Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion Articles => Topic started by: fp on July 10, 2011, 04:53:48 pm
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Hello, the next article in the series is delayed. It contains commentary for some games which I am currently seeking permission to use. Otherwise, it is ready to go.
Thanks,
fp
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Would it be possible for you to post the article without the games for which you're still waiting for permission, and supplement the article later with the games? I can't be the only person who's eager to continue reading the series.
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If you're not going to post the article why did you bother making a thread?
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Hello, the next article in the series is delayed. It contains commentary for some games which I am currently seeking permission to use. Otherwise, it is ready to go.
Just post the article. Permission is a noble but unnecessary pursuit. Us less than level-42 people are interested in your expert commentary.
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The title is still a bit unclear to me. Why excactly 42 and not like #1 Leaderboard :-) Otherwise I should not read your expected good article :P
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The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything
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The title is still a bit unclear to me. Why excactly 42 and not like #1 Leaderboard :-)
For being and staying Nr. 1 (at least while Theory is inactive) there is already another method - however a very boring and strange one:
http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat (http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat)
Here are the last 15 games of current nr. 1 "tat". It's a shame comparing this to the creative players like Blooki, painted_cow, Ben Warden and others ranked lower. And it reminds us not to take the leaderboard too serious.
Level 8 -> 94:11
Level 18 -> 31:23
Level 9 -> 62:26
Level 12 -> 31:0
Level 4 -> 25:33 (lost)
Level 4 -> 20:5
Level 5 -> 40:18
Level 6 -> 30:10
Level 11 -> 38:33
Level 1 -> 37:18
Level 4 -> 36:18
Level 0 -> 46:19
Level 7 -> 46:29
Level 15 -> 3:4 (lost)
Level 11 -> 40:43 (lost)
Level 8 -> 48:48 (win)
and so on
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The title is still a bit unclear to me. Why excactly 42 and not like #1 Leaderboard :-)
For being and staying Nr. 1 (at least while Theory is inactive) there is already another method - however a very boring and strange one:
http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat (http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat)
Here are the last 15 games of current nr. 1 "tat". It's a shame comparing this to the creative players like Blooki, painted_cow, Ben Warden and others ranked lower. And it reminds us not to take the leaderboard too serious.
Level 8 -> 94:11
Level 18 -> 31:23
Level 9 -> 62:26
Level 12 -> 31:0
Level 4 -> 25:33 (lost)
Level 4 -> 20:5
Level 5 -> 40:18
Level 6 -> 30:10
Level 11 -> 38:33
Level 1 -> 37:18
Level 4 -> 36:18
Level 0 -> 46:19
Level 7 -> 46:29
Level 15 -> 3:4 (lost)
Level 11 -> 40:43 (lost)
Level 8 -> 48:48 (win)
and so on
The guy (or girl) uses automatch; I have no idea what you're insinuating about this person.
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For being and staying Nr. 1 (at least while Theory is inactive) there is already another method - however a very boring and strange one:
http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat (http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat)
Here are the last 15 games of current nr. 1 "tat". It's a shame comparing this to the creative players like Blooki, painted_cow, Ben Warden and others ranked lower. And it reminds us not to take the leaderboard too serious.
I appreciate the compliment, but my pattern of games shouldn't be too far off tat's. I'm primarily an auto-matcher these days and treat Dominion as many would treat Solitaire or Minesweeper, an entertaining diversion while multi-tasking on their computer. I think rating is inflated due to playing against low-ranked opponents.
That being said, I do think you make a very good point that the leaderboard shouldn't be taken too seriously seeing as is depends on variables such as game selection.
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I'm not sure that playing low-rateds really inflates your rank much if at all. My gut would have said the opposite. But I could well be wrong, especially as I don't know the precise standards by which this stuff is actually calculated.
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I'm not sure that playing low-rateds really inflates your rank much if at all. My gut would have said the opposite. But I could well be wrong, especially as I don't know the precise standards by which this stuff is actually calculated.
My general formula for how I'm doing on isotropic is:
Define the sequence of opponents' levels by x_n, and my level by y.
For each win, add x_n.
For each loss, add 0 if x_n>=y, and add (x_n-y) if x_n<=y.
This is no one way reflective of the isotropic method (it clearly ignores that losing to multiple people at my level or higher will drop me), but it's my personal benchmark on how I did that day. This way, I make sure I keep the competition where it should be if I'm to move up.
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The title is still a bit unclear to me. Why excactly 42 and not like #1 Leaderboard :-)
For being and staying Nr. 1 (at least while Theory is inactive) there is already another method - however a very boring and strange one:
http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat (http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=tat)
Here are the last 15 games of current nr. 1 "tat". It's a shame comparing this to the creative players like Blooki, painted_cow, Ben Warden and others ranked lower. And it reminds us not to take the leaderboard too serious.
Level 8 -> 94:11
...
Level 8 -> 48:48 (win)
and so on
Honestly, I'm not even sure what you're saying. Are you saying "tat" just beats the pants off lower-ranked players to keep his ranking high?
It's already been pointed out that this is just the result of automatch, but how about this nugget from the isotropic FAQ:
"...beating someone who the system already thinks is worse than you doesn't improve your skill estimate that much..."
So maybe he or she is just good at the game.
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Indeed, being paired against low level opponents is the worst thing that can happen to a top player. They basically have to win. If they win they get next to no "rating". If they lose however, they'll lose a TON.
When I was low level when I started, I wasn't a whole lot worse than I am now. I was just new. And while I was "new" to dominion (isotropic), I brought with me almost 20 years of card game experience. I was certainly not a greenhorn.
So when I was level 2, I was probably really playing at a level 20-30 range. Anyone that I beat on my way up would have lost a ton of rating, because I was a "low level player", even though I really wasn't. In most games, this is called being a "smurf" (although that more-relates to creating a new account for the sole purposes of beating up on new players, not really the situation I was in).
Regardless though, I hate playing low level players. Especially when that level 1 player opens Ambassador/Ambassador. I know he's not a true level 1. I basically must beat him, but he is a very solid player. I'm in a lose-lose situation, really.
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I agree like 100 % on Agrisios post.
The listing of his/her opponents is nice, but even more clear is a look on councilroom. Just check the stats by opponents, there you find Latvia/Artjoms and then a really long time no player I recognize over 30 (and I have played at lot..). I wont respect a player who only plays beginners and celebrates himself as #1.
Using automatch is imo only a nice excuse for this "noobbashing". If you are honest you know yourself when using automatch, that you play many beginners. Even when Blooki states, that he is doing it lately, there is a big difference. Blooki played many games vs. highlevel players, tat not at all.
I dont know, why one should use automatch in 2-player. U get games via proposing really fast these days. In 3 players its a complete change. I played 3pl alot, but you cant propose games to start a game. In this case you need automatch to get a game starting!
Anyone who dont think that rating isnt inflated by playing beginners is wrong imo. Many players stated this fact already.
@Brando Commando: Do you really think that "...beating someone who the system already thinks is worse than you doesn't improve your skill estimate that much..."
How should one get above level 45?
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"Automatching will give you low ranked opponents and therefore you are a noob-basher if you automatch"
No.
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I think the difficulty is that we just don't know how good Tat really is since there are so few games logged between Tat and the other high ranked players. You can clearly elevate your ranking to the top of the board by playing many matches against opponents that are (a) low ranked and (b) random selected, since Tat appears to have done exactly that.
