MP: Change HoF mechanics

[WraithLord]

This is continuation of discussion started by Calahan here and addition to a similar thread I started on the other forums w/ same starting post:

Basically current HoF while simple to maintain has some glaring issues. Namely:
1. newb game wins count the same as vets wins
2. small game wins count the same as big game wins
3. Losing doesn't count so 5/5 winner ranks below 6/100 winner
4. No motivation to survive as much as possible. Quite the contrary, once it's clear you're not gonna win then why keep playing at all?- Better to go AI or stale.

One suggestion is to move to an ELO system - like in chess.
This system will address all the current HoF issues. It has one known issue though - at high ratings it encourages "sitting" on the rating.

I would like to hear opinions and suggestions on the matter. The objective is to consider ways to address the problems of current HoF.

[Kungfoo]

So much for my plan to come out of nowhere to blitz-game my way to HoF dominance.

Couple of issues tend to crop up in ELO settings - 'sitting' on higher ranks (as you mentioned); increased stratification between 'tiers'; and the propensity to avoid matchups that you can lose. These problems tend to be exacerbated when the sample size is small, which makes it probably not the best fit for dom3 (way fewer matches between way fewer players than something like chess or starcraft).

I think you need to be careful about how you go about punishing people for losses. I mean, you want to create an incentive for people to play more games, not fewer. Probably better to go about giving more bonus points for a win, or especially a win against strong competition, than to start removing points for losses - the latter option would seem to disincentivize participation in more competitive games, which is probably not what you want. Adding a metric to track win% and number of games played is probably a great start, and if penalties are to be awarded, let them be for dropped/abandoned games, stales, and stealth-AIs - as those are the behaviors you really want to avoid.

As for how to encourage/reward playing larger games? Well, maybe take some sort of formula 1-style points system wherein the top half of finishers receive some credit, with the overall winner getting a disproportionately-large share? In an 8-player game this could be something like 1pt-4th, 2pts-3rd, 3pts-2nd, 7pts-1st? and a 16-player game would be 1pt-8th through 7pts-2nd, with 15pts for first.

You could then probably do something like aggregate points score/# of total games played to arrive at sort of a general 'strength' score, and then compare your win % against the avg. strength score of your combined opponents to get a fairly decent shot at how you stack up overall.

Couple of problems that jump out immediately are that this doesn't address or account for 'cliques'; ie, if there are no common opponents between two players then the rankings are devalued somewhat... but that's a difficult problem to avoid without adding weightings in at the start of any rankings system, which kinda impugns the fairness aspect (not that a wraithlord or thedemon isn't deserving of a higher ranking off the bat, but that should be evident from the stats alone). A better solution might be to have a round-robin style tournament or two with participation from both the vets and some of the newer members of the community, providing a decent set of common opponents and cross-game samples, as well as some fantastic trash-talking if anyone's able to pull an upset.

[Valerius]

I do think it makes sense to break large games (maybe 12+ players?) out separately from smaller games.

For one thing, it just seems fair. Take two players of equal ability, equal winning percentage and putting equal time into the game but one prefers small games and the other large ones. Assuming they both face an equal level of competition the one playing small games will record more wins because his games play faster.

I also think large games are a better measure of overall skill. Knowledge of game mechanics and tactical and strategic sense are certainly tested in small games but there's some factors that I think get tested much more in larger games:

* In terms of planning, in a large game you will have to prepare for and deal with a larger variety of situations. For instance, in small games there's more of a chance of not having to face heat/cold nations early or maybe there aren't any heavy bless nations in the game, etc.

* Also, in a smaller game there might only be two nations that complete research and are wielding the full array of endgame magic, sometimes you might not even get to this stage. In a large game you will likely have several opponents capable of doing this and so it more fully tests your ability in all phases of the game.

* In a small game a single alliance can be all it takes to get those nations into a winning position. In a large game you'll likely need a coalition (obviously assuming it isn't a no diplo game) and if you can keep that coalition intact while you are the one benefitting the most, well that's an accomplishment right there.

* Micromanagement. People don't really mention this but, perhaps because it's my worst weakness, I think being able to focus and not let your play get sloppy when you've got dozens or even hundreds of commanders and thousands of troops to manage in battle is a real advantage. Zeldor's megagame win isn't impressive just because of his skill as a player but because of the insane tolerance for micro it implies.

I'm sure there's more but that's just some stuff that comes to mind. Of course it's not perfect - nobody is going to think winning an 8 player game filled with Micah clones is less impressive than winning a game twice that size filled with Valerius clones. But unless you're going to audit each game for the players involved, perhaps even the circumstances of the win, this seems like a reasonable solution that hopefully is possible with the information you've already compiled so there's no extra work involved.

[WraithLord]

I want to put a more simplistic suggestion for calculating HoF rating. It should significantly improve the current system.
Assuming game has N players. 1 winner (2 in case of tie) and s ( a. Winner gets N*W points
b. Survivors get N/S rounded down points each
c. I will accept corrections to any of the old games with a list of survivors. For new game this entry would be mandatory.

W is a factor of how much we want to reward winning a game. I suggest W=1.
S is a factor of how much we want to reward sticking to the end of a game. I suggest S=4. Meaning that surviving 4 N player games count as one win!

This solves problems 2 + 4 of current HoF. #3 is partially addressed since surviving in games counts.
#1 can be addressed if we start tagging a games as NewB or Vets. Then NewB will get, say, 3rd of the points.