Tournament Scoring Question

[Hubert Cater]

After that, all the factors described above are taken into account right from the start, current victory conditions, kills, national morale, MPP growth etc., and just being honest I'm not sure how we can really improve upon that.

The server then penalizes those that don't play and depending upon how far along in game you get, it might end up keeping your in game scores, or awarding the BYE score, which is 75 per game, or 150 maximum if both games were not played along far enough.

Don't get me wrong I understand the frustration, and ideally if players just played their full turns and played to the end (this is what they've signed up for via the Tournament) it would solve all the issues.

Beyond that, we have to find some numbers that are fair to those that play the tournament properly and those that are in situations like yourself whereby their opponents did not play in a timely manner or simply abandoned all together.

For example, assigning bonus points per turn (as suggested) for players that didn't return their turns quick enough, and you might end up in a situation where a player that had an opponent that timed out, might end up with a score higher than those that played their turns properly and right to the end, e.g. due to the bonuses being applied, and that would not be fair either to those that played out their matches fully.

[Taifun]

Beyond that, we have to find some numbers that are fair to those that play the tournament properly and those that are in situations like yourself whereby their opponents did not play in a timely manner or simply abandoned all together.

For example, assigning bonus points per turn (as suggested) for players that didn't return their turns quick enough, and you might end up in a situation where a player that had an opponent that timed out, might end up with a score higher than those that played their turns properly and right to the end...

Hi Hubert.
Again many thanks for your time and effort. The tournament as it is played now is highly frustrating and unfair. Players just stop playing or delay the game when things don't go as planned. In my case I managed to played only about 18-20 (?) turns in the second round but still won a decisive victory as Axis, and Germany was about to be invaded by the USSR... I got 153 points in that round but to my surprise some players that were way behind in the table managed to get 163-169 points! I can think of at least 6 players that got these high scores, many more points than the 5 leading players at that moment...

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Taifun,

Thanks and I think these are some good examples on just how hard it is to get right, and highlight some of the points I've been trying to make here as well.

For example, kjgokc2007 had concerns that his first round BYE scores would place him too far back and wanted higher scores applied to himself in order to stay in the race for the lead, versus your results in the second round, which is a score applied after playing beyond the minimum threshold of turns, ending up being less than some of the BYE scores that were given in the second round.

Essentially a concern of BYE scores not high enough, versus in the same thread, and after the second round, that BYE scores can be too high.

In your case for the second round, more specifically, it looks like you had one really good game in your mirrored match, and one with a lower score, and in comparison to those that received BYE scores, your overall score ended up lower than those BYE scores, but there were also some scores that ended up higher than yours where it looks like there was a potential mismatch of opponents (maybe), e.g. a few players had really good scores in both their mirrored matches and that skewed the score in their favour as well.

Mismatches can happen, and ideally over three rounds this evens out. Players not playing is always going to be a problem, and we have a system in place for that which will ensure a decent result for the worst case scenario of this, e.g. the BYE scores, and a penalty to those that stop playing so they are then cut from follow up rounds, which helps to remove them from being problematic.

It is clearly not perfect, clearly frustrating as the feedback has shown in this and other threads... we just don't have a better alternative in place in the moment that will seemingly satisfy all concerns, unfortunately.

Hubert

[kjgokc2007]

Responding to this...

Moving away from mirrored games is not always going to be optimal if more one sided campaigns are included in tournaments, e.g. such as a 1944 D-Day campaign.

If the campaigns are perfectly balanced then perhaps, but even here some players are just better at playing one side versus the other, e.g. a 1939 campaign is played arguably a bit differently depending upon which side you end up playing, and we wouldn't want to give advantage or disadvantage to those that might end up playing one side or the other depending upon how a side may be assigned by the server.

That's the idea behind mirrored games, e.g. you have to play the same campaign from both sides against the same opponent, and in the end how you win or how you lose in both games determines your final score. This is the same for every match and every round and seems to be the best way to ensure fairness all round per round.


* You can play to different players one as Allies and one as Axis. This stops them coping your moves and also does not let them see how they are doing vs your other game. They can compare to the other game but not vs the same opponent.

Axis and Allies has a great system to handle what side you want to play you bid MMP to play a side... Example I will take Axis and 30MMP then the other player can counter I will take Axis and 25MMP till they both agree and go... (some might take Allies and 30MMP its an open bidding either way but as Axis right now are the underdog...) * just add the MMP to the Axis (or Allies) starting values (they might give 20 MMP to Germany, 5 to Italy and 5 to Japan for example or what ever combination they want.)

This would allow your Tournament to be a single game vs a single opponent and make it much more likely for the players to finish as they have no idea if they are doing good or bad vs a mirrored game. This would also help balance the game as the players see fit. it also adds a lot of Spice to the game as what is he going to do with the extra MMP. Frankly I would go Axis + 150 MMP today.

