Active & dynamic "Ranking/Level" System
- Thread starter edhe
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IMHO a ranking system is a stupid idea
1.UT doesn't have large online numbers, 2k4 is only at 1,500 and I doubt the next one will best it. UT isn't a main stream FPS, it's an underground FPS that sells well, but never gets large player numbers. Why segragate people?
2.You only get better by playing people much better than you, or atleast slightly better. Locking people out of this is just silly.
3.There is not set way to judge skills. Even in top TDM teams some players are just timers/lock players, while others get the frags. Implementing such a system can't dynamicaly rank people.
4.As WC3 proves, rank systems can be abused with a simple dl of a keygen and start over from scratch, thus making it pointless.
5.People separated themselves. This is why there is gameamp, proU, ina, BU... competitive sites for top players, and casual sites for the rest or the just got started. Is there a need for epic to step in and try to say what goes where?
I seriously think this is a bad move.
1.UT doesn't have large online numbers, 2k4 is only at 1,500 and I doubt the next one will best it. UT isn't a main stream FPS, it's an underground FPS that sells well, but never gets large player numbers. Why segragate people?
2.You only get better by playing people much better than you, or atleast slightly better. Locking people out of this is just silly.
3.There is not set way to judge skills. Even in top TDM teams some players are just timers/lock players, while others get the frags. Implementing such a system can't dynamicaly rank people.
4.As WC3 proves, rank systems can be abused with a simple dl of a keygen and start over from scratch, thus making it pointless.
5.People separated themselves. This is why there is gameamp, proU, ina, BU... competitive sites for top players, and casual sites for the rest or the just got started. Is there a need for epic to step in and try to say what goes where?
I seriously think this is a bad move.
fresh&minty said:
Yeah right, I get slaughtered and I don't improve a bit, all it does is frustrate me cause I can't even get a single kill any match, I seem to improve better agansit people of equal skill, ATLEAST I kill someone just as easily as they could kill me.
It wouldn't be worth the time and resources to build this into the game. Would the normal everyday admin even utilize this? If I were an admin I sure wouldn't. If admins really wanted this there would be a mutator.
Ut doesn't have large numbers because people are quickly alienated by the online community that easily smash them up. If you actually look to the community forums you'll regularly see the poor folks who post about how they can improve, about how they're not having fun because they're getting molested. A Ranked/levelled system for *guiding* people into more appropriate servers (NB, not segregrating people for the sake of it, but to get the right kind of people playing with eachother) will surely allow people a better elarning curve. Had comprehended the first post you wouldn't have made that comment. P.S. UT2k4 was #1 & 2 in the sales list for weeks when it came out, there were plenty people buying it and didn't go online, i myself know people that go online, have problems, then go play somethign else.fresh&minty said:
Again had you read/comprehended then you would be able to get to play better players. A breadth of levels on a server would allow people to play against those ranked higher and those ranked lower. Also integral would be those servers that don't use ranks, You'd get to play better players, whilst not getting owned all the time.fresh&minty said:
Indeed, the issue. But should you take a comprehensive set of metrics and produce a curve from that and compare that against those the person has been playing against you can figure out if the player is efficient or inefficient against those people or in those situations, again.. did you read the thread?fresh&minty said:
Everything can be gotten around, but people like that would be a sub-percentage of the community, and lame. Sadly you've got to deal with people like that. 2k4 also uses a guid which is a hash of the cd iirc, uniquie per person.fresh&minty said:
You're talking about forums, how does that relate to ingame?fresh&minty said:
Anything else?
briachiae said:
It's a little hard to have a mutator that does all this, you'd need backing from the game devs.
And if server admins didn't care then why would most 2k4 servers have utcmop or antitcc on them?
IMHO it should be default on, option off.
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This would sound a lot better to me if they could make ping be less of a factor in gameplay in the new netcode, because this would increase the list of active servers available. I'm sure there is a possibility that a ranking system could increase online activity. Atleast for the Epic hosted servers anyway. This could make the demo experience better for new people, but this could also turn people off.
Being denied from a server that you have become acquainted with and know almost all the regulars that attend the server would make me pretty pissed off. A lot of pubs form their own group of regulars, atleast on dm, tdm and 1v1 servers. So this would be much more of an annoyance than something appreciated in that case.
I know ONS servers can be different. 16 players that have no idea who the other person is, all trying to get a good score. And if they get killed too many times they take it to heart and such. I know this would most likely be disabled on tdm and 1v1 servers, or atleast only filter out the people on the lowest level, but keep everyone else allowed.
The bad thing about this is it can divide an online community making every match an impersonal mutliplayer competition. You might as well not even have an alias, because you'll be in a different server the next match. But I guess this might be a good thing for the ONS/Conquest and demo crowd. It should be disabled by default atleast. No need making admins do even more work when trying to get a server set up because it isn't disabled by default.
