51 coaches online • Server time: 14:21
Forum Chat
Log in
Recent Forum Topics goto Post Secret League Americ...goto Post DOTP Season 4goto Post Skittles' Centu...
SearchSearch 
Post new topic   Reply to topic
View previous topic Log in to check your private messages View next topic
cdassak



Joined: Oct 23, 2013

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 13:35 Reply with quote Back to top

He, like this thread will ever die down.

Btw nothing against you or your views, just teasing.

_________________
Image
Christer



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 14:16
FUMBBL Staff
Reply with quote Back to top

dode74 wrote:
I see it as a scheduling system (as opposed to a scheduled system) which does not have the ability to issue a "Written Challenge", a "Written Challenge" being a match where the player must positively accept or reject the challenge, with the consequences as per CRP. R's scheduler has passive rejection as opposed to the positive rejection a "Written Challenge" would require. I see them as different things.


Sure, and that's why I called it a partial challenge system. It's quite similar from a technical perspective with a major difference being the "passive rejection".

dode74 wrote:
Before I get jumped on by everyone, I have no idea what the technical difficulties would be to manage adding a challenge system as per CRP (particularly with the substitute rules), and fully respect the decision not to add it.


"Technical" is sort of ambiguous here. There's one part of the problem which is purely how to implement a system in code. There are clearly ways to overcome this technicality, although it certainly would take "more than five minutes" to accomplish.

The other aspect of technical problems is usability and adapting a system like that in an online context. A naïve implementation would work something like this:

1 Team A issues a challenge to team B
1.1 Both Team A and Team B are set into a challenge resolution state, where they are unable to act further prior to resolving the pending challenge
2 Team B has a choice:
a) Accept the challenge, scheduling the two teams to play a match
b) Decline the challenge, resolving as a loss according to the rules
c) Transfer the challenge to another, willing team

This process wouldn't be super hard to deal with in terms of making it functional for situations where things are going well (let's return to things not going well later). However, 2c is trickier than the rest. It'd require some form of "open substitutions" list where coaches could find a match to replace the challenged team in. Obviously, another state would have to be sorted out here as well where the original challenging team has some time to respond to the change (this is unspecified in the challenge section of the rules, but let's say another day).

Note that this would let people choose who they play against, and therefore be unsuitable for the B division.

But, let's get back to things not going well..

First off, the challenge section of the rules state a response needs to be made "within a day of receiving the challenge". What does this mean in an online context? Logging on to the site? How about if you're only checking forums? Would this perhaps make people not want to log on? What if you're on a vacation? What if you've stopped playing entirely?

Let's ignore the last two (pretty significant) points and assume it's a day from the challenge being issued (and an email is sent or whatever to at least give people a chance). What happens if there's no response? Default to decline after 24 hours, and a 2-0 victory is awarded seems to be the most reasonable option.

One problem here is that there's no inherent reward to a win (or a penalty for a loss) like this. Sure, your CR would probably increase and your win stat on the team would increase (increasing your win percentage) but no other reward. So what's the point? There's no significant consequence to either team, and my guess is that once a system like this settled down it'd simply not be used.

But ok.. Let's say the challenge is accepted. How long do you wait for the match to actually be played? The two teams are now locked into resolving a match somehow, but it's far from certain that this will be done directly. People are in different time zones, and their cats catch fire on a daily basis so it would potentially end up taking quite some time.

From a challenger perspective, you issue the challenge and have to expect up to 24 hours for a response (either a forfeit or a scheduled match). The forfeit gives you a +1 on a stat somewhere (remember, rules state no SPPs, no FF and no gold), and the scheduled match can take days to actually start (a process that can take a very long time in certain cases).

Ok, you say, introduce a way to withdraw your challenge (not part of the original rules), but the same would happen if a substitute would take the place of the challenged team at which point the original challenger is no longer "in charge" of the challenge. So that doesn't exactly work very well.

Essentially, at best you'll get a match, and at worst your team is locked into a match you never wanted to play in the first place (and it's almost guaranteed to be vs a cpomb killer team) or your team is locked into a lengthy process to resolve the match.

