Conquer Club

Brief Problem Description:

1) Farming/point hoarding discourages competitive players because they know that the only way to get to the top is to farm new recruits and point hoard. This is commonly accepted, admitted by farmers themselves, and I have nothing new to add here.

2) Farmers prevent new recruits from playing games with their friends by joining games before their friends can. Usually farmers claim that there is no detriment to new recruit retention rate but I have some concrete evidence.

I didn't pore over hundreds of games to find these examples. My sample size is 5 from the 5 active games that Maxatstuy is currently playing. In one of them the new recruit (no games played) who started the game or the friend that wanted to join told him in game chat that they actually created the game to play with their friend. In another game, his farming protoge castigates him for being quicker to the draw at joining this freshly created noob game. A third game is separate from my initial sample size that Max brought to my attention, highlighting the prevalent disregard farmers show to new recruits.

Specifics:

• Game 3749171
  
  This guy wants to play a game with his friend, doesn't know how the site works. He starts a game. Before his friend can join, evil vampire Maxatstuy joins the game in order to feed off his noob blood like the ghoul that he is.
  
  Read the chat, the new recruit is obviously disappointed that Maxatstuy joined his game, he probably only joined ConquerClub because his buddy said, please try this cool site out, we can play the online game of world domination.
  
  2008-11-29 11:52:41 - spfy: Umm, hey man. I was supposed to play with someone else to learn how to play
  2008-11-29 11:52:50 - spfy: but he didn't come lol
  2008-11-29 11:53:23 - spfy: anyway to forfeit?
  2008-11-29 11:58:11 - maxatstuy: oh
  2008-11-29 11:58:12 - maxatstuy: hi
  2008-11-29 11:58:21 - maxatstuy: im sorry, you cant forfeit
  2008-11-29 11:58:34 - maxatstuy: I can try and teach you how to play though
  2008-11-29 11:58:49 - maxatstuy: and you can play up to 4 games at once
  2008-11-29 11:59:05 - maxatstuy: sorry that I took the game from your friend though
  2008-11-29 13:11:23 - spfy: Haha, it's alright. He should've been quicker. I'll see if I can learn within the next 23 or so hours. ;]
  
  It's too bad. That was his first game. He wanted to play with his friend. When he couldn't, he dead-beated and he hasn't joined a game since.
  
• Game 3742402
  
  2008-11-28 07:36:53 - kylegraves1: you stole my game
  
  How many farmers are out there in competition with one another to join new recruits' games moments after they are started, blocking them from playing with their friends who led them on to the site?
  
• Game 3231819
  
  Max himself brought this game to my attention. Max told the guy he should not be joining games intended for other players to join. But you can see the prevalent farming attitude.
  
  2008-09-10 13:29:56 - maxatstuy: hey H2, I think he was waiting for his friend
  2008-09-10 13:30:01 - maxatstuy: thats I why I didnt join
  2008-09-10 13:31:36 - happy2seeyou: Hello, have fun
  2008-09-10 13:31:48 - happy2seeyou: If he was, then he needs to make a private game
  2008-09-10 13:32:24 - happy2seeyou: I don't read minds, no matter what people may think
  2008-09-10 13:33:21 - maxatstuy: lol
  2008-09-10 13:33:31 - maxatstuy: he is a freemium noob
  2008-09-10 13:34:09 - happy2seeyou: not my problem
  
  Why would someone shell out the money for a membership so they can make a private game if they have not even had the chance to play with their friends yet?

Suggestion:

• Keep the current scoring system and game joining flexibility intact, but create a 2nd, "competitive" scoreboard consisting of players that played with people more than 2/3 their score for at least half of their last 100 games. This idea is based on one recently put forward by Inhuman14 and it was by reading his suggestion that I got interested in further refining the idea.
  
  Check out my color-coded spreadsheet that shows valid match-ups within the 2/3 ratio depicted in green: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pDS7aRIBiu0f3bagoahBmHQ
  
  In my proposed system, raw scores would be used to determine whether an opponent is within 2/3 of your score, but my spreadsheet uses median rank scores as a way to approximately convey valid rank-rank match-ups.
  
