I posted this earlier but it seems to have been removed...

I feel like the scoring system is a point of contention for a lot of people -- myself included. The opposing factions seem to be in one of two camps. Either they like the dominance scoring or they don’t.

The argument FOR the dominance scoring goes something like this: When the scoring is based entirely on what place you get, certain players can cherry-pick a better score by hiding out without fighting.

To fix this, the idea of "domination" was added to the game, which many players enjoy. After all, it prevents stagnation by rewarding fighting, right? Unfortunately this is only partly true. Really, what it is rewarding, is who is controlling the most territory. The vast majority of the time, the player with most territory is also the person who ends up getting first place. To make matters worse, the leader’s stacks are often protected behind large stacks. These stacks cannot attack or be attacked, but they continue to count towards the dominance score. The result is that the first place player gets lots of points for getting first AND gets lots of points for dominance. Players try to flag out when they realize they can’t get first and they want to do it as soon as possible because each round they stay widens the dominance gap, losing them more points.

I can think of a few modifications that could make the game a bit more fair and improve satisfaction among the kdice community. The first is that we should make dominance actually be a bonus for fighting. Rather than calculate dominance based on the number of territories owned at the beginning of one’s turn, calculate dominance based on the CHANGE in territories owned from last round. This rewards players equally for trying to expand their territories and prevents the person in first from simply running away with the dominance score. Maybe the name shouldn’t even be “dominance”. Perhaps they should be called “confrontation points” or “guts”.

Another complaint with dominance is that it represents far too much of your final score. Dominance should be an incentive, not a solitary means of scoring points. Often players receive more dominance points than they do points for placing first. This gives no incentive for someone to try and make a comeback win! It is meant to be an incentive, not the means for getting a high ratings increase. As such, I feel the scoring should be weighted, perhaps 75% of the score coming from the placement and 25% coming from the new points.

One other aspect of scoring that I think could be improved is in the distribution of the points given for placing each game. Look at this example from a recent game I played.

mdpapa finishes 7th(forced resign) in round 4.
Rank: 4842nd Score: -8 to 0â—†.
(-6 for 7th and -2 for dominance)

Michalak finishes 6th in round 4.
Rank: 1618th Score: -6 to 64â—†.
(-5 for 6th and -1 for dominance)

faramir69 finishes 5th in round 6.
Rank: 1096th Score: -7 to 89â—†.
(-4 for 5th and -3 for dominance)

beunhaas_N finishes 4th in round 7.
Rank: 925th Score: +1 to 100â—†.
(-1 for 4th and +2 for dominance)

RozaRay finishes 3rd(forced resign) in round 35.
Rank: 4496th Score: -15 to 3â—†.
(-4 for 3rd and -11 for dominance)

papillon finishes 2nd in round 37.
Rank: 1920th Score: +1 to 52â—†.
(+6 for 2nd and -5 for dominance)

Evermore finishes 1st in round 37.
Rank: 2343rd Score: +34 to 39â—†.
(+14 for 1st and +20 for dominance)

Or in an easier to read format:

1st place +34
2nd place +1
3rd place -15
4th place +1
5th place -7
6th place -6
7th place -8

Generally speaking, 1st and 2nd place gain points, 3rd place about breaks even, and 4th - 7th place lose points. This means that 2 of 7 players advance in ranking out of 7. That means 5 players are losing ranking. And let’s face it, there’s a lot of chance involved in kdice. Even skilled players get screwed over and lose a game after a failed 5v3 roll. I don’t think you can have the expectation that average players can consistently place 3rd place or higher. Therefore, the average players have a hard time making any significant improvements in their rankings. This is disheartening to the players and detracts from the overall appeal of the game. Sure the game is fun, but do you really want to repeatedly play a game that you never seem to improve in?

To remedy this, I think that the distribution of points should be shifted slightly. A distribution of 1st - 3rd gaining points, 4th place breaking even, and 5th -7th losing points is much more realistic. How can we accomplish this you might ask? This is easy if we change dominance to be only 25% of your score. That gives us an additional 25% of the points to shift the distribution.

With this system, people are more likely to keep playing. They will be able to see their progress and won’t be able to lose it all in a matter of hours. It also gives a small reward to players who play often. The ultimate goal of a ranking system is to match up opponents of similar skill levels. With this method, the best players will still be at the top of the rankings, but new players who just got lucky in their first few games will still not be ahead of committed players who have been playing for a while and know the game.

If you’ve finished reading the post, congratulations on a job well done. I know it was a doozy! I just want to see kdice be the best that it can be. I think these ideas will improve gameplay for everyone in the kdice community. If you can think of improvements to my ideas, or have another idea of your own, post away and let’s hear them. Kdice is a great game and a whole lot of fun. Let’s continue to make it the best that we can!