You should also make WTA the default choice.

Why worry about PPSC and WTA? Surely the Ghost-rating list is what we all need to worry about now. Better publicisation of that will mean that people pay less attention to points.

I haven't cared about points for some time now. I care about my Ghost rating, and breaking into the top ten.

Before you can decide on a system, you need to decide on what you want the system to achieve. If the goal is to keep the new player out of the experienced game, there are ways to achieve this.

If could be as simple as: award 1 per game played, 5 points for a game won, and -5 points for a withdraw (ie, CD). Then you allow the setting of a minimum number of points for players to join a given game.

There use to be a similar type of system on the old Unix Judges.

The points systems and the way they influence play aren't the biggest problem phpDip faces. The biggest problem is that the retreat/unit-building phases last just as long as the diplomacy phases. Said phases should only be a fraction of the diplomacy phase time.

gong - thx for bringing this point up again for the umpteenth time... i've tried it and got chewed out by the majority here who I will continue to claim are now addicted to the crutch of a ppsc system...

the reason many vets of the game cant stand ppsc is because it takes away one of the key dynamics that makes the game so great - which is self-interest in a 7-player field... if you look historically at the statistics of Diplomacy in Judge and Tournament play, almost 60% of games end in draws... (the fact that only 31% are drawn on this site is due to three factors in my opinion 1- so few games 2- many seem to be tournament games 3- the prevailing mindset allows for and even encourages the 'assist' type of play)...

but gong - i've come to the conclusion that i cant change the minds of people who prefer to feel good about an 8-center 'survive' than a 2-center 'draw'... personally - i would feel much more proud of the draw!

anyways - play WTA only.



my one rec though is that WTA should be available to lower points players... if you want to put a 50% cap on it thats fine... but generally speaking, I think its a travesty and a blot on the whole php platform that 94% of games are ppsc...

oh well - i've decided i still like the platform, and I'm going to continue to create and play WTA only games ;)

good luck to the rest - and i'm sorry you have become so infatuated with such an inferior 'variant'

=P

In the developers forum I proposed a hybrid system as an option that I think would be ideal. Basically 50% of the points are WTA and 50% are PPSC. This means that effectively (since you need 18 centres to win) the winner will take 75% of the pot, so there's a bigger incentive to take that 18th centre rather than just draw 17-17. But it still keeps the benefits of PPSC, ie its not super frustrating to lose with 16 centres.

Would I would like is a variant that a draw can only happen if its on a stalemate line, to be judged by a wise elder statesman.

>Would I would like is a variant that a draw can only happen if its on a stalemate line, to be judged by a wise elder statesman.

And I would like if Trapper-Keeper dolphins shat rainbow-coloured unicorns. Would you mind explaining why?

Centurian, where is the developers forum, Sourceforge?

cgwhite32: "Why worry about PPSC and WTA? Surely the Ghost-rating list is what we all need to worry about now."

I'm not knocking the Ghost's ratings, but what makes them the best, cgwhite32? Given my higher than expected rating on that list, I'm guessing that it rewards draws as highly as the ppsc system, or maybe even higher.

what about switch to more of a chess style point system? Could it work?

@Dunecat,
Because too many people play WTA games with the hope of getting a draw out of it. 1/3 games end in draws. It defeats the purpose of WTA games if people are willing to settle on non-stalemated draws.

@Jones
I see. But doesn't everyone have to type in /draw for it to be a draw?

FortKnox, I believe it is a "chess style" point system. To back up my point about the ghost ratings giving high value to draws, here is a quote from his descriptions of how the ratings are calculated. "Basically, winning gives you a score of 1, anything else gives you zero, except for n-way draws that give you 1/n if you are part of the
draw, otherwise, zero." So a pair of two-way draws is worth the same as a win and a loss. Or four four-ways equals a win.

The complaint in this thread is that the ppsc doesn't encourage going for a win. I don't see how the Ghostratings are any different in that regard.

Centurian's idea of changing to "Basically 50% of the points are WTA and 50% are PPSC" would be the kind of change that would encourage players to go for wins, and greatly decrease the number of times people just play for a "strong second" or a 17-17 draw.

Yes. And if 3 of 4 remaining want a draw, and you refuse, what do you think happens then? People are too willing to plan an early draw and eliminate all but 3; if it was a true WTA with only one winner, its possible that someone would come to the rescue of the 4 died before their death.

