Duel idea

[Matt Morrison]

Been cogitating this one over for a couple of days and I think it would be cool.
I'm not saying the Daily Duel needs revitalising at all - but fuck it, this idea does it regardless.

How about... a proper Duel nemesis feature. Now obviously there are the same old people at the top of the Duel leaderboard on the front page every time; the Carsons, the Davies, the Bevinseses, etc.
This doesn't apply to them so much - but for me, aside from looking at the very top two or three performers in today's duel, the other thing I like to look at is the people I give a real fuck about.
In my case, this would be Heather (obviously), and also my Duellist-of-the-Moment, Michael Wallace - picked because we often come near or around each other (oo er) so it makes for exciting comparison.

So, in short - you get to pick one to three (depending on programmability) nemesises (nemesii?) and in just the same way that you can see your own score on the homepage regardless of whether you come in the top ten or not, you also see their scores for an instant comparison. It'd be such a nice touch, and really add a new level of excitement to the Duel. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes to check particular players' scores in a comparative fashion, and this would be a much nicer way than wading through the main Duel page.

And think about all the recent newbies who have signed up - they often sign up in pairs, word of mouth style, and you'll notice a lot of the lower-end users often spend the large majority of their time playing one or two friends. This feature would be cool for me, but really great for people like that, and to that effect would make great business sense for apterous too. So there.

[Michael Wallace]

Stuff

Like this idea. Also explains why you happened to look at my Duel yesterday to comment on it. I'm pleased someone did - couldn't believe I got a pencil for MALAMUTES.

[Ian Volante]

Stuff

Like this idea. Also explains why you happened to look at my Duel yesterday to comment on it. I'm pleased someone did - couldn't believe I got a pencil for MALAMUTES.

Along similar lines, possibly concurrently, how about a league ladder each month - split the standings from a given period into twelves, and at the end of each month, the bottom of Div 1 gets relegated, top of Div 2 promoted etc etc.

[Charlie Reams]

Been cogitating this one over for a couple of days and I think it would be cool.
I'm not saying the Daily Duel needs revitalising at all - but fuck it, this idea does it regardless.

How about... a proper Duel nemesis feature. Now obviously there are the same old people at the top of the Duel leaderboard on the front page every time; the Carsons, the Davies, the Bevinseses, etc.
This doesn't apply to them so much - but for me, aside from looking at the very top two or three performers in today's duel, the other thing I like to look at is the people I give a real fuck about.
In my case, this would be Heather (obviously), and also my Duellist-of-the-Moment, Michael Wallace - picked because we often come near or around each other (oo er) so it makes for exciting comparison.

So, in short - you get to pick one to three (depending on programmability) nemesises (nemesii?) and in just the same way that you can see your own score on the homepage regardless of whether you come in the top ten or not, you also see their scores for an instant comparison. It'd be such a nice touch, and really add a new level of excitement to the Duel. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes to check particular players' scores in a comparative fashion, and this would be a much nicer way than wading through the main Duel page.

And think about all the recent newbies who have signed up - they often sign up in pairs, word of mouth style, and you'll notice a lot of the lower-end users often spend the large majority of their time playing one or two friends. This feature would be cool for me, but really great for people like that, and to that effect would make great business sense for apterous too. So there.

So first up, I really like this idea and it fits well with one of my major targets for the rest of 2010, which is to better serve the "wide middle" of the ability range, when traditional features have tended to focus on further glorifying the well-known names. If anything I feel like it doesn't go far enough in terms of allowing people to say who they're interested in competing with. Ian's onto something with the divisions idea, or something like it. I don't really have a clear idea yet, but some kind of private-league style system (running alongside the all-comers league of course) might be feasible now we have a substantial number of players. I'd be interested to hear this developed further, and I'm splitting this into a separate thread so I don't miss anything.

PS I think it's nemeses.

[Matt Morrison]

Sweet, I got my own thread. Fuck all the rest of you with your shit ideas.

