GotFrag Nation's Ranking FAQ
Why have a Nation’s Ranking?
As an emerging sport, it is often hard to understand how good one nation is versus another nation. In order for eSports and Counter-Strike to grow globally there must be a sense of rivalry and importance tied to matches between all nations. Our hope is twofold with this ranking:
1) To promote the sport, and increase awareness of the truly global nature of eSports.
2) To provide a definitive resource on the global participation of teams, players, and fans.
If nothing else, this ranking provides players and teams at every skill level with a glimpse of the impact of their accomplishments while also giving those who don’t understand the skill level of the players an entry point into becoming more devoted fans.
Another goal of the ranking is to also provide WCG, ESWC and other tournaments interested in running nations-based competition a neutral ranking system to create seeding for their tournaments to avoid unfair early round matches between top countries which have happened from time to time, historically.
NOTE: The Nation’s ranking is not a commentary on the strength of an event or events. This is an analysis of the participation of each country in a global scale.
Why is GotFrag using a point system for Nation’s Ranking but still using a representative voting system for its team’s World Ranking?
This is a complex issue but the simple answer is that individuals rarely if ever change nationality. A player from say Canada will be a Canadian no matter what team he plays for but the same can not be said for teams. If a player joins a team based in the UK one day and then a Swedish based team the next his impact on each of those teams potential in the World Ranking is affected by that roster change instantly. A roster change such similar to the above example is nearly impossible to calculate based on a point scale. For his national rank it doesn’t matter what team he is on; just that he wins or places well in the tournaments he plays.
Why were some events selected as “Other Events” when others had just as many nations attending?
The determination for what events were included in “Other Events” was determined by a small set of criteria. The most important was skill level of the teams attending. Lower skilled tournaments provide less accurate and inconsistent results of who the top national winners are. The second and almost important factor is number nations and size of event. The number of nations is not a set number but a general guideline was five countries. Exceptions were made on both sides of the rule based largely on skill factor but another critical piece was size of the event. The bigger the event and larger prizes meant increased likelihood of inclusion. The reason for this was that larger events and prizes draw better chance of gaining the attendance of International teams outside of the local area. Regional events in Europe, Asian, Africa, North America or South America that may meet a minimum of five countries were not included because they simply lacked the size to draw enough International teams to be worthy of inclusion.
This creates a slight bias in event weights for the Nation’s rankings towards events which are structured around a “Nation’s Cup” format. However, given the intent of the Nation’s Ranking, this was deemed an acceptable scoring system.
While the ESWC and the WCG were treated individually in the Nation’s Ranking, “Other Events” became a category into which all other events which were not formatted as nationality-centric could be lumped. The weight of these individual events was therefore factored by their inclusion based on competitive content.
GotFrag reserves the right to include previous events based on new evidence or compelling arguments from the community.
Why are “Other Events” such as CPL qualifiers only given points to the top eight while WCG awards points per match?
For many of these tournaments, the high quality and caliber of the competition and the tournaments themselves absolutely required their inclusion. However, several factors contributed to a reduced emphasis in the Nation’s Ranking. Unlike the World Rankings, where teams recieved higher voting from representatives based on their performance in world-class events, the Nation’s Ranking is a measurement of a country’s participation and success in global competitions.
Events such as the CPL qualifiers drew world-wide participation at nearly every single stop of the World Tour 2005. This same draw resulted in a massive amount of information which we had to sort through and an increasing number of events which needed to contribute to the ranking. A cut-off value was established for these events to prevent an unintentional bias and to prevent errors—See “Why are some events selected as “Other Events…” above.
Doesn’t the awarding of only points to the top eight placements at “Other Events” hurt International teams that won CPL Qualifiers and attended their events such as Japan, Chile and others?
Yes, this is an issue, unfortunately there’s no solution to this issue. Teams attending those events may gain from some sort of points for attendance, but the issue for doing such a rule would be that countries such as the USA and Canada would gain even more in the example of the CPL Qualifiers. This would create an even more unbalance national rank where the host country of an “Other Event” would often receive a huge bonus because the sheer number of local teams attending the event. See “Why are some events selected as “Other Events…” above.
Why are points for each team that places at an “Other Event” split up?
