Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

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alioth
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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by alioth » Sun Oct 10, 2021 7:48 pm

Thanks for the effort with the rate function.
I have seen the page and it seems to work quite well.
And I think it reflects very well what I see in the competitions.

Just for saying something:
1- even it is the last rated flying date, I would prefer one of these options:
. 1a.- only pilots with a rated flight in the last (or two) years should appear. You watch the list to see pilots performance, but the performance of a pilot who won the points 5 years ago, is not real, because the points were won against different pilots that are now flying.
. 1b.- one (as example) month (or year) after your last rated flight, you loose a point per day you don't fly.
2- I would add a country flag in the list !
3- I see very high variations with only one flight. This is the reason in chess is used the "K factor" in the elo system. When your elo is higher, the factor K is lower. In this way your rating is more stable along the time. I don't know if there is a "k-factor" being used in this list, but I think It could be useful. It smooths rated curves.

Thanks again.
I think it is a very good idea and one more incentive to try to be a better pilot (in the game).
In real life i don't even know how to get into the plane or tie my seat belts. So for me, it is "just" a game.

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6266
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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by 6266 » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:10 am

Actually I didn't want to write anything more about that, but let me invest one hour more in that, it will be the last ...

Because it's not so easy to write exactly what I mean, I use google to translate some sentences or words, hope not to be misunderstood because of language difficulties.
witor wrote:
Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:23 pm
... To be honest I don’t quite understand why some people don’t mind being listed in first or 50th position in the competition results, but suddenly have a problem with being listed in first or 50th position on a rating list…
To be listed in a competition is no problem. This list is actual during the competition, after that nobody cares about that any longer. The rating list like it is realized now will last for decades. If we don't take this list seriously, we don't need it, so we take it seriously. That means that we will try to get better on that list. If we are bad on that list we have to fly better. To fly better means to fly more to get more skill. This can turn into a vicious circle that can lead to gambling addiction, especially if you don't get better.

If I look on the general ranking on CC of 2020 the top 1 flew 1481 hours, that means 4 hours every day of the year. This list is one of the things I absolute don't like on CC, because it promotes gambling addiction. The new rating will support this even further. (BTW the SGP plans to fly 9 qualification competitions a year and one flight a day is the same direction. I like the FAI to get involved in eSports, but in my opinion that's too much. But that's another topic)
witor wrote:
Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:23 pm
... In general I just think that there are way more benefits to a proper skill based rating system than issues caused by it...
Is it really only skill based? An example from my last flight on NCC. I climbed my final lift until the PDA shows DDH 0 m. Leaving the lift in direction to the finish DDH is -150 m. I can't believe that this is my skill, loosing 150 m in a few seconds without recognizing it? Maybe 30 seconds with 5 m/s more sinking as usual? And I don't see that? No. So it wasn't the final lift, needed one more. The whole finish my DDH was a countdown to the K.O., decreasing MC more and more, trying all, flying faster, slower, nothing helped. DDH goes down continuously. I have screenshots, loosing 15 m DDH in 13 seconds. My skill? Maybe, but I think there is something wrong. I never flew with a PDA in RL, so I don't know how it works in RL, but I can't believe that this is right. I only know that it's not the sinking bug with the Vsync (have the Vsync activated in the Setup), and I know that this is absolute frustrating.

I had such an issue with wrong flap settings because of flying without water. Ok, skill. The discus has no flaps, water was full. Surely skill to configure the pc, or to buy the best equipment. Downrated for the next ten years because my skill isn't good enough? No, thank you.
witor wrote:
Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:23 pm
Well, there might be fewer people flying rated competitions if they have a choice. If all competitions are rated people who fly now will keep flying and I don’t think there will be significant change in number of participants.
So you like to force people to be rated? Doesn't work with me. I will not fly any task in future sending it's result to CC. That's a shame for CC, because it's actually a good side. And it's a shame for me because of loosing some nice events. Of course I'm not a significant number, I'm only one. Maybe I come back when there is an option to self-determination over my data, maybe not, we will see.

I wish all good luck in the coming competitions and on the rating. It's my final comment to this and needed more than one hour, but it's good to have written it out of my head ...
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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by BOD1 » Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:19 am

Hello,
Here is some short comments, I'll be very busy next couple of days so can't detail more right now :/

Please pay attention here, rating is not a ranking or scoring, rating doesn't have unit (it's not "points"!), it expresses a level of "skills" against other players accordingly to the outcome of a race.

Pilot's rating is based on his arrival order in the race, his previous rating (1000 for newcomer), his opponents' rating, the number of opponents.
Rating system is not aware of your particular performance in-flight, or how great was the difference in points with others, it get only your position.
Ex-aequo players have the same position: for example, 3 players are 7th, the following player is 10th.
Rating handles also Did Not Finish. If a player, for whatever reason, doesn't complete the task (land out, crash, no FTR, ...), he is marked as DNF. And that affects his rating in a very penalizing way. So pilots taking outrageous risks are not really awarded.
And player rating doesn't change if he doesn't fly.

