[geoschmo]

I still prefer a method where you caclulate the points lost by averaging the Ratings and splitting points between the winners. It's not as complicated as it sounds when you get down to it.

Five player game:

A B C D E

E eliminated first

E loses points as if losing to one player of a rating equal to the average of the four players beating him.

A, B, C, D gain that number of points split between the four of them. Two ways to do this. Equal shares, or some sort of ratio based on their relative Ratings. The first is easier, but the second isn't that complicated.

Ultimate winner A gains x+.5x+.333x+.25x=2.08x points.

D loses about .75x points.

C loses about .4x points.

B gains about .1x points

One advantage of this is that nobody gets hammered with a 15X drop in score for getting toasted early in a game. The most you could ever lose would be points equal to losing a 1 v 1 game.

Another advantage is the ultimate winner doesn't get jacked up with a 15X jump in scores. The most the ultimate winner could gain is approximatly 3 times the score gained from winning a 1 x 1 game. The actual amount will approach 3x the larger the game gets, but never reach it.

Players aren't incentivised to hang on in a hopeless cause as Primitive pointed out.

Players will be more relaxed and able to play to win, instead of playing defensively for rank and trying not to lose.

Players with good Ratings are going to be ganged up on, that's a given. But this way they aren't unfairly penalized in their Ratings. Otherwise they will probably tend to avoid large games, causing a lowering of the quality of the competition in those games.

And with this method you can also calculate scores as the players are eliminated. Which I agree is important.

[ March 09, 2004, 15:31: Message edited by: geoschmo ]