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Sony's SOCOM II Online Ranking System Explained
An anonymous reader writes "Curious about how the complex online ranking system in PS2 online title SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs works? Thanks to Playstation Magazine, you need wonder no more." The article reveals the ranking "...is based on the Chess Ranking system developed by Dr. Arpad Elo... [but] much more complex in order to take into consideration the SOCOM II game format", showing the increasingly involved calculations needed to construct online rankings, although lack of clarity may also be confusing gamers, as: "It is important to note that the 'score' on the player stats and the 'score' at the end of the game are not directly related."
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I only wish that the article was more technical since others may have thoughts on multi-player online game ranking systems.
We designed this to be game-resistant, give the illusion of early progress, and be zero-sum. It's used in the Conflict discipline in our game, which consists of competitive two-player mini-games.
I'm convinced that it's a near-perfect replacement for ELO-like systems like those used in chess, but only when getting a high rank is the main goal. When a high percentage of the population is willing to throw games to boost a few players, then even this system breaks down.
We're now experimenting with N-elimination tournament systems. We'll know in a couple weeks how those work.
The Rainbow Six 3 (for xbox) ranking system is also the elo System, which is great because it doesn't give the antisocials, or people with too much time on their hands the top spots, for the most part. Its at least fairer(more fair?) than the system they used for ghost recon Island Thunder. My Highest ELO value would be somewhere around the 1550s, with under 4 hrs of playing time. At the time of that high elo, my ranking was 62 out of over 65k who play the game.
Formulas, please. What is my ranking after the battle as a function of my ranking, my enemy's ranking, and friends ranking (if applicable - don't know the individual game), and how well we all did?
In other words,
Step One : get a bunch of badass friends to create new accounts/insanely crappy accounts (0 kills-29043824 deaths) and one "buffed" up character.
Step Two : Monopolize a server. Get all your friends on one team to "drag it down" along with the buffed up character.
Step Three : Since your team is actually full of badass players, dominate the server for a sweep leading to the bonus.
'If you win by a sweep (i.e. winning the first 6 Rounds in a best of 11 Game), your Score will go up more than if you just won by one Round (i.e. winning 6 Rounds and losing 5 Rounds in a best of 11 Game).'
End result : The buffed up character gets an unbalanced score reward as well as the bonus.
True the chances of this happening is slim to none, but the fact that this happens in PC games (Starcraft players who "somehow" managed to get 300+ wins-0 losses) means that people are going to end up exploiting this.