  Perhaps a different color could be displayed under a players name to assist someone in easily figuring out whether the opponent would be considered competitive or not. A way to ensure non-competitive players don't flood all your open games could be easily implemented, but it should really be easy enough to play half your games with competitive players.
  
  
• Make conqueror rank only attainable by players in the competitive ladder.

Whether 2/3 is ideal can be debated, but the concept is what's important. This is very similar to the proposal to limit people to play within their rank but I think provides a lot more flexibility and will achieve the desired effect - to move up the competitive ladder, you have to play people somewhat near your own rank in half (or some other fraction) of your games.



This will improve the following aspects of the site:

• Increase new recruit retention rate because there will be fewer farmers that block their friends from joining their games.
  
  
• Increase COMPETITIVENESS and interest among the competitive players because top ranked players will have to play against each other to defend their titles instead of only playing against noobs, which drives them away because they joined to play with their friends instead.
  
  
• Increase retention rate of those players who want a system that rewards competitive play instead of noob farming. Many players have left ConquerClub in search of other online games.
  
  
• Try this out and farming will greatly diminish. And the beauty of it is that the problem gets solved without having to define farming, which many farmers claim is too subjective to define and hence prevent.
  
  
• Celebrated farmers who love to play new recruits for their love of the game and naive charm can continue to do so and retain their scores and ranks, they just can't become Conqueror. They could even try to join the competitive ladder by playing 50 games against players at least 2/3 of their score.

FarangDemon wrote:Suggestion:

• Create a 2nd ladder consisting of players who can only be in the ladder if a majority of their last 100 games were played with people more than 2/3 their score.
  
  
• Make conqueror rank only attainable by players in the competitive ladder.

This will improve the following aspects of the site:

• New Recruit Retention Rate
  
  
• Increase Competitiveness and interest among the competitive players because top ranked players will have to play against each other to defend their titles instead of only playing against noobs, which drives them away because they joined to play with their friends instead.

Or just ban farmers. It's a lot easier.

While I'm not crazy about farmers, that's the reason premium is able to set up private games. A guarantee to be able to play with who you want requires premium, that's a perk, and that's why it's an annoyance to be freemium.

FabledIntegral wrote:While I'm not crazy about farmers, that's the reason premium is able to set up private games. A guarantee to be able to play with who you want requires premium, that's a perk, and that's why it's an annoyance to be freemium.

You are right, but I find it unreasonable to expect somebody to pay for a premium if the first time they tried to play with their friend, a farmer jumped in and blocked them from joining.

Scott-Land has informed me of his previous thread on Average of Opponents Score on Profile Page: http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=57658&p=1721006&hilit=average#p1721006

In the thread, BaldAdonis suggested how to calculate the relative ranks using information already present in the game logs: point loss/gain. Average scores cannot be calculated, but relative ranks can be calculated as ratios of players' scores. So then Chipv implemented this metric in the MapRank.

I want to go a step further to create a 2nd scoreboard to only include competitive players. To do this, CC needs to track the relative ranks of every player's previous 100 opponents. Then it can calculate % of 100 recent opponents greater than 2/3 your score and only include players on the 2nd scoreboard if more than half of their 100 most recent opponents had greater than 2/3 their score at the time of the end of the game.

So can CC do this?

FarangDemon wrote:Scott-Land has informed me of his previous thread on Average of Opponents Score on Profile Page: http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=57658&p=1721006&hilit=average#p1721006

In the thread, BaldAdonis suggested how to calculate the relative ranks using information already present in the game logs: point loss/gain. Average scores cannot be calculated, but relative ranks can be calculated as ratios of players' scores.

I want to go a step further to create a 2nd scoreboard to only include competitive players. To do this, CC needs to track the relative ranks of every player's previous 100 opponents. Then it can calculate % of 100 recent opponents greater than 2/3 your score and only include players on the 2nd scoreboard if more than half of their 100 most recent opponents had greater than 2/3 their score at the time of the end of the game.

So can CC do this?

I'm sure BOB could do this, nevermind CC- and they don't even make profit off of the calculations based tools they make. Why not get a team together (as we all know who the farmers are), note the individuals they farm, keep a running tally of those that come back and play more/buy premium versus some CC provided number of new accounts who continue playing. Granted, it's a huge tally and all; but there's sure as hell no way CC could turn down blocking the individuals if they had empirical evidence they were turning members away from the site and losing them money.

