Number of Decisions and Complexity in Game with higher minimum skill of competitors
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:42 am
This was from Sportsbettingman on another thread and I thought it was worth pursueing this thought and consequenses but not as interuption to AFFL thread.
"That opens up the debate that a minimum skill level among high stakes players has to be assumed.
The difference between 12-15 high stakes players is much less than that of 12-15 random people off the street.
When people of similar skill sets play poker...(example...High Stakes Poker)...the winners often have to rely more on luck than usual.
That's why they are always looking for a juicy game with lesser skilled players...they make much more money without needing the luck as much.
~Lance"
SBM- I agree with this and this is why when designing/choosing a High Stakes contest I think it should lean towards creating more decisions and have some level of complexity that raises the attainable Ceiling of skill. If the floor level of skill is Higher, then to get the same desired degree of seperation of competitors, I feel you have to provide more opportunities for competitors to demonstrate addition skills or at least their skills more times each week and/or over season. So when a contest is deciding on rules/setup I feel they should lean towards providing the setup that has more decisions built in and is the most complex that will be accepted by enough of their customers to be feasible.
Example- I think many would say an Auction provides more opportunities to make more decisions than a serpentine draft (in league of 14 you only decide/participate in 1/14th of the serpentine drafts decisions) so the ceiling level of skill is higher in an Auction. BUT not enough customers are ready to go auction over Serpentine so it isn't done yet in big contests. There are other formats that provide even more decisions than an Auction might...and there are things like a Draft Champions Serpentine Draft that has even less decisions involved than a Typical league because there aren't even any start/bench decisions involved. I know some things that add decisions (like Trading) have some issues that large contests have trouble addressing (although there are ways even in draft leagues)...but when faced with deciding between rules I think contests should err on side of maximizing player options/decisions (when it is acceptable to enough of it's customer base) over the time frame of their game so that the Ceiling level of skill attainable is high enough above the floor level of it's competitors to reveal that it really is a game of skill (which these definately are..just need to add even more skill aspects/opportunities to them as level of competition gets better). When ceiling level of game stops appearing high enough then competitors will look for higher ceilings somewhere else. JMO These are all games of skill..how much skill is determined by how much the customers demand
[ February 28, 2008, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: Lightning Fast Whip ]
"That opens up the debate that a minimum skill level among high stakes players has to be assumed.
The difference between 12-15 high stakes players is much less than that of 12-15 random people off the street.
When people of similar skill sets play poker...(example...High Stakes Poker)...the winners often have to rely more on luck than usual.
That's why they are always looking for a juicy game with lesser skilled players...they make much more money without needing the luck as much.
~Lance"
SBM- I agree with this and this is why when designing/choosing a High Stakes contest I think it should lean towards creating more decisions and have some level of complexity that raises the attainable Ceiling of skill. If the floor level of skill is Higher, then to get the same desired degree of seperation of competitors, I feel you have to provide more opportunities for competitors to demonstrate addition skills or at least their skills more times each week and/or over season. So when a contest is deciding on rules/setup I feel they should lean towards providing the setup that has more decisions built in and is the most complex that will be accepted by enough of their customers to be feasible.
Example- I think many would say an Auction provides more opportunities to make more decisions than a serpentine draft (in league of 14 you only decide/participate in 1/14th of the serpentine drafts decisions) so the ceiling level of skill is higher in an Auction. BUT not enough customers are ready to go auction over Serpentine so it isn't done yet in big contests. There are other formats that provide even more decisions than an Auction might...and there are things like a Draft Champions Serpentine Draft that has even less decisions involved than a Typical league because there aren't even any start/bench decisions involved. I know some things that add decisions (like Trading) have some issues that large contests have trouble addressing (although there are ways even in draft leagues)...but when faced with deciding between rules I think contests should err on side of maximizing player options/decisions (when it is acceptable to enough of it's customer base) over the time frame of their game so that the Ceiling level of skill attainable is high enough above the floor level of it's competitors to reveal that it really is a game of skill (which these definately are..just need to add even more skill aspects/opportunities to them as level of competition gets better). When ceiling level of game stops appearing high enough then competitors will look for higher ceilings somewhere else. JMO These are all games of skill..how much skill is determined by how much the customers demand
[ February 28, 2008, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: Lightning Fast Whip ]