Leaderboards & Rankings - A plea to Devs & the Community!

[Boiler569]

As a long time EA Sports fan (from Madden '93 to Knockout Kings; Fight Night to UFC) I am very excited for UFC 3. When I heard the news this past week, those butterflies in my stomach started churning lol I had been able to retire from UFC 2 for about a year, but now time to get back into the mix of things!

UFC 2 definitely made progress to bring the genre back up to snuff --- especially after a few key patches that the devs implemented, where they truly took input from the community (i.e. Operation Sports forum!) to improve gameplay. At launch i was a bit disappointed with the game, but after these patches

My hope is that all those lessons learned from UFC 1 & UFC 2 continued into UFC3! I'm sure I'll get involved in tons of Gameplay threads on this board,specially after the Beta comes out --- but I wanted my first post back to focus on something not related to Gameplay --- but very much related to the long-term fun of playing online! --- Leaderboards & Analytics

I'll be the first to say I'm a Leaderboard whore. When I first played Fight Night Round 4 online, I thought I'd be 'pretty good'.....but nowhere near top 100. Within a week I was ranked #2, laying out people left and right. Totally nerdy, but man was that cool to be ranked #2 lol It really changed the way I looked at these EA Fighting Games (at first Fight Night, then EA MMA, now EA UFC).

Fast forward to EA MMA in 2010/2011 --- I had just been laid off from a corporate job and could only get part-time work, so needless to say I had a lot of time on my hands for a few months --- meaning 30+ hours of EA MMA per week

After a crazy run where I went like 28-1 over a weekend, I ended up ranked #1, one of the proudest nerd moments of my life lol

Of course, I've learned that in the end, chasing the Leaderboards is ultimately worthless, except for the pride factor and those screenshots you can show your grandkids someday......lol......

Unfortunately, the EA UFC franchise has taken a big step back in the leaderboard category. Especially over the long-run. I will say that the Live Events leaderboard did a good job of 'sorting' folks from Best to Worst, but that was only because you had "3 losses and you're out" --- which doesn't relaly translate to Ranked Championships in particular. (Ultimate Team Rankings has its own unique issues/features, so I am mostly focusing on Ranked Championships in this thread, tough most concepts do apply to all)

The issue: One's rank was much more dependent upon quantity of wins as compared to quality of wins.

A quick example might have one fighter with a record of 1,000 - 400 (71% Win Ratio) out ranking someone with a record of, say, 300-40 (88% Win Ratio). Assuming they 'mostly' have been fighting the same level of competition (top 500), the person who can put in the most work will have the highest rank, even if they are losing many more fights than someone with a near-pristine record facing similar competitoin.


Now that I have a family & 50+ hour/week job, no longer can I chase the leaderboard, simply due to the fact that I'm more like the "300-40" guy --- winning a great ratio of fights against some top level people, but only able to put in 10 hours per week over a 3 or 4 month period.

Even worse, I could theoretically beat this 1000-400 person *several times in a row* and he would still greatly outrank me.

I'm hoping that UFC 3 will take the Leaderboard system to a whole new level!

- Punishing people for losing to people they should beat (i.e. a rank 100 guy loses to rank 1,000 guy...rank 100 guy loses a LOT of points)

- Rewarding people for winning fights where they are big underdogs (in the example above, rank 1,000 guy gets tons of points for the huge upset)

- Bonuses and Incentives! --- take part in a fight of the night? i.e. a bloody war where both guys get rocked repeatedly etc --- you get 'extra' leaderboard points. Get a first round KO? Get a bonus modifier. Etc.

- OTHER types of leaderboards! --- i.e. "Sig Strike Accuracy Leaderboard" --- "Submission Leaderboard", perhaps even as detailed as Guilliotine Submission Leaderboard; Triangle Submission Leaderboard; Armbar; etc --- Also, perhaps a Leaderboard *BY FIGHTER* --- i.e. who is the best Yoel Romero? Who is the best Bisping? Who is the best CM Punk? lol......

