Treeburst155

This thread is why it took me so long to get my setup to you, BigDog944. Umm...you've had the setup for a couple hours now. Where's your reply??? I can't wait forever you know. Treeburst155 out.

Thanks, KR. The strong side still cannot match the great performance on the weak side; but they aren't hopelessly devastated by the situation, even though this is a VERY unbalanced scenario with a brain-dead person playing the strong side. Treeburst155 out.

Here is a sample input file of a super lopsided scenario (90-10). Note that player six did really well from the weak side. # Scenario_1, Medians (90-10) Player_A 99 Player_1 1 Player_B 96 Player_2 4 Player_C 92 Player_3 8 Player_D 88 Player_4 12 Player_E 84 Player_5 16 Player_F 30 Player_6 70 ****** Here's the Nabla scores for this scenario. Player_6 1.21 Player_A 0.50 Player_B 0.36 Player_5 0.36 Player_C 0.13 Player_4 0.13 Player_D -0.13 Player_3 -0.13 Player_E -0.36 Player_2 -0.36 Player_1 -0.50 Player_F -2.05 Player_6 takes the lead; but not by nearly as much as his opponent, Player_F, takes a hit for extremely crappy play. The reasoning here is that Player_F's poor performance was the main cause for Player_6's overwhelming victory, rather than brilliance on his part. Note that all the other players' scores are opposites. This is because all scores were very close to the median where the curve is linear. Treeburst155 out. [ June 15, 2005, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

There is no way to know about scenario balance for sure without MASSIVE BLIND testing IMO. I got wiped out in Moltke because my final reinforcements were gunned down immediately because I had chosen to abandon that area. I did not know to protect it for reinforcements. Where do you get large scale blind testing? Only in the tourney. I think the trickier a scenario is, the more prone it is to unexpected results. All you can do is keep the curve flat, and try to think of everything players might possibly do in a blind state. That is VERY difficult to do....maybe impossible. EDIT: Scenarios meant to be played blind (ROW) have to be tested blind if balance is to be accurately determined. You would need MANY testers willing to do TCP/IP. That's a lot to ask for. Treeburst155 out. [ June 15, 2005, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I agree fully, GaJ. A 70-30 scenario can still be fun for the underdog. It also leaves room for the great player to excel, even with the strong side. Also, the curve must flatten for extreme scores so that the 90 pt score from the weak side (median 25) does not dwarf the 95 point score from the strong side (median 75)in importance to the final tourney outcome. Treeburst155 out.

The Nabla System does not directly address the problems with EXTREMELY unbalanced scenarios. If the median is 90 for a side, it is impossible to leave the pack behind; BUT, if radical departures from the median are not heavily rewarded anyway..... Treeburst155 out.

I don't think there are many spectacular wins that aren't related to a rookie opponent, extremely good luck, or an opponent who gives up or plays half-heartedly. A player who often takes big risks will lose more than he wins IMO. The Nabla System was designed to reward consistently good play. I don't think the big risk-taker can be consistent. The really great thing about Nabla's work is that all this is tweakable. My recommended parameters de-emphasize big wins. Instead, the player who loses badly is punished to a certain degree for giving up or being extremely unskilled. Also, by keeping the full range of scores tighter, no single poor performance (or good one) can have a drastic affect on a player's final Nabla score for the tourney. Having said that, I believe the right people won their sections in this last tourney. It's just the relative placement of others that was a bit hard for people to wrap around their brains. For example, I did fairly well in three games, but my final Nabla score was atrocious, mainly due to a huge loss in Moltke. Therefore, I feel I did better than my final score suggests. No big deal. There's no way the curve could be tweaked to make me a winner. Treeburst155 out.

If a scenario is extremely unbalanced, the ability of good players to excel from the favored side would be reduced because you can't score more than 100. The only thing mitigating this problem is that the steep part of the curve is near the median. So, if the median for a side was 90 the curve would be starting to flatten by the time scores got to 100 anyway. A good player playing the strong side in several games would have a rougher time winning the tourney; but the problem would be less severe with the original Nabla system. The real answer is not to use extremely unbalanced scenarios; or to have an Allied champ and an Axis champ, with all players playing only one side in all games. Also, the problem disappears if the scenario doesn't go much beyond 70-30 in balance. As long as there is 30 or so points possible above the median for a side there is room for the best to excel. More imbalance than that would tend to detract from players' enjoyment of the scenario IMO. Treeburst155 out.

