Alright, you fools, the Izzonator is throwing down the gauntlet!

The challenge: Put together the best pack result in the experience ranks for next round.

The stake: Packs in the bottom half have to reimburse the packs in the top half $5 for their realm book donation. If we have an odd number of competitors, we'll round down, and the pack that winds up in the middle will neither win reimbursement nor have to reimburse a pack above them.

The rules: Each pack scores based on where their participating kingdoms end the round in the experience ranks. No late joins to the realm -- 6 kingdoms limit, though you can roll with less if you want, but all kingdoms must be in your realm as of 24 hours after protection ends. Finishing with #1 xp ranking is worth 50 points, down to 1 point for 50th. Best *aggregate realm score* wins. If a kingdom deletes during the round, you get no score for that kingdom and cannot replace it. If a kingdom overpopulates during the round, they can start over and their score will count for whatever they get back up to. Land players' experience positioning (from questing, etc) *will count* for this scoring, as long as they meet the other requirements.

To join: Pack leaders, PM me or post the throwdown here! You must join the challenge by the time Legends starts counting hours next round.

(In a separate, "totally unrelated" note, if anyone wants to help my team win...)

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-It's burning! It's all burning!

If we have, say, have a pack of 3 and stick with only 3 kingdoms all round, are we allowed to double our aggregated score? That would make this competition much more fun... Or, the player with the lowest score gets tripled.

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The Age of Despair :: Round 2 :: 1 El Norte
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 4 :: 1 SmoochyWoochyPoochy
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 6 :: 1 Goblin Rings
The Age of Achievements :: Round 1 :: 1 Hufflepuff's Cup

Two considerations I can think of:

1) If open locs aren't required, then it might get sticky for a "what if someone starts crappy and then decides to delete/defect to avoid dragging down the team's score" situation...

2) I'd think there should be some incentive to get an entire 6 man group that does well, though I suppose that would have the negative effect of reducing the number of teams willing/able to play, and possibly make it less likely that teams take on new players. On the flip side, I wince at the thought of "only the highest X results count" scoring, cuz I really don't like the designated winner(s) and a bunch of hoes pack construction (it gets really really ugly in competitive xp play).

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-It's burning! It's all burning!

Why not just take an average. If realms have people deleting or whatever i'm pretty sure someone will be observant enough to spot it unless it happens very early.

We can always check the rankings to make sure. =P

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The Age of Despair :: Round 2 :: 1 El Norte
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 4 :: 1 SmoochyWoochyPoochy
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 6 :: 1 Goblin Rings
The Age of Achievements :: Round 1 :: 1 Hufflepuff's Cup

Thought experiment for averaging:

Pack #1 - 3 players, finish 1st 2nd 12th
Pack #2 - 6 players, finish 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th

Which pack "should" win?

Pack #1 - 3 players, finish 2nd 3rd 10th
Pack #2 - 6 players, finish 1st 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th

Which pack "should" win?

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-It's burning! It's all burning!

Pack #1 in both instances, if taking average rank.

Though i actually had average xp in mind rather than average xp rank..

Well, yes, I constructed both examples that way. But the objective of the question was who *deserves* to win.

And if you go average experience, does that overly penalize a pack that takes a "regular landplayer rankho" or has someone provide rimp/bop support?

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-It's burning! It's all burning!

I think this is the best option. . . just use a really big number for X, like 5 or 6.

I like how you are basing it on exp rank instead of total exp. This makes the little guys just as important as the big guys.

You need to add a tie breaker. Maybe something simple: Total exp for top X players.

I'd say the obvious tiebreaker would be highest individually ranked player.

In a world where there was no ability to attack for burned land, I would totally agree with top 4 or 5, could maybe even talk me into top 3. But burners are soooooooooooooooo "easy" to play and so hard to combat in xp play... *shrug*

_________________
-It's burning! It's all burning!

Or how about making it slightly more complicated..
How about comparing top xp in every realm with top xp in every other realm and award 5p, then you compare second highest xp in every realm with each other and the realm with the highest #2 gets 4p etc.

The realm that has the #1 xp (among contending realms) get 5p.
The realm with the strongest #2 gets 4p.
The realm with the strongest #3 gets 3p.
The realm with the strongest #4 gets 2p.
The realm with the strongest #5 gets 1p.
The realm with the strongest #6 gets .5p

A total of 15.5p divided between competing realms, and could open up a possibility for very interesting battles of who that is best among the 2nd/3rd/4th strongest in each realm.

Applying it to your examples, Scenario 1:
Pack #1 - 5p,4p,0p = 9p
Pack #2 - 0p,0p,3p,2p,1p, .5p = 6.5p

Scenario 2:
Pack #1 - 0p, 4p, 0p = 4p
Pack #2 - 5p, 0p, 3p, 2p, 1p, .5p = 11.5p

The numbers could ofc be changed, but i think it might add a fun dimension of competitiveness between those who arent #1 in a realm.

Dante > I think that seems a little complicated to me, and might have some extensibility problems if we wound up with more than just two packs going at it?

Another possible scoring system might be:
- Top 5 count
- If you have at least 3 and fewer than 5, you score the lowest player's score -2 points for each "fill in" (So if you have only 3, you score #1 + #2 + #3 + #3 -2 + #3 -4 -- if you have 4, you score #1 + #2 + #3 + #4 + #4 -2).

Although with that scoring proposal, the 3 man pack has a really tough hill to climb if the 6 man pack takes 4 of the top 6 spots (not that I think that's necessarily a bad thing)

Scenario #1
Pack 1 - 50 + 49 + 39 + 37 + 35 = 210
Pack 2 - 48 + 47 + 46 + 45 + 44 = 230

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-It's burning! It's all burning!

I do not see a down side to giving 3-5 pack realms the multiple of their lowest scoring players, with one rule: "If a kingdom defects or deletes, you are disqualified."

3-5 pack realms have a natural disadvantage because they have less people to "retail" other realms. XP is very vicious and many times results in back-and-forth hittings, where one XPer from each realm does not retail in order to avoid the chaos. So in the even the 3 pack realm gets warred by the 6 pack realm, it is 2 versus 5 OR they take 6 hits (two each) and not attack into that realm. Either scenario, the 6 pack realm wins.

_________________
The Age of Despair :: Round 2 :: 1 El Norte
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 4 :: 1 SmoochyWoochyPoochy
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 6 :: 1 Goblin Rings
The Age of Achievements :: Round 1 :: 1 Hufflepuff's Cup

I agree it seems to me if your team is going to have six xpers then you need to be going up against the same or its just not going to pan out for the other team with fewer players. I would however love to see more people play xp next round.

After more consideration, I think we would be better off with just a straight "average rank-score per player". Meaning, the scoring would be the same (50 points for 1st rank, 49 for 2nd rank, etc), but the realm's score would be the average of all kingdom scores.

If your realm has six players, the lowest score will be excluded from your average. If you have fewer than six players, all scores count.

Deletions or defections count as a 0 score and as a player (so if you start with 6 and one person deletes/defects, he uses your free exclusion -- if you start with less than 6, deletions or defections will wind up counting against you as a 0).

If a kingdom winds up overpopulating & getting restarted during the round, he can continue to play and achieve a score if he gets back into the top 50.

Maybe we could remove the restriction on late joins, as long as the realm never goes above 6 kingdoms total participating? Or I suppose you could even allow more than six, with the rule that you only get one score exculsion (deletes/defects still count as a 0), and your overall average is the score that counts?

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-It's burning! It's all burning!