There are 3 people who have joined pretty recently that I noticed have quite modest playing records, yet have managed to play in a lot of high-stake games:

Player 1: currently playing a game with a 4,000 point pot without actually having won or drawn a single game yet:
Playing: 2 ( 14% )
Defeated: 5 ( 36% )
Survived: 7 ( 50% )

Player 2: has played in 2 games which require 200+ points entry and 2 games with 100+ points entry despite the following playing record:
Playing: 2 ( 18% )
Defeated: 7 ( 64% )
Won: 1 ( 9% )
Survived: 1 ( 9% )

Player 3 - currently playing 4 games with 150+ point entry; 6 x games > 100 point entry.
Playing: 18 ( 31% )
Defeated: 19 ( 32% )
Won: 3 ( 5% )
Survived: 19 ( 32% )

This is not a witch-hunt against these 3 people - who i have never played against or know at all and am sure they are fine players in their own right. My point is that I don't think they have necessarily proved it yet on this site.

Kestas commented on this a while back. It's a known side effect of the bump back to 100 points which in turn has it's own side effect of making players who stop playing roll off the hall of fame.

My point is really that due to what I least perceive as points inflation (i think partly caused by people getting reset to 100 points constantly) - the current points system doesn't necessarily offer me any guide to the abilities/experience of a player and is in grave danger of rendering the current ranking system a bit of a farce.

I know you always take it with a pinch of salt, especially once you're outside the top ten - but it's barely worth looking at anymore in my honest opinion.

That's one reason to get a league system going... Whoever sits at the top of that after a few seasons must be pretty good.

I've also noticed this. I been playinga long time and really have to hoard my points and play very carefully so that I can start getting into some larger points games. And then I see guys come in from nowhere and get a huge point score without doing, or appearing, to do anything. OK inflation is a function of the current system, but it is obviously being exploited at the moment and maybe that's OK as this is Diplomacy after all, but it just makes it very difficult for those not playing the system to get enough points to play with better plays.

And while I'm ranting - why is there no more comment about . Mr. Colon. Comes on joins 79 games and leaves - but I had paid points to be in some of his games and they are now seriously disturbed because of his antics.

He was only a semi-colon I suppose...

i thought colon took over loads of Cd games...and then went CD himself?

i always look at number of wins and win/draw/survived stats to get a picture of who im up against.

I've never been a fan of the points system, and when it was introduced actually left the site for a while, and a league would be nice. Of course you need to have a system like the current one else there would only be a small window to join up, and restrict peoples play an awful lot, but for top players, a league is the way imo.

League league league. Now, if all of us can just agree a points system, we could get going ;)

I've felt this too. I've not been around as long as some of you lot, but I've played a fair number of games now (yikes - it's thirty!) and I've found the same as Braveheart.

Maybe it's because the inclination of new players is to play one huge pot game when they come in - that way there's immediately a 700 pot and the top two end up with inflated points, and everyone else gets their points back.

In my day *shakes walking stick* we signed up and played in a five or ten point each game. Having done a quick scan of the 49(!) available games to join, and half of those have a pot of over 100. Gone are the days when 35 points was a nice little intro. I'm now struggling to find what I regard as 'mid pots' - around 50-90 each. Now you have to chip in a ridiculous amount just to join a 'mid stakes' game.

Maybe I'm just a grumpy young sod!

I've noticed the same as well. When I started the 100th player on the Hall of Fame was at about 400-500 points...now you need about 600+ to just break 100th.

The point system has it's limitations. For one, it does NOT reflect the quality of a player.

This is why we need a separate RANKING system. Keep the points for wagering among games, that's fine. But we need a RANKING system.

The rankings should be dictated by some formula based on your win/defeat percentages.

60 games played, no wins = noob
20 games played, 10 wins = expert

You get the idea. Make the rankings fun!!!

Novice
Officer
General
Statesmen
Diplomat

Or some such...you could even break those categories down to Jr and Sr Statesmen or whatever. So you know if you are playing a Diplomat, they are good, NO MATTER what their point total is.

We already have percentages on our profile...it should be easy enough to add a Name to that percentage...maybe even a cool little graphic depicting the rank?

The point system is cool, it just seems like you get reset a lot faster now. When I first joined I was hovering around the 30pt mark for quite a while, meant more for me to finnaly break that 100pt mark.

The inflation is by design (that is, I realized this would happen as a result of points always going into the system but not out). The reason is that I don't want people to be able to get a lead and then rest on their laurels; people are always creeping up behind you trying to take over and you need to be able to beat the current best to stay on top.

It's not completely out of hand either; I'd say inflation has been in line with the number of new active users on the site. If there are double as many active users then there are twice as many points in active circulation, so you would expect the winners at the top of the pyramid to have more points.


Regarding the calls for a different ranking system (eg wins/games), these don't take into account the difficulty of the people you're playing against. A win against newbies is the same as a win against experts. There's also no way to deal with draws. Once you start adjusting the ranking system to deal with these you'll slowly end up with the points system.