Points for each team can be split up if the team is devised of players from different nations. The reason for this is to accurately represent the origins of each player and not give erroneous bonuses to nations with stronger organizations and sponsorships that are able to organize players from around the World. With that said, in some situations teams with a strong influence from their managers are given an additional spot as another player causing the total points to be divided among the starting players and the manager. See “Why are some events selected as “Other Events…” above.
Why are online leagues with country versus country play not included such as Clanbase Nation’s Cup or ESL’s Nations Cup?
A decision early on was to avoid all online play with the entire ranking. With too many issues and associated problems with tracking online play and promising its authenticity, the entire concept was removed from the process. There maybe a chance for its re-introduction at a later date based on demand from the public and interest from the leagues that conduct such tournaments.
Why is my country not listed?
Some countries that have attended quite a few events but are not listed have the unfortunate issue of not attending any ESWC or WCG events. Any country attending either of these events is automatically ranked because of initial points for match play. The same is not true for Other Events because other issues, see “Doesn’t the awarding of only points to the top eight placements at “Other Events”.
Why is World Cyber Games (WCG) the highest weighted event and worth 40% of the ranking?
As the only event that requires all players on a team to be from the same country, WCG is the best gauge of how good five players from the same country are against five players from another country. While sometimes unexpected results happen at national qualifiers, WCG still provides a very clear picture of how good a country’s top players are against another country’s top players.
What about the fact that WCG was Counter-Strike Source in 2005 and Counter-Strike Condition Zero in 2004?
Both of these do impact WCG’s weight in the rankings—early consideration put WCG’s worth at 50%-60%. When Source and Condition Zero were factored in that overall percentage of the year’s total points was reduced. Still the importance of the structure of the event is the key point with all players required to be from the same country. In addition, while the 2005 WCG Championships were played with Source, almost all national qualifiers were completed on Counter-Strike 1.6. This gave all countries an equal opportunity and timeframe to have its representatives practice the respected game.
Why is such a complex formula needed to calculate points for WCG matches?
With such a large amount of the total year’s points coming from one event, it was important that all factors from each match during WCG be given proper weight. Because of this round differential, group play versus grand finals match (round importance) and current rankings of the two teams were all included. Keeping track of all of these different variables required a complex formula. The formula has undergone changes since its inception and may still need additional tweaking but currently we are happy with the point totals it produces.
Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) has a lot of qualifiers Worldwide and has nationality-based teams; why don’t they have has high a percentage as the WCG?
ESWC was closely looked at for its consideration in the national ranking starting in 2003. While they have strived to be similar to FIFA’s World Cup, they allow more latitude in the rosters for nationality-based teams. Many teams have attended with players from many different countries—Team NOA being the most recognized of these examples. Even with this limiting factor the event does provide a nice balance of countries and avoids over saturation of host country’s teams by limiting number of representatives per nation. These negatives and positives were weighted to create a distinction worthwhile to single out, but without the pure “Olympics” format of the WCG.
Note: GotFrag’s Nation’s Ranking may change the weight of the future ESWC events depending on recent rule changes made by ESWC. For example, ESWC’s 2006 change to require a majority of members from a national qualifiers host nations is a move which would weigh ESWC events more heavily on the Nation’s Ranking.
What about countries that have more then one team attending an ESWC event?
The rules specifically account for these situations. When a country attends ESWC they are given the average points of their attending teams. For example in 2005 the USA sent both Complexity and 3D. Even though Complexity won the event, USA didn’t finish with the highest points but 2nd behind Denmark would had both a top eight finisher and the 2nd place team SK.dk. This averaging helps to reduce the massive amount of points certain teams such as the host nation France could receive from multiply teams.
Why are percentages for events used instead of their actual points per event?
Percentages are used throughout the system to create an accurate balance between all of the events. Because of the sheer number of “Other Events”, total points from those categories would give them automatically higher weight then ESWC or WCG. To keep a proper balance a percentage based system was introduced. Still with this percentage system, the total points awarded per year based on the addition of WCG, ESWC and Other Events can change. For example, one year may have more total points then another year based on the number of Other Events included or the number of teams attending ESWC or WCG. This has been deemed acceptable because a larger number of points or lesser number of points from year to year demonstrates a larger or lesser amount of data from that year providing a more accurate picture of the actual national rankings.
