Anyone remember how the board difficulty labels are set or who has power over that setting?

I ask because my Arena board is labeled "Beginner", which is just... wrong.

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Arena+Standard+Play

I think the board difficulties labels should definitely be completely revamped. I would be glad to be a part of that process.

I think Yertle was doing them.  I don't know if he still does.  Since he's less active now maybe Tom could give that ability to some more people.

https://youtu.be/4zIoElk3r2c?t=10

 

I'll change it 

Has anyone defined specific requirements for the three levels or is it mostly subjective at the moment?

Starting in alphabetical order with just the beginner boards (the most important to get right with the new players).

• Another brick in the wall could be intermediate instead of beginner (dice mods, hordes bonus, and unit caps)
• Arm Wrestle could be moved to intermediate instead of beginner (dice mods)
• Battlestar moved to intermediate from beginner (dice mods)
• Bear River moved to intermediate (dice mods and unit caps)
• Brawl to intermediate (Simulgear)
• Capital Crusade moved to intermediate from beginner (capitals, dice mods, artillery)

Korrun wrote:

Has anyone defined specific requirements for the three levels or is it mostly subjective at the moment?

Subjective - I've been the one updating the levels and the tags for quite a while.

I have never done an "audit" so there may be quite a few that could be moved.

I changed the ones you suggested (except Bear River since it's mostly straight forward game play)

• Darkness Falls to either intermediate or advanced
• Gates of Hell to advanced
• King of the Mountain to intermediate
• Knight's Tour to intermediate
• Land and Sea to intermediate
• Lego X Factor to intermediate
• Miners to advanced
• Neverland to intermediate

And I'll skip ahead for right now to

• Stellar Conflict to advanced

Just looking at my boards, these would be my recommendations.

Quantum Entanglement to Intermediate from Beginner.  (Some of the Scenarios have very complex factory schemes.)

King of the Mountains to Intermediate from Beginner.  (Dice Mods + unusual continent scheme.)

Anarchy to Intermediate from Advanced.  (The factories just do their thing and add a lot of armies. Otherwise the board plays like normal with larger continental bonuses.  Really, it could be a Beginner board.)

Korrun wrote:

• Darkness Falls to either intermediate or advanced
• Gates of Hell to advanced
• King of the Mountain to intermediate
• Knight's Tour to intermediate
• Land and Sea to intermediate
• Lego X Factor to intermediate
• Miners to advanced
• Neverland to intermediate

And I'll skip ahead for right now to

• Stellar Conflict to advanced

Done

M57 wrote:

Just looking at my boards, these would be my recommendations.

Quantum Entanglement to Intermediate from Beginner.  (Some of the Scenarios have very complex factory schemes.)

King of the Mountains to Intermediate from Beginner.  (Dice Mods + unusual continent scheme.)

Anarchy to Intermediate from Advanced.  (The factories just do their thing and add a lot of armies. Otherwise the board plays like normal with larger continental bonuses.  Really, it could be a Beginner board.)

Done

I also moved a few others from Beg-> Int

Thanks for the proactive upkeep guys

Looking at my boards: 

I think they're rated appropriately. (tho i really should just retire Whittle)

How do players go find boards based on rating? 

Boards —> all boards tab, select green, yellow or red (I think green is simple, red advanced).

Ozyman wrote:

I think Yertle was doing them.  I don't know if he still does.  Since he's less active now maybe Tom could give that ability to some more people.

Yep, I definitely fell off updating these a while back :/ It's possible there are some defaults that get applied so the board shows up with some filters.

It was pretty subjective when I was doing it, although I did try and stay consistently subjective :P I think that even if there were some slightly more advanced features to a board if it was in their simple form then they could still be on the easier side (for example simple modifiers). Definitely open to adjustments though!

Thanks Amidon for updating!

I'm not sure how Amidon is currently making the changes, but just to add some perspective.

 

When I joined WarGear a few years ago (with a bunch of other folks), we regularly used to check the difficulty label to identify boards to play on. Did this for a while till we noticed that the difficulty label didn't always make sense.

The point here is that for beginner boards, it would be make sense, IMO, to only include boards without any advanced features, such that someone new to the WG interface can explore different boards easily.

Definitely a good point Pratik and timely for Kjeld to create this thread.

Ok - My next post will have the list of all boards set at the easy level.

I am thinking that we want to take out boards that 

a) Use Capitals

b) Where Return to attack from Fortify or Placement is a significant part of the play

c) Deviate significantly from standard RISK

d) Make extensive use of factories

What is ok:

a) 1 way borders

b) Territory caps

c) Artillery/Vision borders

d) Fog

e) a few factories

 

For boards with scenarios we rate by the most commonly played scenario

 

Feel free to debate me on these.

 

1790

9 Blocks

Antastic!

Asherons Gear

Assassin

AstroGear 2210

Atomic Transporters

Australian Risk

Battle for New York

Battle USA

Bear River

Biohazard

Captain's Log

Castlevania

Chutes and Ladders

Circles of Death

Civil War

Civil War 1860

Clue

Colonies

Colossal Crusad

eCount Risky Must Die

Crossword

Day at the Races

Die Emoticons, DIE!

Dnaleri

Dodgeball

Doom's Crescent Island

Doom's Mayan Adventure

Doom's Myths and Legends

Earth Reversed

Electoral College

Escherdiles

Europa 2210

Europe 1560

European War

EVE Universe

Expanding Europe

Fall of Rome

Fantastica

Feudal Japan

Fibonacci's Circle

Fresco

GearStorm

Gender gap on wages

German WarGear

Global Warfare

Happy Holidays!

Hawaiian Islands

HellHexGear

HexVoid

Hoarding LEGO

India

Infection

Io 2210

Kashgar

Kensington

Labyrinth: Cretan Minotaur

Lord of the Gears

LoTR Middle Earth

Manifest Destiny

Mario 3 -- World 1

Mario 3 -- World 2

Mario 3 -- World 3

Mario 3 -- World 4

Mario 3 -- World 5

Mario 3 -- World 6

Mario 3 -- World 7

MarsMars 2210

Medieval Europe

Merge Sort

Metroid NES

Micro Mission

Middle East

Millennium Falcon

Mobs of New York

Moon Base

Mutiny on the Bounty

New World Gear

Northwest Passage

Notebook Paper Dungeon

Old World GearOneWay

Pangaea

Pangaea and Panthalassa

Pearl Harbor

PipeDream

Pipeline

Pirate Gear

Pirates of Pangea

Pirates of the Caribbean

Planet Yertle

Pleasantville

Pluto 2210

Prion 4

Quzar

Random Mazes

Rent is Due Again

Resident Wargear

Ribbon World

Risk vs Reward

Romanian Rumble

SimCity

Skee

Skyrim

Speakeasy

Steal the Bacon

Super Mario Gear

Super Metgear

Texas

The Belgariad

The French Resistance

The Island

The March Of Time

The Maze

The Riskiest Catch

The RiskyVerse

The Two Towers

Torus

Tree of Life

Vertigo

VIKINGR

WarWar of the Ring

Wargate Atlantis

Wargear & Sons

WarGear 2210

Wargear Quest

WarGear Warfare

West Egg

Wheel of Gears

World War

World War Air Land and Sea

Zombie Islands

Zombies