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Author Topic: Rules & Regulations - discussion  (Read 15671 times)

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soulnet

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Rules & Regulations - discussion
« on: April 12, 2014, 10:39:51 am »
+3

A couple of comments:

A. I think specification of how divisions are divided in non-top level is required. Specifically: Non-promoting non-demoting people will definitely/maybe/randomly stay together for next season? I think this should be:
1. Decide whether existing divisions will mantain themselves and then assign new people (promoters, demoters, newcommers) in some way, or just take the entire pool of players in a given level and redraw the divisions each season.
2. To draw or assign new players, either use some algorithm considering timezones or pure random (anything else seems unnecessarily convoluted).

I would go for not mantaining divisions, because it is so much easier to process people leaving/joining in between seasons.


B. What happens with the bottom divisions? Each get floor or ceiling of k/nr of divisions, where k is the number of people in the bottom level? That seems like it could give some stupid things like divisions with 2 or 3 people in. I would just have less divisions in the bottom level and try to have 4/5/6/7 people in each division, possibly making only #6 demote from some next-to-last divisions and even have no demotion in some (randomly assigned) if necessary.


C.
Quote
2. If a good new player joined, we try to insert at a sensible level

I really dislike this. I understand the reasons for it, but I think it is a too sensitive issue to leave at the organization's will. Basically, I am worried that some people can be easily offended. So, I would either specify a deterministic algorithm beforehand or insert people disregarding "good player" considerations other than last performance in the league. Here is a possible algorithm:

Process levels from top to bottom. If there is a hole and there is a returning player who had that level or higher at the time of departing, put them there. If there are still holes, put highest Isotropish ranking newcomer if it is higher than all possible promoters (all #2/3/4 still available for wildcard promotion). If there are still holes, promote extra people from the immediately lower level (use divisions in random order, first all #2s, then all #3s and so on, and producing new holes to be processed when is that level's turn).

This makes returning players to be inserted at their old positions or worse, prefering promoting existing players if a too high spot is available.

I would still prefer Isotropish (or Goko Pro or whatever other external ranking) to be disregarded after season 1 and just place newcomers randomly. They would raise to the top by promotion soon enough anyway, and makes the league independent from external sources and also the placement algorithm way less convoluted.

D. I think a ruling on Salvager usage and specifically VP counter for online games should be done (i.e., what happens if players do not agree on something). Possibly also for identical starting hands, given that it seems like it would be technically possible in the near future. In all cases, I think both player's agreement overrides the ruling.

E. I think a ruling on a couple of players not being able to play a match should be done. Moreover, I would force some schedule, like you have to play at least half the matches before the last week, to avoid people playing everything on the last day, possibly earning an advantage from knowledge of the current status.

F. I think mandatory/optional/forbidden publicness of results should be explicitly stated. There is reason not to publicly discuss results, because the league is asynchronous. However, I think this is really bad because it stops people from discussing matches online, which is a great thing about playing tournaments.

G. Since several new players and some old players believe that score difference is good to take into account, I would explicitly say (even if it is redundant) that the final score does not matter. Also, I would say tied score counts as win for the player who played less turns, if such player exists (because "tie" in the rules could be interpreted as tied score instead of tied game by the rules of Dominion). I would just say "shared victories" in the rules instead of ties, to make it clear that the official rules apply. Technical thing: Can we just award lone victories 2 points and shared victories 1 point? I don't like the halves if we can avoid them.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 10:41:28 am by soulnet »
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Tables

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2014, 10:56:00 am »
+3

I think Soulnet raises some very good ideas. It might be worth considering having a 'suggested schedule' for each league, where if you have say players A, B, C, D, E, F then if possible the matches should be played:

Week 1:
A vs. B
C vs. D
E vs. F

Week 2:
A vs. C
B vs. E
D vs. F

Week 3:
A vs. D
B vs. F
C vs. E

Week 4:
A vs. E
B vs. D
C vs. F

Week 5:
A vs. F
B vs. C
D vs. E

I just made that from scratch but with a spreadsheet it should be very easy to generate something like that automatically for each league. With something like that in place it encourages players to play their matches in a fair(er) timing schedule, and if someone has gone multiple weeks out of sync then they it can be investigated.

