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[Titandrake]

Got over 6k on Goko.

I have no idea how that translates to Iso level, but yay, round numbers! We'll see how long it lasts.

Edit: Aaaaaand it's gone. Oh well.

[Blueswan]

Congrats. I'm playing bots exclusively but seem to be stuck right around 5k. I usually beat the bots but just one loss sets me back quite a bit.

[Vermillion]

Congrats. I'm playing bots exclusively but seem to be stuck right around 5k. I usually beat the bots but just one loss sets me back quite a bit.

That's ridiculous that you can get that high playing stupid bots. How is that in any way justifiable?

[Titandrake]

The bots are still players in the system, and their ratings change appropriately based on their wins and losses, so the bots should let you gain ranking. It's also a decent way to get a 4000 pro rating to get into "4000+" games.

[ragingduckd]

Congrats. I'm playing bots exclusively but seem to be stuck right around 5k. I usually beat the bots but just one loss sets me back quite a bit.

That's ridiculous that you can get that high playing stupid bots. How is that in any way justifiable?

@Vermillion: It's more than justifiable.  If anything, blueswan is holding his rating down by playing the bots.  He's already rated 1500-2000 pts higher than them, and the consensus around here is that it's much harder to gain points from lower rated opponents than from higher-rated ones.

@Blueswan: Dude, it's time.  You've learned all you can from the bots.  Leave the minors and come play with the big boys!

[Blueswan]

@Blueswan: Dude, it's time.  You've learned all you can from the bots.  Leave the minors and come play with the big boys!

Oh, I know. It's just that I still have huge lagging issues with Goko on my desktop computer, which I won't subject human opponents to. I CAN play on my laptop with a minimum of issues and have done on a few occasions, but I really don't like playing on my laptop. I probably have to since I'm quite eager to play more humans.

As for the rating, I typically gain something like 20-30 points beating the highest rated bot, but often lose more than a hundred points when I lose to said bot. So I have to win very consistently to not lose ranking when playing just bots.

[StrongRhino]

Cool. I've been hovering around 5000 for a while now. 5k is a good number because most games will have you.

[zporiri]

Got over 6k on Goko.

I have no idea how that translates to Iso level, but yay, round numbers! We'll see how long it lasts.

me too! i just passed you up by one point

[Vermillion]

Congrats. I'm playing bots exclusively but seem to be stuck right around 5k. I usually beat the bots but just one loss sets me back quite a bit.

That's ridiculous that you can get that high playing stupid bots. How is that in any way justifiable?

@Vermillion: It's more than justifiable.  If anything, blueswan is holding his rating down by playing the bots.  He's already rated 1500-2000 pts higher than them, and the consensus around here is that it's much harder to gain points from lower rated opponents than from higher-rated ones.

@Blueswan: Dude, it's time.  You've learned all you can from the bots.  Leave the minors and come play with the big boys!

I think you need to interpret that 'consensus' to mean 'lower rated human opponents.' Once in a while you run into someone on the up and coming, or one of those 10% of games where a dumb strategy will defeat your smart strategy.

Playing a bot is like pushing a button that gives you an automatic win. I believe that if our friend here switches to playing humans exclusively, his score will drop precipitously until he unlearns the thoughtless strategies that lead to bot 'victories.'

Care for a wager, "Trading Places" style?

[ragingduckd]

Playing a bot is like pushing a button that gives you an automatic win. I believe that if our friend here switches to playing humans exclusively, his score will drop precipitously until he unlearns the thoughtless strategies that lead to bot 'victories.'

Care for a wager, "Trading Places" style?

Sure, I'll bet on blueswan to rise against comparably rated humans, assuming we can bully him into playing on his laptop.

I'm afraid it's been a while since I've seen that movie. Are you suggesting that we bet $1 or that we get blueswan arrested for hiring a prostitute? theft and drug possession?

Edit: I read the IMDB plot synopsis.

[Vermillion]

Playing a bot is like pushing a button that gives you an automatic win. I believe that if our friend here switches to playing humans exclusively, his score will drop precipitously until he unlearns the thoughtless strategies that lead to bot 'victories.'

Care for a wager, "Trading Places" style?

Sure, I'll bet on blueswan to rise against comparably rated humans, assuming we can bully him into playing on his laptop.

I'm afraid it's been a while since I've seen that movie. Are you suggesting that we bet $1 or that we get blueswan arrested for hiring a prostitute? theft and drug possession?

Edit: I read the IMDB plot synopsis.

I don't think you read that right; maybe you should see the movie. And I'm all in favor of hiring Blueswan a prostitute but given his Goko log history, I think he'd prefer a real doll.

