single player experience

[strikenowhere]

Hello,
A while back (about 2 years) I had sent suggestions to Ubisoft about changes they could make to the single player experience to make it more enjoyable. My thoughts:

1. Add support for KO tournaments (single and double elimination). The round robins and swiss systems are nice to have, but I'm a big fan of knock-out tournaments with nice looking brackets and I hope that Ubisoft allows this.

2. I never liked having to wait for all of the computer opponents to play their matches against each other in a tournament, as I think it is a waste of time to require that all games be played out between two computer players. There should be a "skip" option when creating the tournament that would have the program determine what computer player would win / lose / draw based on percentages derived from each computer player's rating. I realize that I could adjudicate the results for each game myself (i think), but having the computer decide who wins/loses/draws based on their ratings would be much more realistic than having me decide.

3. Create some kind of chess season that would follow along with real world tournaments...based on your skill, you could play in small-time tournaments and earn ratings points that would let you qualify for more prestigious tournaments. It would be nice if there was some kind of reward for a player for earning ratings points or something as well, but I can't really think of any good way to implements rewards.

What do you guys think?
Greg

[This message was edited by strikenowhere on Thu July 01 2004 at 11:58 AM.]

[strikenowhere]

Hello,
A while back (about 2 years) I had sent suggestions to Ubisoft about changes they could make to the single player experience to make it more enjoyable. My thoughts:

1. Add support for KO tournaments (single and double elimination). The round robins and swiss systems are nice to have, but I'm a big fan of knock-out tournaments with nice looking brackets and I hope that Ubisoft allows this.

2. I never liked having to wait for all of the computer opponents to play their matches against each other in a tournament, as I think it is a waste of time to require that all games be played out between two computer players. There should be a "skip" option when creating the tournament that would have the program determine what computer player would win / lose / draw based on percentages derived from each computer player's rating. I realize that I could adjudicate the results for each game myself (i think), but having the computer decide who wins/loses/draws based on their ratings would be much more realistic than having me decide.

3. Create some kind of chess season that would follow along with real world tournaments...based on your skill, you could play in small-time tournaments and earn ratings points that would let you qualify for more prestigious tournaments. It would be nice if there was some kind of reward for a player for earning ratings points or something as well, but I can't really think of any good way to implements rewards.

What do you guys think?
Greg

[This message was edited by strikenowhere on Thu July 01 2004 at 11:58 AM.]

[Grim_O]

1. I like the idea of the KO system too and would find it quite awsome if they allowed it for tournament play. A single elimination online tournament with blitz controls would fit me nicely, the same in single player of course http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

2. I think the way it is now, that the computer personalities play it out is just fine. Some people like to watch engine vs engine matches. But of course you are right that it can be an awfull lot of time that you need to wait if you don't like to follow the games.

3. I think such exists in other sport games. You start from the scratch with no reputation or money and by winning races/games you can earn money and qualify for bigger events with better opponents. This concept seems to work fine in racing games and such.
I don't think it has been tried in a chess game ever and honestly I can't see it working very well if it was to be made. In a racing game you can qualify for better races by winning tournaments, the same could apply for chess of course. The money you earn can be spend to buy a better car, this is where chess doesn't work any longer to me. Is the player supposed to buy a new chess set for his prize money?
The idea is good but for me there just isn't enough content in chess to make it worth anything.

[MKlassen]

I think these suggestions are great. http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
Especially I like the Idea of making a season !
I don't know how the tournaments will be in this edition, but I hope there will be some tournaments where you need a certaint rating to play it.

[strikenowhere]

I have another idea regarding the chess season system. What if there were several different tiers of tournament quality?

Beginner
Novice
Experienced
Intermediate
Master
International Master
Grand Master

You would start out in the beginner level and there would be several tournaments you could enter OR you could play a match of 2-6 games against a computer opponent. With tournaments you get money based on where you placed (depending on the size of the tournament) and you also get your rating adjusted. In a match against a single computer player, you get money if you win and also get your rating adjusted according to the result. After your rating is high enough, you can qualify for tournaments that are in the same tier, but are a little tougher. Once you accumulate enough money, you can buy your way into a qualifier tournament where if you place well enough, you get bumped up to the next difficulty tier (i.e. from beginner to novice). This can continue all the way up to the Grand Master level. In addition to buying your way into qualifier tournaments, perhaps with the money you can purchase new opening books which let you study new openings that you would like to learn. Obviously you could learn the openings on your own without doing it this way, but perhaps Chessmaster will have special practice exercises with those openings like memorizing lines or discussing the proper ideas of the opening.

