IS IT EVER OK TO TELL OTHER PLAYERS HOW TOP PLAY?

[demiurgsage]

There is no point to complain about one player helps another in chat. A newbie may ask a Master to help him via skype or sitting with him IRL and you even won't know about it. There are no rules forbidding a player to use help during the game. It's better for you when you know it.

[Call me Ishmael]

While in a single game it is usually best to attack the player with the most hand-wins in their pot, so as to make it less likely they'll end the game before you can. If someone is looking at the long game, and thinking about their ELO also....

I don't do this myself, but it's important to remember that people can play the game however they want with whatever motivation they want, as long as they are not throwing the game or king-making on purpose, any other strategy, even bad ones, are fine.

Your advice is self-contradictory, and bad advice that caters to bad ethics, catering both to metagaming and throwing the game/kingmaking that you claim to disagree with.

In Love Letter, you only have a limited amount of 'shots' to eliminate other players. Every time you spend one of these 'shots' aiming at the low guy, you are allowing the high guy to survive and thus making it more likely to gain yet another match point. If you succeed in eliminating the guy with the lowest points in the game, the leading opponent has one less obstacle to worry about and can direct more attention on eliminating you.

Some people have trouble understanding that targeting the low guy not only disadvantages the low guy, it disadvantages you too. Even if you do get a cheap thrill in guessing the low guy correctly, you do not gain a point for that.

Sometimes the high guy has handmaid protection and you're forced to hit the low guy. Besides that, there are only a rare few instances where it makes mathematical sense to hit the low guy; for example, if you *know* for a fact that winning guy has the low card, you hold a middle card, and low guy holds the top card, by all means, in those rare instances, try to eliminate the top card to secure the match point for yourself.

All in all, playing Love Letter and similar round-elimination is not about 'eliminating someone' at random...you score nothing for that. It's about 'preventing high guy from taking another point.' It's to your advantage if the low guy takes a point over the high guy. It's not to your advantage at all to target the low guy when you could be playing your card against the high guy.

If playing a game in such a way that disadvantages both yourself and another player (and by default advantages a third player) is defined as kingmaking, then almost any play in Love Letter where you target the low guy when you could be aiming at high guy is a kingmaking/throwing the game play. You may think it's 'fun' to leave the high guy alone and target the low guy because you think it's a little more likely to guess low guy's card and you think it's fun to eliminate anyone for the sake of eliminating, but if you do it in a game with me, you won't be playing in games with me in the future. Play to win; leave the low guy alone and try your best to win the game you're playing now by doing all you can to hit the winning player.

P.S. My biggest disappointment with BGA admins is that they cater to the ELO metagaming you mentioned and won't change their policies to get people focused on honourably playing to win the game before them.

[CB Droege]

While in a single game it is usually best to attack the player with the most hand-wins in their pot, so as to make it less likely they'll end the game before you can. If someone is looking at the long game, and thinking about their ELO also....

I don't do this myself, but it's important to remember that people can play the game however they want with whatever motivation they want, as long as they are not throwing the game or king-making on purpose, any other strategy, even bad ones, are fine.

Your advice is self-contradictory, and bad advice that caters to bad ethics, catering both to metagaming and throwing the game/kingmaking that you claim to disagree with.

In Love Letter, you only have a limited amount of 'shots' to eliminate other players. Every time you spend one of these 'shots' aiming at the low guy, you are allowing the high guy to survive and thus making it more likely to gain yet another match point. If you succeed in eliminating the guy with the lowest points in the game, the leading opponent has one less obstacle to worry about and can direct more attention on eliminating you.

Some people have trouble understanding that targeting the low guy not only disadvantages the low guy, it disadvantages you too. Even if you do get a cheap thrill in guessing the low guy correctly, you do not gain a point for that.

Sometimes the high guy has handmaid protection and you're forced to hit the low guy. Besides that, there are only a rare few instances where it makes mathematical sense to hit the low guy; for example, if you *know* for a fact that winning guy has the low card, you hold a middle card, and low guy holds the top card, by all means, in those rare instances, try to eliminate the top card to secure the match point for yourself.

All in all, playing Love Letter and similar round-elimination is not about 'eliminating someone' at random...you score nothing for that. It's about 'preventing high guy from taking another point.' It's to your advantage if the low guy takes a point over the high guy. It's not to your advantage at all to target the low guy when you could be playing your card against the high guy.

