Addon for Skirmish rating?

Hello!

Back in the old days we had this amazing addon (Skirm) for Skirmishes which gave you a "rating" after defeating other teams with the addon.
Are there any plans going on to remake this addon or make a new addon like this? This would be great with skirmishes coming back in 6.0!
 
Unsure if possible (without ppl cheating as in OQ) but +1^^
 
epeen would take more than updating the addon. you'd also have to duplicate the server side stuff as well, scripts/database. it's no small project and i doubt the guy would give it up for free.
 
I might be up for working on Skirm/Epeen again (minus the website since that was developed by a friend who no longer plays WoW).

The main problem is that addons aren't allowed to be obfuscated anymore (their code must be readable) so I can't think of a way to make it secure, meaning anyone could edit their ratings without much effort. Would also need to figure out how the arena rating system works now since last time the addon was working was back when you started at 1500 rating.

@danny glover: What kind of front-end work could you do?
 
I might be up for working on Skirm/Epeen again (minus the website since that was developed by a friend who no longer plays WoW).

The main problem is that addons aren't allowed to be obfuscated anymore (their code must be readable) so I can't think of a way to make it secure, meaning anyone could edit their ratings without much effort. Would also need to figure out how the arena rating system works now since last time the addon was working was back when you started at 1500 rating.

@danny glover: What kind of front-end work could you do?
[MENTION=18826]Bop[/MENTION] used some kind of program... not sure what the name was. On an arena event i think.
 
[MENTION=18826]Bop[/MENTION] used some kind of program... not sure what the name was. On an arena event i think.

No, I manually entered in the results of an arena match into an ELO calculator (the one on the USchess.org website, actually).

As far as I can see, that's all this addon would really need to do.

It would need to recognize a character, remember that character's rating, and apply changes to the rating of that character based on skirmish outcomes. The data would need to be stored somewhere, so it wouldn't be client-side.

I'm not sure about the possibility of that last part - and I think Aelobin said that encryption is no longer allowed?
 
No, I manually entered in the results of an arena match into an ELO calculator (the one on the USchess.org website, actually).

As far as I can see, that's all this addon would really need to do.

It would need to recognize a character, remember that character's rating, and apply changes to the rating of that character based on skirmish outcomes. The data would need to be stored somewhere, so it wouldn't be client-side.

I'm not sure about the possibility of that last part - and I think Aelobin said that encryption is no longer allowed?

That's basically what the old version did. Calculated ELO ratings for all players in a match based on the outcome and stored them locally, in a semi-encrypted way which had anti-tampering checks. The thing I was confused about was ratings starting at 0 instead of 1500 but I assume that just makes you earn rating really fast to start with? I haven't done arena in quite a while, does anyone know what the maximum rating gain from a match is?

Unfortunately data can only be stored client-side by an addon (unless it was to send it to an always-connected player via bnet, but that's not really a viable option). If anyone has any ideas for hack-proof methods of recording games within the limits of an addon then I'm listening but otherwise I think the only option is to not bother trying to make it secure and just let the user decide if they want to use it legitimately or not.
 
That's basically what the old version did. Calculated ELO ratings for all players in a match based on the outcome and stored them locally, in a semi-encrypted way which had anti-tampering checks. The thing I was confused about was ratings starting at 0 instead of 1500 but I assume that just makes you earn rating really fast to start with? I haven't done arena in quite a while, does anyone know what the maximum rating gain from a match is?

Unfortunately data can only be stored client-side by an addon (unless it was to send it to an always-connected player via bnet, but that's not really a viable option). If anyone has any ideas for hack-proof methods of recording games within the limits of an addon then I'm listening but otherwise I think the only option is to not bother trying to make it secure and just let the user decide if they want to use it legitimately or not.

So here is the calculator I used - it may answer some of your questions regarding higher rating gains. Basically you assign them a K value coefficient that scales down the more games they have played. Currently for chess the K threshhold is 50 games - Assuming skirmishes were popping very quickly and there was a large enough population to support them, such a K value threshhold would probably be appropriate. Basically you base it off how long you think should suffice as a "test" period - so that players will quickly achieve their actual play-strength rating rather quickly.

Now, on to the calculator itself. The first 12 empty textboxes are essentially irrelevant past the first one. In chess, it is more convenient to calculate your rating changes after a tournament has completed rather than after individual games - so the extra boxes are to put the ratings of all of your competitors.

"Total Score" is referring to how well you did against your opponents - 1 for a win, .5 for a draw, 0 for a loss. Since it is technically possible to draw in a skirmish, the draw outcome might be used somewhat for calculating skirmish rating changes. But frankly, to avoid exploitation, simply giving both teams a flat rating reduction (say, 5 points) might be more appropriate in those cases.

"Performance" - again, this is a chess thing that doesn't really matter for skirmishes. It proposes what your actual play-strength is (different from what your new rating will be).

"Current Rating" - this is where you would put the ratings of the team you are calculating the changing rating for. I think the United States Chess Federation starts every player at a "hidden" rating of about 1000, and causes their first 10 games to be a preliminary period before they achieve an actual rating.

"New Rating" - where the new rating of the player is calculated.

"#of Prior Games" - this calculates the hidden "k" value. The point at which the K value stops changing is at 50 games.

"Age" - irrelevant. It's hard to believe that it actually /is/ relevant for USCF calculations. I read a book about ELO ratings one summer. Like 1 in every 10,000 cases has to fall on Age to determine the base-line K value approximation.

"Show K/Bonus" - irrelevant.

Edit: the changes of rating are kind of steep with this calculator (A loss at 1500 rating versus another 1500 rated team yields a 23 point drop to 1477). So the outputs could probably be adjusted to be less harsh.
 
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Information about ELO

Thanks - I think if WoW still uses the ELO system then they probably do something similar to the USCF's sliding K-factor (that would account for the 96 rating wins at the start).

However whilst I was researching it, I came across this:
World of Warcraft formerly used the Elo Rating system when teaming up and comparing Arena players, but now uses a system similar to Microsoft's TrueSkill.
Not sure if that's true.

I'll hopefully start work on the addon sometime after 6.0 but I can't promise anything as I'll also be busy updating all my twinks' gear and getting ready for WoD release.


iirc you cant sell wow addons as its against ToS

Copyright licenses still exist regardless if you're selling something or not but I think he was talking about the website as that's the only part of the old system which used a database and server-side scripts :p The addon did communicate with others who were using it but everything was stored client-side.

I don't mind sharing what I learnt whilst writing the previous code but I won't be releasing a full unobfuscated version of the old Epeen because even though it's irrelevant now, a lot of effort went into making it "hack-proof".


Aelobin
The max rating gain for an arena match is 96 I believe

Thanks! Back in Wrath (during the days of the original Epeen) you'd only earn up to a max of 32 rating per game iirc.


Edit: Damn, this brings back memories xD
platinum.jpg
 
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