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Post by awall on Jun 18, 2008 23:13:30 GMT -5
I've noticed that victory in the league tends to be determined by who managed to get the most kills. Citanest won all of his games for several months, but other people managed to equal or better his score by virtue of getting some lucky kills. Unfortunately, I find that a lot of kills are just that: luck. Half the time, you get a kill because you got paired up with a weaker player that didn't know when to surrender; the other half the time it's because your opponent made a risky play that backfired. The only times when a kill is really due to the skill of the victor are those in which you go invisible and sneak something through (okay fine, that takes talent) or those in which you pin down one hand with paralysis, preventing them from surrendering.
On the other hand, I find that there is often not a lot of incentive to avoid risking death. Occasionally the additional lost point makes a difference, but a lot of times a loss kills your chances to win the month just as much as a death does, so you may as well risk everything. However, the player whose opponents do this more frequently will amass more kills over time due to unlucky guesses on the opponents' ends.
I propose that for future league rounds, we might want to tone down the importance of kills. Because I like the decisions involved with risking death, I don't want to take it away completely, but I believe that dying should be more of a punishment to the loser than a reward to the winner. I propose something like a more traditional tournament scoring scheme:
Winning a match is 3 pts (whether or not your opponent surrendered).
A draw (double surrender or double death) is worth 1pt. for each player.
A surrender is worth 0 pts.
Dying is -1 pt, unless it was double death in which case see above.
Does anybody want to defend the current system?
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Post by xade on Jun 19, 2008 0:19:31 GMT -5
essentially, all you're doing is making a Surrender worth as much as a kill... I mean, relatively, right now, we have the following scale.
Kill - 3 points
Surrender - 2 points
Draw - 1 point
Surrender - 0 points
Death - -1 Point.
It's just that every score has a Minus1 attached to it.
I think kills should be rewarded... I also think the scale should be moved over so that it doesn't *look* like a kill is worth double points.
In fact, on a scale that starts at zero, a kill is worth 25% more than a surrender... that seems like a sufficient bonus without being over the top... it just looks over the top because it's worth "double points"
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Post by xade on Jun 19, 2008 0:31:01 GMT -5
I've noticed that victory in the league tends to be determined by who managed to get the most kills. Further to what I said, take a look at this comment... Jan - was a close but I don't mind the desision that the 2-3 guy won it over the two 1-4 guys... Feb - the 1-3-1 guy won it over the 2-2-0-1 and the 2-1-2 guy...which seems right. Mar - the 1-4 guy beat the 3-0-1-1 guy. right again. Apr - This was sus, cause no-one finished any games... May - nah, I smashed it here... kils or no kills. equal. best. result. ever.  The only times that the victor had the most kills this year was the Jan result, which was *very close*. three players undefeated. The winner was determined by a countback of kills, and in May, but kills or no kills, I still would have won that month... |
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Post by awall on Jun 19, 2008 1:04:58 GMT -5
I think kills should be rewarded... Why? My point is that getting a kill isn't really a measure of how good you are, so much as a measure of how much your opponent screwed up. |
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Post by BioLogIn on Jun 19, 2008 2:38:02 GMT -5
I think kills should be rewarded... Why? My point is that getting a kill isn't really a measure of how good you are, so much as a measure of how much your opponent screwed up. Sorry, I cannot agree with this. 1) We aren't trying to measure one's skill (how good one is) in the League. It would be a really silly thig to do with only 5 opponents, right? 2) No necessary "screwed up". It may as well be a result of extremely close game. 3) Please refer to Slartucker's discussion of League rules, most things I mention here are really covered there. 4) Is was written 'Kills worth double because kills are fun'. I see nothing wrong with this. Mind you, we aren't really trying to measure one's skill. But all in all I see no problem with altering scoring system of the League, if we will come up with one variant that will satisfy everybody and will be approved by Slartucker. I'll try to look into possible variants as soon as I'll have more time. |
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Post by Dubber on Jun 19, 2008 7:15:16 GMT -5
One point of the League is to work in some extra meta-strategy. Instead of the outcome of one game affecting your ELO/Ladder stats, the cumulative effects of 5 games affect your League stats Strategically, if you're playing to win the overall cumulative League, you want to always *not die* and you always want to *kill opponent* -- These goals mean: 1. It is always better to surrender than die (i.e. really, no one should ever allow themselves to die) 2. It is always better to lose a month by only a little to keep your cumulative relative ranking high... sooner or later the top dawgs are going to sink 3. Changing the formula will not make everyone happy, just as the current rules do not I think kills should be rewarded... Why? My point is that getting a kill isn't really a measure of how good you are, so much as a measure of how much your opponent screwed up. |
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Post by xade on Jun 19, 2008 18:28:37 GMT -5
I think kills should be rewarded... Why? My point is that getting a kill isn't really a measure of how good you are, so much as a measure of how much your opponent screwed up. no, they're not, but they aren't a bad way of running the countback with the pointy end of the stick. three players on 5 wins, the guy with the extra kill wins. That is a fine measure in my book. |
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Post by vermont on Jun 21, 2008 13:30:14 GMT -5
Xade, I've seen what else is in your book. I'm not sure that's the best place to go...
