My understanding is that a portion of your rating is going into a pot. So a higher ranked person puts in a larger portion. But the pot size is the same no matter who wins. A lower ranked person may be putting in 5 ratings points and may win 100 ratings points when playing another player that puts in 40 ratings points, but again would only win 100 because that's what's in there. So the lower rated person is gaining more, but only relative to their own rating.

Or something like that.

"@Ghost - I always that GR did take into affect relative skill so if a low skill person beats a high skill they get a better GR boost than if high beats low. It is based on expected outcome by current rank, right?"

Yes, but the payout is not dependent on whether you draw with MM beating Fred, or draw with Fred beating MM.

With the exception of which games I get in, it is absolutely meaningless to me. In game, I will have others mention how so and so plays or mention a player by name, but I usually don't even look at the names (in non-anon games). I just call everyone by their countries. And I have yet to be in a non-anon game where anyone said to me "lets kill blank because he is higher ranked than us."

jimgov: What is being discussed here is whether players play a game as a single entity or as part of some sort of meta-league in which everything they do counts.

My experience has been that some players with lower GRs get focused on improving their GR rather than playing the game in front of them. The Tall Poppy Syndrome then works on the basis of who is the highest rated player rather than how well anyone is doing in a particular game. Rightly or wrongly, the emphasis is on taking out the best rated player. Ganging is the result.

The other side of the coin, alluded to above, is where the better rated players become rather touchy about protecting their rating. Again, the GR becomes a major consideration in strategy and risk. These are factors beyond the actual game.

The League is a closed system in which such considerations are explicitly allowed and expected - protecting one's position is clearly important, and all games count. GRs though seem to be creating a meta-league out of the whole site.

I am simply asking for games to be played without reference to ratings so that the players can get back to basics. Those of us with a f-2-f background will perhaps recognise this better.

Those who play in major tournaments will also recognise the simple fact that once a tournament is over, the results stand but do not get included for the next game they play. It can be a simple, relaxing game or a high powered challenge to 'really find out who is the big swinging dick on the East Coast', in either case played by players who respect each other, are enormously experienced and can feel free to play in any style they want.

I see... Don't you get more points for a win, though?

Amon, yes, but you will find that there are players who feel that the goal of winning is compromised by the fear of losing rank (me for example). In a non-rated game, rank is irrelevant and the players can be released to play to the best of their ability for a win.

I was all for a League type set up where players could test themselves in a closed environment. My ideal was for seven players to each get a shot at each country - a minimum of seven games. To play all possible variations among the seven would have been too great an impost.

We ended up with a first season with only five games and players could get repeated countries; then a second season with four games and repeated countries (I got Germany three times). The question of meta-gaming was the major topic of discussion and not entirely resolved. In the end, this did not represent the kind of system I was looking for. It was also interesting that the Player who won that second season (the first year we had the Premier League) did so without a single win. I believe he had no wins in getting promoted to the Premier League either.

Now, I do not know about you, but I cannot really see how a Diplomacy tournament that is won without winning a game is the right way to go.

I mention this because meta-gaming arose - either as both a reality and as a whole clutch of unfounded/unproven accusations. It certainly affected League play.

The GR system, in my view, is having a similar effect on the whole site: every single game played, whether it be a shining example of what this great game is all about or a sordid fix with Smart Jason playing sixteen accounts against you in a World gunboat, every game is counted.

I understand that TGM will be trying to prune out obvious cheats but this is not an exact science and there will have been a lot of games that were affected in less blatant ways. At the end of the day though, we have a rating system that makes players keep looking over their shoulder instead of being able to come to the table fresh. It is this aspect of the game that I miss most.

Er, scrub 'makes players' and replace it with 'tempts players to', in that final paragraph. My apologies. I am not intentionally trying to disparage the work behind the GR system, I am asking for its more subtle effects to be considered.

hmmm...
I guess I am mostly with MM on this one.
I play every game according to:
1) win
2) if not possible, draw
3) if not possible, survive
4) if not possible, at least enter moves and don't ruin someone else's game.
Isn't that the "true spirit of the game"? Or whatever you want to call it.
Are risky moves that get you eliminated in 95% not actually poor moves and not in the spirit of the game? Following that logic, wouldn't the rating-free games where X, Y and Z would try these moves actually be poor games?

