WoL vs. Math

[Jake]

For fun...

I tried a variant scoring system to Kal's example with Aric.

For this variant, a win is still +1. A loss is still -1. However, I then modified it by .1*the rank difference to try and reflect Kal's idea of "strength of schedule".

So, a commoner vs. a commoner would still be a +1/-1 situation.

For a warlord vs. a commoner, it would be +1.4 (if the commoner won) / -0.6 (if the commoner lost). And likewise, a warlord beating a commoner would be +0.6, and losing to one -1.4.

Barons and Overlord are .5 and .6 respectively.

In this variant, I am presuming we stick with the 2/5/10/15 WoL model of rank increases.

For each duel, I compared the the rank of Aric's opponent with their rank from the previous standings (the rank they would have held when fighting Aric).

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Week: 4
Aric Delevingne .def. Goldglo, 5.5 - 2 : Value: 3.5
+1.6
Aric Delevingne .def. The Spider, 5.5 - 3 : Value: 2.5
+1.4
................ Week Total: 6
............... Grand Total: 6 (Would be Swordsman [2x2 = 4], same as with WoL)
=3.0 (would be Swordsman per WoL)

Week: 6
JewellRavenlock .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 1.5 : Value: -3.5
-0.6 (1-(0.1*4 ranks in diff))
Aric Delevingne .def. Rachael Douglas, 6 - 5 : Value: 1
+1.4
Eden Parker .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 3 : Value: -2
-0.9
Dimitrii Sixtus .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 3.5 : Value: -1.5
-1
Harris .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 1 : Value: -4
-0.6
Aric Delevingne .def. Eden Parker, 5 - 2 : Value: 3
+1.1
................ Week Total: -7
............... Grand Total: 0 (Back to Commoner regardless of method)
=2.4 (still a Swordsman)

Week: 7
Sabine .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 2 : Value: -3
-0.5
Aric Delevingne .def. Andu Kirost, 5.5 - 2 : Value: 3.5
+1.1
Rachael Douglas .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 4 : Value: -1
-0.6
................ Week Total: -0.5
............... Grand Total: 0
=2.4 (no change)


Week: 8
Sapphire Ravenlock .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 4 : Value: -1
-1
Dimitrii Sixtus .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 4 : Value: -1
-0.5
Red urThorne .def. Aric Delevingne, 5 - 0.5 : Value: -4.5
-0.5
................ Week Total: -6.5
............... Grand Total: 0
=0.4 (drops to Commoner, but still has a positive value)

Week: 10
Aric Delevingne .def. DavidHarada, 5 - 1.5 : Value: 3.5
+1.1
Aric Delevingne .def. A Squid-Masked Man, 5.5 - 3 : Value: 2.5
+1
Reiko Souma .def. Aric Delevingne, 6 - 5 : Value: -1
-1
................ Week Total: 5
............... Grand Total: 5 (Back to swordsman, whereas WoL leaves you at Commoner)
=1.5 (not Swordsman, but close)

Week: 11
Aric Delevingne .def. Sabine, 5.5 - 3.5 : Value: 2
+1.4
Myu .def. Aric Delevingne, 5.5 - 3.5 : Value: -2
-0.9

................ Week Total: 0
............... Grand Total: 5 (Unchanged)
=2 (back to Swordsman)

Week: 12
Aric Delevingne .ties. Kruger, 5 - 5 : Value: 0
0 <-- I left this as 0 for ties.
Bailey Raptis .def. Aric Delevingne, 5.5 - 4.5 : Value: -1
-1
................ Week Total: -1
............... Grand Total: 4 (Unchanged)
=1 (back to Commoner)

Week: 13
Aric Delevingne .def. Nayun, 5 - 3.5 : Value: 1.5
+1.4
Aric Delevingne .def. Taneth, 7 - 6 : Value: 1
+1
................ Week Total: 2.5
............... Grand Total: 6.5 (Unchanged. M@A would be 10 points)
=3.4 (back to Swordsman)

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ETA: as comment, I think Kal already mentioned that trying to track who used how many Fancies in a duel would be difficult if not impossible (someone would have to review logs). This idea could probably be automated by Kal.

Offered for whatever it's worth in the spirit of kicking around ideas.

[Rakeesh]

Rakeesh's Squire tournament is also a good idea, but if we look at it on the other hand. Who are choosing the squires? The barons. Are they hosting a tournament with active players, or giving it to their friends who may not be as active?

