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WPPR points and competitive play in the UK

roadshow16

roadshow16

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Just thought I would start a bit of a discussion about WPPR points and people's thoughts on the IFPA's ranking system and its validity.

I know it has been through many iterations/changes and I have seen polarising opinions from players in the UK, but thought it would be interesting to see people articulate these thoughts in an open forum.

I'm interested as it seems there is a bit of a lull in the competitive pinball scene in the UK at the moment which seems a shame to me.

I know there are plenty of people out there who aren't at all bothered in competing and that's cool. But personally I think it's an important part of the hobby and would love to see it thrive like it does in other parts of Europe.

More than happy to share my opinions and thoughts, but would love hear yours....

Cheers, Craig
 
Ok.

All info in regards to the IFPA rankings and WPPR points can be found here, ifpapinball.com

When I ask about its validity, I'm asking whether people think it is an accurate way of ranking competitive play around the world. The ranking systems have changed over the past few years, with the biggest changes taking place at the beginning of each year.

The beginning of this year saw a big change in how points are awarded and I'm wondering whether this is a reason why the competitive scene in the UK is quiet?
 
I think it is way off. It is very US centric and a distinctly average player can have a high ranking due to entering lots of tournaments.
 
Andrew Stockdale said:
I think it is way off. It is very US centric and a distinctly average player can have a high ranking due to entering lots of tournaments.
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Thanks Andrew, I know lots of others share a similar opinion, could you elaborate a bit?

In what way do you think it's US centric? Can you give an example of a distinctly average player having a high ranking?
 
I LOVE competitive pinball. I just wish I was better at it :)

It was a very important factor for hooking me into this pinball scene. Playing that first comp (I think it was the UKPP at Daventry four or five years ago?) and then realising I had a rank now. AND it wasnt't JUST in the UK, IT WAS IN THE WOOORRRRLD!! That was a pretty amazing thing. Not from an ego point of view (obviously, my rank is terrible), but from a 'I can do better at this, and see my rank improve' kind of motivational view.

So I think there is a very valid reason for IFPA to exist

I also think they do a decent job of trying to fix loopholes as they come up. When I first heard of the Super League in NYC I thought it was a great idea, and would really benefit the pinball community that it could potentially bring all these new players in, similar to how I was sucked in. But I also see now it was a massive exploit for the best in NYC to basically rape WPPR points from the newbies

It's a bit of a shame though that the fix for that will have a knock on effect for people in small leagues, such as we see in the UK. The fix was to make league style events (without any head-to-head play) invalid for WPPR points. I felt at the time that UK players would probably see their rank dropping (due to lack of non-league style events) whilst the US players with their wealth of available events continue to rank up

I know there are further changes planned, but haven't yet listened to the new Coast 2 Coast podcast to find out about it (I had planned to do that tonight, but.. meh). Hope further tweaks can help redress the balance
 
It should be averaged out and not just a total of accumulated points. I was listening to a podcast a while ago (I can't remember which one) and they interviewed an American player who was saying that he HAD to attend a competition otherwise his ranking would drop. He also alluded to average players climbing the rankings through the volume of tournaments that they attend.
 
Interesting points Paul.

Listening to some podcasts from Josh and reading documentation on the IFPA website and tilt forums. It became clear that the IFPA's central focus was to promote to the playing of competitive pinball. However, now there are over 40 thousand ranked players in the world, the IFPA's focus has shifted from simply promoting, to attempting to more accurately rank the players
 
((I could be going slightly off subject)) Jack and I love competing, mostly for two reasons it's social and you get to play tables you would otherwise never see, let alone play. The problem about competing is also twofold time and travel. The way the rankings are worked out, from what I have been informed by more frequent competitors, at the moment seem pretty balanced, the competitive part of the game adds another dimension to the hoppy...also the players I have competed against recently all seemed to be enjoying it, and each other's company. ( including you Craig). We would love to compete more but my life is so manic at the moment with other commitments, I cannot. As for my ranking I have no idea of that, but sounds interesting, might motivate me to change some prioritys in life. (Wife and children excluded). :hmm:
 
A personal opinion here....