I can see the reasoning for GR contributing to the tall poppy syndrome though. But so do the points... even more so, as they are in plain sight all the time.

Which is why I believe we should have no points/no wins/no GRs in non-rated games. They just would not be counted in any way other than stand alone games.

Wizard, I like to play to win as well. However, my own approach does not ensure that the other six players will try to win. I gave the Premier League example above to illustrate how that in a situation where some forms of meta-gaming are allowed we can get players who seem to place survival above all else.

The question being discussed here is whether GRs encourage a form of meta-gaming across the whole site. Obviously, I say yes.

As for risky openings: I can assure you that it has become progressively harder to find people here willing to experiment, especially as Italy or Austria, in the games I have played. Yet in tournament play, such openings as the Three Fleets, quite rare, but perfectly respectable, are important ways to catch regular and bloody good players off guard. You will not win a f-2-f tourney if you keep opening the same way.

Here though, getting the draw, not being eliminated, not getting a reduction of a GR or not letting a player in the same game creep ahead with his GR, seem to be more important. In other words, minimise risk: capitalise on the reward for a draw rather than risk being killed off.

From some of the other comments above, there are regular players here who only play with angels. I seem to be stuck mainly with the devils.

flash, I have a theory, I think you just want to play games where people are highly encouraged to have far too much trust in you, which is a form of metagaming itself.

You told me you were once voted "best ally" or something like that, which I assume meant that others thought you were loyal and would not stab often (and I guess that on this site now your reputation has been lost and that frustrates you, that others won't trust you enough to do these atypical openings you seem to be focused on). You have commented to me that diplomacy is a hobby and your top priority is having an ally and playing deep into the game, I think this was a reason you gave for helping TMG solo in game one of league play a while back, which I personally find appalling. We were in a PPSC game once where I was Austria and you were Italy, and you latched on to France from day one promising France a victory in exchange for a strong second place, this also disgusts me. Regardless of our differing views on how to play this game, my point is that it seems you are grasping for a way to get others to work with you, to get others to put far too much trust in you, and you are blaming it on GR rather than your inability to use diplomacy to convince them to ally with you since your "reputation" is gone. I'm further guessing that when you play face-to-face, that you play with people that "know" your reputation as being a good ally and that rep gives you an advantage to get you allies compared to others in a game that have a worse reputation.

Again, this is all just a theory I'm slapping together, but conceptually I think I'm on to something. Please give this some honest consideration and let me know how far off you think I am, though I'm sure you will without the request! ;-)

The best advice I could give to those who don't want GR to play a part in their decision-making process is to simply forget it's there. I don't see a reason why every game shouldn't be factored in to what is simply a skill-level finding device. Play the way you're comfortable and let the numbers fall where they will. It's more pleasurable to be happy with being number 100 than to constantly strive and fail to be number 1. And if your goal is to become number 1... You've got a lot of draws against some big names before you'll reach 800+ points. I'd suggest going for the win ;)

Amon: are you willfully ignoring what has been said? You are merely repeating the idea that a player, by ignoring GRs himself, will be able to stop others from playing with their eyes on their GR rating. Whatever I do, and however I play, I cannot prevent another player from treating the game as part of his quest for ratings glory - unless the game is isolated from the ratings.

MM: Well, what can I say? Do you really expect me to take that theory seriously?

I do not want to be part of GRs. I have done just about whatever I can on my part to be isolated from them in this past year, and yet I still find players putting GR status ahead of natural game play in my games. I can, of course, go to another site. However, I find it rather ironic that in order to get away from GRs, which are not an official part of this site, I must go somewhere else.

The realistic option is to make rating optional for each game. In that case, I would only ever play non-rated games and the whole problem for me is solved. Those who like the GRs will be able to carry on regardless.

Why would you not simply use this information to your advantage? Certainly you could use tendencies in players who would alter their gameplay to be more conservative with their GR to your advantage.

