Also, filtering games with an high number of players drastically decreases the chances they will actually start. Have you ever tried to filter a Haven? A WWIV? That's why nobody puts a RR filter in large games.
My point is that many players, who have NMR as a habit, should be forced to play less games than they do now. Or you'll find them in every WWIV you play.

I think if the reliability ratings more accurately reflect reliability, as they would in the new system, people would use them as a filter more. Now, it's pretty much common knowledge that the RR system can be gamed and the rating isn't always accurate.

Decima Legio, if adequate tools are available but are not being used, then perhaps the problem is that players who create games are more concerned about filling their games than about making sure the players are reliable.

Well , it could be.
In this case... is it really necessary to implement a new RR system?
Which one will be the decisive difference?

JtME, if players who create games are concerned about filling their games, it is because they want to play. So this is not the problem. Everyday we have a request on modforum by someone who asks for a pre-game extension. Because starting a game it's not so easy and they just want to play.

What I wonder is whether players, before creating a new game, check for already existing games they could join. I'm sure only a few players do it. IE Right now, there are 5 Anon WTA Gobble-Earth starting. Five! Will they all ever start?

Before learning to add a filter when they create a game, players should learn *when* to create a game. Until they'll just create a new game without checking what's currently available, they'll never use a feature that decreases the odds of their new game to start.

So yes, the problem might be that people are concerned *only* about filling their games, nothing else.
If people who create games were concerned about anything else, you would see:
- less new games (hence, more games actually starting)
- no more than one new game per variant, unless there's some big difference (IE Gunboat/Full-press or Live/non-Live)

Much more games would be filled up, so you'd also see:
- more new games with RR restrictions
- more new games with a NMR Policy more effective than "default".

I agree with you, Guaroz. So how can this issue be addressed on the admin level?

As usual Decima Legio and Guaros arrive to a discussion about how to make improvements and proceed to complicate it with a load of nonsense that clouds the real discussion assuring that nothing changes at all. There's no need for complex equations or filters. It's not that damn difficult to figure out the players screwing up games and those who consistently play responsibly. The only reason we are having this discussion in the first place is because Guaroz thinks that it's too harsh to punish players who CD, NMR, cheat, etc. That's why the present RR is trash, and it's why any revisions to it will be worthless as well.

As I already mentioned: The current RR-System does not really help anybody, because it combines 2 opposing ideas in one formula. Not many people do use the RR system, because not many people do care about this (and this is not a problem), and the people that do care about this can't use it, because the RR can be brought back in th ebest possible rank very fast and easy.
That's why I think it's best to separate the 2 ideas in 2 different independent parts.
1. CD and NMR stats
2. CDtakeover stats that affect your ability to play games here if negative.

@Oli
1. I've heard much ideas about stats and many of them look good. What's look important to me about stats is that when you start a game, it'll ever be somehow on your record (unless it'll get canceled).
So the game you started today will end in your record in one of these 5 ways:
-win
-draw
-survive
-defeat
-CD (or left or resigned or whatever)
because CDing must not be a solution to avoid a bad result on your stats, it must simply be your worst possible result (no matter if someone took over your country before the end or not).
The way things work now simply encourage CDs. Because CDs are not recorded! CD works like an auto-game-cancel from your stats! Please let's stop it! If you CD a game, your CD% should raise and, hence, your win% should go down! Why isn't it so? It's an easy deterrent.


2. It may be good, but the crucial point is still finding the ideal ratio between punishment and recovery capability.
Too loose = useless (nobody worries).
Too harsh = useless (you just make yourself a second account)
Perhaps a perfect ratio or a perfect formula is yet to be invented. However, just to begin with, how about trying with this simple correction: "1 take-over balances only 80% of 1 CD". Simple, a bit harsher, but not unrecoverable.

Lastly: "the people that do care about this can't use it, because the RR can be brought back in th ebest possible rank very fast and easy."
Oli, the people tend to join games that look to be filling up quickly. If you want to play, you choose a Fantasy with 8 players already in it over a Fantasy with only 2 players, even if the latter has RR requirements. You want to play soon! asap!
Or at least this is what I learnt from the last Fantasy Gunboat I created. First attempt: 90+, didn't start in 10 days. Second attempt: 80+, started in 3 days.
Where were all the people who care about reliability the first attempt?
My point is that we shouldn't only focus on how to discourage CDs or encourage commitment, we should also wonder why people, who *say* they care about reliability, don't actually create nor join games with RR requirements or NMR policy.
"They can't use it because the RR can be brought back very fast"???
No, Oli, sorry. The true reason is in the opposite direction. They can't use it because not enough reliable players (whether true or "just brought back") would join their game. They can't use it because the game wouldn't start.

