Count highest teammate's score twice when computing points

[FarangDemon]

But if you want to see top 50 players playing truly competitive games (and not enough do) then making it HARDER for them to take on quality opposition in the 2,000 to 3,000 range is just illogical.

I'm glad you brought this up. At first this is the case, but by making it harder for the highest ranked players to gain even more points, over time, this suggestion will have the effect of bringing their scores closer to the rest of the high ranked players, thus encouraging competition.

The highest ranked players rely on playing with low ranked teammates in trips and quads to bring their scores back up whenever they start to dip. Take this away and they will return to the pack.

Yes it is nice for the community that highly skilled players teach lower skilled players. But this can still go on unaffected, for as long as the highest ranked member of both teams have roughly the same score, there will be no effect for otherwise evenly matched teams.

Say if there is a general and cooks against a general and cooks, the generals scores will be doubled for the score computation but it won't affect the ratio of the teams' scores because each would increase by the same amount.

The same people who complain about farming, seemingly would also complain about Herpes playing with a cook.

I don't limit the analysis of harvesting techniques to the role of cooks.

Fact: Playing playing against leaderless low-rankers is an easy way to make risk free points (quads farming).

Fact: Playing with low-rankers who will follow orders is an easy way to substantially increase your margins.

In the current scoring system players who fight leaderless low-rankers and those who manage networks of low-rankers rise to the top.

If the Conqueror is defined as being a mentor, then this makes sense. Certainly this is a positive quality and one we admire in a Conqueror. But I would prefer that Conqueror be defined in more competitive terms, not forcing someone to get there by applying a harvesting technique to inflate their scores.

Perhaps a mentor ranking system can be established to decouple the need to reward excellence in mentorship with the competitive aspects of what Conqueror means to other people. ConquerClub could automatically track the progress of former students.

[King_Herpes]

We understand the premise behind your proposal. It's just not going to happen, nobodies ever going to get their score's doubled. Looks like it's back to the drawing table with you where you'll be sure to sketch out another wacky idea to wear as a mask for your bias against the top players. Now shoo.

[FarangDemon]

We understand the premise behind your proposal. It's just not going to happen, nobodies ever going to get their score's doubled. Looks like it's back to the drawing table with you where you'll be sure to sketch out another wacky idea to wear as a mask for your bias against the top players. Now shoo.

You are right - about the futility, not about my 'bias' against top players. I am a top player. I didn't say anything bad about you, everybody knows you're good, so no need to go on the attack.

I just think it's lame that clearly nobody can hope to beat you without having to manage a personal network of cooks or by quads farming low-ranked. I consider these harvesting techniques or exploitations that do not measure actual in-game skill.

It had been a while since my last suggestions, so I forgot the futility of it all.

I appreciate having a forum to bring forth my suggestions anyway.

[King_Herpes]

Yep, and I can always combat these types of suggestions with more wayward ideas to benefit my beliefs. Like if I believe that even though my score is more than double most peoples already but I am but an average player as far as supposed skill than my score should be cut in half when playing team games. Ultimately who decides on your pet project of what is harvesting is the Admins. So constantly stirring up this old discussion is more than pointless. I'm sure you already know this by now and are just bored out of your fucking skull or something.

[Mr Changsha]

We understand the premise behind your proposal. It's just not going to happen, nobodies ever going to get their score's doubled. Looks like it's back to the drawing table with you where you'll be sure to sketch out another wacky idea to wear as a mask for your bias against the top players. Now shoo.

You are right - about the futility, not about my 'bias' against top players. I am a top player. I didn't say anything bad about you, everybody knows you're good, so no need to go on the attack.

I just think it's lame that clearly nobody can hope to beat you without having to manage a personal network of cooks or by quads farming low-ranked. I consider these harvesting techniques or exploitations that do not measure actual in-game skill.

It had been a while since my last suggestions, so I forgot the futility of it all.

I appreciate having a forum to bring forth my suggestions anyway.

Don't listen to King_H, he's just massaging his bad boy, rebel persona.

I usually find your suggestions interesting, but as I've mentioned to you before, I think you often neglect the liberty element in favour of increased competitiveness.

I doubt this one will fly, but I must respect a chap who at least has suggestions.

[FarangDemon]

I usually find your suggestions interesting, but as I've mentioned to you before, I think you often neglect the liberty element in favour of increased competitiveness.
I doubt this one will fly, but I must respect a chap who at least has suggestions.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

I don't think liberty is diminished at all. I think mentoring will increase and a more equitable points distribution is achieved by:

• Taking into account the effect of the superior leadership of the highest ranked member of each team
• Reducing the effectiveness of being able to gain or maintain 6000 points purely by playing with very low ranked team members
  
  By lowering the effectiveness of this point harvesting technique:
  
  • Mentoring will, if anything, increase because the highest ranked players will be gaining less points per game. To compensate, they will need to increase quantity of games played or begin to sink.
  • Decreases gap between Conqueror and highest ranked players that engage in harvesting to a lesser extent
  • The effect of the formula is very slight in most games, only becoming noticeable in games that advance/maintain scores of the extremely high ranked
  • As the gap decreases, so does the effect of the formula (because it doubles the highest ranked player) so that after deflation of the highest ranked, the effect will be almost unnoticeable.
  • Yes, you lose an avenue of making it to the top quickly, but the apex of the pyramid gets shrunken so you actually end up closer

