Ratings Reloaded - Community Consultation - UPDATED

[mightyredarmy]

Problem 1 - too much confusion is caused by 5 stars in 4 categories

Problem 2 - we're not gonna get feedback back because of moderation 'problems'.

Easy solution

Award a plus star (equivalent of old positive feedback) for an enjoyable game.
Award a negative star (equivalent of old negative feedback) for a negative playing experience.
Award neutral if you just don't really care but just want to build up your rating medal

No commentary is added, but for a really special game use the wall

The total of pluses less minuses is your rating, now shown as a total figure.

So - if you were rated 83-15 under the old system, you now get a score of 68, with your old comments on your wall

4s and 5s awarded since the new system started get converted as pluses
3s get converted as neutral
1s and 2s get converted as negative.

Advantages:

1. Some of the experienced players who built up 500 or more positives get to have a rating which reflects that achievement so all that hard work doesn't need to be lost after all.

2. The odd negative received from a vindictive idiot will not have a major effect, but repeatedly stupid play and deadbeating will attract lots of negatives therefore leading to:

3. A consistently bad player will get a negative rating and be easy to spot (or they may have played lots of games without getting many pluses, again fairly easy to spot.)

4. It's simple.

Jod done.

[Diamonds14]

The idea of a missed turn counter seems to me not a good idea, even with the various ideas that are being suggested to make it more of a average or percentage of turns missed. To me the problem is that taking every turn ever missed and dividing it by every turn ever played would in most cases get a very low precentage. In my 800 games or so played, i dont think ive missed more that 15 turns (I could be wrong but for example) and saying there is an average of 20 turns per game my overall precentage would be 15/(800x20) = .0009375 even if i missed 100 turns my percentage would be 100/(800x20) = .00625 and i know there are plenty of people who have missed more than that and less than that. And if i go to a players profile and it says missed 10% of his turns that really is not that much, from that alone will i know if hes going to miss a turn in another game. ((I hope that all makes sense, im not an english major)).

Also, what if the player misses more than the average number of turns in the begining of his CC career but now later in his career he doesnt miss hardly any turns will his past keep on brining his stats down?

The ultimate solution in my opinion is that the star ratings should be automated for attendance as many others have suggested.

The more complex you make it, the more problems, real and imaginary, it will be subject to. Unfortunately, all of the current suggestions add varying degrees of complexity to the system.

Any and all changes that add complexity to the present system may lead to actual options for abuse, and will definitely lead to imaginary abuse (surely much more of this than actual abuse, just as with the current system), and you will observe many more frivolous complaint threads on the server as a result. Many, MANY more.

The more complexity added, the more frivolous complaint threads there will be -- this is 100% guaranteed.

I also disagree with this because just because a system is complicated does not mean that it will cause problems. Basketball and many other sports, institutions, and websites have complicated workings and they work just fine. The old feedback system was simple too and supposedly according to moderators and some others it had so many problems with it.

[color=#4000FF]These solutions do not address the Core issue:

The OLD System worked fine for EVERYONE except lazy mods and players with bad attitudes.

[color]

Atarihero is completely wrong about the lazy mods comment but taking the mods out of the old feedback sytem will work. I know they did a lot of work in the old system and they should be praised for that. The old system wasnt confusing. Its pretty straight forward and the good players got praised and the bad players got what they deserved.

Im not going to keep on focusing on the old system. I've made suggestions to make both systems to work better, but just because there is a new system doesnt mean it is better.

Thank you so much Lackattack and all the other mods for all the work you put into this site. I dont mean to keep bringing up the past and putting your work useless.

Thank you again and sorry for the long reply.

Diamonds.

[thedriver]

Hi,
Perhaps the computer can analyse the game and make a fair judgement?
It's just an idea....
By the way, thanks for this great site !!!

[Hugh-G-Rekshun]

These are good solutions for each issue.

[Soloman]

Actually, an average rating should be for someone who takes their turn as fast as the average for turn-taking on CC is, and for those who miss about as many turns as the average amount of turns missed on CC is. Better and you get more stars, worse and you get less.

