Ladder Site Online...

[Soliton]

Here's my debate position: I have to establish that there's a belief that choosing Random is superior. If there's (even an erroneous) a belief that Random is superior, then people will choose Random more often than would otherwise be expected. Also, if there's a belief that Random is superior, then players will force themselves to choose Random, to their own detriment. The act of choosing Random by itself dramatically increases the learning curve of this game, and therefore an alternative should be provided if players believe that playing as a Random against a non-Random opponent provides them with an advantage.

We're usually not implementing features based on some people's beliefs. It seems a weird conclusion to say that even if people erroneously belief choosing random is superior that we should accommodate to that instead of telling them the truth.

"If your only goal is to win the game, do you believe that choosing your faction and leaderat the cost of revealing that information to your opponent is superior to choosing random?"

Yes.

As for PS7, I had no idea there existed a top-rated player who always selected his civ. I'll try to talk to him or arrange a game, maybe he does it for a challenge, I dunno. But YOU should know that one data point weighed against thousands is not good evidence.

He's not the only one. Either way as pointed out the majority does not decide the truth.


PS: Consider using less personal attacks in your debate if you'd like to continue this discussion.

[Pentarctagon]

"If your only goal is to win the game, do you believe that choosing your faction and leaderat the cost of revealing that information to your opponent is superior to choosing random?"

Yes.

why? it seems counter-intuative that the non-random player would be better off simply on the chance that the random player gets a bad (or a not-as-good) leader.

[Yogibear]

I think I've established all of that by simply stating the fact that most people pick Random. If you'd like a study of everyone's opinions (e.g. a Poll question: "If your only goal is to win the game, do you believe that choosing your faction and leaderat the cost of revealing that information to your opponent is superior to choosing random?"), that would function as additional, supplementary evidence, but when someone picks Random in a real rated game, that person is speaking with his wallet. He's putting rating points on the line.

You think you did establish your point, but that statement is based on the assumption, that people only play the ladder to win, ignoring all other possible reasons. In my opinion, for wesnoth that is different. I for example like to play random, because it gives me a diversity of game setups. My primary goal is not to win, it is to have fun.

It doesn't mean i am not a competitive player. I am and i try my best to win. I also like to climb up within the ladder. But i am not seeking strategies or exploits to get whatever advantage i can.

There are many people, who play in the ladder, because it's an excellent guess to find a more or less skilled opponent as well as one that doesn't behave like a jerk or leaves if he thinks he can't win. I am one of those, for example.

To have fun was always a primary focus of this community. And i think it still is (including the ladder players).

[Rigor]

My primary goal is not to win, it is to have fun.

yes

It doesn't mean i am not a competitive player. I am and i try my best to win. I also like to climb up within the ladder. But i am not seeking strategies or exploits to get whatever advantage i can.

yes, yes, yes, yes i hate it when ppl exploit certain fractions/tactics/maps jsut because there is a statistical chance that this kind of attack will go unpunished

it's an excellent guess to find a more or less skilled opponent as well as one that doesn't behave like a jerk or leaves if he thinks he can't win. I am one of those, for example.

unfortunately the ladder has its own jerks, for instance those that go only for point-harvesting with eeeeeeeeeverytime the same moves all the time, and when they change that once, they fail and say its the rngs fault (because honestly speaking, this tactics cant be countered by anything than good luck and p1 position). so they always open the game and decide the map where this works.

id be really glad if we could implement the random map addon from grrr asap.

[Yoyobuae]

"Getting a bad leader is Random's disadvantage". Except some of the worst leaders have been removed from the list of possible random leaders:

• Drakes: Saurian Oracle/Soothsayer
• Knalgans: Dwarvish Stalwart
• Loyalist: Shock Trooper, White Mage
• Northerners: none
• Rebels: White Mage, Elder Wose
• Undead: Necrophage

Yeah, right: "Choosing random we run the risk by using a random leader from the list of leaders of our choosing"

[chaoticwanderer]

"Getting a bad leader is Random's disadvantage". Except some of the worst leaders have been removed from the list of possible random leaders:

• Drakes: Saurian Oracle/Soothsayer
• Knalgans: Dwarvish Stalwart
• Loyalist: Shock Trooper, White Mage
• Northerners: none
• Rebels: White Mage, Elder Wose
• Undead: Necrophage

Yeah, right: "Choosing random we run the risk by using a random leader from the list of leaders of our choosing"

You know as of 1.7/1.8 all the bad leaders you just listed are available to random players?

[Pentarctagon]

actually, no. the undead still don't have the necrophage and the drakes still don't have the saurian oracle or soothsayer.

[Szei]

I personally would prefer my game to start with both players on 'even' ground rather than having a random factor introduced before the first turn has even begun.

