Now that it has been running a few days, what is everyone's thoughts on the new "smart" dynamic division system?

In short, it looks at how you perform over time, and ranks you against other players. It then determines using some algorithms I devised who it projects will play, and throws people in division buckets based on this info.

This gives us, in theory:

(a) an ability-based division system that is completely distinct from player level. If you are level 220 and are awful at the game, you will be in Division 1. And a level 6 player who is amazing will quickly find himself up in Division 5 where he belongs.

(b) a balanced system. i.e. all divisions should have ROUGHLY the same number of people playing each hour as things start to settle.

To me, at least, it seems superior in every way to what we are using in the other hourly and daily games.

So... interested in your thoughts. Should I roll out these algorithms and division systems to other games? Each game's division data would be separate... so if you are amazing in the easy game you may be in Division 5, but if awful in Expert, you may find yourself in Division 2, etc. A few games would have to have badge requirements tweaked a bit to discourage sandbagging (throwing games to fall divisions intentionally), but overall it should be an easy transition.

Almost any reasonable algorithm has to be superior to the current system, which stratifies people based on a metric (levels) that is mostly unrelated to their skill. I personally don't really care which system is in place, but I'm always in favor of making things better.

What about the Champion divisions? Will all the Champions still be tossed in together?

And to annoying and bring up another topic, please, please, oh please could there be a Champion Easy mode for Who Am I? and Mind Melt?

I like it. Aside from the advantages already mentioned, it seems like it could reduce the practice, at least a little, of sandbagging on level advancement to keep things easier by clinging to the lower divisions.

It might lose a tad of its effectiveness in Who's the Expert given the wide topic variability there. We already see that a little with the 50-50 trial and just the 3 difficulty versions. I think it would still be better even in that case though. As eyhung said, even a minor improvement would be good and in other more dedicated games it would be great.

"Champion division" would just be the highest most division in any given game.

If overall performance in all the games leads to division placement, then I agree with namrewsna that there might be a problem with the Expert Game. I favor the existing "Champion" division structure for the Expert game because one can be extremely knowledgeable about a niche area (such as Star Wars Books) but that knowledge doesn't necessarily translate well to other topics, so the true Star Wars Books champions might not be in the highest division when that category comes up. Similarly, one could be a great general trivia player but be completely out to sea on a specific topic like Star Wars Books. The current Expert structure of only letting people who have won a division in that topic compete in the Champion division for that topic seems to work well enough there and makes a Championship victory far more meaningful.

Agreed, not a good thing for Who's the Expert.

I think this is a great idea for the non Who's the Expert games since it gives many of us who have advanced to Championship division but are not among the very top a chance to complete daily challenges such as finish in the top X of an hourly game. I'm really interested in seeing what happens in games such as Piece of Cake and Who's the Smartest? where the topic changes every hour.

I think the best sorting mechanism would be based in a way similar to how the Easy, Mixed, and Smartest hourly games work. I'd imagine that the algorithm in place for the Fifty-Fifty game is based on simply score performance relative to others but I believe there's more meaning to an aggregate of relative score and play frequency/count which is how the three popular hourlies rank. All else equal it is much more impressive to have an average of 970 in the Easy game on 300 plays in a month versus having the same average on 30 plays in a month. I would be most in favor of Division rankings based on both average score and point accumulation in the game but I would favor average score a little more (60-40). There's already an ELO rating system in place for a lot of the games. Is that system what is being used to sort the Fifty-Fifty now?

For the reasons cited by earlier posters, it's definitely inappropriate for "Who's the Expert", which, by the way, should be further subdivided a bit, like 111-200 and 200-300 instead of the monster 111-300.

Also not really seeing this for the other games. Using myself as an example, I don't seem to be in the correct level; competing against players who are much, much too strong. Some of the badges that I won a few years ago would never have been possible for me with the new algorithm.

I certainly don't expect ever to win the Fifty-Fifty badge, the one in the Emerald cave that requires you to be a division winner multiple times. I don't even expect to be a Division Winner once.

Sooo, if I understand this:

Even though, simply by continual playing over several years, a player's rank may have risen to, say, 200, that 200 level won't count for future games played, but will be based on how well the player has recently scored over x number of times in any particular game?

if so, I like the idea very much indeed and hope it's implemented with as many games as possible.

At level 216, I am a highly ranked player, not because I'm brilliant, but because I play a lot. My rank has crept up over time for that reason. I think my intellectual ability has taken off in the opposite direction.

Creedy, yes, it sounds good, but.....

gracious1, if you are scoring well enough in the Fifty-Fifty game to be in a high level, then that is where you belong. You are being matched with other players whose scores are in a similar range. In the other games, I would love to be pitched against other players based on my skill in that game, not on the fact that somehow over the years my dogged persistence in playing them has led to me acquiring the credentials to be in the highest level. Not that it really matters - but sometimes when a Daily challenge requires a certain performance within my division, it would be nice to be in a reasonable division.

Oh sorry, I didn't read the name of this topic. But there seems to be two topics rolled into one reading back over the posts, so it's confusing.

I thought the new smart dynamic division system referred to in the initial post of this topic (# 1211107) meant a discussion about possibly applying this system onto games as they are at present - multiple choice of four, match, photo etc, so that we'd be matched up against other players of similar ability based on performance over a certain number of plays in any given period - and that our opposition players would be constantly changing as a result. Great idea if so.

But are we talking about that - or about turning all games into a Fifty-fifty component, which is the other topic that seems to under discussion as well?

I love the new Fifty-Fifty games, but would think applying same to all games wouldn't be a good idea at all. Too simplified.

And what the heck is sandbagging?

Creedy, Terry is asking about grouping players together based on how they play, not on turning the other hourly games into a two answer game. One reason you've got your high player level is due to all the quizzes you've written & the points you points you received for them. That can put you at a disadvantage unless an hourly game is made up of only your questions and you remember the answers.

Sandbagging - deliberately playing poorly to stay in a lower rank in the fifty-fifty game or stay at a low player level.

Thanks, Mira - galloping to the rescue as always

And pigs to playing poorly just to stay in a lower level. My ego couldn't handle that. I want the star on the top of the Christmas tree, but I don't want that star to be tarnished.

(That tiger looks awfully hungry. It's making me nervous)

Also agreed. It might be a good idea in the Piece o' Cake, Mixed, and Smartest hourlies, but not a good idea for Who's the Expert?

It sounds like even in the new system, once you are a "Champion" you are still stuck playing against people who are way above you in class/ability. So it doesn't really improve that at all.

IMHO there should be a "Champion" and then maybe a "Grand Champion" division into which to move "Champion" winners. so that people have a chance to win a "Champion" division. No way will some of us ever beat people in the "Champion" division who are getting 15 in 37 seconds, so no "King of Most Trades" badge for us.

And I maintain please subdivide the current "111-300" division into two or better yet three divisions. There are a lot more people now above 111 than there were five years ago.



Oh, yes, please! ::prayer emoji::

Try it out in the Word Wizard, by far the most top-heavy, champion-inflated game.

HairyBear is right. Sort out the bugs, see how it works and then see if it would be useful used elsewhere.

I second this. The Word Wizard game seems like a good test run of the new division system.