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Topic: League Feedback (Read 34725 times) |
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Fritzlein
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #165 on: Jul 27th, 2010, 8:30pm » |
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I never quite got the logic of forbidding underspending myself. The justification was to prevent one team from giving another team points by fielding a super-weak team. However, there is no way to prevent one team from giving another team even more points than that by fielding a regular team that loses its games on purpose. No formula or regulation can stop someone that wants to lose.
That reminds of a dance at my college where there was a sign prohibiting tobacco in the middle of everyone who was smoking marijuana. That seemed pretty futile as well. 
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speek
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #166 on: Jul 27th, 2010, 10:37pm » |
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Why would a team throw a match on purpose?
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Fritzlein
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #167 on: Jul 27th, 2010, 10:58pm » |
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on Jul 27th, 2010, 10:37pm, speek wrote:| Why would a team throw a match on purpose? |
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Indeed, and given the lack of motivation, why have a rule that intends to prevent it but can't?
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Adanac
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #168 on: Jul 27th, 2010, 11:12pm » |
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on Jul 27th, 2010, 7:39pm, knarl wrote:| I just realised our team is going to be penalised one league point for underspending in the first round of the season. |
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I wasn't aware of that new rule; is it too late to change our roster?
We only had 2 players that volunteered to play, Knarl and Rozencrantz. Adding Harren to the top board was purely out of necessity since he's the only other player who indicated that he might be able to play next weekend.
I could offer to replace Harren on top board to get over the minimum rating hurdle, but I'm even less likely than he is to be able to play. If our opponent is available to play late Sunday night or maybe Monday morning then that would fit my schedule. Unfortunately, Thursday - Sunday evening is completely unavailable.
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novacat
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #169 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 12:01am » |
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on Jul 27th, 2010, 10:37pm, speek wrote:| Why would a team throw a match on purpose? |
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To decide the winner if the given team can't win.
As for the underspending and overspending, both are to prevent one team from giving too great of an advantage to another team. Underspending will likely result in the other team getting 9 points, much like overspending will likely result in the other team getting 3 points. Also, the extra points you get from the underspend may be used against the next opponents and create an even bigger disparity. The difference between underspending and losing on purpose is that the former can be done with good intentions and the latter requires malicious intent.
I don't know if I agree with limiting spending or not. However, if there is a maximum spending limit, it is equally fair to have a minimum.
The problem with per round limits is that the average for each round should not be the same. The league budget is set with an extra 100 points per person for future growth, but in the first round there is no growth yet.
6550/3 = 2183; only 5 players are higher than this. 5150/3 = 1717; 17 players are below this. That leaves 19 players in the middle. After adding 100 points to everyone, 6 are above and 9 are below with 26 in the middle. Why not decrease the limit by 100 points now and increase it each round by 20?
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megajester
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #170 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 12:36am » |
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on Jul 28th, 2010, 12:01am, novacat wrote:
To decide the winner if the given team can't win.
As for the underspending and overspending, both are to prevent one team from giving too great of an advantage to another team. Underspending will likely result in the other team getting 9 points, much like overspending will likely result in the other team getting 3 points. Also, the extra points you get from the underspend may be used against the next opponents and create an even bigger disparity. The difference between underspending and losing on purpose is that the former can be done with good intentions and the latter requires malicious intent.
I don't know if I agree with limiting spending or not. However, if there is a maximum spending limit, it is equally fair to have a minimum.
The problem with per round limits is that the average for each round should not be the same. The league budget is set with an extra 100 points per person for future growth, but in the first round there is no growth yet.
6550/3 = 2183; only 5 players are higher than this. 5150/3 = 1717; 17 players are below this. That leaves 19 players in the middle. After adding 100 points to everyone, 6 are above and 9 are below with 26 in the middle. Why not decrease the limit by 100 points now and increase it each round by 20? |
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...because it would be very complicated, and because that's only half the reason for the additional 100 points.
In theory, a higher rated player is more likely to be able to set aside time to play, for the simple reason that he needed to set aside a fair bit of time to get to that high rating. So boosting the budget by 100 points per player helps to prevent situations where plenty of players are available but none of them are weak enough.
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speek
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #171 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 8:44am » |
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Has overspending/underspending actually created a problem before? And even if it did, it only did so once (as that's how many times you've done this). I'm not sure I see the wisdom of making rules to prevent non-problems.
To determine if you actually have a problem, you should track the total number of points each team plays against during the league. If you end up with one team that played against dramatically more points, or fewer points, than you'd have a good basis for making such a rule. You would also get some data for a possible equation such as (average pts - pts) = x league points.
