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[Kirian]

I think the fact that even Dominion, a game for which the designer specifically avoided political interactions, still has an issue of kingmaking is pretty good evidence that it will be present in some form in pretty much every game with a decent level of interaction and 3 or more independent, competing teams.

Posit:  Games or sports that are played as a competitive tournament, as opposed to a casual gaming experience, should have no more than two players/teams in direct competition at one time.

[Jimmmmm]

I think the fact that even Dominion, a game for which the designer specifically avoided political interactions, still has an issue of kingmaking is pretty good evidence that it will be present in some form in pretty much every game with a decent level of interaction and 3 or more independent, competing teams.

Posit:  Games or sports that are played as a competitive tournament, as opposed to a casual gaming experience, should have no more than two players/teams in direct competition at one time.

So only games that can take 2 players or teams should be played competitively?

Also, kingmaking exists in 2-player tournaments. If my position has been decided, I can deliberately lose to help my opponent catch other players.

[Kirian]

I think the fact that even Dominion, a game for which the designer specifically avoided political interactions, still has an issue of kingmaking is pretty good evidence that it will be present in some form in pretty much every game with a decent level of interaction and 3 or more independent, competing teams.

Posit:  Games or sports that are played as a competitive tournament, as opposed to a casual gaming experience, should have no more than two players/teams in direct competition at one time.

So only games that can take 2 players or teams should be played competitively?

No, games that do not require head-to-head play can take any number of players--this covers (most) racing, golf, and some others.  But I can only think of one game/sport that is routinely watched by spectators that doesn't fall into one of these categories, which is poker--and even a ton of that is now played head-to-head.

Also, kingmaking exists in 2-player tournaments. If my position has been decided, I can deliberately lose to help my opponent catch other players.

This is only true in round-robin tournaments though, right?  It can't work in an elimination tournament, and the pairing of a Swiss tournament means that your position is not determined anyway.

[Jimmmmm]

I think the fact that even Dominion, a game for which the designer specifically avoided political interactions, still has an issue of kingmaking is pretty good evidence that it will be present in some form in pretty much every game with a decent level of interaction and 3 or more independent, competing teams.

Posit:  Games or sports that are played as a competitive tournament, as opposed to a casual gaming experience, should have no more than two players/teams in direct competition at one time.

So only games that can take 2 players or teams should be played competitively?

No, games that do not require head-to-head play can take any number of players--this covers (most) racing, golf, and some others.  But I can only think of one game/sport that is routinely watched by spectators that doesn't fall into one of these categories, which is poker--and even a ton of that is now played head-to-head.

Most racing, golf etc are more like a series of solitaire games so avoid kingmaking by having no one to interact with. I was thinking in particular of tabletop games, in which interactivity is generally considered a good thing. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are tabletop games which cannot take only 2 players/teams but are played competitively.

Also, kingmaking exists in 2-player tournaments. If my position has been decided, I can deliberately lose to help my opponent catch other players.

This is only true in round-robin tournaments though, right?  It can't work in an elimination tournament, and the pairing of a Swiss tournament means that your position is not determined anyway.

Right, your suggestion would then imply that round-robin systems should not be used in competitive tournaments.

[jaketheyak]

No, games that do not require head-to-head play can take any number of players--this covers (most) racing, golf, and some others.  But I can only think of one game/sport that is routinely watched by spectators that doesn't fall into one of these categories, which is poker--and even a ton of that is now played head-to-head.

You're not out of the running in poker until you are eliminated though.
The manner in which you are eliminated can certainly have an impact on the remaining players, but it's not really kingmaking unless you deliberately lose.

[Jack Rudd]

My experience of chess is that kingmaking is not usually a big thing in all-play-alls or Swisses. Mind you, chess does have well-established rating systems that everybody takes seriously, which helps.

[werothegreat]

My experience of chess is that kingmaking is not usually a big thing in all-play-alls or Swisses. Mind you, chess does have well-established rating systems that everybody takes seriously, which helps.