How can I get a player who wants to protect his GR above all else to consider a Sea Lion or a Lepanto when he has a nice safe draw in his mind before the bloody game even starts? Read above: we had the Premier League won by someone who didn't even win a single game in it. If that is your idea of top class Diplomacy then I have to shake my head in disbelief.

If I am to invest time and effort in a proper game, I do not want to start reading press about how that someone has just lost two games and cannot afford to lose another one because their GR might go down...

That is the reality of the GR system and I believe that the longer it exists, the worse it will get.

Maybe you should get to the premier league and win it solo.

“My experience has been that some players with lower GRs get focused on improving their GR rather than playing the game in front of them. The Tall Poppy Syndrome then works on the basis of who is the highest rated player rather than how well anyone is doing in a particular game. Rightly or wrongly, the emphasis is on taking out the best rated player. Ganging is the result.”

You get this with any ranking system whatsoever. It happened on the basis of points before G-Rating took hold. So the question is, do you want all games unrated, or just the option of unrated games. The former is a bad idea, because you get many CDs and game abandonments. The latter I think could work because it gives players the choice.

“We ended up with a first season with only five games and players could get repeated countries; then a second season with four games and repeated countries (I got Germany three times). The question of meta-gaming was the major topic of discussion and not entirely resolved. In the end, this did not represent the kind of system I was looking for. It was also interesting that the Player who won that second season (the first year we had the Premier League) did so without a single win. I believe he had no wins in getting promoted to the Premier League either.”

The TMG Masters was developed as a way to give a wide spread of powers, but also to try and create an environment with less meta-gaming. Next season it will also have anon games.

The number of games in the leagues is down to the fact that you really need to have 2 seasons a year for any continuity (and even then we get over 28 drops between seasons typically)

“I mention this because meta-gaming arose - either as both a reality and as a whole clutch of unfounded/unproven accusations. It certainly affected League play.”

That was pretty much unique to your league(s), from what I recall.

“ we had the Premier League won by someone who didn't even win a single game in it. If that is your idea of top class Diplomacy then I have to shake my head in disbelief.”

Your view of top class diplomacy is not agreed with. There has been a tournament for the better-safe-than-sorry school (the leagues) and one for the win-only school (the masters). You currently play in neither because I don’t intend to correct every NMR that happens in the tournament (because if someone NMRs, and other people reveal their moves, it is impossible to correct!)

Given that, I’m not sure that I really care what you think about the leagues any more than thewonderllama needed to care about what Noodlebug thought of the GFDT’s scoring system(s).

also, and this relates to both threads, you've stopped saying anything new and are pretty much just repeating your assertions as to:

1. What happens in games
2. That you don't want any rating system (we used not to have one, ask kestas why there was a points system in the first place)
3. What top-class diplomacy should be

etc.

@flash - you are not correct to accuse the tournaments - especially the League - they are as good as the people who play in them. You all should have stayed and forced others to play the right way. Do you think that by leaving you're part of the solution? No one stopped you from playing like you felt like.

TGM: you have already stated, repeatedly in these threads, that you are not opposed to non-rated games. Can we have some action in that direction then?

If we get non-rated games, we can all agree to disagree.

I am not in a position to comment on Leagues I was not a part of but, certainly, the ones I experienced were affected by a number of problems.

I respect the fact that the number of games was a matter of expediency, not choice, but the multiple drawing of countries was dealt with, originally, by an honor code where we agreed to cancel a game and get a re-draw. This agreement was reneged on.

Ivo: please note that MM was also in one of the Leagues with me and, he also withdrew, as did others. In fact, MM withdrew before me. I stayed on for the next season and then ran into further problems with a refereeing decision I objected to on principle. Clearly, having top players like MM and TMG does not a summer make in that type of situation.

And as for accusations? I can hardly accuse a tournament. My comments refer to the way the players responded to the parameters set. We had problems. This was obvious. The arguments that went back and forth were highly skewed towards the thorny question of meta-gaming.

