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[Tables]

I've just realised I was going to add a note to my previous post and forgot to add it, it's not too important but I'll add it here instead for completeness:

I think that for returning entrants, they should never be placed higher than they were when they left*

*Unless they finished first in the season they left, then they could be treated as having been in the higher division upon leaving, and vice versa for finishing in the relegation places.

[mail-mi]

Question: Can we request bye's if we dont have time to do a match?

[shraeye]

Question: Can we request bye's if we dont have time to do a match?

Half-point splits awarded by mutual agreement?  1.5 points to each side for the match of 6 games? But I think the flexibility of being able to schedule the matches ANY time during the season should help byes be needed very infrequently.

[Joseph2302]

Question: Can we request bye's if we dont have time to do a match?

Half-point splits awarded by mutual agreement?  1.5 points to each side for the match of 6 games? But I think the flexibility of being able to schedule the matches ANY time during the season should help byes be needed very infrequently.

Surely people can find enough slots in 5-6 weeks to play all their games? If not, I think the above idea is good, so as not to get weird results in the week i.e. people agreeing to draw, as it is mutually beneficial.

[mail-mi]

Question: Can we request bye's if we dont have time to do a match?

Half-point splits awarded by mutual agreement?  1.5 points to each side for the match of 6 games? But I think the flexibility of being able to schedule the matches ANY time during the season should help byes be needed very infrequently.

Surely people can find enough slots in 5-6 weeks to play all their games? If not, I think the above idea is good, so as not to get weird results in the week i.e. people agreeing to draw, as it is mutually beneficial.

Okay thanks.

[-Stef-]

Thanks to everyone posting in this thread. All suggestions/comments are still welcome. Some of them made me change the rules.

This one feels like the most important one to address:

this basically covers it. you just have to set priorities here.

That's why I proposed an algorithm. If someone gets offended with an algorithm, well, I do not care. Judgement calls like "this is a good player and this other is not" or the like are bounded to upset people. Algorithm is also bounded to upset some people, but at least is something established and sitting out, joining late, etc, can be done at own risk.

Also, I like the basic idea algorithm I proposed, though it can be tweaked.

I read your concerns, I understand them, and yet I'm not going to write down an algorithm. I think this would result in too much loss in flexibility, and we would end up with players in divisions where everyone would say "yeah, it is according to the rules, so we can't possibly be against it, but it doesn't feel fair at all and it definitely isn't fun for the players in that division". Also, if you write down an algorithm, you sort of invite people to game that system.

If the league would be 100 times bigger it would be impossible, but for now I really feel we're best off with a couple of guidelines. And off course I'll post every decision there is to post about.

Important points: it should be explicitly stated that staying players will never be demoted to make room for return players or newcomers. It should also be explicitly stated if return players are going to be judged by their placement before leaving or by their ranking at the moment of rejoining (I advocate for the former).

I agree with your first statement. If I ever *really* want to make room for someone, this can only be done if the extra demotion is announced before the season even starts. You will never demote 'out of the blue'. The only exception here may be if an entire new level is created (more on that below).

There is a problem with looking at 'placement before leaving'... maybe the league is now a lot stronger/weaker then it used to be.

Yes, I was thinking that, is that reasonable? Or at least, more reasonable than the opposite? I would ask for scrapping that tie-breaker, unless someone has a good argument for using it in this all-vs-all setting.

Yes, it's arbitrary, but that's why two more sensible criteria are in front of it. It's exactly as good as the opposite would be, I just prefer it to coin flipping.

Also, I think it might be best if new/returning players aren't added into the top level, even if their skill indicates they should. Those empty spots should, I think, always need to be played for via at least one promotion, since that is the top division.

agreed.

Question: Can we request bye's if we dont have time to do a match?

As a general rule of thumb: no, you can not.
Please don't postpone your matches to the last possible date, and you should be fine. 5 weeks is pretty much.
If something really bad happens in real life, you can always explain it a bit and we'll probably figure something out.


about the possibility of restructuring.
For now it looks like we'll start with a lot of very good players. So no problems whatsoever in the top 2 (3?) levels.
However, the lowest level may have a huge diversity in players strength. If it stays that way, that's no fun, and we may have to change the nature of the pyramid a bit.
The most likely change now would be that in stead of 8 level-4 divisions, we'd go with 4 level-4 divisions and 4 level-5 divisions.
Season 1 will not change, and if I want to change season 2 that will only happen if I announce it before season 1 starts.

