WTA/Solo

So I did a little experiment today. Over the past one and a half hours I set my game search filter to only solo, and also set the same settings for the watch panel. You know how many games/queues I saw during that time? 0. Yes, zero.

Which brings me to my next point. The leader board. Presently (6:44PM CET 19/07/2019), the #20 rated player is 1641. I don't have a screenshot of the ratings right before the update, so I will have to use the WC qualification as a reference point. The #20 rated player at that time was 1750. That's a 109 point drop.

Now, we could argue about the reasons why, but it's obvious Solo is dying (or is already dead), and this trend began following the update, which removed forced Solo for 1550+ players.

I've spoken about it with NeoSerbian yesterday, and have thought of 2 possible solutions:

1. Force Solo for high rated players again (same as pre-update).

2. Make Solo (rather than FFA) the default option when starting a game (at least for players >X rating or players who've played >Y games). I think this is a much better solution, as it would allow players who want to play FFA to still play FFA, but would, at the same time, create a lot more Solo games, since, probably, a lot of players just click play without delving into the details.

i can't help but suspect most players are just not interested in playing solo. it's easier to get a blitz or an antichess game than a regular solo game.

it's also not that hard to get a solo blitz or bullet game running, which i think is understandable, because solo games tend to take soo long (if played correctly...).

that said i would like to see many more solo games, because most ffa player whine about cooperation and teaming and essentially refuse to play ffa and play a solo style despite games being ffa.

my idea would be more like some matchmaking preference settings

[x] play solo games

[x] play anonymous games

and have these checked for everyone (or for some subset of players) by default, meaning that when they click play or play again, if there are solo or anonymous games waiting to fill up, they will sometimes be but in those games too. And be forced to go uncheck those settings if they don't like it. I'm not sure this won't upset people though or cause too much confusion, maybe Bab can say.

Jonas, I appreciate your suggestions.

We discussed this subject with @Spacebar a few days ago and (separately) with @hest1805, but am I still not sure how exactly we should implement it.

I can say that "1. Force Solo for high rated players again (same as pre-update)." is not going to happen. That was a temporary measure, it was not popular (got negative feedback from players) and also many admins didn't like it. It helped to solve some tasks, but now there is no reason to force someone to play a variant they don't like.

Perhaps we'll add 3 options to the New Game modal: FFA, Solo, Teams.

I also thought to show 2 options (FFA, Teams) to newcomers, but once a player played 100 (50?) FFA games, show them 3 options.

Also there is an idea to rename FFA to something clearly showing that it is a game where opposites naturally team up to win. What do you think?

What about not being able to play solo unless you have certain rating (like before), BUT with or without it you are not forced to play solo (unlike before).

My experience indicates that solo is not for players with little... experience, but if you are a 1,800 wanting to play "pure" FFA with other 1,800 s, why not?

That's not too different from the present situation. And yet [almost] nobody is playing Solo.

I know the "forced WTA" thing was introduced mainly to facilitate the championship. I'm going to assume you're planning on holding further championships, but, at the moment, that's just not feasible due to lack of players.

I do like the idea of renaming FFA into something that mentions teaming up. However, I still think Solo should be the default option, since a lot of players just click play without looking at what they're clicking.

Create the games make people greedy, when you joined a que you would perhaps first set it to the rating limit you hoped for, but change if got tired of waiting.

Not knowing if any people seeked a game was good in that way.

I check in now and then but if no decent games to join it don't feel worth to create, because I want high Solo and as you all have said, it the or amoung the most rare games now.

I think it would be good if it was possible for admins to create those old pools, and use it for weekend events.

As in that perhaps for just 4-5 hours on Saturdays and Sundays players could join a pool that will match something rare, like high or semi-high Solo.

It a big thing to bring back, perhaps impossible. But it would probably be the most direct way to create a time and place for good Solo players to be online and get games with eachother, without forcing anything on those that don't enjoy high Solo.

And yes I don't think it a good idea to just have players agree on a day and time, if players have too much control over what four players the game will consist of, it will ruin the political/diplomatic part of the game.

Default option for 1550+ (or 1500+ or 1600+) players, I support.

For players that often times play something that ensures the victory of another player, never! What´s the point of playing solo if not only may not do the most and best for victory but even may ensure (or almost) some other´s victory. It´s safe to assume that high rated players don´t blunder like that (serve win on a platter) often, at least try to keep the game alive.

