AoE2 Career Points Project
I see the following as the beginning of a discussion.
My end goal is the overhaul of the "Best AoC Players" page, and I don't want to do this only by personal opinions, but with the help of numbers. For the last year, I collected data about tournaments since 2011 (RM and DM, 1v1 and TG). These informations can be one source of valueing the strength of a player over time. Another could be Huehue's lists (highest rating, RM1v1 encounters) or my in progress stats of weekly RM 1v1 ladder placements.
(1) TWO CONDITIONS
For the following RM 1v1 example (no DM/no TG tourneys), my question was how I can translate the data collected about tournaments into "career points" per player. I had the following two conditions for deciding if I should consider a tournament at all:
- No principal exclusion of global top players: There is no rating ceiling or "too good blacklist" or regional exclusivity for participation. Global top players can be excluded from participation by an invitational format, as long as it can be assumed that the inviting party's intention was to involve a top notch subset of global top players.
- At least 4 participants, more or less a Voobly 2k level or higher in the top 4.
(2) TOURNAMENT BASE VALUE
This way, 44 tournaments made it into the short list. I gave points to the tourneys in the categories (a) number of participants, (b) total prize money, (c) duration, (d) match settings, and (e) entry system.
(a) number of participants
4 - 1 point
5 to 8 - 2 points
9 to 16 - 3 points
17 to 32 - 4 points
more than 32 - 5 points
The assumption is that more participants potentially means more competition, because it's more probable to face opponents who upset expectations or counter your style. It's questionable though if beyond the top 32 participants, there are really challenges for the best participants, hence the 5 points maximum.
(b) total prize money
none - 0 points
$1 to $99 - 1 point
$100 to $999 - 2 points
$1000 to $9999 - 3 points
more than $9999 - 4 points
The experience shows that usually more prize money means more and more motivated top players participating.
(c) duration
one day - 0 points
one week - 1 point
multiple weeks - 2 points
The assumption here is that a longer timespan allows for more balanced match and tournament formats, reducing the impact of situational luck and bad shape days. Also, a bigger timespan allows the participation of top players who would maybe not be able to play if the tournament was on a specific weekend, because they are busy during these days. One week also includes weekend tournaments.
(d) match settings
only one map AND only one civ - 0 points
EITHER only one map OR only one civ - 1 point
multiple maps and civs - 2 points
I think this can be explained by the examples of Hera and Edie. In their settings, they obviously belong to the best of the world. But this should be less relevant if the list is about OVERALL best players.
(e) entry system
dominantly invitational - 0 points
open (with or without seeding threshold) or approval by success in preceding tournaments - 1 point
Since it's possible that by an invitational system players get excluded who have a top 4 potential in the tournament AND would be willing to play.
