We have been scraping Shroud of the Avatar's API for PvP data for two weeks and wanted to give the community a simple ranking system for players engaged in PvP.  The hope is that we can add incentives based on the data, and for now you can review each PvPer with a confirmed kill or death via the API and an overview that let's you see all of the players ranked by our scoring system.

Shroudoftheavatar.net PvP Ranking System

We wanted to provide a score for players based on the quality of their opponents.  To that end, each player you kill in PvP combat is given a points bounty based on the victim's kill percentage.

The points bounty is calculated as: kills / 10, which is rounded up to the next highest integer.  In this system, the following would be true.

• If a player has no kills, they are worth 0 points
• If a player has 1 kill, they are worth 1 point.
• if a player has 11 kills, they are worth 2 points.
• If a player has 92 kills, they are worth 10 points.

There are a few players, who have a disproportionately high value.  People that kill defenseless alts and only these, don't show any real PvP value, but they have a high bounty in this system.  It's not prevalent, but there are a few.  You will see them in the rankings with a high kill count, but a zero score or relatively low.

If you are a dedicated PvPer honing your skills and engaged in combat, this system should reflect the quality of your victories and your overall activity in the system, plus, help you choose opponents to start a match with!

Why are losses not a factor?

We wanted the system to reward you for your success and often times trial and error is a big part of success in an endeavor.  Why hurt you for learning valuable lessons losing in combat?  Learning the system can be tough and changing strategies might lead to short term losses, when you were simply experimenting.

Your losses lead you to your victories!  You learn; you win; you score!  We do not want to hurt you for learning but support your eventual success in combat!  Nor do we want to discourage a player at the top of the rankings to not accept a PvP challenge.

How are anonymous PvPers handled in the rankings?

Anonymous players are players that have not elected to have their player name shared in the PvP statistics.  Anonymous kills and deaths are not counted in the system, but are tracked for statistical reporting in future reports.  Players cannot gain points while they are anonymous and non-anonymous players do not score any points for killing anonymous players.

Flagging yourself anonymous is way to protect your public profile, and there is no way for this ranking system to accurately track your character when you have not allowed your name to be shared in the Shroud of the Avatar API data.

How to show your name in public stats

By default, all characters are set to hide their stats.  To show your name, right click on your character's name and select "Show name in public stats."

How often are my PvP stats updated?

PvP stats are downloaded every 15 minutes, so you should see steady progress on the site, while you play the game!

Future changes

We hope to keep improving the reports for this system.  We will add charts to show PvP statistics over time, so we can see the system's changes over time.  We'll be taking any feedback you have and apply as much as possible to continue to improve the PvP features.

Some thoughts on new features:

• Bounty system
• Tournament support
• Badges
• Rewards

We want to create tools that help people get the most out of Shroud of the Avatar.  At the game's best, Shroud is a great experience!

Final thoughts

Each player has a page dedicated to their PvP activity.  If you wonder how they got their score, every match will be tallied there and you can double-check the math yourself.

There is a small downside in the bounty calculation at the moment.  If you have killed a player who continues to win victories in PvP, we calculate your score based on their score at the time of the report.  Someone rising up the ranks will also increase your score based on their new point bounty.  We are not sure how much of a problem this is, but a more appropriate bounty would apply the player's current score to the match, so their bounty remains constant for that match.  This might be a future patch to the ranking system.