Map Complexity [Public Discussion/Review]

[cairnswk]

Would it be helpful to put a poll up now to determine what players want in this regard for the number of levels of map complexity?

[MrBenn]

In the past I would have argued for 4 levels of difficulty, but now believe you only need 3: Basic --> Advanced --> Complex. I don;t think you need to specify a particular number of game features that make a map fit any one of the categories, as this leads to banal discussions about maps like British Isles which are basic, but have some one-way borders... On a similar vein, size needs to be a separate consideration.. World 2.1 is Advanced, not because of it's size, but due to the use of overriding bonus zones and odd territories that don't count for anything. At the same time as gameplay features and map size, the visual appearance of a map makes a massive contribution to apparent difficulty. Bamboo Jack messes with your brain but is actually pretty straightforward to play once you get the hang of it... Map Categorisation is always going to be most useful to players looking for new maps to test themselves - and it would be better to rate a map harder than it is (after practice) in order to protect those players who aren't prepared to read everything or look too closely and most likely to complain!

[ManBungalow]

Two categories:

Standard
Non-standard

Make it as accessible to new users as possible. The default map selection for new users should be Standard, but otherwise variable. Let the tags from the other thread cover the rest of the map elements.

[greenoaks]

Would it be helpful to put a poll up now to determine what players want in this regard for the number of levels of map complexity?

i'm not sure that a poll would resolve anything as there are at least 3 discussions going on.

Formula
Number of catorgories
Is the easiest group Standard/Basic or something else

[Metsfanmax]

I think that complexity should be the only standard here. The levels should not be named things that imply that some maps are harder or more "advanced" than other maps, because that implies that people who only play standard maps like Classic are not as good as other players. I would prefer tags that discriminate only on how many things you need to be aware of in order to win the round.

[ender516]

there is no need to have anything before Standard. Classic is the basic training map. the map for beginners.

sure, split the maps above Classic into many groups but it is pointless to create a group before Beginners because the only thing before beginners is 'Never played Risk before'.

+1 again
And the difficulty of deciding which complexity rating a map gets is more argument for keeping the complexity ratings simple & few.
You could say doodle is more complex than classic for example - because the action is so fast on a small map you need to get your game right form turn 1 ....

Only 3 complexity levels please.

-2
You are correct to say that Classic is the basic training map, but many games provide special simplified variants intended to make for faster games. Monopoly comes to mind. I think it's a good idea to identify maps where one can find an ultra-fast game, which can happen on the tiny maps.

If we go with Dukasaur, then we could have 10 or more levels of complexity. This would be way too much. 5 is a good number.

Beginners - Doodle
Standard - Classic
Challenging - 1982
Complex - Das Schloss
Uber Complex - Stalingrad, Waterloo

i agree with koontz about 5 levels...but koontz how the hell did you get Waterloo into the Uber Complex category and Das Schloss into the Complex category?

Personal preference. But this leads onto the next discussion. How the hell do you put a map into a category without hiring a math professor to run complex equations.

My vote would then go for:
Standard Lite
Standard
Challenging
Complex
Uber Complex

and leave it up to someone else to put maps into each.

Human factors engineering recognizes that the mind likes to categorize sets of items into 5 (+/- 2) classes. Go with the sweet spot of 5 categories. Dukasaur is right about calculating the complexity via a formula. If we are going to have a proper map database and browser, then we can automatically calculate a complexity based on XML features (number of territories, presence of complicating factors, etc.) and we can allow players to rate maps in a manner similar to the way they rate other players, with scores from 1 to 5 in one or more categories, and possibly tags or even textual comments, like the old feedback system. (Those might be used to flame map makers, so they should be permitted to respond, or we might have to have the Foundry folks moderate them.) The [browse maps] button on the game finder would show summarized values, but clicking on a thumbnail would take you to a detailed explanation of the calculated value and a list of user ratings.

[greenoaks]

there is no need to have anything before Standard. Classic is the basic training map. the map for beginners.

sure, split the maps above Classic into many groups but it is pointless to create a group before Beginners because the only thing before beginners is 'Never played Risk before'.

+1 again
And the difficulty of deciding which complexity rating a map gets is more argument for keeping the complexity ratings simple & few.
You could say doodle is more complex than classic for example - because the action is so fast on a small map you need to get your game right form turn 1 ....

