Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Corndog
Lack of parity is always the downside of competitive RPGs.

Either your choices make a large impact, in which case there's a huge gap between good and bad players, or that gap is narrowed by diminishing the effects of player choices. You really can't have meaningful player decisions while still having strong parity between the good and bad players.

This becomes even more of an issue when player decisions are the only way they interact with the game. At least in something like TF2, people can get more skilled at the game, but in a game like this, the only way to "get better" is make better decisions on where you spent your points and set your sliders.

Would you and Bort consider the resetting ELO each off season?

Originally posted by Parab00n
Would you and Bort consider the resetting ELO each off season?

Well, no, the best veteran teams playing against the worst seasoned teams for half the season would be dumber than the current system

Originally posted by Corndog
Well, no, the best veteran teams playing against the worst seasoned teams for half the season would be dumber than the current system

Even if you artificially set the opening ELO's for the tiers? Seems like it would take a decent amount of games for seasoned to find their way against any decent vet team if you did that?

Loving the idea above from Steve and Mile High. It's in keeping with the fundamental 'Chalk or Cheese' spirit of the game

There's lots that I find fun. I wouldn't pay to play if I didn't.

I think Player Building is the most fun thing, but when they hit Vet, if they're not in my team, I kinda lose interest. I've not boosted a single player's career yet, but then, I've also retired my Vets because they're nothing special - jobbing players who've done ok. Looking forward to see how my crop of Seasoned and below come on through their careers. I think everyone else above Seasoned is probably screwed in one way or another.

Owning a Team is great fun. Having a group of good drone mechs commit their game money to your team is also a responsibility that makes it equally frustrating when, like me, you win bugger all.
But I do feel the game is moving to a more balanced meta that's making it more fun to play in the lower levels, for me at least.

An element of cheese has been removed from the game that's made it more fun, so the decisions made at HQ about how to deal with the game's Beta inadequacies and glitches to make it more fun, are a fun and vital part of, the fun. Looking forward to what happens in the off-season after the issues raised in S10.

Running other people's teams in one form or another is fun. I like that bit too.

Above all though, Stobie's Tool has made the game playable and more fun, therefore. It doesn't give you the answers, but it lets you see some of the important mechanics that are fundamental to the 'Order of Things' within the game. It's a bit sad that I have to pay again, rather than this stuff be a part of what the game offers in the first place, but strength to Stobie's arm, I say.

I'm happy to learn slowly and lag behind the elite in their meta-knowledge and thinking, and I'm grateful to those constructive and positive contributors in the community who share their thinking. I read the forums to learn shit. I'm a smirking Lurker, it's fun reading the regular posters. The arseholes in between the good stuff are easy to spot, but there's some funny shit in there too.

Reasonably happy gamer, I'd say.

EDIT: Mistaken apostrophe placement removed

oh and if I had to be mostly honest about what makes me happy, it is additional plays to use. I have found a number of ways to make use of the new plays this season and there are 2-3 plays from the new formation that I and many others use regularly. Keep em coming every season imo. Seems like a relatively easy thing to keep upgrading and it makes every season sort of unique even if there aren't any actual changes to the sim itself.

Originally posted by Corndog
Well, no, the best veteran teams playing against the worst seasoned teams for half the season would be dumber than the current system

thanks for the responses Corndog --- sure is great to know you're still around (<- not sarcasm)



Something has to be done --Vet is just too boring. Here were 2 proposals I like (we don't actually know ELO - so I don't know if 1 pt of ELO is a lot or a little - so please ignore that).

Option 1:
Vet all reset to 1200
Pro all reset to 1100
Journey all reset to 1000
(etc).

Or option 2:
#1 team: 1200
#2 team 1199
#3 team 1198
etc all the way down.


Both should assure you don't have a ton of crazy inter tier stuff --- and both should allow for a lot more ladder volatility which I think we desperately need to keep the game interesting and to keep the games meaningful.

Depending on what ELO looks like - maybe better to do 1200 / 1199.95 / 1199.90 / etc.



(also - please just show ELO so we can see!)

Originally posted by bhall43
oh and if I had to be mostly honest about what makes me happy, it is additional plays to use. I have found a number of ways to make use of the new plays this season and there are 2-3 plays from the new formation that I and many others use regularly. Keep em coming every season imo. Seems like a relatively easy thing to keep upgrading and it makes every season sort of unique even if there aren't any actual changes to the sim itself.

Hasn't that been a great thing this season? Totally agree!

Oh yeah. Fix Zone! That'd open up the game no end.

Originally posted by Corndog
Well, no, the best veteran teams playing against the worst seasoned teams for half the season would be dumber than the current system

It's not that the current system is dumb, it's just no movement at the top of the ladder. The current system just has the senior teams in the top 5/10 and you wait your turn to become that senior team. At this point it would be better to just scratch the global ladder all together and just do tier ones if that is what is keeping this from happening. In another thread we discussed a system like this:

Vet 1400
Pro 1200
Journeyman 1000
etc
etc


Ladder games are scheduled by teams +/- 100 ELO points of you which would cause a ton of inter tier matchups especially in the first half of the season. This would all but eliminate Vet teams playing Journeyman/Seasoned as well since they wouldn't have time to fall all the way down into their range.

Originally posted by Parab00n
It's not that the current system is dumb, it's just no movement at the top of the ladder.

But there's no movement because...there's no movement.

They're already going 29-1 while playing teams at the top of the ladder. Not sure how going 30-0 from playing teams at the bottom to middle of the tier is going to change the outcome for the better.

ELO isn't broken, what's broken is that the teams at the top can beat 99% of teams 99% of the time. You're not going to see a lot of movement when one team goes 28-2 and another goes 29-1.

I mean, the K value probably could be increased again to help volatility and cause gutjobs to fall out faster, but teams with nearly identical records still aren't going to see a lot of movement.

The only thing resetting ELO would do is cause half the ladder games for the season to be a joke for teams like the Stunners.

There isn't a lot of movement period. I don't think anyone is arguing that the Stunners or Harrisonburg are not rightful of owning the top spots in Vet right now. But RIF, Gatling, New Jersey, Goons, Dinos, Cobras, Trolls have done horribly this season and all still sit within the top 25.

All while a number of teams below them could be, rightfully, vying for a top 10 spot.

It would probably make sense to increase the K value for ladder games compared to league games as well.

Originally posted by Corndog

The only thing resetting ELO would do is cause half the ladder games for the season to be a joke for teams like the Stunners.

More than half of them already are though.

At least there would be more of a revolving door of teams to take a crack at them. Hell maybe a GA gets a play at them this season with a resetting ELO.

I don't think Corndog fully sees the problem with the ladder.

Ground Assault has only lost 4 games and has moved up only two spots so far this season from 30 to 28. We've beat teams in the top 15.

Two spots. In the 25-30 range.

Furthering the point, maybe GA will be the best team next season? Even if we managed to go 30-0, we wouldn't be able to finish top 5 unless there's some really high attrition starting us out around the top 10.