The New Point System

[TheeProdigy]

(02-03-2013 02:29 AM)RandyDogz Wrote:  Any system with a large spread between points won by winner/lost by loser is going to favor active players. But maybe this is the goal? I imagine league promotions/demotions are pretty rare after you've played for some time. Playing solely to get promoted is a long term goal, you need something to hold your interest in the short term. As a developer, I'd want to make the people playing my game a lot feel good about how they are doing! Activity based points encourages players to play the game, rather than sitting and thinking about the game in fear that one wrong move will drop them back to the bottom of the league. That's sorta how I was feeling under the old system. To this extreme, this could frustrate people enough to quit the game.

This is exactly what they are trying to do, they need to promote players to want to play their game. Who wants to play a game that every 3 wins you get are wiped out with one loss? how does at promote fun play? If hidden rank is not affected by league rank I see no problem showing people who play constantly that they are doing good against other players who also play constantly. Just because you are not in the top 200 does not mean your not good at this game, maybe you enjoy just playing the game and seeing that your wins actually mean something.

#1
Thee_Prodigy

[jaxxinjr]

Bump...

[phineas94]

Bump. Ironically most of the stickied threads are locked out to me including the "bug report". 50 posts doesn't do it, cache, history....what about shaking this bloody phone!

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Nope, that didn't work.

[phineas94]

Seeing as 95% of statistics are made up, drawing any conclusions from the poll would seem a tad previous, but seeing as I posted it I'm going to say it was a draw!

So, there are those who preferred the last system and want skill rating solely to determine your division placement and those who are happy/happier with the current system (which also factors in skill rating) of determining points within the division. I've yet to see anyone swayed by either argument so I guess it's just down to personal preference.

Issues still remain with the new system that are a little worrying i.e. the fact that games are still getting the +24/-1 point spread. Here are the points allocated to me over the last couple of weeks

vs +24/-1; +24/-1; +24/-1; +24/-3

vs +21/-1; +22/-1; +24/-1

vs +18/-3; +19/-3; +17/-3; +19/-2; +21/-7; +19/-4

2v2 matched pairs +10/-4; +19/-5; +10/-11; +13/-12; +19/-5; +11/-11

2v2 Random +6/-14; +7/-16; +6/-14

Fascinating hey? But it does suggest that there is still some way to go before the new point system has bedded in - or does it need tweaking still? Why the obvious differences in match types? Questions, questions.

(02-24-2013 07:05 PM)W1cked21 Wrote:  I dislike it more and more. When I was master, and won against titan, I earned around 13 points (cuz I had 1100 points). Now i'm in titan, an when I win my battles against master I earn more than 20 points, because I now have 400 points.

So it seems this system doesn't care about the tier at all, which is bas.

Why not making a point system based ONLY on hidden skills?

Here is my incredibly blinkered view on a division where points are based solely on hidden rating (If there are other takes on this scenario then please feel free to open my naive eyes). So you have a masters division with 5 players in who are in the top 200. Player number 6, unawares that he is rank 456, has 5 players above him throughout the season and finishes sixth. Well that was interesting! (Please don't try and throw in factors that I haven't taken into account promotion/demotion/ increase in skill etc - it's deliberately simplistic) Basically this system is not a division it is a list. The whole point of OML putting previous seasons Achievement badges is to place a bit of kudos on how well you did, not just a reflection of the top 200 ranking trends. #1 player is #1 in the top 200 and #1 in their division. Woohoo! Again, incredibly interesting!

I feel OML are trying to create a division system where there is a separate competition from the self-congratulatory "look where I am in the top 200!". All players, if they're good enough (is that skill?) and have the inclination, would be able to achieve a high placement in their division regardless of top 200 rank. Yes, yes, yes....I know. Activity points. "Assuming similar time played" etc - answer PLAY MORE, WIN MORE.

(02-24-2013 10:34 PM)Random Task Wrote:  The new system measures activity (# of games played) rather than player strength. It doesn't fulfill what it was originally meant to do, give a measure of who is the better player in each league. The old measure (the one we had originally when the game was launched, not the one where half the league had zero points by default), while not being perfect gave a rough idea.

I only started playing outwitters a couple of months after launch and by the time I got hooked I was in a division where the leading players had over 1000 points (Surely very active?) so there was no interest for me in attaining a high position. I don't remember being frustrated by the points allocation in the first system so maybe under the new time constraints of the season format (Is it still 2 months?) this could work. My frustrations came with the random number/zero sum system of the last effort.