I have to disagree strongly on a few issues above. If you have to leave a game but you find a replacement, that should not reflect poorly upon you. You could even look at this as a person being responsible and caring about the game and the community, he's not just bailing! If real life gets in the way we might suffer an NMR or even CD, it can happen of course but for those who take the extra time to find a replacement, that person CARES. This is no doubt tricky, you want to see a person who HAD to drop and also see real effort made to find a replacement, while I prefer HARSH penalties for both CD's and NMR's to give a real "reliability" rating, I also see this as too harsh for someone who demonstrates great care for the site.

That being said, I am sure you could probably find those that do this in any and every game they are doing poorly in and that would need to be prevented. But on the whole, I see the player who takes the time and makes the effort to find a replacement, I stand up guy and handing him a CD, that's just WRONG.

Secondly, his suggestion that taking over another power in ANY WAY affects his reliability rating? Several already mentioned this should never be the case, taking over a power is a good thing and should be encouraged. I fully understand the reasoning behind this... encourage takeovers by allowing rapid RR recovery. But it simply leads to false ratings and one (take overs) has nothing to do with the other (reliability). I think the points made to eliminate this far outnumbered those who want to keep it the same or even adjusted, Reward takeovers in another way, they SHOULD be rewarded! But reliability has nothing to do with taking over others positions.

Tomahaha if you have to leave a game and find a replacement, you don't CD, you Switch your game.

the person above me was suggesting any who leave for any reason should face CD penalties. I was disagreeing with that statement! I can see ways people might scam this as well however, and that could probably be tweaked a bit.

Oh boy. Where to start, where to start?

First, agreement. Guaroz said:

"What's look important to me about stats is that when you start a game, it'll ever be somehow on your record (unless it'll get canceled)."

I agree 100%. If you start a game, it's on your record UNLESS, as Tomahaha noted, you have to leave the game and find a permanent sitter. That, I would argue, might be a situation we could argue that wouldn't go on someone's record. But that'd have to be discussed.

Allright, that was short. Disagreement time.

Guaroz says:

"You want to play soon! asap!
Or at least this is what I learnt from the last Fantasy Gunboat I created. First attempt: 90+, didn't start in 10 days. Second attempt: 80+, started in 3 days.
Where were all the people who care about reliability the first attempt?
My point is that we shouldn't only focus on how to discourage CDs or encourage commitment, we should also wonder why people, who *say* they care about reliability, don't actually create nor join games with RR requirements or NMR policy.
"They can't use it because the RR can be brought back very fast"???
No, Oli, sorry. The true reason is in the opposite direction. They can't use it because not enough reliable players (whether true or "just brought back") would join their game. They can't use it because the game wouldn't start. "

No, no, and just plain no Guaroz. You couldn't be more incorrect about this. People don't use RR filters because RR is quite frankly a bunch of bull**** right now. It's beyond completely useless as is evidenced by a player who went from RR = 40 to RR = 90+ in UNDER 24 HOURS! How insane is that? So what do players do? Well, it seems to me that most of the high quality players on here gather a group BEFORE creating the game. And then they create the game without filters since there's no need for filters when you already filtered your group yourself! The fact that RR is beyond useless leaves me no other choice if I want to create a high quality game. I can't use the filters because the filters don't do ANYTHING to guarantee my game is quality. So I have to do it manually.

The way to fix this is what I stated before: Allow filtering based on non-NMR % and non-CD %. At least then I can actually filter for people who won't go AWOL in the middle of the game without having to manually gather a group. As for the concerns that people would just restart to have better percentages? Again, that concern is addressed by my suggestion that people be limited in game quantity by phase count instead of RR. Force new players (and people who continually restart) to only be in 1 or 2 games at a time until they "learn" to play properly, and I'm willing to bet people who have crappy percentages wouldn't want to restart since they'd be forced into very few games. After all, people who NMR alot usually NMR because they're in way too many games at once! So they wouldn't want to be limited to 1 or 2 games! And if we further say that 2 and 3 player games don't count for phase count, they couldn't easily cheat the system by getting phase count up! Win-Win situation! Where's the downside?

Also, let's just emphasize this again:

Like Tom said (and many said before him): Taking over CD nations has NOTHING TO DO with your reliability! There is absolutely NO reason the two should be linked together!

