An alternative Metaverse ladder?

from Stardock Forums
During my recent meditational retreat, I considered the issues raised by having players competing on a single individual board but playing at a variety of difficulty levels. My apologies if this idea has been raised before, but I haven't seen it, so here goes.

The problem is deciding how a player completing games at say, Simple, can possibly 'deserve' to stand beside a Maso player at the top of the table. It is a problem of perception, as well as of scoring formula. Many players have, in other threads, suggested weighting combinations and indeed these are in the offing with upgraded versions of the game.

My feeling is that no weighting system, no matter how complicated, can overcome the 'quality vs. quantity' component of gameplay. Even if one were to give a Normal victory one point, and a Maso victory 100 points, they could still conceivably stand next to each other on the table if the Normal player put in enough games. Seeing Simple, Tough and Maso players on the same board compares apples with oranges with pears. These players are all playing very different games.

I don't expect a ladder for each difficulty level in the game; I though it might be possible to coalesce then in the following manner (the boxing analogy is purely illustrative):

cakewalk + simple + beginner = "Flyweight"

normal + tough + challenging = "Middleweight"

crippling + painful + maso = "Heavyweight"

The beginner might work their way up through the flyweight division, perhaps winning that and advancing to middleweight (at any stage, when desired). If desired and good enough, they could even take their turn at the heavyweight division, which would attract the most prestige. If you just wanted to make a career out of being the flyweight Metaverse champion, you could just do that happily without comparison to the middle- and heavyweights.

Also, your score at heavyweight would not be affected by the time you had put in as a flyweight - scores in each division should be UTTERLY independent, calculated only on the basis of the number of games you have scored in THAT division. You could always go back to flyweight and experiment with strategies without disturbing your heavyweight rating.

This only has relevance for those players wishing to submit to the Metaverse. The GAME remains unchanged - only the processing of scores submitted to the Meta is different. Empire scoring would remain an aggregate, unchanged from the current system. Accessing the metaverse might show you the top three from each division, and clicking on the relevant division would take you to a continuous list for that division in the same way the main list does now. I'd be interested in anyone's 2BC?
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Gernerally, I like the idea. It also has the added benefit of giving new players a chance to make a mark in the flyweight division.

The only problem is that people would still look at the total points and try to compare them. Suppose the top flyweight player has 2.5 million points and the top heavyweith player has 2 million points. The debate would rage on about "who's better".
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
So, instead of our system where all scores are counted, you just count scores in each-weight group?That's an interesting idea, very interesting. Only thing I'm not sure about is how the groups get split up. The difference between maso and crippling is much bigger than the other level differences imo.

I wouldn't mind a ladder for each level, actually - maybe it could read in scores from one level above and below, so each ladder actually has three levels of scores read in - but the above and below scores should be heavily weighted down. So a beginner master has a place on the normal table already, but they can't get to the top of the normal table just by playing lots of beginner, cause 1 normal win counts the same as lots of beginner wins on the normal ladder. Seeing their name on the next level up's table could also encourage them to move up without feeling like all their old games won't count for anything on the new ladder.

Hmm... you could even have the metaverse default to "show my ladder" if you wanted - that'd show whichever skill-level ladder you had the best rank in.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Qui-Gonn - re the 'total point' issue: I guess I felt that in the example you give, the heavyweight with 2 mill is regarded as by far the better player. How 'far' becomes irrelevant, because their scores never appear on the SAME table; thus comparisons become meaningless.

Quack: didn't realise the difference was so great. Maybe some fine tuning of the 'heavyweight' division? I understand the next version includes a 'super maso' - maybe make maso + supermaso = 'superheavyweight'?
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I do like the idea of putting more emphasis on achieving ranks in lower levels. Modifying the metaverse to rank by difficulty as well as size should achieve this. Adding medals for achieving ranks against difficulty and size would be the icing on the cake.

Paul.

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
i'm actually becoming a bit of a fan. i shall muse upon it further....
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I like your idea a lot. It would appear to be a tidy solution to the interminable arguments concerning how difficulty levels are scored. If there was sufficient kudos to playing games at a harder level, more Galcivvers would take up the challenge.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
The only problem is that people would still look at the total points and try to compare them. Suppose the top flyweight player has 2.5 million points and the top heavyweith player has 2 million points. The debate would rage on about "who's better".
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Actually neither can be proven logically to be the better player since logically, the meta cannot measure skill under any scoring system.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I like the idea though. However, I don't know whether the devs will put any more time and money into it..
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My guess is that, given time, they will. As gamers we are really an impatient lot, and hopefully the good folks at Stardock will take the time time to do it right. Maybe next in their next Budget cycle (if there is such a thing for a game like GalCiv) they will set aside more dollars for the metaverse. After all, the metaverse is kind of an experiment for them, and they had no way of knowing what kind of interest it would generate so they didn't want to throw a whole lot of money at it until they got a feel for how it would be utilized. Frogboy has hinted at some enhancments. Bottome line: Good things come to those who wait. :)
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
This is a pretty good idea.

Maso should *definitely* be in a different category, though. The difference between crippling and maso is far greater than the difference between crippling and, say, normal (and the devs seem to at last be recognizing this).

A problem, though: how would you score empires?
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Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Maso should *definitely* be in a different category, though.
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True dat yo.

I like this idea. But I also like the way the Metaverse is currently setup. I'm easy. I'll play it however the devs set it up.

