[If Rank Points Are Truly Here To Stay]

This discussion shouldn't have devolved into a RP vs TT discussion.

 

Yeah. I can guarantee you that the OP didn't intend that.

[If Rank Points Are Truly Here To Stay]

Just use Total Time !!!

 

What could be more Fair ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Or easyer ??????????

 

RANK POINTS SUCK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Jabez Cowboy

For the sake of this discussion, and given historical precedent, let's say that isn't an option.

[If Rank Points Are Truly Here To Stay]

Bud, interesting view on the subject. If I read your example correctly, the only reason the MSV didn't hurt the shooter is that he was faster enough than the other shooter to cover the penalty. If they had shot the same (or closer than 10 seconds) raw time, the MSV would have hurt him. At any given match scores on a given stage do vary widely, say from 15 second to 90 seconds. And that would seem to leave the door open for penalties that don't have any effect due to rank points as your comments suggest. However, I would say that given any shooter, and the group of other shooters that he or she is on par with based on ability and normal average stage times, that rank points would seldom result in penalties that have no effect on the rank points results within that group of peers.

 

I am with Jabez, my issue with rank points is that overall rank points determine category placement. Shooters from outside your category determine how you place in your category. In this day and age of computer scoring, the solution is simple, calculate both overall and category rank points, and use each accordingly. Yes, this would create some cases where a shooter would place higher in category than another shooter, but lower overall, but at least then each placement is based correctly.

I understand the desire to not have overall rank points influence category placement, but relative to the problem of inconsistent penalties, rank within categories would be even worse, especially in small categories. The issue that rank points cause is due to a conversion in the difference between two shooters measured in seconds scored as the number of shooters which fill the gap. This means that a difference of 10 seconds could be anywhere between 0 rank points and the number of shooters attending the match. As you get into smaller and smaller categories, the potential for extreme variation in the real penalty, as measured in rank points, gets worse. The effect of a 10-second penalty in wrangler is going to vary wildly from a 10-second penalty in frontiersman. I don't disagree that perhaps there should be some change to address the issue of overall rank interfering with the scoring of individual categories, but rank within category will not help the issue of variable (or non-existent) safety penalties.

 

This is the biggest problem with rank points, not the postulated failure of rank time to adequately penalize a safety violation. A shooter outside of your category influences your outcome.

 

Further, if you ranked within category rather than across categories, the failure of rank points to penalize safety violations would be much reduced.

Again, rank within categories would increase, not decrease the chances of minimal or non-existent safety penalties. The issue of variable resolution in scoring due to rank points gets worse as the number of shooters in the scoring system is reduced. If you separate by category, you will always reduce the number of shooters being scored together.

 

If the emphasis is on safety, instead of going through all kinds of putting X's and O's into a computer to figure out how much the safety costs you in rank points, just make the time penalty for a safety violation considerably higher than the time penalty for a procedural. Right now we treat them equally, 10 and 10. Make the safety violation 20 seconds or some other number higher than the P.

 

I agree with the statement, "No one goes into a stage thinking, I could save some RP by committing a MSV." But MSV's occur. Bud's statement that safety should come first makes me wonder why a MSV is no worse than a P regardless of the scoring system used.

Unless you increase the safety penalty to some substantial number like 60 seconds, you will still have instances of minimal penalties for safety infractions without addressing the issue of different shooters on the same or different stages receiving different penalties for the same infraction. Why should the penalty for the same safety infraction be different for two different shooters simply because of where they placed in the score distribution? If the match is to be scored using rank points, why shouldn't a safety penalty be issued in the units used to score the match so that it is the same across all stages and throughout the score distribution?

 

I could see an argument being made for allowing the miss or procedural penalties to vary based on stage design and score distribution, but I see no good argument for allowing safety penalties to do the same. Same safety infraction, same penalty would seem like the only logical desired outcome, and if we score matches using rank points, the only way to do this is to issue the penalty in rank points.

 

Unless I'm missing something?

