Post by booncabal on Mar 8, 2016 19:31:58 GMT
Courtesy of the Prince of Humour, the King of Laughs, the one man comedy machine - Voodoo Mike.
What is TVPlus?
TVPlus is an augmented version of TV (Team Value) designed to be used in open matchmaking environments. The goal behind TVPlus is to, in conjunction with a few other modifications, solve the majority of issues that such environments have suffered since being introduced.
Does it work?
To answer that question lets engage in a thought experiment.
Imagine two coaches, Bob and John. Bob is an average coach while John is an excellent coach. We assume that if we gave Bob and John identical teams, John would beat Bob more often than he'd lose.
Bob's team, however, is TV 800 Goblins.. while John's team is TV 3000 Chaos. Now we know that John is going to kick Bob's ass almost every time those two teams play each other. Even with 2.2 million gold in inducements, Bob is almost certainly toast.
Here's the question: if we gave Bob infinite inducement gold, and we removed inducement limits (eg, max 2 star players, max 1 wizard, etc) do we think that with infinite inducements his 800TV Goblin team can beat John's TV3000 Chaos team? Unlimited wizards alone would do the trick, we assume.
Now, if no inducements is a practically guaranteed loss for Bob, and infinite inducements is a practically guaranteed win for Bob, then we know for a fact that there exists a point somewhere between 0 and infinity where Bob gets enough inducements to make a match between his 800TV Goblins, as a less skilled coach and the superior coach John's 3000TV Chaos team a match in which both coaches are challenged, and the outcome is hard to predict.
That's what TVPlus is about. Finding that point where any match between any two teams is one that challenges both coaches and doesn't give either team a distinct advantage over the other.
Ok, HOW does it work?
TVPlus combines TV, which is a mediocre gauge of a team's mechanical strength.. with a performance based measure that converts a team's success (or failure) into "effective TV" for that team, positive or negative. The exact formula is:
TVPlus = TV + (50 x (wins-losses))
Pretty simple, right?
Lets keep using Bob and John and their teams to help understand how TVPlus accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish. For ease of discussion, lets pretend their teams enter into our little world just the way we described them, but without any past record, such that their TVPlus rating begins exactly the same as their TV. In a real environment people don't play the same opponent over and over, but in our theoretical design they will.
Lets imagine that the amount of inducements needed to make the match "fair" is... 4 million gold. That's how much inducement gold it takes to compensate for the 2200 TV difference, and the fact that goblins are a tier 3 team vs tier 1 chaos, and the fact that Bob is an inferior coach to John.
At the start, Bob's Goblins TVPlus rating is 800, and John's Chaos TVPlus rating is 3000. John squarely kicks Bob's ass, as we predicted, and as would happen in a regular TV matched environment.
They play again... this time Bob's TVPlus rating is 750 and John's is 3050... their teams have not changed, only their TVPlus rating. Now we're up to 2.3 million gold for inducements. Bob gets trounced again.
Then its 700 vs 3100.... then 650 vs 3150... and so on. The TVPlus distance between the two teams keeps increasing until we start getting close to that 4 million gold worth of inducements mark... the closer we get to that point, the less the match is a foregone conclusion. The closer we get to that point, the more likely Bob is to win. As we get very close to it we run into more draws and even some times when Bob wins because the dice love him (or hate john) or even because Bob makes a particularly smart play or John makes a stupid mistake. The two teams TVPlus ratings start to stabilize... why? Because they're approaching accuracy. We're getting close to the point where the TVPlus ratings for each team represent that team's genuine effective TV.
Matchmaking is more than Bob and John, though.
Yes, it is.. but that's ok! Every match a team plays in a TVPlus environment is a match in which their team and coaching skill is matched against another team and coaching skill, and their TVPlus ratings get pushed higher or lower based on whether they end up being a better coach+team than the other coach+team. If they win/lose due to merit, then the change of TVPlus rating is appropriate. If they win/lose due to luck, the change in TVPlus rating will be temporary fluctuation, and it'll move back in the right direction due to merit in later matches.
The entire environment is in constant flux and flow, like a body of water. Everyone's TVPlus rating fluctuates, but overall they move toward the appropriate number for them.
So what else is required?
You might have noticed at the start that I said TVPlus is meant to be used in conjunction with other modifications. It's important we talk about those because without them TVPlus doesn't do what we want it to do.
First, TVPlus requires that we not use the limits on individual inducements. That means we have to remove the limit of 2 star players, of 1 wizard, of 3 bribes, of 2 apothecaries, and so on. With those limits there's a limit on the amount of useful inducements that a team can ever have, and that limit may be less than the amount needed to make a match fair. It needs to extend into the infinite to be guaranteed to work.
Second, the "wins-losses" portion of the TVPlus equation cannot include early concessions. The wins and losses have to be actual wins and losses not arbitrary outcomes. This is especially important if the environment will NOT be rez based, as it would allow griefers to deliberately concede themselves into a terrible TVPlus rating, and then use those massive inducements to permanently wreck teams for the sake of wrecking them.