Pretty sure kingmaking is a checkers thing, not a chess thing.

[Amac]

My experience of chess is that kingmaking is not usually a big thing in all-play-alls or Swisses. Mind you, chess does have well-established rating systems that everybody takes seriously, which helps.

The only thing that happens sometimes is what we call in dutch a "salon draw", basically a draw that benefits either both players or benefits the player with the better rating in terms of championship chances. But this happens in many sports with league tables, even in football (although a couple of years ago we had a match in the final round of the Dutch domestic league where a team would play in the Europa League if they would win or lose, but not if they would draw, that team lost in the end, but that was because of reasons aside from the league itself, namely the way they dealt with the cup winner.)

I don't think in normal situations kingmaking is possible in a round robin hth tournament, without any externalities. In racing it's quite possible though, especially marathon (swimming) and the most obvious example of road cycling.

[funkdoc]

oh hey i forgot about this thread, sorry!

first off, to address the points re: other games, tournament poker stands out as a unique exception but even that still suffers from the non-kingmaking issues that all multiplayer competitive games have.  if you go on twoplustwo it's not hard to find cash-game pros who consider tournament poker a degenerate form of the game. why?

because oftentimes, the most important skill in tournaments is beating up on the weaker players and getting maximum value from them before they inevitably go down in flames.  you can effectively dodge other top players and come out on top, whereas the elite cash games only tend to have a couple fish at most.

unless you want to restrict your competitive scene to tiny invitationals, you can't really solve this problem with games of this type.


someone also mentioned kingmaking in 1v1...i tend to think of that as a separate thing, i.e. "collusion".  my original competitive games were fighting games (street fighter, mortal kombat, what have you), and this is an issue that's come up a lot there.  Evolution, the largest tournament for these games, used to run round-robin pools of 4 or 5 players each, with the top 2 finishers qualifying for the larger double-elimination bracket.  they did this for a couple of years then switched to double-elimination brackets for the "pools" as well, and i had assumed this was for time reasons since the event was growing.  however, one of Evo's organizers wrote an article breaking down various tournament formats, and he said the main reason they abandoned round-robin was that it rewards collusion much more than other formats do.  this is because more players are directly affected by one's wins and losses, and also because there's more certainty in whom you'll be playing.  the best-laid plans in double-elimination could get screwed by one big upset, after all!

this being said, even with double-elimination as the competitive standard, fighting games have still had countless instances of players throwing matches.  they almost all tend to be at the end of the tournament, when both players are already in the money.  you'd see this with players on the same sponsored team, or just players who are buddies...you get the idea.  a big contributing factor is that fighting game tournaments have historically had EXTREMELY top-heavy payouts - for a long time the standard was "only top 3 get paid, 70/20/10 split".  not only that, but some major tournaments would occasionally add a pot bonus for 1st place on top of that 70%!  easy to see how that encourages splitting the pot, no?  there's also the issue of so many top players being friends nowadays since they get to see each other at every major event - the old days had a lot more genuine rivalries since people couldn't go to many tournaments and get to know each other, so that used to be kind of a counterbalance to all of this.

ok, that got a bit off track.  i guess my tl;dr point is that certain tournament structures incentivize collusion more than others, but you also have to factor in the culture of your game's competitive scene.

[funkdoc]

Are you allowed or required to bid on plants you don't need? If yes, how is it different from resources you don't need?

the idea is that if you're the only one left who can bid against someone for a top plant, you have to "police" the game essentially.  make sure the plant goes for something close to fair market value.  a lot of high-level power grid is policing, really - think of starting builds and why it's bad to have 3 players right next to each other.

i will say that the auction issue is less widely agreed upon than the others, as i have seen good players not bid on others' plants at all if they're dead.  what many don't like is the element of luck that adds...if some top-notch plant doesn't show up until it's down to one player who can win and one player who can't, not bidding can throw the game to them.  bidding on the plant makes it more similar to what would happen if other players were still in the auction, and power grid has plenty of variance already so people tend to like that.