I will say that UFC 2 did make some strides in the right direction. You would get a bonus point if you had a 'lower OVR' fighter compared to your opponent. But I think it's time to take it to the next level!

I've studied a lot of statistics, and work with databases quite often, I don't think it would be too resource intensive to setup some really fun, unique, and meaningful leaderboards/analytics/etc. --- and I know that for myself, and I bet a lot of others, it would really add some longevity to the game!

(Which means more $$$ EA )

What do you guys think??

I know I've posted similar threads in the past few years --- it seems one of the best solutions might be "ELO Rankings" ---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

DEVS I plea with you that you consider putting some extra resources into bringing this stuff to the next level, i think it will pay dividends

OK enough ranting from me. Look forward to the run-up to UFC 3 and getting back into the Octagon with all y'all --- enjoy the fights tonite!

[The meticulous Esp]

Quote: Originally Posted by Boiler569

As a long time EA Sports fan (from Madden '93 to Knockout Kings; Fight Night to UFC) I am very excited for UFC 3. When I heard the news this past week, those butterflies in my stomach started churning lol I had been able to retire from UFC 2 for about a year, but now time to get back into the mix of things! UFC 2 definitely made progress to bring the genre back up to snuff --- especially after a few key patches that the devs implemented, where they truly took input from the community (i.e. Operation Sports forum!) to improve gameplay. At launch i was a bit disappointed with the game, but after these patches My hope is that all those lessons learned from UFC 1 & UFC 2 continued into UFC3! I'm sure I'll get involved in tons of Gameplay threads on this board,specially after the Beta comes out --- but I wanted my first post back to focus on something not related to Gameplay --- but very much related to the long-term fun of playing online! --- Leaderboards & Analytics I'll be the first to say I'm a Leaderboard whore. When I first played Fight Night Round 4 online, I thought I'd be 'pretty good'.....but nowhere near top 100. Within a week I was ranked #2, laying out people left and right. Totally nerdy, but man was that cool to be ranked #2 lol It really changed the way I looked at these EA Fighting Games (at first Fight Night, then EA MMA, now EA UFC). Fast forward to EA MMA in 2010/2011 --- I had just been laid off from a corporate job and could only get part-time work, so needless to say I had a lot of time on my hands for a few months --- meaning 30+ hours of EA MMA per week After a crazy run where I went like 28-1 over a weekend, I ended up ranked #1, one of the proudest nerd moments of my life lol Of course, I've learned that in the end, chasing the Leaderboards is ultimately worthless, except for the pride factor and those screenshots you can show your grandkids someday......lol...... Unfortunately, the EA UFC franchise has taken a big step back in the leaderboard category. Especially over the long-run. I will say that the Live Events leaderboard did a good job of 'sorting' folks from Best to Worst, but that was only because you had "3 losses and you're out" --- which doesn't relaly translate to Ranked Championships in particular. (Ultimate Team Rankings has its own unique issues/features, so I am mostly focusing on Ranked Championships in this thread, tough most concepts do apply to all) The issue: One's rank was much more dependent upon quantity of wins as compared to quality of wins. A quick example might have one fighter with a record of 1,000 - 400 (71% Win Ratio) out ranking someone with a record of, say, 300-40 (88% Win Ratio). Assuming they 'mostly' have been fighting the same level of competition (top 500), the person who can put in the most work will have the highest rank, even if they are losing many more fights than someone with a near-pristine record facing similar competitoin. Now that I have a family & 50+ hour/week job, no longer can I chase the leaderboard, simply due to the fact that I'm more like the "300-40" guy --- winning a great ratio of fights against some top level people, but only able to put in 10 hours per week over a 3 or 4 month period. Even worse, I could theoretically beat this 1000-400 person *several times in a row* and he would still greatly outrank me. I'm hoping that UFC 3 will take the Leaderboard system to a whole new level! - Punishing people for losing to people they should beat (i.e. a rank 100 guy loses to rank 1,000 guy...rank 100 guy loses a LOT of points) - Rewarding people for winning fights where they are big underdogs (in the example above, rank 1,000 guy gets tons of points for the huge upset) - Bonuses and Incentives! --- take part in a fight of the night? i.e. a bloody war where both guys get rocked repeatedly etc --- you get 'extra' leaderboard points. Get a first round KO? Get a bonus modifier. Etc. - OTHER types of leaderboards! --- i.e. "Sig Strike Accuracy Leaderboard" --- "Submission Leaderboard", perhaps even as detailed as Guilliotine Submission Leaderboard; Triangle Submission Leaderboard; Armbar; etc --- Also, perhaps a Leaderboard *BY FIGHTER* --- i.e. who is the best Yoel Romero? Who is the best Bisping? Who is the best CM Punk? lol...... I will say that UFC 2 did make some strides in the right direction. You would get a bonus point if you had a 'lower OVR' fighter compared to your opponent. But I think it's time to take it to the next level! I've studied a lot of statistics, and work with databases quite often, I don't think it would be too resource intensive to setup some really fun, unique, and meaningful leaderboards/analytics/etc. --- and I know that for myself, and I bet a lot of others, it would really add some longevity to the game! (Which means more $$$ EA ) What do you guys think?? I know I've posted similar threads in the past few years --- it seems one of the best solutions might be "ELO Rankings" --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system DEVS I plea with you that you consider putting some extra resources into bringing this stuff to the next level, i think it will pay dividends OK enough ranting from me. Look forward to the run-up to UFC 3 and getting back into the Octagon with all y'all --- enjoy the fights tonite!