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PMertens
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #172 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 8:50am » |
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on Jul 28th, 2010, 12:36am, megajester wrote:| In theory, a higher rated player is more likely to be able to set aside time to play, for the simple reason that he needed to set aside a fair bit of time to get to that high rating. |
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that is a really intersting theory ... does it apply to any of our higher rated players ? certainly not to me 
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Fritzlein
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #173 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 9:37am » |
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I was available every round last season and expect to be available every round this season. I am eager to play, and would like to get a game every time I am available. However, I don't like what it does to the league when the higher-rated players play more. The lower-rated players should be just as important to team success. I recommended slightly lowering the per-round budget from last year so that captains would be under greater pressure to field lower-rated players. It surprised me to see the budget slightly raised instead. I don't know what formula is necessary to arrive at the budget I want; I just know what budget I want. 
Anyway, like so many things in life, we just have to try out various solutions and see which solution works best in practice. Everything has unintended consequences. We live and learn. After trying enough things that are sub-optimal, we start to do it well.
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| « Last Edit: Jul 28th, 2010, 9:39am by Fritzlein » |
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megajester
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #174 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 11:05am » |
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@Adanac
If you'd actually read the message I sent you, you'd have known that it wasn't too late to change your roster. I gave you until 12:00 GMT today. Despite there being no provision for this in the rules (and it really being your responsibility to know the rules) I decided to hold up the entire schedule just to give you a break. But that boat has sailed now...
And guys, guys... You all had plenty of time to voice your concerns before this league started. I went out of my way to ask for everybody's opinion, even though everybody keeps telling me they'd be perfectly happy for me to just call the shots as I see fit. If the current rules are "sub-optimal" (!) whose fault is that?
If you want the rules to change for the next league, great. Write it all down here, the more the merrier. The Arimaa community's wish is my command. But don't let me choose the menu and then complain when you don't like what I serve up.
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Fritzlein
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #175 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 11:59am » |
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For the record, I'm expressing the same opinions now that I expressed when you asked for comments. I'm fine with you calling the shots, even when you make a different decision that what I recommended. Indeed, the fact that I am fine with you calling the shots is precisely why I didn't argue to the death about every point on which we disagreed before the league began.
One inevitable consequence of trying something new is that we don't know how it will work out. Rules that sound great in theory produce unexpected results in practice. It's fine to say that rule changes are allowed only between seasons, but it would be too much to say that feedback is only allowed between seasons. During the season is exactly when we see whether the rules we have chosen are causing problems.
It's tough being an organizer because every time someone says, "It would would better another way," it sounds like they are saying, "You are messing up everything." That's not the way I feel, though. I'm very grateful that you are running the AWL, and I think you are doing a great job of it. I'll try to remember to say that more often while I am bringing up things that I would do differently.
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| « Last Edit: Jul 28th, 2010, 12:06pm by Fritzlein » |
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megajester
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #176 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 12:24pm » |
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*sighs* Yeah, you're right, you have been consistently arguing for a budget reduction.
Thing is, I calculated the budget this time using exactly the same equation as last time, and managed to get it into my head that the total was less, not more than in the last season. (Although this does mean the average player rating has gone up, not down.)
I thought it would be enough to make a post in League News giving everybody a week to point out anything I'd missed. And nobody did.
But a week is probably too short to discuss something as complex as budget calculation, expecially when you feel as if you've already given your two cents worth and I didn't include it.
We live and learn...
PMertens may well have a point about my as sumption that stronger players are probably more readily available than weaker ones.
Perhaps I should have just gotten rid of the extra 100 points per player. I think we need to keep it as simple as possible; I only just got my head around that post you made where you were talking about 1000ths of a league point and so on. I know you weren't proposing we do that exactly, but would you mind explaining again exactly how you would rejig the budget calculation?
You're right about getting the feedback while it's still hot. I'm all for that, I didn't mean players shouldn't comment on what we should do for future leagues. I'm sorry if it came across like that.
PS: This is good for a laugh. I had to spell "assumption" "as sumption" because when I put "my" in front of it the forum thought I was talking about my bottom, and replaced it with "I disagree." LOL!