This sounds strange to me. So if you don't have a shot at winning, you essentially switch into dummy mode? Might as well leave the game and have an algorithm play your last moves?

yep!  it's about reducing variance (by making the endgame more predictable with this "honor code" stuff) and making the game faster.  a 4P power grid probably takes twice as long as a 2P dominion game on average, so the latter is not an insignificant motivation.

Sounds rather like "act if you didn't exist". Not competing for rank sounds not like "do what's best for you".

it works if you only go by the ranking system that BSW uses, which is what is done there.  people would be far more receptive to your argument if the site gave you points for finishing 2nd or 3rd, but literally the only thing it tracks is who finished 1st.

but yes, this conversation is a great illustration of why i've been playing a lot less pgrid and a lot more dominion lately.   there's nothing really *wrong* with anything you're saying here; trying to be competitive in multis forces you to pick one arbitrary honor code over others.  i gave it a shot for over a year, and power grid is one of my all-time favorite games of any sort, but hardly anybody plays 2P in that and aaaaaggggghhhhh

Caylus is a dry worker placement I haven't managed to get on the table more than twice, but it looks brilliant. I like Through the Ages better, but it also has kingmaking issues that are heavily and repeatedly debated.

yeah that's my reservation with caylus.  i'm not so sure i WANT a game with "zero luck" or whatever, but plenty of people i know swear by it.  i don't know too much about through the ages, but i forgot that game has netplay now and the theme is a lot cooler to me than dominion's.  for now i'm going to stick with the game that has an established 2P scene though~

[Triumph44]

I might've missed someone saying this upthread and this discussion seems to have largely run its course, but to me if you are in 3rd with no hope of winning, it's your prerogative to end the game as quickly as possible.  On the other hand, if it was close between the other two players, I'd consider it pretty unsporting if the 3rd player ran out a non-victory pile simply to end the game.  But basically if the 3rd player can end the game by greening, he or she should.  Been a while since I played 3p Dominion but this was generally how we played.

[jaketheyak]

it works if you only go by the ranking system that BSW uses, which is what is done there.  people would be far more receptive to your argument if the site gave you points for finishing 2nd or 3rd, but literally the only thing it tracks is who finished 1st.

And that's basically an artificially imposed version of the mindset that a lot of player's have, which is win-at-all-costs because second place is just the first of the losers.
It's not a mindset that I share, and it's one that I feel is not particularly conducive to actually having fun.

Given that it causes players who can no longer get first place to essentially stop playing, that seems like prima facie proof that it's a mindset that ruins fun.

[scott_pilgrim]

it works if you only go by the ranking system that BSW uses, which is what is done there.  people would be far more receptive to your argument if the site gave you points for finishing 2nd or 3rd, but literally the only thing it tracks is who finished 1st.

And that's basically an artificially imposed version of the mindset that a lot of player's have, which is win-at-all-costs because second place is just the first of the losers.
It's not a mindset that I share, and it's one that I feel is not particularly conducive to actually having fun.

Given that it causes players who can no longer get first place to essentially stop playing, that seems like prima facie proof that it's a mindset that ruins fun.

But it doesn't cause them to stop playing.  You even said it yourself, "second place is the first of the losers"; that means if you can't get first, then go for second at all costs.  You're still playing and (in most games) your new win con is still well-defined.  It's just different from what it was before.

I think that's actually not what funkdoc is describing though anyway.

[jaketheyak]

it works if you only go by the ranking system that BSW uses, which is what is done there.  people would be far more receptive to your argument if the site gave you points for finishing 2nd or 3rd, but literally the only thing it tracks is who finished 1st.

And that's basically an artificially imposed version of the mindset that a lot of player's have, which is win-at-all-costs because second place is just the first of the losers.
It's not a mindset that I share, and it's one that I feel is not particularly conducive to actually having fun.