But here's the wager I offer:
1) He must play humans for 30 games straight.
2) He must how the game with a game title that is nondescript and must play whomever joins.
3) He may not pre-arrange any games with anyone.

If his score is LOWER than it is now, I win. If it is higher, you win. If it is tied, there is no winner.

Stakes: A physical set of guilds mailed to the winners home and a digital copy as soon as reasonably available.

[StrongRhino]

Playing a bot is like pushing a button that gives you an automatic win. I believe that if our friend here switches to playing humans exclusively, his score will drop precipitously until he unlearns the thoughtless strategies that lead to bot 'victories.'

Care for a wager, "Trading Places" style?

Sure, I'll bet on blueswan to rise against comparably rated humans, assuming we can bully him into playing on his laptop.

I'm afraid it's been a while since I've seen that movie. Are you suggesting that we bet $1 or that we get blueswan arrested for hiring a prostitute? theft and drug possession?

Edit: I read the IMDB plot synopsis.

I don't think you read that right; maybe you should see the movie. And I'm all in favor of hiring Blueswan a prostitute but given his Goko log history, I think he'd prefer a real doll.

But here's the wager I offer:
1) He must play humans for 30 games straight.
2) He must how the game with a game title that is nondescript and must play whomever joins.
3) He may not pre-arrange any games with anyone.

If his score is LOWER than it is now, I win. If it is higher, you win. If it is tied, there is no winner.

Stakes: A physical set of guilds mailed to the winners home and a digital copy as soon as reasonably available.

I like how Blueswan never agreed to this stuff 

[ragingduckd]

I don't think you read that right; maybe you should see the movie. And I'm all in favor of hiring Blueswan a prostitute but given his Goko log history, I think he'd prefer a real doll.

But here's the wager I offer:
1) He must play humans for 30 games straight.
2) He must how the game with a game title that is nondescript and must play whomever joins.
3) He may not pre-arrange any games with anyone.

If his score is LOWER than it is now, I win. If it is higher, you win. If it is tied, there is no winner.

Stakes: A physical set of guilds mailed to the winners home and a digital copy as soon as reasonably available.

I like how Blueswan never agreed to this stuff 

Yeah... and your real doll comment doesn't exactly ring of "all in good fun." I'm only game if blueswan is enthusiastic about it.

[ftl]

If you're really curious, just do it yourself. Spend a few days playing against bots only, then spend a few days playing against people only. Do it in casual mode if you don't feel like experimenting with your pro ranking.

[Titandrake]

Let me get this straight.

Your claim is that if a human beats you with a dumb strategy, that beats your strategy ~10% of the time, this should somehow be different from a bot playing a dumb strategy, and beating your smart strategy ~10% of the time.

Let's suppose you have a human that plays exactly like the bots. This should affect your rating the same way, since to the rating system there is no difference between the bot and the human's play.

You also say that you could be playing against somehow who is rising, and has not reached their true ranking. The inverse is also true. You could be playing against someone who is considerably better, but is on a losing streak and is underestimated by the system. The only difference between playing a bot and playing a human of the same ranking is that the bot is consistently bad, whereas the human could be better or worse than their ranking suggests.

So, if you strongly believe that playing games against humans makes your ranking rise slower than against bots, then you either believe that there are a considerable amount of rising players, or that the Goko ranking system is broken and somehow counts bots differently. The latter seems very unlikely to me, so it comes down to how many people are underestimated vs the number who are overestimated, and my guess is that after around 4000, there's not too many people like that.

(Personally, I actually had some trouble getting to around 4000 just by playing bots, because I was playing Base Only. It turns out my Base only game is garbage.)

[ragingduckd]

You also say that you could be playing against somehow who is rising, and has not reached their true ranking. The inverse is also true. You could be playing against someone who is considerably better, but is on a losing streak and is underestimated by the system.

Did you mean this the other way around?  That some of the humans he plays are overrated after a winning streak?

(Personally, I actually had some trouble getting to around 4000 just by playing bots, because I was playing Base Only. It turns out my Base only game is garbage.)

In my experience, the bots are better at base than at all-cards, but my experience is a bit stale.

[Titandrake]

You also say that you could be playing against somehow who is rising, and has not reached their true ranking. The inverse is also true. You could be playing against someone who is considerably better, but is on a losing streak and is underestimated by the system.

Did you mean this the other way around?  That some of the humans he plays are overrated after a winning streak?

Yes. The correct way to do it is to lump winning streak with rising.

[Kirian]

Playing a bot is like pushing a button that gives you an automatic win. I believe that if our friend here switches to playing humans exclusively, his score will drop precipitously until he unlearns the thoughtless strategies that lead to bot 'victories.'