The advantage of the House/team idea is that if a Baron is making decisions like this (giving Squireship to inactive friends or to their own alts or whatever other silliness might occur), they might find themselves without much support. Subconsciously, the very existence of factions will inevitably increase the average player's DoS political awareness, which (IMO) is absolutely the best thing that can happen to DoS to make its activity and roleplay more engaging.

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of running tournaments anytime one of my characters has anything to offer: Squireship, mentorship, etc. It's something that I feel is part of my responsibility to the community when I hold a title, particularly in DoS since it is so politically minded.

---

That said, the administration does have a hand in how well player-driven activities go. Administration support can make a tournament very successful. Administration opposition and denigration of a player-driven activity can be VERY hindering.

If the administration wants to encourage player-driven titles/events/etc, it also needs to be willing to work with players to support their events and not to show preference to certain players/events over others. I don't want to make this a long drawn out side topic -- it just needs to be said and considered.


---

@Jake and @Random

I think that I'd be interested in testing this idea with proper automated tracking. I think the trick to avoiding abuse would definitely lie in a weighted points system for ranks that favors the lower ranked duelists and encourage Warlords to duel other Warlords.

This doesn't fix the alt issue. But then again, what does?

[Kalamere]

I think that I'd be interested in testing this idea with proper automated tracking. I think the trick to avoiding abuse would definitely lie in a weighted points system for ranks that favors the lower ranked duelists and encourage Warlords to duel other Warlords.

I disagree with this. It's also a reason why I thought decreasing the penalty to a losing low rank duelist in a loss to a higher rank duelist was fine, but that lessening the win value to the high rank duelist was not.

It gets back to what I hated about the Peer Win system. Incentivizing warlords to fight warlords results in warlord not wanting to fight those of lower rank. When you do that, you end up with the few lower rank people to come through getting annoyed that they can't find a duel, it also fuels a bit of a class warfare feeling between the ranks that the Warlords feel they're too good to lower themselves and fight a commoner.

I'm all for experimenting with new math in this way or that, but I'd really prefer to avoid anything that makes the higher ranks start trying to stick to themselves.

[Rakeesh]

Perhaps the solution isn't in decreasing the incentive for Warlords to fight lower ranks, but in decreasing the penalty to lower ranks who lose to Warlords (and increasing the boon for lower ranks who beat Warlords)?

[Cooper Gallows]

I would be 150% for a sanctioned tournament for people who are new and looking to get their feet wet.

The only problems I see are:

-How do we define 'New' for the purposes of this endeavor?
-How do we ensure that it isn't the alt of someone who isn't 'New'?

I'm not trying to poo-poo the idea. I genuinely love it and would throw as much support (RP or otherwise) behind it as humanly possible to make it happen. There are plenty of good people who would support this without joining in on an alt but there are still those who would likely try to buck the system.

Kal or Jake, is there a way to determine if someone is on an alt or no?

[Jake]

Kal or Jake, is there a way to determine if someone is on an alt or no?

Yes, and no.

We could in theory do something with IPs in an effort to identify unique people, but it treads into areas we don't really want to get into.

Like other areas, what we would have to hope is that people would honor the request for the tourney to be just for newcomers. (We do the same thing for example in trusting that two people aren't rigging duels to inflate WoL.)

At some point, we have to have some faith, and trust in people.

I'd like to think we can be that community.

[Corlanthis]

Where I run into problems with an honest " New Duelist Tournament" is that I don't think we have enough new people to sustain that beyond a cycle or two.

We keep talking about the new duelists, and their perception of things but how many people are we *really* talking about? I'm not asking this question to try and say that the New Duelist Perspective should be ignored or has no weight.

Rather, I want to point out that maybe there should be a concurrent effort to bring in more new duelists. RoH has gotten by by coasting along with whatever we can gain through osmosis via the RDI, but their new player pool isn't exactly what it used to be on AOL either.

So maybe we should be having a discussion about how and where we can find new people to have these tournaments for, too.

[Luna Eva]

Cor, I think you're right about their needing to be a concurrent effort to bring in new duelists. I see a new duelers' tournament as part of that effort.

One of the things I pointed out in my other thread was that the problem of new duelers is in two parts: 1) not enough new interest in dueling generally; and 2) retaining new duelers when they do arrive.

I think the responses to Sabine's poll suggest we have some work to do for the second part of that. I think a tournament dedicated to new duelers (again, does not have to be every cycle) would be a good step to help offer something fun to those showing interest or just getting started. Something fun that would be just for them.

