All those losing losers...

[volkerk]

I love this game, and I love the implementation, which is beautiful and very functional with only very minor occasional display glitches. Thank you very much for implementing it! It's a real hit game for BGA.

One thing though I find frustrating - the game only acknowledges winners and losers, and makes no effort to rank those that did not win, assigning relative places based on the number of buildings built (via the obvious method, namely the same used to determine the winner if there was no early victory). This is offputting to all those poor guys that played well but didn't manage to win - all their efforts were in vain, even though they may have technically been second among five. They all end up being mere losers - which is not only frustrating, it also makes it unlikely that people concerned about their rating will play multiplayer games. Can this please be changed?

[N_Faker]

Games with ranking:
If you would like to determine a player ordering, then follow these steps:
If a player manages to completely build two building types, the game does not end: the player gets the first place , and the others continue play without him.
If another player manages to finish before game end , he gets second place , etc.
The first player who is eliminated because he cannot build anymore finishes last.
If another player is eliminated , he ends one-before-last, etc.
If no more Volcano tiles can be placed, the remaining places are divided among the remaining players based on the number of Towers, Temples and Huts built, like with a regular game end.
- page 4 - http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/92ca7d_11 ... 94ae94.pdf

Following your suggestion would deviate from the official rules for ranked placement.

[volkerk]

I don't see a problem with that. Implementing the rule for ranked placement as stated in the official rules would be just fine with me. My problem is that no ranked placement is implemented at all!

Note that in the case of the game ending due to tiles being used up (what the rules call "Alternate Ending"), my suggestion was exactly what the official rules state too. I see no reason why this isn't implemented when playing the game normally, since it's the obvious way to determine the relative ranks.

If one wishes to continue playing after someone has placed all of two building types (what the rules call "Regular Ending"), that is IMHO something that the game should offer as an option on the game creating page. That would create a different game experience and might cause players to use a different strategy, it's clearly an alternate option. That's why the rules also describe it as such. But determining a player ranking when the game has ended via the normal gameplay does not change the game.

The point here is that the players that placed 2nd or 3rd should not get their ELO damaged the way it is currently happening. They should be rewarded for their good performance instead of being punished for it. The losing losers designation is not conducive to good player motivation.

[volkerk]

Really disappointing to see no response here. Surely this bothers every single Taluva player. A game in which everybody but one player always loses is just really frustrating.

[RicardoRix]

I don't play this game, but I feel the same in Lewis & Clark.

[quietmint]

I'm not planning to implement a "keep playing after the end" variant at this time. Barring that, how would you propose to determine a person's rank?

Assume nobody is eliminated and one player places all of two types of buildings (most common scenario). Do you assign points based on remaining buildings somehow? By type? By number? If player A has 1 hut, 1 tower; player B has 1 hut, 1 temple; player C has 2 huts, 1 tower is anyone really further behind? Anyone could theoretically finish in 1 more turn. The building types and numbers really don't matter to the most common "alternate ending". Why should one person be penalized or rewarded for having leftover temples vs towers when a win would be the same using any two types of buildings?

If it's based strictly on number, this seems unfair since huts can be placed faster. 3 huts could be a single turn, but 3 temples is clearly 3 turns.

If it's based on type, how do you assign a value for the ranking math? For example, 1 temple = 0.6 towers = 0.3 huts. Where would you come up with those ratios?

[volkerk]

I said in the initlal post already that the players should be ranked "via the obvious method, namely the same used to determine the winner if there was no early victory". In other words the "alternate ending", just as described in the game rules. There's just no reason this same method of completely ranking the players should NOT apply after one player won the game preemptively.

This means temples have precedence over towers which have precedence over huts. The player having the most temples built is ranked highest, and among those tied with their temples the player with the most towers built ranks highest, then if those are tied as well finally the one with the most huts built (fewest left) is ranked highest. This is clearly spelled out in the rules, we don't need to make anything up for it. There is no need to calculate any relative values or anything.This recognizes the relative difficulty of building those buildings.

Building 3 huts is of course much simpler than 3 temples or 3 towers, which is why it makes no sense to compare simply by number built. Rather it's the number of buildings not yet built that matters - and building all huts takes quite a while too, but can be achieved no matter how much opponents interfere, whereas for temples and towers you need to be a bit smart to achieve that, which is why they're ranked higher.

I am actually not requesting that you implement a "keep playing after early victory" option. It was merely brought up by another player that this is what the official rules offer for determining a complete ranking in the case of an early victory. But this would unnecessarily prolong the game, and I believe would not be popular with players anyway. I'm just asking for doing the obvious thing when the game ends "normally".

[quietmint]

If the game ends "normally" with all tiles played, then ranking 2nd, 3rd, etc. like that makes sense. In that case it's the same scale on which the winner was determined.

If the game ends early and you make people keep playing, then the order in which they run out of buildings is their ranking order. That makes sense too (same scale/criteria for 2nd place as for as winner). I don't think people want to keep playing for 2nd place, 3rd place, etc. (I don't, anyway.)

But if there game ends early - which happens much more often, majority case - and you stop game play, I don't think it makes any sense at all to rank 2nd, 3rd, etc. on a scale that wasn't even used in the game. The winner wasn't decided using this scale so it seems weird and completely arbitrary to assign other rankings this way. It penalizes players who didn't choose a strategy of playing temples first for no reason, even if they would have won the game early on the very next turn. Is that really any better than having all losers ranked as equal?

[JCase16]

But if there game ends early - which happens much more often, majority case - and you stop game play, I don't think it makes any sense at all to rank 2nd, 3rd, etc. on a scale that wasn't even used in the game. The winner wasn't decided using this scale so it seems weird and completely arbitrary to assign other rankings this way. It penalizes players who didn't choose a strategy of playing temples first for no reason, even if they would have won the game early on the very next turn. Is that really any better than having all losers ranked as equal?

I disagree. It still matters as it is a main game flow and the part that makes the most sense out of any solution. I understand that you think it makes no sense but it is the most obvious and easiest to implement and solves a problem so I believe it should happen. In either end game scenario you should calculate 2nd and 3rd place based off of played buildings. It's not perfect but it's the best solution we have and I think most people would accept that.

[volkerk]

Basically this boils down to the age-old discussion of whether only winning counts, or placing too. Some people prefer to play towards the slim chance of winning, while others will try to place as well as they reasonably can. Both are entirely valid approaches to gaming, and whether the resulting relative place you achieve with that strategy is acceptable to you is up to you to decide - when there IS a method for relative ranking that is, i.e. when players know how their choices will affect the outcome.

The game rules did not provide relative ranking rules for the early victory case because they are designed for play at the table, where most people don't really care whether they came out second or third. However this is entirely different when the game outcome affects your ELO. In any type of ranking system, it's going to seriously affect your standings whether you're merely considered to have lost vs. when you're ranked 2nd or 3rd out of 5. So in such a system (like the ELO rating system used here at BGA) it is really not an option to have everyone be a loser. It works for playing individual games in a vacuum, but not for ongoing play, so it's a flaw in the implementation.