I agree. I think points are awful and encourage bad styles of play.

Bad play encourages poor sportsmanship. Points don't encourage bad play.

Points encourage people to play for second place, among other things. That's bad play.

There is no 2nd place in WTA. IF you choose to play PPSC then you deserve the level of gamesmanship you get.

Why is there a point system?

Wait, there's a point system?

Czech, I suppose it depends on what we mean by bad play. I am referring to maximizing SC count with a survive at the expense of a draw/stopping a solo. This creates confusion because players within the same game have different ideas about what the goal of the game is. Take your game with Niakan the other day, as an example. Neither of you were sure if the other was trying to stop the solo (the confusion was understandable given that it was PPSC). Hence resulting in suboptimal play from both of you, and then Niakan's rantabout how playdiplomacy is better, and my rude response back (out of character for me, and I feel bad about it).

If on the other hand, by bad play, you mean unskilled play - that is no excuse for bad sportsmanship. Some players are unskilled, we are all learning.

I meant the 1st. And as far as the Niakan game, it was gunboat so the confusion was more pronounced. In a chat game I would hope there would have been no excuse for miscommunication.

having played here before the point system was implemented, it is much better with it

SC, were private games and other ways of limiting who joins available before the point system was implemented?

No, I think I remember when private games were implemented and I joined after the point system.

I think a points system is better than no system, sure. But I think we can come up with a better system. Something like GR.
I used to play computer chess, which uses an Elo system (or an version of it). I liked the way I could set the Elo of my opponent. Thus guaranteeing I always had a challenging game, but not too challenging. I would like to see something like that here. Points is supposed to provide that, and it sort of does... But I think GR could do it better.
I think points is too much like a game within a game, like diplomacy meets poker. I am not interested in the gambling thing.

^that was to Santa

Points don't kill people. People kill people.

Every time some discussion like this comes up I ask, "Don't you all play for fun?" Meet some people online and play. If you don't like the person, don't play with them again. There are enough filters that you can avoid playing against "those people".

Fun?? I play for the glory! :-)

Yeah, but Czech, you have to admit that it's frustrating and less fun when someone fucks your game up be it CDing, throwing a solo, etc.

From my understanding, weren't points designed to limit that? But then private games were created so.... are they still necessary?

Also, competition does make things more fun (for some people) so GR does add something there.

Yes, I play for fun, which is why I don't make a big deal out of the point system. This was just meant to be an announcement to clear up a policy.

@Yonni yes it is a pain when someone CDs. That's why I like to play 101 point games and with people I trust. If I can't get a game going like that, then it is what it is.

I have often found it tempting to take second in a high PPSC game just to gain points. Its bad but often done.

@spyman "...and my rude response back (out of character for me, and I feel bad about it"

Haha I noticed that... I KNEW dude was being a dick when even you cursed him out :P

@diplomat33 Yep me too, that's why I quit PPSC. In fact I think the Czech is the only real quality player on the site who even plays it at all, and thats because he has no illusions about how it's gonna go down.

I think GR is a much better system than the points system and Ghostie has put in a lot of work to create and maintain it. Hats off to Ghostie.

However, variations (Gunboat, Ancient Med, etc) count as less valuable in GR than pure games do, so if you play a lot of Gunboat your GR will be less than it would have been if you'd stuck to pure WTA/PPSC. The standard points system doesn't care.

I think both should be accounted for:'

I like betting points on games, but I also like the idea of having everyone's GR displayed...

http://forum.webdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?p=288#p288

The points system serves functions that GR doesn't. I'm okay with points regulating the number and difficulty of the games I can play in, and I'm okay with checking GR to measure my D-peen.

Point Loaning was such the great surf spot. Sad to see it go, man.

Is there any way to simply get the GR to be displayed on everyone's profiles? Then base the top X% ranking system based off your GR as opposed to your available points to make people know that is the more important ranking system.

Also, could you introduce that reliability rating thing Oli has on Vdip? That is fairly useful.

Yes, Kestas or another dev could do all those things. However, I think some serious changes need to be made to GR.

I would want to see 2 GRs and users could display whichever they wanted where number of points are now:

1) Live GR
2) Non-Live GR

Both would only could WTA, standard map, full press. These are the 2 closest variants to the boardgame. It think it's silly to lump other variants into the GR. Gunboat is not Diplomay; it is a different game. Why would you have your checker wins count towards your chess score? It makes no sense.

Yes, I think we should have a checker score and a chess score. As in have a gunboat GR, a full press GR and a public press GR. Live/Non-live I feel is an unnecessary distinction personally.

I think there is a big different between live and non-live. Think of the difference in planning available if you have 15min vs. 3 days.