CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

Only you can call me Daddy Rohrerbucks, computermouth.

But I was trying to avoid having a separate balance that would need to be tracked and displayed.

Well, it's a bit strange, but moving the game toward what players like the most isn't what I'm trying to do here.

I'm trying to move the game toward its ideal form, whatever that is, where it fully embodies the aesthetics that I want it to embody.  "Boring slog, one chip at a time," isn't the target aesthetic, of course.

For example, players might "like" more luck in a game that is really a game about skill.  By reducing the coin count or raising the ante, we increase the impact of luck in the game.

In the extreme, imagine if we reduced it down to 1 coin each and played one round.  Yes, a skilled player would still win the majority of games through the picking game, but beyond that, the impact of the inherent uncertainty of the picking game would be magnified.

Perhaps my goal should be to balance these two skills in the game.  Perhaps right now, the betting skill is given too much weight, and the picking skill doesn't matter very much.

Anyway, I can lay out my aesthetic goals:

--Tense, agonizing decisions at every turn.
--Frequent situations where you might be falling into a trap set by your opponent.
--Frequent situations where your opponent is falling into a trap that you've set.
--Watching your opponent closely to learn their patterns and eventually exploit those patterns.
--Always feeling like it was your fault when you lost, that you've learned something, and that you can play better next time.

What we're missing now might be the first aesthetic.

The last aesthetic is one that players, generally, don't like.  It's much more pleasant to blame a loss on a bad roll of the dice than to take the blame for it yourself.  We saw this in The Castle Doctrine, where when you die, it was always your fault, but this causes players to quit instead of "just one more game."

The "Just one more game" aesthetic often means that there is a roulette wheel under the hood (especially for turn-based games).  See Spelunky, FTL, or any other Roguelike, and also Poker.

BUT, just because players don't like the feeling doesn't mean it's not the RIGHT feeling for a game to have.  That's the difference between designing with intention/authenticity and pandering.

Yes, I do like Swiss tournaments a lot.

What I was suggesting was a net-profit-ranked free-for-all where you'd be blocked from re-playing anyone who you'd already won too much money from.

Sounds like you're suggesting something different, where you're blocked from playing people whose net profit is very much different from yours, even if you've never played them before.  Finally, you COULD face someone multiple times after beating them thoroughly once if they climb back up in profit by beating other players (and perhaps you fall down by losing some).

Well, we're not ignoring profit---that's why there's a profit leader board!

I don't think there's one right way to measure being "good" at this game, which is why there is more than one leader board.

I'm not sure that pattern is present in these results, mzo:

http://cordialminuet.com/gameServer/ser … e=sea_goat

The people way down played few games, but I think they dropped out after they saw they had no chance.

But yes, this is essentially a "who can make the most per hour at this game" contest.  That seems like a fair measure of true skill in the game.

With the newly described caps in place, you can only win so much from each player before you run out of players to win from.

If you just let it run its natural course, it will eventually grind itself to a halt once everyone has sorted themselves out into won-from order (you can't play against someone who you've either won too much from or who has won too much from you, because their cap blocks them from playing you).

So... if you set the time limit long enough, then fast play won't be an issue, because even the slow players will run out of opponents.

Rolling back a bit, I moved toward the Elo tournament idea with the hope that Elo itself would solve collusion problems, but it turns out that it isn't strong enough by itself to solve collusion, so we still need another solution on top of that (hard-limiting total won from another player somehow).

I still like the idea of profit-based tournaments (match main game skill, they don't have a late-joiner problem), but the problem was funding the prize pool.  That problem is solved by the entry fee.

Elo is more complicated and more hard to understand than profit for players in the thick of the tournament.  Why did my score just go up by X points?

SO...

1.  Entry fee paid up front that goes to the prize pool (example:  $5).

2.  Fixed stake for all tournament games (example:  50 cents), normal tributes.

3.  Free-for-all structure with a time limit.

4.  Limit on how much profit you can win, net, from another player.  You stop seeing that player as an option after you've won too much from them.

5.  Winners determined by overall net profit at the tournament stake level when time limit reached.

Yeah, I was worried about this too.  Thanks for pushing the math through on an example.  It's true that a cheater could play 1000s of games against a dummy account very quickly and push their Elo up as high as they want to.

So... what about "you can't play the same person twice?"  As in, after you play them once, they disappear from your pool and you simply can't join a game with them.

Then to give yourself X fake Elo boosts, you'd need X dummy accounts playing in the tournament and X buy-ins.

This would involve a lot of waiting for match-ups toward the end, which would be frustrating as things are heating up at the end, but maybe it's the only way.

This would effectively be a kind of ad-hoc bracket, but one where the loser would still have a chance to play the winner at the very end.

There's another problem here with leaving games early, which penalizes yourself (no big Elo boost from this opponent), but punishes your opponent too (if they were going to win anyway, you'd want to leave early to limit your Elo loss and limit their gain).  Also, slow play used to harass because each game is so valuable as a one-time deal.