Ian's Duel League system is also a very good idea, I like it. I did mention how bewildering the big Duel list is, a League would make it more competitive AND easier to understand, would be wonderful.
Here are some stream of consciousness thinks:

• How do you choose how many people to put in each league though? You can't just separate the whole user base into bits cos only a fraction regularly play the Duel.
• And what about once it's set up, what about new people joining apterous wanting to join the league? Obviously they have to be able to join instantly (paying for a subscription and all that) so I guess they go into the very bottom league and begin to work their way up.
• If promotions/demotions occurred fortnightly they'd be able to rise up the leagues to their rightful position fairly quicklyish. Or do you keep the monthliness of the current Duel format?
• How many people do you stick in each league? Perhaps you want to be able to show the whole league on the front page, in which case you can't really do more than 10 people per league but this would create a whole alphabet of leagues, possibly even going beyond League Z.
• On the homepage, do you now only show bits from the user's own league, we really still want a separate section that lists the top 3 Duel performers overall, so you still have a chance to instantly compare your own performance to the best on the site. And if so, surely then you have to have a 4th line so you can quickly compare your own score. And presumably a couple of lines for nemeses too. Yes I like this.
• Going back to the 'your own league' part of the homepage, do you show just today's results? Or do you focus on the new league table after the results? I guess not, as you could look at the homepage before half the rest of your league has done the duel. So how about on any particular day it shows Today's Results, and the League Table, but based on results up to and including yesterday. I do think suddenly the league table is more important than today's actual results though in a way.
• Whichever way I think about it, the frontpage box is getting big, but I love it. Actually, no... in fact it would need to now be two boxes, I think. So one is titled "Daily Duel Results" and contains one table which shows the, say, 3 top performers, your own score, and the scores of your, say, 2 nemeses. So a table of 6 results. Obviously it now needs an extra column, Division, either that or brackets after names such as Kirk Bevins (A), Matt Morrison (P) etc. In this box then is also a second section showing all the results from your division. The doable-ness depends on previous factors such as the size of each division of course, but you wouldn't even need to h ave them in a structured table. You could have two columns of results to save space, even by alphabetical order, just listing nothing but names and scores, listing all names in the league and having a dash instead of score when people haven't played yet today. Then the second box is of course "Daily Duel Division" (ok I just like the alliteration, we could put 'your' or 'my' into it and cut the 'Daily') which shows the league. Position, name, entries, points, along with the usual league-style arrows to show up down or non-mover.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Duellist-of-the-Moment, Michael Wallace................nemesises (nemesii?).

That would be nemesissy.

[Ian Volante]

Sweet, I got my own thread. Fuck all the rest of you with your shit ideas.

Ian's Duel League system is also a very good idea, I like it. I did mention how bewildering the big Duel list is, a League would make it more competitive AND easier to understand, would be wonderful.
Here are some stream of consciousness thinks:

• How do you choose how many people to put in each league though? You can't just separate the whole user base into bits cos only a fraction regularly play the Duel.
  
  I suggested 12 based on that we get somewhere between 50 and 100 each day, depending on the format, and 12 seems like a fair number, ten might be a little better.
• And what about once it's set up, what about new people joining apterous wanting to join the league? Obviously they have to be able to join instantly (paying for a subscription and all that) so I guess they go into the very bottom league and begin to work their way up.
  
  Yep.
• If promotions/demotions occurred fortnightly they'd be able to rise up the leagues to their rightful position fairly quicklyish. Or do you keep the monthliness of the current Duel format?
  
  I think monthly is fairest, as apart from the obsessives, most people miss days here and there, and on a weekly scale, this would introduce large variance.
• How many people do you stick in each league? Perhaps you want to be able to show the whole league on the front page, in which case you can't really do more than 10 people per league but this would create a whole alphabet of leagues, possibly even going beyond League Z.
  
  I anticipated creating leagues from the standings of the previous month's duel. This includes most duellers, and the bottom division could be a catch-all in the following month, with a larger promotion cohort maybe.
• On the homepage, do you now only show bits from the user's own league, we really still want a separate section that lists the top 3 Duel performers overall, so you still have a chance to instantly compare your own performance to the best on the site. And if so, surely then you have to have a 4th line so you can quickly compare your own score. And presumably a couple of lines for nemeses too. Yes I like this.
  