[-Stef-]

about the possibility of restructuring.
For now it looks like we'll start with a lot of very good players. So no problems whatsoever in the top 2 (3?) levels.
However, the lowest level may have a huge diversity in players strength. If it stays that way, that's no fun, and we may have to change the nature of the pyramid a bit.
The most likely change now would be that in stead of 8 level-4 divisions, we'd go with 4 level-4 divisions and 4 level-5 divisions.
Season 1 will not change, and if I want to change season 2 that will only happen if I announce it before season 1 starts.

We're approaching the end of signups and I want to make a decision on this matter soon.
The number of participants looks really nice. Currently it's 6+12+24+35.
Maybe a few more in the last days but I don't expect to reach the awkward 6+12+24+48+1.

If we look at the levels in the different divisions, it will be approximately 47-54, 39-47, 30-39, 0-30
At this moment I'm leaning towards 'no split-up of D division unless the league grows to 90-100 people'.
Argumentation: even though 0-30 looks like a huge range, most of those players will be 25-35 in reality now or really soon.
Quite some of them will be stronger then their rank, either due to inactivity or due to being really new.
If they did sign up despite being completely new to online dominion, they're probably looking for a challenge / learning experience.
Basically I expect a lot more fun competitive matches in D division then easy 6-0 victories, which would be the only real argumentation to split it up.

If you have a strong opinion about this though, please post it here and I'll reconsider.

And another point: The number of players in division D is probably not dividable by 6, and then I'd create some 5-player pools and some 6-player pools.
(rather then 7-player pools, or 6-player pools and one pool with 3) Any thoughts on this?

[Hugovj]

Well, I was wondering: will you always hold on to 8 groups in D, or is it possible there'll be 6? With 35 participants in this level, you'll get 3 groups of 5 and 5 of 4 if you'd go for 8, if you'd go for 6 leagues you will have one with 5 and 5 with six people.

If you go for 6, you can do something like advancing the two best numbers 2 to match the difference in promotion/degradation.

[-Stef-]

Well, I was wondering: will you always hold on to 8 groups in D, or is it possible there'll be 6? With 35 participants in this level, you'll get 3 groups of 5 and 5 of 4 if you'd go for 8, if you'd go for 6 leagues you will have one with 5 and 5 with six people.

If you go for 6, you can do something like advancing the two best numbers 2 to match the difference in promotion/degradation.

I will not always hold to 8 groups in D. It depends a bit on the number of participants, but I prefer to have 6-player groups.
If less then 8 groups are created, the best #2 will promote indeed, although it's not that trivial to determine who's the best #2.
I don't like "The one with the most points", because they play against different people entirely.

Maybe I should copy the leaderboard once more halfway during season 1, and then promote the highest #2 on that leaderboard?
This is off course assuming we won't have 8 groups (Currently 39 people in D, which would be 4 6-player groups and 3 5-player groups)

[Hugovj]

Well, I see three possibilities for choosing who to promote (in case of less than 8 groups):

1. You can play play-offs
2. You can choose League prestation as tiebreaker.
3. You can choose a ranking (Iso) as tiebreaker

I'd be a fan of play-offs, but this was voted off, so I won't suggest we should introduce them again. If you promote the highest ranked, you mix up the League and something different, and highly disadvantage newer players. If you are good at the League, you should be promoted accordingly I think. The second one I like best. 'The one with the most points' is maybe not the best, but Solkoff-Scores (or something different) sound reasonable to me. Obviously you can't level out all the groups, but you have to have something, and I think it's more fair than basing it on Iso-ranking.

[SCSN]

Something that sounds fair to me is to compare the iso ranking of all #1s and pick the one with the highest ranking. Then the best #2 is he who finished 2nd in the highest ranked #1's group.

Alternatively you could pick as best #2 he who won the most games against the #1 of his group, with perhaps using the #1s iso-ranking as a tie-breaker.