Maybe there can be some kind of total limit on the amount of Elo you can get from one opponent, equal to the 1000 vs 1000  Elo boost if one player sweeps the table.  So, if a game ends early with little Elo boost, you could play that player again later and get more Elo from them.

But you couldn't siphon one dummy account for Elo over and over.

And you could simply be blocked from seeing players that you've already won too much Elo from.  Like.... "no, we already KNOW you can win against them a lot, play against someone else instead."

Yeah, time limit isn't perfect, but X matches played could allow one player to make everyone else wait.

PersonGuy:  the fixed stake tables would come out of your balance, separate from the entry fee.  Thus, you could win/lose money at tables just like normal, with the entry fee going toward the prize pool only.

Good thoughts here!

Winner-take-all at a given table is a problem because of potential stalling on either player's part.  The winner could stall to trick the loser into leaving, the loser could stall to harass the winner too.

Mixing all this together, I think THIS will actually work:

A separate tournament entry fee that shows up in the client on the game list, marked with a special color and confirmation screen.  Suppose this is $5.  It doesn't buy you into a table, but buys you access to the tournament.  That money is gone, and used to fund the prize pool.

After you pay this entry fee, a special tournament match will be visible in your game list, again in a special color.  This will be a fixed stake, maybe 10% of the tournament fee.  I thought about making this always 0.01, or even free, but I don't want people to play carelessly and change their play style, so something has to be at stake in every game.  So, say it's 0.50.

These games work EXACTLY like the normal game.  Same tribute, same starting coins, same rules, same effect of leaving early, winner takes what winner takes, and most importantly, same effect on Elo as the main game.

Finally, each player has a special tournament-only Elo that starts at 1000 at the start of the tournament, has no floor, and goes up when you win and down win you lose according to the normal formula (scaled by number of chips transferred, just like normal).

After the tournament ends (suppose it runs for 2 hours), players are ranked by their tournament Elo and awarded prizes from the prize pool.  50% for first place, 25% for second, or whatever scheme we can dream up.

Elo is the trick that thwarts collusion or late-joining, because it can't be manipulated very much by playing dummy accounts, and you can't just come in at the end, beat the leader once, and win the whole thing.  The higher you go, the less your Elo gets boosted by beating a dummy account.  As long as you can't get into prize territory by doing this, we're good.  I think using the same provisional Elo thing, where your first X games don't change the Elo of the other player if the other player is established, would help here.  You'd need so many dummy accounts that the entry fees would trump the prize.

A bracket would be great, but the problem is fragility. Say you're assigned to play someone, but they don't show up.  What do we do with you?  Also, everyone must join ahead of time, etc.

Maybe some kind of flexible Elo bracketing, where you get blocked from playing players who have Elo that is much lower than yours, especially playing against people who are 1000 and lower after you have won some.  That would end simple dummy accounts right there (though you could have dummy accounts play each other to boost the Elo of one back up).

The problem with preventing match-ups using any mechanism is that by the end, a bunch of players would be sitting around and waiting.  Also, it would prevent legit players from coming back by beating the leader (they could be blocked from playing the leader due to Elo).

Playing each player only once is interesting... but still problematic if your final play partner disappears (you get one less game than everyone else).  But maybe this makes sense....  Still, at the very end, you'll be sitting there waiting for you final partner to get out of their match.

Looks like I'll be getting a W9 from Nate soon....

So, the proof on file is held per card, but only one player can use each card.

Otherwise, who would we have proof on file for?

Imagine that we have proof on file for you for a card, and then you put in $1000 on that card.

Then someone else comes along and uses the same card to put in $50.  Should we allow that?  Yeah, we already have proof on file, but not for this other player.

It just seemed safer to block two people from using the same card.

Yeah, it would be nice to buy accounts as gifts for people.  There's also money-laundering concerns, though, so I can't support that explicitly on the server (I don't want to be regulated like a money service business, so I have to avoid direct transfers between players).

Oh, I didn't mean you get kicked from the tournament if a game lasts longer than X minutes.

I meant, if you're not waiting for a game AND you're not playing a game, and you go longer than X minutes with no tournament activity, you are kicked.  So you can't walk away from your computer during the tournament and make everyone wait.  If you're in a game, you're in a game.

But yeah, locking people into a table with a slow player is a huge problem.  Especially if you play 1 game while everyone else gets in 5 games... yikes.  Hmm....

What about rising antes at each table?  Antes go up by one chip each round.  Not ideal, because it changes the game.  How else can you prevent people from playing as slow (bet wise) as the game allows?  Obviously, they're not going to win the tournament either, but they sure can bog you down with them.

How long can they drag it out?  1 min first pick, one minute first bet, one minute first fold.  Three minutes per chip, 100 chips... 5 hours!!!

So even if we set it up to make everyone else wait until all first round matches are finished, 5 hours won't do.

Ah!!! time limited matches.  Your match lasts 5 minutes, and whoever has the most chips left at the end wins the match, takes half the total chips (rest goes to prize pool), and continues.

And yes, I'd release v12 of the client which would support special marking for tournament stakes---maybe even a confirmation page explaining the extra tribute.  I suppose the client would have to show the match time limit too, if that was the solution.