Proposal for guidelines for reporting incomplete games

[Ricky B]

If this is adopted then two situations that might occur have come to mind and will need to be addressed.....

a) Players don't discuss this at the start of a game that then does not reach the guideline limit and one player wish's to report the and the other does not.
b) Games where a players opponent disappears before the guideline limit.

...I have had opponents disappear or surrender after the first few turns of campaigns but it would be farcical to report these as victories (although plenty do). ...

It is interesting that several people have already indicated that they are opposed, but have not provided reasons. If players are thinking it will be a serious inconvenience not to report games when less than 25% of turns are played, then this is presumably because they are doing it regularly. Until some counter arguments are presented, I find it hard to see how anyone could convince themselves that the current approach is fair and reasonable, unless it was working to their benefit. 

John

...

I am curious why nearly 70% of players who responded to the poll either "don't care" or "don't think we should introduce a guideline?" 

John and Mike - I did some digging. Unfortunately, it isn't easy to pull solid numbers together, but I still wanted a feel for this issue. In particular, for John, you note that plenty report games with only a few turns played, and I really wanted to understand how prevalent this may be, as my feeling in part drove my vote but for which I had no numbers, which I already explained in response to Mike's comment above.

So I simply reviewed the 2020 ladder focusing on the top scores for the year. Out of the leaders in the top 7 or so positions, only 2 players had a significant number of campaign games played. Of those 2, one noted how many turns were played for quite of few of his campaigns. 2 would may failed a 25% guideline as they completed in around 25 turns. However, they were legit FWWC reports. The game ended with early termination due to the score. If we have a guideline, it should account for the early termination feature in FWWC. Otherwise, this player's campaigns went past the limit.

The other player had a fairly small number of games, and the campaigns were against different players. I can't tell if his reports were for just a few turns or not, but if he demoralized all of his 5 campaign opponents in just a few turns, consistently, then it may be an issue. But I discount that.

John, maybe in your totals there were some campaigns that you surrendered and your opponent reported. I didn't look, but for you I also discount your surrendering quickly in general, although that is purely guesswork.

I figure if anyone below the top 10 reported quickly abandoned campaigns, they could not have had more than 1-2 games reported that way.

I did another check and looked at the last few games released, back to Moscow '42. There are so few campaign reports, I didn't see a deluge anyway, although I had no way of checking older games, hence the ladder analysis.

Anyway, back to my main point here, I don't see plenty that do report games after a few turns, I suggest it is very rare. And more so, looking at the votes, those that voted against don't seem to have been involved in reporting these type of games.

I will say in the distant past, before most involved here were on the Blitz, we had a player that only reported campaigns, and all against the same 2 "friends". He had game against them every month or so and all were major wins. We couldn't prove he was padding things, but it sure seemed that way. Anyway, we watched it but that was it. And I haven't seen anything like that otherwise.

Rick

[Green]

Rick,

My comment that "Plenty do" is based on anecdotal evidence and I am happy to accept that I may have this wrong. Although we can never know and the top 10 leaders are not necessarily where the problem lie. I am not pointing fingers at any particular individuals. And I do not intend doing my own analysis, as I cannot see how I could reach any conclusions.

But, if I am mistaken then the change I am proposing will be of no inconvenience to anyone. Unless someone out there believes that playing fewer than 10% of the turns constitutes a complete game or that playing less that 25% of the turns deserves the same reward as playing something greater, then why oppose it? If you play greater than 25% of the turns, nothing changes in terms of reporting or points. And it is a guideline, so if you are philosophically opposed to it or find it too complex, just ignore it. What is the big deal?

I know nothing about FWWC and so you can have any guidelines that make sense for those titles. It is not my concern. My primary concern is PzC and validity of the statistics gathered. If these numbers are of no value, then let us just remove them and be done with. If they are of some value, let us do something that allows us to have more confidence in them.

So why the opposition? Perhaps the problem exists only in my head or perhaps it is real. We cannot know without the data and that data is not collected. If the are any good counter arguments to my proposal, I have yet to see them. But my mind is open. I am trying to find a fair solution that works. That people want to stop me is what I find puzzling.

John

[Mr Grumpy]

This approach would indeed avoid skewing the DB results for the "main" scenario, but unless I am missing your point the players reporting the game for reduced points would still see those points added to the ladder? (I am not sure what "historical ladder points" refers too? Sorry if I am being a bit dim) 

Darran, 

I cannot pass up this once in a lifetime opportunity. Yes, you are being dim! (I can now cross off that debt I owed you.)

Ohhhh yes I deserved that one after some of the cheeky comments I have made in the past!! 

[Ricky B]

...

So why the opposition? Perhaps the problem exists only in my head or perhaps it is real. We cannot know without the data and that data is not collected. If the are any good counter arguments to my proposal, I have yet to see them. But my mind is open. I am trying to find a fair solution that works. That people want to stop me is what I find puzzling.

John

John, I can't address the no votes, one of those would have to reply and they don't seem to be doing so. I can only explain why I think it is something I don't care about, so happy with a voluntary guideline that won't change too many player's behavior, and I have said what I will on that.

As to stopping you, I don't believe our illustrious Mr Grumpy was using the poll as a binding vote, but rather to gather input on the member's feeling about this optional guideline. So nobody would be blocking you, at least not only based on the poll.

Players already agree on other things, not documented here at the Blitz, before starting play (must follow "realistic" unit usage for example). We could easily have a pinned post with items like this proposal and others for players to consider if desired, before playing. That is essentially what the proposed solution would be. 

I do like but discount the idea of having duplicate entries for every entry in our game database for reporting these short games against. But the effort to create and just as much maintain down the road the entries for this would be painful, not so much in terms of effort at any one point in time, but just staying on top of over the course of years.