[serakfalcon]

Something that sounds fair to me is to compare the iso ranking of all #1s and pick the one with the highest ranking. Then the best #2 is he who finished 2nd in the highest ranked #1's group.

Alternatively you could pick as best #2 he who won the most games against the #1 of his group, with perhaps using the #1s iso-ranking as a tie-breaker.

I like this in theory, but it has the potentially undesirable quality of having rank in the league partially determined by non-league games.

[SCSN]

Well, you need some way to compare players across different groups. Since there is no league data to go by, the only way to not use an external measure is to just pick someone randomly or use a meaningless metric like total matches won. Once multiple seasons are played you could potentially run the isotropish algorithm over past league matches only, but that sounds like quite a bit of work for very little benefit, and I suspect it would take a long time for this thing to be morally superior to the true isotropish rankings.

[soulnet]

morally superior

Wow, I would have never suspected you were a religious guy.

Anyhow, I think total league points is still better than ranking (Isotropish or any other), even though the counterpoints against it are valid. Rankings are not really accurate (I have already argued this). We are already using pseudorandom metrics (see discussion above regarding tiebreakers) and this seems like a decent one (if the groups are random, opponent's should be reasonably similar in strength, and there is luck on getting an easy group, but there is luck in that to get 1st place too, and there is luck in Dominion in general). Competitions with a lot more at stake use this kind of comparison (like European World Cup qualifiers if I am not mistaken), so, why shouldn't we?

[SCSN]

morally superior

Wow, I would have never suspected you were a religious guy.

I'm perfectly indifferent to religion, though I wouldn't mind having a few beers with some of the good old Greek and Roman Gods. I quite enjoyed many of their tales I had to translate in high school, and their Judeo-Christian successor always stroke me as a dreadful bore.

Growing up in a bible-belt town I learned at an early age that any positive correlation between religiosity and moral behavior exists exclusively in a staunch believer's head, and what I mean to connote by "morally superior" is just something like "better aligned with the intended purpose".

[GeoLib]

morally superior

Wow, I would have never suspected you were a religious guy.

Why do considerations of morality have to be rooted in religion?

[-Stef-]

On a side note, this discussion may very well be pointless (not just the religious one). We now have enough people in D division to make 8 groups. So the outcome of this discussion will only matter if we get enough people for an E division. That in fact starts to look like a realistic possibility now, and even if it doesn't it could happen next season.

I don't think the Isotropish leaderboard is 'not really accurate'. It's the most accurate thing existing that measures peoples skills. I also don't think it's unfair to newer players. If I would start a new account now, I think I'd be in the top 5 within 2 days if I played a lot. However, using an 'old leaderboard' is unfair to new learning players, like what we have now with seeding for season 1.

I like this in theory, but it has the potentially undesirable quality of having rank in the league partially determined by non-league games.

I agree it's a disadvantage, but it's still (a lot) better then something close to entirely random.

I don't want to use a leaderboard that's too old, but I also don't want the promotions to be decided by a still changing leaderboard after the last match in the league. That would lead to highly undesirable scenario's where people could want to postpone their last match in order to outrank someone first. Balancing between those two, my current suggestion is to copy the leaderboard 3 weeks into the season = 2 weeks before it ends.

Something that sounds fair to me is to compare the iso ranking of all #1s and pick the one with the highest ranking. Then the best #2 is he who finished 2nd in the highest ranked #1's group.

I like this one. Either looking at #1's rank, or #2's rank, or their combined rank... would all be fine with me.

Alternatively you could pick as best #2 he who won the most games against the #1 of his group, with perhaps using the #1s iso-ranking as a tie-breaker.

I strongly dislike this one. Suppose I would place a new hypothetical Chuck Norris player in D division who wins all his matches 6-0. I would really want to promote the #2 in that group, even though he lost his match against Chuck Norris 0-6.


Btw: 90 people will fit in A+B+C+D. If we end up with something between 92 and 110, I intend to keep ABC the way it is (6 player groups), but play with 5-player groups in D division. 91 and  I'd just cheat by creating a single 7-player group, hoping nobody notices. I'm not closing signups at 90 people - "everybody is welcome" is very important to me.

[soulnet]

...

Why do considerations of morality have to be rooted in religion?

