Player Ratings

mepbmlist
#1

Note: I'm focusing on the Valar and Maia ratings here. I view the Istari as secondary.

That is nice. Others will not. They will value their personal scores over the scores of the players they happened to get stuck into games with.

Darrell Shimel
I think that this Ratings system is likely to return nation selection
back to the days when the high VC nations had a waiting list, and
Woodmen dropping on turn 0.

I really don't understand that logic. You get the same number of points
whether your NG, SG, the Noldo or the Woodmen.

Not Istari score. Besides, if the FP lose 60% of the time, I'm going to be DkLts (or better yet, a DS Corsairs) in nearly every game anyway.

In some ways, I'm better
off as a good player taking the WM (or the more difficult nations in
general), because I need to make sure my team does well. If I take the
Noldo and sit back amassing gold, my team will go down in flames,
hurting my rating.

And how will you feel when the payer that is #2 in Istari score, and really wants to be #1, does exactly that. He lets you burn, then convinces the remaing FP to end the game while he still has a bunch of VPs.

Sure, we'd get fewer points for a 14 vs. 11 win than a 13 vs. 12,
but a lot more than not having played at all.

This might need to be tweaked. Certainly, a side has a much bigger
advantage with a 14v11 than 13v12.

The crafty players that want a very high score will join in groups,
taking the neutrals, then all switch to the same side on turn 1.

Clint can police this fairly easily. It's obviously an abuse of the
system, and I think already outlawed in the house rules.

  jason

So, how often can the Harad and Corsairs join the same side without it being obvious that they are ringers? How often can players end up in the same game as neutrals, and join the same side, before it is cheating?

···

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#2

corsairs game 101 wrote:

Note: I'm focusing on the Valar and Maia ratings here. I view the Istari as secondary.

That is nice. Others will not. They will value their personal scores over the scores of the players they happened to get stuck into games with.

Be that as it may, you can only increase your personal score if your team wins.

I really don't understand that logic. You get the same number of points
whether your NG, SG, the Noldo or the Woodmen.

Not Istari score. Besides, if the FP lose 60% of the time, I'm going to be DkLts (or better yet, a DS Corsairs) in nearly every game anyway.

Certainly, that's your choice. I think there are plenty of players who don't buy that 60% number who won't mind playing FP, or going FP as a neutral.

In some ways, I'm better
off as a good player taking the WM (or the more difficult nations in
general), because I need to make sure my team does well. If I take the
Noldo and sit back amassing gold, my team will go down in flames,
hurting my rating.

And how will you feel when the payer that is #2 in Istari score, and really wants to be #1, does exactly that. He lets you burn, then convinces the remaing FP to end the game while he still has a bunch of VPs.

But he won't! If you lose, you get no individual points. It's dang hard to kill a teammate and then win the game.

There seems to be a lot of focus on the Istari rating, but from Clint's wording, that seems a small part. Again, if you lose, you hurt every aspect of your rating. That's hardly conducive to individual play.

      jason

···

--
Jason Bennett, jasonab@acm.org
E pur si muove!

#3

So, how often can the Harad and >Corsairs join the same side without it >being obvious that they are ringers? >How often can players end up in the same >game as neutrals, and join the same >side, before it is cheating?

Under the new rating systems, about as often as you get players who are (independently) trying to gain points. Taking the Harad/Corsairs situation, if Corsairs turn Dark then Harad can turn free and probably be destroyed or weakened so much that he ends up with a poor position. Alternatively, he can turn dark and almost certainly end up in a good position on the winning side.

From a game theoretic point of view, it will generally pay a neutral to follow the lead of any other neutral, particularly the Corsairs/Harad & the Duns/Rhudaur. Fortunately, most players still don't care about the victory points and will go for the fun/balanced game/team which I like most approach. However, if the rating system leads to this changing then this is a *bad* thing.and the ratings should be dropped. It would be interesting to see statistics on this before & after the ratings are brought in.

Also, perhaps it would be worth weighting Neutral scores according to how long they have played on one side to stop them sitting back ang joining the winning team late on in the game.

On a completely separate subject, here's a thought for future FtF games. How about playing two or three BOFA games (either full rules or basic) rather than a full game. This would allow a little more discussion & a little more control and there would be some chance of actually finishing a game during a weekend. You could even have something like two teams, where each team consists of two DS players in one game and three FP players in another. You could then compare the final positions of each side.