100% agree, an ELO system will be great !!!!

[Pappy Knuckles]

Sounds good to me. The more stats the better. I don't really care about being on leaderboards, but I do enjoy tracking my progress and comparing with friends.

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

[zeric]

GPD PLEASE look at MLB the shows ranked matchmaking for guidance. They use an ELO system, where they adjust ELO based on the overall of the team you are using. This type of thing would be perfect for UFC. It would give us some sort of incentive to using fighters not named jon jones gsp and conor

Sent from my LGLS991 using Operation Sports mobile app

[ZombieRommel]

Boiler, I agree 100% with you. This is a point that all the online oriented GameChangers (including me) have voiced to the devs. They know about it and aren't ignoring this in UFC3. This year, the online ranking system is Jazz's baby. I've pinged him with a link to this thread to get it to his attention.

[Bigg Cee]

What about someone like me using nothing but crappy fighters and is #1 on the ranked leaderboard facing Werdum and Khabib over and over while using someone like Evan Dunham or some other crappy fighter with horrible stats.

Sometimes the person with more L’s is better then the guy always using top fighters pretending to be the best facing a low rated fighter who has no chance. online records for someone of these top players are a joke.

Reward people who use every damn fighter over people who use top fighters with a amazing record. I can’t recall how many top players beat me while i use crap and they use the best and think they are better, yet they won’t ever touch a crappy fighter once.

[Boiler569]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pappy Knuckles

Sounds good to me. The more stats the better. I don't really care about being on leaderboards, but I do enjoy tracking my progress and comparing with friends. Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

exactly!

At this point, I'm not even too worired about chasing leaderboard spots (League Play & Live Events will suffice for that ) --- but the more stats, and the more unique ways to see your playstyle fleshed out via analytics, the better in my book!

[Boiler569]

Quote: Originally Posted by ZombieRommel

Boiler, I agree 100% with you. This is a point that all the online oriented GameChangers (including me) have voiced to the devs. They know about it and aren't ignoring this in UFC3. This year, the online ranking system is Jazz's baby. I've pinged him with a link to this thread to get it to his attention.

Awesome man, so good to hear. Keep up the good work GCers its paid great dividends the past couple years!