End result:

[*]More mentoring
[*]Reduces the highest score possible to attain by harvesting techniques
[*]Conqueror rank will be more attainable by players that don't want to engage in harvesting techniques

[King_Herpes]

Bah, anybody with a brain can maintain 6000 while following the rules. There's multiple ways to go about it and playing even team sequential games is definitely the most admirable. You would just limit the amount of avenue's the top player could choose to maintain but this won't shrink any gap's for the more persevering. If you truly want to give everybody near the top an even chance you'd have to eliminate freestyle all together. That's the only way.

[FarangDemon]

It's a tough game against stiff compition, and they're not easy wins. I aim to win around 50%.

Lol, then why do you deserve 6000 points when your strategy is commensurate with that devised by the team of colonels opposing you?

[King_Herpes]

Because in high ranked team games there is usually only 1 or 2 good moves every turn, every round, every game. We are predictable and thus we are equal. 50% is all you can expect to win with such generic competition. They know what we're going to do for the most part and I know what they will do for the most part, so it becomes a dice game just like sequential 1 vs 1's. 50% is a good aim. 60% is money in the bank.

* Oh and I deserve every one of my points thank you very much, that's why I still have them.

[Fruitcake]

Because in high ranked team games there is usually only 1 or 2 good moves every turn, every round, every game. We are predictable and thus we are equal. 50% is all you can expect to win with such generic competition. They know what we're going to do for the most part and I know what they will do for the most part, so it becomes a dice game just like sequential 1 vs 1's. 50% is a good aim. 60% is money in the bank.

That about sums it all up.

It also explains why some have 'training squads', some have specialist techniques, some have specialist maps etc etc. Once you get past mid/top end Colonel it pretty much goes down to one or a multiple of these things.

It also explains why the culture of only playing your own rank becomes obvious at this level. Reason being that once arriving at this lofty part of the scoreboard one tends to try to stay there and 'maintain' rank. The obvious method of doing so is to play teams etc whereby the loss/win is approx 20/20, then taking Herps 50% as the target these players subsequently tend to hover around this level.

What might be interesting is for the top players who have broken out into the top 25/30/50 whatever, to list their particular nuance that gets them where they are. I need not say as I have always been open about the team construct and the symbiotic relationship that exists there,

[Bruceswar]

This is true. At a point team games become nothing more than a few dice rolls to decide it all. Anybody can play No Spoils, chained or adjacent. Adding in Escalating cards can give you a bit more challenge but not much at all. Same could be said about Standard Seq Escalating. Pretty much everybody knows what is going to happen and who is going to win before it happens. Once you get to a certain level it is all the same.

This is one of the main reason's people choose freestyle. People make mistakes when moving quick, and thus people who can think on the fly have a leg up. Sure anybody can make an Escalating kill, but when 7 other players are watching and have a chance to steal your kill it makes for some fun play. It all comes down to what you enjoy, but changing the way anything is done is not what we need. Doubling the top players score is not always the answer. The Highest score is not always the person running the show. Personally the more people we(high ranks) teach the better.

[FarangDemon]

Personally the more people we(high ranks) teach the better.

I didn't realize this before and I'm glad you brought it up.

This suggestion will, if anything, increase teaching. The highest ranked players who engage in these techniques to maintain their scores will continue to do so. I promise you. They will always do whatever it takes to maintain their scores. If anything, they will play MORE games with lower ranked because the formula slightly decreases their point gain. So they will be playing MORE games, teaching MORE people, and all the while, their scores will gradually decrease until they are within range of players who harvest less.

[prismsaber]

One thing needs to be corrected here...there is not usually 1 best move that anyone would make in team games. Like any game style, you need some measure of dice to execute your strategies. Team play is filled with subtle nuances and that's why there is such a widespread rank difference among team players. Maybe if all you're playing is classic triples it all comes down to dice rolls in aussie (this is why all those players who only play open team games never go any farther than Colonel or Brig despite playing noobs), but aside from that I don't see it.

As for the topic, I think Farang's idea is actually a step in the right direction of making the scoreboard a truer representation of skill. But really this team thing is a very small problem when compared to that of freestyle, so perhaps it is misdirected. It would be pretty dumb for something to be done about team play inflating scores before something is done about freestyle inflating scores.

[FarangDemon]

As for the topic, I think Farang's idea is actually a step in the right direction of making the scoreboard a truer representation of skill. But really this team thing is a very small problem when compared to that of freestyle, so perhaps it is misdirected. It would be pretty dumb for something to be done about team play inflating scores before something is done about freestyle inflating scores.

I don't play freestyle and I don't know about how it inflates scores. I agree totally that it makes more sense to pursue the biggest source of inflation first. Please explain how the method works or point me to some threads where I can learn about this.

[obliterationX]

This implementation would be wholly un-necessary. What's the big worry? It's the risk take of the higher-ranked player to even consider playing team games with cooks.