Proposed 2-tier GOTM System

[Deckhand]

Another award suggestion. (unrelated to current discussion)
Personal Best - awarded to each player that has score higher than their previous submitted scores.
Is this easy or hard to code?

 

[da_Vinci]

Instead of multiple difficulties of same game, would it be possible to have two BOTMs each month? One at high level.

So each month would have BOTM hi, BOTM lo, GOTM, and 1 or 0.5 WOTM? I guess the difference from two tiers of BOTM games is everyone could in theory play both.

This does introduce the notion of a fix in one version that would not be applied to all versions ...

dV

 

[Deckhand]

LOL - one with events and one without

 

[DaveShack]

I think you should have been able to find what you were looking for, in spades, in the recent past:

That's nice. So it's just coincidence that every time I look it's immortal or deity.

I'd still prefer to be compared to other people like me who struggle at the levels which merely require ordinary skill, and not against people who find the level I play at so easy it's a joke. Out of well over 100,000 members, I wonder how many don't join in due to the intimidation factor?

 

[AlanH]

Another award suggestion. (unrelated to current discussion)
Personal Best - awarded to each player that has score higher than their previous submitted scores.
Is this easy or hard to code?

Easy, but I don't think scores (or dates) are really comparable across games, because they depend on the map, difficulty level etc. It might be better to compare a player's *ranking* score and speed - as calculated for the Global Ranking tables - with their previous ones. That would also be easy.

 

[da_Vinci]

Easy, but I don't think scores (or dates) are really comparable across games, because they depend on the map, difficulty level etc. It might be better to compare a player's *ranking* score and speed - as calculated for the Global Ranking tables - with their previous ones. That would also be easy.

Suggesting something like a "New Global Ranking high rank for (speed, score, combined)" as a mention in the congrats thread?

The other idea that I like is to create a lifetime best ranking system, to accompany (not replace) global rankings ... where one's top 10 nonaged results are used, calculated as the global rankings are now. Problem is that eventually speed would have quite a cluster at 1000, I suppose But if some method could be devised, I like the historical continuity this would add.

dV

 

[AlanH]

Yes, that was my thought. Someone could design icons for 'PB's for speed, score and combined.

I do have in mind a "Record of Achievement" page. You would select a player name, and it would display their record in all recorded games. As well as a list of game results, it could summarise statistics such as numbers of games won/lost/retired - total and by difficulty levels, awards and eptathlons won, scores, non-aged rankings, all-time high rankings, graphs of non-aged rankings ...

 

[kcd_swede]

Yes, that was my thought. Someone could design icons for 'PB's for speed, score and combined.

I do have in mind a "Record of Achievement" page. You would select a player name, and it would display their record in all recorded games. As well as a list of game results, it could summarise statistics such as numbers of games won/lost/retired - total and by difficulty levels, awards and eptathlons won, scores, non-aged rankings, all-time high rankings, graphs of non-aged rankings ...

Something like that would be very nice!

 

[da_Vinci]

Maybe a hammer for score, a lightning bolt for speed, and the two crossed for combined? Or is that too Soviet?

Might be appropriate, as the Russians will have a lot of them ...

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

Be sure to vote in this poll on a Psuedo-Tier proposal that resulted from these discussions:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=315618

dV

 

[dr_s]

I haven't read all the discussions, but I have a suggestion for a two-tiered system.

Keep the top tier the way it is now, without the adventurer/challenger class, and with maybe a slightly harder difficulty on average than now, but still occasionally including easier games.

Add a second tier at an easier difficulty than the first tier. Leave the gap up to the individual map maker.

Let anyone play either tier and fold all the results into a single list, with results colored by tier. Both tiers are eligible for all awards, except that anyone who has ever won a medal or speed award or cow (not shield or ambulance) is not eligible for an award if they play on the lower level. All results contribute to the global rankings, except that the results of players who have won awards do not contribute to their global rankings if they play on the lower level.

 

[AlanH]

Here's a wild idea. How about not having tiers or classes, just more games? Tiers and classes just make it complicated.

 

[da_Vinci]

Here's a wild idea. How about not having tiers or classes, just more games? Tiers and classes just make it complicated.

I suspect more games is always welcome ... presumably more distributed equally across all difficulty levels?

Regarding tiers, well, we already have tiers (or tiny tiers) of saves, with adventurer, contender, and challenger. And I think consensus is not to have tiers of players.

So I suppose the question is ... do we abolish even those tiny tiers, do we keep them, or do we replace them with some other tier of games system?

Now, by more games, are you thinking of more than one BOTM per month, for example? "Game of the Fortnight?" (at least in terms of start interval). On that asumption, two BOTM a month (or some months), presumably a spread of difficulty?

The difference between that and my Noble/Immortal or Prince/Diety split maps is with two separate maps, one could elect to play both, time permitting. I suspect that some of us also playing W and G OTMs might not have time for both BOTMs, but we get to chose one ... no worse than now ... in fact better with a choice of diff for the month.

Folks with only one or two versions have more options, as do those who only like to play BTS now.