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Post by ExDeath on Jun 21, 2008 19:14:56 GMT -5
My opinion has been that wins should be the primary means of score, with kills merely as a TIEBREAK. If two players are tied on both things, then it should go to deaths, followed by..I dunno..opponent's average Elo.
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Derfel
Ronin Warlock
Did I Do That?
Troublemaker
Posts: 283
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Post by Derfel on Jun 22, 2008 10:48:40 GMT -5
My opinion has been that wins should be the primary means of score, with kills merely as a TIEBREAK. If two players are tied on both things, then it should go to deaths, followed by..I dunno..opponent's average Elo. +1 |
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Post by awall on Jun 23, 2008 10:51:50 GMT -5
That's another way I wouldn't mind doing things. But Bio and xade have a point, just because something is a better measure of skill doesn't mean it's where we should definitely go with the league.
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Post by Slartucker on Jun 23, 2008 11:40:05 GMT -5
Yes, I think Awall's last comment hit the nail on the head. "Kills are fun" was indeed what I said originally -- the league is supposed to be fun more than competitive.
Of course, if extra points for kills are making the league not-fun for people, then things need to be re-evaluated.
Also, while it's true that the current point scale is the equivalent of 4 for a kill and 3 for a win, the fact that 4 happens to be 33% greater than 3 is no more relevant than the fact that 2 (the actual pts awarded) is 100% greater than 1. You could inflate the whole scale by +10000 and the results would be the same, and in that case 10002 for a kill isn't even .01% more than 10001 for a win. The "it's only 1 pt more" argument might be relevant if the league typically had 3 or 4 players, but with a decent crowd, one point is typically what decides the champ.
I do like the incentive of going for kills, but Awall made a good point that there is less incentive to avoid deaths, which adds more of a "luck of the draw" element than I would prefer, even in a "fun" league. One alternative could be to reduce kills to +1 point, but keep death at -2 points, and institute some separate reward for kills built into the league rules. Of course, this is a highly theoretical solution at this point.
P.S. Tomorrow's my last day before I go more or less incognito for the summer, so any last minute requests should go in now.
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Post by BioLogIn on Aug 4, 2008 9:10:58 GMT -5
I'd like to revive this discussion seeing how some players decide that they 'fight to the death'. Lately getting two points became firstly the matter of your opponent's mood (if (s)he feels like dying or if (s)he doesn't), and only secondly - the matter of your skill\cunning, etc.
So if someone has any ideas about changes to our scoring system, please feel free to write here. I'll try to review everything written here in a few days to come up with some solution\proposal..
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Post by awall on Aug 4, 2008 14:23:37 GMT -5
Heh... previous experience with opponents' moods was exactly what prompted me to open this topic in the first place.
Suggestion 1:
Rather than give 1 point for a win, 2 for a kill, we could decide the winner of the league based on number of wins, and then break ties by margin of victory. If Bio and I both went 5-0, but I won all of my games with 3 health remaining, whereas he won all of his with 7 health remaining, then he should win the month.
Suggestion 2, not necessarily incompatible with suggestion 1: Any time the league rule specifies an alternate win (or loss) condition, you get bonus points for defeating your opponent using that. For example, if you manage to trip your opponent up with disruptions this month such that he can't manage to fit in all 7 gestures within the requisite number of turns, you should get some sort of bonus to your tiebreakers (the magnitude of which should probably be specified by whoever comes up with the rule for the month, based on their perception of how hard it is to engineer a win by these means).
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Post by Slartucker on Aug 4, 2008 22:11:15 GMT -5
Suggestion 1 sounds very ugly. Margin of victory is poorly, poorly, poorly quantifiable in warlocks. Health is a craptastic approximation.
Suggestion 2 sounds like a great idea. Starting next month, replace the +1/-1 for a kill with +1/-1 for whatever special condition is specified along with the monthly rule. This could be tied directly to the rule, or not: so you could have a rule of "No FoD" and a bonus win condition of "death by storm."
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