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Yeah I agree with painted_cow. I may only be level 39-40, but I'm there by (almost) always manually challenging the highest ranked player available in the lobby until someone will play me, always playing random sets, and never declining based on the cards (including cards I hate playing against strong opponents, as I'm generally much worse with them than they are). Though I can't say I know all the details about how the ranking system works, I feel pretty confident this isn't exactly the best method if you care about maximizing your ranking. I may only win ~61% of my matches compared to 76% or whatever, but I feel a lot better about it than I would if I did what tat (and I'm sure plenty of others) did to artifically inflate his ranking.
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I used to do that. I was a level 33. Then the automatch feature was introduced and I started using it. Within a week or two I had dropped to level 21. I've now worked myself back up to a level 27 through automatching. I feel a lot better about it than I would if I carried on doing what you (and I'm sure some others) do to artificially inflate your ranking.
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I agree like 100 % on Agrisios post.
The listing of his/her opponents is nice, but even more clear is a look on councilroom. Just check the stats by opponents, there you find Latvia/Artjoms and then a really long time no player I recognize over 30 (and I have played at lot..). I wont respect a player who only plays beginners and celebrates himself as #1.
Using automatch is imo only a nice excuse for this "noobbashing". If you are honest you know yourself when using automatch, that you play many beginners. Even when Blooki states, that he is doing it lately, there is a big difference. Blooki played many games vs. highlevel players, tat not at all.
I dont know, why one should use automatch in 2-player. U get games via proposing really fast these days. In 3 players its a complete change. I played 3pl alot, but you cant propose games to start a game. In this case you need automatch to get a game starting!
Anyone who dont think that rating isnt inflated by playing beginners is wrong imo. Many players stated this fact already.
@Brando Commando: Do you really think that "...beating someone who the system already thinks is worse than you doesn't improve your skill estimate that much..."
How should one get above level 45?
We're already way off the intended target of this thread, and while I'm not one to normally throw fuel on a fire, you come off sounding like an elitist jackass with your post. I suggest you play the guy (or girl) if you think he/she is some kind of imposter at the top slot. I'm not even sure tat is registered to these forums, let alone "celebrating himself as #1". I know the person uses automatch, as it's tried to automatch me against him/her recently, and the recent history is easily explained in that way. Automatch is no sign of how good or bad a player is... it just means the player wants games, and will play anyone. You still have to win. If you think otherwise, then propose matches directly with tat, and beat tat.
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Dave, don't think I haven't challenged tat many times. He won't play me.
Thisisnotasmile, I can't tell if you're joking or not, but ok?
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No jokes. I took a big hit when I started automatching. I really don't get the "automatching artificially inflates your rating" crap.
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Do you get "playing exclusively weak players and winning 76% of your matches against them will result in a higher ranking than strong players playing other strong players" then?
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No.
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Dave, don't think I haven't challenged tat many times. He won't play me.
Thisisnotasmile, I can't tell if you're joking or not, but ok?
Well, that's a different story, then. I suppose we need to know more about the formula used to produce the ranking, and what inputs are given what weight... but in the end, why does it matter? Is there some cookie for being the top-ranked person for a simulated card game on the internet?
More than anything, I'd rather just see this discussion pulled from this thread. It's irrelevant, and a distraction from the hopefully informative post that we're waiting for here on the next step in improving our game.
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Correct me if I'm misinterpreting you then, but you think tat would easily be the strongest player on isotropic if he played other strong players too, then? If this is not what you believe, can you explain?
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I have no idea because I've not played tat. Similarly, neither have you. Nor has painted_cow or anyone else complaining about him (as far as I can tell). He is obviously a good player because he is at the top of the leader board. Why, exactly, do you feel the need to bitch and moan about a person being at the top of a table on a website? It means nothing other than "he is good at dominion", and you know what... if he wins 76% of his games, he is good. Doesn't matter who his opponents are. There's a lot of luck involved in Dominion and if someone can overcome that luck and win 76% of games, they're good at Dominion.
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If you think otherwise, then propose matches directly with tat, and beat tat.
I've tried it too and was ignored several times. And I'm not a top player - just lv 32.
Just wanted to add that I don't mind occasional matches with great level differences but for most of the games I will invite players of the same or better level.
But I appreciate your intention. And you are right, it's off topic - sorry. I'm awaiting fp's post too.
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Correct me if I'm misinterpreting you then, but you think tat would easily be the strongest player on isotropic if he played other strong players too, then? If this is not what you believe, can you explain?
If you're asking me, what I believe is that the number is meaningless... for everyone. Like the game, play the game, win some games, have fun. There's enough RNG inherent in the game that anyone can play "flawlessly" (per the given board) and still lose.
If you're asking someone else, hopefully they answer you, also.
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I've just sent an e-mail to Doug Z requesting info on how the ranking works, so maybe we'll get some clarification on that.
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Do we know how many points he gained/lost in this streak?
Level 8 -> 94:11
Level 18 -> 31:23
Level 9 -> 62:26
Level 12 -> 31:0
Level 4 -> 25:33 (lost)
Level 4 -> 20:5
Level 5 -> 40:18
Level 6 -> 30:10
Level 11 -> 38:33
Level 1 -> 37:18
Level 4 -> 36:18
Level 0 -> 46:19
Level 7 -> 46:29
Level 15 -> 3:4 (lost)
Level 11 -> 40:43 (lost)
Level 8 -> 48:48 (win)
For example, if he wins 1 "point" for the victories, but loses 40 for each of his losses against the level 15, level 4 and level 11. I mean, he lost to a level 4 here.
I know if this were MtG, the above streak of games would have resulted in a net LOSS of rating points. Without a doubt.
For example, I had a rating of roughly 2400-2500 in MtG. If I played against a "level 4", i.e. someone with a rating of, say, 1500, I would either win 1 rating point (if that) or lose upwards of 40. I've gone 12-1 in a tournament and LOST rating points, because it was a casual tournament with poor rated players. My one loss outweighed the 12 wins.
I know in MtG, that you never ever want to play against lower ranked players, because you WILL lose the random game due to land flood/screw and this will destroy your rating. You essentially must go something like 40-1 against them, but every 20 games you'll lose one to unsurmountable bad luck, so over the long haul, you are screwed playing lower ranked players.
It all depends on the numbers.
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Thisisnotasmile, "playing weak players does not artificially increase your rating" and "I don't know if tat would be the strongest player if he played other strong players" are not logically consistent statements. Let's leave the discussion there.
Dave, I was asking Thisisnotasmile, who was the one making statements about it. I appreciate your opinion too though :)
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Just for interest, how can you know against what levels anyone has played, if you don't want to search for every single one in the leaderboard?
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I have no idea because I've not played tat. Similarly, neither have you. Nor has painted_cow or anyone else complaining about him (as far as I can tell). He is obviously a good player because he is at the top of the leader board. Why, exactly, do you feel the need to bitch and moan about a person being at the top of a table on a website? It means nothing other than "he is good at dominion", and you know what... if he wins 76% of his games, he is good. Doesn't matter who his opponents are. There's a lot of luck involved in Dominion and if someone can overcome that luck and win 76% of games, they're good at Dominion.
Essentially this.
I was lucky enough to play against Theory one time, long before isotropic was as popular as it is today (before you couldn't even log on on an Eastern US Friday afternoon), and long before these forums existed. The early days of the blog. I lost to him by one point, because somewhere in the middle of the game, I took a silver, or something, instead of an estate, and at the end of the game, he was able to pick up an estate right before the game ended with a 4/4 province split. His level on isotropic, today, is roughly double mine.
Do I think he's twice the player I am? No.
