Alternative tournament scoring proposal

[Big Head Zach]

At some point in the future, every registered user's rank will be reset, and everyone will be assigned a set number of Planeteer Points (PP). For this example, I'll go with a starting value of 250 (it'll make explaining things a lot easier later).

When players come together for a game, the server establishes a "prize pool", which is equal to 10% of the total PP score of all participants. (Players aren't risking points; it's just using their scores as a means of determining the "importance" of the game's outcome.) Display this pool

At the end of a game, players earn a percentage of the prize pool based on their final placement. I could see this being done several ways:

• 40% 30% 20% 10%, or
• Player's percentage of the total colony score

The prize pool is also affected by the colony score in the following ways:

• If the colony fails early / is abandoned by the host, no points are awarded.
• If the colony scores less than $20,000 (prison ending), each player receives an equal share of 10% of the prize pool.
• If the colony scores less than $40,000 (on your own ending), each player receives an equal share of 25% of the prize pool.
• If the colony scores less than $60,000 (tent ending), each player receives an equal share of 50% of the prize pool.
• If the colony scores $60,000 (minimum victory), nothing changes.
• If the colony scores $80,000 (comfortable victory), award 125% of the prize pool.
• If the colony scores $100,000 (elegant victory), award 150% of the prize pool.
• If the colony scores $120,000 (luxurious victory), award 200% of the prize pool.

Some additional nuances:

• When A.I. participate, they are considered to have the starting number of PP as a new player. This way, players will not benefit from playing tons of games with 2 AI.
• Until such time as there's a means of letting disconnected players rejoin, if a player accidentally disconnects (times out / kicked by the host after the game declares someone timed-out), his share of the points is removed from the prize pool. Players who place behind a removed character are assumed to place ahead of them.
• If a player willfully disconnects, his points are still included in the prize pool (ragequitting only helps the others more)
• If players ever are tied for PP, the player with the most wins is ranked higher. If they have the same number of wins, the player with the better win percentage is ranked higher. If they are still tied, a potato sack race will be held on consecutive Thursdays until a champion is crowned.
• On a regular basis (1-2 months), PP are reset to 250. Offer some sort of reward/recognition for being the "winner" of that season.

[rommager]

I like this proposal so far, even though I don't quite understand it in its entirety.  Here are a few of my thoughts:

- I like how scores are reset peiodically, but I think also keeping an "all-time" ranking would be good.

- I'm not sure how I feel about using a percentage of a player's total PP to start the game pot.  I could see that creating cliques of high hanked players who are not willing to play with lower ranked players who have fewer points.  No one likes playing with a quitter, but no one likes being left out of games full of bigots either.  It seems like it could create a big spread where players at the bottom have little hope of ranking up.  Maybe we could have leagues of some sort, which still gives players something to strive to attain the more they play.

- I think not awarding points for ragequitting is not enough.  Ragequitters should to be penalized or somehow flagged.  Maybe put in a quitting reason for a vote.  If remaining players vote that someone left due to lack of sportsmanship (at least two "bad" votes and no "good" votes), then give the quitter a bad ticky mark.  Ticky marks can be erased every time the scores are cleared, after all no punishment should last forever.  This also doesn't penalize players who quit because they had to leave for legitimate reasons.

- I think it should be possible for another human player to step in, in place of an AI or a player who dropped out (host or vote permitting).  If they step in on a prior player's session who is doing badly, then turn the game around and play well, somehow reward them with a few extra PP.  Players who are too short on time to play a full game can also jump in and play a few rounds and still get quick gratification.  Plus it helps for those who want to play at odd times when few players are online to play.

- Perhaps the PP can be calculated per round played, kind of like an ante.  This kind of addresses quitters (they don't get their PP if they ragequit), and those who play only a few rounds but were good players still get their points.

- I really like the prize pool multiplier idea.  It gives players incentive to make the colony do well.

- My gut reaction would be to use the player's percentage of the total colony score be awarded, versus 40%, 30%, 20%, 10%.  Still, I can see advantages using either method - maybe keep both kinds of scores for a while to decide which is better, or maybe average both methods.

[maskdbandt]

i like most of the ideas

i think ragequitters should be penalized rather than helping other people that are playing with them... this would encourage this to continue forcing the rest of the people to play with AIs for the remainder of the game

yeah, not sure how you would fix the issue of higher ranked players unwilling to play with lower ranked ones... or do you think higher ranked players will prefer playing with lower ranked ones to win more?  i'm still not sure what people feel like on here... i personally will play with anyone as long as they don't seem like they will quit before the end of the game or if they're hosting, kick me because they are losing... i think voluntary kicking without a message saying you have to should penalize the host too

[Big Head Zach]

i think ragequitters should be penalized rather than helping other people that are playing with them... this would encourage this to continue forcing the rest of the people to play with AIs for the remainder of the game

I purposefully kept the penalizing action to a minimum because if someone is serious about avoiding the effects of a loss, they'll unplug their internet cable rather than gracefully "exit'; the host will detect it as a timed-out connection instead of a willful disconnect.

With this system in place (and robust code), the "Abandonment rating" should still warn players about who has the potential to ragequit. To be fair to people with bad connections, that rating should reflect a percentage of the last 10 games or so, rather than be a mark on their permanent record.

yeah, not sure how you would fix the issue of higher ranked players unwilling to play with lower ranked ones... or do you think higher ranked players will prefer playing with lower ranked ones to win more?  i'm still not sure what people feel like on here... i personally will play with anyone as long as they don't seem like they will quit before the end of the game or if they're hosting, kick me because they are losing... i think voluntary kicking without a message saying you have to should penalize the host too

Based on the above rules, kicking a player would remove his points from the pool, so he'd be doing himself a disservice by attempting to win in that fashion. It would likely be more trouble than it's worth (and I'm sure he'd get himself a reputation).