ManBungalow wrote:
Are you suggesting that this would be a programme added on to Conquer Club that monitors everyone's last 100 games ??

This would probably be an addition to the Map Rank . . .

Players will feel there is something worth fighting for if Map Rank can create a new scoreboard, but the farming problem will not go away until ConquerClub implements the new scoreboard itself. This is because farmers will continue to feel like they have something worth farming for, as 98% of all players do not have MapRank and will still see the farmers on the top of the scoreboard.

lgoasklucyl wrote:
I'm sure BOB could do this, nevermind CC- and they don't even make profit off of the calculations based tools they make.

MapRank already does most of this, so they are almost there. But I'll take anything I can get if CC won't implement it on the site itself.

lgoasklucyl wrote:
Why not get a team together (as we all know who the farmers are), note the individuals they farm, keep a running tally of those that come back and play more/buy premium versus some CC provided number of new accounts who continue playing. Granted, it's a huge tally and all; but there's sure as hell no way CC could turn down blocking the individuals if they had empirical evidence they were turning members away from the site and losing them money.

Good idea. Perhaps something like this is necessary to get the ball rolling. Any techie types interested?

FarangDemon wrote:MapRank already does most of this, so they are almost there. But I'll take anything I can get if CC won't implement it on the site itself.

What about those of us who can't get Firefox on the machines that they are using at the time? This is the case for me at this very moment. MapRank or BOB does me no good, because I can't use it.

Edit: I like the Idea, Btw.

Five thumbs up.

kylegraves1 wrote:
i joined to farm not to play him

So your friend was mad at you because you joined the noob he wanted to farm first!



Max, you slick, skilled little devil, you!

Ok I see now. You have taught many up and coming players that the only way to get ahead is by noob farming so you both go around joining games that new players create as quickly as possible, in competition with all the other farmers.

I appreciate the fact that you castigated a fellow farmer for joining a game not intended for him, but the point remains, if joining games intended for other players is so sleazy, by continuing and encouraging a practice that promotes it, you are actually doing more harm than the good you have done by chewing out that one other farmer.

maxatstuy wrote:
Farming is done by anyone who joins those games, not just high ranks, and my limiting high ranks to joining then, you are saying that there should be a double standard. If I could only play someone with two thirds of my score, I could only play 46 people, many of who are blocked or foed.

Did you actually read my suggestion?

You don't HAVE to play all your games with those people, just more than half IF you want to be on the competitive scoreboard. Farmers will be on the other scoreboard. Calling them the "competitive" vs "non-competitive" scoreboards or "peer-to-peer" vs "non peer-to-peer" scoreboards would be accurate.

Yeah you probably foed them because you have correctly perceived that the difference in skill between you and those players (if you are even better than them, which I have no idea) is not high enough for you to come out ahead from playing them in the long run. And if they foed you first it is mainly because they are farmers too and are likewise unwilling to play against you even though you are also a farmer with inflated points for your skill level. That is the whole point of creating a 2nd scoreboard where you only stay at the top if you can actually beat your peers.

Or maybe you have developed feuds with them because you always post against any suggestion that would diminish the prestige of farmers and make ConquerClub more competitive.

Actually, you can continue to farm noobs in 100% of your games all you want under my suggestion - you will just not be in the competitive scoreboard. Your score will be unaffected. You will not be blocked from playing noobs. You will be at the top of the non-competitive scoreboard.

If that happens, you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to continue farming. You are right that farming/point hoarding is a skill and you will still have some recognition, being at the top of the non-competitive scoreboard. You may rationalize that it is still worth it because of the massive amount of time you have invested into playing noobs. But please allow us to make room for recognizing players with another set of skills - the ability to beat good players.

To me, the points system is meaningless as it currently stands. I don't care about my rank BECAUSE people can go above me by playing weaker players. What I want is a points system that encourages playing skilled players rather than "playing the system".

maxatstuy wrote:I find the fact that sjnap could play colonel games, and even brig games, and still be excluded from the scoreboard because brigadiers dont have 2/3s his score rather hilarious.

