MArcomage

This idea not new, but there are still unfinished design issues. Please let me know what you think about it. How would you improve it and what changes do you propose.

Detail description can be found here:
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/new_system.html

Refined version here:
http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/new_system_refined.html

Some discussion already took place:
https://netvor.sk/trac/arcomage/ticket/72

These are things I want to change or discuss on this matter:

- First phase: Game rating should rate tower destruction, tower construction and accumulation victory with same rating

- Second phase: Luck ratio - it should not be based on how many card rarities player got, but how many were actually played

- Third phase: Opponent rating - how to motivate high LVL players to play with low LVL players?

- Fourth phase: Victory rating - how to clearly define a victory types, like major or minor victory?

- wins/losses/draws should be also displayed, but they would be secondary to LVL

This looks good to me. The only thing I object to is erasing people's old win/loss ratios. I don't think they should still be displayed as they are now on the list view of players, but I do think it would be an interesting statistic to have on individual player profiles, because:
a) It gives you an idea of how experienced someone is (which the player rating system doesn't necessarily show - you could be very skillful, and thus have a high rating despite playing few games).
b) It's nice to have some numerical measure of how much you've played the game, and for people who have been playing the game for a long time (chemo has over 3000 games played!) losing all that kind of sucks. It wouldn't be a lot of extra work to just tuck your record somewhere out of the way on your profile, would it?

I agree with dindon, it would be nice to keep the win/loss ratio on a players profile somehow.


I also think that if you're going to rank types of victories it should be from hardest to easiest. That would be, in my mind:
Titan (technically tower destruction I guess but its a hard way to do it)
Resource
Tower
Tower destruction.

luck ratio is not well thought out, and not even necessary in my opinion. it is implying that all cards of a certain rarity are of an equal power level, which is obviously not true. it doesn't take into account getting extra rares off of cards like bestiary, ranger, all fo the "school" cards, the dragon keyword, and about a million other things. third, since you are stating that the cards have to be played to be taken into account, it is also implying that all rares are equally difficult to play, which they are definitely not.

we know that the game is based, in part, on luck. there is no way to model this factor into a rating that makes sense, so why try?

"luck ratio is not well thought out, and not even necessary in my opinion. it is implying that all cards of a certain rarity are of an equal power level, which is obviously not true."
True, but it's the ideal which I imagine the developers are working towards. And in any case, you'd have a hard time arguing that, in general, rares aren't much more powerful than uncommons which are much more powerful than commons.
"it doesn't take into account getting extra rares off of cards like bestiary, ranger, all fo the "school" cards, the dragon keyword, and about a million other things. third"
This makes sense though. When you get a rare using a card like Scepter of Summoning, it's not a matter of "luck", so it shouldn't affect a measure of your luckiness for that game. You're paying for the rare, not getting it by chance.
I don't think the luck ratio thing is a bad idea, but I wouldn't be too heartbroken if it wasn't included in the player rating system.

Ive made some remarks in the track, my most important statements:
1
I sincerely disagree that there should be a difference in the amount of EXP between the different roads to victory, since this way you promotespecific playstyles above others (e.g. aggressive rather then building decks). All are another style of playing, but I think it's ridiculous to value the one over the other.
-
Now: I suppose it might have some charm to reward the hardest to achieve, since it is the most skilful.

2
-

3
-
Now: Im affraid it's inherent to this type of system. I don't expect it to be much of a problem since people wanna play, but that's no guarantee.

4
I don't know what to think of this. It might cause players to delay there finishing turn to win, making it less pleasant for the losing player who thinks he deserves a clean death. On the other hand it might compensate for the problems I have with phase 1...
-
It wil also be quite questionable to determine its major / minor -ness. Low Tower is something you don't care about if you destroy the other faster, and how do you wanna measure this in a match between Building & Resource decks?

a rating system, in my oppinion, should be simple and not taking in account the tower level, or how quickly u beat ur opponent. Someone could be playing with brigand cards and base his victories on destroying enemy recources, thus crippling him, another could be playing with only -tower cards. someone else could be playing to accumulate resource victory. So a rating system taking in account the way u achieve victory rather the fact u achieved victory, then it will be a disputable way of rating.

I believe ratings should only take in account the number of victories and also the level of opposing players. If a low experienced player defeats a high-experience player then he should receive a higher award. If a high-experience player defeats a low-experience player then he will receive the standard amount of points he would receive as when defeating a player of the same experience. This will allow for High-XP players to play Low-XP players without hesitating

Maybe some "initial score" could be granted to the players (not to start with 0) using (at least) a medium case scenery score for phase 1 (and not any others) for the wins/defeats/draws.