Perhaps it would also cost money to enter into tournaments NOT in your home country, so there would be the option to go to other places around the world and compete against players you normally would not play against.

Does anyone else have any ideas on how to get a chess season to work?

Greg

[Grim_O]

If we leave all out exept the idea of beginner, novice, experienced and so on, tournaments. Plus adding various tournaments in each catagory and allowing a trophy/prize whatever after winning then you have the PS2 tournament form to some degree.
And perhaps they have improved this a little more since the PS2 version.

I am no creative thinking person myself. Though I can come up with an idea.
You should start as a beginner in chess, rated 1000 or so. Starting out with playing small local tournaments and as you improve and win tournaments you of course gain more in rating and a small amount of money for winning. As you gain more money you can travel to tournaments longer away from where you are. So an economical aspect could be added. Like you should pay X money for traveling to Libya and X money for entering the tournament itself. If you win you gain a plus in your economy and can keep traveling longer and attending bigger tournaments. If you lose you'll have to participate in the smaller tournaments again to collect some new money. As you improve you can get FM, IM, GM titels for achiving a high enough score, as in real life. Different objectives could be choosen before you start, depending on what class of chess player you are. A high level player might choose an objective to be top ranked in the world. A low level player might only choose an objective like earning X number of prize money on a year.

Though the problems with all this and most other ideas I can come up with is that only the strong chess players will get to see the top level of the game. A 1200 rated player will never get to attain tournaments with 2000 rated players.

[strikenowhere]

Grim_O, I agree with what you said about the 1200 never reaching the 2000 mark, but maybe getting to those new tournaments could be seen as a motivation to improve?

[Grim_O]

Perhaps, I don't know. Different things motivate different people.
In Hoyle's Majestic Chess there was also some kind of building a career (just a knight who explored and played chess) and as you progressed the players became harder and harder. When the hardest was beaten you had won the game. This is where the concept isn't working. In the tournament form in chessmaster 9000 the objective was to gain more points than your opponents. A strong player choosed strong opponents and a weak player choosed weak opponents. In Hoyle's Majestic Chess and this season tournament idea thing it seems as the objective is the same both for the weak and the strong player. A weak player will want the same as the strong player - to finish the season with the highest objective. Though only the strong player will accomplish that. It does take some motivation to go from 1200 to 2000.

But again is it a good idea and the more I think about it the more I like it. There's just a few pieces that doesn't seem to work to me.

[EddiePX]

1. Sounds OK, and perhaps they've already included these (I guess it's a little late now to implement the KO tournaments if they didn't already).

2. There most certainly will be a "quick result" option available. The PS2 version had it already in the Championships section, I wonder why the PC version would remove it.

3. I guess the "real world tournaments" is the hard to get stuff (license costs?). Anyway, again, the PS2 version had a "Championships" game mode including tons of predefined tournaments and a lot of unlockable ones (you had to place 3rd or better to unlock new tournaments, I think). It was no chess season, though - just a set of progressively harder challenges, from playing kids in the schoolyard to recreating famous historical tournaments. Of course, your rating changed as did your opponents'.

For this Championships mode to become a full "chess season" I think it needs real-life locations, real-life players, a map to travel onto etc. Perhaps even a replication of the actual FIDE rules (ratings needed to join certain events, invitational tournaments, etc).

Overall, I like the idea. Hope it'll be implemented in the next iteration of the series.

However, Grim's point is absolutely correct - the weak players won't be able to finish this "campaign" no matter what. There'll be always a wall to crash into - a limit of their playing strength. That means that either you make the whole "campaign" easy enough for, say, 1200-level players, or you don't. The latter case isn't likely to happen, and I think the Championship system available in the PS2 version satifies somewhat your requests.

[MKlassen]

The rating stuff is true. A chess beginner would have litle chances to play big tournaments, like in real life. But what about including a reality factor. When you create an user in chessmaster, there could be includen an option, where you can set a reality factor. So your oponents play, with a lower strenght and you have better chances to advance. For chesspros, the reality factor schould be 100 %. I think this solution is the best for all kind of players.