Better? Maybe... we'll never know. We played one time, and that's not enough to determine anything.
I would like to see the results of matches between you guys and tat, so it's unfortunate that those games are being declined, but I would still submit that even one game against him won't prove anything. Of course, the reason I'd like to see the results, is to look at the game log, and see how the game played out, and compare that to what my in-game choices would have been.
I don't know what else there really is to say on this, but I don't think it's something we should be getting worked up about.
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A few comments:
Re: tat, I'd say refusing to play good players is a lot more damning than playing a bunch of bad players.
I've gone through streaks of matching high rated people and streaks of automatching, which tends to put you up against lower rated players. I had basically rating stasis during the former and have tended to slowly increase during the latter. Thus, I think there is a good chance that lower ranked people are systematically overrated. But I doubt that TrueSkill itself is inherently inflationary in this way. (And on that note, all the people talking about emailing Doug: you can just check the isotropic FAQ and see how he has TrueSkill configured.)
I'm not sure I'd agree with Fabian that matching high rated players and getting takers is that fast. Maybe my experience is skewed because the last time I did that was when I was in the high 20s, but it was a lot clunkier than automatch in terms of getting games fast. I'd also note that it seems like a fair number of high-end players play with restrictions, which one could also argue sullies the leaderboard in some sense.
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yeah, now when i'm close to top i usually play only lvl 35+, will try to play more low levels to see how rating changes.
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Dave, don't think I haven't challenged tat many times. He won't play me.
THIS is the real issue, and one that I've come up against too. But the dude(tte) can do whatever (s)he wants, and I certainly haven't seen him (her) boasting or bragging anywhere, so I don't really see what to be upset about. Sure, I'd like him to play higher rated people too, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. And if you think he's not as strong... who cares?
Also, I don't believe that playing weaker players is intrinsically better for your rating than playing stronger ones, but it is a different skillset to be able to really milk the percentages out of the lower guys than to be more proficient at actually just winning in general (against harder comp). Playing overrated players is, of course, a way to gain, but I don't know of a way to do that.
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Thisisnotasmile, "playing weak players does not artificially increase your rating" and "I don't know if tat would be the strongest player if he played other strong players" are not logically consistent statements. Let's leave the discussion there.
Dave, I was asking Thisisnotasmile, who was the one making statements about it. I appreciate your opinion too though :)
I've said nothing about "playing weak players". I have only discussed automatching vs playing against "high ranked players". From my experience, playing "high ranked players" inflates your rating more than automatching. I used to play "high ranked players" and during that time I was ranked around a level 33. Now I automatch, and I am currently ranked around level 27.
I also said nothing about whether I think tat would be the "strongest player" if he played "other strong players". I simply stated that I have no experience of playing Dominion with tat, and therefore cannot draw any conclusions about his play style and/or ability. I assume that since TrueSkill, a universally used rating system, ranks him quite high in his Dominion playing abilities, he is at least "quite good" at Dominion. I feel exactly the same way about other people who have high TrueSkill rankings.
How people choose which matches to play makes no difference to me (as long as they don't pick and choose cards to play with). You cannot tell anything about a players skill by the way they choose their opponents, only by their playing abilities. If automatch does "only match you against weak opponents", then that's a problem with automatch, not a problem with tat, me or anyone else who chooses to use automatch.
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Also, I don't believe that playing weaker players is intrinsically better for your rating than playing stronger ones, but it is a different skillset to be able to really milk the percentages out of the lower guys than to be more proficient at actually just winning in general (against harder comp). Playing overrated players is, of course, a way to gain, but I don't know of a way to do that.
I'd guess one possible difference, even if they are rated correctly, is how good you are at consistently finding good enough strategies vs. finding near optimal strategies. If you always play a B game that's good enough to beat the weaker players, you can gain against weaker players; if you alternate between an A and a C game, there's probably not that much of a disparity in your winrate against players of various skills past a certain point and you don't benefit as much from playing them.
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Me: "Do you get "playing exclusively weak players and winning 76% of your matches against them will result in a higher ranking than strong players playing other strong players" then?"
You: "No"
Are you quite sure you haven't said anything about playing weak players?
I know you started out arguing about your own experiences with playing strong players vs automatching. I was arguing that tat's ranking has been raised artificially by choosing to play exclusively weak players while refusing to play strong players, and that this choice has lead to his ranking being higher than what his actual skill reflects. To this, you responded "No" (proof: see above), and the only way to reconcile that with him being by far the highest rated player on the leaderboard is if he was the strongest player, as well. As you point out, you and I don't know him well enough to definitely say he's not, but it's extremely likely he isn't (proof: his refusal to play any high ranked players), and his incredibly high ranking has more to do with the unique method he chooses his opponents (=artifically raising his rating). Even if he actually is the strongest player, we don't know that as you point out, so a resounding "No" to the above question is still not logically consistent. An "I don't know" or "Possibly" might be more reasonable in that case. I do agree that he's almost definitely at least "quite good", fwiw.
Whether all this is important or not is certainly arguable. I'm not losing any sleep over it, to be sure, but I don't think that means I can't point out that I think it's somewhat lame, on a Dominion Message Board.
Finally, based on your last paragraph, you're missing the point about tat and his method of choosing players. It's not the automatching in itself that's the issue; to be honest I don't even know if he automatches. The "issue" is that he plays exclusively weak players, and refuses to play against strong players. I don't think there's any problem with automatching, at least not that I'm aware of.
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How Trueskill works: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/trueskill/details.aspx
Code for TS on Isotropic: http://github.com/dougz/trueskill
Also interesting for constants etc: http://dominion.isotropic.org/faq/
Me myself I'm also in the mid of the Twenties and feel like automatching I'm loosing rating, like Thisisnotasmile. Seems like there is some gap, when you're really good you can win often enough against noobs so you can gain rating, while if you're somewhere in the middle you will loose too often due to some errors of yours and your rating drops.
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FWIW, I think Larry reached number 1 by calculating that he was winning disproportionately more than TrueSkill predicts against lower rated players. He was #1 without a winning record against anyone in the top 30. I could easily believe this would be true that tat is very good at beating mediocre dominion players, but not good at beating great ones.
I don't care enough to do it myself (I am more interested in learning about Dominion than learning about Dominion players), but if someone was really concerned and wanted to do more than complain on a forum, you could grab the trueskill code, download the games, and then optimize the trueskill parameters to maximize the log likelihood of its predictions. After you've tuned it to maximize the log liklihood, I'll have a separate 'accurate' ladder hosted on councilroom with the optimized parameters. As smart and talented as Doug is, I'd be surprised if he got the trueskill parameters perfect without any tuning on real data 9 months ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_likelihood
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Looking at tat's councilroom stats (http://councilroom.com/player?player=tat), he is 1 - 3 against ARTjoMS. Assuming this ARTjoMS is Latvia who currently has a ranking of 41, there are at least a few games of a highly ranked player against him.
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How Trueskill works: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/trueskill/details.aspx
Code for TS on Isotropic: http://github.com/dougz/trueskill
Also interesting for constants etc: http://dominion.isotropic.org/faq/
I've looked through these and don't really understand what's going on or how to apply it to this discussion. But I found this bit from the FAQ provided by the Microsoft dudes who developed the TrueSkill ranking that Doug has adapted for Isotropic (this is about an Xbox racing game where the results are that you come in 1st, 2nd, etc.):
"Roughly speaking, the change in your skill estimate depends on how "surprising" the game outcome is. If you happen to be (among) the player(s) with the highest skill in each of the games you played, then the 25 wins were not surprising and hence none of these games provided a significant increase in your skill estimate. However, if coming 5th was a rather unlikely outcome in the game were you actually did come fifth, then your skill needs to be adapted significantly. Another way of seeing the issue is that TrueSkill does take the strength of the opposition into account. One cannot simply compute the win ratio and equate this with skill; if all wins happen in ... unbalanced games then a win is not really testament to your (even) high(er) skill!"