[Green]

Rick,

Thanks for that. Yes, I always understood that the Blitz was entitled to set it own rules and certainly its own guidelines. What I was trying to say was that those voting 'no' were trying to stop the change, but I could not see why. And, I was not asking you to address the 'no' votes. Just hoping that someone would. If the reasons for voting 'no' were explained, maybe there is some issue that could be satisfactorily resolved. As I said, I am quite honestly puzzled by this whole thing. The proposal seems non-controversial to me. 

As for duplicate entries in the database, that was never an option. As I mentioned in my post to Darran, the idea was to have one entry per title as a dummy that would suffice for all campaigns in that title. So only a couple of dozen entries in total would be required to cover all PzC games. Most campaigns within a title have the same or almost the same SM value. One dummy entry can stand in for all these where the 25% point is not reached. The idea is just to allow for ladder points without contaminating the statistics. And this could just be for campaigns to avoid needless complexity as any solution needs to be simple or we would just be replacing one problem with another.

John

[ComradeP]

I've not finished battles for various reasons, as did some of my opponents. Though not always polite, that's the nature of our hobby. Work or other life events can intervene. I'd be in favour of an informal rule that a certain part of the scenario needs to be completed before it can be reported. I don't have a particular preference for an X number of turns/percentage of turns completed.

As to ladder results for campaigns on the 2020 ladder: looking at jim pfleck's results, he has documented the number of turns completed for many of his campaigns and the only thing that stands out to me is his major victory in the 1st Invasion for Serbia '14 as the Central Powers. That stands out because it's quite an achievement, not because I think it's dodgy.

I see no reason to doubt Witblitz' results either.

As for my own results, I've documented when my own handful of campaign games ended in case they were finished before the final turn.

It's difficult to estimate when a campaign game started, which also makes it difficult to estimate how many turns were played.

[Steel God]

I voted no simply because I have always been inclined towards less rules.  If it's been done a certain way for 20 years and no one is complaining, why attempt to fix it?  The Ladder was never a real score keeper it was just a fun way to gauge progress.  And when people get a reputation for doing hinky things people won't play them.  A player who reports many many Campaign games in quick succession will be viewed with a jaundiced eye by others and it will sort itself out naturally.

[phoenix]

I voted no simply because I have always been inclined towards less rules.  If it's been done a certain way for 20 years and no one is complaining, why attempt to fix it?  The Ladder was never a real score keeper it was just a fun way to gauge progress.  And when people get a reputation for doing hinky things people won't play them.  A player who reports many many Campaign games in quick succession will be viewed with a jaundiced eye by others and it will sort itself out naturally.

I absolutely second this. It should be a 'light' thing, playing games and getting on a ladder, done with some charity towards those who drop out after starting something that, for whatever reason, they can't finish, don't want to finish. The push for rules really makes it sound and feel like what is being dealt with is something much more serious and that there is a suspicion of cheating of some sort. I can't actually imagine the sort of person who would deliberately milk the system in the way imagined. 

An unintended consequence of more rules might well be that there will be even less people inclined to start ladder games, (a) because the rules imply some more serious level of commitment, such as might not be guaranteed in some people's lives for larger games (where 10% of moves might actually take up 10 weeks of their playing lives...) and (b) because people who are more keen on ladder placements might be more reluctant to start games with people who cannot 'guarantee' getting past a certain point. 

So, yeah, I vote you go with the vote, which still, at the moment, says do nothing. It ain't broke.

[Kool Kat]

I voted no simply because I have always been inclined towards less rules.  If it's been done a certain way for 20 years and no one is complaining, why attempt to fix it?  The Ladder was never a real score keeper it was just a fun way to gauge progress.  And when people get a reputation for doing hinky things people won't play them.  A player who reports many many Campaign games in quick succession will be viewed with a jaundiced eye by others and it will sort itself out naturally.

I absolutely second this. It should be a 'light' thing, playing games and getting on a ladder, done with some charity towards those who drop out after starting something that, for whatever reason, they can't finish, don't want to finish. The push for rules really makes it sound and feel like what is being dealt with is something much more serious and that there is a suspicion of cheating of some sort. I can't actually imagine the sort of person who would deliberately milk the system in the way imagined. 

An unintended consequence of more rules might well be that there will be even less people inclined to start ladder games, (a) because the rules imply some more serious level of commitment, such as might not be guaranteed in some people's lives for larger games (where 10% of moves might actually take up 10 weeks of their playing lives...) and (b) because people who are more keen on ladder placements might be more reluctant to start games with people who cannot 'guarantee' getting past a certain point. 

So, yeah, I vote you go with the vote, which still, at the moment, says do nothing. It ain't broke.

[Kool Kat]

Gents: 

The original proposal was for "informal guidelines" - NOT the introduction of binding rules.

Players are free to adopt the informal guidelines or reject them as they desire. There are no club penalties for either using them or not using them.

The use of informal guidelines is not new to the Blitz since they are baked into our club's "Rules of Engagement" section.

For example; "Discontinuing a Game and Missing Opponents" (Rule #6) and "Message Boards / Forum Conduct" (Rule #8) contain informal guidelines within their respective rules sections.

I believe that most players are honest and adopt their own informal guidelines for games - we sometimes call these informal guidelines "gentlemen agreements." Nobody seems opposed to players using their own agreed upon "house rules" and informal guidelines for their respective games. How is another informal guideline any different?

Players are free to adopt, reject, or ignore informal guidelines as they desire. These guidelines are NOT binding rules. 

Again, I do not understand the opposition to an informal guideline?