Being denied from a server that you have become acquainted with and know almost all the regulars that attend the server would make me pretty pissed off. A lot of pubs form their own group of regulars, atleast on dm, tdm and 1v1 servers. So this would be much more of an annoyance than something appreciated in that case.
I know ONS servers can be different. 16 players that have no idea who the other person is, all trying to get a good score. And if they get killed too many times they take it to heart and such. I know this would most likely be disabled on tdm and 1v1 servers, or atleast only filter out the people on the lowest level, but keep everyone else allowed.
The bad thing about this is it can divide an online community making every match an impersonal mutliplayer competition. You might as well not even have an alias, because you'll be in a different server the next match. But I guess this might be a good thing for the ONS/Conquest and demo crowd. It should be disabled by default atleast. No need making admins do even more work when trying to get a server set up because it isn't disabled by default.
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ping should become less and lesser of an issue anyway with more and more people moving to broadband access and with new technologies ahead.
I think you can fairly easily group UT player into
a Total novices
b Those that know how to drive without hitting trees and know how weapons work
c Those who play a solid, average game
d Those who play at good clan level
e Those who are seriously, worryingly good.
The important thing is allowing the opportunity for a's and b's to play without being dishartened by meeting up with d's and e's. I can immagine what it would be like when I was playing Torlan on a Demo server when the demo was released - and coming up against the likes of fluffy, mr pixel or qwer.
I've a fair ideas on what needs to be done to give accurate stats for ONS - but that's for another thread.
The thing is that there are some goop players who are idiots, and they just love being the cat amongst the pidgeons.
So really for this system of servers to cater for levels to work; each licence of envy needs to be locked to one or two unique users per licence -so that experienced players can't create new identities to cause havoc on the newbie servers.
a Total novices
b Those that know how to drive without hitting trees and know how weapons work
c Those who play a solid, average game
d Those who play at good clan level
e Those who are seriously, worryingly good.
The important thing is allowing the opportunity for a's and b's to play without being dishartened by meeting up with d's and e's. I can immagine what it would be like when I was playing Torlan on a Demo server when the demo was released - and coming up against the likes of fluffy, mr pixel or qwer.
I've a fair ideas on what needs to be done to give accurate stats for ONS - but that's for another thread.
The thing is that there are some goop players who are idiots, and they just love being the cat amongst the pidgeons.
So really for this system of servers to cater for levels to work; each licence of envy needs to be locked to one or two unique users per licence -so that experienced players can't create new identities to cause havoc on the newbie servers.
p.s. there are a lot more than 1500 playing. A low ranked ons player is about 8000 th in weekly rankings and 13,000 in monthly rankings. So 15,000 ons players is about right.
An epic certainly does hope envy will be a success - i.e. will sell a lot lot more copies.
-And to do that; the novice players are the ones that need looking after, not us.
An epic certainly does hope envy will be a success - i.e. will sell a lot lot more copies.
-And to do that; the novice players are the ones that need looking after, not us.
Excellent thread! I agree with ALL or almost all of the ranking/level suggestions made. I hope all this makes it in envy.
I think in the in-game lobby, the servers should be sorted by skill/level difference by default instead of ping. At the top would be servers with the lowest skill difference and at the bottom would be very high skill difference (extreme newbie or extreme leetness depending on your level).
Also, enforcing the skill level in servers allowing only players that are in the required skill range is a must. AS LONG as it is OPTIONAL and it is set SERVER-SIDE. Also don't forget that they can still spectate and chat, perhaps they can even ask PERMISSION with the server AND get VOTED IN to play while in spectate mode. Also include a CLIENT-SIDE filter as said previously.
One more thing, just to make it clear, the stats are going to be calculated based on who you kill right? (or that is one of the suggestions posted rite?)
To the people who say you can only get better by playing better players: FUN>IMPROVEMENT. MOST people that play a game play a game because they MOSTLY want to HAVE FUN and NOT for IMPROVEMENT. After all, the overall deciding factor in whether a game is good or not is FUN, not graphics, not gameplay,etc. A LOT of people dont care about getting better, they just want to have FUN. Now dont say they can go to cs because we all know that everyone wants more people and more servers for ENVY.
I think in the in-game lobby, the servers should be sorted by skill/level difference by default instead of ping. At the top would be servers with the lowest skill difference and at the bottom would be very high skill difference (extreme newbie or extreme leetness depending on your level).
Also, enforcing the skill level in servers allowing only players that are in the required skill range is a must. AS LONG as it is OPTIONAL and it is set SERVER-SIDE. Also don't forget that they can still spectate and chat, perhaps they can even ask PERMISSION with the server AND get VOTED IN to play while in spectate mode. Also include a CLIENT-SIDE filter as said previously.
