SpielByWeb

kruhland · Joined: 15 Nov 05 Posts: 7 Location: madison wi

Sorry, the discussion was going off track of the original subject. I agree with LVbrian on the rating, that maybe 1 point for first, 2 for second, etc is a more fair overall rating, if that matters to you. Or it could scale for a 3 person vs 5 person game. Or else remove it completely. I don't know how BSW does it but they have a more tiered system. AS a side note, so far every game I've started has finished, so the posts I read about people not ending games to avoid rankings or because they're losing I haven't seen. Maybe most people care about playing the game more then losing the game Very Happy

efreeman · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject: Scoring system...not either or..

All,

Why does a scoring system have to be an either/or situation?

I track for myself a couple different metrics for specific games to try to understand how well I am doing.

One of these is based on placing. I score one "win" for every player I beat in a game and one "loss" for every player that beats me. If I'm at .500 (let's say ten "wins" and ten "losses") then I'm average player at the game. Above .500 is better than average, below .500 is less.

However, sometimes I want to look at things from a "winning is everything" perspective, so I track this as well. In this metric, I score x "wins" for every game I win, where x is the number of players beat. If I lose a game, I score a single "loss". If I play 5 five player games and win one of those, I'm 4-4...exactly .500...this metric tells me whether I WIN more or less than what would be expected of the average.

If both metrics are tracked here, then you could place importance on the one that is important to YOU. If neither is important, just ignore them. These metrics also importantly take into account the # of players in a game.

Eric

JimF · Joined: 02 Jun 05 Posts: 39 Location: Banstead, Surrey

A simple solution would be:

1- (Final Position-1)/(Number of Players-1)

e.g.
In a 2 player game the winner gets 1point, the loser 0
In a 3 player game the winner still gets 1 point, 2nd gets 0.5 points and last gets 0
In a 4 player game the winner still gets 1 point, 2nd gets 0.67 points, etc...

The Number of points on offer in each game divided by the number of players is always equal to 0.5

This is very similar to efreeman's suggestion. Someone with an average above 0.5 is better than average.

Some people think this system does not reward winning enough, but you can adapt it as long as the avergae number of points on offer in each game is the same irrespective of the number of players.

ALTERNATIVELY - lets just play Smile

Montu · Joined: 14 Nov 05 Posts: 36

LVBrian · Joined: 03 Nov 05 Posts: 54

Kanga · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 3:35 pm Post subject:

I'm closer to Golux on this one; I think that scoring points for finishing 2nd, 3rd etc does promote Kingmaking, and also isn't the aim of the game. I like the feel of this site in that it encourages players to do the move that most improves their chance of winning.

Picking up on a secondary point in the original post, I would like to see a win ratio for differing numbers of players in a game. 3 player Amun Re is much different to 4 player, which is different to 5 player. It would be interesting to see who has done well in each form of the game.

efreeman

All,

I've seen this debate doen a million times on bgg, rec.games.board and others, and the simple matter is no one is likely to move anyone else off their respective positions. Some will think "winning is everything" while others will feel that "final position matters". I find compelling arguments for both, so why NOT track both? Don't tell anyone "this is or that is important". Track it both ways and let the users determine which they find is more important.

don't tell anyone what their goal should be...whether it be "make the move that gives me the best chance to win...no matter how infitesimal" or "I cannot win, so I'll get the best placing possible." People will make their moves according to their values regardless of whether the site tracks it or not.

If better data were available, I'd certainly look at it, and having both things (as I outlined above) tracked would give a good snapshot of their play.

Eric

Golux13 · Joined: 14 Jul 05 Posts: 209

Montu, I think the football analogies just plain don't apply. Team compositions, coaches and schedules change from year to year. Even if you think of each team from as a single individual and the entire NFL season as the "game"... it still doesn't work. The goal of that game -- winning the Super Bowl -- is approached differently from trying to win a board game; instead of a multiplayer game with everyone competing against everyone else, it's a series of one-on-one match-ups, where W/L records determine the playoffs which determine which teams face each other in the final round. So the meaning of "better" or "best" team over a series of NFL seasons means something very different from "better" or "best" player over a series of board games.

Even if it did apply, your analogy would be like looking at individual round scores during a game: If we play a game with 10 scoring rounds and I outscore you in 6 of those 10 rounds, you can still win the game by beating me by a larger margin in the remaining four rounds. Ultimately, the fact that I outscored you 60% of the time within the game is meaningless if you in fact win the game. If we play the same game ten times with the same results, then it doesn't matter that my "W/L record" in scoring rounds is 60-40 and yours is 40-60 -- what matters (to the extent any of this matters at all, which is pretty limited) is that you won all ten games.

