Suggestions to improve point allocation

[Jellby]

My experience is mostly in 5-player tables. But I'm convinced what I said is true for all counts. Anyway, at some point this becomes a discussion about whether something is "slightly" or "a lot" or "significantly" or "greatly" or "marginally" whatever.

[Wreckage]

An interesting point about win rate: If you play on training mode it doesn’t effect your elo, but each game is counted as a loss for your win percentage

It's not counted as a loss. It's counted as a non-win. There are wins, losses, ties, and training. The win percentage counts only wins.

My point is, playing on training mode hurts your win percentage, even if you get perfect scores.

How? If the two life-saving 5s come early, when the useful card hasn't been discarded yet, they don't help. You also lose the +1 clue of some 5s, which might mean you do worse than without flams. There's no guarantee a non-30 game will become 30 with flams.

You're right, I made a generality, saying that flams will benefit your scores about 4 times out of 10. Each game is unique. And no, I don't have stats to back this up. Do you disagree with my point though, that elo should be adjusted for flams if elo improvement were to be made?

[Travis Hall]

1. More even elo for all player counts. Someone who generally plays 3p games will have about 150 less elo than someone who plays 5p games, if they have equal success. This is ridiculous. I don’t even think 3p is an easier game. There should be a slight (emphasis on “slight”) difference for each number of players. 2p is the most difficult, then it’s slightly easier with each added player. Perhaps 4p and 5p should gain the same elo.

I honestly think that 3p is the hardest variant, at least at some skill levels. Definitely harder than 4p, which is the easiest. Possibly 3p is easier for players who are just starting out on learning multiplayer techniques, with less to take into account when cluing and reading basic finesses, but harder for advanced players because it provides so many fewer opportunities to apply highly efficient techniques.

5p is also harder than 4p. There are more visible cards, and more capacity to hold cards, but the amount of information that has to be taken into account when cluing, and the greater distance ahead players have to look to account for what happens over multiple rounds can much more easily overwhelm players’ cognitive capacity.

2p is a special case. Hardest to get a perfect score with perfect play, but the format cuts out so many possible techniques that perfect play is much easier to achieve.

The truth is a bit more complex than one player count simply being easier than others (especially considering 2p). Each has a different learning curve. That could be represented more accurately by changing the steps between bot ratings for scores on the tables (it’s always a step of 10 at the moment, IIRC - that is, the bot rating for a 29 is 10 ELO less than for 30, and 28 is 10 less again)… but working out exactly what the steps should be would require a lot of difficult analysis of game result data, and I don’t think anyone is going to do that. I probably don’t have the skill to do it myself, and my bachelor’s degree was in statistics.

2. There should be separate adjustments for black powder and flamboyants. I’ve seen it stated many times that flams don’t help scores much on a tables of all masters, because they don’t let important cards get discarded anyway. This is wrong. If a table of masters play 10 games without flams, they will have about 6 perfect games, and about 3 - 4 games where the last card in the deck matched an early discard. If flams are on, all these games become 30s.

There should be adjustments for Black Powder and Flamboyants, yes. At least at high levels, Black Powder more than outweighs Flamboyants, but both are significant. It’s not unrealistic to hope that this may be implemented some day.

Your estimate of 6 perfect games may be true for low-end masters, but it isn’t for high-end masters (with >2p). From a rating of 800 or so, players are getting better at saving cards early. I think it’s around that point where you have to learn to do that to push your results better. You can’t get the probability of being bottom-decked down to 0%, of course, but if you are losing 30% of your games that way, you aren’t playing very well.

Of course, adding in Flamboyants will push the limit very close to 0% for this, so it is useful for highly-skilled masters. But getting that benefit requires knowing a whole new set of Flamboyant-related skills.

The usual attitude towards Flamboyants is that they just let you undo serious mistakes, and that’s wrong. Without appropriate skills, I really think they cause serious mistakes - way too many players who won’t play their 5s when they need to, leading to unexpected discards, or reaching the endgame with too many unplayed cards. But with highly-skilled players, these things should not occur.

[Wreckage]

5p is also harder than 4p.

I will defer to your expertise on this. I haven't played 5p for several years. I do agree that 4p is easier than 3p.

2p is a special case. Hardest to get a perfect score with perfect play, but the format cuts out so many possible techniques that perfect play is much easier to achieve.