Why have a Nation’s Ranking?
As an emerging sport, it is often hard to understand how good one nation is versus another nation. In order for eSports and Counter-Strike to grow globally there must be a sense of rivalry and importance tied to matches between all nations. Our hope is twofold with this ranking:
1) To promote the sport, and increase awareness of the truly global nature of eSports.
2) To provide a definitive resource on the global participation of teams, players, and fans.
If nothing else, this ranking provides players and teams at every skill level with a glimpse of the impact of their accomplishments while also giving those who don’t understand the skill level of the players an entry point into becoming more devoted fans.
Another goal of the ranking is to also provide WCG, ESWC and other tournaments interested in running nations-based competition a neutral ranking system to create seeding for their tournaments to avoid unfair early round matches between top countries which have happened from time to time, historically.
NOTE: The Nation’s ranking is not a commentary on the strength of an event or events. This is an analysis of the participation of each country in a global scale.
Why is GotFrag using a point system for Nation’s Ranking but still using a representative voting system for its team’s World Ranking?
This is a complex issue but the simple answer is that individuals rarely if ever change nationality. A player from say Canada will be a Canadian no matter what team he plays for but the same can not be said for teams. If a player joins a team based in the UK one day and then a Swedish based team the next his impact on each of those teams potential in the World Ranking is affected by that roster change instantly. A roster change such similar to the above example is nearly impossible to calculate based on a point scale. For his national rank it doesn’t matter what team he is on; just that he wins or places well in the tournaments he plays.
Why were some events selected as “Other Events” when others had just as many nations attending?
The determination for what events were included in “Other Events” was determined by a small set of criteria. The most important was skill level of the teams attending. Lower skilled tournaments provide less accurate and inconsistent results of who the top national winners are. The second and almost important factor is number nations and size of event. The number of nations is not a set number but a general guideline was five countries. Exceptions were made on both sides of the rule based largely on skill factor but another critical piece was size of the event. The bigger the event and larger prizes meant increased likelihood of inclusion. The reason for this was that larger events and prizes draw better chance of gaining the attendance of International teams outside of the local area. Regional events in Europe, Asian, Africa, North America or South America that may meet a minimum of five countries were not included because they simply lacked the size to draw enough International teams to be worthy of inclusion.
This creates a slight bias in event weights for the Nation’s rankings towards events which are structured around a “Nation’s Cup” format. However, given the intent of the Nation’s Ranking, this was deemed an acceptable scoring system.
While the ESWC and the WCG were treated individually in the Nation’s Ranking, “Other Events” became a category into which all other events which were not formatted as nationality-centric could be lumped. The weight of these individual events was therefore factored by their inclusion based on competitive content.
GotFrag reserves the right to include previous events based on new evidence or compelling arguments from the community.
Why are “Other Events” such as CPL qualifiers only given points to the top eight while WCG awards points per match?
For many of these tournaments, the high quality and caliber of the competition and the tournaments themselves absolutely required their inclusion. However, several factors contributed to a reduced emphasis in the Nation’s Ranking. Unlike the World Rankings, where teams recieved higher voting from representatives based on their performance in world-class events, the Nation’s Ranking is a measurement of a country’s participation and success in global competitions.
Events such as the CPL qualifiers drew world-wide participation at nearly every single stop of the World Tour 2005. This same draw resulted in a massive amount of information which we had to sort through and an increasing number of events which needed to contribute to the ranking. A cut-off value was established for these events to prevent an unintentional bias and to prevent errors—See “Why are some events selected as “Other Events…” above.
Doesn’t the awarding of only points to the top eight placements at “Other Events” hurt International teams that won CPL Qualifiers and attended their events such as Japan, Chile and others?
Yes, this is an issue, unfortunately there’s no solution to this issue. Teams attending those events may gain from some sort of points for attendance, but the issue for doing such a rule would be that countries such as the USA and Canada would gain even more in the example of the CPL Qualifiers. This would create an even more unbalance national rank where the host country of an “Other Event” would often receive a huge bonus because the sheer number of local teams attending the event. See “Why are some events selected as “Other Events…” above.
Why are points for each team that places at an “Other Event” split up?