All valid days (in FAI terms, at least 1/4 of competitors finished the race) are rated, without considering competition settings (ie "only the N best scores").
:arrow: Note: my bad, all days are rated right now, that'll be fixed on next release.

This rating can also issue points, which can be used for a yearly ranking, I'll add it later this year and change/rename actual Pilot's Ranking List to "Pilot's Log book" or similar. The Hall of Fame will be based on the future yearly ranking.

Country flag will be added, and CN bug will be fixed later this week. Organizers will be able to choose if their competition is rated or not.


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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by Fox9 » Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:59 pm

BOD1 has made an excellent job, but I see a problem.

Most pilots will of course optimize their ranking list value (that's the reason why it exists). The ranking list is based upon flight days. Let us assume a pilot is very succesful in tasks with strong and wide thermals with high activity. He registered in a competition and flies only the tasks where he is succesful (lifts are strong, wide with high activity) and skips all the other tasks. Because he is primarily interested in a good ranking list value he is not interested in the competition score. This makes the competition scoring more meaningless and degrade competitions to a supplier of flight days. In the end we have two competing ratings, ranking list and competition score.

It is simple to repair. The ranking list must be based on the final results of the competitions.

Fox9

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by EDB » Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:20 pm

witor wrote:
Sun Oct 10, 2021 12:56 am
Crashing in car race where 20 cars try to make first corner affects final race results way more that relatively rare collisions in condor and with q being used effect of collisions on final results are negligible, so safety rating and 'licences' make absolutely no sense in condor and collisions will also have very small effect on the ratings and how rating system works.

It's not about final race results. It's about rating drivers/pilots (racers). You can not compare a good racer/driver/pilot that hardly ever crashes, as it should, against a racer/driver/pilot that crashes a lot. The pilot that crashes a lot races/drives/flies above his rating and is an EXTREMELY bad racer/driver/racer, only finishing by luck. He is influencing the rating system in an extremely negative way. He steals points/rating from the real good pilots that don't crash. It is EXTREMELY offensive to compare the two. A crashing pilot doesn't come close to a pilot that doesn't crash. The pilot that never crashes is ALWAYS the better pilot. So pilots that crash more then one or two times in a competition should be removed from any rating system. They just are too bad to be rated. Good pilots don't want to be rated against those 'pilots'. So to see those pilots in (the top of) a rating list is absolutely hilarious. I don't want to be compared against those pilots. Any pilot that lands out in all tasks in a competition is way better then a pilot that has killed himself or wrecked his glider. It should be impossible for dead pilots that wrecked their glider to continue in a competition. I have seen pilots win competitions in were they wrecked their glider in the beginning of the completion. That should not be possible.

At virtualsoaring.eu they understand this. If you crash or don't upload your IGC (it's usually the same thing), you are out of the competition. And all days count. They changed that last thing lately though. But when all these rules were there, they had the best competitions.

They also understand this at iRacing. You need to ban the bad pilots that race above their skills. That ruin the fun of the good guys. You can't allow those pilots/drivers/racers to participate. This banning system made iRacing one of the most successful race platforms. Up to a level that they now are able to organize races with prize money up to 100.000,= for the winner. They are that successful. They have a big user base that are even willing to pay a fee every month to be able to compete.

I point you again to their rules of iRacing and their banning system. Especially read chapter 3 and 4.

iRacing Sporting Code Dated 2021-08-30


They first select drivers by giving a starter a rookie license. And then :

3.2.2. License Class advancement is based on two factors:
3.2.2.1. Completion of a Minimum Participation Requirement (MPR).
3.2.2.2. Achievement of a minimum Safety Rating

So it doesn't matter how fast you drive. You are selected on Safety Rating. If you are an unsafe driver you will never compete in the real competitions. So their first selection is SAFETY. By doing so you ban the bad drivers. This is the basis of their success. Instead of loosing the good drivers, they ban the bad drivers and keep the good ones. Competitions that don't use this system will loose all good users.

Read their document. The Safety rating is not just kicking others of the track. It's also Wheels off the racing surface, Loss of control, Contact with other object. The severity is rated. So landing out is in a way a safety issue. You apparently pushed to far. But then if someone isn't even skilled enough to land-out his safety rating should be lowered MASSIVELY. Crash pilots should be banned.

If you have a higher license, you can be demoted in one single race depending on the severity of you Safety Issue.

In their system, Safety Rating comes first, iRating comes second. The iRating is only used to divide people in different servers. So of 120 drivers qualify for a race, the best rated ones are in the first server, the lowest rated are in the last server. So people are competing against other drivers of their skill level. There are no crash pilots. They are banned. You can have a bad day and make some mistakes. Then you risk demotion. This results in a rating system that is way more reliable. And again. The iRating is just a secondary rating. The Safety Rating is MUCH more important.

