I think most tournament players in the past have had an event where their first few rounds didn’t go your way and there is no way you are going to qualify for the playoffs. Yes, you should still play your best at all times and achieve the best WPRR count available, But psychologically there tends to be a let down and this can effect things drastically. In the past, this was no harm, no foul to your ranking. But moving forward, every game counts no matter the situation because efficiency is at play (assuming you are in the excess category). I just wish this was know further back in time so everyone knew the implications.
Isn’t that how every sport is? Tennis and Golf come to mind for individual sports. Sure they can drop out of events but it still affects their world ranking. I think it would be odd and unfair to competition if you didn’t take those into account.
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I’m not a fan of this logic. Knowing this info would have stopped you from playing those events? The psychological part is one of if not the biggest parts or “skill” in pinball. If I’m not in good psychological shape, I know for a fact my game will not be and I adjust accordingly. Whether that means I adjust by not going because im not in fighting shape or by adjusting my play since what I’m doing isn’t working.
I’m just saying it would have been nice to have a hint of this three years before 1/1/2024 (when this will go into effect) as I understand this was in the works for a long time. It is kind of like the PGA coming out and saying instead of rankings being based upon the last two years, we are going to change it to the last five years because it more accurately reflects the skill of the player. Changing the rules in the middle of the game or after the fact. Yes, it will eventually even itself out, but will take some time.
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Devils advocate here. Would you say this update to the new rankings is more accurate to rate players or less accurate?
Just cherry-picking the player in question’s stats, the new system feels much more “accurate” to me. He’s 70th in WPPRs available, but only 770th of the top 1000 in eff%. Previously he was rank 217, which seems pretty high considering the first two stats. Under the new system he’s 447.
Random unrelated observation, it’s cool to see Bowen jump from 36 to 17 with his rare 0 point WPPR tax. Dude is definitely a top 20 player. Or maybe I just have old school bias.
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Im curious to know how you would have done things differently if you’d known 2 years ago about this planned change.
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I think this retroactive part of the change will affect some people very adversely. I appreciate how the IFPA constantly tries to make the system more accurate and more fair. The thing is, with a retroactive change like 6.0 will make, it will unreward some players for making significant efforts (at the cost of time, sweat, and money) to work within the current system in order to improve their standing in it. Maybe someone took a long trip (or trips) to De Pere or some special place in Europe that rewards a lot of WPPR points, and now it will be all for naught (and even actually hurt their standing) with regard to the world ranking they were working hard to build up by doing so. That’ll smart some. I get it if the rules get changed going forward, and even though I personally might get a boost from these retroactive changes, it scares me how many people will unexpectedly be hurt by them. I totally understand the need for the rules to evolve, but in reverse?
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One year at INDISC, I played a single Card of High Stakes because I bought the Combo Package. If I had my crystal ball at the time, i would not have played in that Tournament and avoided the resultant retroactive efficiency whack in the head. There are several others like this in my active record. I think there is going to be less play on the side tournaments in the future, unless you are going after it with 100% effort.
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They aren’t concerned about changes causing decreased participation in tournaments.
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Your Eff% went down 0.14% from that High Stakes event.
Your Eff% in looking at only the events you’ve played in during 2023 is 9.62% (6 out of your top 20 events on your card are from this 2023 activity).
I’m happy to remove any other records you wouldn’t have played in and run the calculation, but I would guess that your Eff% would end up within a stone’s throw of where it is when capturing all your activity (14%).
Ultimately we’re hoping that you being ranked as the 400-500th best player on the planet at playing pinball is likely a more accurate representation of your skill than you being ranked the 200-250th best player on the planet at playing pinball.
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While I understand the frustration in being judged based on ‘all’ your performance including past performance ahead of this rules change, this kind of statement without any kind of evidence or support is simply hyperbole.
So let’s do a case study!
For someone like Rick, had he not played in any D82 events, his top 20 WPPR total would be 246.15. If I removed all of those D82 events on his active profile (there were 29 of them out of his 84 total active events), then his Eff% would be 14.32% (an increase of 0.01% from his current overall Eff%).
If I plug the version of Rick who never played in D82 into the WPPR v6.0 spreadsheet, he goes from being ranked 447th to being ranked 484th.
So no, the trips to De Pere for Rick did not hurt his standing. Outside of the fun and enjoyment in having compete in all of those events . . . it helped him move up 37 spots.
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what about a Josh case study without D82? Any major change in Eff%? 
This case study really shows what privilege and opportunity can do to a person.
My Current Eff% = 34.16%
My Eff% at D82 events = 39.27%
My Eff% with D82 events removed = 28.96%
My top 20 WPPR card with all D82 activity removed = 494.41
Pair this with an Eff% of 28.96% and my Adjusted Rank under v6.0 would be 102nd in the world.
Playing in all those D82 events moved me up 67 spots to 35th under the current v6.0 estimate.
Without the adjustment I’m sitting at 24th.
IMO 35th is a more accurate representation of skill level of playing pinball than 24th in the world, and that’s including my “didn’t really try hard” attempts in Classics at INDISC in 2022.
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Whoa, that is actually impressive your D82 efficiency with all their classic tourney is higher than your non-D82 eff%, impressive!
I was “really trying hard” at the events I did well at.
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I wonder if it would be helpful (or possible) to have columns on a players Active and Past results page that indicate the affect it had on a player’s overall efficiency %, I suspect that would alleviate a lot of people’s anxiety about how much one bad tourney might affect it.
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I think calculating a player’s Eff% change for every given point in time isn’t worth the effort it would take to code up, but I’ll defer to @Shep on that one.
For anyone that thinks this analysis is helpful, just message me or post here and I can do it manually. I think the number of people that actually have anxiety about this is minimal, so I’m happy to do this for the few dozen people or whatever that are freaked out by the change.
If anything, seeing the impact of other players should hopefully put into perspective that through the times we "try real hard’ and we “don’t try real hard”, that overall, our entire resume of play is pretty indicative of the skill level you have of actually playing pinball compared to your peers (when compared to all the times your peers “tried real hard” and “didn’t try real hard”).
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Josh, I appreciate the case studies that you’re pulling out to look at individual people is nice and appreciated, but I wanted to ask again for a feature request that the Efficiency ‘tax’ is based on a depreciation schedule just like WPPRs are. I know you called out @Shep as a decision maker here, but we haven’t heard if/when that particular feature will be implemented. I think that if it is implemented, it’ll alleviate a number of concerns being raised about past performance negatively affecting rank now that we know the new rules going into effect in 2024.
I also think, like others here, that a recency bias will be MORE reflective in terms of accurately representing rankings. Playing better/worse more recently should have a reflection on better/worse ranking position, even if it’s just on the margins. I think it’ll encourage more pinball instead of people being saddled in such a deep efficiently hole that they have to wait three years to ‘fix’.
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Can we get a “case study” on the player effected the most? Just to see in theory how they would have to play to dig them out. Unless my personal math is way off, I really don’t think it will take that long for them to redeem themselves from the hole with a couple top finishes.