I know it was around 5 years ago, and things have changed a fair bit, however i managed to do just this, and I can only see things have gotten worse...

I attended a few league meets, Played well in the UKPinball final in Daventry (came 3rd in the "b" group), and managed to make the dizzy heights of around 50 in the UK. If i'm honest, I'm REALLY not that good. However because I attended a few events, and because I had ONE good tournament, it seemed that i was actually a reasonable player.

In my view, as Paul says above, It's rather well skewed towards the larger tournaments - and we just don't have that set up here in the UK.

Now if we were REALLY clever about it we have currently three permanent large "operating" venues - Arcade club, Special when lit, and the Arcade down Minehead way. Now there's three potential venues we could use for Large UK Pinball get togethers for tournaments. Once per year, at each venue, as long as the owners were to agree.

Interesting thought.... (and so the "Pinball Info Challenge Cup" was born ;) )
 
For info.

In order for a tournament to grade out at full value using the current rankings.

The tournament needs to have 64 ranked (in order to be ranked a player needs to have played in at least 5 tournaments) players. Players also need to play 25 games of pinball with a head to head element at some point in the tournament
 
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Currently, from my perspective, competitive play in the UK is a good 2-player game against an equally s.h.i.t player. I also enjoy forcing/conning good players to show me how it's done in a mock 2player game, where i play terribly on purpose to get more time watching them play & seeing how they do it (@Andrew Stockdale can corroborate this, although i've given my secret away now).

new forest pinball said:
The problem about competing is also twofold time and travel. We would love to compete more but my life is so manic at the moment with other commitments, I cannot. As for my ranking I have no idea of that, but sounds interesting, might motivate me to change some priorities in life. (Wife and children excluded). :hmm:
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If competitive play became any more than this i.e. requiring long weekends away, many miles in the car, or even (as i see some on here doing) jetting off fairly regularly abroad; i think there would definitely need to be compromises in other aspects of my life - namely the wife and kids mentioned above, plus work, and other hobbies like cycling, walking and general 'outside' stuff.

Plus i don't get the WPPR points thing - i thought a WPPR was a burger. If somebody can explain it to me (and @cooldan by the sounds of it) in simple terms it'd be much appreciated!
 
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Here goes with my views.

Firstly let me say that I'll compete/participate in any pinball competition/gathering regardless of points because I enjoy every aspect of it.
Saying that it would be nice, for those people that are interested, for the ranking system to be accurate and a true reflection of the associated players skill level.

The current system is quite simply not worth taking any notice of, for a number of reasons.

With the points evaluation changes there is no consistency:
For example I won the UK Cup last weekend and was awarded 5.77 points, Martin won it 2 years ago and was awarded 30.49 points. Even with depreciation Martin's win is still worth 22.87 points. So for winning the exact same competition, with the exact same format, and only 4 more players, TWO YEARS ago Martin gets over 4 times as many points as me for WINNING it last week. How can that be a true reflection of the reward for winning, or even competing?

Until all points awarded under the old scoring system have depreciated to zero, OR all of the older tournaments are re-evaluated under the new system the ranking cannot give a reflection on the CURRENT levels. It is still extremely historic.


The points awarded for different competition formats are completely out of balance, taking the same example as 5.77 points for the UK Cup win which was a straight knockout competition, you would only have to finish 23rd in the San Francisco Pinball League to get the same amount of points. At first glance an argument can be made that more points are awarded because there are more higher ranked players competing or that more games are played, but that argument falls down as soon as you realise that it's a self perpetuating cycle of competing in competitions which award big points, which improves your ranking, which in turn brings more points to the competition. With regard to the number of games needed to be played, that is also a misnomer as you only need to win 1 league meeting to qualify for the final, so you could qualify for the final having played as few as 4 games. There simply is no comparison.

Comparisons between players competing in different countries, or even regions, is basically impossible as how can you effectively rank/compare 2 people who are playing in completely different competitions with different formats and rules with different points awarded?