And as for the idea that I should have stayed, I did up to a point and longer than others. Something happened that spoilt a game. I tried multiple ways to resolve this in favour of the affected player. As each attempt was rejected, I finally tried to secure a draw that would effectively cancel the game - all seven players still on the map. A stalemate position was attainable given certain moves. I gained full and unequivocal support for these moves from the players involved - and made clear that this was a a deliberate attempt to seal the draw. It was made explicit that if someone disagreed, I would not continue to try for the stalemate.

One player lied on this most serious point. I was, to put it mildly, disgusted. We were simply trying to correct an error and he had every opportunity to say he didn't agree. It was not about being sneaky or clever here, simply a matter of getting beyond a difficult problem and playing the League out.

After lying and taking full advantage he agreed to a smaller draw later in the game with the remaining countries (minus yours truly and the original victim of the plot). So, it wasn't even about winning.

I am sorry to have written repeatedly on these issues but some above seem unwilling to accept that however you play yourself and however hard you try, you cannot control the play of others.

TGM and I have clashed over this issue previously and I can at least rely on him to confirm that I did not give up meekly. Indeed, I doubt whether a player has ever given him quite so much press to try to deal with an incident in a game. I therefore take it somewhat amiss to be told again and again that I should have stayed or I could have done more.

Ok, I'm sorry - didn't mean it as an accusation - and I think MM and whoever else left was also not doing the right thing. Can't believe thus game is still holding such an emotional weight after so much time.

My point is that it was worth to swallow whatever happened over a game or two and look at it as an investment of sorts - the necessary cost each has to pay until we all learn. I'm not saying you didn't try or that your decision was unjustified - but clearly you couldn't let go and get past this - and I'm quite sure you know better :)

Gracious words, accepted in the spirit they have been offered.

“My experience has been that some players with lower GRs get focused on improving their GR rather than playing the game in front of them. The Tall Poppy Syndrome then works on the basis of who is the highest rated player rather than how well anyone is doing in a particular game. Rightly or wrongly, the emphasis is on taking out the best rated player. Ganging is the result.”

I couldn't disagree with this statement more. In fact, the beauty of GR is that if nobody can get a solo, it doesn't matter who you draw with in a game, as long as you are part of the draw yourself. I'm not afraid to argue to people to ally with me to get a draw, when it gets to that point, because I'm a good ally and I will help that person make it to the draw (GR or not, most people prefer to draw than survive or get eliminated). People don't have to kill me to gain GR, so the times that I get tripled-teamed from day one out of fear is VERY rare, especially when compared to people being interested in allying with me, though I suppose this is true even in anonymous games.

I know this point has been made before, but thought I'd do it again for emphasis.

Ivo, leaving the league was the right thing for me, regardless of if it was right for the league. Personally, I find one game VERY long and I'm exhausted when it's over. The leauge is four or five games that are played as a single super long game that I have no interest in playing, especially when sometimes you join a game and you've lost before the game even starts, that is pretty stupid in my opinion. Most people on this site are nice enough, but I can't think of any that I'd want to play that many games in a row against, much less a set of six people to be stuck with for that long. I like change and variety which is why I was very interested in the TMG Masters regardless of the rules for winning the tournament, I was drawn to the idea of playing all different people all the time. Ironically, perhaps, I think the TMG Masters would be better as an anonymous tournament (at least for me) and find out who I've met after the fact, which I suppose sounds a little weird. Anyway, in my opinion, the league is too broke for me to be interested in participating.

"you have already stated, repeatedly in these threads, that you are not opposed to non-rated games. Can we have some action in that direction then?"

Nope. You are correct, it is an addition that I would like to see. But here are something things that I would like to see first, in no particular order:
A fully functioning reporting system
An improved PM system, including notifications etc.
Support for a "No-NMR" option of play which would see games not process at an NMR, but restart the phase and look for a replacement for the player.
Improved Pause voting where you vote for a pause until time x
An option to allow a limited number of emergency pauses of 1 phaselength without a majority vote
Support for a variety of tournaments
Stats that include CDs that are taken over
Stats that are split between maps, variants etc.
Deposits
A proper account-sitting system.
A way of editting the FAQs and other information pages through the moderator controls
More advanced phaselength options (weekend pause etc.)
Locking/Deleting threads for obscene or prolific forum spam
Ability to ban X from entering games with Y etc.
Better records of mod actions (particularly bans)
Ability to ban people from the forum
Ability to use some basic formatting in forum posts
Forum search function
Mod power to roll back games
Mod power to annull finished games in the case of cheating
Mod UI improvements.
Cancelled games kept in the records, but listed as cancelled
Having people accept rules on sign-up
Changing the term "Resigned" to "Abandoned"
time= thread option so that people can communicate times to start live games without converting between timezones
Fixing the replies and threads links on people's profiles to update properly.
...