One more thing, just to make it clear, the stats are going to be calculated based on who you kill right? (or that is one of the suggestions posted rite?)
To the people who say you can only get better by playing better players: FUN>IMPROVEMENT. MOST people that play a game play a game because they MOSTLY want to HAVE FUN and NOT for IMPROVEMENT. After all, the overall deciding factor in whether a game is good or not is FUN, not graphics, not gameplay,etc. A LOT of people dont care about getting better, they just want to have FUN. Now dont say they can go to cs because we all know that everyone wants more people and more servers for ENVY.
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But what about those players that don't want stats for various reasons (such as me) ?
Should I be forced to enable them just so that I can play a decent game ?
'cause the one thing I dislike about the current stat-system in the UT-series is that you're forced to enable stats even though you don't even play enough to make them useful.
As for the stats themselves ... IMHO they only promote gloryhounds and kill any chance of real teamwork. It makes far too many people think about the damage their current game is doing to their stats instead of just playing the game and having fun.
// Bazzi :
ping will remain an issue as there are far too many games to play on-line and most aren't popular enough for a single server. It's highly unlikely that this will be solved unless everyone on the planet can reach anyone else as fast as the average lan ...
Should I be forced to enable them just so that I can play a decent game ?
'cause the one thing I dislike about the current stat-system in the UT-series is that you're forced to enable stats even though you don't even play enough to make them useful.
As for the stats themselves ... IMHO they only promote gloryhounds and kill any chance of real teamwork. It makes far too many people think about the damage their current game is doing to their stats instead of just playing the game and having fun.
// Bazzi :
ping will remain an issue as there are far too many games to play on-line and most aren't popular enough for a single server. It's highly unlikely that this will be solved unless everyone on the planet can reach anyone else as fast as the average lan ...
The way I see it - it would be a foolish admin who prevented new players from joining his server.
But having servers hosted by Epic to allow new players to play and develop in the same way as we did a few years ago has to make sense. The purpouse is to keep good players away from some servers, and not to keep new players away from those who believe themselves too good to face the unwashed.
A different problem is that the stats as they stand encourages poor play through rewarding selfishness. Persisting with a flawed stats system isn't really a good idea - I agree entirely. It would have been impossible to write a good stats sytem for ONS when it was launched - because who would know what "good" play was.
What epic has to do is write the new game; in a way that statistics are kept of much more events in game- for example there are some interfaces that record each point of dammage.
The only way to crack the issue of people playing for stats is that the stats must follow "good" play with utmost accuracy.
One concept would be to have 3 stats rankings -or even more. A simple way would be...
-One for teamplay- giving lifts on mantas\cicadas\and penalties, if you drive a vehichle that is intended for many by yourself (i assume envy will have such vehichles)
-Another for objectives -destroying\building nodes - with shared points for linked nodebuilding.
-Another for kills
Then very quickly you get a more rounded profile of players - and you could even get some basic processing of that data to aid new players. BUILD SOME NODES would be what would spring to mind. The server would look at each player's stats and interpret them into a player profile in terms of words- which would give more meat to a player's rank and number.
And joining up from rounded player profiles on a public player profile page would strengthen the whole concept of lobbies and suchlike.
Ah blue skies thinking..... Perhaps in ut 2010
But having servers hosted by Epic to allow new players to play and develop in the same way as we did a few years ago has to make sense. The purpouse is to keep good players away from some servers, and not to keep new players away from those who believe themselves too good to face the unwashed.
A different problem is that the stats as they stand encourages poor play through rewarding selfishness. Persisting with a flawed stats system isn't really a good idea - I agree entirely. It would have been impossible to write a good stats sytem for ONS when it was launched - because who would know what "good" play was.
What epic has to do is write the new game; in a way that statistics are kept of much more events in game- for example there are some interfaces that record each point of dammage.
The only way to crack the issue of people playing for stats is that the stats must follow "good" play with utmost accuracy.
One concept would be to have 3 stats rankings -or even more. A simple way would be...
-One for teamplay- giving lifts on mantas\cicadas\and penalties, if you drive a vehichle that is intended for many by yourself (i assume envy will have such vehichles)
-Another for objectives -destroying\building nodes - with shared points for linked nodebuilding.
-Another for kills
Then very quickly you get a more rounded profile of players - and you could even get some basic processing of that data to aid new players. BUILD SOME NODES would be what would spring to mind. The server would look at each player's stats and interpret them into a player profile in terms of words- which would give more meat to a player's rank and number.
And joining up from rounded player profiles on a public player profile page would strengthen the whole concept of lobbies and suchlike.