Richard

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#4

I personally like the idea of a more involved ratings system. There seem
to be some out there with an almost paranoid level of skeptisism, who
claim that the proposed new ratings will have a very detrimental effect
on player morality. I would imagine that a player who would try to cheat
the system with these new player ratings is just as likely going to try
to cheat the system without the new player ratings. I doubt that a new
ratings system is going to drive previously honest team players to
cheating or selfish play.

The ratings systems suggested seem pretty fair overall. Splitting up the
different aspects of performance means that you can assign your own
preferences regarding which ratings mean more to you. More information
is usually a good thing and this will give us just that, AND in a format
that doesn't lump it all into one arbitrary number. How can that be a
bad thing? And above all, (as someone stated earlier), if you don't like
it you can simply ignore it.

The only other rating I would like to see is something tied to how well
you did in a position compared to others in that position. (Sort of like
Duplicate Bridge, where you may get a crappy hand, but everyone else has
to play that very same crappy hand, and the one who played it best gets
the high score.) You could take an overall aggregate score for, say, the
Woodman in all previously completed games. Compare how the current
player did and give them a plus score if they did much better, or a
minus score if they did much worse, (with perhaps a small plus if they
did average, but survived and didn't drop.) Your overall rating in that
category would be unaffected whether you usually play the Noldo or
Woodmen.

Of course, we would have to figure out how to determine how well you
did, but there have been many past suggestions that seemed reasonable.
Certainly the current VC system, by itself, wouldn't be good enough. But
perhaps some combination of the other ratings already mentioned might
work. Or maybe just applying this "duplicate" handicap to the other
ratings system, so that the Woodmen on a winning team gets a multiplier
applied.

Anyway, just rambling suggestions.

Mike Mulka

#5

I doubt this would be popular. Prove me wrong and I'll certainly consider it. I'll be contacting players soon about the next FTF game and will put this forward but I am pretty sure I know the answer.

Clint

···

On a completely separate subject, here's a thought for future FtF games. How about playing two or three BOFA games (either full rules or basic) rather than a full game. This would allow a little more discussion & a little more control and there would be some chance of actually finishing a game during a weekend. You could even have something like two teams, where each team consists of two DS players in one game and three FP players in another. You could then compare the final positions of each side.

Richard

#6

The only other rating I would like to see is something tied to how well
you did in a position compared to others in that position. (Sort of like
Duplicate Bridge, where you may get a crappy hand, but everyone else has
to play that very same crappy hand, and the one who played it best gets
the high score.) You could take an overall aggregate score for, say, the
Woodman in all previously completed games. Compare how the current
player did and give them a plus score if they did much better, or a
minus score if they did much worse, (with perhaps a small plus if they
did average, but survived and didn't drop.) Your overall rating in that
category would be unaffected whether you usually play the Noldo or
Woodmen.

Of course, we would have to figure out how to determine how well you
did, but there have been many past suggestions that seemed reasonable.
Certainly the current VC system, by itself, wouldn't be good enough. But
perhaps some combination of the other ratings already mentioned might
work. Or maybe just applying this "duplicate" handicap to the other
ratings system, so that the Woodmen on a winning team gets a multiplier
applied.

I knew the entire discussion would be vibrant - thanks for that. We have spent quite a while with all of us the office working on it with ideas from you guys on the list and emails. I will reserve comments for now, (and only take into account players who sign their emails as mentioned before), about everything else said until it's had time to be talked about, but I do like the above idea. We had thought about it a lot but couldn't work out a reasonable way of doing so. VPs are an indication, but from my perspective a pretty poor one. Eg Eothraim taken out on turn 5 after taking out the Morannon, 3423 would be a very good player in my opnion, but in VPs would be very low. How do you get to rate this sort of play? It would be great to be known as the 2nd best Northmen player or the like, but how to organise that? Voting in teams? (Something flawed there as well - I recall we did this in the old game 39 and from my perspective it was well squiffy - nothing to do with the actual skill that player employed in the position). So yes I would love to do this but don't know how. Suggestions very welcome here.

