Sect season and rating - a request

Bulrok · December 2021

Lim said:

(For added difficulty, and I think Tet raised this already: Keep reverting policy based on public outcry, and that sends the signal that you will revert policy when there is public outcry, which tends to lead to more public outcry. If players are responsible and only start crying out in legit cases - that's fine. But what tends to also happen is you'll see the beginnings of the 'squeaky wheel gets the grease' effect. Which is another form of bad. That's why another public policy 'best practice' is to be slow to revert policy, i.e. extenuating circumstances, extreme hardship)). As my dog likes to often say, it's 'ruff'.

I feel some type of way about this. Shifting the finish line when 75% of the race is over with is bad.

I think this is a legit case to feel frustrated with and speak up about. You may not have directly called this specific case a public outcry, but it does feel implied.

Also, is now a good time to point out that the system is still cheesable? You just ignore sect for the first 11 months of the year instead of ignoring it for the last 11 months.

Edit: It's actually technically easier, because you don't have to fight every once in a while to remain active while you wait on the year to end, you just don't fight at all in Sect until the end.

Whirran · December 2021

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, probably, but I feel like a few things need to be said.

1: There is no precedent, and should never be a precedent imo, for a system remaining in a way that is detremental to the game simply so another person can take advantage of it being that way on the basis that other people have taken advantage of it. Just because something was a certain way, and in this case I think everyone can agree sect was worse before the change, does not mean it should remain that way long enough for one person to continue to benefit from it being that way. Are people honestly ok with this mentality? I'd rather see things fixed than held in place so I, or anyone else, can benefit from them when it's clear they're a problem. Lets fix problems, not abuse them.

2: It's a bit disingenuous to claim that the change did a dis-service to anyone. Many of the people who were at the top of sect fought hardly at all in a year and used the funky way sect worked to not fight at all and maintain that spot. Is it really a dis-service to them? It's not like they were using the system as it was intended or engaging with the system, it was abuse of a poorly implemented mechanic to specifically NOT ENGAGE with the system. I don't think anyone has been done a dis-service here, and I think the claim that anyone has is just trying to create public outcry through guilt.

3: I like Mj quite a bit, but there seems to be some sort of pervasive conspiracy theory that the world is conspiring against her here, and I just don't think that's accurate. In this particular instance, Mj was hoping to ride the way Sect had been allowed to persist long enough to snag the honors line, and I don't really think she needed to. She's good enough to get #1 without needing to play the system. Which brings me to my final point.

4: If you want to be #1 in sect, imo you SHOULD lose heavily if you die to someone much lower. In every competition I know of, ever, you lose massively more by losing to someone punching way above their weight class, if you're at the top. You gain much less beating up people lower than you if you're at the top, because you're at the top. This isn't new or unique, this is how competition works. If you want to be at the top, it's something you should have to deal with. There's no way to go through everyone who joins Sect fairly and say, oh this is a big PKer who just joined but they're at a low rank, so we better limit how many points they can get for winning against higher people, etc. That's not going to be judged fairly no matter what, and that's a waste of time.

To clarify all of this as well, I enjoy playing with Mjoll immensely. It's a shame she's decided to take a step away, but sometimes breaks are a good thing. But I also refuse to stand quietly by for what I see as pretty blatant attempts to get the admin to bend under the pressure of public outcry, for claims that really, I don't find all that compelling.

Lim · December 2021

Seurimas said:
If you give the #1 duelist the fame line for the truncated season, you've just rewarded the bad behavior while acknowledging it was bad.

I see your point, but if you don't give the #1 duelist this season the fame line, then do you take away the fame lines of the ones who have cheesed it before? Where does it stop?

At some point you would have to acknowledge that tweaking the settings is a work in progress, and that there is bound to be some imperfections along the way. If it helps assuage your sense of justice, the collective Aetolia memory is long enough that people would know when people got their fame line from cheese, and not.

Seurimas · December 2021

Lim said:

Seurimas said:
If you give the #1 duelist the fame line for the truncated season, you've just rewarded the bad behavior while acknowledging it was bad.
I see your point, but if you don't give the #1 duelist this season the fame line, then do you take away the fame lines of the ones who have cheesed it before? Where does it stop?

At some point you would have to acknowledge that tweaking the settings is a work in progress, and that there is bound to be some imperfections along the way. If it helps assuage your sense of justice, the collective Aetolia memory is long enough that people would know when people got their fame line from cheese, and not.

That's actually much how I would sum it up as well, though in different terms. Sect is a work in progress, and we should be understanding of changes made along the way. If Mjoll or anyone else is feeling sore about it, they can assuage their pain with the knowledge that the fame line has no real impact on the rest of the game and they will still be remembered as a top duelist.

