SpielByWeb

[Legalu]

[quote="JimF"]

[Big Bad Lex]

[quote="Legalu"]

[Vinny]

How about this?

Include an "average players per game" number next to the win total.

e.g.
Annon 18/30 (2.4 players)
MrX 4/11 (4.1 players)

MrX evidently is "better"

I'm not sure what the coding effort would be, but it would mitigate the biggest problem with the current system i.e. a 2-player win counts the same as a 5-player.

[HappyProle]

Something that might be worth exploring is allowing several "views" of rankings, not unlike how you can see several different methods for ranking college football teams. My apologies to those unfamiliar with the analogy.

[joaotorres]

My vote is for a more complex ranking system.

While you still can create as many new non-passworded games as you want, I don't see how a ranking system would segregate anyone. If there's no games where you can join, just create a new one.

An option to whether the game would be valid for the ranking or not would also help that, if you don't want to participate of any kind of ranking or if you just don't care, simply choose the game not to be valid for rankings and everything stay as it is.

On the other side, an actual ranking system would certainly attract more attention to SBW and encourage players to get better at the games. It would certainly increase the fun for the more competitive players, like me

For those who don't want it, just tick the "valid for ranking" off and continue playing as you always did

[smlait]

My concern would be the nonpassworded games - which are mostly what I play. If I accumulate a half decent ranking, I don't particularly want Joe Blow and his two aliases joining my open game of Tikal and ganging up on me in an attempt to raise his rating. Sure, I'll finish second or third as the aliases all work toward making Joe win - but it's still no fun for me. Sadly, that sort of cheating will happen. So, the primary effect of a system like this would be that I'd mostly only create 2 player games to prevent that sort of cheating, and I'd get less enjoyment out of the site than I do now.

[Legalu]

I agree with your opinion about the rating system, where it's worth beating a highly-rated player.
My preference is for a simple adjustment to the current ranking system. Hey, you just gave an idea: I could create another 2 aliases, play several games with myself and boost my stats .
How far can people go just because of rankings and ratings? I just wish we had a better mechanism to discourage kingmaking.

[Golux13]

[JimF]

[quote="Big Bad Lex"]

[Legalu]

Suppose we have a game with 3 players, P1, P2 and P3, where P3 no longer has the chance of winning the game. Despite this fact, P3 is in such a strategic position at the end of the game that he/she is able to choose one of the following three outcomes:
a) P3 stays on the sideline, P1 wins the game and P2 finishes second;
b) P3 helps P2 win the game, P1 finishes second and P3 is last;
c) P3 guarantees second place, but this causes P2 to win and P1 finishes third.
Option "b)" is clearly unethical because P3 favours one of the players for no personal benefit.
Option "c)" is the intuitive choice for competitive players (myself included), but in a scoring system where only the winner gets all the credit then P3 would be favouring P2 for no personal benefit. This leads to "b)" becoming an unethical choice.
Option "a)" may also be considered unethical if we assume that all players should be trying to finish as best as they can in the game. Given that P3 has choice "c)" available, option "a)" would be a passive way of helping P1 win the game.

[Golux13]

[Bkruppa]

What about ranking based upon purely my opinion? Several benefits to this, I like it and I know I would be very fair in my assessment. For example, people from Massachusetts would automatically recieve a lower rating then, say, New Hampshire. People I lose to would recieve less points then people who lose to me, etc. I'm sure you can all see the wisdom in such a system.

[stargate]

[joaotorres]

There's something I don't get here, say a ranking system would be implemented, doesn't the option to have games that are NOT valid for ranking keep things like they are now for those who don't like ranking and the problems it may bring?

Like in the open game of Tikal getting raided by cheaters, just create an open game that's not valid for rankings, and things would be just the same as now.

The only difference is that, then, people who would like a more accurate ranking system would get it, but people who think rankings would make things worse, would still have the same old nice SBW

[Legalu]