Inflation Information

[hecter]

So I think we should all just watch the scores shoot higher as the site gets bigger.....and wait anxiously for someone to break 5000 points

actually we shouldn't be too happy when 5000 is taken. i suspect in a few months somebody we'll reach 5000 and when that happens measures to reduce th inflation must be taken.

the highest scores must be kept as low as possible to make sure new people stay on CC.
imagine joining CC and winning 20 points in your first game. then looking at the scoreboard and seeing the top rank at 10000 points. you play a bit more and reach 1200 points. at this point you're no longer winning 20 points from each player. chances are you'll get 15-16 and you realize the higher you go the smaller the point winnings get (if you play lower ranks) so you quit and never come back.

Ya, but the thing is that inflation makes everybody above 1000 points higher. By the time that the highest person has 10'000 points, the average* will probably be around 2000. He'll win his first game and might get 200 points from it. That will certainly make him strive to get 10'000, won't it? Not to mention the fact that the higher the ranks get, the slower inflation moves. If the average* score right now is about 1250, that means that noobs are losing 16 points per game. When the average* score is 1500, that turns into 13. If the average* score is 2000, then that means that noobs may only lose a total of 40 points on their visit here.

*median above 1000 points

[DiM]

So I think we should all just watch the scores shoot higher as the site gets bigger.....and wait anxiously for someone to break 5000 points

actually we shouldn't be too happy when 5000 is taken. i suspect in a few months somebody we'll reach 5000 and when that happens measures to reduce th inflation must be taken.

the highest scores must be kept as low as possible to make sure new people stay on CC.
imagine joining CC and winning 20 points in your first game. then looking at the scoreboard and seeing the top rank at 10000 points. you play a bit more and reach 1200 points. at this point you're no longer winning 20 points from each player. chances are you'll get 15-16 and you realize the higher you go the smaller the point winnings get (if you play lower ranks) so you quit and never come back.

Ya, but the thing is that inflation makes everybody above 1000 points higher. By the time that the highest person has 10'000 points, the average* will probably be around 2000. He'll win his first game and might get 200 points from it. That will certainly make him strive to get 10'000, won't it? Not to mention the fact that the higher the ranks get, the slower inflation moves. If the average* score right now is about 1250, that means that noobs are losing 16 points per game. When the average* score is 1500, that turns into 13. If the average* score is 2000, then that means that noobs may only lose a total of 40 points on their visit here.

*median above 1000 points

nope he won't get 200 points in his first game.
in order to do that he'll have to get almost 30 points per player in an 8player game. which means the average score of his 7 opponents will be 1500 points. i highly doubt a new player will beat 7 other players with those scores in his first game. most likely he'll either play versus high rankers that will trash him or versus other new recruits. where he'll gain max 20p per player.

since 99% of the noobs achieve their first points from players below or at the same level it's safe to say his first gains will be really small. with small gains that get even smaller as he progresses he'll surely be discouraged by the 10k points the number 1 has.

also i'm fairly sure i've seen some official (perhaps twill) that they don't want high scores to get really really high and that inflation is a big concern for them.

[spiesr]

If you want to combat inflation you should do it a cool way. Take some of the best players and lock their score at a high level. Then make so that when they win games they don't gain points, but the points are deleted. Then have them wander around the site killing off points left and right.

[DiM]

If you want to combat inflation you should do it a cool way. Take some of the best players and lock their score at a high level. Then make so that when they win games they don't gain points, but the points are deleted. Then have them wander around the site killing off points left and right.

that won't stop inflation

take all the points from the top 1000 players and give them to random people. you'll have the same inflation but with different users at the top.

at the moment points come in the system but don't come out. that's the problem. a CC fee has been suggested before. where for every win a guy pays a 1 point fee.

so let's say you and me play 1v1. you lose 20 points and i gain 20 but from my 20 i pay 1 to CC. that way points go out of the system and inflation is combated but that's very artificial and very problematic since most people won't agree to earn less points. especially the high rankers that get as low as 2-4 points for a 1v1 win.

