Wait-- it's supposed to be fun? This is one of the most stressful games I've ever played!

@abge - I assume you're trying to wind him up or being sarcastic here?
That's exactly what he's saying he doesn't like but feels other people do

I think he's *saying* that, but I don't think it's really the case.

How hard would it be to make a thread called "Join this game if you don't care about GR!"?

I bet he'd get a lot of good players to join.

I don't care about my GR. It makes it easier to screw other people who do, as I'm content to draw if my solo attempts fail. And no, I don't set that up in 1902 as someone stated in this thread or another one - I may *say* that to people, but I'm always thinking 'solo' in the back of my head.

I just nearly always screw up my timing :/

Agreed with strat 100%

Flashman: “But a second GR, one where every game has been played under the knowledge that ratings were applied, would soon become a more reliable stat.”

This is just wrong. Sorry.

My 2 cents.

I like the point system because it adds the gambling side to things. Put your money where your mouth is so to say but the GR system is a better determinative player factor. A good player can play medium level bets and play against mediocre opponents and earn a lot of points. The simple fact that the GR system considers who you are playing against makes all the difference. I like to set up games and I've found that the GR players are generally better than the point players. I'm not knocking anyone but the consistency and game knowledge of highly rated GR players is what I seek when creating a new game. They also tend to make better gaming friends. They usually have a respect for the game and it's spirit than others. It's about a good game. Gr players will give you a good game and they won't let you win by being stupid. You have to really earn it.

I think the idea of adding GR with the point system to be a fantastic idea. Thank you Kestas for this site and trying to make it better. This site is way better than another site I've played and the competition is better than I've faced in RL games. (Now that I've started playing top 100 GR players)

Ghost - do games 'roll off' Ghost ratings after a certain amount of time has passed? For some reason I thought they did...

Two points here:

Figle is correct. I do not like ratings systems and would love to play games that are not rated. Merely asking for players who don't give a fig (!) about ratings to join a game is not going to stop someone joining and then starting to think about his/her ratings.

Ghostie: unless, as asked twice now, games roll off the list and don't get included - how can a player who, for example, refused to take wins when games were obviously near the end just to get on with business, or who deliberately picked up a whole load of games where someone had gone awol, just to keep them going for the other players... how would that person have an accurate GR? Surely a player needs to be able to say, 'Right, from now on, this is serious', and play/select all games accordingly.

Please correct me if I am wrong on this detail but I do remember your talking in the earlier days about not being able to go back and screen out the types of games mentioned, nor the slew of variants we used to play (WWI etc).

For those of you who say you do not care about your GR, do you ever look at it?

I have not done so for about 18 months now. I suppose that is just me being complete, but once you stop you sure start to notice just how much the ratings get mentioned on the Forum.

@flash

I look at my GR once a month, when it's posted. It's just a fun little thing to do. I also use GR to screen *unknown* players. But, I also use Win-Loss Percentage and CD Percentage. But, I've never not played with a good player because their GR would hurt mine. And, I've never made a decision in-game based off of what it would do to my GR.

Yes, I look at it, although mainly as a curiosity - currently I don't have one :D

It is correct that games decrease in effect as the rating progresses, such that more recent games have a much larger effect on the rating.

I look, but just because I want to see what the effect of my lastest ass-kicking was

Have you ever done one of the above-mentioned, such as pick up a position where someone has dropped out of a game - perhaps just one or two SCs, and played to help keep it running?

I am quite keen for Ghostie to answer on this one because I know that it was pretty standard for us in the early days to do this. It formed a fair percentage of all games played. The recent period though has been marked with players who seem to obsess about their GRs. I doubt whether they would touch anything other than a straight game, or indeed, would deliberately concentrate on the type of game they are best at: PPSC/WTA...

The agree-to-draw when in a winning position scenario is not that unusual among players with face-to-face experience. There, when it is obvious who will win from a given position, the game can be stopped and the drinks flow. It is akin to resignation in a Chess game. I won't say I have done it many times myself in here, but I have done it more than once and with decent opposition. I know others who did as a matter of course just to clear the deck for a new game.

