Car ratings, what do they mean?
Each car in the Fantasy League has a rating. This rating should be used as a guide to find out which cars are faster than others. All cars start with a 1200 rating. The rating goes up with a win, down with a loss.
Ratings are calculated using the Elo Rating System, which adjusts ratings based on opponent. It rewards lesser rated cars more when they beat a higher rated car, and thus rewards better cars less when they defeat lower rated cars. The Elo System is used in other one-on-one competitions, like chess.
The rating is calculated after EACH RACE, so within a single tournament a car's rating may change up to four times depending how far in the tournament it gets. Every car in a tournament will get at least one rating adjustment.
The rating is a somewhat sliding scale that adjusts based on the number of wins and races a car has, accounting for a car's "experience" on the track compared to a car that is brand new. This same system was used in the first racing season and produced great match-ups. However, starting with the second season, tournament seeding is not based on rating and is purely random, along with player entries.
Discussion
That's a good idea, the all-1200 tournament. Adding a rating range as a tournament restriction is a really good idea so I might try to add that in as an option. I think that might make for more car variety than classes at large.
Unlike last season, we're not using ratings to seed tournaments, it's all random along with entered cars. While the rating does allow you make really close matches, it can really limit the number of cars that get raced. I think one thing that kind of dragged in the first season was the same cars being raced all the time. It really didn't become somewhat exciting until the end of the season when the good cars all floated to the top and then was a 50/50 guess per race.
The first season didn't find many people swapping out cars, which I didn't expect, so this season we're forcing the randomness to an extent. I'm hoping that the combination of theme-based tournaments and retiring each tournament winner means people won't/can't enter the same car each week.
So a hint for those new to the Fantasy, when a car with a 1350 rating goes up against a car with a 1134 rating, chances are the 1350 takes that race. The most challenging tournament will be when most of the entries have similar ratings which will make for some great racing action where anyone can win. Perhaps Brian will even set up a tournament of all new cars with 1200 ratings where all you have is your own Hot Wheel racing experience to go by.