Remove/Lower Token Requirement Ranks

Hello every one, As this is my first post in these forums (that I can remember :p), allow me to introduce myself. I'm Styloke, live in Belgium, I'm about 20 years old and stumbled upon this site a few months back. Since my arrival here, I've nearly always had 3 active regular games leaving one spot open for the occasional live game (about 1-5 a week). After winning two big games yesterday, I finally gained the Sergeant rank, climbing a little bit higher on the total rankings. But now I seem to have hit a wall: I can not get any higher even though I only need about 60 more skill points for the next rank. Why, you ask? Because I don't have anywhere near the required amount of tokens to be able to purchase the next rank. A whopping 40 more games I need to buy that next rank. For some of you this might not be a lot, but for me - let's say your average player - that's 1/3th of the games I've EVER played on this site. So just hang in there and play more games, you could argue. But that begs me to ask this question: Should the ranking system be a system to determine one's skill or amount of time he spends on the site? I'd say the former, but I can only conclude that you need to have played a *lot* of games just to be able to afford the ranks. And it only gets harder the higher your skill and thus rank you should be awarded. I've always enjoyed playing in this site because of the community, but also because the ranks gave me something to strive for. It seems unfair that you can not get any further unless you wait a very long time, cause let's be honest: it only takes time to play x more games. In my opinion that's just a bit silly. I think most of you are getting the picture by now, and I'd just love to hear your opinions! :) kind regards, Styloke

To make it worse I currently have sufficient skill points to buy next rank, but I'm 600 tokens short :(.

nice post

Yea, Every time I would get Sargent rank, 4mygod would change the site/rank status again, lol. So I just gave up on the idea of ever getting in the the top 3. The problem I have is the point system, cause I have plenty of Tokens and Skill points but I have been having a hard time getting past private first class.

plz waiting.when 4mygod have more free time ,he will celebrate a tournament.or u can celebrate a tournament then 4mygod will reward a lot tokens to a winner. it is more fun to get tokens via tournament.

If you invite a person to the site you get 20 tokens for every game they play, up to 25 games. That's 500 tokens per person total. You can go to "My Account" then click "Referral Program." Also as thaithai mentioned there will be a time when we add tournament games and you can earn extra tokens for winning the tournament. Yes the token fees at times can restrict a user from getting the next rank, it will take a while for you to get enough tokens. The ranks don't show who has played the most games though, it still shows skill, but lower rank people might not be there because of bad skill, it could just be because they don't have the tokens, or they just haven't played enough games. In the end playing more games really matters, with or without tokens, because you have to play games to earn points as well.

I would like to add my two cents. The rank cannot accurately reflect game skill in it's current form. One player may only play 8 player increasing games, get lucky every time, and get huge token rewards. Another player could play several two player games and lose only because they received bad luck on starting locations or got cards at 5 cards every time while the opponent got cards at 3 every time. My point is, the rank is a good rough estimate of both time invested and skill. And, I like it that way. My rank goes down and up and down and up... because I'm not afraid to play games that I'll have a low chance of winning. I'll play all the top players, I'll take all the worst combinations of game settings, I'll even play those two player highly random games... I don't care. Rank is nice and on average it's a good indicator of someone's skill, but it's really playing the game to win is what's fun.

I agree the combination of the two -skill points and tokens- is a good idea for rank upgrade. In military also, you can not earn a rank no matter how skillfull you are, you should spend some time and gain experience first.. Also, I know from myself, this risk game becames deeper and deeper as you play, you gain better understanding of each small decisions. Just think of all possible configurations of the board,i.e. army placements. Thats really bloody huge search space, even a computer can not find the optimum easyly.. One needs an intuition, which is only earned by time.. But i do beleive that, if you can not upgrade say two consecutive ranks just because of tokens, and if this becomes a general problem, say for a couple of players, then the thresholds might be fine-tuned. Since, it looks like, especially for higher ranks, required points and tokens is way too high. And also, we are a bunch of players here, dont worry about rank icon too much, it is easyly seen who has a better understanding of the game.. Just have fun, and try to analyse your (and others) mistakes and good moves. That way, we keep a high quality players and games. For me, player quality is more important then a site that is crowded and full of junk. Cheers! lucid.

