bennyprofane
Joined: Sep 10, 2007
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 Posted:
Dec 28, 2008 - 14:28 |
 
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I think that trying to enforce a certain level of involuntary racial diversity on coaches in Blackbox is probably doomed to failure, but I do think it could be encouraged by factoring the recent racial opponents of each team into their match-ups.
I'm prompted to this because 3 of my last 4 games as dark elves in the box have been against orcs, and 3 of my last 4 games as lizardmen have been against chaos. Overall, 5 of 14 lizardmen games have been vs chaos, 10 of 39 DE matches vs orcs. 40% of my total games have been against those 2 races. You may say 'be thankful it wasn't dwarves or khemri' but it's not just that I'm bored of playing against basher races, it's that I'm bored of the same opponents again and again. It's really boring to play against the same race every game, especially when it's 3 out of 4 games.
In fact, my record against orcs with my DE is better than my overall record, and in my 5 games lizard vs chaos I have won 4 drawn 1. I'm not complaining because these repeat match-ups are making me lose, but because they're so dull that as soon as I see that I'm up against the same race again, I can't really be bothered to pay too much attention to the game, and I read a book while I play just to stop myself going to sleep, whcih makes me a boring, chatless, slow opponent. Blackbox could be so much fun, but playing the same races using the same old tactics every time makes it much more of a grind than a test.
So, what I suggest, is that your last 3 racial opponents should be taken into account in the match-ups. Maybe a 50% weighting against playing the race you just played, 25% against the race before that, and 10% against the race 3 games ago. I would quite happily take a 5/10TS penalty to not be up against the same race in 6 of 8 games.
There is already a factor in the match-up algorithm to reduce match-ups of the same race (I don't understand this at all; playing against your own race is almost always fun because you and your opponent have the same materials.) so clearly a recent-racial-opponent factor could be added. I don't see that there would be any drawback to this, and it might encourage people to play a wider variety of races because it would be easier to get match-ups that way.
Any opinions. I know there are plenty of threads already about how to encourage diversity or ensure fun match-ups, but I don't think I've seen this idea put forward yet. |
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shadow46x2
Joined: Nov 22, 2003
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Dec 28, 2008 - 14:34 |
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this was an idea put forth in the original black box idea back when it was still a player run creation...
the idea got scraped when it became a site function...
i completely agree that something like this should exist....imo, over a team's career, there should be a healthy balance between all races played against, with obvious exceptions for rare races at certain TR/TS levels, like flings/gobbos....
it's a nice balance between those who argue for no forced diversity, and those who want it as a requirement...that way people can still play whatever races they want, and the rest can have the illusion of diversity
--j |
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| origami wrote: | | There is no god but Nuffle, and Shadow is his prophet. |
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Eddy
Joined: Aug 04, 2004
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| Posted:
Dec 28, 2008 - 14:58 |
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In my opinion, racial diversity should be attained by correctly tuning the scheduler and the TS calculation, not by a system like the one you're suggesting.
Now, what IS a correct tuning is an entirely different and confusing problem. |
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'The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.'
Robert R. Coveyou |
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funnyfingers
Joined: Nov 13, 2005
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Dec 28, 2008 - 17:23 |
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Can't read your whole post as it is too long for me, but I agree with the subject:) |
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spelledaren
Joined: Mar 06, 2004
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Dec 28, 2008 - 17:30 |
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If not too much of a hassle to code, this really has no particular bad side. |
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Arktoris
Joined: Feb 16, 2004
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Dec 28, 2008 - 17:58 |
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I say everyone should just load up on dirty player and go "PaulHicks" on any Fisher Price [B]ox team  |
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shadow46x2
Joined: Nov 22, 2003
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| Posted:
Dec 28, 2008 - 18:47 |
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| Eddy wrote: | In my opinion, racial diversity should be attained by correctly tuning the scheduler and the TS calculation, not by a system like the one you're suggesting.
Now, what IS a correct tuning is an entirely different and confusing problem. |
it's late, and i haven't slept, so i'm thinking i'm missing something here...
first off, TS doesn't care what your race is....so maybe i'm missing how tuning the TS calculation will balance out diversity more, save for encouraging more stunty/ogre based teams....
secondly...um....isn't what benny suggested the same as "tuning the scheduler"?....
--j |
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| origami wrote: | | There is no god but Nuffle, and Shadow is his prophet. |
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sk8bcn
Joined: Apr 13, 2004
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Dec 28, 2008 - 19:17 |
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well what benny asks, kind of doesn't work.
Let's say there are 2 races, orks and elves.
And 10 ork teams for 1 elf team. Even with a modifier, the 10 orks still have just 1 elf team to play with. |
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johan
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| Posted:
Dec 28, 2008 - 21:31 |
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| shadow46x2 wrote: | | first off, TS doesn't care what your race is....so maybe i'm missing how tuning the TS calculation will balance out diversity more, save for encouraging more stunty/ogre based teams.... |
If a race gets an (undeserved) "rebate" in TS, obviously you can tweak the calculation. For instance, there is clearly something that makes/made Halflings dirt-cheap in TS. Find that factor and correct it, and the TS advantage is reduced.
I assume that this is what Christer already did for Halflings/Gobbos.
Once a team has a smaller TS advantage, it will likely be less popular as a Box team, thus increasing the diversity. |
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”It's very sad
To see the ancient and distinguished game that used to be
A model of decorum and tranquillity
Become like any other sport, a battleground...”
—Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus, Chess |
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JanMattys
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
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| Posted:
Dec 28, 2008 - 21:38 |
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| shadow46x2 wrote: | this was an idea put forth in the original black box idea back when it was still a player run creation...
the idea got scraped when it became a site function...
i completely agree that something like this should exist....imo, over a team's career, there should be a healthy balance between all races played against, with obvious exceptions for rare races at certain TR/TS levels, like flings/gobbos....
it's a nice balance between those who argue for no forced diversity, and those who want it as a requirement...that way people can still play whatever races they want, and the rest can have the illusion of diversity
--j |
It would be nice but I think only Christer can safely decide if putting a "recent opponents race" factor would reduce the available pairings too much or not. Let's not forget that everytime we ask for a new "rule" to be added to the matchups-bot, we narrow the available choice by a considerable amount. |
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