See page 30 of the Nabla Manual for the scoring formula!!! Treeburst155 out.

Malakovski, The adjustable parameters in the command line all affect the curve. You can have an assymetrical curve or a symmetrical one. You can flatten it out wherever you want. You can punish extremely poor performance as much as you want. I do not have the actual formula; but Nabla has made the source code available on his site for anyone with a compiler. The formula is in there for sure. Trial and error with sample input and different parameters is all you need to analyze the curve for desireable characteristics. I could run the entire ROW V tourney through this original system; but putting together the input file would take several hours. Also, if it changes rankings too much there could be ...um...problems. Treeburst155 out.

Hi Kingfish, Nabla pulled his scoring program off his site at one time. At some point, he made it available again. I just discovered and downloaded it, read my own instructions in the Nabla manual, and ran the results for Moltke. I'm fully functional with the Nabla scoring system again. I thought it was lost forever. Thanks, Nabla!! The original system definitely tightens up the numbers if you use my recommended parameters. I really can't say for sure if it would change the final ranking of the players. Those who had one very bad game, or one very good game would not have their final scores affected so severely by the one performance. Walpurgis would still win Group 4 because he was consistent throughout his games. The gap would have been much closer, with other Group 4 people finishing with higher final Nabla scores. Treeburst155 out.

...but if HUGE wins were not heavily rewarded, as in my "Moltke" example above, a strong player would have to be consistently strong to stay ahead of the pack. Note that the top 8 or so players in my example are well within striking distance of Walpurgis. The one huge win doesn't put him way out in front. BTW, Walpurgis won Group 4 no matter how you look at it. The gap would just have been much less. Treeburst155 out.

Sivodsi, Walpurgis did very well against ALL his opponents. The "curve" used awarded him LOTS of points for these performances. The one game everyone in Group 4 played against Walpurgis ruined their average Nabla score. The curve illustrated above really wouldn't do that. Look at the difference between the highest and lowest score for the scenario above. Compare that with the actual ROW results for "Across Moltke". Treeburst155 out.

Why not heavily reward a huge win that is well above the standard deviation? Consider the reasons for the huge win. 1) Newbie opponent 2) An opponent who gives up or doesn't try 3) Extreme luck, not enjoyed by other participants due to the bad odds of having such luck. Treeburst155 out.

Here are the Nabla scores from highest to lowest for "Across Moltke" as calculated by the original Nabla formula with my recommended values (Page 26-28 of Nabla manual) for the parameters. You'll see that big wins weren't as big. In fact, the corresponding big losers were punished for poor performance, rather than the winner rewarded. For example, Walpurgis beat me 91-9. His Nabla score is 1.17 while my negative score is significantly worse at -1.71. Walpurgis_Nacht 1.17 Londoner 1.17 GreenHornet 1.08 Bigduke6 1.07 JonS 0.98 Ted 0.94 jbertles 0.91 Platehead 0.91 Sivodsi 0.83 dangerousdave 0.76 ElmarBijlsma 0.76 flammenwerfer 0.72 Flenser 0.72 Larry_Thorne 0.68 stikkypixie 0.64 Cpt_T 0.64 Raketenpanzerbuchse 0.54 MerkinMuffly 0.54 General_Colt 0.54 Sleekit 0.48 Panzertwat 0.48 Malakovski 0.48 Europa 0.48 Gtimthane 0.42 BigDog944 0.42 LT_Bull 0.36 JPS 0.36 tabpub 0.29 simovitch 0.29 dieseltaylor 0.29 kenfedoroff 0.21 Other_Means 0.21 Melnibone 0.21 KanonierReichmann 0.21 Steve_McClaire 0.13 Cuzn 0.13 Renaud -0.13 Dawg_Bonz -0.13 The_Enigma -0.21 StoneAge -0.21 JonL -0.21 JimCrowley -0.21 MickOZ -0.29 JeffWilders -0.29 Heavy_Drop -0.29 yacinator -0.36 SteveS -0.36 a1steaks -0.42 Vadr -0.42 sandy -0.48 The_Capt -0.48 Sripe -0.48 Frenchy -0.48 CombinedArms -0.54 Artavash -0.54 Andrew_Kulin -0.54 peterk -0.64 Nefarious -0.64 Paco_QNS -0.68 mPisi -0.72 FGM_Smashing -0.72 Nestor -0.76 GSX -0.76 BigMik1 -0.84 Michael_Dorosh -0.96 GreenAsJade -0.96 Foxholerob -1.00 JohnO -1.08 Sgian_Dubh -1.28 ded -1.32 Treeburst155 -1.71 Redwolf -1.71 Would the final rankings of this tournament have changed? I don't know. There probably would not have been such a large range of scores. Things would have been packed tighter. If there is another ROW, I would be willing to take care of the scoring if organizers so desire. I would not play. Treeburst155 out. [ June 14, 2005, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I just read Kingfish's last post. He's not using the actual scoring formula (step 6) created by Nabla. This is my fault. Perhaps I can re-familiarize myself with the nitty-gritty of the scoring system, and pass it along to Kingfish. I think the actual DOS scoring program is still available on Nabla's site. My recommended parameters for the formula are on pages 26-28 of the manual. Treeburst155 out.