Who would benefit from a system like this? There are two answers here, depending on whether you agree that this doesn't work in the Box division or not:

1. In Blackbox, it doesn't really benefit anyone. At best you'll get a match (which you would by simply activating the team), and at worst you lock your team from playing for extended periods of time. I won't go into the cherry picking possibilities here as you already disagreed with me about being able to control who you play against in B.
2. In R (or some new challenge division), it benefits bashers who normally have a hard time getting games. They'd be able to issue challenges, or sniping other challengers by substituting in. Either way, it's not exactly a great experience.

In my opinion, these system challenges are large enough for me to not feel it's worth spending the couple of hundred hours it would take to do the technical implementation.

That being said, though, a way to make it easier to schedule a one-off game against someone on the site (rather than having to agree on a game name over PMs) is something I do want to get done at some point. This could easily be called a challenge system on the site, despite not fully implementing the system as per the CRP rulebook.
dode74



Joined: Aug 14, 2009

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 14:51 Reply with quote Back to top

Thank you, Christer, for the explanation. Like I said:
Quote:
I have no idea what the technical difficulties would be
Very Happy
koadah



Joined: Mar 30, 2005

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 15:42 Reply with quote Back to top

Out of interest, how many people actually use the challenge system as specified in the rule book?

Part of the problem with the current scheduling system is that you can only select one date/time.

What I'd need is to be able to say something like start time Mon 20:00-2200, Tues 21:00-23:00, Fri 18:00-00:00.
Otherwise PM is better. PM also allows a little chat.

_________________
Image
O[L]C 2016 Swiss! - April ---- All Stars - Anniversary Bowl - Teams of Stars - 13th March
NerdBird



Joined: Apr 08, 2014

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 15:50 Reply with quote Back to top

I don't know if we should really be referencing a rulebook that we know has inherent problems. How extensively were any of the league rules tested btw?

I mean, they extensively tested teams above 175 TV for balance, right? Wink

Of all the table top leagues I have been in and talked about, there were many house rules to maintain a sort of competitive environment and reduce the attrition to poor players.

_________________
Image
Image
thoralf



Joined: Mar 06, 2008

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 16:22 Reply with quote Back to top

The challenge system would make more sense in tournaments than in free play. Just like the "open round robin" of the 145 club, where there's a pool of teams playing free-for-all within a time frame. As I read it, the CRP1 clause offers a way to settle a problem we don't have in pure Round Robin tournaments. If that's correct, then the challenge system could work the same way games are usually scheduled in tournaments, with Fumbbl's messaging system and under supervision of the tournament director. Since there's a way to lock teams in a B tournament, everything on the technical side could be in place for open Round Robins in B.

Furthermore, the more value is attached to the tournament, the more important the challenging system becomes. Hence my suggestion of using this kind of system to settle who's the King of the Hill, who's the Box Champion, who owns the Box, who is the Box, etc. The penalty is not to lose 0-2, it's the shame of declining to play team T in a King of the Hill setting.

***

This kind of system could even be a way to address bash in Box, assuming recurring match-ups between CPOMB teams could mimick the predatorial system in the Highlander movie. If CPOMB teams play a round robin with one another, what do you think will happen to CPOMB teams? If we can create a system where there can only be one Highlander, then there might be a way to channel CPOMB into something truly magnificient.

Another related reason is that nerfing Claw and Piling On might have an incidence on the teams that rely on it. It might be hard for them to adapt a new skill set, and coaches might prefer to retire these teams. Instead of losing years of team history, we could create an event or a league where CPOMB teams could have at it until total Ragnarok.


Last edited by thoralf on Nov 25, 2015 - 18:49; edited 1 time in total
JackassRampant



Joined: Feb 26, 2011

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 17:10 Reply with quote Back to top

I'd like to see some way to use the scheduler in Ranked, outside of tournaments. I can see how this would look, in addition to Gamefinder (not instead).

On other coaches' home pages, next to each of their unscheduled Ranked and League teams, is a button that reads "Challenge". If you click on this button, you select a team of yours in the same division and eligible to play against the team in question. This takes you to the scheduler window, where you select a challenge day/time.

Your opponent then gets a PM offering the challenge. They may accept, decline, issue an alternative date/time and/or team, or fail to respond. If they accept, or if they issue an alternative that is accepted, the two teams are scheduled and unable to play additional games. There is no penalty for declined challenges. Decline away. Or just don't reply, that's the same thing.