Points for each team can be split up if the team is devised of players from different nations. The reason for this is to accurately represent the origins of each player and not give erroneous bonuses to nations with stronger organizations and sponsorships that are able to organize players from around the World. With that said, in some situations teams with a strong influence from their managers are given an additional spot as another player causing the total points to be divided among the starting players and the manager. See “Why are some events selected as “Other Events…” above.
Why are online leagues with country versus country play not included such as Clanbase Nation’s Cup or ESL’s Nations Cup?
A decision early on was to avoid all online play with the entire ranking. With too many issues and associated problems with tracking online play and promising its authenticity, the entire concept was removed from the process. There maybe a chance for its re-introduction at a later date based on demand from the public and interest from the leagues that conduct such tournaments.
Why is my country not listed?
Some countries that have attended quite a few events but are not listed have the unfortunate issue of not attending any ESWC or WCG events. Any country attending either of these events is automatically ranked because of initial points for match play. The same is not true for Other Events because other issues, see “Doesn’t the awarding of only points to the top eight placements at “Other Events”.
Why is World Cyber Games (WCG) the highest weighted event and worth 40% of the ranking?
As the only event that requires all players on a team to be from the same country, WCG is the best gauge of how good five players from the same country are against five players from another country. While sometimes unexpected results happen at national qualifiers, WCG still provides a very clear picture of how good a country’s top players are against another country’s top players.
What about the fact that WCG was Counter-Strike Source in 2005 and Counter-Strike Condition Zero in 2004?
Both of these do impact WCG’s weight in the rankings—early consideration put WCG’s worth at 50%-60%. When Source and Condition Zero were factored in that overall percentage of the year’s total points was reduced. Still the importance of the structure of the event is the key point with all players required to be from the same country. In addition, while the 2005 WCG Championships were played with Source, almost all national qualifiers were completed on Counter-Strike 1.6. This gave all countries an equal opportunity and timeframe to have its representatives practice the respected game.
Why is such a complex formula needed to calculate points for WCG matches?
With such a large amount of the total year’s points coming from one event, it was important that all factors from each match during WCG be given proper weight. Because of this round differential, group play versus grand finals match (round importance) and current rankings of the two teams were all included. Keeping track of all of these different variables required a complex formula. The formula has undergone changes since its inception and may still need additional tweaking but currently we are happy with the point totals it produces.
Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) has a lot of qualifiers Worldwide and has nationality-based teams; why don’t they have has high a percentage as the WCG?
ESWC was closely looked at for its consideration in the national ranking starting in 2003. While they have strived to be similar to FIFA’s World Cup, they allow more latitude in the rosters for nationality-based teams. Many teams have attended with players from many different countries—Team NOA being the most recognized of these examples. Even with this limiting factor the event does provide a nice balance of countries and avoids over saturation of host country’s teams by limiting number of representatives per nation. These negatives and positives were weighted to create a distinction worthwhile to single out, but without the pure “Olympics” format of the WCG.
Note: GotFrag’s Nation’s Ranking may change the weight of the future ESWC events depending on recent rule changes made by ESWC. For example, ESWC’s 2006 change to require a majority of members from a national qualifiers host nations is a move which would weigh ESWC events more heavily on the Nation’s Ranking.
What about countries that have more then one team attending an ESWC event?
The rules specifically account for these situations. When a country attends ESWC they are given the average points of their attending teams. For example in 2005 the USA sent both Complexity and 3D. Even though Complexity won the event, USA didn’t finish with the highest points but 2nd behind Denmark would had both a top eight finisher and the 2nd place team SK.dk. This averaging helps to reduce the massive amount of points certain teams such as the host nation France could receive from multiply teams.
Why are percentages for events used instead of their actual points per event?
Percentages are used throughout the system to create an accurate balance between all of the events. Because of the sheer number of “Other Events”, total points from those categories would give them automatically higher weight then ESWC or WCG. To keep a proper balance a percentage based system was introduced. Still with this percentage system, the total points awarded per year based on the addition of WCG, ESWC and Other Events can change. For example, one year may have more total points then another year based on the number of Other Events included or the number of teams attending ESWC or WCG. This has been deemed acceptable because a larger number of points or lesser number of points from year to year demonstrates a larger or lesser amount of data from that year providing a more accurate picture of the actual national rankings.
