Last Meeple Standing: Volunteers Needed!

[Rosco]

I think it should be every game - it makes it more interesting

[Jéré]

What if the play order would be determined based on Elo ratings, and with increasing difficulty (from lower rated opponents to the strongest)?

Anyhow, I think that we would need a fixed play order if we update LP after each game.

[danisthirty]

Thanks for the thoughts/ feedback guys! It’s very much appreciated.

My concern is that with a larger group of players, perhaps 20, there will be 40 games per round (20 games per week). That’s quite a lot! Specifying the order in which players should play each other in addition to this could really complicate things for those of us who can’t play as often as we’d like to be able to, and it also makes it even more difficult for players to have weeks off. I don’t think it should matter what order people play each other, but it does if we continue to calculate LP after each game so it seems clear to me that we should switch to calculating LP at the end of each round instead. It’s fairer and less complicated this way.

This may make it slightly easier to remain standing, so let’s remember that if there are no eliminations in any particular round (from Round 2 onwards) then rule #8 kicks in and everyone loses a set number of LP at the start of the following round. Shoving everyone increasingly closer to the Danger Zone in this way should help to spread a certain amount of panic!

[Jéré]

Just an idea:

As far as I remember, I don't think I've ever finished a round in a league with a negative point differential. Therefore, if points are calculated after each round then I would always keep my 50 LP. Even though my point differential is positive I lose matches quite regularly so why don't we introduce another mechanism that would increase the impact of losing a game. I think losing should 'hurt', like a being 'injured' during a battle. A defeat could reduce the max LP of a player by 2, perhaps 5, therefore only an undefeated player would remain at 50 LP.

An example:

I've played all 4 games of the first round: I won 2 matches, lost the other 2.

Score differences were:  +1, -12, -21, +59

As it is now, I finish with +27 and 50 LP, which means there are absolutely no consequences for the 2 games that I lost.

What I propose is the following (if for instance we decide to reduce Max LP by 5 points after each defeat):


Game #1:  +1, LP 50, Max LP 50
Game #2: -12, LP 38, Max LP 45 (-5)
Game #3: -21, LP 17, Max LP 40 (-5)
Game #4: +59, LP 40, Max LP 40

I finish the round with all my LP but only 40 which is my new maximum. I got 'injured' after 2 battles in the arena, like a gladiator.

I hope it wouldn't be too confusing to have different Max LP values for everybody but it should be quite clear if shown in the existing "Live Point Adjustments" table that Dan already created.

[danisthirty]

Just an idea:

As far as I remember, I don't think I've ever finished a round in a league with a negative point differential. Therefore, if points are calculated after each round then I would always keep my 50 LP. Even though my point differential is positive I lose matches quite regularly so why don't we introduce another mechanism that would increase the impact of losing a game. I think losing should 'hurt', like a being 'injured' during a battle. A defeat could reduce the max LP of a player by 2, perhaps 5, therefore only an undefeated player would remain at 50 LP.

An example:

I've played all 4 games of the first round: I won 2 matches, lost the other 2.

Score differences were:  +1, -12, -21, +59

As it is now, I finish with +27 and 50 LP, which means there are absolutely no consequences for the 2 games that I lost.

What I propose is the following (if for instance we decide to reduce Max LP by 5 points after each defeat):


Game #1:  +1, LP 50, Max LP 50
Game #2: -12, LP 38, Max LP 45 (-5)
Game #3: -21, LP 17, Max LP 40 (-5)
Game #4: +59, LP 40, Max LP 40

I finish the round with all my LP but only 40 which is my new maximum. I got 'injured' after 2 battles in the arena, like a gladiator.

I hope it wouldn't be too confusing to have different Max LP values for everybody but it should be quite clear if shown in the existing "Live Point Adjustments" table that Dan already created.

Thanks Jéré, that’s a great idea! 5 points seems like a reasonable max LP reduction per loss. However, I think there should be a minimum that it can be reduced to (perhaps 20?) at which point losses don’t reduce it any further.

What does everyone else think about this?

[danisthirty]

THIS is what I will now be updating over the next two weeks:



 

[jungleboy]

What does everyone else think about this?

My first thoughts are that I also think this is a really good idea. I think 5 is a good number and agree with Dan that a floor for Max LP could be a good idea. Maybe 25 as it's half of 50.

Let's play this out with my results to see how it looks with a different data set. They are:

L -1
W +8
W +13
L -2

So my LP under the current rules is 48, and if my two losses were the last two games I had played then I would still be on 47 as my lowest possible LP. If we calculated the LP at the end of each round then I would be back up to 50, and if there was no LP ceiling then my LP would be 68. But under Jéré's proposal, my new Max LP would be 40. So if you have losses of fewer than five points you are penalised (a bit) more than you would be under any of the other proposed systems. Do you guys think that's fair or not?

[kettlefish]

MrNumbers is online in the chatroom.

[Paul]

Paul 80 vs danisthirty 128

Somewhat fast and weird tile draws. I got all six cloisters for example. Final tile I managed to even out the farm control in the centre with a sneaky cloister placement and then a curved road. Alas, not enough to win, but at least some gambling paid off, so I have at least that.