Not all opponents would need to be above the cutoff. And in my suggestion I state that these cutoffs are open for debate, the 1/2 of opponents above 2/3 your score is just my default idea.

Please read:

FarangDemon wrote:Whether 2/3 is ideal can be debated, but the concept is what's important. This is very similar to the proposal to limit people to play within their rank but I think provides a lot more flexibility and will achieve the desired effect - to move up the competitive ladder, you have to play people somewhat near your own rank in half (or some other fraction) of your games.

I'm glad you accept the basic premise. That is the main thing. I hope nobody else besides you and your buddy who voted no did so out of a similar misunderstanding of the suggestion.

What then do you think the cutoff should be and what fraction of opponents should be above that cutoff? I think 1/2 of opponents over 1/2 your score might achieve the same result. Then he could play Colonels and Brigs. Is this your suggestion?

Be careful though, because if you lower the competitive bar any more, someone could become conqueror by only playing captains, which to me seems kind of lame.

We could start a poll on this....

Keep in mind that the point gap between the top player and player #100 will drop somewhat as farmers points are circulated among their peers.

I agree with the base of it, although for me, the ideal would be that if someone plays and wins against someone that has something like less than 1/3 of their score, they shouldn't get ANY points, that would end "?" farming and noob killing.

The argument presented against this is:

maxatstuy wrote:
I find the fact that sjnap could play colonel games, and even brig games, and still be excluded from the scoreboard because brigadiers dont have 2/3s his score rather hilarious.

Now I can't help but think that Max is only against this proposal because he wants to keep his rank and maybe even reach Conqueror. Well, maybe if there were rules to avoid farming, you wouldn't have to do that to get to the top.
Either way, I agree with him on that, but as Farang said that was just a first idea, the numbers can be tweaked. For example, if he doesn't get points for playing people with less than 1/3 his score, then sjnap and King Herpes, with their 5600 score, would have to play people with 1866+ score to get points. Now if they're good enough to have 5600 points, then they probably should be able to go for games with Captains and above.
Still not enough? let's move it down to 1/4th, so they'd have to play people with 1400+, meaning Sergeant 1st Class and above in order to score points... is that not enough of a challenge? For everyone with 4000 points or more, it would mean they couldn't get points from New Recruits, Privates and under... boo hoo... And for your regular 2000 pointer anything with more than 500 points will score them points.
Now it's not a flawless solution, since everyone with less than 4000 points could still farm for "?", but it would be a step forward... In fact, going by the 1/3 standard it would mean people with more than 3000 points couldn't farm for "?"s. My personal favorite would probably be 4/9, so anyone with more than 2250 couldn't farm for "?"s and for those 5600 pointers they'd have to play people 2488 points and above, although I do admit that would limit them to 250 players.
Maybe a solution for this could be to say you only get points for beating people 4/9 your score, or that are ranked top 1000 players? so top 1000 players can lose points to anybody, but they can only win them against people 4/9 their score or other top 1000 players. So as an example, right now the player ranked in 1000 has 1979 points, he'd have to play people with 880 points or over to score, that sounds pretty damn decent to me.
If sjnap wins a game against 8 players, he'll be given points for all that are in top 1000, and no points for the rest.
Numbers could also change to 4/9 or top 3000, which atm means Sgt. 1st class, or even top 5000, which right now is Sgt with 1380 points.

Anyway, sorry about the digression. I am aware I deviated a bit from the main point of this thread which is NOT an alteration to the score system, but to the scoreboard system...
Regarding the competitive ladder, the main problem I see is how do you decide they've played enough games with players 2/3 their score or higher? if the requirement is that half their games contain at least one player with at least 2/3 his score, it'd be real easy for top players to get together and make private 8 player games with maybe 2 top players and the rest noob invites. If I'm a noob and I get an invite from a top dog promising they'll help me understand the game better, I'm more than likely to join in, and if they agree one of them wins one game, then the other wins the next one and so on, they'd be playing with high ranks, keeping their score, farming more points from newbies and the story would stay the same.
One solution I can think to this would be that in half of their games, the average score of their oponent's would have to be 2/3 of their score (So if it's a 5 player game, it could have some players with less than 2/3 his score, as long as the other players are high enough to bring the average over 2/3 his score). Now in this case, maybe for those who are on top right now, 2/3 means very few players. Why not use the 1/3 then, that would mean that for the top players (King and sjnap) they'd have to fight half their games against any oponents who's score averages at 1866+-... Now if you ask me, that's very doable, there's over 1000 players with that score right now, and if they don't all want to join, just get a few more with lower ranking, as long as you have some decent players you can just make sure the average works out.