The one thing you lose, perhaps, compared to having some split saves, is more winnable awards for the newcomers. But if we introduced the honorable mention idea, just reported in congrats, but not in pantheon, maybe that makes up for it?

Depending on how many more games could be done, this idea could equal or surpass split saves without the scoring and awards complexity.

Could make global rankings intersting ... would the bracket for "best result within" still be one month? Hmm ... you might need two rows per player: one for XOTM A and XOTM B in the month (will you need SIX slots per month?)

dV

 

[AlanH]

How about BOTW + GOTF + WOTF?

Although I'm reluctant to raise expectations, when the idea dawned on me I did some advanced mental arithmetic that goes a bit like like this:

We currently release 2.5 games a month, each with 3 saves. That's 7.5 saves a month. So why not make it 8 separate games a month - perhaps 2 Vanilla, 2 Warlords and 4 BtS. The BtS difficulties could be different combinations of four out of seven, assuming we don't have Settler games. Typically they could be (W or N) + (P or M) + (M or E) + (I or D), but we could have a few "easy" months when we encourage players into lower difficulty games with W + N + P+ M, and a few "hard" months when we push players up to M + E + I + D.

The four Warlords and Vanilla games could complement whatever difficulty pattern we had in BtS that month.

The masochists get a D or I BOTM every month except the easy months.

The newbies get a W or N BOTM every month except the hard ones. I would think they stand *more* chance of getting awards in a Warlord or Noble game than they do now, as the high level players will always have a choice of higher difficulty games to go for

The civ-oholics can play up to eight games a month - surely enough even for kcd_swede

There are lots of issues that arise, and we would need to thrash out the details.

A biggie for the staff would be the workload in creating and releasing maps. But if we used my approach during recent staff shortage problems, and created random starts for most games, this shouldn't be too onerous. With a lot more games, we can survive one or two damp squibs, and we can also take more risks on creative designs for the hand crafted ones.

The pre-game description posts would probably have to be semi-automated to make it quick and easy to start a couple of games every week.

I'm sure we can work something out for Global Rankings - probably just choose the players' best games in each period as we do now ... except the periods might be two weeks instead of 4, and include two BOTMs.

The most important question is:

Would this increase participation by newcomers, and retention of existing players? That seems to me to be the prime objective of any redesign of the competition. Making it more complex, harder to explain, and more exclusive, look to me to be going in the wrong direction.

 

[dr_s]

Adding games seems like exactly the wrong direction to me. You'll just further divide the pool of players, making some games less interesting/viable, because they attract too few players. People have a limited amount of time; I don't think adding more games will significantly add more players, but it will reduce the number of players per game.

While some of the proposed systems are complex and hard to explain, I don't see that that applies to my suggestion, which is simpler than or identical to the current system in most ways. It reduces the number of saves per game from 3 to 2. The scoring/ranking/medal system is basically identical to the current one, with the exception that once you medal/win an award, you have to play the harder save if you want to compete for medals/advance your global ranking. It also allows weaker players to be more competitive, by allowing for large gaps in the difficulty of the two games (unlike the current system, IMO).

 

[ngraner42]

Supporting Alan's idea, it seems like we have people who don't play because the game is too easy and people who don't play (or don't submit) if the game is too hard. Having more games may bring in more people to offset the dillution effect.

 

[dr_s]

I don't see the advantage of that over having multiple saves at different difficulty levels of the same map.

 

[AlanH]

With multiple saves on a single map you only get one shot at a game each month. Once you have tried the map at one difficulty level you are spoilt and can't then play the other version.

My suggestion allows players multiple chances to play and submit one or more games each month.

Since the other options being discussed here wipe out the possibility to compare games, because they are played at different difficulties, what advantage is there to playing them on the same map? They might just as well be on different maps, giving a far wider range of options for people who all have different playing styles, and who all want different difficulty levels.

 

[dr_s]

Do we know that a significant number of people want to play multiple xOTM's per month? I suspect most of us regular players are pretty much time-limited as it is. I thought the bigger complaint was not enough games at the appropriate level, not too few games overall.

As for comparing games, depends what you mean. I can certainly learn from better players who play the same map, even if they play at a higher difficulty.

If you mean compare scores, I disagree as well. I think of having multiple saves at different levels as being analogous to having multiple tee boxes on a golf course---it allows players at different ability levels to compete against each other. Having the same map/opponents at different difficulty levels would allow the riff-raff (I include myself in that category) to compete with the top players for awards, speed, etc.

 

[AlanH]

I thought the bigger complaint was not enough games at the appropriate level, not too few games overall.

My suggestion gives high level players a choice of difficult games most months and new players get a choice of lower difficulty games.

The small bonuses/penalties we currently have between classes are a bit like your different tees at golf, They only affect the first phase of the game. A closer tee just allows for your shorter drives, but the bunkers and greens are exactly the same for you as they are for the expert.

Difficulty differences would kick in throughout a Civ4 game to make it as different as playing on different maps. You might fool yourself that you are competing with the big boys, but you really wouldn't be. I can't see deity players being delighted with the idea of a handicapped monarch player taking away their gold medal by virtue of getting a big score or date bonus.