That'd be what happens when posts get deleted...

Kestas edited his reply to himself into his original post.

Kestas tore a hole in the webdip space-time continuum in order to make a spelling correction and now the universe is collapsing?

The universe is only off by one.

So what you're saying is that every time that you look at the board from this moment on and your units haven't moved as you've expected, it's not because you put in the wrong orders like a numpty, but because kestas broke the internet?

gameID=171962

Wow, really? The new scoring methods are abysmal. Who's brain children were they? Is this person willing to have their head examined?

I will say there is a point to Al's game. it appears a non-soloing england was able to be rewarded an astounding amount of points. time will tell but couldn't this lead to people drawing at 16 or 15 simply because trying for the solo is more "risky"?

Yeah, I was kinda sick at that game. When it gets put into GR, it's not too far off from a solo, so I didn't really care about playing it through

@yoyo I am not suggesting you personally drew just for the sake of drawing, but since this system exists and you could im curious if it will become a problem.

Would it be possible to implement Carnage instead? That rewards a solo quite well and if there is no solo, everyone gets something so there's some newb-friendlimess there.

I can imagine it's rather tricky to implement though..

I think we should encourage as much newb-friendlimess as possible.

The point of SoS was to effectively replace PPSC, don't forget that. It's not perfect for WTA-minded players.

"The point of SoS" was to effectively replace PPSC..."

...and the point of Stalinism was to make everyone equal.

Why was there an issue with PPSC? Some people didn't like it, but they weren't forced to play. It was the most popular scoring system with the live game scene among people who were actually good at the game. SoS is a solution to a problem that never existed. Why is the current staff so meddlesome? I miss JMO. Bo_sox, you were among the better mods that worked here, these guys are doing everything backwards.
Even if you accept that SoS is a valid scoring system, why *replace* PPSC? Hogwash!

Perhaps SoS works better in a finite duration tournament than a persistent scoring system? When you have a limited number of games to draw scores from, and rational players acting according to the game's stated objectives build coalitions to force draws in lieu of letting single players solo, you need a way to distinguish "better" draw positions. You don't really need to make those distinctions in a system where one can theoretically play infinite games (like webDip).

I think both sides in this debate agree that webDip points don't actually indicate a higher level of skill, just a greater degree of commitment. In both DSS and SoS, risk-aversion is a better points-accumulation strategy if a player is shooting for long-term points standing (that is to say, you can get a lot of points over a long period of time by never winning). I don't know that I like PPSC, but PPSC did actually reward a different set of "meta" behaviours than either SoS or DSS.

I don't really have anything to add that I haven't already said- but PPSC wasn't replaced solely by SoS. It's replaced by SoS and unranked games.

Yes, the meta is different, but broadly: if you want to collect centres, play SoS. If you want to aim for a strong second in a solo, play unranked.

I think SoS sucks but PPSC sucks even more. Points aren't a part of the game and only make sense on tournaments.
A single diplomacy game has three results: you win (solo), you lose ( you are eliminated or someone else solo) or you draw. Any other thing is just metagaming (points, tournaments, GR).

"It was the most popular scoring system with the live game scene among people who were actually good at the game."

Citation needed.

@Al ... if the conversation had ever come up while I was a moderator, I would have been 100% behind removing PPSC without replacing it at all. It's a dumb scoring system, straight up. They went out of their way to try to make the scoring better rather than simply removing PPSC and walking away. That's a lot of work and it shows they care more about it than I would have. Shows how shitty of a mod I was.

Hey sox, I am quite certain the conversation came up many times when you were mod, but you did not, in fact, remove PPSC, or go out of your way to passive-aggressively rename it. You're too nice.

. . . for that kind of nonsense.

Removing it without any replacements was never seriously on the table.

We never even talked about it while I was there. My point is that the current team did a lot more than I would have cared to do in order to compensate for PPSC's ultimate removal, and for some reason part of Al's reasoning behind slandering the mods is that I was better even though I wasn't.

@Jeff Kuta--
"I think we should encourage as much newb-friendlimess as possible."

To be fair...pretty much any scoring system that takes more than five words or four-function arithmetic to describe is not newbie-friendly, even if it's straightforward/intuitive for experienced players.

PPSC: "Number of supply centers."

WTA: "Winner; or, survivors draw equally."

SoS? "Winner; or, the square of your SCs over the sum of the squares of everyone's SCs. No, it's not your SCs squared over 34^2, it's something else. Yes, that means your score with a certain number of SCs depends on the distribution of everyone else's SCs. Yes, it's non-linear."

Carnage? "Survivors are ranked by SCs, losers by order of exit--in the thousands, so we can have residuals to break ties in tournaments, which you don't play in but we expect you to care about. Oh, and winner still takes all. Yes, that means the survivors determine whether you receive points for a defeat, sometimes a decade after you were defeated. I'm sure that never causes any problems, though."

So, while I think PPSC isn't a theoretically good system, I also don't think replacing it encourages newbie-friendliness, and adding Carnage wouldn't either.

ETA: I just realized you were probably riffing on steephie's typo, Jeff. Regardless, it's a good entry point for my own thoughts, so I'll stick with it.

It's hard to imagine how anyone could come up with a more confusing and opaque naming scheme that DSS and SoS. Leaves plenty of room for improvement.

@Lethologica: I completely agree. One of the things that make PPSC appealing is that it sounds simple and fair. Your fraction of the top is your center count divided by 34. However, this is also why I think we *shouldn't* have it as an option.

Let's say I'm a beginning player, and I venture into the "advanced options" section when I create a game. I see the option for Draw-size scoring. That seems totally unfair - 17 centers are worth the same as 1? I next look at sum-of-squares. That seems much too complicated for its own good. You have to increase your center count, make sure your opponents divide the remaining centers equally, and prevent solos. I don't even know whether a 12-11-11 draw is worth more or less than 10-8-6-5-5 (Spoiler: it's the second one). PPSC seems like a no-brainer.

It's only until after I've played some PPSC games, and some SoS/WTA games (if I decide to experiment) that I realize that SoS and WTA encourage much more interesting play than PPSC.

SoS and WTA are Sennheiser, PPSC is Beats by Dre.

By the way, I also completely agree with dirge.

"SoS and WTA encourage much more interesting play than PPSC"

@basvanopheusden ,

You have a 21% defeat rating, Sir. My point being that your opinion is irrelevant to the game, until you can learn how to play it.

Says the honorable sir with the 40% defeat rating. Or do you not count survives as defeats? :p