Elite in darts is based off your average score per dart. So if we are accounting in EFF Percentage now it would make sense to do something similar. If you don’t keep that average, then you lose your elite status. I agree with something similar.
1 Like
Man, between the new WPPR formula and Rodgers heading to the big apple, is this one of the worst weeks in Green Bay history ?!
11 Likes
What about expert for the top 1000, pro for everyone else ranked. The amateur status would be for anyone who hasn’t played in 5 qualifying events to be ranked. Add elite if you want to make another breakdown of status at ‘X’ rank or a combination of rank, efficiency and rating.
Categories, bleh. Humanity spends far too much energy on putting people in Categories, and it often causes more problems than it solves. BTDTGOI. So there’s to be a split for ranking formula purposes. Let’s not categorize beyond that. Leave categories to “things” rather than people.
6 Likes
It’s going to be really hard to take the ‘professional’ naming seriously. Unless prize money somehow improves significantly, then no-one is playing pinball professionally. It’s just an incorrect use of the English language.
No harm in taking inspiration from football leagues though and having a ‘Premier’ league.
2 Likes
The Professional and Amateur Pinball Association somehow survived and thrived with that naming convention 
3 Likes
Maybe according to Cambridge, but not according to Webster. “participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs”.
When PGA first started in 1916, the club professionals still worked on the course and then played in tournaments. It’s a common naming within the sports community.
1 Like
So if player #1001 can have more WPPR points than rank #1000 how would those to players be ranked on the country filter if they happen to be from the same conutry?
Would they be sorted after rank or points?
Also, why is it that every time changes are made it doesn’t affect Women’s ranking, if these changes are to “promote pinball” and give a more “realistic ranking”?
1 Like
Also, will general IFPA eligibility use raw or adjusted? I can actually see a rule that you MUST be in the “pro 1000” to be eligible for IFPA and that the adjusted rankings are the ones used to see who goes from each country plus at-large spots.
There is no version of this where Rank #1001 would be listed higher than Rank #1000. I’m sure Brian would figure out some elegant way to rank these on the Country filter (even if that includes a Country-PRO list and a separate Country-AM list).
We don’t currently calculate Eff% for Women’s only events, so at the moment it’s literally impossible for us to do it. Assuming Brian adds that functionality, it’ll be up to the IFPA Women’s Advisory Board if they want to implement this adjustment for Women’s only events or not. If they feel strongly that Women’s only events are at a stage where continuing to promote growth is far more important compared to more accurately rank players, I certainly don’t plan on pushing this change on them.
IFPA WC eligibility would be based on adjusted numbers for the top 1000 players. Should we have to go deeper than that to fill the field, then we would jump to the Amateur list as needed. Using IFPA18 as an example, the 2nd Country Exemption spot for Slovenia is ranked 1218th. The winner of the European Satellite Spot was ranked 1347th. Those players would be seeded as 79th and 80th in the field.
1 Like
I am probably missing something here, but why not just apply the same rules to the entire field of players? (i.e., not just the top 1000)
The average WPPRtunity value when you start to include a deeper list of casual players makes for a reasonable line that doesn’t make any sense.
Our goal in setting this reasonableness line was to answer this question:
“If someone wants to be ranked amongst the best players in the world, at what level should they be out there competing?” 1000 felt about right.
1 Like
I can only speak for myself, but this proposed change will definitely cause me to attend fewer events, not because I don’t like playing pinball, but because going to some events has likely affected my eff%. It will definitely also affect which larger events I attend, as some events for me consistently I am a lower performer due to the format, setup, or other reasons (jet lag, travel etc).
These proposed changes might result in a lot of the “mid-performers” to reduce their events, and that will affect attendance.
I was under the impression the IFPA was around to encourage competitive pinball, not punish it?
The top 25 players affected by this change will lose 361 places or more.
I guess on the positive side of this I will save some $$, and be eligible for B-division more often.
Can we have an Eff% for each position on the results page of all events? would help me in determining which events to attend or avoid in the future.