[TomaCzar]

I won't pretend to have put much thought into this, however, there didn't seem to be any immediate drawback to retiring accounts. An account reaches 5000+ points it then becomes inactive, removed from the active scoreboard (placed in a Hall of Fame somewhere), and its owner is given a new free premium account with new username. It's not a multi because the old account is disabled. Maybe even the account is "ONLY" disabled for games, and the person can still answer PMs and post in forums. The competition is still there [SIG] My SECOND account is in the HoF [/SIG], and the massively expanding points issue is dead. Hopefully no one else has mentioned this (or worse, mentioned it and was proven wrong) I just thought I'd jump in with one 'off the muscle'.

[mrkaris]

Sully i do think now that we had so many battle royals, there was a "relatively" big influx of points - should this be taken into account for your next set of data?
*also what if we could some how figure out how many total points there was available collectively? this would probably have to be estimated but if we could include all the points for every player on the site - then you could truly measure the rate of the point increase the top players are moving up vs the rate of new points coming into the "pool" through new players joining.
thoughts?

[hecter]

Sully i do think now that we had so many battle royals, there was a "relatively" big influx of points - should this be taken into account for your next set of data?
*also what if we could some how figure out how many total points there was available collectively? this would probably have to be estimated but if we could include all the points for every player on the site - then you could truly measure the rate of the point increase the top players are moving up vs the rate of new points coming into the "pool" through new players joining.
thoughts?

There are 172219 players on the site. That means there is a total of 172'219'000 available. However, that's not how many points are available on the scoreboard, but that changes on a daily basis.

[mrkaris]

yea that didn't help hector
the idea is that if the total pool of points increases by X% and the top 10 increases by X + 2 % . then that 2% is the skill increase of the top players.

[Itrade]

I think Sully should edit his first page post to say that we don't NEED to combat inflation. We just need to be aware that it's happening so we know that a person who had 1500 points a year ago had more skill than a person who has 1500 points now. Pretty much all suggestions I've heard for stopping inflation are things that many people would get upset about (Including me!) and they don't do anything except decrease the number of points on this site. And what's the problem with having big numbers on the site? There really isn't one.

Alright, maybe a new player might be discouraged when he sees what the top scorers have. When I just joined there were 39 other players, and when I looked at number 1 I thought "Hey, I could do that", and sure enough I made it to the top (As evidenced in my sig. If only I had the full picture with the amount of points included. It was something like 1250 ), if only for a day. Nowadays the top score is way out of my reach, but that doesn't make me want to quit.

The goal of every new player is not to be number one, and they won't quit when they find out how hard it is to get there. When you sit down to play a game of Risk, you play to win that one game, not to be the best Risk player in the whole world. Maybe you play extra hard to be the best among your friends, but never the best among thousands of strangers who you can easily shrug off as having an unhealthy obsession with the game (Which may or may not be true...).

I don't think new players will be put off at all by the high scores. If CC can provide them with an entertaining experience for each game (And it can!), then we should be pretty sure that the new players won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

[DiM]

I think Scully should edit his first page post to say that we don't NEED to combat inflation. We just need to be aware that it's happening so we know that a person who had 1500 points a year ago had more skill than a person who has 1500 points now. Pretty much all suggestions I've heard for stopping inflation are things that many people would get upset about (Including me!) and they don't do anything except decrease the number of points on this site. And what's the problem with having big numbers on the site? There really isn't one.

Alright, maybe a new player might be discouraged when he sees what the top scorers have. When I just joined there were 39 other players, and when I looked at number 1 I thought "Hey, I could do that", and sure enough I made it to the top (As evidenced in my sig. If only I had the full picture with the amount of points included. It was something like 1250 ), if only for a day. Nowadays the top score is way out of my reach, but that doesn't make me want to quite.

The goal of every new player is not to be number one, and they won't quit when they find out how hard it is to get there. When you sit down to play a game of Risk, you play to win that one game, not to be the best Risk player in the whole world. Maybe you play extra hard to be the best among your friends, but never the best among thousands of strangers who you can easily shrug off as having an unhealthy obsession with the game (Which may or may not be true...).

