Agreed with all.
Can't think of anything more.
petition SIGNED.

I thought the whole point of the points system was to prevent new players or cheaters from joining high quality games, and metagaming would still have the same benefits, just for the Ghost Rating (unless there's something accounting for that?) instead of points.

I would like that too.

"New players to the site would have more access to high quality games."
Wasn't the points system implemented to avoid precisely that? I thought the goal was to *prevent* players who don't know what they're doing and who are likely to CD from joining games with more advanced players.
Of course I understand that some new players do know what they're doing and won't CD (I'd like to count myself among those; I have some Dip experience but am new to the site.) Personally I don't mind working from the ground up just like everyone else had to.

When you start a new game, you could set the min/max GR you would allow to play. This would allow you to prevent people from joining. There's always PW'd games for this, too.

You can't metagame your way to a better GR. You can only play well. You can easily metagame your way to more points, while playing poorly.

@groza

New to this site does *not* mean new to diplomacy. I've heard a lot of complaints about people with 30+ years of dip experience stuck in shitty games because they don't have enough points. Plus, as I said in my last post, people could still prevent new people from joining, if they wanted to.

But, you would still be working from the ground up to get a good GR. But, "working your way from the ground up" in a system that doesn't represent your skill is a waste of time.

I'm for a rating system over points, but how much work would this be creating for Kestas and the Mods?

I find that somewhat confusing. If you metagame and win, even if you play poorly, your GR still increases, doesn't it?

I understand your argument that it's a more meaningful system, but it carries the same problems and requires (as I understand it) a greater amount of effort from those running the system.

Also, if players return from a hiatus, they do not have their former Ghost Rating. These may be good players who have not played in a while, who would thus be punished under this system.

I think the planning would take a lot more than the coding.

For the coding, we can pretty much treat GR as the new points. The only real difference is the way they are distributed.

Planning, would take more time. For instance, without points, should there be a cap on the max game for the first month? Should there be a CD penalty? How often should GR be updated?

@youradhere

Maybe I was unclear about metagaming. there are people on this site that play *to get points.* They don't take risks because the pot is too big. They let someone else solo because they'll still get a share of the pot. I'm talking about removing this type of metagaming.

Clearly, there are other types of metagaming that this doesn't fix, but it won't make it worse.

It will require a one-time amount of effort. There will be no long-term effort required.

People on hiatus is a legitimate concern that I hadn't considered.

I like the sound of an alternative system.

@abgemacht
loosing to get more points that if you would fight another person from soloing is not metagaming... It is stupid and poor play because you get a bad outcome for points, but I don't think it is metagaming, unless it is pre-arranged.

Anyway, I agree with the concept of the topic, but I think it will be too dificult to get it running.

Are we talking about something that is likely to happen and that the developers are already considering/planning, or are we talking about a hypothetical?

Oh, okay. I don't consider that sort of behavior metagaming, but that makes sense. Personally, I like the PPSC system which does require the points system to be in place, since I don't consider Diplomacy to be a zero-sum game, but that's a different argument altogether.

Another, perhaps unrelated concern: what is the effect of alternate games (ie gunboat), that don't necessarily reflect a player's true skill on the GR? At the moment this is cancelled out, I think, by the fact that these are generally low pot games.

I think it is a good idea, however you must introduce other parameters, such as percent of missed turns or percent of CDs, to be displayed out there in the open. Maybe an even better idea is some sort of "reliability index" - when you miss a turn or CD, your reliability score gets lower (IE it is more dangerous to play with you), and it will get higher slowly as you play more games.

From now on, reliability index is RI.

Everybody start with a reliability index of 0. The index should slowly approach 100 as you don't CD. IE, after 1 reliable game your RI increases to 50, after the second reliable game your RI increases to 75, after 3rd to 87, etc.

For every missed turn your reliability index goes down 20%. For every CD - 50%.

Instead of D's, the new display would be: Name (ghostrank, RI) - for example Baskineli (122, 92%)

This will allow to limit games by RI as well as GR.

I don't care one way or another; but making this change to eliminate metagaming is a poor reason. People will *always* find a way to game the system...

you also change the risk calculus. I may be willing to risk a certain number of points in a WTA game; but GR is an all or nothing proposition.

You also probably want to rename it ELO, which will make the comparision between similar ranking systems clearer.

Points are not the best measure of a player's skill, but I think the intent was just to create a simple incentive system to encourage better player and limit players participation in games.

Also, I think Kestas has always just wanted to keep things simple. Any suggestions for a drastic changes really won't go far unless it can be backed up with code and tested on a trial installation.

See the FAQ
http://webdiplomacy.net/faq.php
under "Points > I have an idea for a better system"

This is probably a stupid question, but what is a ghostrank?

@Bask, RI is interesting idea, but not a novel one. Bounced (a competing website) using something like that too. Similar ideas have been suggested on the dev forums before, but I think none of them have gone anywhere since they weren't well backed up by motivated coders.

@pi3thon: Ghost Rating is an independent rating system run by TheGhostMaker (one of the mods here)

See here for full details.
http://tournaments.webdiplomacy.net/theghost-ratingslist

It is loosely related to Elo but actually behaves quite differently. Roughly speaking though, it gives a better measure of skill than points.

Just play winner-takes all games - then people play to win. Is it that hard?

@yebellz: thanks that helped a bunch.

Now that I know a little about what I'm talking about, I'd like to throw in that points works fine and that GR probably won't change much. the RI, on the other hand, would be a worthwhile improvement.

@freakflag: It is when the thousand-pointers join a game and immediately get pounced on because the crafty competent players tell the newbies "Look at his points! We should gang up on him." Hasn't happened to me (I think, my point total is pretty average), but if a Silver Wolf or a MadMarx were to play non-anon...

I may be in the minority, but I don't mind the points system. As a player for a number of years, but relatively new to this site, I think it helps delineate what kind of game you are in for depending on the pot. My issue is that it is too easy for folks to have multiple accounts on this site and thus sabotage play at some of these low level games. I'm in a gunboat World XI game now (Silent Planet) that had three players join within 3 minutes one afternoon. Assume that it is the same person but can't prove since it is anon. Perhaps some nominal subscription fee ($10/yr) would discourage such?

That would get rid of loads of people Brian.
If you have a problem with players possibly cheating, email the mods at [email protected]

I'm in favour of points, but I definitely think we should add in a deposit feature, points you loose if you drop out etc.

I'm still gob-smacked at people who play for points. The whole purpose of any game is to have fun. I don't care about my points or my ghost rating. I may sound naive, but I really play for fun.