Finally Adam has some other ideas that I hope he will advocate further when he gets back from his mini-vacation or something alike.
Actually, I think what Adam wants is very similar to what nate_w was advocating in his opening post.
Is recovering the game state not an option? You can replay the same kingdom and spend the first 20 turns buying the exact cards you had in your deck previously. It is time consuming, but so is starting a whole new game or arguing with moderators over your assumed win %.
1) I don't think it should matter who disconnects. We are all on the honor system not to intentionally disconnect, and assuming we all follow that there is no reason to assign different outcomes depending on who disconnected.I'm ok with that.
2) I'm not a huge fan of allowing there to be fractional wins. Everything is cleaner if all game results are either win, lose, or tie. If it is decided this is necessary, that's alright. But I think we can avoid being too unfair with win, lose, and replay being the only options. >75% chance of winning, you win. 25-75% chance of winning, replay. <25% chance of winning, you lose. In this way nobody can be given or robbed of more than .25 game points, and on average just .125.I'm not a huge fan of allowing fractional wins either. But I do see them as a necessary evil until goko actually implements a reconnect.
3) However, some points are worth more than others. Sometimes a tie just as good as a win in the end, but a loss much worse than a tie, or vice-versa. This can throw a wrench into how fair the system ends up being. Similar problems show up if we allow fractional game points (beyond .5 for a tie). If there is only one disconnected game in a division, there is no difference between .01 and .49, if we convert percentage into points. That is a much larger problem, in my opinion.Well you're overdoing it a bit because I suggested .01 is a loss and .49 is a replay but yes there is a point to be made. .11 and .39 shouldn't be the same either.
Have a look at the interrupted game (http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150414/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1429051904358.txt) between SCSN and Mic Qsenoch. SCSN is about to KC his scavenger, buy his 3rd KC, set up his next turn. Mic is about to have a dead turn and a good chance some more will follow.
SCSN has a clear lead here, but the game is young and KC games without trashing, scheme or wharf are always a bit random.
As a sort of middle of the road compromise I now suggest asking people to choose between
{almost hopeless, clearly behind, undecided, clearly ahead, almost always winning}
and then convert them into the results
{loss, 0.25-0.75, replay, 0.75-0.25, win}
I actually like the fractional points and have yet to read a good argument to restrict the players' freedom in this, but regardless of whether one exists or not this strikes me as a perfectly fine compromise.
But let's take this to the other extreme. Two people in a division don't feel like actually playing their match, so they look at their current position on the leaderboard, somehow agree on a way to calculate how many games the leaderboard thinks each would win, then reports that as a result. Clearly this is terrible and shouldn't be allowed. It's subjective and defeats the whole purpose of the league.
The only rational thing I can think of is to make it so that you only do this when both players can't agree on a (win/loss/replay) result and tried their hardest to do so. Only as a last resort
But how much Dominion to you say is OK to play before you can allow this? You have a 5/2 split on a board where it's amazing and I don't? I disconnect. You don't want to give up your advantage, so we give you 0.8 points and I'll take 0.2. This is also terrible. X turns into the game? X turns from the end of the game? Super-subjective, and we can't write rules like this; they're nearly impossible to follow.
Another (only partially related) point is that I, as a moderator, don't feel comfortable assigning a percentage to any game of Dominion. I don't want to be put in a situation where I have to make a subjective call that affects other people in the league. Of course it will probably come up, but what we do is make this a last resort and so I can hide behind my rule of "only if you can't agree will I do this, and I have full authority over it so if you don't like it, DWI" and then I get to feel better about myself. I think this is already done nicely in the rules as they are now, but it's another reason why I don't want to encourage the use of these percents as anything other than a last resort.
Above all, simplicity should be valued.
Problems with fractional wins: What Adam said, and that there is no difference between .11 and .39, or wherever we draw the borders.
Rather than just record that result, here is my suggestion:
In that case, SCSN is winning with roughly a 75% chance. They play two more games, each going first once, and if SCSN wins either one, record that game as a win for SCSN. If Mic wins both, it is a win for Mic. Maybe throw out ties, I don't know. Keep the original game as counting as a first player start for whoever went first.
