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        Team Games >> 2011 Arimaa World League >> Legislators Committee Roundtable
        
(Message started by: megajester on Oct 22^nd, 2011, 11:20am)

Title: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by megajester on Oct 22^nd, 2011, 11:20am

EDIT: I'd like to get together with the legislators and the managers in Teamspeak at some point to discuss how this season went and any suggestions for future seasons.

If we can't get together in Teamspeak maybe we can just discuss it in this thread.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by Boo on Oct 23^rd, 2011, 7:36am

Here are my 2 cents. :)

First of all some summary stats:

1 - win
0 - loss
- - didn't play
F - forfeit
+ - arrived, but opponent forfeited.
? - not played yet

Rockies (6):

Fritzlein 01--1-
ChrisB 000-00
knak 0--+--
Hirocon -11001
ginrunner --11--
NJames -----?

Ring of Fire (9):
Nombril 1111+-
The_Jeh 1-----
Eltripas 1-----
knarl -0----
arimaaphile -0----
Simon --101?
iamanigeeit --1F--
Boo ----10
Adanac -----1

Europa (7):
Heyckie 010-00
woh 1-10--
VinceS 0--0--
Hippo -0----
cvic -100-?
chessandgo ----F1
rbarreira ----0-

Atlantics (7):
mistre 1----?
Sconibulus 0--1-1
ocmiente 1-0-1-
aaaa -0-10-
novacat -1-11-
aerzinger -0----
rabbits --0--0
basfman --0---

36 games, 12 team-matches, 2 forfeits. 2/12 = 17% forfeit per match.

Forfeits.

Forfeits indicate, that there are empty slots for the new players to join and get straight to action.
As the main idea of this event is to give more human-human action, I think current forfeit per match percentage (17%) is too low. 100% would be optimal.
I think forfeit percentage should be the basis of deciding if the number of boards should be increased/decreased before the next season.

I would propose such mechanics for shrinking/expanding the league:
0-50% - board number is increased by 1.
50-100% - board number is left the same as it is.
100% and up - board number is decreased by 1.

Why are forfeits penalized by -1 point?
This is a mystery for me.
The team is penalized enough for not getting a chance to grab a win.
As for the budget - it should be changed, that a forfeited board is assigned an average (currently 2010) budget value, no matter which player was assigned for that board.

Budget.

Rating budget formula is fine, one season is too little data for any conclusions to be made. I think it should be left as it is.

Advertisement.

I think it could be done better.
Here is what "Welcome" section says about human-human games:
"Human Opponents - To play against other humans, turn on the invite flag next to your username. Or just invite someone who has their invite flag turned on (green 'i' icon after their rating). "
Huh, I would rather like to see a list of links to ongoing HH tournaments. (postal mixer, arimaa world league, mob vs gang ...)
Where are they?
Oh they are just randomly appearing/dissapearing in the "Announcements" section... The new player might not be lucky enough to see that.
Now try to calculate, how many clicks a new player has to make to get to the AWL rules page, and to register for a team...

League Rules.

I am taking a look at them imagining I am a new player, trying to decide if I would like to join or not.
What I am missing:
1) section for its purpose (to give more human-human action on arimaa.com ?)
2) its friendliness for newcomers.
Now the new player will have to read all the rules from A to Z, and to grasp its idea of being friendly for newbies.
Hard work for a newbie ;)
What got me interested was "New players may join teams at any time during the League."
But well, that's fine I said to myself, but will I get any action there?... A to Z.
I think AWL rules on one of the top sections should state more clearly how friendly it is to the new players, mentioning rating budget system (and forfeit system- which gives vacant spaces for newbies).
For more details newbie would read the rest.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by Nombril on Oct 23^rd, 2011, 8:00pm

Boo, thanks for the input, especially about the advertising and your impression of how a new player will the see the league as it is currently presented. When the AWL first started, there was more hoopla, but now that it is "established" a new player would not see any of those discussions from long ago.

I totally agree with your impression of the rules. I have played a lot this season, and never read them myself. If I hadn't been away of the background when it started...just seeing how formal the rules are... I might be put of a bit myself. An informal introduction or "About the AWL" would be helpful for the wiki. The rules don't need to have top billing. (Hmm, I wish I had more time, maybe after my last few postal games are wrapped up I could write something up, Megajester, please remind me if you still need this done in a week or two.)

My understanding about the additional penalty for not showing up: This game has been scheduled in advance, advertised in the gameroom, etc. So if you don't show up, your opponent (possibly at some inconvenience, depending on the luck of the scheduler tool) and also many spectators will miss out on a game that was planned on. So the extra penalty is supposed to give a little extra motivation to arrive at the game or make an effort to arrange for a new time or a sub.

I'm not sure I agree with using forfeits as a metric for expansion. I would rather think having captains say they consistently have some x (2?) extra volunteers each week would give us the comfort level that interest is consistently strong enough to warrant more boards.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by novacat on Oct 24^th, 2011, 1:42am

Thanks for the summary stats Boo. Nombril is now 13-0! Here are some answers to your questions and thoughts of my own.

Forfeits

The goal is to never have any. Forfeits take away from the League experience because of wasting people's time and dashing their hopes of watching a good game (like Nombril said), and because the outcome of the entire event can be changed based on something other than good budgeting and game play (my pet peeve). The -1 penalty may not be needed since there is usually a sense of duty to the team not found in individual tournaments. There have only been 2 forfeits in each of the league's 3 seasons due to players not showing up for the game.
As for changing the rating at the table to the average, that seems as bad or worse than -1. Most forfeits come from lower rated players, meaning an extra 300-600 from the budget. This corresponds to -1 or -2 at the end of the league.