Timing aside, one other thing I'm slightly less enthused about is the exponental structure of number of leagues in each division. I realise it makes things as easy as possible but it means around half of players sit in the lowest division and the vast majority in the bottom two. Now maybe this won't be too big of an issue if we only have enough people playing for around 3 tiers (19-42 people), but if it reaches 5 tiers (91-186 people) or even 6 tiers (187-378 people) I think it's kinda disappointing for the majority who sit so far down. Sadly I don't have a great suggestion for a better way of organising the leagues, but one possibility is a structure something like 1 - 2 - 2 - 4 - 4 - 8 - 8 - ..., where every second league doesn't increase in size. This mitigates the problem somewhat and makes a somewhat lower proportion sit near the bottom. Most likely you could even have the number of leagues at each place just cap at 8 as well, that'd probably be fine.
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SCSN

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2014, 11:13:04 am »
0

Quote
2. If a good new player joined, we try to insert at a sensible level

I really dislike this. I understand the reasons for it, but I think it is a too sensitive issue to leave at the organization's will. Basically, I am worried that some people can be easily offended. So, I would either specify a deterministic algorithm beforehand or insert people disregarding "good player" considerations other than last performance in the league.

I really disagree with this. It will be by far the most fun for everyone if all players are matched up with opponents as close to their skill level as possible. If you insert a high-ranked player into the lowest league that will create local distortions over the course of many seasons, putting players matched up with him at a significant disadvantage relative to their peers in parallel leagues.

I really don't see the potential for offending people. Well, some people will take offense at basically everything, but that's their own problem, not ours.

Quote
but I think it is a too sensitive issue to leave at the organization's will.

I trust Stef's judgment in this matter over any algorithm.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2014, 12:01:57 pm »
0

3. for each game you won, add the total score of that opponent

Rather than a suggestion, I simply have a question: what does this mean? It's unclear to me.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2014, 12:27:22 pm »
+2

3. for each game you won, add the total score of that opponent

Rather than a suggestion, I simply have a question: what does this mean? It's unclear to me.
It means that if I won 4 games against player X, and player X won 12 games in the league, I get 48 tiebreaker points from my matchups with player X.
It's a strength of schedule thing.

EgorK

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2014, 12:58:52 pm »
0

3. for each game you won, add the total score of that opponent

Rather than a suggestion, I simply have a question: what does this mean? It's unclear to me.
It means that if I won 4 games against player X, and player X won 12 games in the league, I get 48 tiebreaker points from my matchups with player X.
It's a strength of schedule thing.

Considering everyone has same schedule (well, excluding themselves) it just assumes win against strong player and lose to weak is better then win against weak and lost to strong
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soulnet

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #6 on: April 12, 2014, 01:08:53 pm »
0

Considering everyone has same schedule (well, excluding themselves) it just assumes win against strong player and lose to weak is better then win against weak and lost to strong

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.


Also, do all 6 matches have to be played on the same day? I guess not, but it would be nice to state it.
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EgorK

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2014, 02:13:21 pm »
0

Considering everyone has same schedule (well, excluding themselves) it just assumes win against strong player and lose to weak is better then win against weak and lost to strong

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.

Well, in chess it is used in almost all tournaments, so it should not be completely unreasonable
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 02:17:52 pm by EgorK »
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soulnet

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2014, 02:17:14 pm »
+1

Considering everyone has same schedule (well, excluding themselves) it just assumes win against strong player and lose to weak is better then win against weak and lost to strong

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.

Well, chess use it in almost all tournaments, so it should not be completely unreasonable

It is reasonable for swiss system, but seems unreasonable for all-vs-all.
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EgorK

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2014, 02:21:38 pm »
0

Considering everyone has same schedule (well, excluding themselves) it just assumes win against strong player and lose to weak is better then win against weak and lost to strong

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.

Well, chess use it in almost all tournaments, so it should not be completely unreasonable

It is reasonable for swiss system, but seems unreasonable for all-vs-all.

I mean like Candidate Tournament use it, which is round robin. Also Solkoff is better for Swiss than Sonneborn-Berger
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2014, 02:23:42 pm »
+3

Tables, both of your suggestions break the league structure and purpose.  The whole point of a longer season with round robin is to not have to play specific people on specific weeks and allow for flexibility of scheduling.

The whole point of the exponential increases is that, well, it's a king of the hill structure with a literal pyramid.  Doing it without that is basically just a ladder and we already have two ranking systems for that.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2014, 02:50:26 pm »
0

Quote
2. If a good new player joined, we try to insert at a sensible level

I really dislike this. I understand the reasons for it, but I think it is a too sensitive issue to leave at the organization's will. Basically, I am worried that some people can be easily offended. So, I would either specify a deterministic algorithm beforehand or insert people disregarding "good player" considerations other than last performance in the league.

