gnuff - in fact sze will have a good reason not to play you. same as you will have a good reason not to play him. Regardless of your skills, it's not reasonable to challenge the top players since your long term winrate will not stay high enough.

Let me play just few games. :D

But sure you are right. Play vs someone you will not be able to have at least 60% will be just lose time and money (if <55%)

Fridge, you can add me to the list of long-time members who are in favor of this move. As I see it, there is no possible justification to complain about additional features when previous aspects remain intact.

Hellbender/Caesar... shall I call you Ellsworth Toohey? Or would you prefer James Taggart? I think the second seems more apt. How can you possibly justify complaining about another person doing what they see fit with their own intellectual property? You have no rights to that property. Zero. If Fizzer thinks that monetizing his IP is important then he is free to do so without your consent.

I think this is pretty cool, but I do worry about this turning into a couple dozen people with all the coins at some point. It will be pretty lame when the elite players take it all. When that happens, nobody else will "buy" more coins because they have little chance of doing anything with them.

If Fizzer wants this to work long term, he needs to re-distribute a portion of the rake to everyone periodically. If he's taking %10, why not put %2 back into everyone's accounts every 6 months? It is another opportunity to attract new blood to the system.

I don't get Julius' comments. This is an optional 'arena' so to speak, like RT ladder. Don't participate if you won't win more than %55 of the time. I will probably play it at first, but if turns into a bunch of elites for the most part, I'll stop because I won't be able to win enough.

Even then, who cares? As long as it keeps the rest of the site running, I am fine with that. But, if it does turn into all elites, they will stop playing that format too because it will be less profitable for them, or not at all.

Edited 12/1/2014 16:03:12

Fridge, you can add me to the list of long-time members who are in favor of this move. As I see it, there is no possible justification to complain about additional features when previous aspects remain intact.

Hellbender/Caesar... shall I call you Ellsworth Toohey? Or would you prefer James Taggart? I think the second seems more apt. How can you possibly justify complaining about another person doing what they see fit with their own intellectual property? You have no rights to that property. Zero. If Fizzer thinks that monetizing his IP is important then he is free to do so without your consent.

The whining reminds me of Peter Keating, but the argument is total James Taggart. He's not smart enough to be Ellsworth Toohey.

to those worried about the elites taking all your coins, i would expect Fizzer to match the skill levels somehow (either a system of tiers like the 20 relegation league, or in the same way that the ladders try to match opponents of same rating for example). also would be interesting to allow top skilled players to unlock higher wagers. i think it can be mathematically calculated how to ensure profit for the house despite giving out free coins, considering there is always a percentage of it that goes for the house, a limit to how much you can wager and a limit to how much you need to reach to be able to withdraw some of it.

match the skill is bad. In other games, like poker, every player (good or bad) can play everyone.

in poker you can get lucky with the cards, so even if you're pretty bad you can still pull it off against a pro if you get lucky. on warlight if you're not pro you might pull something out of your ass one or two turns to surprise an expert player but it's a lot less likely that you'll keep it up during all the moves of the whole game.

i'm thinking if the wager ammount can be variable it might help filter the pros from the not so pros.

but i'm still not entirely convinced. well, let's see how it works out when it's live.

Edited 12/1/2014 18:54:07

It has to match levels somehow or it would become elite's with all the money. And ps is right, there is still big luck element to poker. Over the long run the pro would beat you almost all the time, but there is a reason why pros get knocked out world series of poker early at times.

what is wrong with the pro have almost all the coins? why shouldn't they? i don't understand why we should prevent it..

gnuffone: that's couz you're only thinking on how you'll get rich after this update :) instead think about how no one of skill below top 20 will really want to play the game with coins if they know they'll very likely only be facing guys with high skill who won't give them any chance. not much fun in that for them, no incentive to keep playing with coins, so they will stop and you'll be facing sze and myhand all the time. there needs to be a balance to keep fresh blood interested in honing their skills that's all.

Edited 12/1/2014 19:18:36

A balance that will be very difficult to establish, if not downright impossible.

About the only method I can think of is allowing for disparate wagering, much the same way professional sports matches are given odds to balance the betting. The stronger player has to put up a higher stake when facing a lesser opponent. For example, if I were to play Gnuff I would put up the standard $0.80 while he would have to put up $2.40 due to his superiority (effectively giving him 3-1 odds)

yeah the 3-1 or 2-1 odds same more fair.

I am sure lot of players will still try to beat the good players.

Ofc, i am back to play just for make money, so yeah, i want maximize the time i spend there.

Why have divisions in college football while we are at it? Let's just let division 3 schools (which don't even have a 1 star recruit) play against powerhouse schools with dozens of 5 start recruits).

I am sure there are comparable imbalances in European Soccer leagues if you were to do away with them as well.


Richard Sharpe is right, if you don't do match making, you need to weight the odds. 3-1 and 2-1 is nothing. In reality, I should be getting like 10-1 playing you Gnuff (probably more). Random noob should get like 200-1 on you. The trouble there is until you have a well established rating that has big flaws. For example, let's say Gnuff has been playing for months and Dreuj comes back and joins. Should he get 200-1 odds on Gnuff just because his rating has not been established?

Edited 12/1/2014 19:57:27

Then I'll just join this with a fresh alt after a while and get sweet odds against everyone yippie!


Seriously.. We are talking about real money here, ofc the better players should end up with more money. I can't believe you are even suggesting things like this lol

That is completely fair. I am just saying if that is the system, you will eventually see most players not use it (or not at all, depending on the free coins). If the intent is to make this sustainable, and fund the servers for the site, you have to have lasting appeal to the majority.

Maybe the answer is alter the rake amounts based on rating? You do matchups based on the ratings, but the higher rated players have less of a rake on their games. So the 'noobs' can still compete, but the site takes a higher percentage.

Fish vs shark debate is a very important.

"Game of skill" sites need fish to survive. If its setup where the sharks eat the fish faster than the site can attract new fish the games dry up former sharks become the fish and soon warlight for money will be as popular as chess for money websites.

matchmaking and odds could be really helpful. Even poker sites have newb only games.

I like the idea of implementing some form of odds system. There probably wont be enough players to do effective match-making. Fish also like playing lotteries, Fish would line up to play gnuff 1v1 if he's laying them 200-1. The problem is that fish might not really be a fish.

here's a way of doing odds while also making it not worthwhile to create a new account and pretend to be a fish.

1st game 1-1 odds
2nd game winner gives 1.5-1 odds
if they win again the 3rd game is 2-1
4th game 2.5-1
5th game 3-1
6th game 4-1
and so on
once the streak is broken they go back to 1-1

This will keep the fish in the game. The more the fish lose the better odds they start getting from the people who beat them. This will keep them coming back for more and more.

Edited 12/1/2014 21:08:32

What darkpie say is right.
I can't believe you are suggesting a way to limit better player to make money.
Ofc top player aren't going to play each others and isn't fair 2-1 3-1 4-1 etc based on the streak.
The fair thing is let the game be free of match making.

Yeah, cutting the discussion short, betting disparity will never happen, nor is it "fair" to anyone. Possibilities to game the system are just endless. If you find a poker site that'll give me as a noob player odds against the "pros", let me know.

When there is fish vs shark debate the only thing to consider is the influx of new players. If there are enough players, quantity by itself will make it sustainable. Most players cannot perceive skill well enough to differentiate between good/great/top players, so I'd expect ego of newcomers feed them, at least for a while. If there are enough average players in the mix, even if they lose long-term (which is unavoidable for most players) they'll have enough wins to psychologically motivate themselves to play.