When we used to have competitions, we might have 10-12 teams (most of which had elo 900+) playing identical decks. Within the first dozen turns, no two games were played exactly alike. We played every week for months. It's interesting what perfect play would mean since everyone plays differently...especially in 2p.

Your estimate of 6 perfect games may be true for low-end masters, but it isn’t for high-end masters (with >2p).

I know you are a good player, but I think it's been a while since you've played without flams, and you forget There's no way you are saving 4s that are on chop at the start of the game for no reason. Maybe it's not a third of your games, but I'd bet it's a fourth. This is more about random luck than about skill of saving cards. Anyway, I think we are in near agreement about an adjustment for flams. Maybe not about the degree of adjustment.

...working out exactly what the steps should be would require a lot of difficult analysis of game result data...

I wouldn't expect anyone to devote so much effort. But currently 3p is punished way to hard. Like I said earlier, the difference for each player count should be "slight". It would be better if they all used the exact same formula than how it is now.

I don't think it has to be an exact scientific formula based on complete probability tables. Just an honest effort with feedback from players.

[Stroom]

Differently skilled players play the game differently. What seems easy for pros might be hard for novices. So if you base your ranking system balancing on novices, the pros would just get even more ahead as they can play more efficiently. If you balance it based on how pros play, the novices would keep complaining that they can't climb the ranks. So they never play with pros as the skill difference is too big and they never learn to become better.

In AoE2 stats you can see this. Some civilizations are at the top in <800 elo games while they are at the bottom for >800 elo games. And vice versa. There is no way to make one subjective balancing rule that works on everyone. There is always going to be someone whose elo score is higher than you perceive their skill to be. Elo is not a definitive measurement of skill as it fluctuates greatly. You can't compare an only 2p player to an only 4p player to someone who plays all settings. And it is OK.

[Jellby]

Do you disagree with my point though, that elo should be adjusted for flams if elo improvement were to be made?

No, I don't disagree. The current "bot" elo rankings were set when there were no flams or black powder, so they consider only player count and multicolor variants. I guess when black+flams were implemented the developer either didn't know about the bot settings, or decided it was too much work and/or too arbitrary to try to change them.

[Romain672]

There's no way you are saving 4s that are on chop at the start of the game for no reason. Maybe it's not a third of your games, but I'd bet it's a fourth. This is more about random luck than about skill of saving cards

And one day, hgroup decided to make a 1 played not in order chop move the next player. I wonder why

But saving a not one away (ie 2 of that color isn't played) non visible (ie not in another player hand) 4 would be pretty rare. But if next two chops are useless (or if the hand of others players is mostly trash), I would totally do it at 4 or 5 players.
But the more effecient you are (and trust me, you can goes so deep, way deeper than the 25levels+advanced of hgroup), the more you can affoard to waste clues/be less effecient to save some 3s or 4s in chop. Like allowing not only 2-saves (like hgroup does) but 3-saves too.

[Travis Hall]

I know you are a good player, but I think it's been a while since you've played without flams, and you forget There's no way you are saving 4s that are on chop at the start of the game for no reason.

I sure do. I’ll save anything I can get (with splash, not dedicated save clues). I might let things go if I see a particular risk, but my default position is to save everything.

[Wreckage]

I totally agree with trying to save everything. Still some cards will be discarded the first few discards...and most likely not duplicate 1s.

Any team that can score 29.75 average without flams is impressive. Try playing 20 games with your best team and see. If you can achieve 29.75, my statement is still correct.

[ChiefPointThief]

I totally agree with trying to save everything. Still some cards will be discarded the first few discards...and most likely not duplicate 1s.

Any team that can score 29.75 average without flams is impressive. Try playing 20 games with your best team and see. If you can achieve 29.75, my statement is still correct.

As a 2p player I understand your comments. I've noticed people apply other people's comments to their own personal experience which causes a disconnect. For instance, I could tell jellby probably wasn't a 2p player which explains their view on flams being different. It is easier for the double discard in 2p. Bringing back dead cards is the main advantage of flams. He also pointed out that you may have to play your 5s before you can utilize the flams. In 2p you can have more leeway to hold on to your 5s until you can properly take advantage of the flams. So it is understandable for us to have a different view of flams than a 5p player.