_________________
Veni, Vidi, Risi
thoralf



Joined: Mar 06, 2008

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 17:26 Reply with quote Back to top

plasmoid wrote:
My point was merely that the box scheduler currently does not allow coaches to choose their opponent or refuse games.


This point doesn't contradict mine, Martin, which is that the CRP1 has not been designed for online activities such as B, contrary to testimonies cited on earlier pages.

Look back at the CRP1 as if you never read it. You see that the rules of BB end on page 15. Everything else is called "Extra rules." Within these extra rules, BB games take place in two types situations: league or tournament.

The CRP1 says very little about one-off games, and if memory serves me well dismisses them as being non-evolutive. It provides guidelines to set up leagues and tournaments, and endows the Comissioner with all the powers to adapt the rules as he sees fit. The CRP1 therefore clearly distinguishes one-off games from league play, whence the B scheduler creates a league with evolutive one-off games!

I call Box a league, because that's the concept in CRP1 that makes the most sense for it. Box (played with its scheduler) is certainly not a tournament, nor is it the same kind of a one-off game to which the CRP1 refers. You could call it a pool or an environment, but that's not within the CRP1's ontology.


Last edited by thoralf on Nov 26, 2015 - 15:14; edited 4 times in total
Balle2000



Joined: Sep 25, 2008

Post   Posted: Nov 25, 2015 - 18:05 Reply with quote Back to top

cdassak wrote:
cdassak wrote:
dode74 wrote:

Really, really stepping away now...


I dont believe you


I knew it!


\o/
Dunenzed



Joined: Oct 28, 2011

Post   Posted: Nov 26, 2015 - 11:30 Reply with quote Back to top

Anyone else feeling broke after reading too many five dollar words?

_________________
Image

Join the Human League Premiership!
happygrue



Joined: Oct 15, 2010

Post   Posted: Nov 27, 2015 - 01:06 Reply with quote Back to top

I have been mulling scheduler ideas for some time, but I have not be able to get it hashed out to my liking (I keep seeking the white whale but running into windmills instead).

But in the hopes that perhaps one of these will bear fruit after crowd-sourcing, I'm going to post my thoughts.

Firstly, Christer has provided good reasons why many (possible) solutions have not already been tried. I've been trying to think of ideas that do NOT impact a change in rules, but only in matchmaking/culture, with the thought that they will improve things at least a bit.

I believe that implementing some number of these will have a positive impact on box culture. The upside is that I'm not nerfing clawpomb, so there will (I expect) be less opposition to them. The downside is that if you take away all of the various aspects of changes that *currently* seem to be off the table, the rest all involve Christer doing some heavy lifting. But maybe he's open to that if he like the idea enough. Wink

They are not in any particular order.

    1) Allow draws that have only 3 coaches to happen IF each coach actives "enough" teams.

    The big issue with low coach draws is that there is a risk that some people will try to game the system. But as long as 3 coaches are in the draw, and each of those activates, say 3 or 4 or 5 teams, then there should still actually be a better chance for some good matchups than in many draws with 4 coaches (where each activates 1-2 teams). This will also likely lead to coaches activating more teams in general (especially if this reminder is written right on the activation screen for a while...), so as to not miss a draw if the number of activating coaches drops to 3 at the last minute - this is a nice bonus!

    2) Display a new metric for individual box diversity

    Put it with the other coach statistics (win rate, etc.), preferably in an obvious place on the home page. Many people are motivated by this stuff. Projects will start where people try to get a "perfect" score, and so on. This metric could be measured in different ways. Personally, I think it would be best[/b] to reward those who play the least likely teams, thus helping overall box diversity. Perhaps gaining points (like CR) based on how rare the matchup is and how rare the team they are playing is (halfling mirror gets a lot of points for each coach). There are other ways to do it, perhaps some easier to implement than others. Straight percentage score based on personal frequency of teams played might be easier to implement and also quite effective.

    As a possible downside, it might work out that coaches who aren't playing diverse matches don't bother with it (or actively TRY to get a low score because... you know). Meanwhile, coaches who WERE avoiding chaos and chaos dorfs may now play them if it were to somehow increase their diversity score. This could actually backfire and create [i]fewer
    diverse matches.