Given that it causes players who can no longer get first place to essentially stop playing, that seems like prima facie proof that it's a mindset that ruins fun.

But it doesn't cause them to stop playing.  You even said it yourself, "second place is the first of the losers"; that means if you can't get first, then go for second at all costs.  You're still playing and (in most games) your new win con is still well-defined.  It's just different from what it was before.

I think that's actually not what funkdoc is describing though anyway.

At least idiomatically, the phrase "second place is first of the losers" doesn't mean "strive to be better than the other losers" it means "nothing matters except first place" (which is perhaps what I should have said to keep my meaning clear).

Funkdoc is describing a scenario in which a game's online ranking system ignores anything other than first place finishes and this has the (intended or unintended) effect that anyone who cannot reach first place stops playing competitively.
I am saying that I think this scenario is the death of fun.

The worst thing about it, IMO, is that it presents a huge barrier to entry.
If you've never played a (well-established) game before, it's likely that you aren't going to start winning right out of the gates.
But here you have a scenario where you don't get to watch your ranking improve incrementally as your fourth-places turn into thirds, then seconds, then eventually firsts.
You get to sit dead last on zero points until you eke out your first win (likely giving up in frustration before that point).
Just awful, awful, awful.

[scott_pilgrim]

I knew what you meant when you said that, but I was pointing out the flip side of that.

Anyway, I'm not sure if we're really talking about the same thing (my fault if that's the case).  I agree that players should have some well-defined objective when they know they can't win.  I disagree that you shouldn't treat first place as infinitely better than second or worse ranks.  Ideally, you would want someone with 1 first, 0 seconds, and 99 thirds to be rated better than someone with 0 firsts, 100 seconds, and 0 thirds; while someone with 99 firsts, 1 second, and 0 thirds is rated better than someone with 99 firsts, 0 seconds, and 1 third.  I don't know if there's an elegant mathematical system that can handle this when players have played different numbers of games though.

Also, I don't think it's that painful to play a game you lose repeatedly.  It's not the end of the world if you're not getting "credit" for your second/third/etc. victories.  You can still tell that you're getting better even if you don't get to see a number go up.

[jaketheyak]

Ideally, you would want someone with 1 first, 0 seconds, and 99 thirds to be rated better than someone with 0 firsts, 100 seconds, and 0 thirds; while someone with 99 firsts, 1 second, and 0 thirds is rated better than someone with 99 firsts, 0 seconds, and 1 third.

Look, I know this is just going to be one of those agree-to-disagree type deals, but I feel I have to say something to this lest you think that this is a universally accepted truth.
I think this way of looking at things is fundamentally wrong.

To me, it is really obvious that someone with 1st-2nd-3rd results of 1-0-99 is a much worse player than someone with 0-100-0.
In terms of demonstration of skill, being consistently at the second-place level is a much better indicator of a decent player than being consistently third with a single win.
I would dismiss that single win as a fluke, as would any sort of statistical analysis of those datasets.

For a real world demonstration, have a look at how international tennis rankings work.
To keep it simple, we'll pretend that those are all wins, runners-up and semi-finalist results at the Grand Slam level (and ignore the loss of points over time).
1-0-99 gives 73,280 points, 0-100-0 gives 120,000 points.

Golf is similar.
The winner gets 100% of the tournament's ranking value, second place gets 60%, third gets 40% and so on.

So, really, it is absolutely contrary to standard thinking to say that 1st is "infinitely better" than 2nd which is "infinitely better" than 3rd.

Don't get me wrong, I feel very strongly that you should play as if this is the case, and I am fairly sure that professional athletes would also.
You should always strive to come first and if that's not possible you should try just as hard to come second.
But if the rankings are so heavily weighted in favour of wins that a single win outweighs 100 second-places, where is the incentive to keep trying once the win is impossible?

TL;DR Yes, first is better than second, but consistency is more important than fluking a win.
Also, sorry that this has gotten so far off-topic.