I guess for now that's my two cents... I'll keep an eye on this thread since it addresses a fairly important matter for us competitive players.

Cheers!

it would be way easier if new recruits couldnt lose points entirely

gain them, but not lose them

that way they still have the fun of trying to gain points but they cannot be farmed

While such a system would certainly be an effective deterent against farming. This system is loaded against high ranks who host games, they could leave a game open for all to join and have a bunch of recruits join their game. As a result they'll get unfairly labelled as 'farmers' because a bunch of low ranks wanted to try and grab 60+ points from the host. To avoid this they would simply create private games exclusively, effectively creating a kind of points aristocracy.

This would also have an impact on tournaments that play on CC, possibly reducing the number of applicants to said tournaments if high rank players think they'll get paired up with players of sufficiently low rank that they'll then be labelled 'farmers'.

If you were to add the further suggestion of a minimum floor that high ranks can't gain points from players who have less than 'a given fraction' of their points. Then I would have to insist that a maximum ceiling is also set out of fairness, to stop low ranks from ripping off high ranks when they stand to lose no points if they fail. Personally I think THAT is taking it too far.

I'm all for having a nice big colour coded ratio or percentile number next to their name to show up the blatant farmers. But leave out penalties such as disqualification from the rank of conquerer and points gained from players far outside your own league of play.

First off, I appreciate all the input. Thanks for reviving this thread, because something definitely needs to be done to make CC more competitive.

Jeff Hardy wrote:it would be way easier if new recruits couldnt lose points entirely

gain them, but not lose them

that way they still have the fun of trying to and gain points but they cannot be farmed

I agree totally.

This also ties in to a concern voiced by Gundiesalvo, that high ranked farmers could play half their games farming and half their games with each other in order to circumvent any kind of threshold imposed. By so doing, they don't run the risk of playing anyone without a farming inflated score, so called "hard targets". So their risk of losing points is much less than if they were to play a similarly ranked player who got their points in competitive games and not by farming. That defeats the purpose of the trickle down theory and whole reason for implementing a relative rank threshold system.

So perhaps this suggested zero point gain for beating new recruits should be extended to any opponents less than a certain fraction of the victor's score.

I still think that in tandem with this, some sort of measurement be made that gauges the relative rank of opponents to be used solely in determining membership on the competitive scoreboard. I now advocate using a rolling geometric mean of the ratios of your past 100 or so opponents' scores to your score because it is a bit more intuitive than the other cutoff metrics I had previously proposed. MapRank currently computes this, it is just a matter of implementing a cutoff for the creation of the competitive scoreboard.

artimis wrote:
This system is loaded against high ranks who host games, they could leave a game open for all to join and have a bunch of recruits join their game. As a result they'll get unfairly labelled as 'farmers' because a bunch of low ranks wanted to try and grab 60+ points from the host. To avoid this they would simply create private games exclusively, effectively creating a kind of points aristocracy.

Good point, that is a very real possibility. I think one really easy way to avoid this problem would be an option for game creator to limit game to players that are "competitive" with respect to the game creator. So the creator can't just limit it to their own rank, they have to allow anybody who is above the cutoff, which will include tons of lower ranks. It would just exclude those players with scores so low that they would prevent the game creator from being "competitive" if he played enough of them.

By the way, the points aristocracy already exists. I find that many of the highest ranked farmers do not create games waiting for people to join, because they are afraid of someone who is not a new recruit. Instead, they just join last in new recruit/cook games OR play team games with other high ranked players, many of which also have farming inflated scores.

First of all, I want to apologize to FarangDemon because his post named "Simple Solution to Farming/Point Hoarding" is now anything but simple.