[quote=4myGod - May 6, 08:44 PM]If you invite a person to the site you get 20 tokens for every game they play, up to 25 games. That's 500 tokens per person total. You can go to "My Account" then click "Referral Program." Also as thaithai mentioned there will be a time when we add tournament games and you can earn extra tokens for winning the tournament. Yes the token fees at times can restrict a user from getting the next rank, it will take a while for you to get enough tokens. The ranks don't show who has played the most games though, it still shows skill, but lower rank people might not be there because of bad skill, it could just be because they don't have the tokens, or they just haven't played enough games. In the end playing more games really matters, with or without tokens, because you have to play games to earn points as well.[/quote] Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. I'm aware of the referral system and I've already referred about three people. Not all of them have been keepers, but it has given me some bonus. Additional ways to gain tokens like tournaments sound great, but in the end will this really take away the problem? I understand to some degree that you don't want to give high ranks away to new players, even if they happen to be skilled enough to get the required skill points, but the truth is that there already is a time requirement. Because it doesn't only take skill to get skill points, it also takes time. Let's look at an example: Imagine a very skilled player who wins a lot, let's say 75% 1 on 1, of games against even the higher ranked player. As it is now, he'll still need to play a lot of games: Average points won assuming fighting to equally ranked opponents: -20*0.25+0.75*20= 10 skill points. Before we go further, some remarks: - This number is distorted by the fact that once he gets higher he'll lose more points depending on his opponent etc, but let's make abstraction of that and say he gains an average of 7-13 skill points per game. - If he plays 2+ player games, he gains more skill points, but the chances of winning also lowers a lot. To not make things too complicated, let's assume the average stays about to same. So as it is now, he'd still need to play about 80games to get the Sergeant rank. Unless he spends all of his time on this site, that'd still take a good month to achieve. Would that still make him a new player? Would that not have made him one of the regulars by then? Wouldn't it be silly to demand him to play for another 2months to get higher up? [quote=lucide - May 7, 05:20 AM]I agree the combination of the two -skill points and tokens- is a good idea for rank upgrade. In military also, you can not earn a rank no matter how skillfull you are, you should spend some time and gain experience first.. Also, I know from myself, this risk game becames deeper and deeper as you play, you gain better understanding of each small decisions. Just think of all possible configurations of the board,i.e. army placements. Thats really bloody huge search space, even a computer can not find the optimum easyly.. One needs an intuition, which is only earned by time.. But i do beleive that, if you can not upgrade say two consecutive ranks just because of tokens, and if this becomes a general problem, say for a couple of players, then the thresholds might be fine-tuned. Since, it looks like, especially for higher ranks, required points and tokens is way too high. And also, we are a bunch of players here, dont worry about rank icon too much, it is easyly seen who has a better understanding of the game.. Just have fun, and try to analyse your (and others) mistakes and good moves. That way, we keep a high quality players and games. For me, player quality is more important then a site that is crowded and full of junk. Cheers! lucid. [/quote] I agree that risk is a very complex game that, certainly at higher level, may depend on those small decisions, but you assume two things here: First of all that a new player has no experience whatsoever with risk, besides maybe the board game. What if an experienced player from an other site wants to check this site out but finds himself blocked by the huge token requirement for the ranks? Won't that take part of his fun away? Besides that, the deeper understanding of which you speak must take a really *long* time if you can only really get that after 350+ games. I'm at far less games currently, but from all the feedback I've been getting from players like thaithai and 1771 I do think I've gained that deeper understanding by now. Lastly you say one shouldn't be bothered by the ranks at all. But then I must ask you: What's the point of the ranking system to start with? Isn't it supposed to be a way to determine once skill? Imagine joining a game with some one you've never played with before. Isn't the one thing you use to get an idea about his skill his rank? tl;dr version: - Token Requirement puts an -in my opinion- unnecessary time constraint on getting ranks while the time to get the skill points in the first place should be enough. - Rank system should be solely a display of once skill, not time spend on this site or amount of friends he has referred. kind regards, Styloke

I have a lot to say about this. First, I think that the tokens required for the ranks are too high. I have played nearly 400 games and I don't have enough tokens for Chief Warrant Officer. That's ridiculous! We need to look at how many total games have to be played to get the necessary tokens for each rank and adjust the needed tokens down. Second, I absolutely think that tokens are a necessary part of the site. It is one of the two biggest differences between this site and its major competitor. Tokens provide a disincentive to cheat. If you cheat to win and get a lot of points fast, you still can't up your rank because you don't have the tokens yet. Also, you can get a lot of points by winning a bunch of 8 player games but you don't get many tokens. The tokens therefore, encourage players to play a good balance of games and not just 8 player games. In other words, when you need tokens you play some 2 player games too. The other thing I like about tokens is that you need them to purchase new game types and new maps. This helps ensure that the players know how to play those game types and are willing to really give a new map a try. If they cost tokens, then they will take the time to learn how to use what they bought so that they don't feel like their spent tokens were a waste. In conclusion, I agree with styloke that it sucks when you can't rank up because you don't have enough tokens, but I still think we need tokens. The solution is to reduce how many tokens are needed. The best way to determine this is to calculate how many total games are needed to be played, assuming 20 tokens per game, to earn each rank. For example, currently you have to play 323 games to get enough tokens to get Warrant Officer. However, a good player can get an average of 24 points a game and have enough points for Warrant Officer after 100 games. It would be really frustrating for that player to have to play another 223 games to have enough tokens. Beyond that it takes 2278 games to get enough tokens for general. Looking at how many games some of the generals on that other site have played, I think 1000 to 1250 or so would be more reasonable. And yes, I took into account the fact that we have 3 more ranks than they do. I fail to see why the token amount required should keep going up with each rank once you get to the higher ranks. Every rank after sergeant should cost the same amount of tokens. I can come up with a suggestion for the required tokens for each rank if you are interested 4myGod.

