posted 09-11-07 04:51 AM EDT (US)
This message was originally intended for Enginerd, but I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this as well.
It looks like the Wizard's Ladder is still in use despite some early reports of its demise. Game results had previously slowed to a trickle, but I'm assuming with the upcoming PBEM tourney (with hopefully 16 people) that trickle will become a small flood.
But it's still not what it once was, which creates some scoring problems. For example, there are at most 3 active players in the "inter" rank (score group) and no "high inters." This means that no one is going to achieve a high score very soon unless they can beat Enginerd, and I don't know of any active player who can. I understand that the minimum scores for certain ranks (particularly expert) may have been changed, though it's hard to tell since the rules still say expert is 200+. This is obviously wrong (or the current standings are):
http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=15,734,,60
Do I have a better idea? I'm glad you asked. I think we need to change the cutoffs for every rank and while we're at it, I'd suggest some other minor tweaks, like new names for the new ranks. Does anyone know what an "inter" is? I don't. I assume it's derived from the word "intermediate" so effectively an abbreviation of something like "player of intermediate skill" but I'd really like to see more descriptive names for the middle ranks than low inter -> inter -> high inter. Here's one idea:
1. Squire: up to 100 points
2. Knight: 101-125
3. King: 126-150
4. Emperor: 151 and up
(Players would still start at 100.) This also dispenses with the "zero gamer" category. I just don't see the need for it. New players are already protected by the scoring system so that they would tend not to lose a lot of points in their first few games even against highly ranked opponents. (I think, for example, if I lost to Enginerd as a low inter, I'd only lose 1 point. But if I'm a zero gamer the winner goes up 2 and loser down 2 no matter what, which doesn't really seem fair.)
Well, the suggestion above is just a brainstorm, so let me know if you think. I don't know that it would work, but it seems like almost anything would be better than the status quo. We're still relying on rules designed for a time when there were 10 times as many games as we've got now.
It looks like the Wizard's Ladder is still in use despite some early reports of its demise. Game results had previously slowed to a trickle, but I'm assuming with the upcoming PBEM tourney (with hopefully 16 people) that trickle will become a small flood.
But it's still not what it once was, which creates some scoring problems. For example, there are at most 3 active players in the "inter" rank (score group) and no "high inters." This means that no one is going to achieve a high score very soon unless they can beat Enginerd, and I don't know of any active player who can. I understand that the minimum scores for certain ranks (particularly expert) may have been changed, though it's hard to tell since the rules still say expert is 200+. This is obviously wrong (or the current standings are):
Do I have a better idea? I'm glad you asked. I think we need to change the cutoffs for every rank and while we're at it, I'd suggest some other minor tweaks, like new names for the new ranks. Does anyone know what an "inter" is? I don't. I assume it's derived from the word "intermediate" so effectively an abbreviation of something like "player of intermediate skill" but I'd really like to see more descriptive names for the middle ranks than low inter ->
1. Squire: up to 100 points
2. Knight: 101-125
3. King: 126-150
4. Emperor: 151 and up
(Players would still start at 100.) This also dispenses with the "zero gamer" category. I just don't see the need for it. New players are already protected by the scoring system so that they would tend not to lose a lot of points in their first few games even against highly ranked opponents. (I think, for example, if I lost to Enginerd as a low inter, I'd only lose 1 point. But if I'm a zero gamer the winner goes up 2 and loser down 2 no matter what, which doesn't really seem fair.)
Well, the suggestion above is just a brainstorm, so let me know if you think. I don't know that it would work, but it seems like almost anything would be better than the status quo. We're still relying on rules designed for a time when there were 10 times as many games as we've got now.
[This message has been edited by disenchanted (edited 09-11-2007 @ 04:54 AM).]
Well sorry, it's not like I've ever gone with Lord when I had a choice of AI levels 
) 
So it's mostly a matter of whether we should use points and what the cutoffs should be. What I just suggested is fairly similar to what we have now, except that there's one less category and the cutoffs for King and Emperor are more attainable. (The problem was that with the current number of games no one would ever get enough points to reach High Inter or Expert, at least according to their original definitions.) 