The following changes to the Lobby Master system (LM) will be effective from the day 120 active Lobby Masters are reached, which by current accounts, will be around the end of the year. All active and retired Masters have already been sent an email with a copy of the information posted below. For all future Master candidates: please take note of the new qualification criteria!

One important change relates to the idea that being a Tantrix Master is a privilege, not a right. A player's Master status is not guaranteed for life, ie it can be withdrawn depending on certain criteria. Up to now qualifying has been fairly easy and there has been no official de-qualifying procedure.

To ensure a high level of play and commitment we will increase the qualification criteria for all future candidates as well as defining de-qualification criteria for existing Masters. The number of Masters will be limited to 120, effectively representing the top 120 lobby players.

Qualification:

To become a Master or to re-qualify as one, a player needs to:

* Gain or regain 950 points in the lobby in good style. Ie players must have demonstrated their ability against a variety of players. They should have developed a reputation for honest and friendly play and should have set a good example to other players: no duplicate accounts, no cheating, no bad language etc.

* Gain or regain an established ELO rating of 1775 through tournament play.
* Provide a few biographical details for the Master database (and keep them current).
* Pass a short test.

Inactivity:

Players who have not been active over a 3-month period are at risk of dropping off the Master list. We are defining 'active' as meaning having played at least 5 Master games over 3 months. Exceptions can be made for players who are overseas for long periods of time and for other special cases. If a new master qualifies, inactive players are demoted ahead of lowly ranked players on the list.

Re-qualification:

Players who drop off the Master list can re-qualify at a later date. A 3-month stand down period applies. After 3 months ex-masters can qualify again by fulfilling all the initial criteria. Their ranking will be reset to 1200.

Please note that these changes affect Lobby Master titles only (LM) and NOT the tournament-based Master titles - namely the International Tantrix Master (IM) and Tantrix Grand Master (GM) titles - which are based on different criteria and are held for life.

By Rick Yagodich (Ricky) on Thursday, July 24, 2003 - 06:33 am:

Time to get controversial as no one else is prepared to stick their neck out. Personally, I think these newly proposed master rules are a mistake. I find nothing wrong with the thoughts behind them, the desire to make LM harder to achieve and more meaningful. What I do not like are the specifics.

So here comes a very nasty proposal. This actually coveres a lot more then just the LM title and the criteria for attaining it, but everything here is interrelated.

First off, let's rename the current LM title to something more appropriate - Experienced. Oh, there are people with the LM title who have earned it in a deserving way, but those people will recover easily enough from what I am about to propose: it's those who have achieved it by playing the bot, targeting lower ranked opponents to build their score or other dubious processes who will feel the effect here.

The first thing this proposal calls for is a complete overhaul of how lobby ranking works, on several fronts.

Let's start with ranking change per game. For the lobby ranking to have any meaning, this needs to be slashed drastically. I have personally had games that resulted in 20-point lobby fluctuations - given the range of the scale, this is too extreme. We need a combination that encourages new players into the game and but also a viable guide to a player's performance. This means that the initial phase should involve a reasonably rapid rise up the scale. It also needs to be a better guide at distinguishing player performance - normally, my score fluctuates in a range from 900 to 970... this is during the course of average play, not even a bad run.

I am not going to propose an algorithm here.

Anyhow, I also thing there should be a secondary ranking - one that doesn't appear anywhere but is used in the calculation of changes. This secondary ranking would change based on the last game played while the actual lobby ranking change would be weighted 90% towards your current and 10% towards your hidden rankings... this would allow a random bad game without dire effects on one's ranking. In effect, it would take a run of bad games to start a precipitous ranking slide, which would accelerate as the hidden ranking dropped further and further. The early stages of a new player's ranking could be accelerated by starting this hidden ranking at 1000.

Additionally, while rankings should remain displayed as integers, I think a single decimal place should be used in the calculations and storage of the actual figure. This allows a smoother scale.

