Good points, Juan, thanks. I understand most of them, I think.
You point at KionAAA, but for every one like that there are 3-4 that are actually more like tier 4’s.
In most cases I think it’s actually generous to assign tier 3 to new players. The only time you will not get full credit for beating a good player is if they actually only play 1-3 games in league for the year, and are actually skilled at tier 1 or tier 2 level. Again, most players new to the league are not better than tier 3 anyway.
If you rank a player from their first game, then you have someone getting credit for losing to a tier 1 even though in most cases, a player who comes along and plays one game and beats a tier 3 player is not tier 1. This is why there is a 4 game minimum. Note that if a player completed several games in the previous year, I do carry that ranking forward, so this only applies to new players.
I have one idea, just off the top of my head. I could have a stat for # of new players brought into a league. So when someone records their first game, I ask them if a current league player brought them into the league, and give credit to that league player on the rankings, thus not affecting ranking, record, or PPG.
I recognize you raised other issues, but I do not have time to address them right now. I will just say that not everyone spends as much time playing or plays as fast as you and Mr Roboto, Wheatbeer and Karl. You should not get points for playing more games. You do get one perk - that is the ability to play more games against other active players than the rest of us who are limited to best of 3 or best of 5