I don't think new players will be put off at all by the high scores. If CC can provide them with an entertaining experience for each game (And it can!), then we should be pretty sure that the new players won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

actually you'd be surprised how many people have their goal to be number 1.

in every game that i play i have 2 big objectives:
1. have fun
2. be #1

however i never sacrifice fun for rank.
i like being #1 or getting as close as possible.
if an online game has a ranking system then it is obvious the goal of most players is to advance as much as possible on that scoreboard.

and discouraging a new player right from the start is a big issue. a very big one because discouraged players leave and never come back. lost players means lost money and that's bad.

[Itrade]

No offence DiM, but I think anyone who would think that they were able to be the best among ~21,000 people has to be insanely optimistic. In life, there's always going to be someone better than you.

If someone wants to be number one, they can join a crappy, boring game with a very small amount of people playing it because it's a crappy, boring game, and then play this crappy, boring game while having no fun at all and then reach number one and have satisfaction or whatever. In CC what I enjoy are the games I play, not having the number one spot.

[Visaoni]

No offence DiM, but I think anyone who would think that they were able to be the best among ~21,000 people has to be insanely optimistic. In life, there's always going to be someone better than you.

If someone wants to be number one, they can join a crappy, boring game with a very small amount of people playing it because it's a crappy, boring game, and then play this crappy, boring game while having no fun at all and then reach number one and have satisfaction or whatever. In CC what I enjoy are the games I play, not having the number one spot.

So... are you denying the fact that there is a #1?

Besides, it isn't too uncommon for somebody to try for things that actually are unattainable, and many go for things that are merely probably impossible. How many people play the Lotto? The examples go on and on really. It's human nature.

[Itrade]

I think that was one of my worst thought-through posts so far. I can't recall what I was trying to say, except that the vast majority of people play for fun, not for scoreboard places.

[duck]

No offence DiM, but I think anyone who would think that they were able to be the best among ~21,000 people has to be insanely optimistic. In life, there's always going to be someone better than you.

If someone wants to be number one, they can join a crappy, boring game with a very small amount of people playing it because it's a crappy, boring game, and then play this crappy, boring game while having no fun at all and then reach number one and have satisfaction or whatever. In CC what I enjoy are the games I play, not having the number one spot.

So... are you denying the fact that there is a #1?

Besides, it isn't too uncommon for somebody to try for things that actually are unattainable, and many go for things that are merely probably impossible. How many people play the Lotto? The examples go on and on really. It's human nature.

Two things on the Lotto note;
number A) "playing" the Lotto requires little time and effort, just money, usually like 5 bucks.
letter 2)People are willing to risk very little (5 bucks) for the chance at getting a great reward (even if it is a very small chance). Personally I think hours spent playing an online version of a board game is a large investment to make in an effort to be #1 on a scoreboard (a relatively small reward...at least to most normal people).

Now I think I actually agree with Itrade, even if he did struggle with his phrasing a tad, because I don't think people sign up to play this game with the intention of being competitive on the scoreboard. The competitive nature of the site is seen in the individual games, not the scoreboard. The scoreboard/rank system simply gives us an indication of who best to play to be in a competitive game. By looking at the rankings of the guys I'm joining in games with I know what to expect and I can find games that will be challenging and enjoying to play in. Games in which I can compete and have a viable chance of winning. I know I'm not gonna make a huge mark on the scoreboard, but that's really insignificant if I feel like I can win in the games in which I do play.

I do sincerely hope that made sense, cause it's late and the last time I typed something this late at night ...well lets just say it's a good thing that was just the rough draft.

[MeDeFe]

I have a suggestion that will instantly make inflation be irrelevant, that will make ranks superfluous and be comprehensible to everyone.

We replace the rank symbols with the position a player holds on the scoreboard. The number to the left of your name on the scoreboard is the only number that counts for anything on this site. Your score is just something the determines which position you hold and the insignia are just a fancy addition.