Lim · December 2021

Bulrok said:

Lim said:

(For added difficulty, and I think Tet raised this already: Keep reverting policy based on public outcry, and that sends the signal that you will revert policy when there is public outcry, which tends to lead to more public outcry. If players are responsible and only start crying out in legit cases - that's fine. But what tends to also happen is you'll see the beginnings of the 'squeaky wheel gets the grease' effect. Which is another form of bad. That's why another public policy 'best practice' is to be slow to revert policy, i.e. extenuating circumstances, extreme hardship)). As my dog likes to often say, it's 'ruff'.
I feel some type of way about this. Shifting the finish line when 75% of the race is over with is bad.

I think this is a legit case to feel frustrated with and speak up about. You may not have directly called this specific case a public outcry, but it does feel implied.

Also, is now a good time to point out that the system is still cheesable? You just ignore sect for the first 11 months of the year instead of ignoring it for the last 11 months.

Edit: It's actually technically easier, because you don't have to fight every once in a while to remain active while you wait on the year to end, you just don't fight at all in Sect until the end.

Yes, it is a legit case to feel frustrated and speak up about, and I think especially more because of the backstory/history involved.

Yes, it is a public outcry. I think that's pretty clear since it is raised in public and has support from a bunch people. I did also say that not all public outcries are bad. I think that is also pretty clear to anyone who has seen good changes arise from players speaking up in public and with support. Anyway to be clear, that bit you quoted is a comment in general, directed more to Seurimas/anyone who might be interested in seeing additional considerations that make issues like this a bit more complex. So it's not any kind of an implied jab or criticism or targeted comment.

Yes, if it's easy to get everything in the final season such that it makes the efforts of players in the first three seasons worthless, that needs to be fixed. Especially if those other players aren't around for the last season to 'defend' their rankings. I would add that having seen how easy it is to get 5 stars, I do think it makes no sense that the cut-off is 4 stars. Anyway, yeah, these are separate issues that go into fine-tuning the sect mechanics.

Eliadon · December 2021

Whirran said:

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, probably, but I feel like a few things need to be said. 1: There is no precedent, and should never be a precedent imo, for a system remaining in a way that is detremental to the game simply so another person can take advantage of it being that way on the basis that other people have taken advantage of it. Just because something was a certain way, and in this case I think everyone can agree sect was worse before the change, does not mean it should remain that way long enough for one person to continue to benefit from it being that way. Are people honestly ok with this mentality? I'd rather see things fixed than held in place so I, or anyone else, can benefit from them when it's clear they're a problem. Lets fix problems, not abuse them.

If it weren't still cheeseable by waiting for the end of the season, I'd agree. As is, Mjoll's timing was poor. People know that she's going to clap them now, which HEAVILY incentivizes stall/drag out tactics

Whirran said:

2: It's a bit disingenuous to claim that the change did a dis-service to anyone. Many of the people who were at the top of sect fought hardly at all in a year and used the funky way sect worked to not fight at all and maintain that spot. Is it really a dis-service to them? It's not like they were using the system as it was intended or engaging with the system, it was abuse of a poorly implemented mechanic to specifically NOT ENGAGE with the system. I don't think anyone has been done a dis-service here, and I think the claim that anyone has is just trying to create public outcry through guilt.

Yes this is a disservice. They expected the system - one that hasn't changed in years - to behave a specific way, and it was changed 9 months into the process.

Whirran said:

3: I like Mj quite a bit, but there seems to be some sort of pervasive conspiracy theory that the world is conspiring against her here, and I just don't think that's accurate. In this particular instance, Mj was hoping to ride the way Sect had been allowed to persist long enough to snag the honors line, and I don't really think she needed to. She's good enough to get #1 without needing to play the system. Which brings me to my final point.

As I've mentioned re: how other games handle system changes, Mjoll has little to do with my opinion on the matter. She has been screwed by a few changes recently, certainly, but even if it was <some player who I dislike> I'd have the same opinion.

Whirran said:

4: If you want to be #1 in sect, imo you SHOULD lose heavily if you die to someone much lower. In every competition I know of, ever, you lose massively more by losing to someone punching way above their weight class, if you're at the top. You gain much less beating up people lower than you if you're at the top, because you're at the top. This isn't new or unique, this is how competition works. If you want to be at the top, it's something you should have to deal with. There's no way to go through everyone who joins Sect fairly and say, oh this is a big PKer who just joined but they're at a low rank, so we better limit how many points they can get for winning against higher people, etc. That's not going to be judged fairly no matter what, and that's a waste of time. To clarify all of this as well, I enjoy playing with Mjoll immensely. It's a shame she's decided to take a step away, but sometimes breaks are a good thing. But I also refuse to stand quietly by for what I see as pretty blatant attempts to get the admin to bend under the pressure of public outcry, for claims that really, I don't find all that compelling.