I really disagree with this. It will be by far the most fun for everyone if all players are matched up with opponents as close to their skill level as possible. If you insert a high-ranked player into the lowest league that will create local distortions over the course of many seasons, putting players matched up with him at a significant disadvantage relative to their peers in parallel leagues.

I really don't see the potential for offending people. Well, some people will take offense at basically everything, but that's their own problem, not ours.

Quote
but I think it is a too sensitive issue to leave at the organization's will.

I trust Stef's judgment in this matter over any algorithm.

yea... i have to agree, maybe with the cutback that I could understand it if people are offended.

still

Quote from: Stef
I don't like inserting people in the top division out of nowhere, but in the end the League is supposed to be fun and making a top-ranked player join in the bottom division is fun for exactly nobody.

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

EgorK

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2014, 03:04:17 pm »
0

I think we need to add that whoever have more cards should host the game. Also eternal question of vpon/vpoff should has default answer
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soulnet

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #13 on: April 12, 2014, 04:15:06 pm »
+2

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.

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).
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #14 on: April 12, 2014, 05:52:20 pm »
0

II. Ordering
4. Coin flip
What if there's 3 players tied? How is a coin flip going to decide that?

Signing up for season 1 does not imply signing up for season 2, you will have to rejoin in due time.
I think having to sign up for each season will be annoying. As long as someone players all his/her matches in a season, I don't see any reason not to automatically put him/her in the next season.
Instead of this I think you should remove players, who has shown inactivity by not playing all their matches.
I also think this will be easier for the organisation, because there will be more players staying in the league than players leaving the league.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #15 on: April 12, 2014, 06:25:39 pm »
0

Tables, both of your suggestions break the league structure and purpose.  The whole point of a longer season with round robin is to not have to play specific people on specific weeks and allow for flexibility of scheduling.

Hmm, good point. Like I mentioned though, my idea was to have a suggestion for scheduling, as a means to keep things active and make it so generally people won't have played most of their games at once while others haven't started. I guess I could make that clearer. It wasn't meant to be a 'you must play your games at these times' list, and that would have to be made clear. It also might well be better for the suggestion to try and do maybe two games in the first week, to leave one clear week at the end to finish things off. But either way I can see the argument against this.

Quote
The whole point of the exponential increases is that, well, it's a king of the hill structure with a literal pyramid.  Doing it without that is basically just a ladder and we already have two ranking systems for that.

I think you're missing the point here I'm afraid. I like the pyramid structure. I like that spots at the top are harder to get at. I dislike that the vast majority of people are going to sit in the bottom two levels, simply due to that being where the vast majority of leagues are. What I proposed isn't making a ladder, that takes too long to climb your way up out of, but a more gradual pyramid. Ideally I'd suggest every tier being slightly smaller than the one below, but that's pretty much a nightmare to organise fair promotions/relegations in.

Regarding new players joining and/or players returning: I'm in favour of an algorithmic approach to replacing them. Probably base it on the Isotropish level of the player and maybe do something like put them in the highest tier available where their Isotropish is better than 2/3rds of players, but never in the top (top 2?) tiers. Details can obviously be calculated. But details aside you'd want something fair, that's more likely to slightly underestimate than slightly overestimate (so they still have to play their way up a division or two, rather than get placed in over their head). Perhaps a clause that prevents people going up more than one division if they are rejoining (I doubt anyone would game the system in that way, and even less that they'd be capable of a dramatic improvement of position, but best be safe).
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #16 on: April 15, 2014, 10:07:24 am »
+1

Just checking, is it fine for me to schedule all my games in the last 2.5-3 weeks of the season then? I have exams until 3rd June (ish), and so am really busy before that, and free almost all the time after that, so will definitely be able to play them all in that time frame.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #17 on: April 15, 2014, 11:07:06 am »
+2

Just checking, is it fine for me to schedule all my games in the last 2.5-3 weeks of the season then? I have exams until 3rd June (ish), and so am really busy before that, and free almost all the time after that, so will definitely be able to play them all in that time frame.