[DiM]

I think that was one of my worst thought-through posts so far. I can't recall what I was trying to say, except that the vast majority of people play for fun, not for scoreboard places.

actually the vast majority plays for fun AND scoreboard place.
i play for fun but i also like the fact i'm a major. i will keep playing for fun but i will also keep playing my best to improve my score.
i already said it i have 2 goals:
1. fun
2. rank

since rank comes second it means i'll never sacrifice the fun. but if i can get to #1 while still having fun then it's perfect.

[comic boy]

I think that was one of my worst thought-through posts so far. I can't recall what I was trying to say, except that the vast majority of people play for fun, not for scoreboard places.

Its more fun winning then losing

[TheTeacher]

try some reggression models other than linear. polynomial of 6th degree/order and exponential... i'd like to see how those fit ur data.

[sully800]

try some reggression models other than linear. polynomial of 6th degree/order and exponential... i'd like to see how those fit ur data.

I think its rather useless with the current data since there are relatively few points and a large spread.

[Incandenza]

Its more fun winning then losing

QFT!

I'm much like DiM, I play because I enjoy the game, but I also enjoy being good at said game. I doubt I would've stuck around here long if A) there were no overarching scoring system or B) it turned out that I was way crappier at risk than I thought... For me, the points are part of the fun, and part of the pride...

Not to ruffle any feathers, but I'm always baffled by people that have less than 600 or so points and still end up playing hundreds of games (and note, I'm not talking about people that are intentionally lowering their score). Seems like the fun of the game would decrease after losing so much...

[maniacmath17]

The best way to stop inflation is No points for new recruit deadbeats. I suggested this earlier and it was on the to do list but never got implimented.

The cause of inflation is new recruits joining the site, deadbeating, and then leaving the site with the points they lost now in circulation. If new recruits didn't lose points for deadbeating, there would be no inflation.

Some say this would be abused by new recruits, but honestly i cant imagine a new recruit joining the site and then strategically deadbeating to preserve his 1000 points. Most would probably not even be aware of this rule.

[AndyDufresne]

I remember that idea...and it was a rather good one.


--Andy

[DiM]

actually i kinda dislike the idea. yes it stops inflation BUT it will also turn away many people.
imagine a new recruit (freemium) starting 4 1v1 games. another new recruit joins and deadbeats.

now imagine that the first guy will have all his game slots blocked for at least 3 days and after that he won't even get any points. i'd say he would instantly quit.

[sully800]

The best way to stop inflation is No points for new recruit deadbeats. I suggested this earlier and it was on the to do list but never got implimented.

The cause of inflation is new recruits joining the site, deadbeating, and then leaving the site with the points they lost now in circulation. If new recruits didn't lose points for deadbeating, there would be no inflation.

Some say this would be abused by new recruits, but honestly i cant imagine a new recruit joining the site and then strategically deadbeating to preserve his 1000 points. Most would probably not even be aware of this rule.

That would curb inflation, but definitely not stop it. Adding players to the site will always increase the max possible score.

But I agree with you, it would be a good addition to the site (much like preventing new recruits from joining team games solved many problems).

[Itrade]

The best way to stop inflation is No points for new recruit deadbeats. I suggested this earlier and it was on the to do list but never got implimented.

The cause of inflation is new recruits joining the site, deadbeating, and then leaving the site with the points they lost now in circulation. If new recruits didn't lose points for deadbeating, there would be no inflation.

Some say this would be abused by new recruits, but honestly i cant imagine a new recruit joining the site and then strategically deadbeating to preserve his 1000 points. Most would probably not even be aware of this rule.

I say this is the most sensible idea so far, because it doesn't involve the deletion of anything (Old accounts, points, everyone's score once a month, etc.), but I think that CC is fine as it is.

If anything, inflation is a good thing. It means we have to update the ranks, which means we get newer and more awesome rank insignias. Who doesn't want newer and more awesome rank insignias, eh?