[scott_pilgrim]

No I don't think it's a universally accepted truth, nor do I necessarily think it should be (and it depends on the game too).

I disagree that the 1-0-99 player is worse than the 0-100-0 player.  The 0-100-0 player is clearly playing for the wrong objective, that's why they haven't won yet.  The 1-0-99 player is playing to win, and screwing up a lot, but hey, they got it once.  That's what you're really going for.  The example is unrealistic, because at that point the single win could just be a fluke, but you get the idea.

Tennis is a 1v1 game, so I assume those are just tournament results?  Again, it depends on the game, and I think this is a case where it would be silly to have a "winner-take-all" ranking system.  I think what I'm saying mostly just applies to "free-for-all" competitive board games.  You only need that kind of thing to keep players on track when they know they've lost so you can avoid kingmaking (hooray, we're back on topic for a second).

In fact, it looks like you even agree that players should play as if first is infinitely better than second, etc.  If the rating system doesn't reflect that though, then you're in a situation where you have to decide whether you should be playing to maximize your rating, or playing how you "should" play.  I mean, isn't the rating system supposed to be a direct reflection of how good you are at playing the game?  If there was $1 million on the line for the player with the best rating, then something like I described (that just uses second place as a tiebreaker for the same number of firsts, etc.) would result in players playing that way, treating first place as infinitely better than second, etc.  Anything else would result in players valuing second place higher than they're supposed to.

[jaketheyak]

1-0-99 vs 0-100-0 is clearly an unhelpfully unrealistic example.

What you're really saying is that you think someone with a record of 10-0-20 is a better player than someone with a record of 9-21-0, which I think is fundamentally wrong and completely devalues the concept that second place is better than third.

[scott_pilgrim]

Well, even if you are convinced that a 9-21-0 player is better than a 10-20-0 player, my point still stands, that any rating system which reflects this will encourage players to NOT play as if first is infinitely better than second, and second infinitely better than third, etc., which you seem to agree should be how players should play.  If you want players to play this way, the rating system needs to give them a reason to.

[jaketheyak]

Well, even if you are convinced that a 9-21-0 player is better than a 10-20-0 player, my point still stands, that any rating system which reflects this will encourage players to NOT play as if first is infinitely better than second, and second infinitely better than third, etc., which you seem to agree should be how players should play.  If you want players to play this way, the rating system needs to give them a reason to.

But the whole point is that a rating system that devalues second-place finishes doesn't give players a reason to play hard for second!
Your system says you need to get first, or you might as well not bother.
Which is the exact opposite of believing that first > second > third.
It basically means that first > second and second = third.

Yes, under your system 0-10-0 is better than 0-0-10.
But if 0-10-0 is trumped by 1-0-9, why would you ever bother to try and get second?

And as I said at the beginning, this is going to be an agree-to-disagree type thing, so I don't even know why I am still trying to explain my position.

[blueblimp]

But if 0-10-0 is trumped by 1-0-9, why would you ever bother to try and get second?

Well, obviously you'd try to get second in any situation where you can't get first at all, for example.

[scott_pilgrim]

Right, I think we're just repeating the same things right now.  I understand if you think second place should be more important relative to first than what I'm saying; that's reasonable (though obv. I have reasons for liking a system with first infinitely greater than second infinitely greater than third).  I just don't understand how that could be consistent with this:

...1st is "infinitely better" than 2nd which is "infinitely better" than 3rd.

Don't get me wrong, I feel very strongly that you should play as if this is the case...

Any rating system which uses second place as anything more than a tiebreaker for equal number of firsts is encouraging players to play differently from how you're saying you feel very strongly they should play.  The rating system defines the win conditions; if the rating system does something else, like 100 points for first, 10 points for second, etc., then the objective has changed.  Your goal is still to get first, but if you have a guaranteed chance at second and only a 5% shot at first (and risk getting third otherwise), under the new rating system, you wouldn't go for it.  I feel like you're saying two contradictory things; you want the objective to be the same thing I'm advocating, but you want a rating system that defines a different objective.

