Turn limit and ratings

[gm_al]

While enlarging the AOF senders to support 50 Groups and up to 50 Turns a few ideas came up again.

here some points I leave open to discussion:

1. limit some/all games to a maximum number of Turns (ie. 20). If by that time no one has won, the Top-2 Players by Score will share victory
2. Players ratings / GMs ratings. Now I really really wanna do this anytime soon, at least for Players. Easy concept could be:
- Players start with a K-Rating (K for Kaomaris of course) of 100%
- missing a Turn costs ie. 5%
- giving in orders for a Turn brings back 1%
- you can never have more then 100% of course
- GMs submit K-Rating changes at the end of their game
- one site / database keeps note of ratings and turns tracked, ie. 'Dukieboy 97%, 125 Turns tracked by GMs'

Not too sure on how we could do a good GM rating, or if this is really needed. Lets hear your views on this !

[Bjorn]

Jeez Al, I'm happy to find a GM that runs turns on a regular basis. Now you are asking them to report, at the end of the game, how many turns each player missed? How many turns they were in the game? Not likely to happen. Sure, there are some GMs who would do it, but who is going to keep track of that stuff? Several GM's don't even bother keeping the KAO Base on their games current. I think we gave up on "turn points" so long ago that not many current players remember them.

If I matters, for every game that has ended since I took over the gatekeeper role, I have noted the result of each of the participants into one of 4 categories.
1) If they won, how many VPs they got.
2) If they were still active at the end of the game.
3) If they were RIP
4) If they were Quit/M3

I maintain separate columns for WOK4 and WOK5.

This was about the same time that Aussie Gaz stopped keeping track of his rating system. After downloading the data, I could see why. Just too much work to keep it current. I did take his final rating for each player and put it into a spreadsheet. So, for each player, my spreadsheet has their name, starting rating from AG and how they fared in each game they have played since then. I believe I have about 35 games included.

Recently I started noting any clan VPs for each game as well. I was getting more questions about clan VPs than personal VPs, so I had to do something.

I don't do anything with these numbers. I just collect them. Maybe when I get to 50 games or so I will see if there is any interesting data in there.

[Bjorn]

On the subject of turn limits.......

This would certainly change the nature of the end game. The WOK engine does not have an outside Gotterdammerung to drive the players to an Armageddon. It sometime boils down to who gets interrupted by "Real Life" and has to walk away from the game. I believe a 20 turn limit, given a game where turns run once a week, is a good idea.

Just stopping the game at that point and awarding VPs is one idea, but not without it's problems. I believe you would have to have some clause in there that declares a solo win if the top score has double the points of the second place player, or if they have more points than the second and third place players combined, or something to that effect.

This could lead to strange games where players who know how the points are awarded (and GMs who play can figure this out pretty easily) would have the advantage.

I still like to reward attacking, so I would like to see the winner based on the number of provinces controlled, rather than points. Here is one suggestion. If a player controls at least 2/3 of the provinces on the map at the end of a turn, they are declared the winner. Two players who together control at least 2/3 of the provinces on the map may declare a shered win, each getting 1/2 of the VPs for the game. Starting at the end of turn 20 the player (or alliance) need only control more than 1/2 of the provinces on the map to declare victory.

The problem I see with this is Diplomacy. If you have a triple alliance, each with about 1/3 of the provinces at the end of turn 20, someone may well get stiffed. I guess you would need to plan your end game for that possibility.

Any other ideas out there?

[trewqh]

I think that the player's vote should still be deciding even with games limited to a certain number of turns.

Of course it could be hard to have a dicisive vote if there are for example 4 players left if everyone had one vote.

I see it like this:
After turn 20 is run the GM organises a vote were you can vote on different propositions to distribute VPs (like in WSC*), also the GM tells players how many votes thay have. The number of votes is equal to the number of points (or points multiplied by the number of provinces, Bjorn). Players vote and the option that got most votes wins.

This way two allied players who have the second and the third place on the leaderboard could still get both VPs for themselves.

trewqh

* - I mean voting on numerous options

[Polymorphic]

I think that making it mandatory for players to vote on who's won after a set number of turns is a good idea. How many turns that is, I believe should be up to the GM - whether they want to run a quick game, or a drawn-out technical one... The GM just deciding (based on points/provinces) could not always result with the player who would actually have won the game being nominated.

The player ratings however, seems to be an idea that'd require a lot of effort for very little outcome - what would the figures be used for? How many people would actually go beneath 100%?

[gm_al]

So actually we seem to agree that at least a turn limit CAN be introduced by GMs.
Now lets work out how the VPs will get to be split after the turn limit and we can forward that to the WSC. I am not too much a fan of some complicated voting, I prefer some easy and clear rule on that issue.

Player rating: I strongly believe that quite a few Players will drop under 100%. Two things can be achieved with a Player rating:
- Players will not want to miss a Turn
- GMs can set a level to accept Players in a waitlist (ie. 'requires a K-rating of 90%+ to join my game')
Hard work to do for a GM ? Not really. A simple list at the end of a game could look like this:
* Player A has +12%, played 12 Turns
* Player B has -8%, played 15 Turns
...
If the GM keeps track of when a Player gets ripped on his site and what the changes of his ratings are then, this can be done easily.

[Warped Angel]

I dont think it would be to much to ask for a player to rate the gm after they are done with the game, but a player rating system would probably be a big pain in the A ss. Oh and a turn limit on the games would be excellent but how would you base deciding a winner? Points...thats not really a good judge of player strength. Maybe the vote by all active players, but that might become subject to favoratism. HHMMMMM am I helping any?