Safety in the air (sports) is even more important. Safety is what makes air activity possible. If you can't fly an aircraft safely in real life, you don't get a license and you can go and find an other hobby or job.

Safety first, the rest comes second. If you want to introduce a rating system, you first have to introduce a Safety Rating system.

One extra tip for such a system, apart from banning pilots that crash twice in one competition might be to use the Currency Barometer...
https://members.gliding.co.uk/wp-conten ... ometer.gif

When I was still flying, I heard many pilots that tried Condor, but most of them were Rolling On the floor Laughing. Seeing the unrealistic dangerous flying.

The amount of Dutch glider pilots flying in Condor has increased during corona. Last year we had a server with more then 80 pilots. Do we see those Dutch pilots on CC competitions?

No.

Why..?

Read the above.

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by EDB » Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:50 pm

witor wrote:
Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:23 pm
Let’s not forget that condor is a video game and nobody dies when they crash. We are not rating real glider pilots; we are rating people’s skill in playing the game. Anyway, crash in condor will have more severe consequences compared to crash in Iracing, which again I believe is exactly what you want. If you crash in condor it is game over you lose with everyone and lose a lot of rating points. In I racing you might still be able to repair your car in a pit stop and win the race.

You are wrong. Condor is not a video game. It's called Condor, The Complete Soaring Simulator. It's a simulator and many hours are spent to make it as real as possible.

It is not called Condor X : The Glider Crash Game

And people that think that way kill the competitions. Kill Condor.

You don't loose a lot in CC competitions. You should be removed of any achievements when you killed yourself. Dead pilots can not continue. If you want to continou you should start over again. As a new pilot. Because your old one is DEAD.
Last edited by EDB on Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by EDB » Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:57 pm

witor wrote:
Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:23 pm
To be honest I don’t quite understand why some people don’t mind being listed in first or 50th position in the competition results, but suddenly have a problem with being listed in first or 50th position on a rating list…

Because in the competition results you can see that the order of Overall Results is ridiculously flawed. There you can see that the whole ranking system is a joke. You see many dead pilots in the top listings.

In the current rating system bad dead pilots are hidden. Bad dead pilots are compared to skilled living pilots and you can't see who the dead pilots are. And all those skilled living pilots at some point stop flying Condor because of it.

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by witor » Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:10 am

I am sorry EDB, but I just disagree with you on many points which is a shame because we actually want the same thing. The difference is that I think that skill based (at least in some way) rating system will get us closer to what I think we both want and you think it pushes us further away. There are many similarities between racing in Iracing and condor, but there are also some obvious differences. Banning dangerous drivers in Iracing is a must. If someone low rated would start from p15 and then without any breaking before the first corner would took out first 5 top rated drivers that would spoil the game and competition for everyone, so banning of people like this is a must. In condor things like this do not happen... Racing in condor is just not the same as racing in Iracing in that respect.
EDB wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:57 pm
You see many dead pilots in the top listings.
Sorry but who exactly do you have in mind? I could play a devils advocate and ask you if you have ever crashed in condor, if your answer is yes, then sorry but you can't play condor again because you are dead... come on lets not go that route. I will try to say again; now if people care about rating at all they should fly way more carefully than before, because crashes now will be very costly in terms of rating, this will motivate people to fly more safely
EDB wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:50 pm
And people that think that way kill the competitions. Kill Condor.
I just try to be real, yes the closer it is to the real glider the better, we would all love (especially me) if it was indistinguishable from flying a real glider, but facts are facts no matter what anyone tries to call it, it is still a PC video game.
EDB wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:20 pm
Last year we had a server with more then 80 pilots.
Excellent! great to see condor community growing.
EDB wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:20 pm
Do we see those Dutch pilots on CC competitions?
The beauty of freedom is that anyone can do what they want and have fun in condor in a way they like. Some people like flying on flat land (which in my opinion is just boring, but again that just my opinion and everyone is entitled to like whatever they want) and some like to fly in the mountains maybe because they can't do it for real and condor allows them to live their dreams. Some people like when climbs are 1.2m/s some don't, there is room for everyone and I don't see why we should force anyone to do something they don't like. At the end of the day organisers usually want to have as many participants as possible and you can't blame them that they have tasks that most condor users will find appealing. You just can't force 'full realism' on everyone because not everyone likes it, but of course if you want to create a competition, which is 'as real as it gets' nobody is stopping you. Typing is quite tiring. If you ever want to have a chat join us on team speak on polish channel. I am there quite often in the evenings.
Last edited by witor on Tue Oct 12, 2021 4:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by witor » Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:17 am

Fox9 wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:59 pm
BOD1 has made an excellent job, but I see a problem.