There is also the issue of only your best 20 scores count. There aren't 20 points scoring opportunities in the UK each year, meaning that you need to travel abroad and enter competitions to have a chance, which also tend to be worth more points than the majority of the UK comps. Why should it be that a player who can afford to travel, and take time from work, should have more opportunity to progress up the rankings? Finishing 45th (out of 142) in the Dutch Masters this year awarded 5.65 points. The same amount of points as winning a UK comp for just finishing in the top third?


Personally, from playing with and against the majority of people on here I know that there are people ranked lower than me by IFPA who are better than me, I also believe that there are people ranked higher than me who I am better than.

Any worldwide ranking system is always going to have faults and will never be perfect but the current system is so flawed that it is as good as meaningless.
 
I think basically the more you compete, the more people you beat, and the better those people are, the more points you get.

Like you, I like playing people I know and people who are crap like me. I don't particularly enjoy playing with strangers who then kick my **** and make me feel bad about it. My initials at tournaments should be DNQ
 
I've had this argument time and again with Josh. I feel they have lost sight of the "sport". The points awarded for each competition is derived from such a complex calculation that it is impossible to comprehend.

Back at the beginning you were awarded 25 points for a win and that was it. There was 2 double points tournaments EPC and IFPA world championships.
The better players aspect I understand but this is what qualification should be about. Not only thinning the number but removing lower quality players from the final. Non Qually should be worth 0 points, tournaments should be qualified by their merit and selected as a qualifying event. For instance, John Doe's friday night social event should not qualify for points and thetype of tournament should give the value of the tournament e,g,

Unlimited Qualification attempts, Group knockout.... x points
1 shot qually, 1 joker, group knockout .... x points
1 shot qually, head to head ..... x points
no qually, head to head.... x points

and so on, choose your tourny format and that's what it's worth.

As a person with a previous worlds ranking of 103, I just don't bother anymore. Firstly all the mucking about every year sees values depracated and secondly worse players who can attend more tournaments can do better. If you attend 20 tournaments they will all count regardless of where you finish (so you better do well). Attend 50 and less than half have to be good results. Not everyone can afford or have the time to attend. it should be 20 entries and after that you don't get another WPPR point for it.

If we really want this regarded as a sport there needs to be a defined structure that is understandable to those outside of the IFPA circle, the value should be clear before the event takes place.

Can you imagine the premier league where you don't know what points you'll get for a win, lose or draw cause we need to see what players are in each team and grade the win as to how well/poor they are based on the group rankings of each player? Total nonsense.
 
As someone who has never qualified for later stages, to travel long distances just for a few qualifying games, it just isn't that rewarding.

Yeah, play better - I know;)

I guess I fall into the 'only enjoy competing if I have a chance of progressing to the meaningful stages'.

Aim to play more this Winter and see if skills get to a decent enough level to compete:cool:
 
IFPA.PNG

Attached are rankings/stats for 3 different players, all have similarities in their overviews, but based purely on the number of comps played (and the comps they enter), there are huge differences in the final rankings - meaningless.

I guarantee if I lived in New York, I'd be ranked in the top 25 in the world within 2 years.
 
Right here's my opinion on this. As many of you already know I'm not that much into competitive pinball. I'll go along to a meet or show mainly for the social aspect and to play a few games on some machines that I don't normally get a chance to play. I prefer exploring the ruleset on a game myself rather than competing against other players. I also don't enjoy my game being watched and scrutinised by better players than me, which would be most of the people who play competitive pinball here as I'm normally cr@p ;)

The new WPPR points system comes across as complex and convoluted, and forces the tournament organisers to use extra machines, and also for the tournaments to run much longer to fit in all the extra fixtures that the system demands. That is my main beef with this. The league style play that was the accepted norm before allowed everyone to play all the competition machines in quick succession without the thumb twiddling and standing around that you get with the head-to-head format.

