[06-Feb-2006] Major gameplay changes

[lackattack]

Over the weekend I found some time for programming. Here are the results:

1. Auto-Kick happens after 3 missed turns.
This means three strikes and you're out of the game.

2. No more surrender button.
It was causing problems with people pushing it too early in the game or to stop players from getting cards.

3. No points for deadbeats.
Your score is intended to reflect your skill, and it does not take much skill to defeat players who don't play. A deadbeat is now defined as someone who does not play after round 1. This is a separate concept from auto-kick.
EDIT: In team games, deadbeats on the winning team do not get a share of points.

4. Readjustment of all scores.
All points awarded for defeating deadbeats were taken away and the game logs have been revised to account for this. I hate to mess around with historical data but this will make the scoreboard more fair.

5. Other improvements.
In the game you can now click on the game # to refresh the screen. Teams are now listed in the game. The Classic and Asia maps have been revised to make borders clearer. The number of countries has changed on the new Asia map, so you'll have to start a new game to try it out.

[edsegio]

Could you add a Confirmation box so that when people (me) accidentally click the "end attack" button before having done anything, well, we have an out. Losing a turn due to mouse slippage isn't too fun.

Excellent.

[Dragonslayer]

Wow man, that point adjustment really hurts. Did I really get that many points from deadbeats? Damn.

[Twill]

lol, yeh, I dropped 13 places.

Ah well, guess I really know how to pick my opponents, eh?

Thanks for the work Lack.

[mikey6rocker]

if they surrender right before you conquer their last country does that count as a dead beat and you dont get any of their points? because, well check out game 707, i understand the other 2 players were kicked off cause they missed their turns, but not freakshow (yellow) he just surrendered before i was about to beat him, yet it says hes a deadbeat and i got no points for that game.

[Risk_06]

Errr...lackattack got rid of the Surrender button. See Point 2? No more surrendering and being cheap.

[Axelius]

I'm playing in a Asia-game with the new map, but I can still only move to Burma from Malasyia...

[moz976]

Nice I like all the new additions. I am so glad you got rid of the surrender button.

Great site lack you are the man

[lackattack]

I'm playing in a Asia-game with the new map, but I can still only move to Burma from Malasyia...

Oops. I fixed it. Now you can only get to Malaysia from Thailand.

[avdoesberg]

Lackattack, Thanks for the changes! Glad you made deadbeats exit faster. They sure slow the game down. I know you have done an amazing amount of coding to get this to work as it does, but is there any chance you can program the option to choose a game with different time possibilities for the rounds: 1hr, 3hrs, 6hrs, 12hrs, 24hrs?

GREAT SITE. Recommended you on Stumbleupon.

[lackattack]

I think 12hrs and 5-15 minutes makes sense, but anything in between wouldn't work.

Think about it - either you're playing real-time or not, and if you're not you want to be able to go to sleep without missing turns.

I don't want to be responsible for Conquer Club addicts burning out cuz they never sleep

[Twill]

LOL agree with you there Lack -

But....

The first turn of every game should be 24 hours - what if you create a 5 minute game, wait for 6 people to join, but leave because it takes 5 hours for them to join....you miss your first (and probably every subsequent) turn because people didn't join.

OR

The other option is to have a "we will start in x hour y minutes, please be here" to coordinate people being on at the same time - again, the 24 hour first turn would do that just fine.

OR

The other option is to have any number of minutes per turn (i.e. user selectable) but require a "cerfew" time where no moves are allowed. I.e. 1 hour turns with no turns between 10pm and 11am to let people sleep.

OR

have a "pause" button that any player can select to go do laundry or eat or, heaven forbid, use the "facilities" or something. This should be an indefinate pause, but after 24 hours, the other players have a resume button - if the person does not come back, they can all choose to pick the game back up (with a 1-2 hour lag time to get everyone there)


just some thoughts

Twill

[avdoesberg]

I like what Twill said about the idea of having a space to say, "This game starts at..." so that people can join in for a real-time game. Can a game option be created that you can choose a starting time--if not all players are there either the game is cancelled (2 or fewer players) or started with neutral lands for any blank spots? (To be honest, I really have no idea how hard that would be to program. You may want to throw my ideas out altogether!)

Maybe the option should be, as you say, Lackattack, either real-time or 24hr. That does make more sense.

[cowmonkey]

LOL agree with you there Lack -

But....

The first turn of every game should be 24 hours - what if you create a 5 minute game, wait for 6 people to join, but leave because it takes 5 hours for them to join....you miss your first (and probably every subsequent) turn because people didn't join.

If you want to play a real time game and don't get the right number of players then you can abandon the game since it hasn't started yet. Then just start another one later.

OR

The other option is to have a "we will start in x hour y minutes, please be here" to coordinate people being on at the same time - again, the 24 hour first turn would do that just fine.

Great idea. Have some public comments for each game to inform others what the expectations are for the game.

OR

The other option is to have any number of minutes per turn (i.e. user selectable) but require a "cerfew" time where no moves are allowed. I.e. 1 hour turns with no turns between 10pm and 11am to let people sleep.

I agree with Lack above, 12 hours or 5-15 minutes, anything in between makes no sense, and by the way solves this problem.

OR

have a "pause" button that any player can select to go do laundry or eat or, heaven forbid, use the "facilities" or something. This should be an indefinate pause, but after 24 hours, the other players have a resume button - if the person does not come back, they can all choose to pick the game back up (with a 1-2 hour lag time to get everyone there)


just some thoughts

Twill

I disagree with a pause button. Gives too much power to the game creator.

I am definitely all for a real time game format.