If playing a game in such a way that disadvantages both yourself and another player (and by default advantages a third player) is defined as kingmaking, then almost any play in Love Letter where you target the low guy when you could be aiming at high guy is a kingmaking/throwing the game play. You may think it's 'fun' to leave the high guy alone and target the low guy because you think it's a little more likely to guess low guy's card and you think it's fun to eliminate anyone for the sake of eliminating, but if you do it in a game with me, you won't be playing in games with me in the future. Play to win; leave the low guy alone and try your best to win the game you're playing now by doing all you can to hit the winning player.

P.S. My biggest disappointment with BGA admins is that they cater to the ELO metagaming you mentioned and won't change their policies to get people focused on honourably playing to win the game before them.

It's not contradictory. "as long as they are not throwing the game or king-making on purpose, any other strategy, even bad ones, are fine." means just that. Metagaming your ELO is not throwing the game, nor is it king-making. Being a bad player who doesn't understand that it's better to attack the big guy is also not those things, therefore, they are 'okay'.

I agree with you that it is not ideal, but the only way to eliminate ELO metagaming would be to eliminate ELO, and without ELO, matchmaking would be difficult. They could make ELO invisible, like some games do, and just let the system match people up according to that invisible ELO, but that's way more complicated an interface.

The REAL issue is that many people do not really understand what ELO is for. Someone who is meta-gaming to raise their ELO is seeing ELO incorrectly. They see it as a trophy or a reward unto itself. They see 'raising ELO' as the goal of playing well. It's an understandable mistake, since a high-ELO can be understood as a visible sign of good play, getting a higher one can feel like a reward, but it's not a reward, it's a measurement tool, and when they game that tool, they mess up the measurement.

Get people to understand that their ELO score is a match-making tool, and not a reward system, and you'll be roses. But, frankly, I don't see that ever happening.

[Call me Ishmael]

Why not ever see that happening? Why not have general ELO categories visible, and the exact numbers invisible, or at least the option to hide those exact numbers? Why not give a slight reward to the player who wins a game, and nothing to players who come second, third, and fourth? How tough would that be in today's technology?

Players would still have the option to not play stronger players, as they now do with restricted table access. In a few months, the ELO ratings under my suggestion would actually be reflective of player's ability to actually win a game, and not merely to come in third by leaving the leading player alone and trying to push another player into fourth place....a player who may well be playing properly and going after the high guy.

[Shaq Jenkins]

It's not contradictory. "as long as they are not throwing the game or king-making on purpose, any other strategy, even bad ones, are fine." means just that. Metagaming your ELO is not throwing the game, nor is it king-making. Being a bad player who doesn't understand that it's better to attack the big guy is also not those things, therefore, they are 'okay'.

I agree with you that it is not ideal, but the only way to eliminate ELO metagaming would be to eliminate ELO, and without ELO, matchmaking would be difficult. They could make ELO invisible, like some games do, and just let the system match people up according to that invisible ELO, but that's way more complicated an interface.

The REAL issue is that many people do not really understand what ELO is for. Someone who is meta-gaming to raise their ELO is seeing ELO incorrectly. They see it as a trophy or a reward unto itself. They see 'raising ELO' as the goal of playing well. It's an understandable mistake, since a high-ELO can be understood as a visible sign of good play, getting a higher one can feel like a reward, but it's not a reward, it's a measurement tool, and when they game that tool, they mess up the measurement.

Get people to understand that their ELO score is a match-making tool, and not a reward system, and you'll be roses. But, frankly, I don't see that ever happening.

Players treat ELO as a reward system because BGA gives rewards for having a high ELO. This is why some people play unethically in order to boost their ELO. At one point, there were tons of people playing 20+ games with a robot in order to become "Masters" in Can't Stop. I find this behavior extremely appalling, but this is what happens when rewards are attached to ELO. The reward system needs a complete overhaul. Many players get to the Top 10, stop playing with ELO on, but will then play an ELO on game with a low ranked player every 60 days in order to keep their ranking.

Since I've started playing Secret Moon, I've slightly revised my original stance on this issue. Playing an 8 player game with an inexperienced person really brings down the entire level of the game, especially if the newbie is on the Princess' team. For this game, I think it's worth it to ask at the beginning if the person has any questions or wants an overview of the rules. Strategy is something that players should figure out on their own, but it's important that newbies know the basics (the Priestess is on the Princess's team, only the Minister can capture the Princess, etc.). I just played a Secret Moon game with 5 matches in which the newbie lost all 5 times. The person who came in first place only did so because he was lucky enough to not be placed on the newbie's team.