I don't think number of forfeits reflects the need of new players. The Rockies have not forfeited so far this year, yet both ChrisB and Hirocon had to play 5 games. They could obviously use more players, but they will not forfeit if it can be helped. Most of the forfeits that have happened have been at odd times of the day when there were few people in the game room, so no subs could be found.

Budget

Agreed.

Advertisement

The Events category in the Navigation column is a good place to go and even has a calendar of events (needs to be updated). It would certainly help to tell new players to go there and look at all the planned events happening. Everything except EU vs US is a current event.

League Rules

All your points are in fact seen if you click on World League from the Events list. The 2011 league page only has the updated rules, fixtures list and games, but the original 2010 front page does exactly what you are asking for.

As for rule complexity, they are mostly for the managers. A simplified explanation of the rules is available by clicking on League FAQs from the AWL 2010 page.

In other words, everything is there, it just needs minor updates and needs to be easier to find.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by Fritzlein on Oct 27^th, 2011, 2:31pm

Thanks for the great summary, Boo. I didn't realize that we were the only team with only six participants.

I like the idea of penalizing forfeits, out of consideration for the player who actually showed up. It is no fun to gear up for a game emotionally and then sit around waiting for a while and ultimately not get to play. On the other hand, I do agree with you that the league should stay on the bubble where the teams are only just barely able to field all the boards while meeting their budget. It is also no fun to be itching to play and not be fielded by the captain because your team has a surplus of volunteers. Supposing, for example, that there is a surge of enthusiasm for AWL in the first half of the next season, such that every team was fielding three players with ease every week, then it will be time to consider increasing the number of games per match from three to four for the second half of the season.

Quote:

"Human Opponents - To play against other humans, turn on the invite flag next to your username. Or just invite someone who has their invite flag turned on (green 'i' icon after their rating). "
Huh, I would rather like to see a list of links to ongoing HH tournaments. (postal mixer, arimaa world league, mob vs gang ...)

Great idea.

As for the rules of the league, I don't think there is any need to make them more friendly to newcomers. The problem is that the rules are the most obvious thing newcomers have to turn to if they want to find out what AWL actually is. We need something other than the rules (and something other than the forum thread) to be the face of the AWL. Would you be willing to write up an introduction for us, along the lines of "What I wished I had read about AWL on day one", so that we can link that from the game room?

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 1^st, 2011, 11:45pm

I guess it is too late for the schedule

Round 1 - weekend of Nov 5
Round 2 - weekend of Nov 12
Round 3 - weekend of Nov 19
Thanksgiving break
Round 4 - weekend of Dec 3
Round 5 - weekend of Dec 10
Round 6 - weekend of Dec 17

That means there can be no Thanksgiving break (unless we want to play on Christmas weekend!). We will have to play one round every week. Adanac made a good suggestion in chat, namely that if we have to schedule a Thanksgiving weekend match, it should feature Rockies vs. Atlantics for an equal disadvantage as those two teams will presumably be most affected.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by megajester on Nov 2^nd, 2011, 1:32am

on 11/01/11 at 23:45:30, Fritzlein wrote:

Sorry for dropping the ball on this one.

I propose we follow Fritz's schedule, with no Thanksgiving break and a Rockies v. Atlantics derby on that weekend. The rules will stay the same.

I have two ideas for calculating the budget:

1. Based on the ratings of the players who stated they would be available in the survey.

2. Based on (a) the players who stated they would be available in the survey and (b) everyone who played last season.

There might not be time to get a response from everyone, but if the managers have no objection and a majority of the legislators committee are in favour we can get started on Nov 5.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 2^nd, 2011, 7:29am

on 11/02/11 at 01:32:57, megajester wrote:

I have two ideas for calculating the budget:

1. Based on the ratings of the players who stated they would be available in the survey.

2. Based on (a) the players who stated they would be available in the survey and (b) everyone who played last season.

Or 3. Based on the fact that the average actual spend last season was 6085/round, make that the new budget and see what happens. I have a hunch that if you calculate a new budget by either (1) or (2), people will not judge it based on the method, but on the number that the method produces, so you might as well just start from the number.

Not to cut off everyone from having a say, but the discussion absolutely has to end in a few days for another season to go off this year, so make an executive decision whether or not everyone touches base with you and whether or not everyone agrees. By the time the Greeks can have a referendum on their latest bailout package, the crisis will be over, and not in a good way. I'm a big fan of democracy, but less so in time-critical situations.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by Adanac on Nov 2^nd, 2011, 7:50am

on 11/02/11 at 07:29:43, Fritzlein wrote:

I agree completely. A 6085/round budget sounds reasonable and I think we should get this league started again as soon as possible.

It's too late to find volunteers and schedule games for November 5th but the following week should be OK.

Title: Re: Legislators Committee Roundtable
Post by megajester on Nov 4^th, 2011, 6:43am

"Well, after some consideration... so much to do, there's only one thing to be done. There comes a time in every son's life when he must, indeed, follow his father's advice: I shall go to bed at once."-Lord Arthur Goring, "An Ideal Husband"

And so I have decided to follow Fritz's advice and just make that executive decision. Could all the managers please prepare a roster for next week. I can confirm that your weekly budget will be 6,085 points. I will prepare a ratings list (in exactly the same way as before) that will be ready by Sunday. EDIT: Season 1 Round 6 ratings apply. Please contact me if anyone you'll be including on your roster isn't on the list.

I will advise on any other changes as soon as possible, but rest assured, everything that can be the same as last season will be.

Last-minute suggestions are still appreciated.