[danisthirty]

Thanks for the game Paul.

I must say, although I enjoyed the game, my favourite part of it was the part of our in-game chat where I asked whether you'd been going to church recently as you'd drawn all 5 of the 5 cloisters that we'd seen at that point of the game. You said something like "Not at all. They're coming to me!" and I laughed a lot...  )

Always good fun playing you! 

[Jéré]

Thanks for the game Paul.

I must say, although I enjoyed the game, my favourite part of it was the part of our in-game chat where I asked whether you'd been going to church recently as you'd drawn all 5 of the 5 cloisters that we'd seen at that point of the game. You said something like "Not at all. They're coming to me!" and I laughed a lot...  )

Always good fun playing you! 

Haha! Good one!

[MrNumbers]

In general, I like the idea of reducing LP after loss, and stop reducing at 20 LP. It is a trial after all, let's see what we will got.
As for jungleboy's question, I don't know what to say. From one point of view, loss is loss, and we don't have to distinguish them. From the other side, this competition is all about point differential, and maybe this rule can have a right to be discussed and examined.

[danisthirty]

As for jungleboy's question, I don't know what to say. From one point of view, loss is loss, and we don't have to distinguish them. From the other side, this competition is all about point differential, and maybe this rule can have a right to be discussed and examined.

I have played two games so far. The first was an 8 point loss and the second was a 48 point win. Overall, this means I’m +40 (90 LP) but since I wouldn’t be able to go above my initial max LP I’m on 50 regardless of whether its calculated at game end or round end.

I still like Jéré’s idea that max LP should be reduced by some set amount for each loss (5 LP seems to work) but it does seem a little unfair in some ways as, case in point, I’m being penalised twice for my loss to jungleboy. The first penalty was the 8 LP I lost to him, but I recovered this in the subsequent game against Paul. I dare say it won’t be the case, but if I go on to win against both jma03 and Decar in my two remaining games I will finish the round on 50 LP still, but will start the next round on 45 LP on account of the reduction in max LP on account of my loss. Thus, an 8 point loss will have cost me 13 LP.

In an extreme case, someone else might start a round with 50 LP and then lose 3 games by 1 point each. They’re now on 47. They might then win their last game of the round by 40 points and so finish the round on 50 LP again (with 37 points to spare). However, the three losses would mean their max LP is reduced by 15 (3 losses x 5 LP) so they start the next round on 35 despite having an overall PD of +37 in the last round. Is this unfair? Or is it reasonable to expect that there should be a minimum amount of unrecoverable damage for each lost game?

[Decar]

If you're altering total life points based on wins or loses, you should just award points for winning.  Just like the regular tournaments.  As Dan said before, you've essentially decreased your margin for error.  Do doubt that the player with the most LP in the final round will win.

One of the initial ideas, was that an under-dog player has the opportunity to break the odds and earn their LP points and have a potential to win.  It seems we're too keen to penalize negative play.  This wasn't intended to be a tournament for managing wins and loses, only LP.

The simplest approach is to not cap Life Points - but this means two things can happen.  Some Strong players can bleeding weaker players for more life points, so by the time the final round occurs, the players would have 150LP or 200LP...it would take forever to play.  I'm not necessarily opposed to this.

Capping the Life Points (and then applying the whittling process if there is no winner) seemed like a good way to keep the stakes moderately high.

Originally it was intended to play 2 games in a round.  One as a 1st player and the Other as a 2nd player.   I was interested to gather data on 1st player advantage/disadvantage.  Due to people's constraints this was increased to 4 games a fortnight.  The order of play per Round should not matter.  This gives people the opportunity to recoup loss.  If the order of play is deemed significant play a knockout tournament.  If you lose, tough luck.

I used to play Go where the first player is given a 7point advantage against an equal player. We have no evidence or statistics to support this in Carcassonne - it's something I'm interested understanding, especially when the last player has 1 less tile to draw.

The intention of this tournament was to have players concentrate of Life Points rather than the number of games they have played and not over penalize or over promote players who had one good/bad game.  If you look at the point's difference tables on our last tournaments, most players have 1 good game (usually against me) and that means that that player is given a massive advantage over the other players with equal League Points.  It also means that the losing player is drastically hindered against players with the same League Points.

I saw this tournament a bit like an old-school beat-em-up; where players battle it out mano-a-mano.  Both players start with the same Health Points, after the battle they must manage their wounds.

I think Dan's initial proposal is fine, I think we need to collect more evidence during this trial so we can improve on it in the future.

[Jéré]

Should we differenciate a loss by a small margin from other losses?

For instance, we could only reduce the max LP in case of a severe loss (20 point difference or more, or it could be 10 or more...). Lets call this a critical hit.

EDIT: Note that I wrote this before reading Decar's message. Perhaps we could maintain 2 tables in parallel so that we can monitor both proposed methods during this trial and at the end choose the one that appears to be the best.