Does The Consecutive Streak Leaderboard Mean Anything?

[AAFitz]

My opinion is that there is a whole lot of useless info on the leaderboard page. Specifically the Most consecutive defeated opponents, along with the all time consecutive defeated opponents. I fail to see any skill in this at all. It is a mere curiosity, and requires only a manipulation of how and when you take your turns. All you need do is load up your winning games by first playing all of your loosing games quick, and finishing them first. Then when you are all loaded up with a big run of winning games, you simply switch it around and join a bunch of games and play the winning games fast, and use all of the clock for the loosing games.

This statistic means absolutely nothing, and only clutters up the leaderboard with useless info. The space could be used for far more important and relevant info, if you ask me.

It took a hell of a lot more than manipulation of a game or two to not lose to a single opponent in 48, especially considering they were lots, and lots, and lots of small games.... all with a theoretical 50% chance of losing.

I do suggest the amount of luck for that to happen, and in my case was absolutely unbelievable.... but in some ways going for a win streak is more difficult than gaining score. It requires a level of perfection even in timing of games that is quite frankly, twice as hard as simply winning points. My streak was pure luck as I had losses that didnt happen because of deadbeats, but was similarly longer because of a mercinary doubles game, and simply forgetting a real time game. The actual number, ignoring the deadbeats in the middle was more like 55.

In any case, I recommend you try to break that before saying its easy. Playing and picking the perfect games to have a perfect record possibly takes more thought and calculation than playing the game itself.

Most importantly, it gives everything something to shoot for... those who dont care about points, but still want to aim for goals without playing tons of games. Everyone gets onto that list at some point, and many near the top. Its a great way to foster competition at all levels on the scoreboard.

At the same time...ALL records, all lists and all scoreboards must be regarded with the appropriate grain of salt....they only ever mean that the person achieved that goal and often, not much more than that.

 

[coolname]

It took a hell of a lot more than manipulation of a game or two to not lose to a single opponent in 48,

On the streak: not that I have even been close, but once I could better my personal best (which is 11) by stalling in a game I was about to lose. I was in another game that I was about to win, so timing them (play fast in the sure win, stall/play slow in the sure loss) could improve my streak. In the end, I just finished both in my normal speed, so I ended up getting the loss first (bye bye streak) and then the win.

No big deal, but the streak might mess up player's incentives and lead to sub-optimal game play in some scenario's.

I like leader boards and rankings etc, just not too fond of the streak (That takes nothing away from the awe with which I look at AAFitz' 48-streak. Could that be the Joe DiMaggio-hit streak for MajorCommand, the streak that will never be broken? [http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats3.shtml] )

 

[mapguy]

lmao....the mere fact that you have to clear out games proves the contrary defacto.

You were suggesting it was easy, and now you need to plan and plot a course of action to get there....and I actually agree it would be easy enough. I myself have played 40 dubs games on here, and have yet to lose one.... however, with a selection of games it is pretty tough to do, especially when no less than 20 of them were 1v1.

But I definitely know it will be broken, if I did it, anyone can.

I already said that I do NOT see any real skill in consecutive defeats. Can you show any evidence to the contrary ?
Streaks are only a byproduct of win/loss percentage. The stat says absolutely nothing about a players skill. If you think that it does, then you are saying that there IS a certain skill involved. Yes, this so-called skill is nothing more than manipulation of when you play your loosing verses winning games.

I will break your 48, and I will do it with all 1v1's. I think that it is stupid, but I will brave through it to prove my point.

AAfitz, you are without a doubt one of the best players that I have ever played this game with. I find it very odd that a person with your skill would be so proud of a meaningless stat such as consecutive defeated opponents.

 

[zspBANNED]

I will break your 48, and I will do it with all 1v1's.

I'm looking forward to seeing this.

 

[mapguy]

I'm looking forward to seeing this.

hahaha. Well at the very least I should be able to set the record for 1v1 consecutive. lol.

Either way, I still fail to see any justifiable "bragging rights" to any of it.

@Fitz- I am just not following your logic here. On one hand you are saying that if I make a strategic plan, that goes to achieving the record, there is something wrong with that ?
On the other hand you are saying that holding the record means something. Like it takes some kind of skill or something. All of this seems contrary to me. Unless you are saying that it only means something if you are NOT trying to break the "streak" record, but inadvertently, or just by pure accident, you manage to set the record. If that is the case, I would just find that we are back to my contention that streaks are NOT an important statistic to have on the leaderboard. There are many (way) more important bits of info that could take its place. Some of these include-

Badges, medals, commendations. milestones, clans, country of origin, favorite board and settings, short message, etc...