I don't think there would be a problem with this, because lower-ranked people will be playing more often that the hypothetical higher-ranked player who refuses to play...and so they will score more points and soon be at the same level of the higher-ranked player. This system self-corrects and does allow someone who "joins the party late" to catch up if he wins against the right group of people; more importantly, it rewards those who might be inexperienced, to play against the really good players so they can see what kind of tactics work.

It would take a large amount of coordination between top-ranked players to keep their lead to themselves...and since the prize pool has the potential to be very high with a game consisting only of top players, they could be intimidated by the thought that whoever won would gain a sizeable lead. Playing against lower-ranked players reduces this concern (if, indeed, they have the skills to retain their rank).

[rommager]

You have my vote.  I'm all for trying to see how it works.

[Mega Byte]

I noticed how "All time high" colony scores are now grouped by version number.  That is a big issues in 1.1.1, where the great Smithore loophole of 2010 came into play. 
But I also like the idea of having "Top for the Month".  And "Top for the Year (To Date)" and "All time highest" kind of thing.  That way, it will encourage new players to reach at least for a monthly spot.  It will get old if someone runs away with like a 200 game lead.  Then no one will be interested in going after it.
-S

[poobslag]

i don't like the mechanism, i see two flaws.

1. players are rewarded for playing frequently; not necessarily for playing well. even with the 40%-10% suggestion, you'd get about 120 PP for winning 10 games (assuming you were always playing against people of the same rank, which is optimistic), but 122 PP for losing 40 games (assuming you were always playing against people of the same rank, which is pessimistic). if you factor in the fact that losers will be playing with people with more PP, and if you try the alternate scenario where the loser gets ~25% of the PP, it's even more unbalanced in favor of "frequent losers"

2. players are rewarded for playing at the end of the reset period. games at the beginning of the month (when everyone has ~250 PP) would be worth a lot less than games at the end of the month (when everyone has ~524 PP). So, you'd always want to play at the end of the month. This might be OK, February 28th could be "Planet Mule Day" or something and the servers would be stocked

If your goal is simply to have an occasional 'attaboy' for players who have played well recently - and a reward at the end of the game - then I'd say just to go with a standard ranking system, and have a parallel monthly ranking. i don't know what ranking system they use right now, but it seems pretty sound. and at the end of the game, you could just display something like:

rommager: 1860 this month (+14) / 1760 overall (+9)
Big Head Zach: 1901 this month (+3) / 1850 overall (+12)
MegaByte: 1601 this month (-4) / 1550 overall (-1)
Poobslag: 1550 this month (-30) / 1497 overall (-6)

And, maybe display the top monthly/all time ranked players on the PlanetMULE home page, or somewhere in the client. That way people wouldn't be rewarded for losing. And while you could play tons of games at the end of the month - you might lower your ranking with bad luck, so it might not be worth it.

[Big Head Zach]

Players are rewarded for playing frequently; not necessarily for playing well. even with the 40%-10% suggestion, you'd get about 120 PP for winning 10 games (assuming you were always playing against people of the same rank, which is optimistic), but 122 PP for losing 40 games (assuming you were always playing against people of the same rank, which is pessimistic). if you factor in the fact that losers will be playing with people with more PP, and if you try the alternate scenario where the loser gets ~25% of the PP, it's even more unbalanced in favor of "frequent losers"

Then I think the 40/30/20/10 solution works better (perhaps even 55/30/10/5). As for rewarding frequent losers, I think Turborilla wants people to participate most of all. The balance that has to be struck with this system is not to let infrequent good players win their half-dozen or so games and then sit on that pedestal without fear of being surpassed. I shouldn't have to suffer ranked under someone else who "isn't willing to burn for his swag", to appropriate a Gangs of New York reference. If you want to be top ranked, you have to prove that you can win consistently, and frequently. End of story.

The 120 PP for 10 wins vs. 122 PP for losing 40 is, as you say, pessimistic. And consider the fact that the guy playing 10 games and winning all of them can still say his record is better, and people will be trying to challenge him directly; it's then up to him to decide whether he wants to risk giving catchup points to other people, or if he's going to hide in his white tower of perfection.

So basically, what you're saying is, that a man who is 10 for 10 is better than the man who is 10 for 40. My opinion on that is...it depends on who he played against in those 10 wins, which is what this system tries to capture.

Players are rewarded for playing at the end of the reset period. games at the beginning of the month (when everyone has ~250 PP) would be worth a lot less than games at the end of the month (when everyone has ~524 PP). So, you'd always want to play at the end of the month. This might be OK, February 28th could be "Planet Mule Day" or something and the servers would be stocked

To be honest, if you waited until the last minute to play your games, you wouldn't be able to catch up in time. If everyone waited until the last minute, the PP totals are low so nothing is different.

That way people wouldn't be rewarded for losing.

You have to incentivize participation and placing as best as you can with carrots instead of sticks, because if MULE players consider "not 1st place" to be a complete loss, then why bother having the colony succeed? You can do more damage dooming the colony if doing so gives no points to the winner...and that's not in the spirit of the game at all, IMHO. The attempt here was to subtly inform the player "you have more points to gain in helping the colony succeed and placing 3rd/4th, than purposefully ruining it; not only that, but the better the colony ending, the more points you stand to gain."

[maskdbandt]

i consider non-1st a loss   i agree that 10 out of 10 should be ranked higher than 10 out of 40... i think the only way to get people to play though is have participation points... but either way whoever plays the most has a little edge and of course who plays best has a better edge... i just am going to be glad to not allow someone to host and then kick or close the game when they see they're going to lose... that bugs the crap out of me.... it just makes us have to know the person and/or their history of hosting games to see if they will let the game run out or not