A Rating System?

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Hey Stelek,

The recent discussion on your blog about a true competitive scene for 40k and other GW products has been very intriguing. It got me to thinking, 'What would a ratings system for 40k look like?' and I'd like to hear your take on it. The way I see it, the Elo rating system would make the most sense given that it provides a clear and tested model. However, you would have to take into account, as Chad said, "missions, terrain, eligible armies and units, point sizes, scoring systems." So let's look at each of these individually.

First, missions would have to be (in my opinion) the ones that GW includes in the main rulebook. While your five killpoint/objective system certainly has its merits, we would have to keep the system as non-arbitrary as possible. That means no "narrative" missions, none of the modified stuff simply because there's no way a system like that wouldn't be arbitrary. I mean, if we took your system, which favors mech and (what you think of as) 5th edition fundamentals, what would be the clear line between that and say a system that uniquely favors my personal army just because I want it to? Although we have the incentive to push players to mech up and be better, the ratings system itself shouldn't force people to do that.

Next, terrain is set up more or less fairly if (and this is a big if) people set up the terrain themselves, together, as GW recommends. Now we all know that this is almost never the case, as many FLGS don't let you move terrain around. But there's an alternative to playing a game on a skewed battlefield: either don't play or play a non-ranked game. Therefore, I don't think terrain should matter in outcomes of games.

Eligible armies and units would, again have to be as non-arbitrary as possible. Obviously all the codices would have to be allowed (No! I'm not allowing orks under my rating system because I don't like them :P). The question would therefore be mini-codices that appear in WDs and Forgeworld rulesets. I'm inclined to disallow Forgeworld simply because, as you've pointed out, it's not GW product. In essence I think all the armies allowed in 'Ard Boyz would have to be allowed.

Point sizes is where 40k differs dramatically from the other games that use the Elo rating system, chess and go. I'm inclined to allow any and all points values to be used for play, relying on the fact that if you're not comfortable with a 1000 point game, for example, you wouldn't play rated games at that level.

Scoring systems we've covered already.

So how would this all work in practice? I think a simple website where players could create accounts and input rounds and results would be relatively easy to set up. I'm hoping the honor system would be enough to get players to input correct information. Obviously, it would be difficult to get people to post stuff in the beginning, but the more people use it, the more legitimate the system becomes.

Obviously, this is just the product of half an hour's musings with the 40k rulebook and my old statistics textbook so any thoughts/opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.

-David

Reply:

I have ideas, but I'd like to hear what others have to say.

Please, comment away.