Rrenaud's note makes sense to me, so sure, maybe the guy/girl is just cherry-picking his opponents (in this case, automatch is a cherry picker). I just haven't found any notes from Doug or the TrueSkill developers that suggest that beating people who are much weaker than you is even a viable way to get to the top of the leaderboard.
And the experience of people who have found their (formerly high) rankings dip after they have started using automatch seems to support the idea that you need to beat similarly ranked people to get ahead. Presumably, these people were randomly matched against weaker opponents -- their loses were worse for them, because they weren't supposed to lose, so they suffered in the rankings.
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I looked on this this mornig, and I think it's a lot depending on the constants. First, they don't give an explicit formula for this nu-Funktion, but prob, one can find it on the internetz.The quotient of nu( (mu_1-mu_2)/c, epsilon/c) and nu( mu_2-mu_1)/c, epsilon/c) must correspond to the probability, that player1 wins (or loose, don't want to think about the sign) against player2, in order to not in- or deflate ratings due to playing lower opponents.
So more or less everything depends on the choice of beta, which directly enters in the c, if it's to high (or low, don't want to think about the sign) you can gain rating by slaughtering lowies, if it's to low (or high....) you will lose rating when playing lowies.
And I think it is reasonable to assume that the "correct" balanced values of beta would not be the same for all levels,which would explain the different experiences of Thisisnotasmile and me in contrast to what top players will see.
Edit: In this case it can well be that the parameters are optimal in the sense that they optimize the overall likelihoods, which does not prevent them from being "wrong" at the top edge (or anywhere else) of the ladder.
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TrueSkill has a parameter that is supposed to measure how random the game outcome is. You'd expect this to be very high for a game like chutes and ladders or Rock Paper Scissors, and low for Chess. If the parameter is very high, the model thinks that the games are very random, and then the model thinks that it requires very much skill to do better than 50/50, and so it compensates you by giving you a huge level for winning frequently, even against low rated players ("omg, it's AMAZING that you win this mostly random game so often!"). On the other hand, if the parameter is very low, then the model thinks that even with a small skill advantage, you should almost certainly beat a somewhat lower rated player, and it will penalize you harshly for losing ("it must have been lack of skill, and not luck, that made you win, therefore, you certainly aren't as good as I used to think you were").
I suspect the parameter is not optimally tuned on isotropic.
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First, they don't give an explicit formula for this nu-Funktion, but prob, one can find it on the internetz.The quotient of nu( (mu_1-mu_2)/c, epsilon/c) and nu( mu_2-mu_1)/c, epsilon/c)
<3 Deutschland
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For me it definitely seems harder to bloat your rank by playing random opponents. My personal high (lv 42) comes in when I played more with higher ranked players. When I play with automatch, like I almost always do nowadays, I stuck at lv 38-39.
It's hard to imagine there is a strategy which benefits more at playing noobs, unless one chooses the setup purposefully. It is nevertheless possible that playing noobs does not distinguish between certain skills and some players can benefit from that. It is hard to think one can just top the chart by doing this though.
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TrueSkill has a parameter that is supposed to measure how random the game outcome is. You'd expect this to be very high for a game like chutes and ladders or Rock Paper Scissors, and low for Chess. If the parameter is very high, the model thinks that the games are very random, and then the model thinks that it requires very much skill to do better than 50/50, and so it compensates you by giving you a huge level for winning frequently, even against low rated players ("omg, it's AMAZING that you win this mostly random game so often!"). On the other hand, if the parameter is very low, then the model thinks that even with a small skill advantage, you should almost certainly beat a somewhat lower rated player, and it will penalize you harshly for losing ("it must have been lack of skill, and not luck, that made you win, therefore, you certainly aren't as good as I used to think you were").
I suspect the parameter is not optimally tuned on isotropic.
It appears, then, based on the statements of others saying that tat would not accept their game requests, that the parameter is high, possibly a little too high. That being said, there really is a fair amount of randomness in any given Dominion game. Right from possibly only one person hitting the 5/2 start, down through each shuffle of each deck (not considering strategies that reduce shuffle luck, which can be a measure of player skill). If the obvious path to victory in a given game is Big Money, with no variants, and both players know this and play accordingly, then you bet the inherent randomness of the game is going to drive the victory towards a coin flip, regardless of the players' designated skill levels coming in.
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Yeah. But the thing is, that you only have one parameter to tune the randomness. If you now tune it by "usual" games where people with more or less equal skill meets each other, and than extrapolate this by this Gaussian density function to games with high difference in levels, the assumption about the randomness might be completly wrong. You should even expect this.
It might even get worse. No matter on which set of games you estimate the parameters, if you manually decide to play on a set with completely different properties (like it seems to be the case here), than you the estimator of the randomness might be wrong.
The only exception is if the reality really has this Gaussian behaviour with the same constant for all kind of games, top player against top player, bad player against bad player, top player against bad player... . Where I see no reason why this should be the case. Of course, we could just have the wrong parameter, but than Thisisnotasmile and me should not have the feeling that we loose rating by automatching while the top players seems to win rating when they do.
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TrueSkill has a parameter that is supposed to measure how random the game outcome is. You'd expect this to be very high for a game like chutes and ladders or Rock Paper Scissors, and low for Chess. If the parameter is very high, the model thinks that the games are very random, and then the model thinks that it requires very much skill to do better than 50/50, and so it compensates you by giving you a huge level for winning frequently, even against low rated players ("omg, it's AMAZING that you win this mostly random game so often!"). On the other hand, if the parameter is very low, then the model thinks that even with a small skill advantage, you should almost certainly beat a somewhat lower rated player, and it will penalize you harshly for losing ("it must have been lack of skill, and not luck, that made you win, therefore, you certainly aren't as good as I used to think you were").
I suspect the parameter is not optimally tuned on isotropic.
I suspect it's tuned to the average player, and tat plays in a way that is less random than usual.
Now, it may be that the distribution isn't Gaussian, and that high-level players are always less random. Or it could be something in particular about the way that tat plays.
Regardless, Doug probably shouldn't turn down the randomness factor: if he turned it down to less than the average, then people who care about their rank wouldn't want to play lower-ranked players. (Which they already don't, to some extent, despite tat's counterexample.)
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Regardless, Doug probably shouldn't turn down the randomness factor: if he turned it down to less than the average, then people who care about their rank wouldn't want to play lower-ranked players. (Which they already don't, to some extent, despite tat's counterexample.)
And it's this that I don't get. Why is everyone so invested in this number? Why are people so deathly afraid of dropping in rank?
Said another way... everyone has to start somewhere. Whether you're level 2 or level 42, you started at level 0. Just because you refuse to play a lower "ranked" player (quotes intentional) now, doesn't mean that player isn't actually good, or isn't even actually better than you are. What, you're going to wait until their level surpasses yours, then mystically accept the challenge, as they're now "worthy" of you?
The number is nowhere near as important as some people make it out to be. This quote above can give rise to the argument that tat's actually "doing it right".
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Hmm, the quote talked about "people who care about their rank". I't does not say this is "everyone". And pretty much by definition this group is "interested in this number."