Third, if the environment is going to have rankings, those rankings have to be done by comparing a team's rating with the rating of other teams of the same roster... not just by comparing everyone's TVPlus rating to one another. There's a good mathematical way to create an accurate ranking system, but its a bit complicated (a subject for another post).. but TVPlus alone is just as bad as current rankings, and would put better rosters above lesser rosters, even if they're worse general teams played by worse coaches.
Anything else?
Though it is a matter of contested opinion, I believe TVPlus should be done in a rez environment - that is to say, injuries and death should not carry over between matches. Inequality of attrition is one of the major problems in open play environments across a long timeline, and it is a problem that is not sufficiently addressed by TVPlus alone.
Is TVPlus vulnerable to griefers? Min/maxers?
Because min/maxing is based on exploiting TV's inaccurate measure of a team's strength it does not apply to TVPlus. Even if you are a master of TV efficiency, winning matches will increase your TVPlus rating over time. Min/maxing will not help you get a better TVPlus rating, though TV efficiency is never a bad idea!
In terms of griefing, it really depends on how the environment is implemented. As stated above, concessions should not be counted as wins or losses, at least not when the concession happens early in a match. If early/trivial concessions are counted as wins and losses then yes, griefers can concede to create large TVPlus advantages with the goal of crushing opponents rather than winning.
Even if concessions are not counted, in a non-rez environment there is a possibility that someone could play full games with the intention of losing to accomplish the same outcome, and then use those losses to spend time ripping up other teams. In a rez environment there's no way to wreck other people's teams, so those attempted griefers could, at worst, create the occasional stupid match that has no lasting effect on their targets.
Isn't it wrong that I might lose to a worse coach using a worse team?
No, actually. Under TVPlus how good you and your team are is reflected by your TVPlus rating rather than whether you win a given match. In fact, if you're winning more games than you're losing you're probably not being challenged by the pool of opponents. Yes, its possible your opponent's crap team will be compensated for the fact that you're an excellent coach... to the point that if they play well (for them) and you play lazy (for you) you may well lose to an inferior everything. Don't play lazy. Play as hard as you can every game, because under TVPlus, there's no phoning it in.
Some people view this as being "punished" for being a good coach and building a good team, but what does that imply about their idea of reward? Are you supposed to be "rewarded" with easy wins? Is that what you want from a game - less challenge over time? If so, then yes, TVPlus is going to steal away the reward of trivializing the game.
On the other hand hard wins make you a better coach over time than easy wins. Learning to face new and different opposition makes you a better player of a game.
TVPlus is an augmented version of TV (Team Value) designed to be used in open matchmaking environments. The goal behind TVPlus is to, in conjunction with a few other modifications, solve the majority of issues that such environments have suffered since being introduced.
Does it work?
To answer that question lets engage in a thought experiment.
Imagine two coaches, Bob and John. Bob is an average coach while John is an excellent coach. We assume that if we gave Bob and John identical teams, John would beat Bob more often than he'd lose.
Bob's team, however, is TV 800 Goblins.. while John's team is TV 3000 Chaos. Now we know that John is going to kick Bob's ass almost every time those two teams play each other. Even with 2.2 million gold in inducements, Bob is almost certainly toast.
Here's the question: if we gave Bob infinite inducement gold, and we removed inducement limits (eg, max 2 star players, max 1 wizard, etc) do we think that with infinite inducements his 800TV Goblin team can beat John's TV3000 Chaos team? Unlimited wizards alone would do the trick, we assume.
Now, if no inducements is a practically guaranteed loss for Bob, and infinite inducements is a practically guaranteed win for Bob, then we know for a fact that there exists a point somewhere between 0 and infinity where Bob gets enough inducements to make a match between his 800TV Goblins, as a less skilled coach and the superior coach John's 3000TV Chaos team a match in which both coaches are challenged, and the outcome is hard to predict.
That's what TVPlus is about. Finding that point where any match between any two teams is one that challenges both coaches and doesn't give either team a distinct advantage over the other.
Ok, HOW does it work?
TVPlus combines TV, which is a mediocre gauge of a team's mechanical strength.. with a performance based measure that converts a team's success (or failure) into "effective TV" for that team, positive or negative. The exact formula is:
TVPlus = TV + (50 x (wins-losses))
Pretty simple, right?
Lets keep using Bob and John and their teams to help understand how TVPlus accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish. For ease of discussion, lets pretend their teams enter into our little world just the way we described them, but without any past record, such that their TVPlus rating begins exactly the same as their TV. In a real environment people don't play the same opponent over and over, but in our theoretical design they will.
Lets imagine that the amount of inducements needed to make the match "fair" is... 4 million gold. That's how much inducement gold it takes to compensate for the 2200 TV difference, and the fact that goblins are a tier 3 team vs tier 1 chaos, and the fact that Bob is an inferior coach to John.