(Mike B's idea of killed x number of troops more than normal is one way, but you would need to have a long list of criteria and a method of keeping records of this and they are open to difference in opinion as well). Eg Noldo gathered 4 of the top 5 artefacts but turn 5 worth 500 NVPs (new victory points), North Gondor killed 25,000 enemy troops by turn 18, worth 750 NVPs that sort of thing.

Clint

#7

--- In mepbmlist@y..., "corsairs game 101" <corsairs101@h...> wrote:

>Note: I'm focusing on the Valar and Maia ratings here. I view the

Istari as

>secondary.

That is nice. Others will not. They will value their personal

scores over

the scores of the players they happened to get stuck into games with.

>>Darrell Shimel
>>I think that this Ratings system is likely to return nation selection
>>back to the days when the high VC nations had a waiting list, and
>>Woodmen dropping on turn 0.
>

Maybe things were different in the UK, but all of this worst-case
stuff NEVER happened to any significant degree in the US games I was
in back in the bad-old-days of those evil victory conditions. I think
these concerns are greatly overblown.

I think they're fine - different flavors for what different folks like.
There is a nod to handicapping overall advantages, etc.

I brought up the idea of comparing nation performance relative to the
historical record, which would basically just take some data entry of
prior games. Your score is tied for 30th out of 150 woodmen finished,
etc. etc. If Harly doesn't have this information, though, it would
take awhile to build up a recent database. 2950 is more egalitarian
than 1650, by the way - much better odds of a weaker nation getting a
high score. I just finished a 2950 grudge match as a dark servant
Rhun, and the Rhun ended up with the high score. It sure wasn't the
starting position, or those fantastic Rhun characters :slight_smile:

If you don't like these VCs, ignore them. They make it more fun for
others, and if anything I suspect they may encourage more even matches
- perhaps even giving Harly a way to flag big experience differences
between alliances in normal games, which usually leads to short boring
games.

I'd like to see a total games played entry. Drops are a bit tough to
quantify. In one game I remember, all but one of the freeps dropped
when it was hopeless - about 1 year into the game. It took the
servants about 4 turns to wheel the right armies/characters on the
lone holdout to squash him. In that case, the other folks actually
did the right thing and the holdout should have gotten the black mark IMO.
This can even be unintentional.
Because sometimes only one guy forgets to drop while the rest of the
team does drop, you'd have a bunch of "innocent" parties tagged with
dropping out when in fact they just conceded the game en masse and one
person didn't get the news.

cheers,

Marc

#8

I hope you guys are planning on offering "Unrated" as well as "Rated"
games. That way, those who don't want to mess around with ratings
don't have to.

Having played under the old GSI system, I think ratings will cause
some of the problems mentioned by others.

I might have missed it but is there some point to having ratings?
Are you planning on filling games based on ratings? Award prizes?

I don't really understand why your rating would degrade 2%. Chess
ratings don't degrade.

Also, I'm not sure you can use those names without permission from
the Tolkien estate. Not sure what your license is but I would check
before trying to use them in a commercial product.

Paul

#9

While respecting the differences of opinion inherent in a
community, I do have to point out an error here that may lead
to further misconception. Players have nothing to "mess around"
with. Nothing will change. MEGames simply adds an extra page
to their web site, and has found some trivial activity to fill
up their extra time with, presuming Automagic and MEOW provide
it.

Nothing will change for the players. If the odd-ball player
starts doing wild and crazy things in order to start scoring
high ratings, then take notes odd-balls, THIS is what you will
have to do:

1) See games through 'till the end.
2) Work with your team for Team Victory.

As long as you finish games on the winning TEAM, you're rating
will be higher than those who flip flop through games, quitting
on turn 6 because one order didn't go through, they don't have
enough camps, or an ally screwed up a split army order. Those
players will score low. The Dark Lieutenants posting camps
in Mirkwood with Gothmog's 180 net command rank who quits because
the Freeps haven't resigned yet...will score low. The Dwarf
using Bain, complete with all his artifacts, to make fortified
major towns in the Iron Hills while Gondor and the Mithlonds burn,
will score low. The Noldo who's gathered 18 artifacts, killed an
ally because his Page 1 says so, and influenced away Tharbad,
will score low. The North Gondor who says "I'm going through
the pass! Who's with me!" and then "forgets" to answer desperate
emails from the shortly thereafter assassinated Celdrahil and
his now disbanded 5500 in Mordor, will score low.