[Calidus]

- GMs can set a level to accept Players in a waitlist (ie. 'requires a K-rating of 90%+ to join my game').

I think this is a VERY BAD IDEA. Let me say that again. I think this is a VERY BAD IDEA. This type of system will turn WOK into one big social club that excludes those players that are considered less reliable than the others. GMs should be running these games purely for the enjoyment of everyone, and we should NOT promote a system that uses such discriminatory practices. ALL players should be allowed to request to join any game that opens, regardless of their "history".

Hard work to do for a GM ? Not really. A simple list at the end of a game could look like this:
* Player A has +12%, played 12 Turns
* Player B has -8%, played 15 Turns
...
If the GM keeps track of when a Player gets ripped on his site and what the changes of his ratings are then, this can be done easily.

BEEN THERE, DONE THIS.

We used to keep track of all the turns that a player was involved in. It had become too cumbersome to continue, and was decided by the community to disband this policy. I see no valid arguement as to why this would need to be reinstated. This community is still small enough that the "core" group of players KNOW who the more challenging players are going to be, in every game that they play. Just look at the top players in Kaohalla. I believe that the players that are at or near the top have earned their reputations and their play pretty much speaks for itself. Granted, there are a few upstarts that do not currently sit atop Kaohalla, but I foresee several making stong pushes in the future. (Raw, korexus, Xero, Funtastick for just a few examples) GMs have enough responsibilities in running games and I do not feel that adding this type of system will improve the quality of life around Kaomaris.

Anyhow, that's my two cents. For what its worth.

-Calidus

[SmashFace]

Anyhow, that's my two cents. For what its worth.

-Calidus

two cents

[Ecrivian]

I'm surprised that no one proposed a split on a set turn limit of VP's like this....

ALWAYS an EVEN split between the player that has the most points, and the player that has the most provinces, there are cases where this may mean that its the same player, so be it.

The thinking behind this is really simple. Players have two choices, grab as many provinces as possible, traditional, or build up as best you can, better known as the sleeping giant. To me this is the only fair way, a vote could be added to view players opinions and what not, even if it did come down to four players I think that it'd be a vieable solution.

just my 2 cents, oh yeah and I'm with Calidus when it comes to the rating thingy.

[gm_al]

*mumbles difficult formulas*

Huh, great idea Ec !! You have my full support for that VP split approach.

But what in case of a tie in points or number of Provinces...?

Regarding rating - uh, well, it was a suggestion.

[Dameon]

I'm not too fond of the rating system either, at least, not in the way Al describes it here. I honestly also don't believe that many players would drop below 100%. In my experiences, the only games in which more than one player really quits are beginner games, and we certainly don't want to discourage new players by giving them some kind of bad rating. And penalizing players who miss a turn for whatever reason just isn't cool either- we all know that real life sometimes interferes.

Regarding turn limits, I see no reason a game could not be run that way. I think it's an interesting idea. However, I don't think it'd be strictly a hugely necessary thing either. Even with WOK 5 games, I'd say that over three fourths of the ones I have either run or played in have been over before twenty turns. True, there are some that run longer, but the vast majority do not, and even for those that do, I can't think of more than a handful that ran past twenty-five turns. (The Champs, sure, but that's due to that solo-win requirement!) So while I think it's an interesting idea, I don't agree with Bjorn that games often boil down to players being interrupted by "Real Life". Usually they are decided by skill in both diplomacy and playing before twenty turns is out.

[Ecrivian]

*mumbles difficult formulas*

Huh, great idea Ec !! You have my full support for that VP split approach.

But what in case of a tie in points or number of Provinces...?

Regarding rating - uh, well, it was a suggestion.

Ties!?!?!?!, hmm, well, uhm, yes, I didn't quite think that one out there. But what I can say is this....

I'd imagine that whomever has held the most provinces for the longer period of time would be the winner, for example, Player A has held fifteen provinces for six turns, whereas Player B has held fifteen provinces for only two turns. I'd imagine that Player A would be given the "Province Title." Also it could happen the same way for a score tie, Player A has had a score of over 10,000 for six turns whereas Player B has only been over 10,000 and matched Player A's score this most recent turn. Player A in this case would get the "Points Title."

However I think that the odds of two players at the end of twenty turns having the same score are slim to none, we could get Korexus on this to figure out the probablitlity but I don't think its necessary. If there's a further tie, example being, Player A & B have held fifteeen provinces for six turns, the dispute could be settled by comparing points or maybe going to further tie breakers, like I dunno, TECH LVL, or something to that effect. What do you think now Al?

[gm_al]

So the proposal to the WSC could look like this:

- we suggest that a GM can limit his game in terms of maximum Turns to be played
- the maximum he will set must at least be 20 Turns
- VPs will get split evenly between
a> the player with most Provinces
b> the player with the highest score
- in case of a tie the GM takes the PREVIOUS Turn and compares all data between the tied Players (and the Turn before that etc. if still necessary)

So instead of doing averages etc, we just go back one turn to decide on a tie. If Players ie. are still tied over number of Provinces we go back another Turn etc.

[korexus]

TK's the stats man, I loath the stuff. However the odds are pretty low for a tie on points and comparing to the previous turn is nice and easy so that would work for the, rather more likely, tie on provinces. So the word from Almighty korexus On High is that the system could work!

If you want a hand with those formula things, Al, just give me a shout. That's much more what I enjoy doing.


I know, I have no life, but what do you expect from a maths student who spends all his free time playing an online war game?!?


korexus.