Btw. you start with level 0, but your mean skill is 25 (with 3sigma=+-25). Of course on does not see this in the lobby, but the "best estimate" of TS of your skill is 25 (with a pretty high variance).
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Fine, you're taking "everyone" to it's extreme. How about "everyone that is passionate enough about the number to come onto a message board and abduct a topic to complain that someone else has a higher number than they do".
By the way, I'm part of this group, and I'm not "interested in this number", in the sense that it's being argued about here. So, it goes both ways.
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Highly competitive players want to be the best. The ladder is some proxy measurement of the best player. When the proxy measurement is poor, it's frustrating/annoying to try to optimize ranking purely by improving play. If the system was perfect, improving play would be the only way to improve ranking. But you strongly suspect that the top player is there not because of great play, but because of good ranking system gamesmanship.
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Looking at tat's councilroom stats (http://councilroom.com/player?player=tat), he is 1 - 3 against ARTjoMS. Assuming this ARTjoMS is Latvia who currently has a ranking of 41, there are at least a few games of a highly ranked player against him.
I'm afraid when i played these games i wasn't high ranked player yet. After looking on dates my level probably wasn't higher that 15.
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Ok, I've been away from awhile doing other things, but it will be ready tonight. Along with 10.
Thanks for being patient (and discussing a nonposted article for 3 pages).
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Ok, I've been away from awhile doing other things, but it will be ready tonight. Along with 10.
Thanks for being patient (and discussing a nonposted article for 3 pages).
On that note, you might consider starting a new thread for the article. Perhaps rrenaud or theory can retitle this one to something about leaderboard debates.
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I'm with ackack on starting a new article for "making it to level 42".
That said, I usually automatch and vary from level 23-31, and I learned not to worry too much about level, but when I turn automatch off, it's difficult to find a 31+ level player to propose a game with. Automatch works so fluidly that I almost agree with tat and automatch is the way to go to play many games. Trying to propose games just slows you down... I agree with the people backing up tat knowing whoever that person is, they are good at Dominion.
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I just got a curious proposal for a game so I decided to look up the proposer's Council Room page. I'll let it speak for itself.
http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=HornyToad (http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=HornyToad)
Say what you want about tat, but at least he plays the game.
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The title is still a bit unclear to me. Why excactly 42 and not like #1 Leaderboard :-) Otherwise I should not read your expected good article :P
http://www.google.com/search?q=answer%20to%20life%20the%20universe%20and%20everything
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14217443
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Dig the new title. :P
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Dig the new title. :P
I'll take credit for that?
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Guys I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but it's like all of you are missing the point with the player we're discussing on purpose:
tat doesn't automatch*. Automatching isn't an issue here. tat selects his opponents so he never plays strong players. Plenty of strong players in here are reporting challenging him, and him never playing them. Looking over his playing history confirms this. That's what I take issue with and think is lame, I didn't even mention automatching in this thread until very late in response to others talking about it.
Automatching is, as far as I know, a pretty sweet system I don't have many problems with.
*It's possible that he does use automatch, I don't know. It's not all he does though (see above).
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(S)He does use automatch. Someone in this topic stated that they know tat uses automatch because they got automatched against tat. Some people who automatch don't accept direct challenges because... you know... they automatch and a direct challenge is not an automatch. Try automatching when tat is around. See if you get automatched against him (her). If (s)he declines that match, THEN you can come back here and whine about tat. Until then you can't.
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Didn't feel like responding to my previous post huh? :p No worries man, it's all good.
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I just got a curious proposal for a game so I decided to look up the proposer's Council Room page. I'll let it speak for itself.
http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=HornyToad (http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=HornyToad)
Say what you want about tat, but at least he plays the game.
While I enjoy playing random just like anyone, I play predefined sets on occasion - I think it's still "playing the game." There are predefined sets directly in the rule book such as:
"For the first game, we recommend using the following 10 Kingdom cards: Cellar, Market, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter, and Workshop."
The aforementioned player wacked me with a predefined set but I knew what I was getting into... isotropic is kind enough to alert you about the constraints used.
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Didn't feel like responding to my previous post huh? :p No worries man, it's all good.
I figured you are one of those "must have the final word" people so I left it. I mean, what's the point in responding to the same thing over and over again if each time you're just going to put words in my mouth and argue against whatever you want to argue against rather than what was actually said? I've made my point and it seems there are plenty of people who paid attention to it and accepted it as a point that had been put forward in the discussion. Just because you are not one of those people doesn't mean that I must continue to repeat myself.
Go ahead... make some smart comment and twist my words. You know you want to.
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While I enjoy playing random just like anyone, I play predefined sets on occasion - I think it's still "playing the game." There are predefined sets directly in the rule book such as:
"For the first game, we recommend using the following 10 Kingdom cards: Cellar, Market, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter, and Workshop."
The aforementioned player wacked me with a predefined set but I knew what I was getting into... isotropic is kind enough to alert you about the constraints used.
I have no problem with predefined sets on occasion (or even refusing to play with high variance cards/sets as many players do), but this is hardly on occasion.
I did a quick exercise and repeatedly chose 3 of his/her 10 kingdom card preferences (i.e. Vault/Grand Market/Peddler, Tactician/Smugglers/Tournament) to search through my 3K+ games and found that I've only played 0-3 games with such trios. Virtually all of this player's games are with the same predefined set which I find to be outside the spirit of Dominion because part of the beauty of the game is the challenge of formulating a strategy as you analyze the opening kingdom set.
Furthermore, I can't imagine this player doesn't hold a significant edge over his/her opponents by having gained so much experience playing the same kingdom set over and over. Would you regularly play a chess game where the first four moves were predetermined and your opponent had played the game hundreds of times before? What about a Texas Hold'em game where the hands were void if there wasn't a flush draw on the flop? How did we feel when we played our first KC/KC/Goons/Masquerade game prior to being aware of the combo?
Artificially limiting the rules of any game in a way that maximizes your advantage over the opponent seems lame in my opinion. And yes, I realize it's my opinion.
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While I enjoy playing random just like anyone, I play predefined sets on occasion - I think it's still "playing the game." There are predefined sets directly in the rule book such as:
"For the first game, we recommend using the following 10 Kingdom cards: Cellar, Market, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter, and Workshop."
The aforementioned player wacked me with a predefined set but I knew what I was getting into... isotropic is kind enough to alert you about the constraints used.
I have no problem with predefined sets on occasion (or even refusing to play with high variance cards/sets as many players do), but this is hardly on occasion.
I did a quick exercise and repeatedly chose 3 of his/her 10 kingdom card preferences (i.e. Vault/Grand Market/Peddler, Tactician/Smugglers/Tournament) to search through my 3K+ games and found that I've only played 0-3 games with such trios. Virtually all of this player's games are with the same predefined set which I find to be outside the spirit of Dominion because part of the beauty of the game is the challenge of formulating a strategy as you analyze the opening kingdom set.
Furthermore, I can't imagine this player doesn't hold a significant edge over his/her opponents by having gained so much experience playing the same kingdom set over and over. Would you regularly play a chess game where the first four moves were predetermined and your opponent had played the game hundreds of times before? What about a Texas Hold'em game where the hands were void if there wasn't a flush draw on the flop? How did we feel when we played our first KC/KC/Goons/Masquerade game prior to being aware of the combo?
Artificially limiting the rules of any game in a way that maximizes your advantage over the opponent seems lame in my opinion. And yes, I realize it's my opinion.