1550+ should be forced WTM instead of forced WTA. Solo skips a ratings interval in between FFA which WTM fills in the gap

I think WTA is just more daunting for players. I have only played FFA so far (don't play a lot of 4pc) and the idea of losing rating points probably outweighs the outcomes of getting them for most. I wouldn't know the difference in rating points won in 1st vs lost in 2-4 but if I put myself in the mindset of others: if I wasn't good at 4pc (lets say rating of 1200 or so) I would think -> man I don't get 1st place often, I dont wanna do WTA cuz i'm gonna do super badly and then my ratings gonna tank. FFA at least lets me do things marginally. If I was in the top echelon I'd probably think -> man there's a lot of good competition. I'm confident in my abilities but everyone else is pretty good and because i'm rated where I should be, there's no real benefit of doing WTA. It'll be a close fight for 1st and if I don't get first its going to suck.

These are my opinions of what people might think. Basically the only way to remedy this would be: maybe make the points more lucrative for those who win. Of course this comes at the expense of rating inflation so you could balance it by increasing rating points lost for 3rd and 4th. But IMHO in order to make something popular (even in a game like chess) you need to offer an incentive that seems like a win-win (in this case lucrative rating points won for 1st, minimal lost for 2-4). Yes it will make higher ratings a joke and it will skyrocket rating inflation but thats the best scenario. If you wanted, you could put a WTA cap on this (to prevent inflation above point X) but thats just something to think about.

@chessweiqi, please use numbers instead of "lucrative", it will help to understand your suggestions. This is what we have currently:

FFA (Standard, Traditional 4PC): 1 major winner, 1 minor winner, 1 minor loser, 1 major loser
+3 +1 -1 -3
(Legend: +3 (1st place) +1 (2nd place) -1 (3rd place) -3 (4th place))

Solo (WTA): 1 major winner, 3 equally pitiful losers
+4 -1.3 -1.3 -1.3

We used to have different formulas for FFA and Solo, for example, "+4 -1 -1 -2" for Solo.

All these formulas give 0 if you'll add "+" and "-", to avoid rating inflation.

Ahhh my bad. I never really understood the whole layout* maybe I'm part of the reason WTA is dead  

So one example (if you want to avoid rating inflation) could be +5 -1 -2 -2 (favoring the fact that the person whom got second was the closest and while it is not truly equal for the losers, those who are confident in getting 1st and 2nd consistently don't need to worry. If you evened it out to -1.66 each it might be fairer to 3rd and 4th, but if you are looking for rating points, getting the maximum, while using the least amount of effort is ideal, so you can rinse and repeat constantly.

EDIT: Thinking back you could also do something like +5 0 -2.5 -2.5 (high reward, kind of high risk)

(I'm not sure at what point the numbers are high enough for people to go this route, but its something to think about... because hypothetically if you offered 200 rating points to anyone who could win first-> how many people wouldn't take a chance to get 1st? Probably not a lot, so the question is how to balance it enough so that those who lose aren't penalized too much. Because at the end of the day, 4 pc has 4 players involved and while that is redundant, you can't predict an opponents moves and who they will target. You can take precautions but you can't rely on your opponent to do what you want them to because "best move" has different values with multiple random variables factored in. (who the opponent is, who has the momentum, who has the most points, who seems like the big bully etc).

Another way could be something like +2 +1 0 -3 (opposite of WTM) because if you look at it statistically, theres only a 1/4 chance you would lose a lot of rating points.

Anyways just some food for thought.

Actions speak otherwise. Like thirty 1550+ players that play solo regularly. For FFA, the number at least triples.

Hypothetical question: What if people leave everything as default because it makes more sense... what if you tried setting solo as default?

Let's say we'll make it "+5 -1 -2 -2". Then A will team up with B. In the 1st game B will help A to win, in the next one A will help B. Each of them will get +4 ( = 5 - 1 ). Profit. It is profitable now with "+3 -1 -1 -1", but making it 2 times more profitable will attract more cheaters and will make catching them harder. They don't need to team up in every game.

Making Solo a default choice is not an option, because it is not a fun variant for new players.

So hypothetically what if you made it the same ratio but stakes higher? so rather than +3 -1 -1 -1, say +9 -3 -3 -3 ? people will get huge benefits of rating jumps but in order to stay on top, they'll have to win consistently (or +6 -2 -2 -2 ) and yeah I guess it'll be the same with with profitability... and cheating... but i feel like teaming is always going to be inevitable with high stakes -> make it forced anonymous?

That way the only way I can see someone cheating is getting into a voice chat/call/ irl and set up room together and basically figure out what color they are by calling out the moves they're playing etc. but you can retroban them from playing because if they are jumping into same rooms and they are trading its obvious.

@Jonas

You came back to play FFA. Or was it that you didn´t get any solo?

Not enough solo.

Did play some solo blitz, but not much.