[Aphid]

Your score is intended to reflect your skill

But at the moment with the current scoring system the people at the top of the scoreboard aren't necessarily the most skilled.

They might be but it's difficult to tell.

[moz976]

But at the moment with the current scoring system the people at the top of the scoreboard aren't necessarily the most skilled.

They might be but it's difficult to tell.

How does the current scoring system not show who is the most skilled. It takes skill to win and if you win you get more points and if you get more points you move higher on the ranking.

[Zepy12]

I'm new to this Conquer Club...a refugee RISK II player from MSN Zone, and a member of XI. I'm glad you have this site, and welcome the new changes...I've only played a few games, but know the changes are good.

Keep up the good work, and see you on the killing fields.

Zepy12

[Tr0y]

Aphid what do you propose for a new scoring system?

Just saying the current one sucks isnt constructive.

[Aphid]

How does the current scoring system not show who is the most skilled. It takes skill to win and if you win you get more points and if you get more points you move higher on the ranking.

Take a player who wins on average 60% of the games they play and another who wins 90% of the time. The 60% winner can easily have a higher score simply by playing more games.

Lets say for example that a win is worth 100 points on and a loss is 20 points off your score and the starting score is 1000. After 10 games the player who wins 90% of the time would have a score of 1880. If the 60% winner had played 20 games then they would have a score of 2040.

This is how a less skilled player can have a higher score.

[Aphid]

Aphid what do you propose for a new scoring system?

Just saying the current one sucks isnt constructive.

Whoa, slow down dude!! I didn't say the existing system sucks! In fact I think it's kind of helpful. But as I just mentioned above I don't think it shows who is the most skilled.

What would I propose? An extra column on the scoreboard that shows a players win rate. To me the win rate is more important than the score.

As for something constructive.....Here's a link to something I wrote a few days ago where I made a few suggestions about scoring etc.

http://tinyurl.com/cbcu6

[seraphesy]

How does the current scoring system not show who is the most skilled. It takes skill to win and if you win you get more points and if you get more points you move higher on the ranking.

Take a player who wins on average 60% of the games they play and another who wins 90% of the time. The 60% winner can easily have a higher score simply by playing more games.

Lets say for example that a win is worth 100 points on and a loss is 20 points off your score and the starting score is 1000. After 10 games the player who wins 90% of the time would have a score of 1880. If the 60% winner had played 20 games then they would have a score of 2040.

This is how a less skilled player can have a higher score.

whoa...

how many games have you played?

The more skilled player you beat, the MORE points you get.

If you play low rank people, and u lose, you will lose MORE points.

your scenario above assumes that you get a flat points per win. that is not true.

a player who wins 60% of the time vs average players, his rating will stabilize after a while, and it will remain the same no matter how many games he play.

[Aphid]

whoa...

how many games have you played?

I've played 9 games and you have played 12.

The more skilled player you beat, the MORE points you get.

If you play low rank people, and u lose, you will lose MORE points.

your scenario above assumes that you get a flat points per win. that is not true.

a player who wins 60% of the time vs average players, his rating will stabilize after a while, and it will remain the same no matter how many games he play.

In the 9 games I have played there has been 38 players. Of the 29 non winning players the average score deducted has been 20. If you play a game with 6 players and 5 of them lose about 20 points each then the winner will gain about 100 points. This is why I used these numbers previously. I know that if you have a higher score you win and lose at a different rate but if you are a mid-ranked player these have been the numbers that I have seen.

Let's look at the scoreboard leader at the moment. In their most recent games rlcfast1 is getting around 14 points from each player they win against and losing about 29 points for each game they don't win. At that rate if they were to play 10 six player games and win 6 and lose 4 their score would still advance by 304 points. Let's use this unrealistic scoring method for one player from the beginning starting with 1000 points and have them competing against someone else who has the advantage of scoring points as I used them in the previous post. The 90% win rate player has 1880 points after 10 games. The 60% win rate player has 1912 points after 30 games. The less skilled player is still on top.

I could give more examples but I don't know the exact method that lackattack uses for awarding points. Let's look at the scoreboard as it is now. You have a score of 1233 after 12 games and the next player up has a score of 1237 after 16 games. There is only 4 points the difference so it's pretty much the same to me but you have played only 3/4 the number of games the next player has. Or you could say that they have played 33% more games than you. You would have a higher win rate and to me that makes you a more skilled player. You might disagree but that's the way I see it.

You could also look at the top of the scoreboard. It looks like 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place players are more skilled than rlcfast1.

I could go on but at the end of the day this is just a game. It really doesn't matter to me what scoring system is used I enjoy playing for the fun of it. The only point I am making is that the current system doesn't tell you who is the most skilled.

[wacicha]

i know a player gets kicked after 3 missed but a kicked player is not a deadbeat so does a kicked player from a winning team share in the winning points

[Nobunaga]

Way to go Lack! :P Tired of deadbeats ruining my games!

I wasn't aware that this was your coded creation. You'z a genius, man!

[Quicksand]

I like the idea of realtime events with a 5 minute start your turn timer, but the problem, as discussed above, is that someone starts the game and 4 hours later the game is full and the starter is asleep.

1...time limit on real time game startings. like an hour. If the hour passes and the game hasn't started, then game is cancelled.

2...a visible link on the main page for someone to click that will take them directly to one of the realtime events. Kinda like the "play now" button yahoo uses. That or a "Realtime Event Page"

3...Same deadbeat rule. I like it very much, especially in real time events. If you don't have time to play, don't start a game.

4...everyone sends me 5 dollars so I can buy some gas. help the game, it doesn't, but it sure would relieve my bank account.