Hello Mahz.

So we figured some things out, and it'll come down to whether or not you can code in the point system.

Basically, we want to know if you can code in a automatic point addition/deduction system in which,

100 Points for winners
50 for draws
25 for loss

If possible, we would like it if this was something we could adjust as we plan on having 3-4 tournaments a year for points as well, with possible different points for each. This would also help with the proposed wager system we want to include.

For the wager system, we would like the minimum wagerable points to be 25, anything over 25 would.constitute the point deduction. 25 Itself would just take away the point gain for a loss.

Also a "verification" system, so either the mandatory judge, or both participants have to verify the results before points are alloted.

We are also looking forward to the win/loss thing. And wondered if you could make it opt-in/out, as well as add our changing ranks under the profiles like where the bio and status is.

The point system is similar to the Hall of Records one, but that included a 10% gain for winners and 10% loss for losers. So in theory coding the points should be possible in some fashion.

If you can't, we can more or less make due, but you mentioned you wanted to put some more shine on the arena so I thought we would try. You can check out the Chat Thread for our progress so far.

If you have any questions you can direct them to me, or post in the chat thread yourself, and someone will answer you - most likely.

As a possible, could the last tournament be promoted by the Guild? As far as I'm concerned that could be the biggest tournament as it would take place towards the end of the year.

Any word on the dice system?

(Note: I haven't slept yet)

Thanks for letting me know about this PM. You must've sent this just as I was starting my leave of absence.

I can definitely code some sort of point system. I think building some mechanics into Arena is the way to go.

Hell, I'd even consider something zany (I'm just writing this off the top of my head) like a system where 2-4 players start a game (FFA or 2v2) with nothing on their character, spawned in some battlezone with a randomly generated description. And as they play, they get random "cards" that range from giving them random items to buffs to debuffs. And maybe the randomness + a point system gives it replay value?

Whatever.

So I'm down with whatever yall wanna do. Ideally we can implement a system in baby steps and get feedback along the way so we know we're actually heading towards something worthwhile. Like think of the system in onion layers so I don't have to implement everything at once.

For instance, here are some ideas that individually aren't too difficult:

- Allow Arena roleplays to be tagged as "Ranked" and "Unranked". Unranked roleplays are simply practice or for light-hearted play. Ranked games resolve into a W:L rating that is displayed under your avatar. (Users can toggle on/off the display of this rating)
- The outcome of a fight is resolved when at least three users have placed their "judgment" on that roleplay. In the judgement, the user has to actually back up their reasoning. It's not a blind vote.
- By baking judgements into the actual roleplay system, we have a system where you can click "view all judgements given by this user" so bias and cheating are much easier to track down. Even a simple script can detect basic this-guy-always-votes-for-rilla-no-matter-what kind of bias.
- We can even have fun with it and have people opt-in to the judgment system and when a fight needs a judgment, the system simply randomly draws from the pool.

I'm just brainstorming since there's just a simple things we can do to build a real system that has some potential.

Some things I'd like to hear more about in detail:

- The point system. At a glance, it seems that players always gain points. If we fight and you win and I lose, you get 100 and I get 25?
- The wager system. Can you elaborate or give some examples of how it plays out?

Re: promoting the tournament - Are you talking about a tournament that has already happened or are you talking about tournaments of the future? I'm always down to promote shit, mate. I'll happily add some sort of Arena component to the homepage sidebar, for example and build you a tool so you can update its contents.

Re: any word on a dice system? - No word, but I'm back and ready to build.

Right now I'm building out the contest system and the trophy system since those are the most promising systems that the guild has going for it at the moment. I think you will like the trophy system which I decided to build to reward the winners of the contests.

I have it so that I can create and award trophies to users for any reason. Like for winning a writing contest or a fighting tournament or even more indirect achievements like "Highest kill to death ratio of the Arena season".

So trophies accumulate in your trophy box on your user profile. And at any time you can set only one of them as your "Active Trophy".



Your active trophy is simply displayed in your post sidebar. But some trophies have an aesthetic "special effect" that shows up when you make them active. For example, maybe it's a special flaming user-title under your username. Or maybe it lets you use an avatar that's 200% larger than everyone else. But the trick is that you can only have one active trophy at a time. The more rare/unique/hard-to-get a trophy is, the better its special effect.

Anyways man I'm rambling. I'll check out the Chat Thread your were referring to so I can see where yall left off.

I'd like to make some more progress on the contest+trophy system before I switch coding tasks, but I am always available to help plan things out.

Woah! You got back to me.

I'd actually be fine with the system you described here:

<Snipped quote>

It seems like it could be something good for random fights, or even ranked fights for added difficulty. I'd like to hear more about the components for it though, so that, when needed, I can explain it to everyone.

Idea 1(Ranked/Unranked): Really, you'd only need the Ranked tag, as we can surmise that ones without it aren't for rank. Though, if it helps with the code and it deciphering when it allot points and when not too, then both tags are fine.