(02-26-2013 07:09 AM)Gurleyman Wrote:  If any of y'all play Clash of Clans, I think their trophy system is a decent points basis. If one player wins points, the other player loses the same amount. If higher ranked wins, they exchange less points (say, 15), but if lower ranked wins, they exchange a higher amount (i.e. 27).

Obviously this is significant when top-ranked players face off, since they will separate drastically from the results, but perhaps closely ranked players will swap less points (i.e. 10) given their comparable skill.

Gurleyman | 2v2 ST #1

This sounds interesting. My beef was the unreadability of the points previously and the creation of a division that to all intents and purposes, was relatively stagnant/ predictable. A division/league, to me, is a competition that anyone (within reason) can win, but I'm starting to repeat myself....again

(02-27-2013 04:40 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  I've seen so many posts by newcomers to the forums asking when they will be promoted because they are top of their division (in fact I just responded to a new one around an hour ago). This is but one of the problems with the new system which isn't actually skill based. It's misleading.

All of the point systems used have had this problem then as promotion mechanics questions are by no means particular to the new one. Furthermore, the example you refer to wasn't from a confused newcomer who is wondering why they haven't been promoted because they have 10000 pts and are top of their division

(02-27-2013 03:45 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  

(02-27-2013 02:07 AM)Xerozen Wrote:  Is there a specific number of consecutive wins to be promoted to the next league? Won probably 10 or so in a row and I'm in the top 10 in my division in gifted so I was just curious!

Division rank is misleading and doesn't mean anything in regards to when you will be promoted. As amoffett said, it comes down to playing against and beating Masters players. Only then will you be promoted.

They had obviously read the in game help topic about promotion/demotion mechanics, provided a bit of background info about themselves in case that helped any response, and were "just curious" about the exact number of wins required for promotion.

I believe it was you who suggested a "rising star" system to show how close to promotion a player was in order to relieve some of this confusion. Also in this thread it was posted

(02-24-2013 12:33 AM)RandyDogz Wrote:  I think adding an indicator if players are on the cusp of a promotion (or demotion :/) would be really cool and a good compromise between not disclosing hidden rating but giving players a better sense of how they are doing!

Not implying the current system is perfect, these are interesting conversations and we should continue to debate! I respect OML's hard stance on not disclosing hidden ratings. That's proprietary information, and they've obviously worked hard to develop it. But that means league points will never be perfect.

If the confusion has been ongoing from the start then let's hope something like this can resolve it. Or we can keep on answering questions about promotion on the forum or we can hope that users know what the search function is for and end up at a thread like this one

As for it being misleading. How so? It's only misleading if you come to Outwitters with baggage from other games. Nowhere does it say "get lots of points, get in the top 5 of your division...and you'll be promoted!", that would be misleading. My perspective on the division (because I read the in-game help and searched for "promotion" threads in the forum) was that it was there to add interest. The last point system took away that interest for me and just added to my frustration every time I looked at the points gained/lost for a game.

[lawtai]

So does it mean anything about the system if I'm starting to see games where I get +19 and my opponent gets -12? Or +20 and -11?

I had previously seen points go maybe +20/-1.

Does this reflect anything about the difference in skill level at all?

[phineas94]

(03-06-2013 02:51 AM)lawtai Wrote:  So does it mean anything about the system if I'm starting to see games where I get +19 and my opponent gets -12? Or +20 and -11?

I had previously seen points go maybe +20/-1.

Does this reflect anything about the difference in skill level at all?

Yes it is supposed to. The main difference from the last system is that

(01-29-2013 10:57 AM)onealexleft Wrote:  The change is that your league points are now considered in that calculation along with your skill rating.

(01-29-2013 10:57 AM)onealexleft Wrote:  For example, if you're a master league player and you face another master leaguer and a Super Titan:
- If the master league player has a ton of points (typically in the top of their division), a win against him is weighed more against a Super Titan that has close to zero points.

- In short, we're hoping that your league and your division points become reflective of your skill and help differentiate players a bit more. A 1000 point Master Leaguer should be more skilled than a 300 point Master Leaguer (assuming similar time played).

That's the theory anyhow. The system is still a bit wonky as you can see from the results I posted in my previous post but I am assured they'll be looking into it although I'm sure they've got enough on their hands with the new update imminent

The initial points tallys of +24/-1 were occurring as the system/formula/algorithm was waiting to mature (Delta values or somesuch)