But yes, ideally at least, the principle between random vs. non-random is either choosing your leader and giving your opponent a better initial recruit, or keeping your opponent in the dark but not getting to hand-pick your leader. It should be, and I feel it it is, an equal trade-off.

Perhaps in the long run the trade-off is equal, however I am more interested in the individual games themselves. I mean, sure the rankings will still be indicative of overall player skill if the risk a random player takes is equivalent to the risk a non-random player takes, but I am not so much interested in ranking accuracy as I am in balanced single games.

If you do not understand what I am trying to say, I will try to clarify. Whether or not you play random or non-random may not influence your rating, but it will most certainly affect the individual match-ups. Sure, this is obvious. What's my point? What I mean is that while overall there may be no upsets in ranking, the fact is that the random player will get lucky or unlucky in random vs. non-random and creates a disadvantage for one of the players from the start. I mean, the game has not even started and someone is already at a handicap. Is this what we want? Or do we want an even playing field from the beginning?

[ancestral]

The argument has been well established and I think people are receptive to the idea. So, why don't you guys do something about it?

[silent]

I'm not sure this is the place to put it, but since this is about the ladder site...

I was playing a game earlier today with someone called a1611, when at turn 20, he left for no reason. This should mean I get to report the game as a win for me, except when I did this, he had the game "revoked" (I think that's the term).

I don't have a replay of the whole game but there were observers who saw this occur. Is there anyway to reverse this?

[eyerouge]

I'm not sure this is the place to put it, but since this is about the ladder site...
I was playing a game earlier today with someone called a1611, when at turn 20, he left for no reason. This should mean I get to report the game as a win for me, except when I did this, he had the game "revoked" (I think that's the term).

I don't have a replay of the whole game but there were observers who saw this occur. Is there anyway to reverse this?

You should contact the admin - they can log in and un-revoke the game via their admin interface (I'm however very sceptical that any of them reads this thread though). You can't do it yourself. We wrote it that way on purpose, since if players could both revoke and unrevoke the others revocation there would be an endless "battle of the idiot" where one of the players kept pushing the button in hopes for being the last one to do it.

You are correct that the game counts as a win for you, but only if you waited around for x minutes according to the rules and you didn't agree on something else with him/her.

Also notice that everyone can see that he has revoked your game in his profile: If he keeps on revoking games and cheating like he just did(?) then it would show a high percentage of revoked games whenever he lost, which is a pretty bad omen and which in result would make it harder for him to find serious opponents. Who would play a person that revokes like =>10% of his games?

Lastly, don't care much about it - just avoid that player again. That one game won't effect your result much at all really.

[Soliton]

I don't have a replay of the whole game but there were observers who saw this occur.

http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.6/20090922 ... _(1611).gz

[silent]

Thanks for the help eye rouge and soliton, but I think eye rouge is correct, I didn't wait around too long once I saw him left so I don't think I can unrevoke the game.

[Rigor]

to be honest,

those rules are only for ppl who need them.

usually its clear if u lose u dont revoke the game, but some players think the rules serve them to bail them out of their obvious loss.

what i think of those players? will be punished the next time, dont worry about ur score wastage.

best wishes

R

[eyerouge]

to be honest,

those rules are only for ppl who need them.

usually its clear if u lose u dont revoke the game, but some players think the rules serve them to bail them out of their obvious loss.

The rule is there because, as all other rules, there needs to exist a way to formalize the handling of certain situations in order to preserve as much integrity and accuracy as possible on the ladder.

In this specific case a disconnect could happen for whatever reason while you are playing a game. Your ISP maybe had a glitch for just 2 minutes, your router maybe had one, maybe you're WiFi took a break for a while, maybe your dog stumbled across the network cable pulling it out accidentally or maybe you were taking a crap and your girlfriend/boyfriend came home and shut the lid on your notebook while you weren't there in order to preserve energy. The scenarios are plenty.

While what you write is true, that some players indeed could use the rule to bail them out from a loss, that can only happen if the player that didn't disconnect actually "breaks the rules" him/her self by not giving the disconnecting player a chance to get back into the game within x minutes.

Question that needs to be answered is: How do we solve disconnects if they happen?

The community could of course have a hard core approach and just decide that it wants a rule that says "if you disconnect you lost, no matter why you got disconnected". Or it could have a softer version of the same principle, which is currently in place at the ladder: "If you disconnect you have a very short period to re-connect, else you lost the game."

When I wrote the rule the softer approach made sense to me, and I still don't think it can be exploited since the other player has to stick a round for some minutes, giving the disconnectee a chance to re-connect. If however most people on the ladder are against the rule and would like the hardcore version of it instead or any other version for that matter, I think it would be necessary to discuss it with the admin, as it's they who have the power to change the rules. I'm sure they'd listen if there was some kind of consensus on the ladder.