I'll concede that if all one does is use constraints to their advantage it could be viewed as out of the spirit of the game in the popular way that many people enjoy Dominion. My play group occasionally plays predefined sets (usually the ones in the rule books, and sometimes people will just propose a custom set). So I've taken that into my isotropic play and, in addition to playing random, I use predefined sets (like the starter set, custom sets, etc.). Sure, I said "occasionally" regarding my playgroup. However, predefined sets are in the rules, and therefore part of the game, and to some people, it's in the spirit of the game they enjoy. I can't recall the URL but I've seen a web site listing predefined Dominion sets people have created. I understand your points and your views - I respect that your opinion is probably popular opinion. And I mostly share that opinion, except for that I also see the side that predefined sets are also part of the game, a valid way to play the game, one supported by isotropic, and there is at least a niche group of people that enjoy that way.
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I'll throw in my support of sticking to predefined sets, if that's what someone wants to do. Like tko, I totally respect anyone who doesn't like this or feels it's outside the spirit of Dominion as a whole. And if someone does this only to climb the ratings ladder, that's kind of lame.
But to speak in favor, the fact is that some cards are more fun than others. Most people prefer playing with some cards vs. others, and with some that difference might be enough to mean the difference between a fun game and an unfun one. If someone loves Dominion purely for Grand Market, by all means, celebrate it.
The analogy to chess has a flaw, but, even so, it also offers an argument in favor. The flaw is that the rules of Dominion specify that the kingdom cards can be chosen in any way, whereas the rules of Chess don't specify that a player may dictate any of his opponent's moves.
And yet, when one makes a proper study of Chess and gets serious about learning how to play it competitively, one will frequently study a particular opening at time, exhaustively and in great depth. You don't explore one Sicilian variant, then move on to an English game, then a Queen's Gambit, and postpone refining your Sicilian study until it happens to come up again.
How do you study Dominion that way? Play with specific kingdom cards over and over again, refining your study of them before moving on to other cards. Since the rules of the game allow for this, whereas Chess doesn't, that study can be conducted in real live games, which is going to be more helpful than if you're just playing solitaire (in which case you really don't know if you're playing the optimal strategy) or against a computer program (none of which are nearly so good at Dominion as they can be at Chess).
As far as I can tell, the only reason this is an issue is that it leads to questionable placement in the ratings ladder. But as that should be taken with a grain of salt anyway, who cares?
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There are enough people that play "require=colony,platinum" that you can't really say claim that "require=grandmarket,peddler,etc" is unreasonable.
I don't play with any of them, but i'm sure some people do and are fine with either. Live & Let Live
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Well, if I would always play with my best cards (high winrates, more experience, low luck factor) it will be very lame...same like only playing beginners and not any good player.
Btw I never saw "tat" in the lobby anytime, so I could not even ask for a game :-)
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There are enough people that play "require=colony,platinum" that you can't really say claim that "require=grandmarket,peddler,etc" is unreasonable.
I prefer unrestricted games as well, but it's clear to me these two sets of restrictions are not remotely comparable.
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I don't care much about the drama on Isotropic. All I know is I'm 2-0 against the top player 8)
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(S)He does use automatch. Someone in this topic stated that they know tat uses automatch because they got automatched against tat. Some people who automatch don't accept direct challenges because... you know... they automatch and a direct challenge is not an automatch. Try automatching when tat is around. See if you get automatched against him (her). If (s)he declines that match, THEN you can come back here and whine about tat. Until then you can't.
S/he may use the automatch function, but s/he does not automatch in spirit--or, put a different way, s/he is gaming the automatch system. When I'm automatching, out of every 10 games I usually hit 2 or 3 players at my level +-10 (15-35). Tat doesn't seem to play anyone above level 15 or so, ever. Which means s/he is declining any automatch games against higher-level players.
See, playing automatch is supposed to make things sort of a melange of Swiss, random, and round robin. In a tournament setting, not showing up for a match means you forfeit. On the ladder, however, declining a match does nothing to your rating. So you can jump in and out of automatch status, declining anyone with a rating higher than 15, and it doesn't affect you.
While TINAS is technically correct, the chances of someone reading this thread, who is above level 15, getting randomly matched with tat, is pretty low. And if he doesn't accept match proposals, then obviously it's not something we can directly test unless this random happenstance occurs.
But then, maybe he does accept proposals and not only automatches... in which case someone just needs to propose to him from a registered level 1 or 2 account...
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FWIW, I've been automatched with tat and declined.
For full disclosure though, I will decline matches with top players if I'm just not in the mood for an intense game.
I have no problem with tat's selectivity with opponents. I would think that one day he/she would want to see how he/she stacks up against some other top players.
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I don't want to get into this discussion too much, but if anyone thinks that playing bad players is a good way to boost your level, I would encourage you to try it. It is much, much more difficult than it seems to consistently beat randomly-selected bad players.
Also, whatever tat's doing, it's certainly more ethical than Larry's route of hitting #1, which was playing (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110306-210815-1f9d88ec.html) fake (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110317-071941-93634f0a.html) opponents.
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It seems lots of people care about the ranking. So... why don't we have a more serious one? Since there is already this auto-match function, I don't think it requires a lot of modification. Rules may be something like this:
(i) you don't get to choose your opponent. The system chooses one player randomly, with a higher probability toward one with similar levels: (say a Gaussian distribution, with standard deviation 10 levels) once selected you cannot decline.
(ii) you can only play the same opponent, say 2 times a day.
(iii) you may ban say up to 5 cards, but you may not select cards.
(iv) 3 seconds after every move, there is a clock counting. For each move there is a max, say 3 mins to think, and 10 mins total for a game. (Mainly exist to prevent from dragging opponents, since you cannot decline them)
Does this sound fair?
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- I think a serious ladder should not allow any card bans at all, or if it does use them they should be universal.
- Some games are inherently lengthy, and action chains can take a long time to play out. I think this makes timing games difficult. I think you want something more like the Fischer clock - a set amount of time for the whole game that is incremented each turn. You'd then keep the individual turn time out, as well.
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I don't want to get into this discussion too much, but if anyone thinks that playing bad players is a good way to boost your level, I would encourage you to try it.
Agreed. You need to have a 75%+ record against low-level players to get much benefit out of it. I'm sure we could calculate the approximate ratio. Tat does better than that, which suggests that playing against high-level opponents would, likely, be just as good if not better for him/her. But then again those matches might take longer.
It seems lots of people care about the ranking. So... why don't we have a more serious one? Since there is already this auto-match function, I don't think it requires a lot of modification. Rules may be something like this:
Heh, your first two rules are pretty much the matching rules for Starcraft 2. Decline an automatch? You forfeited. I find the addition of a timer interesting, but I wouldn't set a final time-control like that; certain boards are going to take longer than 10 minutes per side.
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It seems I didn't state the timing rule I have in mind clear enough. You have (say) 3 seconds per move (play an action, buy a card, etc); only after the 3 seconds the timer starts to tick. This way I think 10-minute total thinking time is fair.
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It seems lots of people care about the ranking. So... why don't we have a more serious one? Since there is already this auto-match function, I don't think it requires a lot of modification. Rules may be something like this:
(i) you don't get to choose your opponent. The system chooses one player randomly, with a higher probability toward one with similar levels: (say a Gaussian distribution, with standard deviation 10 levels) once selected you cannot decline.
(ii) you can only play the same opponent, say 2 times a day.
(iii) you may ban say up to 5 cards, but you may not select cards.
(iv) 3 seconds after every move, there is a clock counting. For each move there is a max, say 3 mins to think, and 10 mins total for a game. (Mainly exist to prevent from dragging opponents, since you cannot decline them)
Does this sound fair?
