Hey damedley, thanks for your interest.

Ill mention a couple things first I guess. We chose to do ratings calculations at the time of report in this version of the ladder after some requests. Before it was calculated at the time of challenging. I did not want to make this overly apparent, but it is possible to manipulate both systems. Damned if we do, damned if we dont. That said, I went with the requests to change it because it came from some of our more active players and I needed the input honestly.

Right now I dont really recall if the "forced open challenge-slot for players within a certain point range of you" is actually working. Things seem to be going ok right now since we are a new ladder and dont have a group at the top that are inactive. This will most assuredly be assessed as time goes on, and when I get around to coding more ;)

I had alot of help with the ratings system, one of our players justinnyc4now was basically my right hand man in coming up with all the needed Elo research and information/background. I did not want to do the learning (I had just got out of winter term) I just wanted to code it. That said, Ill leave ratings calculations changes up to the community and stick with our decision to review everything in 6 months (a couple from now.)

That leads to the next issue about provisional players. We did keep it low, i think its only a couple wins needed to get out of provisional. Since we were starting things from scratch we had higher K values and easier requirements for getting out of provisional. The intent being to review and increase/decrease as necessary after we see alot more people and matches.

Lastly, Ill just mention that for the AA50 ladder (assuming I get around to it when it becomes stable) we are still taking suggestions. Infact thats what this thread is for. I can agree that the AA50 game is still very new and will take some time to find a good balance and bid, so if everyone feels cash bids are the way to go, thats fine with me. I generally dont mind leaving things to the players either, everyone has an opinion, and in a new game its healthy to try different things.

OK well I hope that addresses some points, Im fairly open really. When we made this thing, the advice I got was dont let everything sit around in a comittee because nothing will get decided. I made the decisions to stick with our bidding and challenge rules, and our elo values, so that we could actually launch. Things seem to be ok now, but I definately invite more discussion about it as we go along.

If you have aim/msn/icq/yahoo/irc or something and want to chat more, id prefer live chat, just send me a PM.

Bung

Quote:

I couldn't agree more! Please don't take the volume of my suggestions as criticism. I am extremely grateful that this site and this club exists.

Hmm this thread needs a bump.

Couple of thoughts/opinions on the issues that have been raised...

1) Bidding should be decided between the players involved. If it has to be one way or another, I'd say unit bids, since this is the way people are accustomed to playing the game in the lobby.

2) I don't care one way or another how the ranking system works, but it would be nice if players had the ability to challenge each other regardless of where they stand on the ranking... At least at first, as the ladder gets off the ground. As far as the numerical rankings go..the Revised ladder system would probably work. Elo would work great too.

3) One model that may be of use is the Elo-like system they use at AAWC, where the rating is similar to a Chess rating. There, the amount of points gained or lost on each game depends on each player's prior ranking, but also on the bid (ie if the average bid is determined to be 8, you get more points if you win at 7 etc.). I'm not sure I like this aspect (seems ripe for abuse, bidding should be about determining who plays what under fair conditions) but maybe it's worth checking out.

4) LL and tech should be worked out between the players involved. If they can't agree there shouldn't be any mandatory match-up. My feeling is that tech can imbalance the game and is perhaps inappropriate for a ladder format, but obviously if both sides want to play tech it should count towards the ladder.

5) I'd prefer one match, not two. One of the cool things about the ladder ought to be finding and playing new opponents...sometimes a game might not be mutually enjoyable and I don't want to have to be required to play a rematch. Plue there is the time issue.

6) Please no pre-set bid numbers either..why not just bid for Allies the way it works in the lobby? Whoever gets challenged can get to place the first bid.

So basically....let's keep it simple, no need for new or special rules...and try to get it up as soon as possible!

One of the things that I worry about with bids in the lobby is that sometimes it is needed and sometimes not. If Im playing axis on revised against an intermediate player a 9euro bid is really just overkill. One of the important things about having a set bid is to make a level-playing field for everyone. That said, if the ratings increase/decrease is dependent on the bid, then that is another viable option.

Ive heard alot that people only want one game per match, and I think it's pretty much the consensus.

I will also give you a bit of a status update (as you asked by PM) ... basically once I got the revised ladder working, and fixed a few things here and there in the summer, I've been very slammed with school this term. Next term I am only in a couple classes so I will be looking forward to doing a number of updates to the site. After using the site for a year there are lots of places that can be updated to make using this site easier. I will also be putting in a push to setup the AA50 ladder, there are a number of things i need to abstract out of the ladder code that I had before. Sometimes it was just easier to hack it and get it working for revised then to consider future ladders. I will have the time and Im looking forward to getting the new ladder going in 2010, especially considering that the current revised ladder [ and triplea itself] seems to be rolling along smoothly :)

@damnley, concerning your elo-rating post:
The problem with A&A seems to be the (fixed) risk of having an opening so bad, that it is almost an assured loss. That risk could actually be estimated by looking at the important battles, calculating their probabilities for worst-cases and then assessing the combined probability. It essentially means counting the cases where even a good player would likely concede against an average player.
For this, there is no term in the elo-formula, but it can be inserted without big effort. Mainly, this fixed risk has to be deducted from the total of the probabilities, and the formula only be applied to the remainder.

Regards,
EB

I do not see the need to fix the bid. Lets consider the possible situations:

A) a match between 2 skilled players:
No skilled player will give another skilled player an unnecessary advantage by granting a bid which is unreasonably high - or take one that is too low himself. Why should they? Deviations of +/-1PU will only reflect personal side preferences, thus skill, and will make for better games this way.

B) a match against some wrecked beginner:
The ladder system should award few points in such a match-up anyways. If a good recommendation for a bid in a prominent place exists, I can see few reason for a sensible beginner to play with a bid below that, or grant one above the recommended one.

C) A match against oneself (aka cheating using multiple accounts).
Few can be done to safe these sad beings, taken pleasure from a position they did not earn, from eternal damnation anyways. The bid does not matter in such a setup.

I would trust the power of the market here ;)

Just my 2 Cents, as always,
EB

Agreed Ernie, a fixed bid is a bad idea. There isn't even any consensus on what the bid is yet.

Simplicity is best...no need for strange rules that are different than they way the game is normally played.

For laddermodalities a agree 100% with Zhukov

The Elo-System is a statistical model. If u play a infinity of games, games dediced by dices will not affect the Ranking.
Losing by bad dices is no problem for the elosystem if u play a lot of games - i would rather say it is normal part of the game and ur ranking.

Need ladder so bad :)
Cant sleep anymore - like waiting for Christmas

Why western ranking systems of officers? What about enlisted? What about Asian ranking systems? And why Army ranks? No admirals?

Try the Air Force, but not modern day America... Try Germany's old ranking system translated to English. Got to be fair to the axis and the allies. NATO= allies. Not everyone wants to be the allies.
~
Maybe when ladder comes out people will be more experienced.