I am the G.O.A.T. of press - Any worthy challangers?

[kestasjk]

I'd be fine with removing ghost ratings and just going back to points. One of the nice thing about points is as the pool of points in play grows there's a kind of inflation so that the highest point score is worth less over time

[Ginge86]

I'd be fine with removing ghost ratings and just going back to points. One of the nice thing about points is as the pool of points in play grows there's a kind of inflation so that the highest point score is worth less over time

Before I start, I want to preface this by saying that what I am going to say is not designed to be offensive to ANYBODY. I am simply giving you my perspective, as a younger, newer player to the site. So with that out of the way...

I think that getting rid of GR would be a terrible decision.

The issue this site currently has is a serious lack of competition. Competition is what attracts the best players. Without it, they will leave for a place that provide competition. So one crucial point, is that if the data on this site is to be used to create bots, you are not going to have the best data.

The issue GR currently has it is encouraging bad behaviours. The most obvious being that it encourages players to refuse to play with newer ones, to protect their GR. The second obvious flaw, is that once you reach number 1, it encourages you to stop playing, as your GR can only really go one way. Is it a surprise that a lot of the best players rarely play? When their rating can only really go down? Is it a surprise I cannot get 7 players from the top 50 to play a game, when most of the top 50 left years ago.

In my opinion the easy solution here would be to have a decaying GR and to ensure the decay rate speeds up after 6 months, again after 9 ect. This would ensure that the current list of top players is based around them continuing to play, it allows new players a chance to make it to the top and I think it would bring back a lot of the competition you have lost. Plus, it would force the best players on this site to either come back and play, or lose their spot.

Points would be even worse. How can you expect a new player to compete with people who have been playing for 10 years, collecting there points. I would never, ever be able to catch these people and so would just give up.

I know this issue may seem a small one to some people but I honestly think that if it is not fixed, you will struggle to ever bring competition back to this site, as kind of proven by the appalling take up of my offer of a game for high ranked players.

To use me as an example, due to how GR is structured, I will now have to avoid a lot of games, become very selective about who I play with, just to ensure that like in my recent game, I do not get a 17 centre, 3 way draw and end up losing GR, due to the players being lower ranked. (Not sure if it is working as intended here as 17 centre draw is literally the best result bar a solo or 2 way draw).

Anyway, the points I am trying to make are

1 - GR encourages competition more than points
2 - GR needs a fix to encourage players to keep playing
3 - GR should decay to keep the top ranks fresh
4 - Not doing so will lose you the best payers
5 - This is all said with love, wanting this site to be competitive again

[Doom427]

While there's a ton of ideas that could be implemented to make GR work better, Everytime we've had discussions about them nothing has happened. (I forget, is it even possible to change or is all that code tied up with something we can't access?)

And while normally I always cry over the lack of press games on this site- and we do still have a big gap compared to gunboat, lately every time I join a random public game I find a strong big name player. I've already played some of the players in the national cup just through public games.

All I really think the website needs is more players going to the forum asking for players who are experienced. Which can happen by making the rating system more dynamic, sure, but just having a group of 20-30 players who watch the forums is enough (part of me encouraging this game to take off is we can have it happen more often- I don't always want to play a game where someone NMR's the first turn)

[Ginge86]

While there's a ton of ideas that could be implemented to make GR work better, Everytime we've had discussions about them nothing has happened. (I forget, is it even possible to change or is all that code tied up with something we can't access?)

And while normally I always cry over the lack of press games on this site- and we do still have a big gap compared to gunboat, lately every time I join a random public game I find a strong big name player. I've already played some of the players in the national cup just through public games.

All I really think the website needs is more players going to the forum asking for players who are experienced. Which can happen by making the rating system more dynamic, sure, but just having a group of 20-30 players who watch the forums is enough (part of me encouraging this game to take off is we can have it happen more often- I don't always want to play a game where someone NMR's the first turn)

I do agree that using the forum to create the type of game we desire is a good idea. That was what I was attempting to do. The sad thing is, only 3 of the top 50 players were interested and a very tiny minority actually had the decency to respond.