Stars for attendance are a mess anyway, except for missed turns you only really notice how fast or slow the player who goes right before you is. Just calculate the numbers automatically and put them in people's profiles, it would save everyone a lot of work. The logs have all the necessary information.

This may surprise you but a large # of people do not miss turns n there average game in fact rarely miss A turn in 20 or 30 games. It is not average to miss a turn and doing so is in my and a lot of others opinion below average and a deadbeat to me is a automatic 1 start a person who misses 3 turns a automatic 1 but then that is me, buts as I said missing turns does not equate to average play...

If the average player rarely misses a turn, the average player still occasionally misses a turn. All turns missed divided by all turns taken will tell you how often it happens on average.

If it makes you happy it shouldn't be a problem to add the information of how many games a player has deadbeated out of.

Lets say the average player misses 1 turn every 20 games that should be reflected in 19 of there games as positive and 1 of there games as negative thus averaging out and giving a fairly accurate view of them. Now lets take it a step further and say this player take the majority of there turns in a game within 1st 6 hours of availability we will say a 11 round game 9 turns fell into that range, this should again be awarded and recognized as being above average now this player is above average with 4 stars. Basically I believe the stars should be kept and average rated as average and above and beyond average recognized but by an automated system with fixed criteria, that way it can be a completely non biased and still averaged with the rest of the stars system. A system of ratios would need to be developed for play time to availability and turns missed to rounds in game. Then the only challenge would be getting people to quit using 5 for average in other categories but that would resolve the attendance issue...

[Pedronicus]

I have recently received a rating from a player of 3 stars for attendance because I missed a go. The go I missed was because of that weekend when the server went kaput.
I've not moaned because I know that eventually the averages will eradicate it. Averages are what what a lot of sportsmen are interested in. Golf & cricket spring to mind. CC is similar because of high numbers of games involved.
Someone earlier mentioned about a possiblitiy of including when in the order of play you are eliminated. This is also a good idea (mind you I would say that because I've lost count of the amount of times I came second!)
Players who attack everyone like crazy in the first couple of goes and get knocked out quickly are shit players.
Players who miss goes are shit players.

The good players always take their turns and are in the last 2-3 of 6 player games.

Players who play 2 player games and get a win only had to beat 1 person to get the points. Players who had the balls to play 6 players and came second are obviously a better player than the winner of a 2 player game. Those players had to out think 5 other players to arrive at 2nd. place, 3rd place etc. I'm not suggesting that coming 2nd or third should have any of the points, but getting that far means you played a strong game.

If we are looking for ways to eradicate unfair feedback, how about game play as some sort of Formula 1 scoring system of where you came in a game as follows might work.

8 player singles game
win - 10 points
second 8 points
3rd 6 points
4th 4 points
5th 3 points
6th 2 points
7th 1 point
first to be killed - nil points

6 player singles game
Win - 8 points
second 6 points
3rd 4 points
4th 2 points
5th 1 point
first to be killed - zip diddly squat points

2 player singles game
win - 2 points
killed - 0 points

6 player doubles
winning team - 6 points each
second team to be killed - 2 points
killed first team - 0 points each

BUT - in doubles (& triples / quads) - you would also get points for where your team came in the positions that would give you a teamwork ranking based on where your team came with some sort of multiplication of if/when your team mates got knocked out of the game.

All of the above scores would be divided by 2 to arrive at a 5 star rating (10 for an 8 player singles win being the hardest game to win = 5 stars) and then the average of how well you do in a game would again be based on performance.

THE ONLY PERSONAL RATING A PLAYER SHOULD BE ABLE TO VOTE ON IS SOMEONES ATTITUDE BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY PERSONALLY OBJECTIVE PART OF THE GAME.

All of the above points are once again just some numbers I've thought of whilst writing this post and are in no way set in stone / well thought out mathematically to be correct.
This is just another idea for everyone to mull over.

[LSU Tiger Josh]

Personally, I don't give a crap if someone takes 22 hours to take their turn every day. If I wanted a speed game, I would've signed up for one. I prefer the KISS method
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid
in regards to dealing with ratings.