Also, going back to the idea about milestones. I think it would be very cool to have certain milestones that once reached gains the player a different color name. Once these levels have been reached the player retains that level even if he should drop back down below these milestones. The milestones could include such things as making it into the top 100, top 10, and top dog. These milestones would not be only about points. They could include whatever you wish.

 

[AAFitz]

I already said that I do NOT see any real skill in consecutive defeats. Can you show any evidence to the contrary ?
Streaks are only a byproduct of win/loss percentage. The stat says absolutely nothing about a players skill. If you think that it does, then you are saying that there IS a certain skill involved. Yes, this so-called skill is nothing more than manipulation of when you play your loosing verses winning games.

I will break your 48, and I will do it with all 1v1's. I think that it is stupid, but I will brave through it to prove my point.

AAfitz, you are without a doubt one of the best players that I have ever played this game with. I find it very odd that a person with your skill would be so proud of a meaningless stat such as consecutive defeated opponents.

it is the fact that you are suggesting there is no real skill in consecutive defeats that I am debating. Im not trying to prove you havent said that....only that you are wrong. If you think you can win 45 1v1s in a row and not be good, well Id say go for it...but you better not let any good players see them, because it would be virtually impossible to win 48 in a row against a good player. Its stupid to think its even possible.

What I think you are confused by is that hundreds of games were set up, and only certain ones were played and others werent... that wasnt the case. And, it takes skill just to drag out some games, sometimes more skill than winning itself. I suppose if one wanted to just set up 200 games and slow play the losers, it might work, but even that takes some skill because you cant be sure of which ones are the losers...and then, you still have to speed up the winners. In any case, it will take a vast amount of skill, to even aim for it, and one mistake anywhere pretty much ends it.

You are further wrong when you say im one of the best players. Im not. Seriously. I have a lot of experience with a few types of games, and the overall game itself. What I am good at is developing systems and refining them, so that I do not have to rely on my somewhat mediocre skill. Sure, that takes some skill in its own, but its nowhere near as important as the talent ive seen in this game on sites like these.

This is all pointless anyways... we all respect your right to view a particular stat as you see fit, as we reserve our right to view a particular stat as we see fit. In the end, they are all silly, all somewhat manipulated, and all a byproduct of clicking some little armies on a game. Worrying too much about them is insane if it goes anywhere past the point of fun.

I do wish you luck with it though. It will be interesting to see which method you use to accomplish it, and if along the way you find yourself having to use just a little more skill than you think you were going to have to.

 

[Shepherd]

Come on, guys, can't we all just get along? Piling up a bunch of consecutive defeats is a product of 1) understanding the nuances of the game at this site, 2) luck, and 3) a moderate to advanced level of skill at playing the game itself. If a player was completely lacking one of these three traits it would be next to impossible to go on a really long run of consecutive defeats.

Example: let's say I'm a bad-ass player and I want to put together a streak. I could decide I'm only playing noobs and I'm only playing 1v1s on a forgiving map that I know well. I could run up against a noob with at least a rudimentary understanding of the game who gets a sweet drop, goes first, gets perfect rolls, and leaves me stuck behind a wall of neutrals. Unless the dice gods decide to smile down on me, bad luck just ended my streak.

Likewise, a solid player with the best luck in the world will never get 60 CDOs if he's just throwing himself into games blindly, then wondering what went wrong when both of his triples partners AWOL on him. And some chump who just bangs away with no understanding of the game won't pile up a streak regardless of his rolls and game selection.

Regardless, records were made to be broken. Show me a record in sports and I'll show you a formerly "unbreakable" record that it eclipsed. For every Iron Horse there is a Cal Ripken.

 

[zspBANNED]

Example: let's say I'm a bad-ass player

We'd have to really use our imagination on this one

 

[zspBANNED]

At the same time, I rather enjoy seeing my username all over the place on one single page

 

[AAFitz]

Come on, guys, can't we all just get along?

We are getting along just fine to be honest. We are going into detail about our disagreements, but that is different than not getting along. Its even possible that two people so strongly in disagreement, simply posting their opinions which differ, and being more than polite about it, if emphatic...is getting along. Not getting along is when people are throwing out insults, not simply disagreeing. Fool.

Hell, I think Mapguy even managed a rather heartfelt compliment in there, which I too disagreed with I certainly am not annoyed with him in any way, and so far as I can tell, he feels no ill will towards me...or at least...id be very surprised if he was. The site is in beta, and really there are a small number of people taking part in commenting, so I think many of us are taking the opportunity to get to the heart of the matter, which at times, means some disagreement. For my part, I consider it my duty to post my thoughts...however controversial, as payment for use of the site.....and well....for some fun of its own of course.:biggrin:

 

[zspBANNED]

# unused

Great minds think alike.