As far as your concern about low numbers in such a tournament, I think you're right that this probably wouldn't work if it's run and advertised like the other cycle tournaments, though. I don't think this would be useful as a tournament where the announcement is only posted on the RoH boards where the regulars fighters will see it. I think there might need to be some more effort behind this kind of tournament to encourage potential participants. Perhaps it might make sense for this to be half Open and half Invitational. Meaning, we might need to proactively look at who has toyed with dueling in the past but not stuck with it, and proactively reach out to them to invite them to join.

Obviously, this might take more work than the current staff is prepared to do, and that's understandable. If there's community interest in actually doing something like this though, I'm confident we can find someone willing to spearhead it. And I should also note that it's my understanding some people are already working on something, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes if they have something in the works already.

So, to sum up, if we're really dedicated to tackling both parts of our recruiting challenges, this is one way to try to make RoH a more welcoming and fun place for those who are trying it out. It's been said multiple times that people really like tournaments. I think a tournament that was more new-dueler friendly would be a good way to show institutional support for growing our membership.

But if you're also looking for a solution to the first part of the problem (lack of new interest overall), I have a suggestion for that too. I'd really like to see a dedicated staff position, such as Membership Coordinator, whose sole job it could be to handle external advertisement and perhaps to run events for casual/new duelers like an occasional group training night (as a person recently suggested they wanted in the new duelers' poll) or a new duelers tournament like I'm referring to here. This person could also occasionally send messages to lapsed duelers who have fallen off to check in on them and see how they're doing, so that generally RoH becomes a place that feels a little more welcoming to duelers.

I know initially that it seems like new duelers/recruits are just too small a segment to justify this sort of institutional dedication to their presence. I get that. But I think I'm looking at it from an "If you build it, they will come," perspective. We're never going to be able to compete with some of the big gaming games out there. But we do have something fun to offer here, something that a lot of people, like myself, do come to enjoy. It might take some effort, but I think we can do better when it comes to community growth. Maybe not a lot better, but meaningfully better.

[JewellRavenlock]

I agree with so much of what Eva and Cor both said.

Do we have a lot of new people? No. Do we have enough to even justify a regular tournament dedicated to them? Probably not.

But if we don't start doing things like that, how do we expect to keep any new people that do show up? I think it'd be better to have things set in place to be welcoming to new people (even if it's a tournament that happens twice a year to start until we do have enough people to justify holding it more often), rather than try to throw something together after we try to bring people in, get them here, and realize we can't keep them here because it's not a welcoming enough environment.

[Spell]

tbh there's both good and bad to the idea of a new player tournament.

What if a new player shows up *after* the tournament? Maybe a week or two. Then, when they do voice their concerns, all they receive back is "We have a new player tournament! But it's already over, so you'll have to wait [insert time span here]." That might not feel really inviting. Even more if we bring up how this age is one of instant gratification.

I'm not saying the tournament is a bad idea. I'd not join then due to the honor system and hell, I'd offer to even call it if there needed to be a caller or two, but I'm wondering if this tournament would be more a band-aid for what's happening now instead of a future solution.

The new player rate is a very, very small one. I remember when I came around 6 or 7 years ago.. it was only me and another new player, Candy. Two of us and a ton of old players. If there was a tournament back then.. then we'd be the only two players in it.

Advertising on the RDI could probably grab a few people to join, but we also advertise on the RDI all the time. Word of mouth and tugging in friends is also a thing and I'm sure someone already mentioned it. Still, what would the tournament consist of? Would it just be a tournament? What are prizes that those wanting this tournament to happen have in mind?

Maybe another idea is a learning night (s)? Once a month, maybe in the Annex or even spread throughout the venues to show off their histories, players will have a choice to fight in non-regulated matches. They can be shown how to use the tool, how to use the matrix, and what the basic rules of the game are. First thursday of the month? DoS learning night. First Wednesday of the month? DoF learning night. First Tuesday of the Month? DoM learning night.

There would be no pressure in who you fight since it would not count for regulation. You could bring in your buddies, fight and learn the matrix, fight players who are willing to go at it without adding a win or loss to their record so the new players don't feel like they are getting sharked, etc.

of course you'd have to find callers willing to do it. I wouldn't mind doing it for DoM since I call Tuesday night.

[JewellRavenlock]

Maybe another idea is a learning night (s)? Once a month, maybe in the Annex or even spread throughout the venues to show off their histories, players will have a choice to fight in non-regulated matches. They can be shown how to use the tool, how to use the matrix, and what the basic rules of the game are. First thursday of the month? DoS learning night. First Wednesday of the month? DoF learning night. First Tuesday of the Month? DoM learning night.

There would be no pressure in who you fight since it would not count for regulation. You could bring in your buddies, fight and learn the matrix, fight players who are willing to go at it without adding a win or loss to their record so the new players don't feel like they are getting sharked, etc.

of course you'd have to find callers willing to do it. I wouldn't mind doing it for DoM since I call Tuesday night.

