Monday, October 7, 2019

Multiplayer Points System 2019 Revisions

Beginning on October the 8th, 2019, there are some necessary and exciting changes coming to the Cribbage Pro Multiplayer Points System. Previously, you would lose points based on how much you lost a game by. There was also only a relatively minor penalty if you were to quit or disconnect, which made it possible to quit and lose fewer points in some circumstances. That loophole has now been fixed!


The biggest benefit to everyone from these changes is that now when you lose a game, you will not lose any points! However, if you quit, forfeit or disconnect for any reason before the game is over, you will lose points. If a player disconnects (not a forfeit, but loss of connection), there will also be a five minute wait time before you can create or join a game.

These changes have been made for many reasons, the primary being keeping play “fair” and encouraging those who have been playing for a long time, but have had minimal “leveling up”. A loss will still be recorded in the statistics for play, but won’t be a point loss on your Top 50 Leaderboard standings.

The loophole of disconnecting has been unfair, and we are excited to have improved the fairness of the game for everyone through these changes. Technology is generally good enough now to keep a connection, but as always, be sure you have a solid connection before a game is started.

Thanks to everyone for their great suggestions which we have used here to implement these changes. Keep the suggestions coming and best of luck in all your cribbage games!

UPDATE: Thanks to those who have contacted us with your suggestions for improving the system. Please know that we are actively working on developing and testing a new true ranking system that we hope will work alongside the existing points/level system. Stay tuned!

47 comments:

  1. Is their a way now to play partners... if so how? If not it would be a good option for some of us who like to play with a friend or new person and make a friend.

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    1. Hi, you can play against a friend, but our game is currently two players (1 versus 1) only. We may include other options for 3 or 4 player cribbage in the future.

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    2. ^^^ This, big time! I love 3 player / teams.

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  2. Eliminating the advantage of disconnecting is a good thing. Thank you.

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  3. The move to Crypto has reduced an ready bare number of money contests - is anything being done to get more people playing?

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    1. Hi, we definitely understand what you are saying. It is very unfortunately that the changes made at PayPal and similar payment services have been such a major factor there. We have some things we are working on, but as always would appreciate any suggestions you have on this as well. Please email us your suggestions to support@FullerSystems.com

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    2. many people are interested in playing tournaments but not for money. You could create a premium service which would allow players to enter tournaments. The old Yahoo cribbage game had tournament rooms.

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    3. @super101, We have a tournament system on our list of improvements we want to make, but we have a few more things to get done before.

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  4. Sorry, I don't get the change? Yes, I understand and support the idea of making sure people are always penalised for disconnecting, but if you never lose points for losing, that just means that ultimately the rankings stop showing who the most skillful players are, and instead just show who plays most often??

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    1. This is a tricky question, for what may seem simple on the surface. I won't go into great detail here in a comment, so if you still have questions and want to explore the thinking more on it, please email us at support@FullerSystems.com To put it simply, the current/old system was actually already doing this and so it was misleading to try and say it was a ranking system. In our analysis of it, the more games you played, the more points you earned as long as you held a win rate around 50%.

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    2. Sorry, I cut off before finishing the thought on the last reply. So, what was happening was that anyone who had at least a 50% win percentage could move up the "ranking" by just playing more games. The result was a system that was still heavily weighted towards those that played the most instead of "the best". I hope that makes sense, but again if you want to discuss more please drop us an email.

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    3. What about the players who were below 50%? In the old system they would stay level 0 until they improved their playing skills and go above 50%, in the new system they just have to play more and more. This discourages learning.

      Also, with no penalty for losing more points for getting by a higher margin, the game is less interesting once you see you're beat. In the old system you would still try to close the margin in that case.

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    4. Yes, you make an interesting point, under the old system you theoretically should continually gain points if your winning percentage was above 50 percent. In my own case, with a winning percentage of 51 percent, and 6000 games played (only against level 40 or higher players) I was continually stuck in a range of 8000 - 1100. I probably never saw any improvement because my average victories were by fewer points than my average loss margins. Nevertheless the new point system, can no longer can even pretend to be a rating....it just indicative of the total number of games played. Yes, some players who could not move up in the old ratings system because they had a winning percentage less than 50 percent will be happy, but that doesn't change the fact that their rating is now actually totally meaningless.