TrueSkill is designed for automatching, and it always surprises me that DougZ doesn't use that part of it (I suppose it has fiddly edge cases when few people are automatching, and it might not be worth the time to code it when the official version might drop any week). The idea is just to choose players so that their win probability against each other is close to 50%.
Banning up to 5 cards sounds quite exploitable. You could ban all the attacks that dilute your deck the most, for example, and then you basically only have to know how to play money-centric strategies.
I like the idea of a timer.
Of course, all this would depend on either Isotropic logging more information (who declined which games, who played when, etc.) that could be used by a separate ladder, or the mysterious developers of the official version listening to these ideas.
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I don't want to get into this discussion too much, but if anyone thinks that playing bad players is a good way to boost your level, I would encourage you to try it. It is much, much more difficult than it seems to consistently beat randomly-selected bad players.
I will second this. I'm guilty of caring about my rating too much, but the advent of automatch has killed me. I've been as high as 42... and now i'm stuck down at 36. Previously I always challenged the highest ranked player.
I think the "problem" is that the win probability between levels can vary quite a bit, and varies significantly based on the cards on the table.
Some tables have very obvious or limited strategies. Those games are likely to be "flatter" in terms of the relationship between win% and player skill. Other games might have cards with significant variance.
Using treasure map as an example. Without help, treasure map is usually a bad play. If I played 100 games with theory, and he went un-assisted treasure map every time, I would expect to beat him about 60-70% of the time. However, when it hits on turn 5 - its going to be very tough to beat. I don't remember the exact % of the time, but it is very far from zero.
Lets assume that it's 30%. There's the "good" strategy... that theory and tat know... and there's the "buy only treasure map strategy", that anyone can see. If the true skill model looks at theories level, and then a lvl 5 guy (we'll call him "chump", and assumes that the Chump only has a 12% chance to win against the great and all powerful theory, then all Chump has to do is play treasure map every time, and he'll gain levels while theory loses them.
So - by putting some control over the table, you can influence your ranking. Ideally - if you're a good player, you want to bias the table to cards that reward skillful play with minimal variance. If you're a bad player, you want to increase the variance as much as possible, to make the game result much closer to a coin flip.
You can look at the logs of folks out there to see what constraints they put on their games... and come to your own conclusions.
One final leaderboard gaming tip:
Because isotropic assigns starting player advantage based on most recent result, any time you lose, you should make sure you use that advantage on as high ranked opponent as you can. The first player advantage is anywhere from 2-15% (its 8% for tat, and 12% for theory), and you want to cash that in for as much as you can.
I agree with most of the comments that the leaderboard should be fully random (seat order chosen randomly, you don't know who your opponent is, what cards are chosen, no constraints). Maybe this should be a separate leaderboard, but as long as you can control your the shape of your game and your opponents, there will be people who will game it. I'm half tempted to intentionally throw 50 games in a row to someone just to skyrocket them to the top.
Then, you gotta remember that its just a number, and of the N thousand people playing dominion on isotropic, there are probably only 50 really care about the topic.
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I dislike
(iii) you may ban say up to 5 cards, but you may not select cards.
but otherwise like your scheme. Alternatively, you may ban cards, but then your rating is penalized to some degree for playing not quite uniformly random dominion.
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I had a look back a number of Tat's games in the council room and they were well played, in my humble opinion. Most of the losses came from bad draws and/or heavy attacks and there were very few blunders. I hope nobody ever looks back through my games since there are some truly awful games as well as the good ones. Tat's style seemed to be based on creating very strong engines that cashed in late for multiple vp cards each turn. It would be nice to see that tested against opponents who can acquire vp much faster and don't allow him/her to get 9 hunting parties.
As for selecting games for ranking points, well I guess I'm failing at that. I mostly just let other people challenge me.
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Is this "player bashing" really necessary?
How do we know Larry was playing fake opponents? How do you know tat is intentionally playing weaker players in order to inflate his or her rating? We don't!
Maybe players are gaming the system. But who cares? It is only a silly leaderboard, and a simple fact about ranking systems (i.e. leaderboards) is that they are never perfect. There is always going to be a way to game them; there is always going to be glitches. That is just how it works.
EVEN IF players are gaming the system in shady ways, we shouldn't be "bashing" players of things we "think" or "suspect" they might be doing. They might log on here (or might already be) and feel very unwelcome very quickly.
Heck, they might just be doing it to see if they can do it.
If anything, we should be suggesting ways to fix the system as opposed to berating players that might appear to gaming it.
Speaking of the leaderboard, where is theory?
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Speaking of the leaderboard, where is theory?
Taking the bar exam I expect. I believe your name disappears if you're inactive for about 10 days?
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I don't want to get into this discussion too much, but if anyone thinks that playing bad players is a good way to boost your level, I would encourage you to try it. It is much, much more difficult than it seems to consistently beat randomly-selected bad players.
I will second this. I'm guilty of caring about my rating too much, but the advent of automatch has killed me. I've been as high as 42... and now i'm stuck down at 36. Previously I always challenged the highest ranked player.
Curious... because I am of the inclination that I would drop precipitously in ranking if I didn't automatch and challenged the highest rank player. Weird.
Maybe it's the sheer volume of my games, maybe there's a bug in the code that ranks me differently, but my personal experience seems to indicate that losing to low-level players isn't a big deal. I quite frequently lose games to low-level players unnecessarily for non-game-related reasons (I started a game I didn't have time to finish, my internet connection can be spotty and I get disconnected somewhat often, I'm on raging-tilt and rage resign on the first few turns because I have no patience for even the slightest things like boards I just don't feel like playing ... OK maybe this last one is game-related). I do recall dropping 30-40 rankings after a particular rage-induced streak, but was soon back in the Top 10 and I don't recall any notable victories over top players during that comeback.
I don't really know what I'm trying to say other than I believe my experience playing low level players is drastically different from that of others. I think I'll try challenging the highest ranked player for a period and see how it goes.
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Speaking of the leaderboard, where is theory?
Taking the bar exam I expect. I believe your name disappears if you're inactive for about 10 days?
I thought it was 2, actually. Not very many, at any rate.
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Wow - I just got sucked into reading this whole thread. I had no idea there was this kind of vitriol around the top of the leaderboard.
I'm nowhere near the top of the leaderboard (high 20s, low 30s lately), but I think the real reason to care about your rank (at least why I care about my rank) is that you can get matched against better players. I suppose some people want to play lower ranked opponents to beat up on them, but a lot of people (myself), want to play similar or better opponents for a good game, or to get better. Auto-matching has obviously changed things, but I decline auto-matches all the time from lower ranked players. They may be good, and they may beat me if we played, but it's not a very fun game when I am auto-matched against someone and they buy a mine instead of a mountebank with their 5/2 opening.
That's why (I think) your rank matters, and why I care about mine. I have no idea how the ranking system work (beyond, win and you move up proportionately to who you beat), but it's pretty accurate in that people towards the top of the leaderboard usually beat me, and I usually beat people who are 10 levels below me.
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I believe your name disappears if you're inactive for about 10 days?
I thought it was 2, actually. Not very many, at any rate.
I think it's a week.
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I don't want to get into this discussion too much, but if anyone thinks that playing bad players is a good way to boost your level, I would encourage you to try it.
Agreed. You need to have a 75%+ record against low-level players to get much benefit out of it. I'm sure we could calculate the approximate ratio. Tat does better than that, which suggests that playing against high-level opponents would, likely, be just as good if not better for him/her. But then again those matches might take longer.
