That is correct SDSUP. This brings on a lot of behavior that WTA "purists" disagree with, but PPSC is the name of the game. In PPSC winning isn't so big of a deal, as long as you come out ahead.

I wish there were no points.

That depends on what is more important to you, your win/draw/survive/lose ratio or points. If it is points then yes, if not then no.

Yeah, Diplomacy should either have no points or be all WTA. But at the same time, I really don't care enough about points to get bent out of shape. If you think about it though, before Diplomacy went online, there was only win, lose or draw. If you survived and didn't win, you lost.

And gunboat isn't real Diplomacy.

Haha, definitely agree with you on that one, but who ever said it was?

I would LOVE to remove points from this site. They are an absolute mockery of the game.

Surely two different sets of stats would keep all happy. This could be paradise.

/sarcasm

PPSC vs. WTA comes up at least once a week, as does the gunboat debate, so I was just getting a jump on the argument.

How are points "an absolute mockery of the game?"
Would this also extend to GR or any sort of ranking system because there is a reasonable amount of correlation among your points, win/draw ratio, and GR?
What would replace the system, or is it just unnecessary?

I'm actually interested.

I'd be happy to elaborate.

A pure game of Diplomacy would involve no records or ratings, but most people (including myself) enjoy keeping track of such things. With a game such as Dip, it's hard to find one system that accurately reflects how a person plays.

W/L/D ratios are nice, but don't reflect the skill of your opponents. GR is nice in that regard, although it has some flaws (which I've discussed ad nauseum). Overall, I think these both do a decent job of reflecting a players skill at Diplomacy.

What do points indicate? How good you are at getting points. Point farming is an enormous problem. Let's say I wanted to farm some points. I could play with 6 noobs at 100 each and if I win in a WTA, I would increase my points by 100%. What nonsense is that? My wins would only increase by 1 and I don't think my GR would change at all. This is just one example of the many ways people can scam the point system.

Now, you might say: who cares? Let people farm points. Here's why you should care:

People like having the most of things, even if it's stupid like "points" on a game. They will play in odd ways (such as handing away a solo in a PPSC). This is a problem because people who don't know what points are (because they've been playing Dip for 40 years) or don't care about points have no idea what's happening. When people go into a game with a different opinion of what is "winning" it doesn't make for a fun game. Not to mention, imho, points are clearly metagaming.

Does that help to clear up my position?

Oh, as to replacement:

Points "serve" 2 purposes:

Limiting the number of games you can play
Allowing for higher quality games.

It does a shit job of both these things.

At 5 /game, a new player can start playing 20 games at once. That's hardly a limit. Worse yet, if you mismanage your points (because they're stupid and you're here to play Dip, not Accountant Simulator 2012), you'll actually end up not being able to join *any games*. A better solution would be to limit new players to N games for a certain amount of time and then remove the restriction.

It also does a shit job of filtering high quality games. Player run tournaments and PW games do a much better job.

tl;dr Points do nothing well and cause a number of problems.

Incorporating GR into the site could also do a decent job of serving the 2nd purpose.

Also, is new players joining too many games actually an issue or just a theoretical one?

@Yonni

There have been issues with new players joining over 10 games because they don't understand what Diplomacy is and then CDing in all of them.

Ah, ok. Then we do need something.
I think limiting players to some number of games (even as low as 3) until they finish their first game (not by CD) would do the trick.
I really doubt game limits is an issue after someone has completed a game or two.

Agreed.

And, if someone were to CD, they could have the cap placed back on, which would discourage CDs a lot better than losing a couple points.

I like to discuss this further as I have grown to like a ranking system since I've studied it a bit more and there's mathy stuff involved.
W/D ratios are nice and along with GR, they give a pretty good accuracy of reflecting a player's skills (even though there are ways to game the system).
I think the main issue with points is that you can lose it all in one game and there is a limit to how much you can lose with GR. So, it is probably inaccurate that your skills went from 1000 to 7000 after a WTA solo, or that your skills are back to the 100 newbie level. With GR, you would gain about 5% of your opponents' ratings or lose the same percentage of your own, which is a bit more realistic.

In regards to points and this is where we get a little more hands-on, it's not that easy to "farm" points. There are only a few people that I have seen on here who have consistently played in PPSC games or noobs and do very well. Those people also have very good W/D ratios and GRs.
I can come up with specific people who have a good amount of points who do very well with PPSC or with noobs.
I can come up with people who have a small amount of points who have very good GRs.
I can't name anyone that have loads of points but have low GR or W/D ratio.

So, I guess we can argue this from two different perspectives: the theoretical and the empirical.

Your turn.

Abe said: "Limiting the number of games you can play
Allowing for higher quality games.

It does a shit job of both these things."

+ 1 for Abe telling it like it is.

Abe also said:" And, if someone were to CD, they could have the cap placed back on, which would discourage CDs a lot better than losing a couple points. "

Yes yes yes. Great idea.

How can we make this happen?

@Spy

1) Get community support
2) Find a Dev
3) Get Kestas' blessing

@zul

I agree with the assertion that while "good" players can have few to many points, rarely does a "bad" player have many points. Even so, why have a system that gives such limited information? If you have 20,000 , yes, you can assume the player is fairly good, but what about a person with 50 or 500 ? Are they brand new? Are they awful? Do they only play low-pot games? Do they play with people of much higher skill? For a number directly next to your username, Points add so little.

Abe I suspect we'll have a hard time convincing everyone that points need to go, but maybe we can introduce new features that will effectively make points redundant.

In order to fulfill goal 1 we need to clarify exactly what the proposal is. Thus far the suggestions include:

1. GR built in
2. Caps on games for new players
3. Caps on player who have CD'd

As far as ensuring that players are evenly matched I think maybe GR could be used for this purpose. Players could set a GR range for example?

What else?

So you want a rating system that accurately rates someone new with only a few games? It's asking for a system that statistically analyzes a parameter with anecdotal evidence.

I don't think we should "judge" a new player just because he's new. For example, CSteinhardt is new and I bet he's easily top 100. He has a thorough understanding of the game and is a good tactical analyst. Yellowjacket, the unrepentant heathen jackass, has only played nine games, but he's top 100.
I would never go into a game assuming that I could beat those two.

So let me try to recap: points, W/D and GRs aren't totally inaccurate. They do reflect a player's skill. Can people game the system? Yes but it's not that easy (not counting cheating or metagaming of course).

I don't particularly care about limiting the number of games and all that. Assessing a player's skill is more interesting to me.

Moreover, I would love to hear about a better system that accurately measures skills for veterans as well as newbies. I would love to do the math on this as well as discuss the theoretical implications.

It sounds to me though that you just want to get rid of the number next to people's names, but they would still be there under profile or something.

@spyman,

Built-in GR? I've been advocating this for a while. I have posted quite a number of times about it.
Putting caps on people? I would, but some people wouldn't like me capping their ass.

@zul

"So you want a rating system that accurately rates someone new with only a few games? It's asking for a system that statistically analyzes a parameter with anecdotal evidence."

No, I don't think anyone is saying that. Where did you see that?

LIVE GAMES NEED TO BE RESTRICTED TO PEOPLE WHO CAN ACTUALLY READ SIGN'S!!(meaning play)