I still like the formula kaner and I worked on several pages ago:

100 - (100 * (2 * NMRs) / Phases Played)) - (100 * (4 * CDs) / Games Played)

It's simple, accurate, and can be improved over time with reliable play.

I cross-posted with drano but have agreed with him this entire thread.

Several thoughts:

1) I fully agree with guaroz (and drano!) about having the number of CDed game in each user page [as drano was saying, games where you find a sitter might be teated differently]. I think this should be easy to implement.

2) If there is no way to account for the "age" of CDs, I think that Mapu's/kaner's formula (or some variant - see below) is about the best possible solution.

3) As to taking over CDed powers, this should be rewarded, since it usually improves games. There are several possibilities to do this:
a) I'm definitely in favour of "medals"
b) I'm also in favour of reducing the penalty for losing such games: right now, it costs half points to join such games.. perhaps this should be extended somehow to vdip points and/or victory statistics (e.g., a defeat in a takeover game might count as 0.5 "normal" defeats)
c) I'm wondering about whether a small effect on the RR might be useful; a possible way is to replace the "CD" term in Mapu's formula with
(100 * (4*CDs)/(Games Played+CD Takeovers) )
this would provide a way to improve RR ratings slightly faster than "normal", but would not allow fast dramatic improvements as the current system does.

as far as taking over powers,
I'm new here so the formulas used are a bit of a mystery to me but I can't understand why anyone would take over any power that was in a bad way if it is going to cost you any points? When you allowed such a takeover to improve your RR, it made sense to take over, maybe a medal helps a bit, but to lose points? Why bother? This seems to encourage people to simply stay away.

You seem to like formulas, why not some sort of formula based on how well a position is in at the time of the takeover? And regardless of how well a position is doing, never ever should the points be at full value. Taking away the RR incentive, I can see a possible new incentive being zero points spent while a possible gain of points if you do well in the game, sort of a no risk situation rewarding a takeover of a bad position?

@drano, I agree that taking over CDs has nothing to do with your reliability, but you have to set up a system so that a player can recover from his mistakes (or bad luck in RL).
The best would be to combine time and play. "Play" would be easy, you just count the phases played. "Time" is not. Likewise 3 years ago, Oli replied that "The NMRs and CDs do not have a time-tag."
So rather than basing the recovering *only* on the phases played (do we encourage unreliable players to play even more games? Freaky, isn't it? or am I missing anything?), well, basing it also on good actions like taking over someone else's damages isn't that weird. Or it didn't look so. "Hey CDer, have you been a bad boy? First play some shitty position nobody wants to take over (because it's not good for your stats), then you can try other games. You did a damage, now you help us relieve another."

Whether a TO should balance the whole 100% of a CD, well, I disagree since... ever, but nobody listened to me when I said it, 3 years ago.
The problem is that then I proposed 2 TOs to balance 1 CD (50%), that would be too harsh, I realized later.
Really drano, the problem with a system too harsh is that people just abandon their unrecoverable account and create a new one. We already have a list of suspect double-accounters we're investigating on - [if some of you double-accounters is reading this, come to the Modforum and fully disclose: we'll be generous].
While I still agree that the system should be a bit more harsh, I understand that making it too harsh would just encourage many more people than now to make a new account. I think that the last thing we need now is a crowd of unreliable players hidden under a "reliable" account. It would be a disaster, any the system will be.
So we can try any new formula. We'll notice quickly if it's too tolerant - and with no damages. While it might take longer to notice if it's too harsh - and it won't be painless.

Out of curiosity. I'm rather sure that you agree that, even with the current "flawed" system, a game with RR restrictions can't be worse than a game without restrictions. Sometimes it can be even somewhat better. So why it's so hard to have it started? Why people don't join games with RR resrtictions? in your opinion, drano, why?

"Really drano, the problem with a system too harsh is that people just abandon their unrecoverable account and create a new one"

Did you read my suggestion Guaroz? I suggested that new accounts have strict limitations on their games able to be played. Supposedly, new accounts are "new" players. As such, they should only be playing 1 or 2 games anyways until they learn the game properly. So if people keep creating new accounts to get around the "harsh" system, then they're not posing as 'reliable' players, but rather, as noobs who are stuck in only 1 or 2 games at a time! And let's be honest, if they're really unrealiable, by the time they have enough phases to qualify for more games, they'd NMR and CD again and be forced to restart again anyways! They'd be stuck in that loop.

