circuit event or something.
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I think trying to answer the question as to why someone would feel like they are likely to play worse in some events than others is a tough one to answer.
Is that answer due to the volatility of the format itself?
Is that answer due to the players that are in the field?
Is that answer due to the games being used?
I’ve always found this to be an answer based on PERSPECTIVE.
If you are saying that someone is more likely to play bad at an event, does that mean that someone else is more likely to play BETTER at that same event?
For example, let me take my own perspective.
#1) I’d rather play Escher on Classics games than Modern games. I feel like I would have a better chance at a successful result.
#2) I’d rather play my kids on Modern games rather than Classic games. I feel like I would have a better chance at a successful result.
#3) I’d rather play formats with limited qualifying against Escher. I feel like I would have a better chance at a successful result.
#4) I’d rather play formats with unlimited qualifying against my kids. I feel like I would have a better chance at a successful result.
I’ve taken the same variable and assigned it as a “positive” in one scenario, and a “negative” in another scenario.
With all of that said, that analysis of ‘risk of finishing poorly in a tournament’ is something that players will have the opportunity to analyze in the future based on their own perspective. Should that analysis lead to them deciding to not play in specific events because of the tons of variables at play through that decision process . . . the best thing I can say at this point is that I’m fine letting that happen, and seeing just how widespread of an impact it’ll end up actually being on participation numbers in 2024.
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Couldn’t we just get rid of the old rule entirely and start including all players in the results again?
As Eff% starts to be a meaningful factor, in my opinion there shouldn’t be a way for any player to be able to exclude themselves from final results after the tournament has started. Even if you are outside of the current top1000.
This is widespread in many areas of life, not limited to pinball or competition in general.
Everyone who makes decisions has to contend with it. I think Josh does a pretty good job dealing with it overall.
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If you play in more events… and suck… you will be ranked accordingly.
If you play in more events… and don’t suck… you will be ranked accordingly.
I am not sure why people think there is some answer to be found here other than “play better”. Do you want to be ranked according to your play/abilities or be told what what makes you feel good about yourself (even though not accurate)?
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If we do this, then we open up the exploit that originally generated the creation of this rule in the first place.
This rule was created after one of the annual tournaments that was tied to a pinball show submitted their annual tournament that had over 5X the number of players that were reported from the previous year.
They did this by giving away ONE FREE ENTRY into the tournament for anyone that purchased entrance into the show. This was an unlimited Best Game format, so players really needed to play at least 6 machines to qualify. They also stuck the ‘new game’ that was most recently announced in the tournament bank as the only way for show attendees to get a crack at the latest released game.
Anyone that played their ‘one free entry’ didn’t actually impact the tournament in any way with respect to the difficulty winning it, but the impact they had on how the WPPR points were distributed from 1st place through last place was incredibly meaningful.
We need to keep a balance here so we don’t open ourselves back up to this above issue from coming back into play, and keeping things within the top 1000 seems to make the most sense to me as to where to draw that line.
Anyone outside the top 1000 that’s trying to “manage” their Eff% metric as they embark on their journey to wanting to be one of the best players in the world is welcome to do that . . . I just don’t think it’ll be worth the effort to them (and it certainly won’t impact anything that we’re doing with respect to the top 1000 adjustment).
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