  I reckon the current standings can coexist with any other standings that are introduced, with sub-pages for league ladders/private leagues/whatever.
• Going back to the 'your own league' part of the homepage, do you show just today's results? Or do you focus on the new league table after the results? I guess not, as you could look at the homepage before half the rest of your league has done the duel. So how about on any particular day it shows Today's Results, and the League Table, but based on results up to and including yesterday. I do think suddenly the league table is more important than today's actual results though in a way.
  
  See above.
• Whichever way I think about it, the frontpage box is getting big, but I love it. Actually, no... in fact it would need to now be two boxes, I think. So one is titled "Daily Duel Results" and contains one table which shows the, say, 3 top performers, your own score, and the scores of your, say, 2 nemeses. So a table of 6 results. Obviously it now needs an extra column, Division, either that or brackets after names such as Kirk Bevins (A), Matt Morrison (P) etc. In this box then is also a second section showing all the results from your division. The doable-ness depends on previous factors such as the size of each division of course, but you wouldn't even need to h ave them in a structured table. You could have two columns of results to save space, even by alphabetical order, just listing nothing but names and scores, listing all names in the league and having a dash instead of score when people haven't played yet today. Then the second box is of course "Daily Duel Division" (ok I just like the alliteration, we could put 'your' or 'my' into it and cut the 'Daily') which shows the league. Position, name, entries, points, along with the usual league-style arrows to show up down or non-mover.

tl;dr

Broad agreement I reckon.

[Matt Morrison]

Um, since Charlie totally improved the way games are remembered, saved, resumed and all that - could we put some of this improvement into making the duel more accurate?
Like what about if people start a duel, play half of it, don't do as well as they'd hope and then quit the duel so that it doesn't 'skew' their stats?

I sometimes do this quitting bullshit myself when I'm pissed at my own duel performance in a couple of rounds sometimes - but of course trying not to skew your stats by registering a below-par performance is of course skewing your stats in itself. It could be that, at midnight, half-completed duels from the day count in some way towards overall duel records?

It would make duels a lot different, but it's an interesting idea I THINK.

Pros:

• Makes duel results more accurate for people who only bother completing the duel when they have done well.
• Encourages people to finish the duel regardless of performance. Like, really encourages, in a way that's generally good for the Duel as a contest.

Cons:

• Makes people pay for their bad luck if they genuinely have connection problems and miss a round or something.
• Depending on how the fuck you score an unfinished duel, it could still be abusable (like, in a LLLNNNCCC duel you could quit before the conundrums start if you know you're shit at conundrums). Still, any abusableness is clearly going to be way less than the abusableness of not registering a duel at all if it ain't good enough.

As I say - they'd have to count in some way, not necessarily straightforwardly. There's tons of shit to consider - do you score unplayed rounds with a kind of just-below-average score? Perhaps score just the played rounds but score them with a weight representative of how much of the duel they have done?

Actually the more I think about this it's shit and pointless, I dunno. The Duel as an overall competition requires you to complete every day's duel regardless anyway really as a badly-completed duel still gets you further in the standings than a non-completed one. So yeah, forget all this bullshit. Sorry.

[Howard Somerset]

There's tons of shit to consider - do you score unplayed rounds with a kind of just-below-average score?

Would this just-below-average score be relative to the average score of the average player? Or relative to the average score of the player who has quit the duel? If the former, it would definitely be to by advantage to quit every duel after round one.

[Charlie Reams]

Actually the more I think about this it's shit and pointless, I dunno. The Duel as an overall competition requires you to complete every day's duel regardless anyway really as a badly-completed duel still gets you further in the standings than a non-completed one. So yeah, forget all this bullshit. Sorry.

Yeah, the Duel points system was designed with one particular objective in mind: that it should never be bad for you to play the Duel. Even if you finish last, you still get a point. And even if you inflate your opponent's scores (by finishing below them), you're never worse off than if you hadn't played at all, even if you finish stone last. If people are playing partial Duels and then quitting (I dunno how much this even happens) then they're already being punished by the current scoring system, plus wasting their own time, so I don't think it's a problem.