Yes thats perfectly fine. Especially if you explain it in the scheduling thread for your division, once that is available
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soulnet

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #18 on: April 15, 2014, 11:44:05 am »
0

BTW, I have a decent argument (maybe edge casey) on why people should always join at the bottom. Suppose a good female player (according to both Isotropish and Goko Pro) joins for season i and due to lack of higher placed empty spots is placed on a 4th tier division. She wins all her matches and promotes to a 3rd tier division. Now a male really good player, but not as good as the one in the previouse sentences, joins for season i+1, and there are empty spots available in a 2nd tier division. Placing him on a 2nd tier division while she has to play 3rd tier for a season seems unfair. However, algorithmic or case-by-case considerations of double-promotions to fill empty spots seem convoluted and even more prone to questioning the system.

This case can be summarized as: If joining in a non-bottom division is allowed, it could be optimal for a player (assuming playing in a higher division is the goal) to leave and rejoin on the same season. If that is disallowed, there are similar cases where sitting out one season can lead to faster ascension than actually playing and promoting. Even if rating is only used the first time a player joins the league and afterwards previous league placement is used, more convoluted examples like the one I laid down above still make the system seem unfair.

One solution would be to go back to "people joins at a bottom division" so rankings are only used in the first season and there no cross-season comparisson of rankings, which lead to swingyness as described.

Another solution would be to consider everyone, not just newcomers, as candidates for filling empty spots with a ranking-based consideration. But this is a pretty bad alternatie: the extreme of this basically makes the league be reseeded every season, which is of course absurd. I think the whole problem arises because of trying to mix two ranking systems (league and Isotropish or Goko Pro) into one decision algorithm (even if its not algorithmic) yields problems regarding the weight of each, which were not addressed in any post so far on this topic (and, my personal opinion is that it is pretty hard to address properly, if at all possible).
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EgorK

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #19 on: April 15, 2014, 12:15:11 pm »
+1

I changed my mind about adding new people to non-bottom division and agree with soulnet. What I propose is following algorithm to fill vacations in order of priority:

1. Sit-outs not higher than their division
2. Second places in next division ranked by Isotropish rating
3. Third places and so on
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soulnet

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #20 on: April 15, 2014, 12:55:04 pm »
0

I changed my mind about adding new people to non-bottom division and agree with soulnet. What I propose is following algorithm to fill vacations in order of priority:

1. Sit-outs not higher than their division
2. Second places in next division ranked by Isotropish rating
3. Third places and so on

I agree. We may consider adding #5s non-demoting to the pool of #2 extra promotions, I am fine with either option being prefered or both being compared by Isotropish.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #21 on: April 15, 2014, 10:24:07 pm »
+1

I think the argument Soulnet puts forward seems like a rare case which, at most is likely going to end up with someone entering at a league only one place lower than they might have been by waiting a season - and to me that seems like firstly a minor issue compared to lower leagues often being distorted by players far too good for them (and worse the possibility two very good players are placed (or promote into and meet) in the same low division, leaving everyone in that league little hope of promotion for two seasons running (assuming the leagues aren't reshuffled between seasons) and leaving one to wait a whole extra season to gain their promotion.

I think that for returning entrants, they should never be placed higher than they were when they left*, and should be slotted into the highest available open slot before new entrants. In the case of multiple people trying to return at the same time and there not being enough open slots in the division they want to be re-entered, probably go by who played most recently, then by who finished higher in their league last time they played, then randomly.

For new entrants, do some kind of algorithm that determines which division is appropriate for them - and as I said before, I think it's better to underestimate slightly than overestimate slightly. Then put them into the highest available division that isn't higher than the calculated one, breaking ties by something (Isotropish ranking probably).

After new/returning slots are filled, I think you'd probably go to filling vacancies with extra promotions based on something like closest runner ups and the like.

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.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #22 on: April 16, 2014, 10:47:41 am »
+1

I mostly agree with Tables. Maybe shuffling divisions is a good idea, and it could help solve faster some division being overflowed with too many "too good" players.
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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #23 on: April 16, 2014, 12:03:37 pm »
0

I'm willing to go as is, and adjust if people really feel it's necessary.  I think it's just a fact of life that some of the divisions in a lower tier will be better than others.  No way around it.  Relegation/Promotion should help slightly in adjusting that.  But striving for perfect balance across a tier is just impossible.  Variations exist.

I'm just going to assume that people like to play dominion, and they won't leave for a season and re-enter just to game the system.
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soulnet

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Re: Rules & Regulations - discussion
« Reply #24 on: April 16, 2014, 03:03:00 pm »
+1

I'm just going to assume that people like to play dominion, and they won't leave for a season and re-enter just to game the system.

Just to clarify: My point is that being ungameable is a desirable property. Usually being able to game the system is saying something bad about the reasonability of the system, even if the gaming itself is not a practical problem.
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