Now there are the same categories that Stef suggested, but instead of recording .25-.75, the game is resolved to either a win or loss, but giving the leading player a 75% chance of winning that game overall. The downside is that two more games of Dominion need to be played (or only one if SCSN wins the first), but we like Dominion, right?
Reasons not to award fractional points to the highest precision:
Awarding fractional points advantages players who are better at early/mid-game play over players who are good at late game play. It's not just shuffle luck that determines who wins at the end.
In line with what Adam is saying, peoples' guesses at win percentages are very, very rough.
Thus, the "agreed upon" fractional point will rely very heavily on who bargains better or yells the loudest.
As a sort of middle of the road compromise I now suggest asking people to choose between
{almost hopeless, clearly behind, undecided, clearly ahead, almost always winning}
and then convert them into the results
{loss, 0.25-0.75, replay, 0.75-0.25, win}
Above all, simplicity should be valued.
I agree, all disputed results between any players should just be counted as a win for my total.
Above all, simplicity should be valued.
Reasons not to award fractional points to the highest precision:
Awarding fractional points advantages players who are better at early/mid-game play over players who are good at late game play. It's not just shuffle luck that determines who wins at the end.
It doesn't. You obviously take into account your own and your opponent's skills when estimating your win chances.
Now two examples is not a lot, but it's infinitely more than I know of fractional points leading to cunning bargaining exchanges or loud yelling, so I would really appreciate it if people actually looked at reality instead of just generating some fact-free rhetoric.
In fact, the only controversy involving loud yelling that I remember was of a case of people sticking to this "loss or replay" dichotomy, it might even have sparked this very debate ;)
...
I understand your reluctance and I don't think you should feel obliged to take this upon you if you don't want to. In fact if no one else does either I'd be happy to volunteer for the job. It sounds sort of interesting actually, I don't mind making potentially unpopular decisions, and if someone is going to hate me because he thinks I shafted him on 10% equity, then the only way I'm going to lose sleep over that is because I'm laughing too hard!
It doesn't. You obviously take into account your own and your opponent's skills when estimating your win chances.
In a perfect world, yes. But I laugh if you think players actually have perfect information about this. And are able to honestly evaluate their opponent in the heat of the moment. See WW's over estimation of himself; the thread that sparked all this.
OK maybe we do? I'm not sure. Assigning win percentages to games is totally subjective, do you agree with that?
Like, I don't even think you could make an argument that a skilled player is more likely to have a more accurate result than a non-skilled player. I also don't think it's a useful thing because of this.
But in any case, the important thing is that it seems like there's consensus about what the rules should be, the only big disagreement has to do with the granularity of percentages used.
The objective is not to have zero estimation error, but to improve upon the crude {win, loss, replay}, which sets a ridiculously low bar, like asking whether I can get to the other side of the room faster than this snail. Well, yes, I can!OK maybe we do? I'm not sure. Assigning win percentages to games is totally subjective, do you agree with that?
Judging whether a game is {win, replay, loss} or {win, 0.25, replay, 0.75, loss} are both subjective assesments, with the only difference being that the latter allows for more accurate and thus fairer expression. Why force someone into saying the grass is either red, blue or yellow when he can just say it's green?
QuoteLike, I don't even think you could make an argument that a skilled player is more likely to have a more accurate result than a non-skilled player. I also don't think it's a useful thing because of this.
Of course they can. Properly valueing one game state over another is most of what makes good players good. And again, the objective is not to have less than 2% estimation error or something ridiculous like that, it's just to do better than {0, 0.5, 1}, which is ridiculously easy to get right.
If the leas was almost insurmountable then the player who was ahead just won the game.
Moreover, this leads to the nasty situation where you’re actually encouraged to disagree and haggle for extra percentage points.
Firstly, to Stef's proposal: Personally, I like the general idea, but I feel the third person who decides should not be able to declare a game a tie. Such close games should be replayed. (except in that edge case where the game crashes right before p2 buys the last province).