Last year's UKPP had nearly half the operational machines tied up in various tournaments and removed from public play. The WPPR format seems to be optimised to grade good players in the States who are prepared to travel several hundred miles away from their home town to participate in the thriving tournament community there. We in the UK are hampered by the small size of our Country and the English Channel. I certainly don't plan to travel abroad to play competitive pinball in the near future, and I'm sure most of the other forum members here wouldn't either.
 
As with all things (there are a few exceptions), the more effort you put in the more you will get out (may be from the enjoyment of partying away for the weekend or from playing pinball or perhaps a bit of both).

Pinball is a game of skill and chance. They more you play or practice, the better you are likely to get, up to a point (when you've reached your limit it is very hard to push past that). The earlier you start the more natural your game play will be. Speed of thought when under pressure also helps and this determines what sort of shot you will play, if it is a poor one you're more likely to drain the ball.

The UK pinball scene is a very small one by comparison to many other countries in the world. The larger the scene the better the attendance the more likely that there will be more WPPR points awarded to the ones who do well. To say that the rankings are meaningless or total nonsense are not justified otherwise you wouldn't be contributing to this discussion...

Points degradation over 3 years means that you have to keep active if you wish to keep or improve on your position in the rankings. It also means that historical results soon become redundant and that you'll only ever be as good as you have been over the last 3 years. You can't sit back on your laurels and say ooh, I did well in Swavesey in 2009 or whatever. Yes it awards people who have too much time and money on their hands, who can disappear off to all sorts of competitions but please remember that they are putting time, effort and money in to the process (and they still have to do well enough for any of it to count). Yes, it is easier to stay in the UK, do very little and complain.

Regarding last weekend, the German Open was announced in February and I signed up once the registration process was opened. The planning process for Swavesey started 1st April, early on someone did mention that it clashed with the German Open but that appeared to fall on deaf ears. I am all for supporting UK competitions, I hold enough of them myself to know what it's like when people don't turn up but in this case I had already committed myself. On the plus side, I could loose the odd game and not be dumped out of the tournament..!

I personally prefer the old cap of 25 points for a win, which help keeps small scenes like ours on a level pegging with the rest of the world but I can understand the IFPA's point of view of why should the winner of a 28 person meet at Swavesey be awarded the same number of points as the winner of a 200 person meet in Gladbeck, Germany.
 
I don't even pretend to understand the scoring system, I turn up to a league meet/tournament whatever it is, play my best and go home. Generally when the results come through it seems about right and I'm happy, not once have I had to get in touch with someone who took scores to complain or anything like that.

I can see the beef people have with the fact that the more you play the more points you get regardless of how good you are. I put myself in the category of better than average but not stellar, I can crank out an above average or rediculous score on a game probably 25% of the time and the rest I will either have completely average or below average games. The thing is, I'm single and have loads of free time to go to meets and things so I'm probably a lot higher up than I should be, whereas those of you with family commitments/more demanding jobs whatever it happens to be just simply can't do this, you have to pick and choose the events you attend and if you do badly that's it, no re-course. You can't attend another event like me to get some more points because you simply can't get the time.

There does need to be some sort of change in the system, like most have said it is needlessly complicated and this seems to come from making years of changes whilst maintaining older scores so people don't get stuffed and lose them in a re-shuffle. What the answer to achieving this fairly is I don't know.
 
Moonraker said:
Points degradation over 3 years means that you have to keep active if you wish to keep or improve on your position in the rankings
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The problem being, with the example I stated regarding mine and Martin's wins., is that this isn't the case when the scoring system changes so radically. Hence my comment that the current points are meaningless.

Moonraker said:
early on someone did mention that it clashed with the German Open but that appeared to fall on deaf ears
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The date was chosen to replace the cancelled comp in Ely. There was also a vote held on people's preference of a weekend. So it certainly didn't fall on deaf ears. There's always going to be clashes, it's just up to individuals as to which they choose to attend. No judgement was made against any of these people.