Only 3 complexity levels please.

-2
You are correct to say that Classic is the basic training map, but many games provide special simplified variants intended to make for faster games. Monopoly comes to mind. I think it's a good idea to identify maps where one can find an ultra-fast game, which can happen on the tiny maps.

lets also have a group called Standard Heavy as well for those who want a long game without the complexity.

or we could put all of those maps that have standard or close to standard gameplay into one group called Basic and give a Small tag to the small maps and XL tags to the big ones.
a 2nd group colled Challenging would contain maps that have several xml features
a 3rd group called Complex would contain those maps containing many xml features and unusual bonus structures

**the Small or XL tags would be applied to all maps regardless of which category the maps were in**

[agentcom]

I think 3 or 4 levels is good. For the same reason as is the joke here:



And for the same reason that Google Maps has a 4-level rating system. And for the same reason that the 5-star ratings system here on CC is ... well ... problematic. People have varying opinions of how to use these ratings systems and that only increases as you add more and more levels to any given system.

If you have one reviewer (or even one team of reviewers) get as complex as you want. Work out a formula that ranks them on a scale from 1 to 100. Or even rank every single map on CC. That's fine. But if you're leaving it up to the masses then I think Simple, Advanced, Complex or something like that is better than other alternatives.

[Dukasaur]

People have varying opinions of how to use these ratings systems and that only increases as you add more and more levels to any given system.

If you have one reviewer (or even one team of reviewers) get as complex as you want. Work out a formula that ranks them on a scale from 1 to 100. Or even rank every single map on CC. That's fine. But if you're leaving it up to the masses then I think Simple, Advanced, Complex or something like that is better than other alternatives.

If you look at my proposal (bottom of page 1) you see that the subjective opinion rating of the players is only one of 3 elements, and the other 2 are based on objective criteria. I have a lot of regard for statistical robustness.

It's true what you say that opinion-based ratings are highly problematic, but if they are only one element among several then the distortion should not be too bad.

[DoomYoshi]

@koontz

Doodle isn't simpler gameplay wise. A mistake on doodle means your game is over. A mistake on World 2.1 and you are ok. Doodle should be at the same level as Classic.

@metsfanmax:

I agree. But people who like classic are boring people.

@agentcom

Don't forget that boxing matches use exactly the same system that the internet does. In other words, if you suck, you get 8. If you don't suck you get 10 (or 9). This system, while it frustrates the hell out of anybody who thinks about the system, works to judge million dollar bouts, it should also be good enough to judge our maps.

[koontz1973]

@koontz

Doodle isn't simpler gameplay wise. A mistake on doodle means your game is over. A mistake on World 2.1 and you are ok. Doodle should be at the same level as Classic.

This is why I said we need someone else apart from us to decide which maps go into which category. You say doodle is game over if you make a mistake, so it is on the same level as classic, but Eurasia mini has only 26 territs. So a mistake on that is not game over then so how do you rate that one?

No matter how we rate the maps, you will never get everyone to agree on every maps rank.

[ender516]

@koontz

Doodle isn't simpler gameplay wise. A mistake on doodle means your game is over. A mistake on World 2.1 and you are ok. Doodle should be at the same level as Classic.

This is why I said we need someone else apart from us to decide which maps go into which category. You say doodle is game over if you make a mistake, so it is on the same level as classic, but Eurasia mini has only 26 territs. So a mistake on that is not game over then so how do you rate that one?

No matter how we rate the maps, you will never get everyone to agree on every maps rank.

This is exactly why I think user ratings should be reported separately from site-calculated ratings. Those things which not up for debate, like the number of territories and the XML features used, should be easily discernible by a user browsing the database. Ratings given to maps by users can be examined by other users. Being able to see all the ratings that a user has given to various maps could help you decide whether that user thinks the same way as you do, or not, allowing you to take those ratings as gospel, or with a grain of salt.

[MrBenn]

Map Size should not be a large consideration of complexity - it should be a separate measure/scale.

[DoomYoshi]

Map Size should not be a large consideration of complexity - it should be a separate measure/scale.

Bingo.

[MrBenn]

As I said before, World 2.1 is more difficult than Doodle and Classic; not because of its larger size, but because of it's non-standard (although very intuitive) bonus/continent structure.