Back in March 2010 I said I'd post how overall scores were calculated. After extensive searching I seems I never followed up - so to complete the circle...

We use a dynamic relative scoring system. A players total score is calculated as follows:

As a player's score (playerTotalScore) is relative to the server total score (totalScore) a player who does not add to their score is likely to drop in total score as the server's combined score increases.

Each category portion of a player's score is a ratio of the player's score in that category (popScoreplayer) to the top player's score in that category ( max(popScore) ).

e.g. 

This means if you had the maximum score in all categories the bit in the brackets above the line would sum to 8. This bracketed calculation is then multiplied by the total score of the server across all categories. 

We then divide by 8000 - which is 8 x 1000. The 8 is to reduce normalise the eight contributions and the 1000 is because the numbers were getting too big 

A consequence of this is if you push your score up, you can push another players score down. If a player is scoring higher than you and their contribution is only from a few categories you can overtake them by adding to your score from other categories etc. 

And the top trade scores are held by someone who trades with his/her alt.

Wild guess, research points spent in finished researches.  Please say if that theory fits what you see, I'm too lazy to check it over five towns.

My research ranking is still higher than my population ranking, but I expect this is a reflection of the fact that my account has rather less population than do most accounts of its "age."  I've completed research in two of my seven cities and am getting closer on some of the others.

Trade score and trade rank can be manipulated easily, but in some ways I find it more fun to climb in this area the "hard" way.  My trade rank, alas, is still much lower than my population rank, but I'm working on it -- not because I really care what my rank is, but because it's an interesting challenge and because I like to explore the range of activities Illy offers.

I linked you to this forum post, explaining how overall score is calculated.  It's an automated system, and no one "intervenes" in it.  We don't play favourites.  

I can only urge you to reread the explanation and the maths behind it, and perhaps work towards improving your scores in other areas, to assist your overall (calculated) score.

SC

Kimmyeo wrote: Can you please explain the logic for why it is setup like that? Why is it fair for inactive players to get part of my points, or even abandoned accounts, I have seen them gain points.

They aren't taking category score (eg Magic score, Attack score) away from *anyone* else.  

Your category score (in whichever specific category you like to look at) does not go down, in any way, because of the actions of other players.  Your defense category score, or magic category score, or research category score will never go down.  Your category ranking, however, might go down, because someone else's category score has bettered yours.

Your overall score - as it is a derived field according to the formula on page one of this thread - will fluctuate, as it is a derived value from the sum of all the category scores, factoring in the relative difficulty to get points scored in each different category.

The reason it takes into account all the scores in the same category (ie the "total category pool of all the available points in that category") is because different types of category score are easier/harder to get than others.  

For example, it is much easier to get 1 million points in (eg) Magic than it is to get 1 million points in Attack, so the scores for each category are normalised to the total category pool, to balance them out.  The achievability of 1 million points is therefore self-normalising.  

If everyone can get 1 million points in magic very easily, then 1 million points in magic is worth a lot less than 1 million points in Attack.  Dividing an individual's category score by the total category pool normalises the ranking when the categories are combined to create an overall score and allows us to compare apples (Magic Score) with pears (Attack Score) as a self-normalising system of relative category effort and relative individual effort within that category.

So, yes, if two top players battle it out in magic, and you are ranked below both of them, it will make the total category pool for the magic category much larger, whilst leaving everyone else's individual category score in the magic category unchanged. 

This will push *everyone* - except those two players - to a lower overall score.  How much this affects an individual player's overall score and overall ranking will depend entirely on how contingent/sensitive that particular players' overall score is dependent on their performance in the magic category score.  

In this example, if you rank highly overall but have a very poor magic score, then your overall points score won't drop by much.  If you rank highly overall, and are hugely reliant on your Magic score to prop up your overall score, then your overall points score will drop much further - because magic score's contribution to overall score has been devalued relative to (eg) Attack score or any other category of score except Magic.

There are players in the Top 10 Overall Score ranking who aren't in the Top 20 for certain categories of score - and if they improved their ranking in the categories where they are underperforming, their overall score will improve, and others, ranked below them, will reduce.

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This system of calculating a derived overall score and ranking has been in place for more than a decade, entirely unchanged since we put in a small fix many, many years ago (2013? 2014?)

Is the system perfect?  We don't think so, which is why, 18 months ago, we http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/overall-score-request-for-comment_topic10607.html" rel="nofollow - published a public consultation on a potential way of changing the overall score algorithm  but received (at best) a luke-warm response to our proposal, and (more clearly) quite a lot of negative reaction - so we didn't go any further with the proposal.

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I hope this answers your questions.  You are in the same boat as everyone else.  You are not losing score in any score category because of the actions of others, but you might lose ranking if someone else's score passes your own.  

Your derived overall score will fluctuate according to the total pool of available points in each category, which normalises relative performance and required effort to get points across dissimilar point categories (eg Attack and Magic, and all the others).

Best wishes,

SC

EDIT: Fixed bolds, tidied up score names

No, no they can't - unless they continue to gain score in each category at a faster rate than the people below them in each category, and hence overall.

If your complaint is that the very biggest players in the game have an advantage in that they're bigger and can therefore outperform the players ranked below them (for as long as they're playing the game), than that's exactly the way the system is designed to work.  Players who perform better than other players rank higher than other players.

I can't explain it any more clearly than I have.

Regards,

SC

Kimmyeo, i am really sorry you are losing ranking points because of me (and to some part Quentin).

Kimmyeo wrote: Now the top players in the game are fighting it out in magic and trading and the rest of us are screwed because they are at such a level they can take points away from everyone else?

Quentin challenged me to a race for rank 1 until the end of the year some weeks ago. That is why he is putting an insane amount of resources into getting ranking points. I cannot really win the race (he is playing the game a lot longer and thus has a way better base score, i.e. he is leading in most ranking categories that are hard(er) to play like quest/build/attack/defense/diplo) but i tried to make it harder for him - thus i started getting points in magic again. Doleigh got magic rank 1 some days ago, thus i had to "fight" there anyway.

Ranking points do not say that much in my opinion. You cannot compete with 2 players that have over 100 cities and know what they are doing. Getting more cities is by far the best and easiest way to get more ranking points in he long run and thus be more "competitive". I started the game a bit after you and put an insane amount of work in the game. Quentin is putting an insane amount of work in the game. That has to be (and should be) "rewarded" somehow.

A ranking system in a complex game like Illyriad is never really fair. Even the current ranking system is not really fair - as some categories are a lot easier to gain points in than others. It is by far the best and close to fair ranking system i know though and thus i really hope it is going to stay.

An example is the Number 1 Defense player gaining a lot of points since he clearly didn't care much about anything else but building kobolds :)

It has been fun to follow the Thirion vs Quentin battle. In some ways a bit annoying that it is influencing everyone but whatever. We will get over it.

Hope all are well.

One of my first posts on this forum was a program for alliance overall scores. If you really have an issue with the way they are currently calculated, make an algorithm that prioritises what you want and, if it's a good idea, other players who care will follow.

Oh, and you ignore the one true overall rank; forum points.

Oh, and are you guys going to be rank gaining till new years or whats the deal... That might be a bit long?

Winning.

I will catch you one day... maybe... 

I'm only something like 200 points off the first page.