See pages 26-28 of the Nabla manual, written by me. This explains the parameters that can be set by the tourney operator. http://www.cis.hut.fi/jarmo/nabla-system/nabla-manual.pdf

The formula created by Nabla for determining the Nabla score is complex for any non-Math major. It is also highly customizeable. There are several parameters (values) that can be changed to produce the curve desired by the tournament operator. I played with these parameters for weeks, studying the resulting curves until I found out what values would limit outlier results to my satisfaction. Having not been involved with ROW for 2.5 years, I have no idea what values are plugged into the formula; but I feel confident my original parameters are not being used. Look at the results of older ROW tourneys if they are available somewhere. I think you will see that scoring was different. It is true that players playing a side of a scenario with a very high median cannot do much better than that median; but the steepest part of the curve should surround the median. The curve I had in place was almost flat in the region where the top 5 or so scores for a side would fall. A score of 90 from a side of a scenario where 40 was the median would not score many more Nabla points than a score of 70 from the same side. The Nabla scoring system was a work in progress. Nabla had even mentioned that he thought the curve might need to be different for every scenario. This is, I think, what we are noticing here with these results. Perhaps players should always play the same side in a tournament. 36 Allied players, and 36 Axis players. Then have an Allied champ, and an Axis champ. This would alleviate the problems being discussed here. Treeburst155 out.

I just noticed I tied with Redwolf for the worst Moltke score in the tourney. Surely there is some fine wine due us for that accomplishment. Treeburst155 out.

The raw scores are available on the ROW site. Treeburst155 out.

I think there is a mistake in Group4/St. Edwards. There is a ".8" score with no corresponding "-.8". Walpurgis Nacht ripped me from 2nd place to second to last! Curse you Walpurgis for kicking my *ss. EDIT: Maybe not 2nd, Big Dog did very well. He beat me too. Curses on him also. EDIT 2: Maybe not 3rd, Cpt T did very well. At least he didn't beat me. Curses on him anyway. Treeburst155 out. [ June 09, 2005, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Redwolf, Screenshots on the way. I can tell AF from non-AF shots. I can't tell 66.93 from 67.66 however. Treeburst155 out. [ February 23, 2005, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I wish I could post screen shots. I'm definitely getting a noticeable improvement when I go from zero AF to the max 16 AF with the 67.66 drivers, as long as FSAA is enabled(8xS)too. I'm leaving all "optimizatons" off. FRAPS tells me I'm taking a 20% framerate hit when I go to AF 16x. Treeburst155 out.

This may come as news to some. It certainly was to me. IN CMAK, if the subordinate half of a split squad gets broken or routed (therefore "rattled"), the whole squad will become "rattled" if the squad is rejoined. If the squad is then split again, both halves remain rattled. I ASSUME this is true if the sargeant's half of the squad gets routed to. It's probably unwise to rejoin a split squad if one half has been previously broken or routed. Treeburst155 out.

The shimmering always occurs at the top portion of the screen (furthest away). FSAA helps a great deal. AF in conjunction with FSAA works even better with 67.66. This was untrue with 66.93. Having said that, AF without FSAA doesn't seem to do much at all with 67.66. With these drivers I would rather have FSAA alone than AF alone; but AF definitely helps with FSAA already in action. These drivers make CM look better because AF is working. My framerate is reduced too. This is another good indicator that AF is working. Treeburst155 out.