MC Economy

[diogenes]

I can't say 100%, but I'm pretty sure that in every game points are simply transferred from the loser to the winner (as in a zero sum game, no points created for each additional game). I was wondering what the reasoning for this is.

It seems like a disadvantage of this is that if skilled players continually play each other, their points will stay in the same range, and the only way to seriously increase the points is beating newer/less experienced players (though luckily the formula ensures that players with a higher score have more to lose). Just wondering if anyone else sees this as a disadvantage to the game.
(an alternative could be that every time you win maybe you get an extra point that's not simply
transfered from one player to another, so that the more games that are played, the more points are in the pie).

 

[Shepherd]

the trouble with throwing an extra point or two into the mix with every game is that it will lead to rank inflation. If everybody always won more points than they lost, we'd all eventually move up to the top of the ranks. Well, maybe not all of us, but it would require regular across the board resets of the entire point system. If everybody starts out at the site with 1250 points, that's the average and we can norm the ranking system on that. But if in six months the average player score is 1300, we have to reset the starting point to 1300.

It is very possible that a user will hit a plateau and stay there for a long time - possibly forever. But that's kind of the idea behind a ranking system, isn't it? If you are better than 75% of the players here, your rank and score will reflect that; meanwhile you'll always be below the other 25% who are better than you, until you up your game and prove that you can beat them - by actually beating them!

The system we use here is similar to that used at many other gaming sites. It's based on system that was originally designed to rank players in chess. The idea isn't to give everybody a pat on the back for playing, but to gauge how well a player knows the game relative to his/her competition.

Oh - and the best way to add points isn't to player weaker opponents; in my opinion the best way is to win a game with multiple opponents. Where you'll get 20 points for a 1v1 win, you'll get 100 points for winning a six player game!

 

[diogenes]

I guess it makes sense that the problem w/ adding points to the MC economy would be inflation (and having to renormalize scores and everything). I think I've just been wanting to see higher scores--can't remember ever seeing the top score breaking 3000; they seem to always stay in the 2000's. Not that it's a problem, it'd just be fun to see Though, I do like the dynamism of the points, since it seems like every week the top few places seem to change, and I know my score fluctuates quite a bit.

And as far as how to best rack up points, I agree that winning multiplayer games are the best for that, no matter who the others are--I was just saying that all the points from the higher scorers (about 50 players now) ultimately have to come from those with below-default-scores (about 150 players at this point).

 

[Shepherd]

remember, we're still in BETA with only a couple hundred active users! Just a a month or two ago the top score was under 2,000 - now we're seeing players bust 2400! So far we've been playing the same faces over and over again, so we keep trading the same points back and forth. As the flock increases and we introduce new features such as tournaments (with a unique point sharing system - coming soon!) we will see more players rise to the top and more dynamic movement.

 

[Badorties]

The scores are ever inching higher. I remember when the top person was a Sergeant.