"Out of curiosity. I'm rather sure that you agree that, even with the current "flawed" system, a game with RR restrictions can't be worse than a game without restrictions."

I disagree actually. A game with RR restrictions (say 90+) is SUPPOSEDLY a higher quality game. A game without RR restrictions is understood to be likely a lower quality game. However, since RR means virtually nothing, a high RR restriction game might be just as bad as no RR restrictions games. In that situation, I'd argue the RR restriction game is "worse" due to the fact that people came in with higher expectations, and as such, the disappointment is greater.

As for why it's hard to get games started...I offer two reasons.

1) There simply aren't that many people on here. With only a few hundred active players (410 based on the site count), and lots fewer who are really 'active' you simply run into a wall where there aren't enough people who WANT to start new games. Sometimes it's just that everyone is at their capacity and don't want to start new ones, with RR restrictions, or without.

2) The more controversial suggestion: The good players on here are fed up with the shitty quality of play in general. Why don't RR 90+ games start? Because your top players don't want to waste time in a supposedly 'high' quality game that is anything but. I personally rarely if ever join random games. I know many others are the same way. When your most reliable players basically refuse to play with the system (by creating their own games after already recruiting the players needed), it's going to look worse than it it.

As an example, if I posted on the forums that I was looking for a high quality classic game, I can guarantee I'd get people interested. Probably some of the best on the site. At the same time, if I just created a game with 90+ RR, and waited for people to join, those same people would be unlikely to join. Why? Because you never know what BS player who somehow manages to have a RR 90+ is going to join. People don't want to run that risk. You can call it elitist, or whatever you want to, but lots of us care about QUALITY of the game, not just reliability.

@Drano.
No, I actually must have skipped it, sorry. Isn't your suggestion basically what is happening now with "Rookie" players? They can't join all they want for some time - don't ask me for details, I can't recall them. Either restrictions don't scare enough or - most likely - people just ignore rookies have restrictions, they don't work so much anyway. People create a second account and keep it. But yeah, Rookie-restrictions probably prevent people from making a third account! No loops! IIRC, we found only one player who made a third.
People ignoring all the features and options of this great site is a big issue, imho.

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity with your kind reply. So you believe that a large majority in 400 players thinks the same sophisticated - and debatable - thing you think about the current RR System and hence boycott it?
Sorry if it looks a too short sum-up of your thoughts, but I still think that there must be one more reason. A more simple and more important one.
If we don't find it, it could affect the next RR System.

Guaroz -

As you might have gathered, I"m suggested we throw away the RR system. Replace it with the pure facts. Just give people the information they need to screen it themselves. Make people take responsibility for their own games. If they have the ability to see that someone NMR's 10% of the time, and has CDed 8% of the time, and they still want them in their game, well then that's their problem. If they can see that and want to filter them out, awesome.

It's all about empowering the people. Let's let the people decide what they want...a crappy game likely to be full of NMRs and CDs, or a reliable game that won't be. We can't do this now based on the way the stats are shown and the joke that is the RR system.

We need to stop coddling people. People aren't stupid. If you give them the facts, they'll use them. And if they choose not to, well then, those of us who DO want to use them can just ignore those who don't.

Yes there's always going to be those situations in large games where you have to take in questionable people. That just comes with the territory when you have maps that take a lot of people and there aren't that many active people on here. As an aside, could the mods possibly tell us how many people actually are "regulars" here? Or is that not something that can be figured out with the data you have?

Regarding "rookie" restrictions, yes, it's something similar. I do'nt know the actual restrictions in place either, but in my suggestion, we need to enhance them. Beef up the number of phases that's considered a "rookie" so that people can't easily get around it by making a second account.

I noticed non-NMR and non-CD stats are being implemented already on profile pages. Thanks Oli!

Maybe limit the amount of "recovery" that can be provided by taking over CDs, total (for example only allow 10 worth of increase)?

Maybe reduce the amount of "recovery" that can be obtained in a certain time period (for example one month)?

Maybe make the increase in "recovery" smaller (for example 1/3 as much as is lost by CDing)?

Maybe separate the two functions completely (to allow the creation of games that truly exclude weasels that CD)?

I understand the desire to encourage people to take over CDs. To me, however, it seems more important to ensure that reliable people get into games to begin with than to get people to take over games that were filled with unreliable people.

Maybe have a system that puts more weight on recent reliability to permit those that have learned their lesson and shown reliability to join?