It seems lots of people care about the ranking. So... why don't we have a more serious one? Since there is already this auto-match function, I don't think it requires a lot of modification. Rules may be something like this:
75 % wins against weak opponents isnt that hard in 1on1. I got 72 % in 3 player games with automatch (many weak players, but sometimes at least a level 20+ player...). With a lesser amount of variance in 2 player games reaching that numbers is not that much of a deal, if you play thoroughly and with reason.
And guys, its the leaderboard...I cant imagine of anythink more important when playing, since there are like no Tournaments out there.
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I don't want to get into this discussion too much, but if anyone thinks that playing bad players is a good way to boost your level, I would encourage you to try it.
Agreed. You need to have a 75%+ record against low-level players to get much benefit out of it. I'm sure we could calculate the approximate ratio. Tat does better than that, which suggests that playing against high-level opponents would, likely, be just as good if not better for him/her. But then again those matches might take longer.
It seems lots of people care about the ranking. So... why don't we have a more serious one? Since there is already this auto-match function, I don't think it requires a lot of modification. Rules may be something like this:
75 % wins against weak opponents isnt that hard in 1on1. I got 72 % in 3 player games with automatch (many weak players, but sometimes at least a level 20+ player...). With a lesser amount of variance in 2 player games reaching that numbers is not that much of a deal, if you play thoroughly and with reason.
And guys, its the leaderboard...I cant imagine of anythink more important when playing, since there are like no Tournaments out there.
Fun?
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I mean who really cares about the exact position in the leaderboard? Basically players around 20 are good, but not great. Above 30 players really know what they do and are hard to beat... well, and >40 are just top-notch and the best around.
Anything beyond this differentiation is just childish and doesn't get you anywhere.
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I mean who really cares about the exact position in the leaderboard? Basically players around 20 are good, but not great. Above 30 players really know what they do and are hard to beat... well, and >40 are just top-notch and the best around.
Anything beyond this differentiation is just childish and doesn't get you anywhere.
I think different people get different levels of interest/enjoyment out of the true skill system, but I tend to subscribe to kn1tt3r's point of view. I like to know what general percentile of players I'm surrounded by, but whether Blooki or Tat is the best player doesn't really matter. Others feel differently, and that's cool.
Playing against Blooki or DG, or Theory, or Yaron, or whoever is in that top range of players is always going to be a fun challenge. The important thing about this site is that we're building a community of players of different skill ranges who can challenge each other, formulate new strategies, and most importantly, have fun.
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I mean who really cares about the exact position in the leaderboard? Basically players around 20 are good, but not great. Above 30 players really know what they do and are hard to beat... well, and >40 are just top-notch and the best around.
Anything beyond this differentiation is just childish and doesn't get you anywhere.
Agreed... we should all calm down. But even you point out that people with level >40 are top notch and the best around. Right now there are 15 people who meet that criteria, and another ~50 within striking distance. The question is... does the current ranking system really accurately rank those people, or are there ways to game the system? If there are ways to game the system, should it be improved to prevent that "abuse"?
Selfishly, I'd like a way to reliably compete against other top players. Some folks, like theory & Celicath are pretty good about accepting any challenges (the fact that theory finally ended up with a winning record against me upsets me to no end). Other folks, I've never been able to play.
For the remaining 5,400 people on the leaderboard, the system works pretty well. Any change made for the 100 people who really really care about their rank shouldn't come at a burden for the remaining 98%.
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I think it's a week.
In any case, we will find out. I am off for a week.
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Metzgerism is looking at the format and options for the bgg league again. If anyone wants a competitive league they can contribute some time and opinions. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/592845/commissioners-take-on-the-bggdl/page/6 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/592845/commissioners-take-on-the-bggdl/page/6)
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Hi all...
Just wanted to announce my existence by saying that I just beat tat! ;D
We played very similar games, utilising Shanty Town, and not too many other action cards, and I managed to come out on top 29 to 28 after 15 turns each.
I am a lowly level 13 (although I imagine that has now been boosted somewhat) having played about 145 games on Isotropic and won roughly half.
Just to point out, he didn't use automatch, he proposed a game with me, prohibited Alchemist, Possession and Treasure Map, and gave us identical starting hands.
Anyway, I'm sorry if this comes across as if I'm talking myself up, I realise I'm not even close to being in the same league as a level 30+, I was just reading this thread the other day and thought I could contribute having played him.
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Next time you play him ask him why does he chooses opponents so. He seems to be a very good player and would be near top anyway.
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Warning: slightly off-topic, but I wasn't sure where else to post this.
It seems like most people (with the possible exception of Blooki?) have found that automatch brings their rank towards roughly 25 (i.e., towards the rough center of the distribution of possible rankings). Players ranked lower than the mid-20s generally seem to move up when they start playing only (or mostly) automatch, while players ranked higher than the mid-20s generally move down. Admittedly, this is based on a very small sample size—the people who've posted here, and my friends in RL who play on isotropic.
Does this pattern make sense, and/or do people think I am imagining this pattern? Can anyone explain why automatch might do this?
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I play a lot of automatch, though not exclusively automatch, and I'm at level 40 as of today. Dunno what I'd be if I didn't automatch.
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I have used automatch all but exclusively since it was implemented, and my level has been on a continuous upward trajectory since I started keeping track of it on March 18, which was long before automatch was implemented. (There have been a few downward-trending days, but the overall trend is up)
I'd be more than willing to suggest that "most people" are actually level 25s, and therefore will tend to gravitate towards that when they play enough matches.
However, if someone were to post the date of the introduction of automatch, and it is within a week of june 5, then i may have to revise my statement.
*I Found a post on BGG referencing automatch on May 14, which indicates that my dip during the week of june 5 was unrelated to automatch
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If you are searching for random data points, I'll add mine.
I was around 24-25 before automatch, and I now hover around 19-21, so I went down. However, I think this has more to do with me playing less, which has increased my variance, and probably also made my actual level of play drop.
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So i had an opportunity to play vs. tat and did ask him some questions.
me: you usually don't play high ranked players, why so?
tat: coz there are few top players when i appear
me: they say that you reject their invitations
tat: i do have preferences over cards, so i dun play some card set
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I had a game against tat a few days ago too, actually. We both opened chapel/silver, and then on our first $5s I got a Mountebank and he got I think a Laboratory. By turn 14 I had four provinces and he had none, and he resigned (reasonable) saying I got lucky (not very reasonable).
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#1 with a bullet.
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FWIW, I was automatched against tat fairly recently, when my level was somewhere between 34 and 37, and he accepted and won, 3 to -1. I thought he played quite well, though I also thought he was beatable.
Only one data point, of course, but I'm pretty sure that claims that he is not a good player or that he never plays anyone above level 15 are not true.
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Just to satisfy my own curiosity, can you find me a post where either of those claims is made? It's possible I missed it.
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I had a game against tat a few days ago too, actually. We both opened chapel/silver, and then on our first $5s I got a Mountebank and he got I think a Laboratory. By turn 14 I had four provinces and he had none, and he resigned (reasonable) saying I got lucky (not very reasonable).
Huh, it's an interesting game:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110821-223759-788f4a2c.html
Very unusual, with both of your Chapels landing in turn 5.
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I think he legitimately got unlucky. Mountebank was his second $5 buy, but it was swallowed by his only native village, which delayed it, he never got to discard curses to avoid mountebank for ages, and his two chapels never let him trash any estates until turn 9 despite having the laboratory to support it.
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And his two chapels collided the shuffle right after he bought his second chapel.