Idea 2(Judges): We're working with a one judge system, as far as both agreeing to a judge and abiding by their ruling. It's worked well for us so far, in that there hasn't been many issues, outside of the current tournament which is staying too long as is. Hahah.

Idea 3(Baked Judges): That would be good, I am in agreeance with this.

Idea 4(random Judges): This is a either or for me, as most are down to judge, but some might not want too and if the system adds them, then they are judge. Perhaps something where a random list is displayed and players pick from there?

The Point system has changed: No longer will people get points for losing. 100 for winning, 50 for draws, 0 for losing. They don't lose anything, but they don't gain 'participatory points' either.

Wager: It's fairly simple. If we fight, and wager say 100 points. The winner gets the normal 100 points, and the loser gets 0. But, then the wager comes into play. The winner gets another 100 points(A total of 200), and the loser actually then loses 100 points. So A and B have 1000 points. At the end of the fight with a 1000 point wager, A goes up to 1200, and B goes down to 900. It also works for weapons and stuff as well. But that's something we can further figure out. Points can be coded in, weapon loss probably cannot.

Promoting Tournaments: Definitely future ones. Primarily, the ones planned to kick off the Ranked Year, and End it. 'King of the Rookies' and 'King of the Arena', the big tournaments. One for new guys coming in, and one for the best 8 or so at the end of the year, by points.

Dice System: Lemme know what you come up with, I'm not a dice savvy person, but I'm sure some people are. It'll be a really niche thing, of course. Lancrist did the last one and I helped test it.

Teh Trophies will be good, as I recently pitched an idea for a year end award thing, best character and stuff, as well as one for King/Queen of the Rookies/Arena.

The easiest thing to do is just start out real manual and then slowly build up the system that helps automate it.

I'll start with the Ranked tag. It's not a big feature. It's built on top of the existing machinery. You're right about just needing one tag. I'll work on that once I get the Contest Mods system out the door.

Once we have the ability to mark roleplays as Ranked, we now have official Wins and Losses taking place. And the simplest way to implement a W/L system is to make you an Arena Mod that can click "Edit Roleplay", select the winner from a drop-down list, and click "Save". The forum can then just tally up Wins and Losses this way. And to keep things basic, once you click "Save" and the forum awards points, you can't modify that decision. It would be too complicated to support the case where a player wins 100, immediately wagers 100 on the next game 10 min later, and then you decide you want to change history so that they actually lose that original game and never win those 100 points. Fair enough?

The above I can probably tackle on a Saturday and it's a nice foundation for you to experiment with.

I'll revisit the Wager system once I've actually made progress with these features.

How does judging system work? Like, does a judge just silently vote one way or the other, or do they generally engage with the players to explain their reasoning, or does the judge talk it over with you or someone other authority? Whatever system yall are currently used to is the system I'll support.

The easiest thing to do is just start out real manual and then slowly build up the system that helps automate it.

I'll start with the Ranked tag. It's not a big feature. It's built on top of the existing machinery. You're right about just needing one tag. I'll work on that once I get the Contest Mods system out the door.

Once we have the ability to mark roleplays as Ranked, we now have official Wins and Losses taking place. And the simplest way to implement a W/L system is to make you an Arena Mod that can click "Edit Roleplay", select the winner from a drop-down list, and click "Save". The forum can then just tally up Wins and Losses this way. And to keep things basic, once you click "Save" and the forum awards points, you can't modify that decision. It would be too complicated to support the case where a player wins 100, immediately wagers 100 on the next game 10 min later, and then you decide you want to change history so that they actually lose that original game and never win those 100 points. Fair enough?

The above I can probably tackle on a Saturday and it's a nice foundation for you to experiment with.

I'll revisit the Wager system once I've actually made progress with these features.

How does judging system work? Like, does a judge just silently vote one way or the other, or do they generally engage with the players to explain their reasoning, or does the judge talk it over with you or someone other authority? Whatever system yall are currently used to is the system I'll support.

What I meant was that if Player1 has 0 points (just registered on the guild), wins their first game (+100 points), and then wagers those 100 points immediately in another game (let's say they click a "Place Wager" button and it's saved in the system), if you change the outcome of that first game to a tie or loss for Player1, then Player1 now has a wager in the system that they cannot afford.

In my head, it's just an example of an edge case, but I realize it's resolved by allowing players to have negative points or by making it so that outcomes cannot ever be changed. Allowing negative points in the system is actually a decent solution because it gives you leniency to change an outcome even if it's a rare thing.

I'm just getting ahead of myself. You said it's not an issue so it's not. Just thinking out loud as I try to visualize how I'd build this system.

Judging sounds like something that simply takes place in the OOC tab. Cool.

Ahhh, we have a way around that though.

We start off with 1000 points. xD

1000 is base, you go up and down from there.

And yeah, right there in the OOC. Everyone can see it, discuss it, but it's ultimately down to the judge. If people feel they aren't being fair, they can let it be known and I, Skallagrim, or Innue(I think), can come in and look it over.