Linkshell Ranking

Hey, first time poster here. I was just wondering if it'd be possible to change the current method of ranking Linkshells. For the most part, I think Pro's Linkshell rankings have become kind of meaningless/outdated. When I look at the top 25 list of linkshells, I see a collection of 60-120 member, conglomerate linkshells. I think most of the members in those 60-120 player linkshells are only in them for social aspects or for trying to get a community of high-level players together for dungeons or NMs. Many of the higher ranked players in those larger linkshells belong to smaller "end-game" linkshells. I know in Figaro that most of the higher level NA LS's (the ones that can do 5 chest DH runs) have under 15 active members. In terms of ranking these types of linkshells, I think the current system is largely biased against the smaller "end-game" linkshells.

To the best of my knowledge, LS's are ranked by the composite score of their top 18 members. And while this would've been mostly ok during the first few months of FFXIV, I think this needs to change. First of all, the max party size has been reduced from 15-8. With this reduction most of the end-game Linkshells need maybe 12-14 players max in their LS's. There is no content in the game that requires more than 8 members, and with the inclusion of crafters/gatherers, a end-game linkshell should not need more than 12-14 people.

My suggestions:

1) Reduce the 18 member composite score to a ~12 member composite score. Also cap the linkshell ranking based on the number of players, ie only rank linkshells with less than 30 members (30 is just an example). This is to help reduce the inflated 60-120 member LS rankings.
2) Take an average of the linkshell's member's scores. This should instantly deflate most of the social 60-120 member rankings. It would also discourage adding mules to LS's and making LS pages look like checkerboards with all the red boxes.

I'm not entirely sure what it means to rank linkshells and what the criteria should be. However, I do know that the current system is outdated and in my opinion almost meaningless. If it's not too much trouble, is there any way FFpro could change it's LS ranking formula?

Thanks,

Seiken

I don't think pro should be in the business of deciding what category a Linkshell falls under.

If the goal is to prioritize top heavy LS, a weighted sum like top 8 x 3 + next 8 x 2 + next 8 would work, but I'm not sure why it's a better approach.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I just wanted to explain my thoughts. If they were to reduce the composite score from 18 to 12, the rankings will still stay about the same, you won't see to much difference. Maybe a few shells will bump up or down a couple of spots.

Also, you can't really exclude large LS's. I've seen LS's with high numbers that are not social shells and very active at certain points in time. It's a little bit unfair to just exclude a shell because of it's amount of members, especially assuming their players are all active. With no LS controls really in the game, I've seen a lot of shells with large numbers who suffer from a large portion of those members being inactive. In the case where a shell has high numbers and low activity, the inactive players end up factoring out of the equation over time. Which brings me to my next point.

With no LS controls in, and no ability to boot people who are not on or have quit, using an average score would just end up factoring in those who are inactive and make the rankings less legitimate.

Again, just my thoughts. Feel free to build on it.

pro rankings are the end all be all.

In my opinion, I think that if a smaller LS can complete the same content as a larger LS, then they should be ranked higher. With all circumstances equal, if an LS can complete content with less resources (members) than another LS, then I believe that ranking the smaller, more "efficient", LS ahead of the larger LS makes sense. There is not much in the game that can distinguish LS's apart from each other in terms of in-game accomplishments, but I think LS "efficiency" could be one of those discriminating factors.
As for the lower active players in large LS's lowering the weighted average, I'd say that's just a problem that comes with having larger LS's, and they have to deal with it. They can repearl if needed, but lots of inactives comes with lots of LS invites.

"Take this with a grain of salt, but I just wanted to explain my thoughts. If they were to reduce the composite score from 18 to 12, the rankings will still stay about the same, you won't see to much difference. Maybe a few shells will bump up or down a couple of spots."