Okay, not all of those rank higher for me, but a lot of them do.


"I respect the fact that the number of games was a matter of expediency, not choice, but the multiple drawing of countries was dealt with, originally, by an honor code where we agreed to cancel a game and get a re-draw. This agreement was reneged on"

Well, there is now a rule that any player can ask for a game to be restarted before the first adjudication if someone has had the same power 3 times.

"TGM and I have clashed over this issue previously and I can at least rely on him to confirm that I did not give up meekly. Indeed, I doubt whether a player has ever given him quite so much press to try to deal with an incident in a game. I therefore take it somewhat amiss to be told again and again that I should have stayed or I could have done more."

Yes, I can confirm that you discussed the matter for some time. The position I had taken was to say that if everyone agreed to a change, I would enact it, and that I would not hold an opinion myself (I was in the game). No agreement was made, so the game continued as it would have had not been a tournament game.

I had benefitted from the NMR in question, and flashman took the view that I should bend over backwards to show that I was not using my position as tournament director to benefit myself in that game. I was personally not interested in whether or not anyone thought that I was attempting to benefit from the NMR and acting unfairly, and only in whether or not it was the decision I would have taken had I not been taking part.

To my mind, it would create an impossible position for me to say that I will act other than with universal consent in the event of NMRs, because I will end up upsetting someone with my decision. As is, I only upset one person, flashman, and now have a rule in the tournament rules, so am no longer making a decision rather than just applying the rules.

The incident did have considerable bearing in my decision not to compete in the leagues this season, much to my regret.

"I think the TMG Masters would be better as an anonymous tournament (at least for me) and find out who I've met after the fact, which I suppose sounds a little weird. Anyway, in my opinion, the league is too broke for me to be interested in participating."

Indeed I can see the criticism of the leagues you make, which is why I was keen to develop the Masters. The Masters will be anon next year (remember that anon games were introduced mid way through this Masters tournament)

Sorry TGM, but I read your response as something of a cop out. I could easily rearrange your to-do list, and change a few entries, but having said that you agree with having non-rated games, having said that you had talked about it previously, I see no justification for sending the idea off to the committee stage.

I did not realise you had withdrawn from the Leagues after last season. Given that we lost Braveheart, TMG, MM and you from the Premier, not just me, there is a book in that story. Oh, and without being too indiscreet: you came within a whisper of losing cg as well. In his case, being the victim in that particular game as it were, withdrawal was harder to do without appearing selfish/immature. He was very upset by the incident, not just me. But he at least spends his day job working in Westminster, so Diplomacy to him in any form must seem like Church. Anyway, that is a rather high casualty list.

cg is now no more ('busy'), TMG has almost stopped playing and I too am only in a few variant games + a frozen f-2-f game that was transferred here. The effect of that League was, in the end, rather costly.

I know that this is not my site, so any comments have to be purely personal, but if it were - I would put trying to ascertain why good/experienced players leave as my priority and work always towards getting and keeping the very best. It seems to me that in keeping good players happy, I should be ensuring that we have a site that would be attractive to newcomers of all cloths.

I do not see how we are going to get non-rated games without your support, so this is a rather critical issue for me.

@Flash - I will help petition for the "0 " game option and will even help TGM with the tweaks to the GR code to filter out "0 point" games as well as work the new game setup and the join code to allow 0 or 5-n points if I can get them to go for it.

If you can, I would be most grateful. I do believe that zero option games should be the right way for schooling newbs as well.

I'll be working with Ghost on some League integration stuff, so I'll try to push and get them to let me slip it in with that.