One more thing. I do think that the required tokens should start small and go up for the first few ranks to encourage more games to be played by the newer players so that they get hooked. This is the other use of tokens, they encourage more games to be played. But after you get Sergeant, it should only be 50 games (1000 tokens) until the next rank.

[quote=Vexer - May 7, 11:19 PM]I have a lot to say about this. First, I think that the tokens required for the ranks are too high. I have played nearly 400 games and I don't have enough tokens for Chief Warrant Officer. That's ridiculous! We need to look at how many total games have to be played to get the necessary tokens for each rank and adjust the needed tokens down. Second, I absolutely think that tokens are a necessary part of the site. It is one of the two biggest differences between this site and its major competitor. Tokens provide a disincentive to cheat. If you cheat to win and get a lot of points fast, you still can't up your rank because you don't have the tokens yet. Also, you can get a lot of points by winning a bunch of 8 player games but you don't get many tokens. The tokens therefore, encourage players to play a good balance of games and not just 8 player games. In other words, when you need tokens you play some 2 player games too. The other thing I like about tokens is that you need them to purchase new game types and new maps. This helps ensure that the players know how to play those game types and are willing to really give a new map a try. If they cost tokens, then they will take the time to learn how to use what they bought so that they don't feel like their spent tokens were a waste. In conclusion, I agree with styloke that it sucks when you can't rank up because you don't have enough tokens, but I still think we need tokens. The solution is to reduce how many tokens are needed. The best way to determine this is to calculate how many total games are needed to be played, assuming 20 tokens per game, to earn each rank. For example, currently you have to play 323 games to get enough tokens to get Warrant Officer. However, a good player can get an average of 24 points a game and have enough points for Warrant Officer after 100 games. It would be really frustrating for that player to have to play another 223 games to have enough tokens. Beyond that it takes 2278 games to get enough tokens for general. Looking at how many games some of the generals on that other site have played, I think 1000 to 1250 or so would be more reasonable. And yes, I took into account the fact that we have 3 more ranks than they do. I fail to see why the token amount required should keep going up with each rank once you get to the higher ranks. Every rank after sergeant should cost the same amount of tokens. I can come up with a suggestion for the required tokens for each rank if you are interested 4myGod. [/quote] You say tokens give a disincentive to cheat, but I think it's the other way around. Imagine being stuck on a rank due to lack of tokens (like I am right now). What would be to fastest way to get tokens (and thus gain the rank you should be getting because you have sufficient skill points)? Cheating! That's right: Make 7 other accounts with you as the referrer, open a live 8player game and make your primary account win. Result? You gain 160points in one game. No matter what ranking system you use, there are always going to be people cheating (maybe not to the extent as in my example but still). The only way to really get rid of cheaters is to have no ranking system at all. Tokens should only be to buy maps and other game modes. Right now it's actually in your disadvantage to purchase any of these, because it may lead to you not being able to purchase that next rank later on. I know I already regret buying another game mode, and I've talked with people who are thinking the same way. I like the solution you are presenting though. Another solution, that might be used together with yours, is to give a variable amount of tokens each game. You could, for example, give more tokens depending on the amount of rounds a game took, amount of players participated, amount of time (for a live game) and so on. This makes it more fair for people who play bigger games more often.

Another solution, that might be used together with yours, is to give a variable amount of tokens each game. You could, for example, give more tokens depending on the amount of rounds a game took, amount of players participated, amount of time (for a live game) and so on. This makes it more fair for people who play bigger games more often. The only problem I have with that, is that 1 player could make 7 accounts, and join an 8 player game. Then he could not only make him win, but make the game have round, after round, after round.

oops, I didn't know how to make it say Styloke, but the first part is yours adapted from yours styloke

I think that if you reduce the amount of tokens required, as I suggested then you won't see players making fake games with fake accounts just to get tokens. I do believe that if you set the token amount just right then you will see less people finding cheap ways to get both tokens and points. It's all about balance.