Sure, that's how elo systems work. This is as expected, and not at all what's at question here. If Mjoll had bothered to fight in sect through the year, she would have maintained rating. Or she could just have done the same thing today instead of at start of season and won that way.

edit: Might be readable now!?

Lim · December 2021

Whirran said:
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, probably, but I feel like a few things need to be said.

1: There is no precedent, and should never be a precedent imo, for a system remaining in a way that is detremental to the game simply so another person can take advantage of it being that way on the basis that other people have taken advantage of it. Just because something was a certain way, and in this case I think everyone can agree sect was worse before the change, does not mean it should remain that way long enough for one person to continue to benefit from it being that way. Are people honestly ok with this mentality? I'd rather see things fixed than held in place so I, or anyone else, can benefit from them when it's clear they're a problem. Lets fix problems, not abuse them.

2: It's a bit disingenuous to claim that the change did a dis-service to anyone. Many of the people who were at the top of sect fought hardly at all in a year and used the funky way sect worked to not fight at all and maintain that spot. Is it really a dis-service to them? It's not like they were using the system as it was intended or engaging with the system, it was abuse of a poorly implemented mechanic to specifically NOT ENGAGE with the system. I don't think anyone has been done a dis-service here, and I think the claim that anyone has is just trying to create public outcry through guilt.

3: I like Mj quite a bit, but there seems to be some sort of pervasive conspiracy theory that the world is conspiring against her here, and I just don't think that's accurate. In this particular instance, Mj was hoping to ride the way Sect had been allowed to persist long enough to snag the honors line, and I don't really think she needed to. She's good enough to get #1 without needing to play the system. Which brings me to my final point.

4: If you want to be #1 in sect, imo you SHOULD lose heavily if you die to someone much lower. In every competition I know of, ever, you lose massively more by losing to someone punching way above their weight class, if you're at the top. You gain much less beating up people lower than you if you're at the top, because you're at the top. This isn't new or unique, this is how competition works. If you want to be at the top, it's something you should have to deal with. There's no way to go through everyone who joins Sect fairly and say, oh this is a big PKer who just joined but they're at a low rank, so we better limit how many points they can get for winning against higher people, etc. That's not going to be judged fairly no matter what, and that's a waste of time.

To clarify all of this as well, I enjoy playing with Mjoll immensely. It's a shame she's decided to take a step away, but sometimes breaks are a good thing. But I also refuse to stand quietly by for what I see as pretty blatant attempts to get the admin to bend under the pressure of public outcry, for claims that really, I don't find all that compelling.

Appreciate the points made. I would add though that it has come to my attention that because of imperfections in sect and combat, e.g. losing from a disconnect, losing from a draw because someone stalls a fight (obvious stalling is issuable, but I think it's not difficult to play in the grey area of stalling without making it look like stalling), the loss in points are apparently quite steep? If they're not really as steep as people think it is, perhaps it would help if this is clarified to assuage people's concerns. If they are that steep, then these little imperfections need to be ironed out so people can confidently compete knowing that a stupid loss not due to lack of skill won't devastate their ratings.

Czcienn · December 2021

Maybe can just give Mjoll the fame (honestly I don’t care enough about fame lines but I understand it does mean a lot to other people) and then give a new fame starting from now so everyone who competed under the old rules can all have the same fame. Then starting from now make these cycles 3 months instead of 1 year, with a new fame line. Makes it easier to change the rules as necessary later and avoids having these issues in future.

Ictinus · December 2021

I've responded to a few people on this issue over the past few days, and I also outlined my reasoning to Mjoll back in September when she emailed me. I've tried to avoid commenting publicly on this (though I have answered direct messages/emails), because by necessity, discussing it is going to feel very targetted, but I'll aim to lay out that reasoning here with some additional comments based on the other posts in this thread.

Firstly, everyone obviously agrees that the change is needed. However, I don't believe that waiting months to make it would have been the right call. There were ~75 days of notice given for the change which, admittedly while over 3/4 of the way through the year is, to my understanding, more than enough time to course correct and solidify position on the board.

When I OK'd this change with both Keroc and Razmael it was with zero prior knowledge of the history of past winners and more pertinently, zero knowledge about the current rank 1 player - perhaps somewhat naively my expectation was that rank 1 at the time didn't matter because I assumed it would change regularly as people continued to fight. I don't think this is an unfair assumption from an objective PoV.