Jimzik · Joined: 18 Nov 05 Posts: 12 Location: Avon Lake, Ohio

Golux13 · Joined: 14 Jul 05 Posts: 209

Jimzik, you're the one who brought up football, not me. I pointed out that your NCAA analogy doesn't work, and when Montu made his comments, I pointed out that it didn't apply either.

Whatever your impression is of my gaming group, it's pretty obvious you've entirely missed my point, because the characterizations here -- hypercompetitive assholes, "win-crazed sports dads" -- are completely off base. (Also, I have resisted making characterizations of you and others, or trying to figure out why you are so concerned with adding complexity to the ratings.)

Maybe I haven't been clear enough. Here it is, as simple as I can make it:

We play each game to win, and we engage in some banter and trash talk now and then, but we don't keep records of who won how many of any game. We don't believe in giving up and steering victory toward one person over another if we can't win. (In fact, we don't have "hated rivals," and we treat strangers and other newcomers as friends.) I put the robber where I think it will give me the greatest advantage relative to the leader. As far as I'm concerned, kingmaking is barely a half-step off of cheating.

Finally, as I've said before, if Milksheikh wants to "enhance" the ratings system, so be it. I just don't see any value to it.

Big Bad Lex · Joined: 16 Oct 05 Posts: 114 Location: Epsom, UK

I guess its a great but indirect compliment to Milk sheikh that the game and site works so well that the only source of debate is a stats system.

Whether you think 1st place is everything or not, it's worth remembering we are all guests on this excellent site. Seeing how we pay nothing to enjoy the games here, this is Mr Sheikh's party and 'His Gaff, His rules'.

Whilst suggestions toward perceived improvements of the site might be welcomed, perhaps an emotive debate like this concerning an abstract and periferal scoring system which might apply to any games is best continued elsewhere?

Golux13 · Joined: 14 Jul 05 Posts: 209

Did I miss a message from Milksheikh saying that this discussion was a problem? If so, I apologize and I'll be happy to shut it down. If not, I don't see anything wrong with discussing our various philosophies of gaming, particularly as they apply (or not) to the features on this site.

Big Bad Lex · Joined: 16 Oct 05 Posts: 114 Location: Epsom, UK

OK just to spell it out.

A significant proportion of this thread consists of personal attacks and pointless slagging which is utterly removed from structured gaming debate. A friend of mine who runs his own successful site actually shut his forum down owing to a thread that turned nasty and started to overspill into the rest of the site. I would hate that to happen here.

It shouldn't need site admin to kerb this we should be self policing.

TMJJS · Joined: 17 Nov 04 Posts: 70

There are stats on this site? Surprised

Wow, I just thought it was a great place to come and have fun playing games!

LVBrian · Joined: 03 Nov 05 Posts: 54

OK, I started the thread and I think it can be returned to productivity without shutting it down. I think people walk into this particular issue with baggage--me included.

I think those of us who have tried know that tracking results in an intimate group of friends is ultimately a bad idea. Over time you just make some people feel bad and you make other people targets. You turn every game into a small part of a larger meta-game of "how high can I make my numbers," etc.

Now, that said, I think a website of hundreds of players is different. Further, the site ALREADY tracks win ratios in what is in my opinion a rather unforgiving manner that implies an all-or-nothing approach to gaming here for anyone who, even in the back of their mind, considers their ratings even just for fun.

My suggestion is this (and the site owner can regard or disregard as he sees fit). Either:

A. Alter the "wins:games played" public displays shown to include performance information from 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, and 5ths and games with different numbers of players as some sort of percentage or something. If you think it will in any way harm play more than what is shown right now or will water down statistics or anger some players who want firsts exclusively tracked or whatever... than have it show up only in the personal profile.

B. Ignore me completely and bask in the glow of one helluva site you have created.

On a side note, it has come up a few times that playing for 2nd or 3rd or 4th at any time is to play kingmaker. I disagree. I think that all players always trying to badger first place (or, worse, the player they perceive is in first place) regardless of their own position is more destructive. I think that by 80% of the way through a game, players are cognizant of their relative positions and begin playing to hold on to their position (2nd trying to make sure 3rd doesn't pass him) as well as usurp the position in front of them (2nd place trying to catch up to first). To expect the player in a distant 5th place to play to beat the leader instead of 4th on the last couple turns is both unrealistic and encourages players to stay in a careful 2nd or 3rd place, ruining the excitement, fun, and flow of most games. All my opinion.