@Jones,
I definitely see your point, but do you really expect to be taken seriously when your name is Dingleberry?

@Jones,
Further, if you're the only one who doesn't want to draw, wouldn't you then have to rely on your diplomacy skills to stay alive? I think that's the name of the game.

I should say not *much* different than the ppsc system. There isn't an overwhelmingly huge cost for accepting a draw as opposed to going for a win.

@Dunecat,
If people want to change the nature of the game to look for 3 way draws, and I don't want to look for those draws, its kind of like we are playing two different games.

@Jones,
Sure, but that happens with any game. I agree that it's against the general spirit of the game to be content with a draw instead of a win. However, I'm not sure if more rules are really the solution, and the idea you suggested (only allowing draws along stalemate lines) is against the spirit of the game itself.

So, looking forward, what else might be possible to encourage users to play to win, instead of just drawing?

Dunecat, he's suggesting a variant.

Honestly DJ, you can start up a game like that any time. I think a couple have been played before, where no draws are allowed except by stalemate. Honour system.

I like the idea of PPSC but with an adjustable percentage bonus for the winner. 0% for current PPSC to 100% for WTA or anything in-between.

You could also add a penalty for draws. So you could optionally set a configurable pot penalty percentage for a draw. So in a 600 point game with a 50% draw penalty, if three people draw they get a 100 each instead of 200 each.

Once there is a better way to search for new games, it would be a lot easier for people to find the types of games they want to play thus better supporting more options like this.

There was a proposal to make two changes. New players permitted to start WTA games. No player permitted to bet more than 45% of their points on a WTA game. Kestas offered to accept code that implemented this last year. The second condition is necessary to make points inflation no worse than for PPSC. I think a nice round 50% is close enough.
One day I might get around to implementing this. Until then no games on this site for me. The code change is trivial, it's the setting up of a test site that is a learning curve for me.

Certainly a WTA win in Ghost rating is better than two two-way draws, but that is the same as in points (by a bet's-worth)

Cgwhite is mistaken about the Ghost-rating system, it follows the same payout systems as points, but moves the break even point around for the different players (so a better player needs to do better to break even), and it defines the pot rather than letting one game be more important than any other. What Ghost-rating does do better than points is that it rewards you for playing well, and not for getting lucky with your opponents, and then the PPSC/WTA debate does remain.

Although, ghost-rating does actually emphasise the value of winning, because you don't pay the pot, and then receive points, it all happens at once, so you notice that the Profit in a solo is more than twice the profit in a two-way, but that was just as true in the points (just you didn't really notice because it didn't all happen at once).

I actually quite like the semi-PPSC semi-WTA system.

The dev forum is at forum.phpdiplomacy.net

the PPSC system is flawed. diplomacy is all about a single person winning. if a team can all benefit from a game, it encourages too strong of an alliance. if only one person benefits, players will be much more eager to climb over the backs of their friends and break up alliances.

The idea of giving the winner 75% of the pot is a pretty good idea, I think.

The main problem I have with this discussion right now is that people seem to think that draws are bad, and the fact that more WTA games are drawn means that they are less competitive. The reason more WTA games are drawn is that they involve better players, who will see the need to unite when a clear leader has risen. In PPSC, most players will keep trying to build up their points by finishing offer their weak neighbors, rather than form a coalition with them to stop the leader. This mindset (which I strongly believe has been created by PPSC) is extremely infuriating.

Until now I missed this above message: "I dislike authoritarians who see a One-Size-Fits-All". I hardly think one size fits all, but I DO think that people who choose to be on phpDiplomacy should play the game how it was meant to be played. If you want to play PPSC-Diplomacy or close-second-is-great-Diplomacy, go start your own website

"The reason more WTA games are drawn is that they involve better players, who will see the need to unite when a clear leader has risen. In PPSC, most players will keep trying to build up their points by finishing offer their weak neighbors, rather than form a coalition with them to stop the leader. This mindset (which I strongly believe has been created by PPSC) is extremely infuriating."

i agree very much with this and have seen it a couple times, and even found myself falling into doing it before realizing i should know better. but i agree that scrapping PPSC isn't the answer, this 75% thing or whatever seems like it might work.