1. The biggest problem that I could tell was a lot of "retalitory" feedback with the written comments. If it's set-up where the person doesn't see the comments for 5 days until the game is locked, this would be eliminated. The only way that the feedback would really be "retalitory" would be if some idiot told the other one that I'm going to leave you negative feedback" in which case they deserve receiving the neg for stupidity. The person receiving the neg. comment should be able to post their "response" to the complaint just like before.

2. Discreptancy is a problem with some people. Some people are very enjoyable to be wtih while others are more anal. Personally, more times then not I'll leave everybody a "5" unless they deadbeated, was a jerk, or something like that. These type of things will be averaged out over the long run. I wouldn't mind seeing on a person's profile, the "average feedback left" breakdown by them. If I see someone that is a hardass, I do'nt want to play with someone that takes the game so serious. I want to play with someone that I can chat with or at least be social with instead of here is a 3 because you took your turns on time and that is what I expect.

3. I already addressed with point 1.

4. Maybe have a slot for game enjoyment where people can put how they want. The biggest problem I see with that is the losers may not feel a lot of enjoyment especially if they received bad dice or their opponent had "lucky" dice. I would personally avoid this type of rating.


In response to Pedronicus, I do agree with some of what he said. I think there should be an "automated" stat tracker on your profile that states your average finishing position for each of the game types. I don't believe that it should give you points because then people would never strive to be the best. They would just try to play way to conservative isntead of someone trying to make a charge that can either win it or lose it for them.

Also in regards to the missed turns counter, why not have it set up like e-bay does and keep track of the number of missed turns in the past week, month, 6 months, and year. That way, players that struggle with that early will be able to redeem themselves and can point out that they learned from their mistakes and hadn't missed turns in 3 months or whatever.

[PLAYER57832]

Okay, let's say we had missed turns % on your profile instead of the "Attendance" attribute.

How could we factor that into your overall rating score?

I would say don't. It is separate, keep it that way. If needed, there can be "tags" added, (such as computer down, etc.) but I think folks either care about attendance or don't.

The only "conbination issue" is when someone stomps off when losing and so forth. That will show up in attitude.

[azezzo]

we need a way to deal with verbally abusive players.
there are 2 kinds that i have a problem with,
(1) the guy who starts to lose and goes off the handle bitchin n moaning about the dice, your game play, or that you are a lower ranking player who is about to beat a higher ranking player.
(2) The verbally abusive player who is also a manipulator of newbie players, thru lies, profanity, and threats.
I dont feel that giving this type of player a "poor rating" does enough, it doesnt curtail his future actions, nor does it warn future players.

[animorpherv1]

Easy, have a "Report this player" button next to their rating, and tell CC what they are doing, that'll stop some people from bitching, obviously, if someone got enough comments/ Reports on this, they'd be banned from playing games/lose points/ other ideas from CC.

[DukeToshiro]

Problem 1 - too much confusion is caused by 5 stars in 4 categories

Problem 2 - we're not gonna get feedback back because of moderation 'problems'.

Easy solution

Award a plus star (equivalent of old positive feedback) for an enjoyable game.
Award a negative star (equivalent of old negative feedback) for a negative playing experience.
Award neutral if you just don't really care but just want to build up your rating medal

No commentary is added, but for a really special game use the wall

The total of pluses less minuses is your rating, now shown as a total figure.

So - if you were rated 83-15 under the old system, you now get a score of 68, with your old comments on your wall

4s and 5s awarded since the new system started get converted as pluses
3s get converted as neutral
1s and 2s get converted as negative.

Advantages:

1. Some of the experienced players who built up 500 or more positives get to have a rating which reflects that achievement so all that hard work doesn't need to be lost after all.

2. The odd negative received from a vindictive idiot will not have a major effect, but repeatedly stupid play and deadbeating will attract lots of negatives therefore leading to:

3. A consistently bad player will get a negative rating and be easy to spot (or they may have played lots of games without getting many pluses, again fairly easy to spot.)

