Proposal: New users choose beginner/intermediate/advanced and drop ranked game restrictions

I remembered the white belt of jigoro kano (which only difference is a doubled size. )

I had looked at a much older OGS graph. I can’t see percentages here but it seems like 1D is the top 5 or 10%.

That’s neat, I didn’t realize that was being done. Don’t take me too harshly, I am just very passionate.

My wife has actually banned me from r/baduk because I was getting so frustrated xD

I really love this graph. Why is the Advanced category 2D instead of 3k where the brown starts? I think ~3k+ being advanced seems reasonable with this data.

I agree with this mentality, and it frustrates me which is why I want to get people to understand that Kyu players can be good at this game as well. I think the changes should be done with the correct data and people need to accept that their views are wrong/incorrect. SDK are good at the game!

@GreenAsJade just do what you are going to do. I think you will get yelled at no matter what so ignore us xD. Your work is appreciated.

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I think this data shows that we are right as sdk players to not consider ourselves good at the game. We’re barely above the median, and some of us are below it. Intermediate seems about right for that

Intermediate is not good at the game?

Yeah. Intermediate is just that, intermediate. It’s not “good” at the thing

Then Advanced, Intermediate, & Beginner are not “good” so I guess Dan players are also not “good” because we are not Professionals. I just completely disagree with you on this point. We should leave it at this though and agree to disagree. This is not a topic worth turning into a debate in this thread imo.

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FYI we’re heading in the direction of doing A/B testing in production with these designs.

So users will randomly get one of the candidates, and we’ll measure the outcomes and keep the one that does the best.

We’re yet to define specifically what “does the best” means, but two criteria clearly are:

  • Which design minimises skipping
  • Which design results in users choosing a starting rank closest to what they end up at.
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If enough data, new player retention could also be good to measure?

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If the question is “What is your skill level?”, of course people will think that.

I would leave out vague words like “Advanced” and “Intermediate”, and just offer

  • Complete beginner
  • Casual player (25 kyu – 12 kyu)
  • Experienced, subdivided into something like
    • 3 kyu – 11 kyu
    • 2 kyu – stronger

It doesn’t mean “choose the rank of your opponent” it means what it says “what is your skill level”.

If you ask “why do you want to know” then the answer is “so that we can match you well in your initial games”.

Why else do you suppose we’re asking? :face_with_monocle:

FWIW, one of three candidates screens are currently presented at random to new users.

(IE we’re not going to do anything with more suggestions :wink: )

In due course we’ll look at what the effect of each choice has been.

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Sorry, I was unclear with “will think that”: I meant to agree with those two quotes, and with you, that the question is quite clear! The motivation for the question was also clear to me. I only differed slightly from the quotes in wanting to emphasise the question, not the buttons.

I realise I was too late to the party, but I hoped it might be something to think about when you evaluate.

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Thanks!

this assumes, of course, a standard approach and shared value of approaching the game, to which there is clear evidence of major categories of people in any game with matchmaking that do not carry this shared value, such as sandbaggers or airbaggers. I think Dwyrin even once spoke of making accounts on one server at the highest rank possible until he stayed in dan.

Granted, most members who would abuse these systems would probably not get confused.

Hard disagree on the idea that it’s “simply use the rank you are elsewhere”, we have a World Rank Comparison for a reason, and I know whenever I do tournaments this becomes a serious consideration for if I should self-promote or not, although OGS’s initiative to align with AGA has helped my situation specifically

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By the way, now everyone can try for themselves!

I’ve limited it to small boards for now since it is indeed ridiculously bad. I recommend using a huge handicap.

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It’s currently at 61k, but that’s clearly overrated, it isn’t that strong. All wins I have seen resulted from the opponent resigning in a won position or at least being ahead.

Thanks, @Feijoa, I hope this will silence those that claim 30k players are basically playing random moves or worse. They aren’t.

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I am surprised so many players joined in a correspondance game with it. I mean, correspondance, really?

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Apparenlty you can win with a 36 stone handicap on 9x9 even :slight_smile:

I think it’s great to have a bot like that available anyway :slight_smile: Even if players just wanted practice capturing stones and making sure they understand the rules it’s useful.

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I’m not sure on the utility for understanding the rules, but for quashing some people’s misconception of what Random play is, I think it’s great that this is so available (are we getting sub-25k ranks in the next rating update?)

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The bot is mostly, and especially in even games, putting stones on the board for you to capture. Essentially it’s a way to test you understand capturing, and hence a large part of the rules. If the game goes to scoring, you get to see how a game is scored.

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… although you don’t get to participate in the scoring…

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