If those players (these are real anecdotes from real players in
real games, some of whom claim to be "excellent players who have
"won" games before) score low and are ashamed, then they can either
follow the 2 simple rules above, or leave the game to the rest of
us.

Will ANY Player Rating System solve those problems? No. Will
ANY Player Rating System cause those problems? No. I would assert
that there is more support for a system than those opposed amongst
the silent majority. But the same reason why player votes won't
work is why I will never be able to prove that (or have it be
disproven) - they're silent. 15/370 players on the list might
send their opinion. The same percentage would bother voting after
a game.

Chess ratings were mentioned - can you "opt out"? Simplicity was
mentioned - the ratings are based on averages and +/- this or that.
Apologies to Marc P, but we're not talking rocket science here.
Neutrals getting together to score highly by declaring together
was mentioned - how is that different than GWC's?

Honestly, I don't see the problems. Recall, to score highly,
one must 1) finish games and 2) be on the winning team. What
is wrong with supporting that on an obscure web page or monthly
email?

Thanks,

Brad Brunet

···

--- ulfang_the_easterling <ulfang_the_easterling@yahoo.com> wrote:

I hope you guys are planning on offering "Unrated" as well as "Rated"
games. That way, those who don't want to mess around with ratings
don't have to.

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#10

Neutrals getting together to score highly by declaring together
was mentioned - how is that different than GWC's?

It's not and GWC's sucked.

One game back then I was the Corsairs in a Grudge Game. I declared
for Dark, destroyed SG and then sailed up to the Noldo and was
attacking them. The DS team thought I had too many Victory Points
and would get a GWC. So they convinced Harad to attack me to knock
my point total down. The game itself was pretty much over, the FP
were beaten. From that point on, I NEVER played a neutral again in a
Grudge game. I told GSI NEVER AGAIN.

Now you want to bring all this crap back to the game?

Like I said, they better offer Unrated games or they lose a customer.

Paul

#11

Here's a question, more of a point of curiousity. You "declared
for the Dark" and then mention the "DS Team". Why did you declare
when you weren't on the team?

Brad

···

--- ulfang_the_easterling <ulfang_the_easterling@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Neutrals getting together to score highly by declaring together
> was mentioned - how is that different than GWC's?

It's not and GWC's sucked.

One game back then I was the Corsairs in a Grudge Game. I declared
for Dark, destroyed SG and then sailed up to the Noldo and was
attacking them. The DS team thought I had too many Victory Points
and would get a GWC. So they convinced Harad to attack me to knock
my point total down. The game itself was pretty much over, the FP
were beaten. From that point on, I NEVER played a neutral again in a

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#12

Here's a question, more of a point of curiousity. You "declared
for the Dark" and then mention the "DS Team". Why did you declare
when you weren't on the team?

It was a GRUDGE GAME. I was assigned as a neutral in that game (note
that I didn't ask GSI to be a neutral in a grudge game either, I just
asked for a neutral setup).

The DS side convinced me to join them. So I declared for the DS and
attacked the FP. But they all joined together and in fact, lived
near each other. So after I knocked out one FP player, attacking
another FP and the game was mostly in mop-up mode, they decided they
wanted the GWCs amoung themselves.

Same crap will happen with this rating stuff especially if prizes or
certificates are given out or some sort of Hall of Fame is stared.
Anyone smart will never be a neutral in any sort of Grudge game (or
any game where multiple people are allowed to join together).

Paul

#13

ulfang_the_easterling wrote:

Neutrals getting together to score highly by declaring together
was mentioned - how is that different than GWC's?

It's not and GWC's sucked.

While I agree that GWCs sucked, I submit that you were in quite a unique position. Plus, the GWC was worth much, much more than a rating point or two. Plus, the grudge ranking is separate from the individual ranking, and that grudge ranking is hurt by taking you out. Plus, Clint has already said that what really matters is the team win rating.

In short, I can't see any way, other than a catastrophic worst-case scenario, where your prior unfortunetness can be repeated.

      jason

···

--
Jason Bennett, jasonab@acm.org
E pur si muove!