4. It's simple.

Jod done.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[DukeToshiro]

1. The biggest problem that I could tell was a lot of "retalitory" feedback with the written comments. If it's set-up where the person doesn't see the comments for 5 days until the game is locked, this would be eliminated. The only way that the feedback would really be "retalitory" would be if some idiot told the other one that I'm going to leave you negative feedback" in which case they deserve receiving the neg for stupidity. The person receiving the neg. comment should be able to post their "response" to the complaint just like before.

You're 100% right about that. The best solution to feedback complaints would be to implement the "hidden until archived" aspect of the new ratings to the old feedback system. I have a feeling that the vast, vast majority of feedback complaints came from retaliatory feedback.

[PLAYER57832]

1. The biggest problem that I could tell was a lot of "retalitory" feedback with the written comments. If it's set-up where the person doesn't see the comments for 5 days until the game is locked, this would be eliminated. The only way that the feedback would really be "retalitory" would be if some idiot told the other one that I'm going to leave you negative feedback" in which case they deserve receiving the neg for stupidity. The person receiving the neg. comment should be able to post their "response" to the complaint just like before.

You're 100% right about that. The best solution to feedback complaints would be to implement the "hidden until archived" aspect of the new ratings to the old feedback system. I have a feeling that the vast, vast majority of feedback complaints came from retaliatory feedback.

I actually think concern over bad feedback is really misplaced.

Most of the time, it was pretty easy to tell whether feedback was justified or not. I put a couple of people on my ignore list because of the feedback they left folks. Even for new folks, play a few games nicely and the neg quickly was overwhelmed by positives. Who really cared if someone had 2 negatives compared to 230 positives?

Once in a while, someone might have gotten a lot of negs because they had a computer go down or some such. You read the chat and realized that was what happened. BUT, usually, I you got a lot of bad feedback under the old system, it probably was not just the "other" players. It was likely YOU! That is the hard fact that a lot of what most of us call poor sports, just don't like to accept. Namely, that they play in ways a lot of other people don't like.

Sometimes it was language, sometimes it was tactics like "doube-turning" freestyle (no longer permitted, I see) & missing turns for "strategy", sometimes it was other stuff. Few people like someone else telling them how to play (there is a big difference between suggestions and demands that you play their way). I dislike when someone tries to feed me a bunch of garbage (such as trying to tell me they had "poor luck" in FOG, when it is easy to see the truth ... etc.).

Most of these are "free choice" issues. The only rules are no multiple accounts and no unannounced treaties, so everything else is "fair game". BUT, other people may not like certain ways of playing. Under the old system, you could read the feedback, maybe look at a game or two if you were not sure and get a reasonable idea of who you were up against.

Was "retaliation" a problem? Occasionally. But, you know what ... anyone who left retaliatory feedback (and it was usually pretty obvious) got on my ignore list. Far more effective than worrying about having mods remove feedback.

I DID have 2 negs removed. It DID bother me at the time, but now ... I think it would have been just as well to leave them and let it be a warning to others who might wish to avoid the person leaving the chat.

[hulmey]

i think this is being made far more complicated than it has to be. I cant be bothered with all these tags and add ons and checking. This isnt the experience i want out of CC.

I want to relax and have it right in front of me in GREEN or RED, bad or good. I want to read whats said about a player and not have more numbers thrust in my face. This could have something to do with me having a kinetic personality, i dunnno.

But from what i can tell people much prefer the old system. Which im sure can be adapted so that it can be moderated by the community.

[PLAYER57832]

i think this is being made far more complicated than it has to be. I cant be bothered with all these tags and add ons and checking. This isnt the experience i want out of CC.

I want to relax and have it right in front of me in GREEN or RED, bad or good. I want to read whats said about a player and not have more numbers thrust in my face. This could have something to do with me having a kinetic personality, i dunnno.

But from what i can tell people much prefer the old system. Which im sure can be adapted so that it can be moderated by the community.

Or not moderated at all

Or ONLY moderated for specific language

[DukeToshiro]

But from what i can tell people much prefer the old system. Which im sure can be adapted so that it can be moderated by the community.

You're also 100% right. This would be the best solution and I hope the mods can see that.