Outside of the top 50, we had 4 players respond in the top 1k and only around 8 others in all rating groups. So it seems the demand for these games here is very small.

In regards to the game we are currently playing, I do already have a few concerns, something I will monitor and discuss more after the game is complete. As doing so now would be inappropriate.

[JECE]

Ghost Ratings can always move back here:
https://sites.google.com/view/webdipinfo/ghost-ratings

There is no need to integrate them with the website if it's causing problems.

[Doug7878]

These ghost-rating lists worked fine for the most part.
I'm pretty sure that only active players were listed - I think players needed to complete a game within some number of months to stay on the list.

There was one error in the code that included rulebook in with gunboat instead of with press.

And, somebody had to do some work every month to generate the reports. The last volunteer was bo_sox48 I believe.

Other than these two things, the monthly GR reports were awesome.

[kestasjk]

I think there's no solution to scoring that everyone will be happy with, there have always been requests to change it around. There are things we could improve to make it so the points scoreboard is more dynamic and visible, and emphasizes who is rising in the ranks not just the historic high scores.

GR isn't integrated in that tightly, and points serve another purpose of letting high points players keep low points players out of certain games if they want. Points as the official scoring system is good for the time being, it's not the main dev priority at the moment and there will always be people pointing out flaws / improvements because there's no perfect way to score people

If there are specific things that there's a consensus on and that are straightforward we can change it, but improving scoring is probably #5-#10 on the todo list atm

[VillageIdiot]

Few thoughts on all of this.

Firstly, while points can be enjoyable the gambling element associated with them doesn't seem to contribute to a credible system for ranking a diplomacy player. It tends to foster a flailing sense of competitiveness, which might not be the most effective approach as that’s a strong component for long term player engagement for the reasonably size portion of the player base that are on the more serious size. Casual players do enjoy the points, which was why it was an asset when we were running the dual systems.

Ghost rankings used to have active players (I think it may have actually only been three months before they dropped off) although it also shared ‘all time high’ scores and the master list that includes dormant players. The active list was the one people cared about, although ‘all time high’ was a nice added incentivizer as well.

Monthly ghost ratings were interesting. It was nice to have real time results when it got implemented, but I have to admit it was kinda fun to await the latest updates of who’s on top for a month and who moved where. The only problem was that it wasn’t always consistently updated each month.

I would recommend against any system that resets each year. There’s plenty of leagues available if that’s your thing, but ongoing ratings systems do a lot to keep players around who are climbing ladders or fighting to keep their spot. I recall a number of years back PlayDip made a change to their scoring system and as a result decided they needed to wipe the slate clean. Many of the players took that as their sign that the reward for their time effort was trivial and they should spend that time elsewhere. The site was never quite as active as they were prior to that. I think webdip competitive community suffered a little bit of that when they tweaked the GR calculations while also making it harder to see full lists, although not nearly as much as playdip did. I think online dip sites in general are just seeing some engagement drop due to added competition with Discord server dip communities.

[Yonni]

>The issue GR currently has it is encouraging bad behaviours. The most obvious being that it encourages players to refuse to play with newer ones, to protect their GR.

Ginge, I think you're protecting your give-a-shit a bit too much on other people. These games are simply big commitments and take a bunch of time. People aren't always available.

GR isn't perfect but I always found my opponents' GR to at least be a rough barometer for the quality of the game. While there are different reasons for the decline in press here, replacing the old implementation of GR with the new one couldn't have helped. Other than the fact that it doesn't require any effort from someone external to the site, I think the new version is strictly worse for all the reasons that have been pointed out already.

[Ginge86]

To be honest Yonni, I think this site is just dead. Unless you like word games, Mafia or games run by carebears, then being here seems pointless.

I have been advised that discord is where most of the good players went. So I will be taking the plunge today. Wish me luck!

Unfortunately, I will be cancelling the game I tried to set up, after 1 month, we have 2 players inside the top 50 willing to play. This says a lot. I will email those that had the decency to respond today to let them know.

Thanks for the good times Web Dip but today I officially retire, just like everyone else in the top 50, it is time for me to find a new challenge.

