Rank vs Score - What can we learn about progress?

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   Don't forget magic rank! all you have to do is cast any spell that can have mana added to it on any target, and use a lot of exra mana, and your score goes way up! Easy for those people with 100 mil or more of mana. And population is easily done using prestige, but that can get expensive to race to the top!
And my trade rank is all trades with other people too! and I'm #11!

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G0DsDestroyer Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Postmaster Joined: 16 Sep 2010 Location: Ásgarð/Vanaheim Status: Offline Points: 975	Posted: 23 May 2011 at 02:07
	Don't forget magic rank! all you have to do is cast any spell that can have mana added to it on any target, and use a lot of exra mana, and your score goes way up! Easy for those people with 100 mil or more of mana. And population is easily done using prestige, but that can get expensive to race to the top! And my trade rank is all trades with other people too! and I'm #11!
	Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin

Createure Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Postmaster General Joined: 07 Apr 2010 Location: uk Status: Offline Points: 1191	Posted: 22 May 2011 at 18:56
	Alot of the rankings are meaningless Alba: there are ways of unfairly manipulating many of them to obtain enormous scores - and many players have spent time doing this - time wasted in my opinion because I'm sure that rankings will get an overhaul at some point. Several of the categories can be easily manipulated to gain huge scores, in particular trade, diplomacy and magic, but also some others to an extent. For example my personal trade score is currently 35M (rank 164) - I've gained that by doing genuine trading throughout the life of my account - I could easily set up a second account and bounce fake trades around to increase that - In a single fake trade I could gain 80M point. Notice the two accounts in the same alliance at the top of the trade ranks with 35 Trillion points each? That will be one sad person shifting gold back and forward between the two.

Albatross Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Postmaster General Joined: 11 May 2011 Status: Offline Points: 1118	Posted: 22 May 2011 at 13:59
	I've just done a plot of about 30 points, comparing 'Rank' against 'log_10 (Score)' in the Global Rankings, for Rank above 4000. The resulting plot is very close to a straight line. When ascending the Rank sequence, the line continues fairly straight, with players getting a score boost at around Rank 3000. Above the 250th Rank, player's scores exceed the pattern of the previous ranks, and start climbing. These guys have found some 'critical mass' and have exceeded the 'geometric progression' results of the other players. Above 80th rank, it's obvious, with scores 2x the expected score. I think this shows that there's 'something special' that can be pulled out of the hat when players reach a high level (scoring over 150 million), which not all players find. I would have expected the reverse: a bunching of scores at the top, where they reach the achievement limits of the game. There are lots of ways to read the data (including finding fault with the use of Rank vs score, and the inclusion of dormant players), mostly interpreting the distribution of player ability or the point at which a player might become bored with the game and abandon it (dare I suggest such an outcome :o), or even that the highest scores are from opportunist players who started Illyriad in its earliest days and that the top ranks will eventually even out. I'll watch replies with interest. Finally, this all becomes moot if any tweaks are made to game balance, or new features are introduced.