League General Discussion Thread

@AndyCub said in League General Discussion Thread:

How does one join the league? I’ve been playing TripleA for over a year now, and want to start playing with other people online.

Just post a request for opponents here:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/30809/find-league-opponents-thread/613

@trulpen Cool, thanks!

If I’m defending, with a carrier and some planes, can I remove the carrier, and still have the planes survive until my text turn, since I’m not allowed to move them?

Yes, they just need a landing spot after the battle, or they die.

They can move up to one space for a safe landing spot if I’m not mistaken.

@trulpen How far can they move after the battle?

@AndyCub one move

@AndyCub next round they move like normal planes

@Sovietishcat So they stay in the SZ until the next turn, or they get one move to get to a landing spot?

Depends on if they are attacking or defending planes. Defending planes move 1 space if their origin is no longer valid, whether they are scramblers or Carrier based planes. If no such space is available, they splash and are lost.

Attackers use their remaining movement to find a landing space, and splash if no one is available.

@simon33 like in sz97 no landing spots with in 1. lets say UK has a carrier and a fighter and and the axis navy hits 1 time. if you take the carrier the axis navy can retreat and the plan splashes rite? so would it be better to keep the carrier?

Correct.

Okay I admit I am new playing here. However, that is not going to stop me from throwing in my two cents regarding the rating system. :grin:

I see a discussion back in March that I wholeheartedly agree with @trulpen (His post below). From my perspective the current rating system discourages play from the top tier with the bottom tier. That in my opinion is counterproductive. I would think we would want new players to have the opportunity to play anyone to feel welcome. Not that “I am sorry but until you get a high enough rating I do not want to play you.” In addition why punish Top Tier players for playing against new players or players that are not as good as them? The ONLY way average players are going to get better is by playing better players.

From my perspective I enjoy coaching players, teaching them to become better, so that eventually they can challenge me. It also helps grow the community; when people get better at the game they enjoy it more and bring in even more players. Under the current system that teaching is discouraged.

I want to play in the League Tourny this year. To do that I have to be in the top 8 Players. Which means everytime I play a Tier 2 or Tier 3 player I am decreasing my chances of playing in the League Tournament. Why would we do that? Nothing should discourage any Player from playing another Player if they want to. Now that I will soon be at Tier 1 I do not want to play anyone below me and that is just wrong.

Many years ago I played on the Days of Infamy website that was just Pacific. It had what I would have called a chess rating. Though based on trulpen’s post perhaps it was an ELO system. The higher ranked person received as few as one point for winning against lower tier players and the lower tier players could gain as much as 18-21 points if they won. Sure it was a risk for the higher tier players to play lower tiers, especially since dice are involved, however they didn’t automatically go down in ranking as long as they won.

I would wholeheartedly support a change in the rating system to reflect not an average per win point system but an overall ranking system.

@trulpen said in League General Discussion Thread:

I know change is hard, but I’ve noted some internal and external frustration with the ranking system. It doesn’t really allow for play were opponents have a big gap. Being, say, tier E and playing tier 3 means that the higher ranked player will lose ranking no matter what.
Even though it’s neat and functional, the present ranking system is actually flawed in this respect.
I think that implementing something like the chess Elo-rating system could solve this? I believe the algorithm could be incorporated as it is.
The point of difference is that with Elo a tier 3 could easily play against an E or M player, without the ranking being an issue. The higher player would most likely win, gaining a very small rating increase, but lose a lot if the game was lost. By the same measure the lower ranked player would gain a lot with a win, but lose a little with a loss.

@AndrewAAGamer There was a similar discussion a few years ago. The main conclusion of that discussion is that when there’s a 2 tier difference between opponents, the higher tier opponent will win the overwhelming majority of the time. There wasn’t a contest, so they shouldn’t be playing each other. If they still want to play each other, they are free to play a non-league game.

ELO systems seem to require or advantage a higher amount of games played, while not many players get above 15 games.