Thanks to everyone that made my time here fun. I will miss you all. Once I am world champion, I may pop back to say hello.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

To be honest Yonni, I think this site is just dead. Unless you like word games, Mafia or games run by carebears, then being here seems pointless.

I have been advised that discord is where most of the good players went. So I will be taking the plunge today. Wish me luck!

Unfortunately, I will be cancelling the game I tried to set up, after 1 month, we have 2 players inside the top 50 willing to play. This says a lot. I will email those that had the decency to respond today to let them know.

Thanks for the good times Web Dip but today I officially retire, just like everyone else in the top 50, it is time for me to find a new challenge.

Thanks to everyone that made my time here fun. I will miss you all. Once I am world champion, I may pop back to say hello.

May God have mercy on those Discord users' souls.

[Ginge86]

To be honest Yonni, I think this site is just dead. Unless you like word games, Mafia or games run by carebears, then being here seems pointless.

I have been advised that discord is where most of the good players went. So I will be taking the plunge today. Wish me luck!

Unfortunately, I will be cancelling the game I tried to set up, after 1 month, we have 2 players inside the top 50 willing to play. This says a lot. I will email those that had the decency to respond today to let them know.

Thanks for the good times Web Dip but today I officially retire, just like everyone else in the top 50, it is time for me to find a new challenge.

Thanks to everyone that made my time here fun. I will miss you all. Once I am world champion, I may pop back to say hello.

May God have mercy on those Discord users' souls.

Dear Lord! You really are the turd that wont flush!

[Ginge86]

Just a reminder I am still the best active press player on this site.
Oooh that gotta hurt!

[Prague]

Goodbye and good luck Ginge, it was an honour playing with you. o7

[Jamiet99uk]

For the record, Ginge was wrong to identify me as Russia in that game (now cancelled).

I was Germany, actually!

[Jamiet99uk]

Just a reminder I am still the best active press player on this site.
Oooh that gotta hurt!

How many times have you padded your record by throwing a public temper tantrum in a game you weren't winning, in order to force the game to be cancelled, like you've just done in this one?

[Ginge86]

Just a reminder I am still the best active press player on this site.
Oooh that gotta hurt!

How many times have you padded your record by throwing a public temper tantrum in a game you weren't winning, in order to force the game to be cancelled, like you've just done in this one?

Just this one time, when a bunch of players joined a game agreeing to a rule set, only to instantly go against that rule once the game starts. Conveniently, we will now never find out which pathetic weasel was playing Italy. (My bet is it was you). If what I was saying was so wrong, I would not have had people in that game defending me, would I?

[Jamiet99uk]

Just a reminder I am still the best active press player on this site.
Oooh that gotta hurt!

How many times have you padded your record by throwing a public temper tantrum in a game you weren't winning, in order to force the game to be cancelled, like you've just done in this one?

Just this one time, when a bunch of players joined a game agreeing to a rule set, only to instantly go against that rule once the game starts. Conveniently, we will now never find out which pathetic weasel was playing Italy. (My bet is it was you). If what I was saying was so wrong, I would not have had people in that game defending me, would I?

You said in your angry in-game press you thought I was Russia.
Now you think I was Italy.

For the second time, I was Germany

[Ginge86]

How many times have you padded your record by throwing a public temper tantrum in a game you weren't winning, in order to force the game to be cancelled, like you've just done in this one?

Just this one time, when a bunch of players joined a game agreeing to a rule set, only to instantly go against that rule once the game starts. Conveniently, we will now never find out which pathetic weasel was playing Italy. (My bet is it was you). If what I was saying was so wrong, I would not have had people in that game defending me, would I?

You said in your angry in-game press you thought I was Russia.
Now you think I was Italy.

For the second time, I was Germany

Well, if that is true, well done for resisting the urge to open to Tyrolia. I would still like to know what worm was playing Italy though, any ideas?

[Doom427]

For the record, Ginge was wrong to identify me as Russia in that game (now cancelled).

I was Germany, actually!

Heh, I kew it!
(I was england, could France or Russia let me know if you were planning to stab me before the game went tits up)