At the start, Bob's Goblins TVPlus rating is 800, and John's Chaos TVPlus rating is 3000. John squarely kicks Bob's ass, as we predicted, and as would happen in a regular TV matched environment.
They play again... this time Bob's TVPlus rating is 750 and John's is 3050... their teams have not changed, only their TVPlus rating. Now we're up to 2.3 million gold for inducements. Bob gets trounced again.
Then its 700 vs 3100.... then 650 vs 3150... and so on. The TVPlus distance between the two teams keeps increasing until we start getting close to that 4 million gold worth of inducements mark... the closer we get to that point, the less the match is a foregone conclusion. The closer we get to that point, the more likely Bob is to win. As we get very close to it we run into more draws and even some times when Bob wins because the dice love him (or hate john) or even because Bob makes a particularly smart play or John makes a stupid mistake. The two teams TVPlus ratings start to stabilize... why? Because they're approaching accuracy. We're getting close to the point where the TVPlus ratings for each team represent that team's genuine effective TV.
Matchmaking is more than Bob and John, though.
Yes, it is.. but that's ok! Every match a team plays in a TVPlus environment is a match in which their team and coaching skill is matched against another team and coaching skill, and their TVPlus ratings get pushed higher or lower based on whether they end up being a better coach+team than the other coach+team. If they win/lose due to merit, then the change of TVPlus rating is appropriate. If they win/lose due to luck, the change in TVPlus rating will be temporary fluctuation, and it'll move back in the right direction due to merit in later matches.
The entire environment is in constant flux and flow, like a body of water. Everyone's TVPlus rating fluctuates, but overall they move toward the appropriate number for them.
So what else is required?
You might have noticed at the start that I said TVPlus is meant to be used in conjunction with other modifications. It's important we talk about those because without them TVPlus doesn't do what we want it to do.
First, TVPlus requires that we not use the limits on individual inducements. That means we have to remove the limit of 2 star players, of 1 wizard, of 3 bribes, of 2 apothecaries, and so on. With those limits there's a limit on the amount of useful inducements that a team can ever have, and that limit may be less than the amount needed to make a match fair. It needs to extend into the infinite to be guaranteed to work.
Second, the "wins-losses" portion of the TVPlus equation cannot include early concessions. The wins and losses have to be actual wins and losses not arbitrary outcomes. This is especially important if the environment will NOT be rez based, as it would allow griefers to deliberately concede themselves into a terrible TVPlus rating, and then use those massive inducements to permanently wreck teams for the sake of wrecking them.
Third, if the environment is going to have rankings, those rankings have to be done by comparing a team's rating with the rating of other teams of the same roster... not just by comparing everyone's TVPlus rating to one another. There's a good mathematical way to create an accurate ranking system, but its a bit complicated (a subject for another post).. but TVPlus alone is just as bad as current rankings, and would put better rosters above lesser rosters, even if they're worse general teams played by worse coaches.
Anything else?
Though it is a matter of contested opinion, I believe TVPlus should be done in a rez environment - that is to say, injuries and death should not carry over between matches. Inequality of attrition is one of the major problems in open play environments across a long timeline, and it is a problem that is not sufficiently addressed by TVPlus alone.
Is TVPlus vulnerable to griefers? Min/maxers?
Because min/maxing is based on exploiting TV's inaccurate measure of a team's strength it does not apply to TVPlus. Even if you are a master of TV efficiency, winning matches will increase your TVPlus rating over time. Min/maxing will not help you get a better TVPlus rating, though TV efficiency is never a bad idea!
In terms of griefing, it really depends on how the environment is implemented. As stated above, concessions should not be counted as wins or losses, at least not when the concession happens early in a match. If early/trivial concessions are counted as wins and losses then yes, griefers can concede to create large TVPlus advantages with the goal of crushing opponents rather than winning.
Even if concessions are not counted, in a non-rez environment there is a possibility that someone could play full games with the intention of losing to accomplish the same outcome, and then use those losses to spend time ripping up other teams. In a rez environment there's no way to wreck other people's teams, so those attempted griefers could, at worst, create the occasional stupid match that has no lasting effect on their targets.
Isn't it wrong that I might lose to a worse coach using a worse team?
No, actually. Under TVPlus how good you and your team are is reflected by your TVPlus rating rather than whether you win a given match. In fact, if you're winning more games than you're losing you're probably not being challenged by the pool of opponents. Yes, its possible your opponent's crap team will be compensated for the fact that you're an excellent coach... to the point that if they play well (for them) and you play lazy (for you) you may well lose to an inferior everything. Don't play lazy. Play as hard as you can every game, because under TVPlus, there's no phoning it in.
Some people view this as being "punished" for being a good coach and building a good team, but what does that imply about their idea of reward? Are you supposed to be "rewarded" with easy wins? Is that what you want from a game - less challenge over time? If so, then yes, TVPlus is going to steal away the reward of trivializing the game.
On the other hand hard wins make you a better coach over time than easy wins. Learning to face new and different opposition makes you a better player of a game.