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| « Last Edit: Jul 28th, 2010, 12:28pm by megajester » |
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Adanac
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #177 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 12:54pm » |
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on Jul 28th, 2010, 11:05am, megajester wrote:@Adanac
If you'd actually read the message I sent you, you'd have known that it wasn't too late to change your roster. I gave you until 12:00 GMT today. Despite there being no provision for this in the rules (and it really being your responsibility to know the rules) I decided to hold up the entire schedule just to give you a break. But that boat has sailed now... |
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I didn’t know the rule but it didn’t really matter anyway. We only had 3 players available this week and, as luck would have it, we didn’t fit into the acceptable rating range. Oh well, no big deal.
I have no problem with the rule changes and I don’t expect it to be an issue for my team in the future. We’re ordinarily very close to the 5850 mark every match, give or take a couple hundred points.
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megajester
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #178 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 1:00pm » |
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on Jul 28th, 2010, 12:54pm, Adanac wrote:
I didn’t know the rule but it didn’t really matter anyway. We only had 3 players available this week and, as luck would have it, we didn’t fit into the acceptable rating range. Oh well, no big deal.
I have no problem with the rule changes and I don’t expect it to be an issue for my team in the future. We’re ordinarily very close to the 5850 mark every match, give or take a couple hundred points.
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Sorry I was short with you. It's been a long day.
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Fritzlein
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Re: League Feedback
« Reply #179 on: Jul 28th, 2010, 2:25pm » |
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on Jul 28th, 2010, 12:24pm, megajester wrote:| Perhaps I should have just gotten rid of the extra 100 points per player. I think we need to keep it as simple as possible; I only just got my head around that post you made where you were talking about 1000ths of a league point and so on. I know you weren't proposing we do that exactly, but would you mind explaining again exactly how you would rejig the budget calculation? |
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I also think we need to keep things as simple as possible. That's why I would have used the budget mechanism of the first season, except with a slightly lower season total.
There's a legitimate concern about teams going easy against one opposing team and then going hard on another opposing team. That kind of favoritism is a possibility in any round-robin format. The possibility for collusion, either explicit or implicit, that is always present in round robins is why I feel that World Championships should always be elimination-style tournaments.
I like the round-robin format of the AWL, though, because it is supposed to be a friendly league. I like trusting every team to maximize its own score. I like the way AWL is structured to be participatory.
I probably shouldn't have even talked about the per-round budget as an alternative to the per-season budget. The only good that can come of it is to prevent a team from going really hard against one opposing team to drag that team down. Unfortunately, it can't prevent the opposite, namely giving free points to one opponent to lift them over another opponent, so the round-robin problem would still exist.
I presented the scheme while trying not to endorse it, which was dumb. Why would I forward a formula that I don't support using? The problem is that I am a mathematician, so I can't resist an opportunity to present an equation, even a useless equation.
The way a per-round budget would work is to transfer points to the other team as compensation for fielding an overrated squad. Thus you can't hurt them by overspending. Indeed, on average your overspending would help them due to the transfer of points. You could dominate every board by 400 rating points, sweep all three games, and end up giving the other team more points than if you had just stayed in budget to duke it out.
Within each round, one would transfer 0.1 points to the other team per 35 points overspend, rounded up. If both teams overspend, transfer only the net. It's not super-complicated, but it's extra busywork for the administrator each round. The only reason it appeared complicated was that I was trying to justify the formula in my previous post rather than merely suggesting it.
With a per-round budget, there would be no season budget. There would be no way to save up for later rounds by spending less in the current round. This lack of flexibility would really hit teams hard if they only had three volunteers. Under the current system, it seems that over-budget and under-budget squads are less likely to be the result of someone trying to abuse the system, and more likely the result of having no choice in the matter. As long as that is what is actually happening, it makes more sense to have a per-season budget.
For example, it does suck to be the Ring of Fire this round, when they might get swept by the Rockies. But at least with a per-season budget (and no per-round budget) they could feel better knowing they can overspend on some later round, without penalty, to try to get back the points they lost this round when they had no other roster choices.
Contrariwise, nobody thinks Ring of Fire is trying to throw the league to the Rockies, and even if we did think they were doing that, penalizing them a league point would in no way stop them from throwing the league to the Rockies.
Thus I'd be happy reverting to last season's budget scheme. Simpler, and probably more appropriate to the situation. Even better, we could revert to last season's budget targets.
I guess that I am proposing changing the rules in the middle of a season, but we are barely underway and I doubt any captain will feel that their strategy has been invalidated by the change. It's your call as to how bad a precedent it would be to make a quick change while things are just getting underway, and whether the damage would be outweighed by perhaps running more smoothly in the current season.
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| « Last Edit: Jul 28th, 2010, 2:34pm by Fritzlein » |
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