~SDC~
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
I think you are forgetting one thing.. the metaverse is an ectention of the game. Not just a ladder.

The empires are a collection of varous levels. I can't see how your method would make empires any better.

I think that one can already get lists sorted on game dificulty levels.. (forgive me if i'm wrong) if not then that feature should really be added . then you'd have your ladders for difficulty levels without much more work from the powers that be.

I know you can do sorts of lists to see allignment so why not on difficulty,Map size etc.

I believe that if the metaverse were to simply become a ladder it would loose some of its magic (no pun intended) I like it as the main focus point to be comunity (empire) based .. just like the game GalCiv itself

just my 2bc's worth
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Maso should *definitely* be in a different category, though.
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Yep.
I confess I'd rather have the devs work on Galciv itself and other games than on the metaverse. To me, I'd just like to be able to filter all players who didn't ever win at maso to check who's better, but even then that's quite meaningless because he who plays more scores better is always the bottom line on such ladders (and usually those who play more become better so their medals are quite deserved).
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
This idea has piqued my interest. And the great part is, even though there's basically a nil chance that T-Man and Brad will implement this, it IS possible that the MWC code monkeys could give it a test run as part of our metaverse analysis system... I'll see if I can get them to put together the formulas to get this going, since it would at least be very interesting to see how it came out for the top 50 players/top 10 empires, etc.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Blue: I couldn't really develop any good response to the 'empire' issue. I dont think it can be messed with and the empire scoring doesn't generate anywhere near the debate that indivudual scoring does. Trying to account for difficulty levels in aggregate empire socring gets back to weighting formulae, and I reckon that's something of a dead end, as it will never solve the 'quantity vs. quality' issue. I feel players would just have to put up with the notion that the 2.5 million flyweight points would just add to the 2 million heavyweight points in EMPIRE scoring. Perhaps the only way is to put a crude one-time filter and say that for empire scoring:

flyweight scores x 0.6
middleweight scores x 0.8
heavyweight scores x 1.0
superheavyweight scores x 1.2

...on the empire tables. I mean here that the 2.5 mill flyweight sees "2.5 mill" on his individual division table, but when his score is aggregated with other in his empire it cops the 0.6 multiplier. I hear the maso difference statements above and I agree - create a 'superheavyweight' class for them.
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Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
?I still recon that if the Devs were to put a listing like they have for the allignments for the dificulty levels then that should surfice (It souldn't be that hard as they already have the info on what ppl's games are.. all they need to do is setup some more sorting indexes) .. because then you'll be able to compair yourselvs till your hearts content.. you'd be able to list just those maso games..

Nothing really needs to change.. except the addition of the new sorting filters

Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Blue - I know what you mean, and strictly speaking, you're right. Anyone could then see where they were at all nine individual levels. However, I was trying to deal with the issues of how players of different difficulty levels are perceived on the SAME table. I thus suggest ABOLISHING the current individual table that shows everybody together, to be REPLACED by 3 or 4 divisions.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't think it'll happen.. they may however add in the extra filters if enough ppl request them.

Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
Player one submits 1 Maso, and 99 cakewalk games, and has a decent score.

Player two submits 20 Maso games.

Player two wants to see how he did against the other maso players, sorts by difficulty, and sees player one 3 slots above his name.

Any level sorting filter would have to readjust player ranking based only on games submitted in that catagory. I think that might be a bit harder than just adding a new filter.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
It would work the same as the alignment filters.

in asc / dec scoreing order

Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, the alignment and size filters only pick player games under that specific filter. The scores and ranking are then based on those games.

The same can be done for difficulty filters.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks ray.. thats what i'm saying... all they need is the same for difficulty levels.
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
How about this?

Leave the scoring multipliers, etc. to Stardock. Frogboy has made it clear that this is something that they are willing to devote time to adjusting if they perceive it as necessary.

BUT, add a new icon to the "medals" line for each player, showing their average difficulty level. This medal would also appear on the regular Metaverse sorting tables.

So, Player X loads the Metaverse page, and at a glance can see that his average level is Crippling, compared to the 2 players just ahead of him whose average difficulty has been, say, Normal and Beginner, respectively. Thus feeling a touch better about being a step or two above him.

In addition, with this data added to the Metaverse table, it might be possible for Stardock to implement a "sort by difficulty" option for these pages. Although I realize that's going to require more coding than simply adding a new icon to reflect information that's already in the player profile.

Any thoughts?
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
Obi Wan, when you say "average difficulty level" how do you suggest that it is calculated? I can think of several different methods.
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
A compromise might be to leave the metaverse (or just add a difficulty filter) and augment the medals - which are not that meaningful now.

Perhaps, the medals could be the same (5 wins, 10 wins, 20 wins) but they change color or become more elaborate based on the difficulty of the games. I.E. - I win 5 games at beginner and I get a simple medal, then I win 5 games at normal and my medal becomes fancier (the alt tag would display the difficulty). For my first 5 / 10 / 20 games, I can get a medal for the lowest difficulty in the set. So if the difficulties of my first five games are: beginner, normal, normal, normal, challenging - I get the beginner medal.)

In this case, I haven't changed the metaverse - but I've put a lot of prestige on the medals... Now medals are a sign of commitment, in this system, medals represent commitment and skill.

I can think of how to do this with views so it could be very fast as the total number of metaverse submissions is pretty small in database terms.

Just my 2 BCs,

Cypher

~SDC~