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    5. @super101, I'll give a bit more detail here to help show where we are headed.

      As you said, these changes certainly can not "pretend to be a rating" system, and the old system should not have been seen that way either. These recent changes then are not the solution to the system not being a ranking of players. One of the most significant problems was that the old system regularly rewarded playing more games instead of actually having greater skill. These changes were not intended to address that at all, but it does highlight that the points system is not a ranking system. Instead, we are actively testing multiple new systems to provide ranking, while giving a new purpose for the existing points system. We plan on actively testing the new ranking system options for a little while, until we find the best solution. These systems we are trialing are actively running alongside the existing one today. We are regularly reviewing the numbers from them to see if they fit our expectations based on several factors - the most traditional consideration being how well the systems are at predicting who will win a game. One thing I can say for certain is that the old system had some major holes in it, and it is becoming clearer now that there were many very good players that never made it into the Top 50, while they were probably better than many of the players who were there. We will see how that all plays out when the new system is released, but I expect it will be a surprise to some.

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  5. Thank you for for your efforts to continually making this a better game!

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  6. Excellent news, so fed up of disconnecting losers, thanks.

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  7. About time. I have frequently been p***ed off by players quitting when I have been well ahead rather that sportingly seeing a game to conclusion. Those players always got one star and poor sportmanship from me.

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  8. Especially people who disconnect and the game becomes a draw. Happen to me a lot of time. Pls fix it.
    Thanks

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    1. These changes are designed exactly for that - to prevent intentional disconnects. We will continue to make similar changes if it doesn't help as much as we currently expect it to.

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  9. Having been stuck at level 0 with a 45% win percentage, up from 42% after well over 1k games played, is frustrating, to be sure, but now what? It would be nice if we could see people's win percentages before playing, so we can match people around our level.

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    1. Now you will find that it will be easier to move up your level. You can view all the stats for anyone else by selecting them in the players list and selecting that option.

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  10. So I've played a few games today, lost most of them (cards aren't being kind today...oh well) and saw that my points had decreased. If I've read everything above correctly, I thought that wasn't supposed to happen.....? What am I missing or misunderstanding?

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    1. The change will go "live" in just a little while. We operate on the west coast of the US, so expect it before 9am Pacific time.

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  11. good. I been stuck at lvl 50 for 3 years now and have been unable to increase it. with this now no longer deleting points, I can gain ranks

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  12. Will you also be fixing the well documented issue around how the app is rigged? Far more important than the points system in my view. No point gong over old ground, or indeed reading your standard response, the game is clearly rigged. If defies all the equally well documented stats about frequency of high scoring hands and cuts etc!

    As for quitting a game, I personally don’t quit that often, but when I do it’s because there is zero chance of winning and I would rather start a fresh game, as I would in a face-to-face game. May I suggest you put an option in to quit and then offer a rematch. That is surely still a sporting action?

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    1. I agree that there is "No point going over old ground" with respect to the fairness of the game. We have shown the game to be fair and random so many times already, there is really not much more to say on that topic here. Anyone reading this can reference the links in the FAQ that detail out all the numbers, how it is proven random and even the offer to view the code used in the game if interested.

      Thank you for the suggestion of some kind of "I give up, but let's play again" option. I will add it to our list of things to consider in future updates.

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  13. Been playing for quite a while now & still on level 0 what am i doing wrong ???

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    1. With this change you should start to see that level improve as you win games. It will depend on exactly how low in level zero you were, but hang in there and you should soon start seeing improvements as long as you are in fact winning games.

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  14. Not big on the new scoring. Moving up a level meant something before. Now it's just about how long you play to move up. As far as people quitting... so what? I still get points if they do. It seems that an easy solution is when people quit treat the score they were at when they quit equal to the score they'd have finished at as the opponent crossed 121. If they're at 55 and quit then it counts as a double skunk for both parties. Quit at one's own peril.

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    1. Your suggestion for a penalty for quitting/disconnecting is definitely what we were after with these changes, and we may increase that penalty in the future as well. The changes to not deduct points for a loss is a seperate, although related, change which is why we made that change at the same time. As we have mentioned before, a true ranking system is in the works, so stay tuned.