#14

I've heard lots of this type of story, but always in reference
to "the past". Does it still happen? The non-North American
players claim that, because they never had GWC's, they play more
of a team oriented game. I've never seen anything even remotely
similar in my various games as a neutral, including 130 where
my Rhudaur ended up in 1st place for a considerable portion of
the end game (eclipsed by my Witch King ally at the end, mind
you). In fact, in that game, many of my DS allies were offering
to HELP me meet my VC's, just for the novelty of Rhudaur winning
as a DS!

The Valar and Maiar ratings (whatever they may legally end up
being called... :wink: take the team Win and total points on the
team (not VP's) into account. These are both quite interesting
ratings that I like. The company could combine them into one
master score, but keeping them seperate helps guage different
aspects of the player.

The Istari rating is based solely and completely on VP's. Based
on your anecdote, the fact that I still keep meeting VP players
(who always claim THEY don't care about VP's...but why do they keep
bringing them up?), and the argument the anonymous corsairs101
made regarding joining games to only play powerful nations and/or
powerful neutrals in order to boost this rating up, I don't see
a good reason to keep it. Harlequin didn't use GWC's before, I
don't see why they should start now (MEGames has said they're
interested in bringing them back, I don't recall their explanation)
I certainly don't see how a controversial "rating" as such would
augment the game. I argue that it "shouldn't" affect players
motivation, but it's a matter of opinion - why bother if there's
a chance it would?

Will some players decide "Okay, I'll play Free this time, but only
as SG or Noldo..." in order to ensure they're not stuck in a
situation where this rating will suffer? Sure. Will others play
southern neutrals exclusively to gamble on huge scores on the
winning side (they declare when the games heavily tilted...)?
Yes, I can accept that some (minority) of players would do that.

As a result, the Istari rating would be tainted. If I went on a run
of spectacular LUCK and ended up on the top of that list for a spell,
1) I would be embarassed and 2) other's would now question my motives
and team ethic...because the whole concept of "individual" score
in a highly technical "team" game is oxymoronic. Would players like
myself do the opposite, and go around sacrificing their nations
in order to avoid the smell of appearing near the top of the Istari?
(I argue sacrifice is how a team is supposed to work, but the fact
remains that when your team wins, one of you has to come in first,
my horrifying experience as a near 1st place DS Rhudaur brought that
point home for me.) Who knows. Why bother with the debate?

I say: either use VP's against the average for the nation being
played (as myself and Marc P have proposed over the past year or
more) or don't use them at all. If the game was WWII, how often
would Poland surpass the US? But I'd like to give it a shot if
I was stacked up against all the Polands in previous games.

Regards,

Brad Brunet

···

--- ulfang_the_easterling <ulfang_the_easterling@yahoo.com> wrote:

The DS side convinced me to join them. So I declared for the DS and
attacked the FP. But they all joined together and in fact, lived
near each other. So after I knocked out one FP player, attacking
another FP and the game was mostly in mop-up mode, they decided they
wanted the GWCs amoung themselves.

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#15

OK... I must have missed something here. Has MeGames announced somewhere
else that they are bringing back GWCs and pegging them to the new
ratings? If not, how do new ratings have anything whatsoever to do with
the prophesied problems?

We currently have the old VC points inherent to the software, which are
almost universally disliked. (And BTW, for whomever mentioned the
legality of a public ratings list, the Hall of Fame publishes names
already.) MeGames is trying to put together a ratings system that is
less subjective, and more indicative of team players by showing how well
people do as a TEAM. (The Istari rating will be tied to the old VC point
system, but I agree with what was mentioned earlier... I wouldn't
personally want to be at the top of that particular listing.)

It seems to me that the new ratings could only encourage players to help
their teammates more than VC points alone, (which is all we have now).
If it brings any changes to the behavior of obnoxious players, it seems
like it would be a change for the better, rather than the downward
spiral of player morality that has been depicted on this list.
Seriously, go back and read the ratings descriptions and scan the
formulas. The Valar and Maia ratings actually do reward team players a
LOT more than the old VC point system. In fact, it seems that the only
people who should be overly worried about the new ratings systems would
be players like those you mentioned.

If I am missing some critical point, (which wouldn't be at all unusual),
I would welcome a better explanation of how these new ratings could
possibly be a major factor in bringing "all this crap back to the game".
I certainly don't want to encourage the greedy, selfish play style that
can ruin an otherwise fun experience. I just don't see how adding the
new ratings systems mentioned can do anything but the opposite.