The other effect of this overhaul would be to change the midpoint of the lobby - the level at which it is considered one is a good player. A respectable player would have a score in the 800-850 range (as opposed to the current 900-950), but from 900, the gradient of the ranking curve (number and size of wins) would increase though stay somewhat steadier than it is now. This would make a ranking of 950 about as difficult to achieve as 990-odd is now, (with the added requirement of far more consistent games needed achieve it).

Next, I would suggest that for most games, ranking changes should be delta-neutral... the points lost by one player equal the points gained by the other (or an aggregate 0.1 point increase). The exceptions to this would be for 980 players (delta negative). The current system is negative for all >850 players.

So far, this will do one key thing - it will make lobby rankings more meaningful.

Oh, the other thing that goes with this... except for players who have played less then 100 games, robot games (which once you are a reasonably skilled player actually work to deteriorate your skill) should not count towards ranking.

Now, on to recognition.

The current gold colour would need to be adjusted down to about 800 with the above changes to represent a similar level of play. Additional recognition color changes could also be added along the way - with the slower progress, players would need something to work towards. The "experienced" ranking would be about 900 (harder than it is at present, and taking longer to achieve)

The critical requirement here is for something to call Master (from here on Master refers to this definition, not the current LM system). What should it be? It should designate a player as being of the highest calibre - exceptional in their ability under any and all circumstances. A game between two masters (unless it is designated as a casual game) should draw in crowds to watch teh quality of play, irrespective of whether it is a tournament game or not. A master should be someone to learn from. A master should be prepared to teach, prepared to explain (post game) what they were doing and thinking.

So, basing this on lobby rankings for the moment (I will throw this idea out in a minute), I would use the following criteria:
- the Master bar would be at 975
- 50% of ranked games between 900 and the bar must have been against other 900+ players or existing Masters
- a winning percentage in the last 200 games against 900+ players of at least 55% (in ranked games)
- the process of going over the bar must be achieve in conjunction with 3 consecutive wins against an existing Master who agrees _beforehand_ that the games will count for this. If one goes over the bar without this, the 3 games can be arranged at any point while the player is over the bar.
- a training credit - another player who will vouch that the applicant Master has actively helped teach them the game. This could obviously be collected ahead of time as the trainee might have stopped playing in the time it takes to become a master.

Would Master status be for life?

Yes and no. The recognition of having achieved it should be there forever, though full Master status should require one to continue to regularly play at the level of a Master. This would mean achieving the bar level at least once in the previous 6 months and playing at least 50 ranked player games in that time (100 a year). Failing to re-reach the bar would mark one as an ex-Master (better name needed). Full master status would be automatically returned on passing over bar, with the only criteria being the 50% of ranked games being against other 900+ and existing Masters.

Also, there should be no limit to the number of Masters. These criteria would mean a player must perform consistently over a long period of time, and against high ranked players to achieve Master status. Maybe some of the parameters in algorithms would need to be adjusted, but it should be nigh on impossible to become a Master within one year of starting to play, with the average being more like 2. If players can consistently perform to the required standard to retain their full master status, they should keep it.

OK, now to debunk the criteria... The question that still remains is what to do with master rooms. There would be insufficient Masters to make them meaningful with these new criteria (at least for the moment). So, I would suggest changing both normal and master rooms to casual and serious rooms respectively. All the criteria above for Master status would apply (with adjustments for scale) to serious rooms. The threshold for access to serious rooms would need to be lowered (say 800 on the new scale which would be a colour change bar) with new players having their serious ranking start at the lower end of the scale. Therefore, if someone is tired, they could play casual games to their heart's content; winning and losing wouldn't matter too much. A player qualified to play serious games would automatically have their serious ranking displayed in the lobby.

Lastly, the one thing I haven't mentioned - tournaments. Tournemants are a special circumstance, and I do not believe that Master status should be dependent on tournament play or performance. There are already two very exclusive titles for this purpose. these new criteria would make it tough enough for a player to reach Master without requiring them to play in tournaments of achieve a certain ELO rating.