Care for a wager, "Trading Places" style?

Sure, I'll bet on blueswan to rise against comparably rated humans, assuming we can bully him into playing on his laptop.

I'm afraid it's been a while since I've seen that movie. Are you suggesting that we bet $1 or that we get blueswan arrested for hiring a prostitute? theft and drug possession?

Edit: I read the IMDB plot synopsis.

I don't think you read that right; maybe you should see the movie. And I'm all in favor of hiring Blueswan a prostitute but given his Goko log history, I think he'd prefer a real doll.

But here's the wager I offer:
1) He must play humans for 30 games straight.
2) He must how the game with a game title that is nondescript and must play whomever joins.
3) He may not pre-arrange any games with anyone.

If his score is LOWER than it is now, I win. If it is higher, you win. If it is tied, there is no winner.

Stakes: A physical set of guilds mailed to the winners home and a digital copy as soon as reasonably available.

I like how Blueswan never agreed to this stuff 

Well, that's also in the style of Trading Places.

Edit: Also, betting on someone going higher is a sucker's bet, just based on rating decay alone.

[Vermillion]

Playing a bot is like pushing a button that gives you an automatic win. I believe that if our friend here switches to playing humans exclusively, his score will drop precipitously until he unlearns the thoughtless strategies that lead to bot 'victories.'

Care for a wager, "Trading Places" style?

Sure, I'll bet on blueswan to rise against comparably rated humans, assuming we can bully him into playing on his laptop.

I'm afraid it's been a while since I've seen that movie. Are you suggesting that we bet $1 or that we get blueswan arrested for hiring a prostitute? theft and drug possession?

Edit: I read the IMDB plot synopsis.

I don't think you read that right; maybe you should see the movie. And I'm all in favor of hiring Blueswan a prostitute but given his Goko log history, I think he'd prefer a real doll.

But here's the wager I offer:
1) He must play humans for 30 games straight.
2) He must how the game with a game title that is nondescript and must play whomever joins.
3) He may not pre-arrange any games with anyone.

If his score is LOWER than it is now, I win. If it is higher, you win. If it is tied, there is no winner.

Stakes: A physical set of guilds mailed to the winners home and a digital copy as soon as reasonably available.

I like how Blueswan never agreed to this stuff 

Well, that's also in the style of Trading Places.

Edit: Also, betting on someone going higher is a sucker's bet, just based on rating decay alone.

Wait, the higher bet is based on the statement that his rating was being suppressed by 1000+ points because he was just playing bots. All I'm asking for is ONE point higher.

[Vermillion]

Your claim is that if a human beats you with a dumb strategy, that beats your strategy ~10% of the time, this should somehow be different from a bot playing a dumb strategy, and beating your smart strategy ~10% of the time.

Playing a bot is entirely different than playing a human and my numbers were metaphoric. Playing a smart bot is somewhat like playing a dumb human, in that the win ratio is going to be more like 99%. However, most humans playing this game are not dumb.

Let's suppose you have a human that plays exactly like the bots. This should affect your rating the same way, since to the rating system there is no difference between the bot and the human's play.

That is only true of the demographics that play bots is identical to those that play only humans. I believe that there are a number of newbies and long-term undeveloped players who are feeding the bot points that are then being harvested by midlevel players, resulting in inflated scores for them.

(Personally, I actually had some trouble getting to around 4000 just by playing bots, because I was playing Base Only. It turns out my Base only game is garbage.)

Did it get stuck there or was it just slow to make gains?

[Watno]

can you play reasonable amount of games against not-serf bots and win 99% of those? I doubt it.

[WanderingWinder]

Numbers can be metaphoric?

Also, I find tat when people say 99% this is virtually never accurate.

Or to phrase it another way: 99% of the time people say 99%, it is significantly inaccurate.

[Warfreak2]

Occupy Goko! We are the 99%!

[SCSN]

Occupy Goko! We are the 99%!

You're just jealous of us 1%'ers

[Blueswan]

 

I somehow missed the discussion here since my last post. Personally, I have no idea whether my rating is artifically high or artificially low (still hovering right around the 5k mark), but it would be an interesting experiment to find out.

Regardless, I do think that Vermilion is underestimating the Bots. They don't play consistently bad at all. Infact, my guess is that the variance in the level of Bot play is much higher than the variance of real human play. Sometimes the bots really ARE laughably bad, emplying "strategies" that even a complete beginner would beat. Other times they play perfectly fine strategies - both Big money strategies and engines, rather well and even good players can easily lose a game to them here and there. My general feeling is that the bots are weaker in colony games, where they tend to go straight for Provinces whenever possible, as if it was a non-colony game.