I was joking. However, morality is usually tied to religion for religious people. And I have never heard the terms "morally superior" in a literal way from a non-religious. My usual non-religious friend believe morality to be subjective.

Anyway, to the matter at hand, I don't think it is worth it to keep fighting using Isotropish rankings, but I think even randomness could be more accurate, because Iso-ranking is biased to "people who take all their pro games seriously" and I think the league should be biased to "people who take league games seriously". I  will not do the former because I am not willing to play seriously all the time, but I will certainly do the latter (same as GokoDom or any other tournament). And it seems to me that there is a significant number of players that play this way.

[-Stef-]

And it seems to me that there is a significant number of players that play this way.

Yes I play that way. I suppose almost everyone plays that way.

I'll try to play better in league games, I tried to play better during Gokodom.
Yet I made some terrible mistakes during Gokodom for which I'd love to claim "I'd never make them under normal circumstances".
I also want to claim I'd never make the silly mistakes I make in everyday dominion during tournaments.
Both claims, however, are false.

In the end my level of play during tournaments is probably a little bit better, but not as much as I'd like to believe.
There is a strong correlation between the two regardless. I'm sorry but I can't take "it's about as good as random" very seriously.

[silverspawn]

Anyway, to the matter at hand, I don't think it is worth it to keep fighting using Isotropish rankings, but I think even randomness could be more accurate, because Iso-ranking is biased to "people who take all their pro games seriously" and I think the league should be biased to "people who take league games seriously".

this is slightly off topic, but isn't the intention of having pro games precisely to take them seriously? I get that you don't to play serious all the time, but why don't you play casual/unranked whenever you just want to have fun?

[Holger]

morally superior

Wow, I would have never suspected you were a religious guy.

Anyhow, I think total league points is still better than ranking (Isotropish or any other), even though the counterpoints against it are valid. Rankings are not really accurate (I have already argued this). We are already using pseudorandom metrics (see discussion above regarding tiebreakers) and this seems like a decent one (if the groups are random, opponent's should be reasonably similar in strength, and there is luck on getting an easy group, but there is luck in that to get 1st place too, and there is luck in Dominion in general). Competitions with a lot more at stake use this kind of comparison (like European World Cup qualifiers if I am not mistaken), so, why shouldn't we?

Not only the qualifiers; the next European Football Cup and the World Cups 1986-1994 with 24 participants use(d) this method.
It seems best to me as well to use an "internal" comparison like this. It's true that the 2nd-placed players had different opponents, but the same is true for the 1st-placed player, yet they promote without having their ranking checked. And I suppose Stef will try to create more or less equally strong groups within a division.

[AdamH]

Anyway, to the matter at hand, I don't think it is worth it to keep fighting using Isotropish rankings, but I think even randomness could be more accurate, because Iso-ranking is biased to "people who take all their pro games seriously" and I think the league should be biased to "people who take league games seriously".

this is slightly off topic, but isn't the intention of having pro games precisely to take them seriously? I get that you don't to play serious all the time, but why don't you play casual/unranked whenever you just want to have fun?

FWIW, I play pro games so that I can have full-random kingdoms that people don't get to see before the game starts. I play tournament matches to focus entirely on winning the game.

[pst]

FWIW, I play pro games so that I can have full-random kingdoms that people don't get to see before the game starts. I play tournament matches to focus entirely on winning the game.

Exactly. Isn't the designation "pro" just because Goko originally thought that the way to play the game is with pre-made boards (with the emphasis on features like saving boards)?  It still has the unfortunate effect that many casual players don't play the normal game because they think that "oh, that's called 'pro', so it's obviously not for me!".

[AdamH]

I mean, some people see Pro mode that way and I don't think they're wrong, but I was mostly pointing out that a lot of people view these things differently and I think nobody is wrong.

Personally I think Isotropish measuring Pro mode the way it does is the best thing out there, but that doesn't mean it's entirely accurate. And all of this doesn't mean we shouldn't use it, because I think we should. If people have any issues at all with their ranking they'll have the opportunity to prove the leaderboard wrong as I plan to do

It's a personal goal for me to make it into the A league, and I'm starting in C. I think I can get there if I try hard enough.

[Awaclus]

I think nobody is wrong.

I think you're wrong.

What now?