I hope you consider a Ranking system in game so we can play players at our levels and have the pride of saying I'm Ranked #1. It would give your game a lot of value and fun for the players. Probably the best enhancement you could make to an excellent game... Thanks!

Axis and Allies would actually invite the #1 player each month to submit a Players Tips guide. (I was world champ for a while, game me a lot of pride and enjoyment in the game.)

/Hugs * sorry for venting my frustrations. I just want this to be the best game possible for us players.

Kenny

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Kenny,

No problem at all and perhaps having mirrored games against different opponents would indeed work better, it is just something that is as mentioned a bit out of my control as we don't set how the server runs the tournaments.

Ranking players is something that is from what I understand a one day possibility, maybe, and the bid system is something that players actually used on their own back in the old SC1 days in head to head games before tournament servers, and mostly because the original game was argued to be quite imbalanced. Memories of that time include some wild bids and games if I remember correctly.

One thing I can do is adjust the minimum threshold of turns so that ideally more players are filtered out after round 1, e.g. those that really don't play their turns and/or in a timely manner. This should help in the later rounds.

From what I understand Round 1 is open and random between opponents, whereas the later rounds pairings are matched up according to score for more ideal matches.

Hubert

[kjgokc2007]

The bidding MMP to play a side and the effects on the game make it so much better because you introduce all kinds of new strategy on how you use the extra MMP. It would give a lot of new life to your games. It is probably the best improvement you could make to the game today.

I understand that a new interface to open games for ranked play is a lot of work but once the work is done it could be used in all your games and they all would benefit. You might combine the work into one interface where you picked the game & Scenario and Ranked / Unranked Play and open bidding.

Ranked Game Play__________Host Game__MMP Bid__Accept Challenger MMP Bid Accept
SSC World at War Sept 1939__kjgokc2007__+150Axis__[ ]____BadBob___+140Axis [ ]

Something to think about

This strips out my spaces unless in edit mode so it looks funny in the post so I used underline to get the spacing semi accurate. If you can open this in edit mode it will make more sense.

If you use drop down list for all your games... you could use this opening interface for all your games and add new games at will. I.E. one challenge interface for all your games and games to come that add ranked play and bidding.

For Example when a player comes in he sees all open games-scenarios and bids he/she can accept the bid or counter... when either side accepts the others bid the game is launched or kjgokc2007 could update his bid to +135Axis and wait for BadBob to accept or a new player could come in and accept kjg2007 at +150Axis and they would launch.

This could be used for your tournament play as well with locked players bidding till one accepts.

(for Ranked play there are no passwords its you want to play ranked you play ranked, you could also show the players current ranked value.)

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks Kenny

[kjgokc2007]

For Ranked Play I would show the Rank level (Higher is better)

Everyone starts at Zero

Win +1
Loss -1
Win Vs player +5 levels above you +1
Loss vs Player -5 levels below you -1

Simple as that.

[Hubert Cater]

We are looking into it and will do what we can, which in the end might not be much other than minor refinements and improvements, since as mentioned we are limited by how the server works and what rules they have set up for it for all the games.

Granted we could have our own server, but it is just not something we are ever likely to have at this point unfortunately.

[kjgokc2007]

I don't get your scoring games at all. My Axis took Honolulu and Vladivostok Killed an America Fighter and Marine, Russian Army and Corps with 3 BB hits and 3 CV Air Hits and 3 hits on a German Fighter vs 1 hit on a brit Fighter and 9 hits on a China Army, 6 Hits on their Light Tank and 6 hits on a brit Corps. last turn.

My allies lost 1 Fighter for several Hits on Axis Air and I killed a German Sub, a Jap CV, Curser and Destroyer with 6 Hits on another Jap CV, and 8 Hits on a Navy Bomber and 4H/4A hits on another Jap CV. With some about 10 Air hits to my US CV's.

And my score is still 153 no change for days.

45 Days is not long enough to play these games out...

All the Red and Orange Hexes should count for points, Any Plunder or National Moral hits should count for points, Conquest should count for points.

I am very unhappy with your scoring criteria. 99% of these game will never end with a victory because people don't have time to finish these games and your Victory conditions for scoring a 90% based on games being finished. This needs a lot of work if you want your Tournament to mean anything. This is a joke as it is.

You also need to allow players to resign. You should not force a player to play a loosing game to the end, most players will just abandon the game and that totally screws your score, just like what happened to me in round 2.

Sorry to bitch but I have invested a lot of time and effort to play to try to actually win a fair Tournament this is not it.
Kenny

P.S. you would be much more accurate just using National Moral as your key factor for Points and forget the Win conditions as they only count if the game is played out.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi kjgokc2007,

Apologies for the late follow up.

Just wanted to quickly say thanks again for your further feedback, and to congratulate you on your Tournament 1st place victory, well done indeed

Hubert

[kjgokc2007]

Thanks Brother