@ScubaSteve: Maybe separate the two functions completely (to allow the creation of games that truly exclude weasels that CD)?
Yes. I this is exactly what I'm going to do.

Update: I've added a new column in the ratings page. It now shows the CDs and the NMRs. Only games with >2 players and non-live games are used for this calculation. As we never monitored other games.

If you CD and later get your country back because no one else took it it does not count as CD.

Also I did recreate the CD table from the information in the database.
Till now you got a CD-record on your profile the moment you got in CD. If you later got your country back you got a ballance. So we had quite a lot of people with a high CD-count because in some gamesettings it was possible to get a CD if you miss 1 turn and usually everybody got their country back later as it was just 1 missed phase. No one recognized this as a CD as it was ballanced the next second.
Now it counts only the number of games you left with a CD (either be a takeover, or by a resign.)

Drano -

Well, I must admit that the way you put down your idea is really charming. I’d say “let’s start test it tomorrow”, if feasible. And if you’re ready to keep yourself critic toward its outcome. I mean: went anything wrong in some way whether expected or unexpected, I believe you’d be ready to admit it and to propose modifications where needed.

I also believe people aren't stupid. I believe they’re often lazy [note: in Italian “lazy” is less negative than in English…I’m not sure… would “indolent” be less loaded?].
The issue with this is that there aren’t many people willing to make the effort enough to study and keep in mind all the possibilities, features, options - and related details - this great site offers. Indolence is also when a player just creates a game without checking whether there’s something similar enough already starting: he just create what he likes with the most low possible settings in order to have it filled up asap.
Again: formation and information is the challenge, if we want to enhance the quality of our games.

I also believe some people plays features border to bad sportsmanship. This is not a big issue until they keep themselves before the border.
But I can’t keep myself from noticing what I notice. An example fitting in this discussion? Well, I use to play gunboats mainly, because they’re less time consuming. Can you explain why people usually don’t second extend-requests in gunboats? It makes no sense in a gunboat, but the only players voting for it are that 20%-30% who would have a disadvantage if the requester NMRs. In the remaining 70% well, some is for ignorance, some is for indolence the rest – whoever can gain an advantage from a NMR – is for bad sportsmanship. Call it excess of competition, if you like.
They don’t care about quality games, drano. “Game’s integrity” is the last of their concerns. They just want to play and to win ***no matter how.***
They’re not a bunch of idiots, really. They’re a significant part of the 400 members you said, if not a majority. They play gunboats as well as press games. They don’t care about NMRs and CDs. They know they’re reliable – they don’t miss turns. They know that they’ll have an advantage from someone else’s NMR more often than they’ll have a disadvantage. I’m tempted to say that they ***hope*** for some NMRs, soon or later in a game. That’s why they start putting their orders just “saved”, when things turn bad. But it’s legit. That’s why they never vote extends, even not in gunboats. Legit.

That’s why they never create games with RR restrictions: they count a NMR as a good luck event. Sadly, still legit.

Drano, let’s change the system your way: I will join your RR-restricted games. Probably also the people who wrote on this thread will. But I’d be surprised if we’ll be more than 30. We’ll play some Modern and in a lucky day we’ll start a Haven. Pessimist tonight? Yeah, sorry. How I wish I am wrong.

Oli - I'm glad that you have removed CD record on games due to a strict NMR policy (the 3 CDs on my record have now disappeared in my NMR rating), I'm also very interested to see how this plays when players are given the opportunity to use these stats to restrict access to their games. Also I was wondering if you planned on joining these two stats together into a 3rd stat using the formula Mapu and I played around with?
100 - (100 * (2 * NMRs) / Phases Played)) - (100 * (4 * CDs) / Games Played)

Guaroz - let's not bring into the discussion the problem of extends and pauses. We're never going to get unanimous opinions about these functions so really we should be advertising the Country Swap feature whenever we can to raise awareness of this.
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/wiki/index.php?title=Country_swap_for_sitters

Tom - Formulas are simply how to tell the code what sort of number to display as a statistic. They are concrete suggestions as to how to proceed.

Ruffhaus - yes filters are important particularly in anonymous games. I think the whole point of this discussion has been to work out a way that players can easily filter out certain players from their games that have been known to CD & NMR regularly. I know for me I use the block list function, if someone CDs in a game I am playing &/or NMRs regularly, &/or enters All-Holds when things are going bad for them I put them onto my personal Sh*t List. So I never have to play against this type of player again.