[xeno]

[mod] Play nice or not at all

cheers,
gimil
[/mod]

[danodukebb]

the rating system sucks so much more than the feedback system you shithead

as much as I hated the old one I agree

I had like a 20-1 record in the old one, the one negative being retalitory but still i like it better than the current system, fucking noobs have better ratings than me now for no reason whatsoever, in the five games i was rated in i didnt do anything stupid, say anything stupid or etc. its just the people rating me have different scales than other people

[lhotaling]

I've been surprised to see some of my ratings that show a 1, 2, or 3 stars for attendance when I never missed a turn in any of the games. When I see who gave them, it's obvious that they were players who were upset because they lost, or I took their favorite territory from them. It's happened enough to suggest that there is no usefulness in the ratings without descriptors.

[jonesthecurl]

Hmm: Seems to me that the main thing we want to know is "should I get in a match with this player".
A simple "yes" or "no" vote would accumulate over time. so "30/20/1" might mean "30 people recommend playing this person, 20 people couldn't be arsed to comment, 1 would never play them again".

The other thing I think some players would like to know is "does this player approve of alliances/other deals"? - some players get real annoyed if someone says "I won't attack a if you won't attack b", others feel this is part of a normal game.

[FlyinHi]

In game 2618381 firedud gave me 3 stars for attendance and 4 for fairplay. How that works I haven't the slightest. I didn't miss a turn and he was my teammate. I also attributed highly to the win.

This new rating system is highly flawed. At least with the comments, they could be overturned.

[ctgottapee]

although it just adds a lot more complexity, it seems the ratings themselves need to be 'rated' based on who is giving them...

if a noob gives you a 5 for something, it should be worth less as their experience and understanding of ratings is lacking in comparison
likewise, lower rated players should also not have as much influence, their high ratings of players should have less value and their low ratings should have more value

how exactly you calculate this could be tough

maybe a simple thumbs up, thumbs down, neutral thumb for each judging category; this would make a nice clicakble interface after a game finishes (no drop downs)
the thumb values would be weighted based on who gives them - the givers game experience, score, maybe other factors - and that weighted value would be totaled for each category. a one number ratings is not going to cut it, there needs to be probably be a way to show a rating for each category

also allowing comments, but not having them added to a rating system, ie you can chew someone's ass or get your ass chewed, but it doesn't count in any ratings number other players see. however if one wants to research a player, they can read the comments themselves and decide if it is legit or retalitory comment. quality players can easily see through the crap, and sometimes comments are needed to help define a player more than any number can or help to indicate just how a number good or bad was probably acheived. i think people allow the more participatory nature of comments as well. reply comments should be allowed as well

[Pedronicus]

The old system was replaced because it took too much time out of the mods time.
Everyone moaning about how the new system is worse than the old system has no idea how much uneccsaary work the old one created.

I speak from a similar experience I gained when i left this site to join Tribal Wars. I was one of 2 people leading our tribe (70-90 members) and had to moderate the internal forum and deal with arguments within the tribe. 70-90 people created a hell of a lot of work. Only the mods know what this site creates, but I'm sure it's ridiculous.

Automating feedback as much as possible will free them up to moderate forums better, or god knows, they might even be able to play some conquer Club games instead.

[Soloman]

In game 2618381 firedud gave me 3 stars for attendance and 4 for fairplay. How that works I haven't the slightest. I didn't miss a turn and he was my teammate. I also attributed highly to the win.

This new rating system is highly flawed. At least with the comments, they could be overturned.

3 is not a bad score he means you had average attendance, he used the system right , no reason to be bent out of shape he ratings appear accurate.I fhe had given you a 2 or 1 then complain but as it is he did the right things...

[Dominator7]

I think Pedronicus has a good idea on the automated system.

I have had a 4.9 rating and just got a 1 star for fair play on an assassin game. The guy that left the rating was my target and was obviously disgrunted because I won. Go figure.

Some people just need to grow up. A comment section or reply to a rating would be helpful, I think.

How about a system tht would throw out automatically 2-5% of the highest and lowest ratings a player gets?