I'm not trying to ignore your points about the tournament because I think there are some very valid concerns there that need to be considered before doing a tournament.

I really love the idea of learning nights. It was something Lirssa and I were trying to organize this week, but kind of put the brakes on a little.

I'd love to see it as a standard, regular thing at least as a trial.

[Spell]

Maybe another idea is a learning night (s)? Once a month, maybe in the Annex or even spread throughout the venues to show off their histories, players will have a choice to fight in non-regulated matches. They can be shown how to use the tool, how to use the matrix, and what the basic rules of the game are. First thursday of the month? DoS learning night. First Wednesday of the month? DoF learning night. First Tuesday of the Month? DoM learning night.

There would be no pressure in who you fight since it would not count for regulation. You could bring in your buddies, fight and learn the matrix, fight players who are willing to go at it without adding a win or loss to their record so the new players don't feel like they are getting sharked, etc.

of course you'd have to find callers willing to do it. I wouldn't mind doing it for DoM since I call Tuesday night.

I'm not trying to ignore your points about the tournament because I think there are some very valid concerns there that need to be considered before doing a tournament.

I really love the idea of learning nights. It was something Lirssa and I were trying to organize this week, but kind of put the brakes on a little.

I'd love to see it as a standard, regular thing at least as a trial.

It would be simple to do, well -- at least for me. DoM Tuesdays are usually slow, but I'm also used to calling 4+ duels from my time calling in the Annex and Area. So calling training-duels and regulation duels the same night is no issue for me. The only issue I see is possibly talking one on one with players, but I'm sure a write-up of the basic rules of the sport that can be made, or a simple link guide to the matrix and game guide of each sport.

I offered in another thread to call practice duels with new players in PM's and keep it out of the room on normal DoM tuesday nights, so if anyone new or old who have no clue about the sport, want to come in this Tuesday and practice, then I don't mind calling it. It might not be posted in the room, but I could do it in PMs.

Another question about the tournament though. What sport would it focus on? Or will it somehow combine all three?

[Kruger]

Maybe another idea is a learning night (s)? Once a month, maybe in the Annex or even spread throughout the venues to show off their histories, players will have a choice to fight in non-regulated matches. They can be shown how to use the tool, how to use the matrix, and what the basic rules of the game are. First thursday of the month? DoS learning night. First Wednesday of the month? DoF learning night. First Tuesday of the Month? DoM learning night.

There would be no pressure in who you fight since it would not count for regulation. You could bring in your buddies, fight and learn the matrix, fight players who are willing to go at it without adding a win or loss to their record so the new players don't feel like they are getting sharked, etc.

of course you'd have to find callers willing to do it. I wouldn't mind doing it for DoM since I call Tuesday night.

I'm not trying to ignore your points about the tournament because I think there are some very valid concerns there that need to be considered before doing a tournament.

I really love the idea of learning nights. It was something Lirssa and I were trying to organize this week, but kind of put the brakes on a little.

I'd love to see it as a standard, regular thing at least as a trial.

I'd go for this! Monday Fight Night would be perfect. Please include me if someone is putting together a presentable format for consideration.

[Spell]

I'd go for this! Monday Fight Night would be perfect. Please include me if someone is putting together a presentable format for consideration.

I'll say this though, and I'm not trying to be negative ( since it's my own idea ), but some callers might not have the time or energy do something like this as well. So I wouldn't want any of them to feel obligated to do something like this. It should be volunteer only. I'd like to not see any negativity toward a caller, who already give us a lot of their time already, if they don't want to be involved.

We'd also need to get the okay from all sport coordinators. But for now just treat it as a brain storming thing until all ducks are in a row.

[Luna Eva]

Yeah, Spell, I think you're right that a tournament is not a one-size-fits-all solution. I love the idea of semi-regular training nights. As I noted in my previous post, it's something that one of the anons asked for over on the poll thingy. I think it's a great idea.

I keep coming back around to the idea that it would be helpful to have someone dedicated to taking charge of all of these ideas. With someone dedicated to leading this, it could ease the strain on the current coordinators, and people who already have been putting in a ton of effort on the duels.

To be clear, I don't think creating some events for new people should come at the expense of the current and veteran players. That's sort of why my ideas don't go to easing or changing the rules. So you're right, Spell, that this does not solve the instant gratification issue. But my theory, that has yet to be tested admittedly, is that if we create some institutional stuff for newer people, we might be able to better welcome and assimilate people who come check us out.