If you rank the top 12 and cap ranked LS's to 30 members or less, that will dramatically change the rankings. I'm a firm believer that as the current game system stands, it makes no sense for end-game linkshells to have more than 30 people. That number already implies a ridiculous amount items that have to be distributed. I HIGHLY doubt that every member in a 30+ LS has every Batraal drop and DH chest item. If there was ever a way for this site to check Rare/ex gear on players, the LS rankings might be able to have more substance. But to the best of my knowledge that is impossible.

That aside, I thought of another possible idea to influence rankings. Have all the registered members on pro select their "Primary" linkshell. This will be the only LS that their player score counts towards in rankings. This should help eliminate a lot of the multiple LS's that a person's score is counted for. The only problem with this method is that this system would only be effective for registered members on FFpro, and all the JP LS's would still be biased. Still though, it might help with the NA LS rankings. Just a thought.

Another idea I had was to maybe separate LS rankings into 2 sizes. Perhaps have a "Company-size LS" category with 30+ members, and then have a "Fellowship-size LS" with <30 members. This should maybe help discriminate between the two groups more and allow for more accurate rankings. Idk, just another suggestion.

I'm a pretty competitive person, and I wanted to propel my LS to the top of the rankings. I think FFpro is one of the few sights that actually ranks LS's. It's just that I want to make sure that it has one of the most accurate systems for doing so. So please don't feel insulted from these posts if you're from one of the larger member LS's, I know that some of my opinions are biased against you. Just try to see the current situation from a small competitive LS's perspective.

As much as I dislike mega-shells, I think members should be treated as assets: at the worst they do not do anything and they usually would provide benefit one form or another when needed. I can understand not counting members pass a certain point (18 as currently set up), but I have a hard time seeing the reasoning behind penalizing linkshell that has a large member base. If I want to add some of my mules to LS so I can communicate while on them, the LS would get lower score? How does this make any sense?

who cares, its ffxivpro rank does anyone judge player skill based on rank? if they do then lol

My reason for starting this post is that I want a more substantial method for ranking linkshells. If you want your linkshell to be higher ranked, simply don't add mules to your LS roster. There are plenty of ways to communicate without being in the LS chat (voice chat, /tell, /s, /p, dual-boxing). Mule communication outside of LS chat is easier than you might suspect, I can promise you that most of the members in my LS do it easily. That shouldn't be a problem. As for "penalizing" larger linkshells, I still believe that if you truly want to rank an organization based on skill, an organization that can complete a task with less resources used will be ranked higher than an organization that uses more resources. I think this aspect of LS ranking should definitely be added to the current system.

Please keep the suggestions coming, and thanks for the input!

I can agree with lowering the amount of members that count towards a linkshell's ranking, but I don't agree with anything else that has been suggested.

You are not penalizing LS for using more resources, you are penalizing them for simply having them, which doesn't make any sense to me. It's not like they can just stuff 50 people into dungeon and zerg it, so what difference does it make? It's like saying since you have alot of money, you should be ranked behind people who run slower than you.

If you check my profile you can see that what you are suggesting actually helps my LS alot: we are a 20~ member shell that's quite top heavy but only contains active member (we repearl ALOT) and we have separate LS for mules. I just don't agree it in principle.

I'm going to try and make this my last post for the day, but to reply to your last post Aqua, I'll try to clear things up. I think that a group that is more efficient, ie uses the resources it has to the best it can, and is still able to compete against the same content should be ranked higher. Should this be the only criteria in ranking? No. But I do think some merit deserves to go to smaller LS's that are able to do just as much as larger LS's. Idk, I'm just trying to get the discussion started on improving the ranking system, because we all know as of now, it is largely useless. :p

I tuched liek 6 aetheryte nodes last nite im totaly #1 in the unaverse onse i refrish my char guise.

I lowered it to 12.

While we are on the topic,

Many of the highest ranking players are in multiple shells (which makes them all in the top 10) on each sever. This messes up the ranking to a point where everything else you are doing is pointless.

Can we please count just 1 shell for each person?

Or set a "main" shell choice?

One person should be counted for 1 shell, not 8.

No.

Any reason I cant see what Z0Z0 wrote?

Odd...

I deleted the post, and topicbanned them.