    3) Actually change the scheduler to take into account the metric above.

    Reward coaches who take on lots of diverse matches by making it somewhat more likely that they get matched in draws. This would combat the possible problem above - as if your likelyhood of getting a game is somewhat linked to playing a bit more diversely than the least diverse coach in the draw, then you have motivation to make at least a token effort in that direction. This could really help out in unexpected ways, as coaches try teams they haven't played before because they want to keep at least about "50% diversity" or whatever it is.

    However, it there is going to be the chance for damage for any way to measure it that doesn't allow a coach who only plays flings in the box to keep doing well with draws. That guy is the one we want to *encourage* to play more if overall box diversity is the goal.

    4) Change the scheduler to shift to a higher diversity bias as teams leave the 30 game safe zone.

    Teams that are young should probably remain under current scheduling by TV (and based on lower TV box data, the box is quite healthy at lower TV). As teams leave the 30 game protective zone, phase in a higher matching bias toward "diversity matches" rather than "TV matching". In other words, suitability scores would get worse for things like chaos mirrors with 150 TV difference (we have lots of those), and likewise suitability scores would rise for things like ogres vs flings with 200 TV difference. Maybe at those levels the ogre-fling game makes and the chaos game does not. Perhaps at 300 TV difference between ogres-flings then the chaos mirror makes instead.

    This idea seems a bit riskier, as many coaches might not really change the way they activate and get frustrated at "worse" matches. On the other hand, many other coaches might think a diversity bias is perfect for a rough and tumble box environment. We already have plenty of whining about the 500 TV difference games that sometimes happen - why not let those continue but make it more likely that it happens for the "fun" matchups and less likely for the "less interesting" type?


I can't say this would make the box a cuddly place, but I think there may be a germ of helpfulness in there somewhere that perhaps someone else can nurture into an idea that tangibly makes the box a better place.

_________________
Come join us in #metabox, the Discord channel for HLP, ARR, and E.L.F. in the box!
Image
tussock



Joined: May 29, 2011

Post   Posted: Nov 27, 2015 - 04:22 Reply with quote Back to top

The three joke teams; Ogre, Fling, and Goblin. If anyone wants to mess with the scheduler, they need inducements. A "fair" match for Halflings and Goblins isn't against equal TV, it's against +100 to +150 TV. Missing out on the bribes and the chef (and the useful cheap stars) that turn up so often in League and Tournament play is a big loss.

Similarly for older teams that get knocked back in TV quicker than average. Elves get really good star players and can benefit most strongly from Wizards, which is fun and interesting in League play and basically never happens in Box.

Maybe if there was a bias toward matching the oldest players in two teams? It would block a lot of the weird low-TV min-maxing builds and make everyone just try to max their TV all the time like the game intends.

_________________
ImageImage
Balle2000



Joined: Sep 25, 2008

Post   Posted: Dec 02, 2015 - 06:23 Reply with quote Back to top

TOTAL GAMES

NOV 29
Ranked 181
Blackbox 183

NOV 30
Ranked 143
Blackbox 146

I believe that hasn't happened in a while.

_________________
Join the SWL
Image
Get your team bios here!
Putting the romantic in necromantic since 2010
NerdBird



Joined: Apr 08, 2014

Post   Posted: Dec 02, 2015 - 06:45 Reply with quote Back to top

It happens because you actually get to play a game when you activate in the box. It is a pity the games all lean towards bash, or you get to play the same team 3 times in a row but at least you get to play...... ranked has WAY too many pickers.

_________________
Image
Image
BiteSizeCenter



Joined: Nov 13, 2015

Post   Posted: Dec 02, 2015 - 06:51 Reply with quote Back to top

Absolutely. Once I got around 1600 it was nearly impossible for my chaos team to find a match in ranked, and I'm just a rookie. You may think I'm a scrub or w/e for playing chaos, but I just want to play what I want to play. Box allows that.
Display posts from previous:     
 Jump to:   
All times are GMT + 1 Hour
Post new topic   Reply to topic
View previous topic Log in to check your private messages View next topic