Phase 1 I do not agree with the surrender effect...I think that surrender is a very nice feature if one figure out that will lose in the next(s) turn(s).It's polite for the opponent (it releases the slot early and doesn't spent both times).It's better than never play again until the timeout (as sometimes we got).
I think all victories should have the same bonus (timeout also). The same for loses/draws except that Timeout lose should be penalized.


The necessity of Phase 2 is due to the very random system of the rarity of the draw cards. If the rarity were the same for both players (normal draw of a card) would that be necessary? And if the cards were not used (even the keywords)? And if that rarity helped the opponent (i am thinking in cards like Mirror golem)?
Why not having a simple bonus due to the turns the game got?

Phase 4 maybe it's not easy to implement/specify in a very accurate level in terms of close victory ,etc.. what if a person lose but was missing only a common titan card (for titan victory, not that I ever saw one :-( )?

I think that W/L/D is a nice statistic that could also be in the person info page.

That said: I think that a system similar to the ELO system used in chess could be enough for a rating (for rated games (?).

Thanks for all the marcomage work

If it's just about rating, the ELO system would be nice. However, I heard ideas to link your lvl to number of deckslots / gameslots available. Since ELO gives negative scores as well, this would be a bit trickier. You could of course take someone's maximum rating ever as viewpoint...

I refined the new rating system design and here is the draft:

http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/new_system_refined.html

Second phase has been removed, but one additional phase has been added - Awards. There are changed in all other phases, so read carefully. I plan to add more awards to the fifth phase, so feel free to suggest some.

I like the level difference bonus and penalty BUT, in my oppinion the penalty should be applied if the gap of levels is huge (e.g. more than 5 levels). No one is gonna be on the same level as everyone else. In fact it will be very rare in the future for people to be on the same level. Also a penalty will make high ranking players to avoid games with low ranking players, thus there will be not much bonus EXP awarded overall.

an award for titan victory is needed. 110%
also tower of god should have an award. 50%
and one for reaching the wall cap. 20%

To Lord Ornlu: there are caps for both EXP bonus and penalties in third phase.

To Fithz Hood: "tower of god"?, you mean Residence of gods?

yes, i meant the Residence. I remember well images and effects but sometimes I forget the names of the cards.
another award could be had only 1 tower somewhen in the match (not necessarly in the last round) 80%
no rares victory. 30%
fast game (<10 rounds). 20%
flawless victory (taking no damages). 70%

but i suppose the awards could refear only to the last round, not to all the match.

Yeah, the awards should only be conditions that can be verified at the last round, but I think it should be fairly implementable if they could be achieved during the game. For now stick to the last round definition.

I made some progress on the implementation and I made some changes to the system:

http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/new_system_refined.html

Here is a preview of a battle report with the new rating system:

http://helppage.3dfx.sk/fendek/battle_report.png

There a few things about it that I want to discuss:

1 - what information should be in the battle report message. Just the final EXP gain or rather a detailed documentation about the EXP gain evaluation?

2 - is it necessary to inform a player when he gains a new level?

3 - is it necessary to inform a player when he gains a new game/deck slot?

4 - current experience is shown only in user's details section. Is it necessary to also show it in players list? (the level is shown in the players list table). If yes, then how? As a number (current experience / experience needed for the next level), or rather as a percentage of next level requirements completion. Or maybe a progress bar of some sort?

I thought that report in the pic looked perfect. Easily readable, if you just want the basics it's at the top and bottom, details in the middle.

2 - It could be made an option to turn it off (default: On)

3 - Same as #2?

4 - I say show in % (and maybe option to turn off?)

# Victory - Surrender (> 20 rounds): 95%
# Victory - Surrender (<= 20 rounds): 0%

So if you threaten to win to fast, your opponent can deny you all your XP? Thats not very fair to players wo build for fast victory. I don't believe this is a good idea, but maybe you can elaborate the thought behind it?

Also, how does phase 4 now work? If it works how I think it does it still has a(probably unavoidable) imperfection. If the two opponents aim for different vic, it might award the winning player great, while victory was close. Example: winner destroys enemy tower, while loser has stock just under 400.

The surrender victory condition is there to prevent players to level up with dual account. I'm aware that player can deny all exp to his opponent this way, but I hope this won't happen too often, since they deny also all exp to themselves (and they earn a loss point anyway). If you have any ideas how to solve this, I'm all ears ;)

Phase four is a bonus exp for the winning player only, so I don't think this is an issue.

Of course it's an issue. Reread the example I gave (assuming the destroyer has 80+ tower or so). Under that system it will be rewarded with major victory, though every player will consider it a minor or tactical one.