If we continue this discussion any further maybe it should be forked off into a new thread.

[ipofanes]

Are you allowed or required to bid on plants you don't need? If yes, how is it different from resources you don't need?

the idea is that if you're the only one left who can bid against someone for a top plant, you have to "police" the game essentially.  make sure the plant goes for something close to fair market value.  a lot of high-level power grid is policing, really - think of starting builds and why it's bad to have 3 players right next to each other.

i will say that the auction issue is less widely agreed upon than the others, as i have seen good players not bid on others' plants at all if they're dead.  what many don't like is the element of luck that adds...if some top-notch plant doesn't show up until it's down to one player who can win and one player who can't, not bidding can throw the game to them.  bidding on the plant makes it more similar to what would happen if other players were still in the auction, and power grid has plenty of variance already so people tend to like that.

This sounds strange to me. So if you don't have a shot at winning, you essentially switch into dummy mode? Might as well leave the game and have an algorithm play your last moves?

yep!  it's about reducing variance (by making the endgame more predictable with this "honor code" stuff) and making the game faster.  a 4P power grid probably takes twice as long as a 2P dominion game on average, so the latter is not an insignificant motivation.

Thanks! I think I am getting your argument, and while I don't agree with jaketheyak that a winner-takes-all rating takes all the fun out of the game, I would still think that a game with a "don't molest the winners honor code" mindset could be improved by actual and clean player elimination.

Caylus is a dry worker placement I haven't managed to get on the table more than twice, but it looks brilliant. I like Through the Ages better, but it also has kingmaking issues that are heavily and repeatedly debated.

yeah that's my reservation with caylus.  i'm not so sure i WANT a game with "zero luck" or whatever, but plenty of people i know swear by it.  i don't know too much about through the ages, but i forgot that game has netplay now and the theme is a lot cooler to me than dominion's.  for now i'm going to stick with the game that has an established 2P scene though~

Through the Ages has a healthy 2P culture, and whereas people disagree whether 2P is the One True Way or a degenerate form of TtA, they all agree that it's a quite different game.

[jaketheyak]

...1st is "infinitely better" than 2nd which is "infinitely better" than 3rd.

Don't get me wrong, I feel very strongly that you should play as if this is the case...

What I really meant to say is that a competitive player who can't get first place should be playing as if second place is the greatest possible glory.
If you can get first, playing to try and get second is lame, but if first is unattainable you shouldn't act as though the game no longer matters because you have already "lost".
If second place is little more than a consolation prize, and that is reflected in the ranking system, then a lot of players will get to the point where first is no longer attainable and then just give up.
And in my experience, playing a multiplayer game with someone who is sitting there not trying very hard because they are too busy grumbling about not being able to get first place is not very much fun.

The scenario described playing Powergrid where the end-game involves those who are not in the running for first sitting around just waiting for the game to end, sounds like the most horrible board-gaming experience possible.
Seriously, it doesn't just suck for the losers in this scenario.
It kills a lot of the fun for the winners too.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

I agree that players should have some well-defined objective when they know they can't win.

I don't play 3p (or 4p) much, but when I do, if I am shut out of 1st, the objective I work toward is ending the game as soon as possible, so we can start another one, in which I will have a chance of winning.  Obviously, this is not the same as:

What I really meant to say is that a competitive player who can't get first place should be playing as if second place is the greatest possible glory.

Be that as it may, I don't have much sympathy for the winner who did not have as much fun as he otherwise might have, because hey, at least he won:

And in my experience, playing a multiplayer game with someone who is sitting there not trying very hard because they are too busy grumbling about not being able to get first place is not very much fun.

The scenario described playing Powergrid where the end-game involves those who are not in the running for first sitting around just waiting for the game to end, sounds like the most horrible board-gaming experience possible.

Which is why I do everything I can to end a game quickly, when I can't actually win it.