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  15. i don’t see how this is helpful.

    i see this as switching to a socialist economy from a capitalistic one. this seems like giving trophies to everyone for showing up rather than the people that do well.

    in the future, if I see someone is level 782, it just means he has played a ton, but not necessarily very good. Erik Locke is currently the best player in the world and has a very high rating, as he should.

    there should be a zero-sum gain in total points when two people play a game, as there is in a standard ‘ELO Chess’ scoring environment.

    this is similar to a country devaluing the currency overnight. any player with a level of 100 right now is very good. 1 year from now, there is no correlation of skill vs level. it will simply be correlated to games played vs skill level.

    there will be a small correlation of skill and level. the win % of the best cribbage players like Locke, Toll and Hall may be 65% against an average player? so these players will accumulate points slightly faster than sub-par players. but if a bad player (win rate = 40%) plays 10x as many games as a pro, the level will accumulate approximately 6x as fast as a pro, which doesn’t seem correct?

    i know you are trying to dissuade quitting, but level inflation discourages the long term players. if this is the purpose, why not just base level on games played?

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    1. The short answer is that what I'll refer to as the "old system" essentially was the same in many ways (the more you played, the more you earned), and we are instead in the process of moving to a new ranking system that will likely involve some new features as well. We hope to keep this points system in place at the same time, but needed to make these changes for the quitting situation before the new ranking system is fully tested and ready. The new systems we are testing are similar to the Elo systems used in chess, but with some important modifications that can account for some of the several drawbacks to a pure Elo system. So as mentioned in the "Update" at the end of this blog post: Stay tuned.

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  16. Not a fan of the new scoring. Too much of a reward for just playing. The top 50 leaderboard no longer will mean anything. I would look at points per game played as a true indicator of level. I have already seen a player I had passed on the leaderboard now move past me and 4 others just because they play a ton of games - winning percentage is just over 50%. The scoring system change has definitely dis-interested me in playing as much. May just uninstall the game.

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  17. In playing now, without a penalty of losing points has diminished enjoyment. I appreciate enhancements, however, my overall score essentially means I play a lot. There is no real indication of my level of proficiency. Though, I suspect top players in the past are players that have recognized more hand sequences. I know Cribbage pro is not a true random game, ie cut cards are often the card needed mored often than in real play, or receiving similar/hands in successive games. I would again support losing points after a legitimate loss. Thanks.

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  18. I don’t see any new comments since Oct 2019. A s this thread still alive?

    I’m wondering why my score hasn’t increased in weeks as I’m still maintaining a positive win percentage?

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    1. Hi, you should email us at support@FullerSystems.com with your username and we can check your account for you. Most likely it is either that you are not playing rated games, or simply that you are at one of the levels that has a larger points break to get to the next (like level 50 moving to 51).

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  19. Any Update on when the new ranking system is going to go live?
    Thanks

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    1. Hi, great question. We have quite a bit more work needed to do this right, as it will change quite a bit about how things work in multiplayer games. There will be a few updates required to lay the groundwork first, and then we will have a better idea of when it will be available. Thanks for your patience.

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  20. Please allow possibility of 3/4 players. I was suggested this app but do not like the incapacity of multi players! I usually play at least three with family but because of Covid we can't Get together. We would love it if you would help out families during this difficult time! Thanks!

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    1. Hi, we have this suggestion on our list of things to work on, but it will take a significant amount of work to do and I can't say when anything like this will be available.

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  21. I've played the last 15 games best of 3 and I've lost them all to a friend but I'm on level 65 they r on 63. So leveling up does nothing to help u win. if the computer doesnt want u to win u wont. also how do u level up quicker seems to take about 30 games to win to level up

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    1. It is correct that leveling up does nothing to help you win. The system does not care what level you are, it will always deal out the cards from a random shuffle and never is going to stack the deck or anything else like that. This level system blog post you are commenting on here essentially explains that the level you have now is just your experience level (XP as you can see it in the game). This is a reflection more of how much you have played and won as a total number, but not of your actual skill level. The Competitive Matchmaking system is designed to rank by skill level.

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