Hero Mages

Our current rating for FFA games takes place order into consideration.  That is, if you finish 1st, you take points from all losing players.  If you take second, you lose points to 1st place, but take points from 3rd and 4th place.  If you place last, you lose points from all of the other players who survived longer than you did.

When we designed the FFA rating this way, we thought placement made it fun because even when your mage is decimated first turn, there's still a hope to outlast other placers to help ease your points loss (and maybe even gain some points if you place better than a higher ranked player).

Some players have suggested the system causes too much fluxuation in rating points- as a high ranked player who loses a FFA game to low ranked players will take a huge drop in points.  We could change the system so that points are only gained by the winner (1st place) and only lost to 1st place.  This would certainly be better for higher ranked players (as they stand to lose less points for losing overall) but less advantageous for beginners or struggling survivors.  So, we are asking you community, what do you prefer?

We will run the poll for two weeks- at which time, we will consider the majority votes as reason to change our system if at least 50 members participate.  Your personal commentary on the matter is also welcome - perhaps you even have alternative solutions (like, place does not matter/matters is an option in the game setup or something).

You are allowed to change your votes but will not be able to view the results until the poll has closed.

You don't just read this, cast your vote as well! :-)

I agree on the place matters because on a FFA if 4 people are playing, and 2 lucky turns into it you and another person are out your hero + maybe more. Meanwhile the other 2 players are full strength with even agumentations set up on a few guardian pieces.

Basically, unless those 2 players nuke each other to non existence, some people will opt to just surrender and find another game taking the loss. This way they could try to survive past the other person, or try and gun him down since he is heroless too, and maybe hope 1 of the other 2 full armies alive collapses. Also this will make everyone try down to the last hit point on the last piece to survive.

If we're using the first placing system, then a top player would just hide and wait until they all kill each other out.

I usually go out and attack the highest ranked player first, but obviously get myself killed in the progress. The brave gets hurt, and the coward wins.

That's the way i see it :-)