 

Bud

[If Rank Points Are Truly Here To Stay]

I believe Bud is on the right track - the issue with Rank scoring has always been the "variable" penalties associated with misses, safety or procedural penalty. i.e five seconds, ten seconds etc. do not have the same meaning because of where within the overall grouping your score falls.

 

So lets fix that and then examine the outcomes.

A miss is still five seconds, safety and procedural ten - a set amount of time.

So lets make a miss, safety, procedural a "set" unit of penalty.

 

A simple proposal would be to go to the densest cross section of shooters - lets say mid pack.

EoT had approx. 500 shooters this year. So midpoint in scoring theoretically should be around the 250 point. It may not be perfectly - but for my purposes 250 works.

Examining stage 1 shows us at the shooter #250 level - a single miss would cost a shooter about 100 rank points.

So on stage 1 - each 5 second penalty is 100 rank points - each safety 200 - each procedural 200.

Stage 2 - each 5 second penalty was a little stiffer - costing the shooters at the mid point about 130 rank points per.

So on and so - each stage would value the penalties differently but always based on how the penalty affected the greatest number of shooters.

 

One of the purported benefits of Rank is the suspense of shooter placement until awards are announced - this methodology would certainly keep scores secret - because the rank point value of the penalty for each stage could not even be determined until the scores for that stage were compiled.

Creeker, with a set quantity of rank points for the penalty you would face an issue similar to the one we have now. Instead of having penalties which are variable depending on the distribution of scores, you would have penalties proportionally variable based upon the number of shooters attending. My idea was for a penalty in rank points which is a fixed proportion of the number of shooters attending. Thus if a MSV was a x% RP penalty at a 100 shooter match, the penalty would be x rank points. This would keep the penalty scaled for different sized matches.

 

Edited for clarity.

[If Rank Points Are Truly Here To Stay]

We're heading into the cold months, and that always brings about some old, re-hashed topics. One of those, which is sure to come up again, is the scoring system we use in this wonderful game. Rank points are loved and hated, feared and respected, but one way or another they are the scoring system used at SASS sanctioned State level and above matches.

 

One of the issues that I and some others have frequently brought up concerning this scoring system is how penalties effect different shooters to different extents, even on the same stage. Within the rank point scoring system, two shooters at the same match on the same stage may incur a penalty for the same infraction, e.g. a miss, procedural, or safety infraction, and may receive differing numbers of rank points in penalty, potentially none at all. For example, if shooter A and shooter B are 122nd and 123rd on stage 6, shooter A beats shooter by 10.01 seconds, and incurs a MSV, no rank points will be added to his or her score. To some this brings no end of bother, and some people seem to simply not be bothered by it.

 

Personally, I find the potential for an un-penalized safety infraction to be the most bothersome aspect of our scoring system. It would appear to me that, in a shooting sport of all games, safety must be emphasized to the utmost, and we must hold ourselves to its highest standards. This is not expressed in a scoring system which has the potential to place zero penalty on a shooter for a safety infraction. For years I have hoped that rank points would be thrown out in favor of a different scoring system, but it seems this may never happen.

 

Instead, I would like to hear the Wire's thoughts on altering the penalty for safety infractions. Instead of issuing a penalty in seconds, which are not the units used to score a match, why couldn't safety penalties be issued in rank points? It would be fairly easy conceptually to insert wording into the rules in which SASS sanctioned state or above matches shall issue penalties in rank points for safety infractions of X% of total shooters with X being between Y and Z. While there will surely be no end of discussion as to what Y and Z should be, much less X at each match, this would at least address the penalty issue, and ensure that all shooters who incur a safety penalty are in fact penalized for their safety infraction. It would allow flexibility for match directors to set the penalty to what their clubs consider to be a reasonable penalty, and it would allow SASS to show a greater emphasis on safety, which some may speculate has become or continues to be somewhat lax.

 

Keeping in mind that this is the result of idle pondering, has not been submitted as a rule proposal, and is hypothetical to the greatest degree, what do y'all have to say about that?

 

Badlands (what's quite interested to see where this goes) Bud