Encouraging competitive pinball is not our primary focus with the World Pinball Player Rankings. Accurately ranking the best players in the world is the primary focus.
There are plenty of examples of players that play tons of events and see no adjustment:
https://www.ifpapinball.com/player.php?p=60617
He has 113 active events on his profile, and he sees ZERO ADJUSTMENT, and moves up 59 spots.
https://www.ifpapinball.com/player.php?p=16976
He has 106 active events on his profile, and he sees ZERO ADJUSTMENT, and moves up 32 spots.
The adjustment has to do with your consistency of play between the events that make up your ranking (your top 20), and in your case the quality of play in the active events that don’t make up your ranking (your other 54 events).
All the current system sees is “20 good events”. This analysis dives into what kind of level of play it took for you to post those 20 events (by analyzing those 54 other events).
If this change ends up impacting attendance in any serious way, we’ll certainly see that proven out in the 2024 numbers. As with all of our other changes we’ll continue to evaluate things as that data becomes available.
6 Likes
I think it would be a nice addition to each events results page. If the event is recurring you could look at previous weeks/months to get a sense of where you need to finish.
If the IFPA doesn’t add this to the site it’s relatively easy to spot check for a past event on your own. Eff for a position is just WPPRs awarded to that position divided by WPPRs awarded to first place.
For anyone who is curious, it wouldn’t be practical to put this on the event calendar listing because position eff is influenced by the number of players who show up and their ranking & rating.
1 Like
This would be an @Shep thing.
Like you said it is super easy to do manually if you’re so inclined.
1 Like
Shouldn’t those things be factored in? Not a slight at you by any means, but I know if I’m not at 100% I will not play well and do everything I can to ensure I can play at a high level.
I think this is a change in the right direction for accuracy and reflection of skill.
This had me curious about whether the data had anything that jumped out as consistently bad events for you to avoid, so I checked out the BEST EVENT on your top 20 card just for sanity.
This was your 14th place finish at the D82 Super Series last October (Event #3).
There were 6 events in total that weekend of which 3 of those 6 hit your top 20 card.
Your Eff% when looking at the three events that hit your card (Events 3,4,6) = 20.03%
Your Eff% when looking at the three events that didn’t hit your card (Events 1,2,5) = 5.99%
Your Eff% when accounting for all 6 events = 12%
Your current Eff% for all your active events = 10.24%
It seems that your performance during that D82 weekend is pretty close to where your overall performance has been over the past 3 years (roughly 2% difference) . . . unless there’s reasons within your list as to why Events 1,2,5 should have been avoided and Events 3,4,6 were absolutely the ones where you were able to show off your true level of skill.
Assuming that’s the case, and you are able to focus on those events where you know you’ll perform at that 20% Efficiency level of skill, the good news is that you’ll bounce back in v6.0 with a vengeance.
If I plug 20.03% into your Eff%, you would be ranked 292nd, and move yourself up 453 spots. You would actually end up 58 positions better than where you rank right now under v5.8.
There are events I attend because I like the event, but the tournament portion may have a format that does not work well with my playing style. I would usually in the past go to the tournament anyway, knowing I might not perform as well, because I still like to play, support the event, etc. With the 6.0 changes, I would do less of these.
Sometimes I go to an event because it’s doing something new and fun. But under this new system, I might be penalized for trying it out and not doing well. Might there be a way to do an event and declare beforehand that I don’t want to be ranked?
^this is exactly what I’m talking about. I can zero in and learn that I should avoid events that I consistently do bad in. So I would avoid 4 strikes like the one at D82, and limited entry like Texas.
The top guy in the list I posted above will lose 533 places, all at once, from decisions made before 6.0 goes into effect. Might there be a way to phase-in these changes, say over 3 years, so that someone does not get a massive dump all at once? Give some time to see the effects and make adjustments over time?
Another issue I see with the way the eff% is weighted, is that it really bunches up all of the wpprs towards the best finishing positions, which then will skew these new calculations. What happens if eff% is instead calculated over the entire finishing field? So if you got 20th place out of 100, you’d get 80%?