Most pilots will of course optimize their ranking list value (that's the reason why it exists). The ranking list is based upon flight days. Let us assume a pilot is very succesful in tasks with strong and wide thermals with high activity. He registered in a competition and flies only the tasks where he is succesful (lifts are strong, wide with high activity) and skips all the other tasks. Because he is primarily interested in a good ranking list value he is not interested in the competition score. This makes the competition scoring more meaningless and degrade competitions to a supplier of flight days. In the end we have two competing ratings, ranking list and competition score.

It is simple to repair. The ranking list must be based on the final results of the competitions.

Fox9
The problem with using final competition standings is that some people register, just fly few flights and do not even have enough flights to be in any meaningful final position. If we had the rating system you propose, ratings would totally not reflect how good people actually are because the best pilot just flew one race and ended last in overall standings, which obviously doesn't mean he is the worst. I have already written about that at some point in this thread. I agree that people might pick tasks that they feel they are good at, but I don't think that will really happen. If you sign up for a competition you will just fly because apart from your rating you also want to be high in the competition standings.

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by witor » Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:25 am

6266 wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:10 am
I climbed my final lift until the PDA shows DDH 0 m. Leaving the lift in direction to the finish DDH is -150 m. I can't believe that this is my skill, loosing 150 m in a few seconds without recognizing it?
Sorry, but that is exactly related to your skill, or maybe general understating of Condor. DDH does not take total energy into account. It can not predict how much height you will lose when you accelerate to your correct MC cruising speed. You need to have positive DDH before you leave the thermal (if there is no more lift expected) because you will lose height while accelerating. Not knowing that is a part of what is quite close to something that could be called skill.

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by 6266 » Tue Oct 12, 2021 7:47 am

witor wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:25 am
Sorry, but that is exactly related to your skill ...
Thanks witor, I like to say things the way I mean them and I want everyone to do it. I absolute accept your answer.
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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by dgtfer » Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:23 am

witor wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:25 am
6266 wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:10 am
I climbed my final lift until the PDA shows DDH 0 m. Leaving the lift in direction to the finish DDH is -150 m. I can't believe that this is my skill, loosing 150 m in a few seconds without recognizing it?
Sorry, but that is exactly related to your skill, or maybe general understating of Condor. DDH does not take total energy into account. It can not predict how much height you will lose when you accelerate to your correct MC cruising speed. You need to have positive DDH before you leave the thermal (if there is no more lift expected) because you will lose height while accelerating. Not knowing that is a part of what is quite close to something that could be called skill.
More precisely, It doesn't mean you lose so much: went accelerating, most of your potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy. A loss of 150m means an acceleration of about 120km/h (from 90 to 210km/h), but you still have it with your plane, and you will recover most of it in altitude as soon as you have pulled the stick again.
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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by 6266 » Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:03 pm

Nice to discuss my skill, but that's not the point in this thread.

May main points in this thread are protection of personal data and prevention of gambling addiction.
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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by witor » Tue Oct 12, 2021 4:15 pm

6266 wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:03 pm
May main points in this thread are protection of personal data and prevention of gambling addiction.
I don't think that introduction of a rating system will lead to addiction problems. Just because someone want's to spend some time learning, practicing and trying to get better at something doesn't mean that the person is addicted. Ratings exist in most games played. Millions of people play rated chess games every day and try to improve their play (rating is just a way to measure it) and there is not much concern about addiction problem. O course if someone is worried that he or she will get addicted they should simply stop or look for help. I do not negate that some people might have addiction problems, but that's not because of some rating system.

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Re: Pilot ranking list - could we have something meaningful?

Post by witor » Thu Oct 14, 2021 11:39 pm

BOD1 wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:19 am
All valid days (in FAI terms, at least 1/4 of competitors finished the race) are rated
I am not sure if only 'valid' days should be rated. If it is a difficult task and many people land out better pilots will fly further and win with weaker pilots, so I don't see why a day like this should not be included in rating calculations. In general I think that to make the rating reflect skill as close as possible all days in a rated competitions (apart from practice days) should count.

I had a little think about what to do with people who have not flown for many years. My suggestion would be to have 2 rating lists. One could be called something like 'Active pilots rating list' and would only list people who flew rated flight in the last, let's say, year and 'All time rating list' that would list everyone who ever flew in a competition. For people who are no longer on 'active' list rating would still be remembered and as soon as they fly again previous rating would be used in all rating calculations and they would be back on the 'Active' list. I suppose this solution would be relatively easy to implement and would give everyone a bit more relevant information.

It would also be amazing if information on a competition day rating tab could be sorted in different order by clicking on top of the column. For example in increasing order of 'rank change' or 'race's rank' or 'rating change' or 'Nb ratings. This would allow to quickly check who had a really good race and gained lots of rating points :D

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