The Nemesis System

Most players have a nemesis whom they for some peculiar reason cannot beat, or do not beat very often. As a consequence, said players might be inclined to avoid his or hers nemesis to avoid losing ratings unnecessarily, leading to fewer active games. Enter: The Nemesis System. With a supplementary rating bonus added on top of the usual winner's bonus, more players might be tempted into joining games against their nemesis, ignoring the risk of defeat in search of the ultimate prize that would catapult them to the top of the Player Ranks. Similarly, tokens could also be integrated into the solution (if possible tech wise). What do you think – yay or nay? Cheers, vikingo1337

Wow. Zero replies in two years. Guess I'm alone on this one!

Aside from whether people want something like this or not, the math for giving extra rating at the end doesn't work out. Rating on this site is never created. If you win, other players lose rating, and you get exactly the rating they lost. Everybody starts with 1000 rating so the average rating of all players will always be exactly 1000. If we started creating rating out of nowhere to reward you for killing a nemesis, this whole balance would start falling apart, which would in turn have consequences for all the ratings on the website. A nemesis system doesn't seem big enough to make that change. So, where does the extra rating for killing a nemesis come from? Does your nemesis lose that rating? That's harsh, so why would your nemesis ever play with you and run that risk? The alternative is to give people tokens for beating a nemesis, but not sure if people find those that interesting...

How are we giving rating for people to play in tournaments? Is it coming from someone's personal rating?

We don't give rating AFAIK, only tokens right? The rating you get should be from your normal wins.

Several of these tournaments have been doing it: https://dominating12.com/forums/2/general-discussion/3105/1vs1-as-classic-as-it-gets-tourney Not a lot, but I think it is to encourage higher ranked people to still participate.

Well... I guess stuff is already broken then.

As far as I know it has only been the last few tournaments...so we could "undo" it. Or to keep things kosher we could create a dummy user, remove the points from them so there is a balance?

It's not a disaster as long as it's limited, but if there were a continuous system like the Nemesis system creating points out of nowhere, that would be a problem.

Good points. Inflation. And stagnation. But tokens might do the trick too. Is that a possibility? Or you could reward the player who slays his nemesis with a temporary premium membership for, say, a month. A nemesis being a player who “is conquering” you.

[quote=vikingo1337]Good points. Inflation. And stagnation. But tokens might do the trick too. Is that a possibility? Or you could reward the player who slays his nemesis with a temporary premium membership for, say, a month. A nemesis being a player who “is conquering” you.[/quote] Could easily be 'exploited' - furthermore, [i]"is conquering"[/i] only means you're ahead with more than 5 in the tally - sounds a bit 'early' for a nemesis Player A beats B a lot B beats C a lot C, A Then they 'decide' to reverse and get themselves all nice boni. For rating/token boni, I do not think it's an issue really - for premium... it could become a problem... [quote=Cireon]Aside from whether people want something like this or not, the math for giving extra rating at the end doesn't work out. Rating on this site is never created. If you win, other players lose rating, and you get [u]exactly[/u] the rating they lost. Everybody starts with 1000 rating so the average rating of all players will always be exactly 1000. If we started creating rating out of nowhere to reward you for killing a nemesis, this whole balance would start falling apart, which would in turn have consequences for all the ratings on the website. A nemesis system doesn't seem big enough to make that change.[/quote] Just the other day I noticed this^ actually does not hold. In team games, the losers lose a set amount of rating, this rating is then added up to 1 pile and divided equally over the winners - when there's an amount which isn't exactly divisible (e.g. 49/2), the "leftovers" just "fizzle away" in a "black hole" (here: winners both get 24 and 1 rating vanishes) - not that it makes a big difference, but just figured it would be good to note it here (as I was replying anyway), as you wrote "[i]exactly[/i]". Not that I see a reason for why the total average should always exactly be 1000 (other than it being elegant) , but that's beside the point (I have no problems either with rating/tokens/something added for winning a contest/tournament/something). Alas. although I see no real use for the idea and do see possible issues - I'm not against the idea. It would not bother me negatively. -Alex

Yes, a lot of Cireon's comment is how it's supposed to be. There are exceptions and little details that change things. Not a big problem though for as long as the exceptions are small or few.

I still think this idea has merit. Although a nemesis would probably have to be someone who is 'destroying' or even 'dominating' you (instead of 'conquering you' ). Hence, everyone will probably only have one or two nemesis/nemeses on the whole site. It would be kind of like playing assassination, but across all games. And people would have to stay vigilant and check their standings more often. It certainly adds flavour to the games I think. As for the reward for slaying your nemesis, tokens could work. 2,000 perhaps? Then we wouldn't be jeopardising the integrity of the rating system. Come on guys, what's not to like?