I'll say that I pick up the same amount of CD'd games as I did before GR. It was never that often to begin with.

@abge: So, should your GR be compared directly against a ratings-obsessor of the type I have characterised?

I know that this all started as a project to get a better rating, not a perfect one, but one of my concerns has been the way that GRs seem to have crept up from being another way to judge a player into an end in themselves. I would hate to see players refuse to pick up games precisely because, 'it would damage [their] GR'. MInd you, Ghostie might be able to confirm that, since a particular date, only games you started in have counted. The question though remains over games before that certain date.

No, but I'm not a decent case study for this - I've only finished one proper game since march 2009! I just don't have the time to play nowadays, and so whilst I spend quite some time on the site it almost all goes into moderating.

So, on the Christmas wish list, between the blonde and the twins, is a button to switch off GRs and allow a game to be counted only as a win, draw or loss.

That's not how it currently works.
Taking over a game in progress your GR 'bet' is weighted to how far through the game is etc, but even so it does seem a shame. As for changes made to the algorithm over time, each time an improvement was made he recalculated (or so I have been lead to believe)

The problem is that I just simply haven't observed this obsessive nature over GR that you're describing. I recognize that GR isn't perfect, but the only thing I have to compare it to is Points. And, GR more accurately describes a player's skill than Points, and it is harder to game GR than Points.

Is this one particular issue (taking over CD's) potentially an issue? Yes, but it could very easily be fixed by having take-overs not count towards GR.

@figle,

This is true. I've noticed my past GR's have changed over time.

@abge - I think you're looking too close.
Its not just GR flash is commenting on, it's rating in general.
He makes the (quite legitimate) point that people think about their rank and as such don't take part on lost causes, which could otherwise help the game in question. Adding GR is merely taking it a step further, past what he feels is reasonable.

I wouldn't be at all against making CD games count for nothing at all - win or loose - except possibly for a 'CD Takeovers' stat.

@figle

But, it seems (and correct me if I'm wrong) that flash is concerned about much more than people not taking over CDs. That's an easy fix and seems to be more a dev time issue than anything else. He seems to really hate rankings for a variety of reasons that I don't understand.

Furthermore, for someone who dislikes points, GR seems like the perfect fix, imho.

Well, not "perfect" fix...

My memory, flawed as it is, says that TGM could not get enough information and/or time to check on the earlier games for things like take-overs and variants. So, if older games are still included in the calculations, there would be noise.

abgemacht, you might like to stop and ponder long and hard about some of the GR challenges that go out. Using GRs to screen players is one thing, deliberately playing those with whom you can best improve/cement your own position is something very different - especially if game play is distorted to set avoiding a loss as the principle aim.

Of course it has noise. Nobody's arguing that. But, the noise becomes less significant with each game that is played. And, once again, I think we all understand that it isn't a perfect system.

I have no idea what your second paragraph means. Every GR challenge I've played has been with a great group of people that play the game well. I've never felt the aim was anything other than to win (or to prevent someone else from winning).

I have to say, by the very fact we're in this discussion Abge, you & I are not the people flash refers to.

@figle

Yes, I understand this. But, what I'm trying to say is that there are some many people (as far as I can tell) that are in general agreement with you and I that I don't see what the problem is.

I suppose I would have to use the term meta-gaming to try to make clear my overall concern. The two issues come together as:

a) games where even a true expert could do nothing to stop a six country juggernaut coming his way because the other players are determined just to remove the Big Potato first, are not a fair indicator of the players' skills; and

b) a ratings system invites a form of meta-gaming. You play in a style, in a type of game and with the players you choose so as to keep that rating moving up. Decisions are not based on single game considerations.

It would be interesting to be able to toggle the current GRs, accurately, to be able to see what happens when certain types of game/result are removed. For example. Draws not counting...

If a) seems extreme, I can assure you that more than one very good player has complained to the effect that he found it difficult to get one or other players in a game to consider an alliance at the start because of the shadow of the ratings in the background.