[Liallan]

Why not ever see that happening? Why not have general ELO categories visible, and the exact numbers invisible, or at least the option to hide those exact numbers? Why not give a slight reward to the player who wins a game, and nothing to players who come second, third, and fourth? How tough would that be in today's technology?

I doubt technology has anything to do with it. Of course they can do this.

Seems to me this would just be that much more encouragement to play people well under your level to be sure of securing a win, if you know second isn't going to do anything for you. There are also games in which coming in second or third can mean something in terms of your playing, and I see no reason not to count that. Seems like Love Letter is the one leading to more of these complaints than anything else, because that game is so geared towards shooting down the lead person. But all games aren't really like that.

I'm someone who will go for that second place, if I think I can't win. There is no point in Love Letter at which you can't win. I can come from 0 and still win. Shooting down the last place person (a common complaint amongst you) doesn't get anyone in second place, cause they still have to remain til the end of the round and get a point. And the only way to do that is shooting down everyone else, including the leader. And if they don't shoot down the leader, said leader might be the one to get that point, so where did that get them? It's not like trying to move up "real quick" cause someone "is about to win." Well, that leader won't win if you shoot them down. So the "logic" that going against last place guy can move someone up makes no sense.

To me, that falls under "don't understand the game." Which is why I'm convinced that people doing that either don't understand, or are just doing it cause they think it's funny and don't care about winning and losing. So it doesn't make sense that that person is doing it to boost their ELO.

[Liallan]

It's not contradictory. "as long as they are not throwing the game or king-making on purpose, any other strategy, even bad ones, are fine." means just that. Metagaming your ELO is not throwing the game, nor is it king-making. Being a bad player who doesn't understand that it's better to attack the big guy is also not those things, therefore, they are 'okay'.

Agreed. I did not see your statement as contradictory.

I agree with you that it is not ideal, but the only way to eliminate ELO metagaming would be to eliminate ELO, and without ELO, matchmaking would be difficult. They could make ELO invisible, like some games do, and just let the system match people up according to that invisible ELO, but that's way more complicated an interface.

I would not want to eliminate ELO. And I definitely don't want the system matching me up with people so I wouldn't want it invisible either. It's bad enough part of what's going into reputation is hidden, leaving me to trust some percentage number. I don't want the system making decisions for me about who I'm going to play.

Get people to understand that their ELO score is a match-making tool, and not a reward system, and you'll be roses. But, frankly, I don't see that ever happening.

I don't see that happening either, because I don't agree to start with that it's only a match-making tool. I do get that it probably was meant to be that. I don't claim to know the full background of ELO, but my understanding is that it is indeed for matchmaking. But things tend to be what people turn them into. And it has been turned into a reward. I play on three sites and all three have some kind of skill system and therefore some kind of metagaming going on. (Although this is the only one where people complain all the time about how second shouldn't count so much. I have to wonder why that is.)

All three of the sites have lists showing skill levels, who are the top people, or you can see how you compare to other people, etc. I don't personally see the "reward" in it, but more like an accomplishment. I see it also as a way to judge my own abilities at something. (I get this is only a general idea since scoring systems aren't perfect.) I don't see anything wrong with it being an accomplishment. I do also use it as a matchmaking tool. So I see it as two things.

As to it being a reward, honestly, I think that has a bit more to do with people's egos. Being proud of yourself or feeling like you accomplished something is all fine. But if gets to the point that you do it only for the sake of getting your ego boost, I think that's a problem. But there are going to be people like that and I'm not sure how you can make them feel differently. The only thing I really have to say to them is, feel proud of yourself for "accomplishing" something by basically cheating the system? Yeah, that's impressive. I get annoyed with people like that, not because they've found a way to stay higher than me, but because they're like that.

Those who are too serious about their rankings are going to be pissed at any ranking system you try to do, and will not stop complaining about it, and I'm not sure there's anything to be done about that. As long as it exists, people will find a way to screw with it. So for those who aren't cheating the system, and who can keep their egos more in check, perhaps they shouldn't worry about the other people quite so much.

[Call me Ishmael]

There is no point in Love Letter at which you can't win. I can come from 0 and still win. Shooting down the last place person (a common complaint amongst you) doesn't get anyone in second place, cause they still have to remain til the end of the round and get a point. And the only way to do that is shooting down everyone else, including the leader. And if they don't shoot down the leader, said leader might be the one to get that point, so where did that get them? It's not like trying to move up "real quick" cause someone "is about to win." Well, that leader won't win if you shoot them down. So the "logic" that going against last place guy can move someone up makes no sense.