There's no reason to think that any other ranking system would represent skill better than the points system, so I don't like the idea of dual ranking systems.
There will be icons for different levels of points (at the moment levels are defined by what % of the top players you're in. Top 5% is Mastermind, if I recall right).

cgwhite; start a game at lower stakes if you can't find one at the right stakes, I might join you. Though this is one of the reasons why I don't like having lots of extra options. If you can't find a game at the right stakes now imagine finding a game at the right stakes, with the right variant, the right points distribution, the right turn length, etc, etc. But that's another thread.

To be honest at the moment I think that the people who are annoyed at the points system are the ones whos level of points are stagnating or declining, and it's just bad luck (or, in my case, no skill) that's causing it. Ultimately if you can't increase in points you must not be winning games, and inflation is definitely not fast enough that you can't win games fast enough to progress up the ranks.

Also the abusers of the system are the multi-accounters. These are the only people who can get a large set of points in no time at all, but that's a temporary problem and once mods are introduced their points will disappear, leaving only skilled players with points (the vast majority of players in the hall of fame are excellent players who earned their points anyway).

Finally, just to get some perspective on the inflation, when the points system was introduced the high-score was 3000. If Rait hadn't played at all since then he'd still be in the top 10 now, despite ~9 months and many new players, so we're hardly at a Zimbabwean level of inflation

I hear what you are saying kestas...maybe then, you could simply include those levels along side our points?

In my instance, it would read: Darwyn (521) Pro.

Or instead of Pro, use a nifty looking, albeit small, graphic to depict "Pro" (not that I would call myself one by any stretch of the imagination...I've realized recently that I kinda suck...but that's another thread too).

And to make it even MORE interesting, divide those percentages even further! The Mastermind title would then be the Top 1%. Then you could do 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, 10%...etc...

More ranks would more accurately depict a person's status.

And finally, perhaps these ranks would be a "highest level achieved" sort of thing. So if a top player decides to use all his points in a WTA and loses, he still retains his Mastermind achievement. Imagine the noob joining his next game and getting smeared by 1906.

In short, the point system is fine, I just think we need an added level of description, aside from points, to differentiate players.

You can buy exactly as many goods with 100D as you could a year ago: none. There's no real inflation, because points are useful only for 'betting' and not redeemable for anything else.

Points do other things as well....status for one.

I guess that's my only problem with the point system Karkand. It reflects status, just not that well.

There are plenty of good players with few points that aren't being represented well.

When I first joined this site a couple months ago, I was able to join four games (two I took over a CD great power) with my 100 points. I won my first game, I think it was History Repeated, the pot was 105 points. I remember anxiously awaiting my expected "well earned" reward of somewhere around 55 points, a little over half the pot. Next thing I know I have 100 points... Didn't matter if I won, lost or drew the game, my payout was the same. Didn't take me too long to figure out I better spend all those points before another game finished up so I could get another 100 points regardless of how well I did. Now I'm a points snob that refuses to join a game for 100 points or less, especially with all the CD in those low pot games I did join. Anyway, I suppose my point is that maybe there is a better way to reset points. What if when you have less than 100 points, then even if you get eliminated in 1902 you merely get the points back that you spent to join that game? Or, maybe you only get reset to 100 points once your total is below 20 points, and the second time your points get reset you only earn 50 instead of 100 and it keeps getting cut in half... I suppose it would put all new players at a serious disadvantage compared to someone like me that joined a couple months ago and reaped the benefit of the current system, but I see nothing wrong with fixing something that is broken and making the newbies pay their dues!!

See, the way I think you can fix the points system is by allocating points at the end of games, instead of the beginning, and only allowing one reset to 100 a month.

Inflation is OK. You have to adjust to the new point amounts mentally. If you stagnate, that means you did not win enough games.
The reset system is rough, but how else could it be done?

I am in favour of a system that takes into account both experience (the number of games played) and skill (the percentage of games won). The latter should be given a greater weight.

Or else the upper portion of the league table would be occupied by someone who's only played a single game and won it - makes the system a farce too.

It is also important to retain the betting system. I'm a big fan of the 'pot' system. I do not see why all games should be of equal significance in computing our rankings.

But before poor Kestas has time to come up with a feasible new system, I suggest that we stop complaining - yes, points are inflating but the situation isn't THAT bad and after all it is still safe to say that those with 1000+ points are good players... (with the exception of the RTC crackers dude)

"Also the abusers of the system are the multi-accounters. These are the only people who can get a large set of points in no time at all"
Sorry, but that's demonstrably not true, and it won't be true while a players points are reset to 100 every time a game ends. Points should be reset only when zero points are still in play.

I'd personally like to see a table showing top win % overall and for each country - with some sort of qualifier like must have played 15-20 games or perhaps you must be on the top 100 leader board. (that way someone who hasn't logged on for 6 months will eventually be removed from the top 100 due t the inflation on the leaderboard).

Also on somene's stats page would be nice to see a table showing results for specific countries as well as the overall Win,draw,survive,defeat stats.

Clearly these are just nice to haves Kestas - but i think they would add value to the site and that people would appreciate them. Then people can choose to pursue their own agenda e.g. go for points or win% etc.