@AndrewAAGamer I think if you want a change you need to describe a system and how it should work. It’s counterproductive to say todays system is crap and not propose a new and better system. I see you suggest ELO, but how to use that in our league is not discussed. Up to that happens todays system will stand, as it is easy to record the scores, its easy to understand and it gives a good description of how “good” a player is. Although I agree with your point, that todays system is not suitable for games between players with very different skill levels.

The present system was not described as crap, rather “neat” and “functional” was used as adjectives. :) But it is kind of insufficient.

@DizzKneeLand33 should have a good prospect for presentation. He did a tweak of Elo for an A&A-tourney a few years back. I haven’t looked at it, but I’m sure it’s solid.

@Adam514 said in League General Discussion Thread:

@AndrewAAGamer There was a similar discussion a few years ago. The main conclusion of that discussion is that when there’s a 2 tier difference between opponents, the higher tier opponent will win the overwhelming majority of the time. There wasn’t a contest, so they shouldn’t be playing each other. If they still want to play each other, they are free to play a non-league game.

ELO systems seem to require or advantage a higher amount of games played, while not many players get above 15 games.

Adam; thanks for chiming in. So I guess the question is what is the goal for the League? Is it to be a smaller subset than the actual number of players on this site? Is it really only for the best players? Do we want to discourage play between good and bad players? If so than the current format seems to be working as intended. Or should the goal be for every player to be in the League as one large community and a path for people to get better and hone their skills in a more competitive environment and try and climb the ladder and show their stuff? Maybe even have more Tournaments than once a year?

As for the comment "There wasn’t a contest, so they shouldn’t be playing each other. " I am going to take exception to that. The whole point of better players playing against not as good players is so the not as good players learn and get better. In the two games I have finished so far on this site both of my opponents stated they learned something. Is that not a good thing? Plus with an ELO type system the top tier player only gets 1 point if the gap is large. The lower Tier player would gain 20 points if they won. That means the top tier player has to win 95% of the time just to stay even. Maybe the top tier player would win all 20 games though since dice are involved losing one game is not unreasonable. I have seen some pretty crazy dice already in my games here.

If you were worried that top players would go up too easily, even at one point at a time, via weaker competition there could still be imposed the same number of game limits versus any one player that the League has today to avoid that.

I guess it boils down to what is the goal of the League?

@AndrewAAGamer I agree with @AndrewAAGamer. He has many valid points!

@oysteilo said in League General Discussion Thread:

@AndrewAAGamer I think if you want a change you need to describe a system and how it should work. It’s counterproductive to say todays system is crap and not propose a new and better system. I see you suggest ELO, but how to use that in our league is not discussed. Up to that happens todays system will stand, as it is easy to record the scores, its easy to understand and it gives a good description of how “good” a player is. Although I agree with your point, that todays system is not suitable for games between players with very different skill levels.

@oysteilo I agree with you that it is not sufficient to only complain about something without proposing some type of solution. I thought I did that when I proposed some type of ELO system. I do think that making the criteria to suggest changes requires explaining exactly how a revised system would be implemented is setting the bar too high. I am not technical enough to state how to implement an ELO solution. I do have experience playing in one and it worked well.

As a new Player I am giving my insight to my experience on this site. The top players are not interested in playing me or anyone else of lower rank; I have seen that stated many times. That does not make me, and I assume any other new players, feel welcomed. Now that my rank is getting higher I do not want to play the lower tier players either which is exactly opposite of how I want to feel. It does not make sense to me that the ranking system promotes that type of feelings and behavior.

hello everyone, first let me say how nice it is that there are active players who want to improve & grow our league! I have been playing here for a long, long time, before there was any formal league, which we first formed, I believe, around 2005, anyway, we began with a playoff type format which was changed, years ago by the most active amongst us to the system we have today, which was developed by, and continues to be administered by Gamerman. Thank you @gamerman01! Personally I think the system is perfect as is, but with that said, I do think there is room for more tournaments. There is a league post season tournament based on the current league scoring system. If someone is willing to put in the work to get this started I am sure Gamerman of DJensen would help get it running. That might provide the “fix” some of you are looking for right now.