In Love Letter, if both the high guy and the middle guy(s) are targeting you, the low guy, it's practically impossible for you to win. You will be eliminated by one of them over 99% of the time. The question is about the ethics/sensibility of the other players behaving in this manner.

It makes no sense to you. Ever consider that you are looking at this with flawed logic, and just don't know it?

[Liallan]

There is no point in Love Letter at which you can't win. I can come from 0 and still win. Shooting down the last place person (a common complaint amongst you) doesn't get anyone in second place, cause they still have to remain til the end of the round and get a point. And the only way to do that is shooting down everyone else, including the leader. And if they don't shoot down the leader, said leader might be the one to get that point, so where did that get them? It's not like trying to move up "real quick" cause someone "is about to win." Well, that leader won't win if you shoot them down. So the "logic" that going against last place guy can move someone up makes no sense.

In Love Letter, if both the high guy and the middle guy(s) are targeting you, the low guy, it's practically impossible for you to win. You will be eliminated by one of them over 99% of the time. The question is about the ethics/sensibility of the other players behaving in this manner.

It makes no sense to you. Ever consider that you are looking at this with flawed logic, and just don't know it?

I've considered that I'm no expert at the game and don't always know the right thing to do, but I know the rules and points are just math. I would consider it more likely that one of us doesn't understand the point the other is trying to make. I can only say that I "don't believe" my logic is flawed.

Which is your point? That if I'm at 0 I can't win cause the top guys are going to target me (which isn't terribly relevant to the basic points), or that lead guy and middle guy are the ones targeting the low guy, and that's what your complaint is?

Your statement about the ethics/sensibiilty of the "other players" is telling me that you are talking about the same thing I am. Not the top/middles guys, but the lower guys. So we have players at 0, 1, 2 & 3. If 1 guy is targeting 0 guy, that doesn't make sense. If he's trying to climb to second place, he needs to be targeting 3 guy & 2 guy (and then 0 guy) to eliminate them so he can get a point. If 0 guy is trying to climb into third, ditto. The 2 guy should be trying to climb over 3 guy. Top guy should be trying to deal with the guy nipping at his heels first. In the context of "trying to gain a higher position instead of playing to win," targeting low guy makes no sense. Top guy wins while you're doing that, and you have to gain points to gain a higher position. You've said the same yourself. And I still contend that is either someone who doesn't understand, or doesn't care if they win. (Again, lack of intent.) If there's something flawed in that logic, you're going to have to explain it, with scores, instead of just telling me something is flawed.

Now, if the flawed logic is that I can't come from 0 and win, perhaps not with higher level players. I have seen it happen, though we could suppose those players were not that good and should not have allowed that. If I get to the point when I'm playing people of a level that could stop that 99% of the time, then perhaps I will stop assuming there's no point at which I can't win. But you're not playing high level players either. I looked at the results of the last 10 of your games, and you and all of your opponents are lower than me in ELO. (Not a perfect system, no, but you still aren't playing with the higher level players.) In fact, some of these opponents are <100. So I'm now wondering what the heck? You expect them to play well? And you still want to contend this is about being unethical?

And even if you explain it to them, first, that doesn't automatically mean they understand. Second, anyone who is "having fun and doesn't care about winning" isn't going to care. And you will never, ever convince me that not caring about winning is "unethical." I don't see "intent" there. One big complaint is this idea that being rewarded for second place doesn't encourage people to play to win. But I don't see that making sense with this game, because you can't improve your position if you're busy letting high guy win. (Maybe someone imagines that's going to work, but that falls under "doesn't understand" and we're back to square one.)

[Call me Ishmael]

Lil, your third paragraph makes sense and is what I have been trying to say all along. All too often I see player at 2 targeting player at 1 merely because he thinks his chance of scoring an elimination is better, yet in doing so, he leaves the player at 3 in a better position to win the game. If it comes down to player at 1 scoring a point vs. player at 3 scoring a point, it is actually in 2's best interest to allow 1 to score .

This logic is true if the players are at 0, 1, and 2 points, and not right at the fonal game point. If the middle guy eliminates the low guy, the high guy is in a better position to gain a point closer to final victory. Better to take aim at high guy and consider the possibility that low guy gains the point is a good risk to take.