I am not sure where the comment of it being out of my hands came from (assuming the my referred to is me, I may be mistaken), but consider this post my confirmation that I don't consider it to be out of my hands, nor do I consider anything Aetolia related to be out of my hands. I hope that after 3.5 months it's become clear that evading and not responding is not the order of the day anymore, at least provided you contact me directly in some way. Everyone who has done so on this matter (4 people) has received a reply within a day.

Timing is a harder nut to crack. I found myself beset with many requests to address Sect issues in my first couple of weeks from all sides of the game - rating issues being chief among them. I don't necessarily disagree that the timing is bad, but after looking into the data of past winners as well as the current year, I am sorry to say that I don't think it is fair to compare this year's season to those.

Last year's winner had a 4 star accuracy and 6 x as many matches as the current rank one (144 matches for Nisavi vs 24 for Mjoll in distinct 365 day periods). The winner before that (Fezzix) had low accuracy, but also had to start over with their ranking from scratch after a reset (their rating was reset because their accuracy fell to 0), but re-climbed the ladder and still fought 3 x as many matches (85 for Fezzix in the 2018-2019 season). Varel was before that and as far as I'm aware he was grandfathered in when yearly resets became the norm.

The heart of the matter is that I don't think anyone should be able to claim a yearly champion title by having barely participated in the system. I appreciate that those past winners still engaged in some questionable practice of dodging fights, and that this may have set an expectation - but none of those past winners played as few games as Mjoll, the current rank #1 in sect. Further, none of those seasons took place under my tenure and I did not consider them relevant when initially OK'ing the decision. It's only after others have reached out to me and made the comparison that I looked into the data from those past seasons which, again I'm sorry to say, reaffirmed my support for the choice.

There's no magic number of games played obviously, and I am in agreement that season length and the rating/accuracy system need some more attention. These are on The List to be addressed as time allows, but the bottom line is that I stand by this decision and I don't believe that insufficient time was given to course correct even if expectations were for something different.

Jezreth · December 2021

I want to preface this by saying that I don't particular mind this change and support Keroc's right to implement it whenever.

However, I believe it is flawed in that it discourages participation in sect until the end of the season (e.g. to hide strategies, avoid nerfs, etc). It doesn't really solve the "# of matches" issue that Icti mentioned because, as mentioned in other posts, Mjoll could just have won the 24 matches near the end of the season rather than throughout. I know that if I were to start secting again and make a push for top 8, this is the strategy that I would employ.

Shortening season length may help with this, since it is basically always the end of the season in that case.

Wrt the OP, I don't really care if I'm not listed on the top 8 this season (I kinda prefer that actually), but I can see how it might feel bad for others.

Lim · December 2021

My two cents regarding sect in general-

I think fame line shouldn't be given out for it. It seems people do really, really like fame lines, and sect/combat in general isn't in a position to really support that level of competitiveness yet. By my estimate, putting such a juicy bounty as reward will probably will generate more issues and ill-feelings than not.

I'd like to see more encouragement for participation, not just winning. This is the function of the sect items/perks, but I think they would need to be refreshed/rejigged from time to time to keep things fresh and exciting. For example, I think people like Jeromy definitely deserves a tonne of kudos for the never-say-die attitude. Now, it's a bit more work to come up with fun stuff as sect rewards, but I think it'll be worth it if it succeeds at making it a more vibrant scene. I've also seen how people (and myself) -love- the mini-PVE events that have been released recently, and the little flavour rewards you can buy from doing these events - a similar thing would work like a charm for sect, I'm sure.

For me, a successful sect is if we can see more low/mid-tier people playing regularly, and I think the key would be that if more low/mid-tier people realise low/mid-tier people actually sect, they might be encouraged to fight one another. Perhaps a function where, before accepting sect challenge, you would receive a prompt if the challenger is of significantly higher 'ranking' that you, to give you the option to not accept if you don't want to fight someone who will ream you. I'm sure there are many other mechanics that smarter and more creative people than me can think of - but that, I think, would be the direction I want to see the sect develop towards.

Seurimas · December 2021

Jezreth said:
However, I believe it is flawed in that it discourages participation in sect until the end of the season (e.g. to hide strategies, avoid nerfs, etc). It doesn't really solve the "# of matches" issue that Icti mentioned because, as mentioned in other posts, Mjoll could just have won the 24 matches near the end of the season rather than throughout. I know that if I were to start secting again and make a push for top 8, this is the strategy that I would employ.

This seems risky. What if your amazing, secret strategies are just so overpowered the admin choose to nerf them out of season? Now you've wasted a whole year not participating in what is supposed to be a fun activity for you, and you don't even have a top 8 spot to show for it. This seems doubly risky as this whole thread is about how the Admin are ready and willing to address issues with the system mid-season. I can imagine there would not be a lot of sympathy or consideration for someone abusing the system like that, either.

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