Vortex Wars

Hi all,

OK, I've been complaining a couple of times about the Rating System. I've been playing VW since June 2011 (was version 0.x back then), and I really had the feeling that something changed in gameplay / fairplay with the introduction of the R system. Not that it was perfect before (you can always find dumb people on the net), but that was it, just the impression it went a bit worse.

Recently there's been this funny bug with huge negative Ratings propagating like plague. It gave us the opportunity to play without this R stuff for a couple of days, and.... yes... really got the feeling things reverted back in game mood too.

As some (though still few) other people started to share similar opinions in posts, I felt like providing my understanding of it.

So: what's wrong with this system ?

The underlying Glicko rating system has been successfully used for years in many areas. There might be other multiplayer games using it that I'm not aware of, but the main 'official' use has been for games like tennis, chess, go, boxing, or the like (I'm not sure it's the case for all of them, but it does not alter the following comments).

What's the BIG, HUUUUGE difference ? When you play 1 vs 1 matches (or 2 vs 2 as teams, like in tennis), your only and sole goal during the match is : WIN that game. THEN, after the match is over, you use formulas to update your rating. Therefore, it may only influence your choice of who you should fight against, but once the game is started is does not affect it AT ALL.

In multiplayer games, the goal CAN be to win, but it can also be to think about who you should beat first to maximize your rating, even though this would leave you in deep shit for the rest of the game. So the strategy is highly influenced, as you mix people interrested in constructing long-term strategy to try and win, and others that attempt, for instance, to conduct 'blitz-krieg' on a single opponent (preferably allying 2 vs 1, 3 vs 1 or more if needed) then forget about the rest of the match...

Is this what we want ? My answer would be: no... But I don't know about others. I have once proposed games with hidden rating (like you can chose disabled upgrades) to let us chose what to focus on... No big success...

Any reaction (provided anyone read that long post through its last line ) ?

In my opinion, I'm going to have to say I agree with you, with an additional comment. At one point, I beat a group of people after a long game. My ally had died, people had dismissed me until i came back big. They all alone against me, but with a few lucky rolls, I sealed the game to my favor. Either way, those four got really angry, and all four followed me into my next games anytime they could, at first just joining and then three of them began to come in as guests. Each game they went after me viciously, and half the time I was losing in first few turns. They lost a lot too, I was the highest level and all, but they won enough to take me down about three hundred rating, it would have been more had I not left. Only one has really come after me since, but it brought my score down a lot. My point is that a lot of people go to the rating system as the first means of revenge. This happens a lot.

I'm sure we can all find many specific examples. My point is:

- Lopdo's intention was certainly only to find a way to rate players within an existing game, with a system better than levels, that have their own drawbacks too maybe

- the result is something that definitely changed how the game is actually played, sort of changing the game itself then. I personnally liked the 'no rating' VW version much better than the 2nd one.

It's not been just a cosmetic change, it changed strategies of players, cooperation and fairplay between them, and so on.

Just my 2 cents.

Agree with the points made above.
Also have my own personal gripe to add to this.
After playing and winning a few games I have deduced that the average rating gain for me for a win is usually between 15 and 30 yet say in the first turn a player positions immediately beside the space I have chosen, I take an unlucky roll and they roll a good one I am removed from the game with 40, 50 or even up to 60 rating taken from me. just seems a tad unbalanced. Especially since I played a game just yesterday that lasted for ages, I had a good start got beaten back almost to the point of death and fought back to a victory breaking the 4 players left one by one to achieve +17 rating.
Perhaps I have just been unlucky.
But I also preferred the no rating system.