Global ranking / multiplayer matching

I was a chess player for many years. I held a decent FIFA rating.

Mohawk could do worse than to use a rating based off of international chess ratings. The games online could be rated, or non-rated, based on the player's wishes. If I wanted to try out Scientific, I wouldn't want my rating to be compromised during this test game.

So...the key here is to also give us primarily single players the ability to be ranked as well. A game won against the easiest AI should give you a point or two...with more points as the AI opponents get tougher. The key here is to see how the very hardest AI stacks up to average human opponents...and base your ranking in that fashion.

If you play a noob like me, over time, you would be given points equivalent to a lower level AI opponent...as this is where I see myself today, after just two hours in the game. 

If you beat the hell out of Soren, clearly, you would gain more points, or your average would increase, etc. 

Would you base your ranking on total points, or average points, or somewhere in between, or a combination of the two? A player with 600 wins and 550 losses should rank highly...and should gain respect for his game total. Conversely, how highly would you rank someone that was 15-2 against weak opponents? Higher than someone whose record was 32-20 against much tougher opponents?

The analysis of the parameters used can get fantastically complex.

The problem is there is a strong strategic advantage to buying out stronger opponents first and weaker ones later. Since most games have 4+ players, it's tough to determine how each player did (aside from the winner, of course.)

czartim: By definition, all the non-winning players did equally well (or rather, poorly) - they all lost. OTC is played for victory, not score.

Algorithms like TrueSkill can determine ratings for players based on a wide variety of game schemes, including a scheme like OTC uses: multiplayer games where only one player wins and everyone else loses.

Would it be valid to see the order in which a player got taken over? I recognize that amongst the best players, they will attempt a takeover of whomever they perceive to be the greatest threat...but over time, you would think that there would be some merit for players that placed consistently in the top three or so.

It's not fair to score people based on when they are bought out. People are frequently targeted just because they are the biggest threat, which means they played well. In my opinion the ratings should solely rely on who won and who didn't, no difference between coming 2nd or 4th in terms of how much you score when you lose, if anything.

Agree with Cubit. In FFA there is only one winner and the others are equal losers. Someone who is not a threat can sometimes be left untouched until the very end, just because you need to focus on taking out the opponents who pose a serious threat first.