Mike Mulka

···

One game back then I was the Corsairs in a Grudge Game. I declared for
Dark, destroyed SG and then sailed up to the Noldo and was attacking
them. The DS team thought I had too many Victory Points and would get
a GWC. So they convinced Harad to attack me to knock my point total
down. The game itself was pretty much over, the FP were beaten.
From that point on, I NEVER played a neutral again in a
Grudge game. I told GSI NEVER AGAIN.
Now you want to bring all this crap back to the game?
Like I said, they better offer Unrated games or they
lose a customer.
Paul

#16

So after I knocked out one FP player, attacking another
FP and the game was mostly in mop-up mode, they decided
they wanted the GWCs amoung themselves.
Paul

Or maybe they were just a team that didn't want a former neutral to
"win" the game by being in the top 3 scores. Lets face it, these types
of players/teams are out there. Not having GWCs for a while hasn't
discouraged them so far. (Anyone had this type of attitude shown to them
as a neutral in a grudge game recently?) Bringing a more widely based,
team ratings system to the game can only mitigate the negative actions
of these types of teams.

Mike Mulka

#17

Not tied into the Player Ratings, no, but I've seen Clint
email a few times mentioning how they'll be bringing GWC's
back in some form or another.

Brad

···

--- Urzahil <Urzahil@orions.net> wrote:

OK... I must have missed something here. Has MeGames announced
somewhere
else that they are bringing back GWCs and pegging them to the new
ratings? If not, how do new ratings have anything whatsoever to do
with
the prophesied problems?

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#18

Or maybe they were just a team that didn't want a former neutral to
"win" the game by being in the top 3 scores. Lets face it, these

types

of players/teams are out there. Not having GWCs for a while hasn't
discouraged them so far. (Anyone had this type of attitude shown to

them

as a neutral in a grudge game recently?) Bringing a more widely

based,

team ratings system to the game can only mitigate the negative

actions

of these types of teams.

No, they specifically told me they wanted the GWCs amoung themselves.
I have not encountered anything like this since the removal of GWCs.
If I could change the game I would do away with all individual VCs
and scoring completely.

Paul

#19

I've heard lots of this type of story, but always in reference
to "the past". Does it still happen?

Another buddy of mine had his three best characters assassinated
by "teammates", again over the damn GWCs. He never played the game
again. So there are definately negatives (Harly permanently losing
customers) to reintroducing GWCs or anything similar to the game.

I've not encountered any of this crap since the game moved to Harly
and GWCs were discontinued.

Paul

#20

--- In mepbmlist@y..., Player <pbmnoot@y...> wrote:

--- Urzahil <Urzahil@o...> wrote:
> OK... I must have missed something here. Has MeGames announced
> somewhere
> else that they are bringing back GWCs and pegging them to the new
> ratings? If not, how do new ratings have anything whatsoever to do
> with
> the prophesied problems?

Not tied into the Player Ratings, no, but I've seen Clint
email a few times mentioning how they'll be bringing GWC's
back in some form or another.

Brad

I think we all want this hobby to be more successful, and if people
are motivated to play more/get drawn in because of them they could be
an effective marketing tool.

For that reason alone, I like the idea of having them.
If (as I suspect) Harly doesn't have complete stats on finished games,
it could take awhile to build up a database of them. In that case,
you could start with something like the Istari individual system (real
VCs only please, not the cheesy individual VCs that no one likes.)
Once there are 25 finishes for a nation in a given scenario, switch to
ratings relative to the historical record for that nation.

If I can get nations VCs for some games, I could put these into a
spreadsheet and give some examples of what the scoring would look
like. Given my druthers I'd omit the gold score (the most prone to
abuse and the one that is the least tied to the actual strength of the
nation) and use only characters, armies, economy. I'd prefer real
data to guesses/anecdotes.

Note that this could very well motivate people to do well in
traditionally second-tier nations, as it would then be much harder to
improve your ratings with the Noldo than it would be to do so with the
Woodmen. Folks would still want to have fun with the powerful
positions, of course, but not for the purpose of improving their
standings. Given the dialog, its worth noting that a proper rating
system can do a lot to encourage good playing habits.

cheers,

Marc