Moonraker said:
Yes it awards people who have too much time and money on their hands, who can disappear off to all sorts of competitions but please remember that they are putting time, effort and money in to the process (and they still have to do well enough for any of it to count). Yes, it is easier to stay in the UK, do very little and complain
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That's fine, and I agree that you still need to perform to take advantage of attending. But to me it's similar to playing a game of darts against someone who uses the standard 3 arrows every go, but the other player uses 6 and uses the 3 highest scoring. You still need to be able to make use of those 6 arrows but it is a definite advantage.

Perhaps a fairer solution which would combat number of entries, as well as degradation, would be to only count the last 20 competitions, no matter what you score in each one, as well as having a validity period for scores to count.

In no way is any of what I've said a criticism of any individuals choice as to how many or which tournaments they play. it is a criticism of the system which allows such exploits to exist in the first place.
 
I think lots of the difficulty encountered by the IFPA has come from the fact that it has wanted to promote pinball as well as ranking players. I think Josh intends to/or at least talked about taking into account the data gathered on the players rating and efficiency percentage as part of the overall ranking.

At the moment itis just data gathered but doesn't contribute to the overall ranking. This would combat a number of the issue that many of you have raised in regard to players playing in loads of competitions.

However, this can actually discourage players from entering competitions in fear that your efficiency/rating will go down if you do poorly, hence the reason it hasn't been adopted yet
 
My view is that if you come 10th out of 30 players, then it should be worth less points than finishing 10th against 300 player's. Likewise if you win a comp over 5 games, it should be worth less points than winning over 25.

My issue is the level of disparity, 20 players over 10 games has a base value of 4 points. 40 players over 20 games is 16 points. For me this is too big of a gap, and I feel that there should be a minimum value to events.
 
Paul said:
Now if we were REALLY clever about it we have currently three permanent large "operating" venues - Arcade club, Special when lit, and the Arcade down Minehead way. Now there's three potential venues we could use for Large UK Pinball get togethers for tournaments. Once per year, at each venue, as long as the owners were to agree.

Interesting thought.... (and so the "Pinball Info Challenge Cup" was born ;) )
Click to expand...


Good shout - Would you add Tilt in Birmingham to that list as well?

With a Special WHen Lit league meet in Salisbury later today perhaps we can have a side competition and make it the first official Pinball Info' event? What do you reckon @Moonraker ? ;):wave::thumbs::D
 
On the overall question of how the ratings work my thoughts would be:

- I enjoy visiting different centres, meeting different people and playing lots of different games:

- I enjoy an aspect of competitiveness that is given to the meets (if you want to be involved in that) as it gives a bit of a sense of purpose to them. I'm never going to do particularly well in them, but enjoy the odd fluke triumph in a fame!

- I haven't got a clue how the WPPR system has worked (or is now intended to work), but I can understand peoples concerns with various possible inequalities and frequent changing ( or moving of the 'soccer posts';

- I've only been back into pinball for the last two years and have probably attended around 20 different meets of varying sizes and types. Pretty well everyone has had a different structure to the competition and rules according to size of venue, number of machines, number of people attending etc. Difficult to see how anyone can rationalise a scoring system across all the different factors . Comparisons with football etc don't work as you effectively have different size (& shape) pitches, different numbers of players with different shaped balls to kick around!

- I've seen references to Pinball as a sport - definitely can't see it as anything other than a game - good and entertaining game though it is!
 
The points thing just confuses me:confused:

I've never really sat down and worried about it as I'm mid range at best. However, I've had some strange points awarded in the past. Andy's pinball Olympics 4 years ago seemed to be giving out lots of points for random events. Last year I also seemed to get a disproportionally large amount of points for one game running a high score contest at the 4 quarters.

Does coming first in the Scottish or Irish league award the same points as coming first in the SE league? There's a big difference in the number of people attending and potentially the level of ability of some players there. If Martin or Matt get through to the league finals and then get knocked in the first round do they get the same points for already beating 60-80 people as a player from a different league might have who's only faced 40? (note the 60-80 would be in total, not the numbers who have turned up at one SE meet:eek:)

Contests where you can pay for additional games also presumably give an advantage to competitive players with deep pockets.

A competitive angle is good if it brings in more people but frequent changes to the calculations has been undermining it IMO
 
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