Back to the discussion, I also agree with Jeff Hardy. Recruits should not lose points, it would give players 5 games to get a hang of things, which I believe is quite fair, and it avoids "?" farming.

Regarding artmis' point, it's very true, I agree with Farang's idea to create a joinability option that would let you allow or not allow people with less than a fraction of your score.
Another possibility, which may find more opposition, would be to set a limit to the maximum amount of points to be won, For example, if it's set to 60, you won't lose more than 60 points to someone lower than 1/3 your rank. I would advise against making it much lower than that, because then it would affect trips and quads. I know I've won more than 40 points when teamed to low ranks and beating high ranks, and in trips and quads Luck is not as important an element as in standard games, so it would suck to tamper with people who win games like that based on solid strategy.

Now I would also be pleased with a "farmer tag" measure, I'm thinking of something like red naming those that have played over 75% of their games against an average of a ceirtain fraction of their score, or simply that they have played over 60% (or another percentage) of their games against an average of 1000 (or another number) and less. That way even if they're on top of the current scoreboard farmers would have red names and competitive players would be blue named, meaning the highest blue named player is the top competitive player. Maybe even give a blue "Competitive Conqueror" rank?
If farmers don't care people know they got to the top by farming, then they probably won't care if they are labled as farmers, and us competitive players will at least have the satisfaction to be recognized for our work. It may not be possible to get to No. 1 on the Scoreboard because of the farmers, but I know I would be more than satisfied with a blue "Competitive Conqueror" rank. I certainly wouldn't mind having a bunch of red names above me as I would know that doesn't mean much. And I think this relates to Farang's alternate scoreboard idea, and even though being at the very top of the ladder sounds nice, I think making two separate scoreboards would be too much, so the color tag for farmers would let us see the people on the scoreboard for what they actually are, and even when it would be on the same scoreboard, an alternate Conqueror rating for the top competitive player would be appreciated.

And regarding the Points aristocracy, it's true, farmers tend to make private team games and invite newbies and work together to hang on to their status, but maybe if we implement the alternate scoreboard idea, maybe with the colour coded "Competitive"/"Farmer" tags, then most of us competitive players won't mind about the farmers being where they are and they can be happy in their own little world.

My thinking on this, has lead me to conclude, that the best solution for this problem is, ... Just have a minimum of games played, or won, completed, before a noob can start a game. A simple rule for a simple problem.

The only problem with that is some poeple join this club because they like Risk, and want to play it with friends that may not live close to them, at least that was my reason to join. If I couldn't make any games until I fulfilled some requisites, I might have left shortly after I joined.

gundiesalvo wrote:The only problem with that is some poeple join this club because they like Risk, and want to play it with friends that may not live close to them, at least that was my reason to join. If I couldn't make any games until I fulfilled some requisites, I might have left shortly after I joined.

So what is stopping them from playing w/ friends ?
They can join any game, just like now, but, they may NOT start one until they are seasoned a bit.
It is for their own good.

What I mean is people who join to play with friends, and make 2 player games to play with their friend, which is also what Farmers usually mess with.

gundiesalvo wrote:What I mean is people who join to play with friends, and make 2 player games to play with their friend, which is also what Farmers usually mess with.

Yes, but understand this, If you were new and wanted to play your friend, he would have to start the game. That is, if he himself has met the requirements. So if a farmer wants to try jumping in to any noob game, he will not at least being playing someone straight off the boat. His %s' will suffer and his livelihood will become much less profitable. Also another side benefit is, a noob will look to join games with low rankers so as to have a better chance of making his requirements.

porkenbeans wrote:

gundiesalvo wrote:What I mean is people who join to play with friends, and make 2 player games to play with their friend, which is also what Farmers usually mess with.

Yes, but understand this, If you were new and wanted to play your friend, he would have to start the game. That is, if he himself has met the requirements. So if a farmer wants to try jumping in to any noob game, he will not at least being playing someone straight off the boat. His %s' will suffer and his livelihood will become much less profitable. Also another side benefit is, a noob will look to join games with low rankers so as to have a better chance of making his requirements.

I would add one more thing as well, A player must achieve the rank of Sargent before he can start or enter an FS game.

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