With the formula ((a+b+c+d+e)/14)*100 I gave every tournament a base value:
- 2013 | Clash of the Titans (CoT) | 100
2015 | WSVG World Championship (WSVG) | 100 - 2017 | EGC#1: Strike the Balance (EGC1) | 93
- 2016 | Masters of MegaRandom (MoMR) | 86
2017 | Freedom Cup (FC) | 86*
2017 | AoE All-Stars (AAS) | 86 - 2014 | Forgotten Frontiers (ForgF) | 79
2014 | The Arabian Conquest (TAC) | 79
2015 | Balance of Power (BoP) | 79
2015 | The Empire Collective Cup (TEC) | 79
2016 | Masters of Arena 3 (MoA3) | 79
2016 | Enter the Sahara (EtS) | 79
2016 | Master of Islands (MoI) | 79
2016 | Masters of Arena 4 | 79
2017 | Escape Gaming Masters 2 (EGM2) | 79
2017 | Slightly Random (SR) | 79 - 2012 | Masters of Random Map (MoRM) | 71
2015 | Master of Anniversary Mappack (Anni) | 71
2016 | Arabia 1v1 Invitational (AraInv) | 71
2017 | Escape Gaming Masters 1 (EGM1) | 71
2017 | Elimination Draft (ED) | 71
2017 | Escape Gaming Masters 3: Regicide Edition (EGM3) | 71 - 2012 | Masters of Arabia (MoAra) | 64
2012 | Grand Masters League (GML) | 64
2013 | Masters of Arena 1 (MoA1) | 64
2014 | Veterans of the Clash (VoC) | 64
2014 | Out of Sync Cup (OOS) | 64
2014 | Top Experts League 5 (TEL5) | 64
2016 | Legacy of the Huns (LotH) | 64
2016 | Clash of the Hippo 1 (CotH1) | 64
2017 | No Wall Brawl (NWB) | 64 - 2014 | Masters of Arena 2 (MoA2) | 57
2016 | ZP DauT Cup (ZPD) | 57
2016 | Battle for Angkor (BfA) | 57
2016 | AoC Champions League 2017 (ACL16) | 57
2017 | Elimination of the Hippo 1 (EotH1) | 57**
2017 | Elimination of the Hippo 2 (EotH2) | 57**
2017 | Badlands Masters (BM) | 57
2017 | Battle for Oases Bases (BfOB) | 57 - 2013 | Top Experts League 1 (TEL1) | 50
2014 | Top Experts League 2 (TEL2) | 50
2014 | Top Experts League 3 (TEL3) | 50
2014 | Top Experts League 4 (TEL4) | 50 - 2017 | Clash of the Hippo 4 (CotH4) | 43
*The Freedom Cup obviously shouldn't be that high. This tournament basically f*cked the system by having $102 prize money and 42 participants of which about 6 were 2k level (with slam getting AL). How should such cases be addressed?
**It's questionable if the EotH series should be included. They kind of meet the two conditions, but getting 2nd could simply mean the favorites kept you in intentionally and you proceed not by being better but by not being worst. Still, it's kind of relevant to succeed in it, it requires non-TG RM skills. What to do? One could argue it's simply not 1v1, but you neither can put it in the TG category. Should it be completely irrelevant for career points? As its own category (like KotHs), it would be to small. Maybe have a general FFA category?
(3) CAREER POINTS
Then I took the top 4 of all the tournaments above, 1st place means base value *4, 2nd place is base value *3, 3rd *2 and 4th *1. The total of career points is the sum of all these products. Which gives me the following result:
- 5808 TheViper
- 2897 TaToH
- 1708 BacT
- 1627 DauT
- 1466 St4rk
- 1442 RiuT
- 1135 Mr_Yo
- 1119 MbL
- 1098 JorDan_23
- 1013 slam
- 964 Nicov
- 880 Spring
- 761 (czech) Lojza
- 730 F1Re
- 727 Tim
- 702 Melkor
- 646 Edie
- 455 dogao
- 398 miguel
- 363 Twigg
- 358 Liereyy
- 342 WaRRioR
- 334 Vinchester
- 185 TokiwaMiao
- 157 mentalist
- 143 Emin
- 136 ACCM
- 114 Chris
(4) DISCUSSION
If you had to write down a list of the 28 best RM 1v1 players of 2012-today according to your most sincere opinion, how would it differ from the one above? Where are the weaknesses of my procedure? Do you have any specific proposal for improvement of the procedure? Are any important RM 1v1 tournaments missing?
An interesting point of view obviously would be "career points per top 4 placement" (even better, but more work for data collection would be "career points per participation"). For example:
- 277 TheViper
- 242 Tim
- 223 TaToH
- 215 Edie
- 199 miguel
- 190 (czech) Lojza
- 183 St4rk
- 183 JorDan_23
- 180 RiuT
- 179 Liereyy
- 169 slam
- 163 DauT
- 161 Nicov
- 160 MbL
- 155 BacT
- 151 dogao
- 142 Mr_Yo
-pumukel