Ah blue skies thinking..... Perhaps in ut 2010
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The problem is that it's impossible to 'reward' good gameplay and actually get 'good' games from the stat-obessed.
Reason : they'll find a way to abuse the stats in a way that makes them appear good.
Example is CTF. Seems simple enough (reward players for returning the flag as well as killing efc's) ...
Statwhores will learn that letting the enemy steal the flag and then returning it offers more points (in total) compared to fragging the enemy before he even touches the flag.
It is obvious that in a normal game under normal circumstances both actions have merit, but the net-result is very easy to abuse.
IMHO it would be better if the game produced less individual stats and more team-based statistics.
So instead of rating an individual in a team you could (try to) rate a team.
However even that has its downside as (new) players would try to join the team with the best rating instead of trying to help the lesser/weaker team. You'd (quite obviously) get a lot of complaints if a 'bad' player joined a 'good' team as he'd bring their score down ...
Reason : they'll find a way to abuse the stats in a way that makes them appear good.
Example is CTF. Seems simple enough (reward players for returning the flag as well as killing efc's) ...
Statwhores will learn that letting the enemy steal the flag and then returning it offers more points (in total) compared to fragging the enemy before he even touches the flag.
It is obvious that in a normal game under normal circumstances both actions have merit, but the net-result is very easy to abuse.
IMHO it would be better if the game produced less individual stats and more team-based statistics.
So instead of rating an individual in a team you could (try to) rate a team.
However even that has its downside as (new) players would try to join the team with the best rating instead of trying to help the lesser/weaker team. You'd (quite obviously) get a lot of complaints if a 'bad' player joined a 'good' team as he'd bring their score down ...
Epic's been claiming that this sort of thing is going to be a part of the next UT. Sounds great, but the big hitch is here:
UT Stats has been substantially broken for major stretches at a time since UT2k3 came out... they're just not having a lot of luck with it, it's usually something about how the master server can't cope with the extra load or somesuch.
It's already caused no end of griping... and now they want to actually increase the role of stats in the game? Either they've found a magic bullet that's guaranteed to fix the problem, or else they're off their collective rocker.
I still say that the easiest and most effective way to get like- skilled players together is to have the skill- level declared serverside, maybe with color- coded names appearing in the server browser and slight rules variations to go along with the skill declaration, just to sort of help "enforce" said declaration.
IE, skill 1 server runs UTComp, has no adrenaline or superweapons. Skill 3 server uses bots to balance teams. Or something, I still don't have the details down... but anyway, each skill level would include a default server setup geared to appeal to players of that skill level. See?
edhe said:
UT Stats has been substantially broken for major stretches at a time since UT2k3 came out... they're just not having a lot of luck with it, it's usually something about how the master server can't cope with the extra load or somesuch.
It's already caused no end of griping... and now they want to actually increase the role of stats in the game? Either they've found a magic bullet that's guaranteed to fix the problem, or else they're off their collective rocker.
I still say that the easiest and most effective way to get like- skilled players together is to have the skill- level declared serverside, maybe with color- coded names appearing in the server browser and slight rules variations to go along with the skill declaration, just to sort of help "enforce" said declaration.
IE, skill 1 server runs UTComp, has no adrenaline or superweapons. Skill 3 server uses bots to balance teams. Or something, I still don't have the details down... but anyway, each skill level would include a default server setup geared to appeal to players of that skill level. See?
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I suggested this feature back before UT2003, but according to DrSin they didnt have time to implement it (I guess they didnt have time before UT2004 neither).
The reason why a game like UT/Envy needs this is that its very frustrating for new players to jump into a pub and be 100% completely owned by other more experienced players. After the fifth map with -3 to 3 frags and 40-60 deaths, its no wonder they quit playing.
One way to solve this would be to implement a ranking system, with the CD-key as key (it has to be the CD key, since thats the only absolute id available). Some servers that wants to let new players have some fun could then set a filter that only allows new players or players that arent skilled. This system would also make it possible to implement a 'Find Server' functionality, i.e. you press the Find Server button and joins a server with a good ping and good competition skillwise.
For us experienced players, the ranking system is not really needed, although it could be fun to play on servers with high ranking requirements. And ofcourse its always fun to inspect your own stats to find weakness and strengths, etc. I used ngWorldStats a lot in UT for this purpose.
If this ranking idea is taken one step further, and computes a ranking for the whole clan as well (based on results against other clans and the individual clanmembers ranking), it would definitely be a help to league admins when they assign more or less unknown teams to divisions.
All in all, everyone would benefit from a ranking system, and the ranking should be computet for everyone, although an option should probably be available to hide your ranking from other players if you want.
/Kronon
The reason why a game like UT/Envy needs this is that its very frustrating for new players to jump into a pub and be 100% completely owned by other more experienced players. After the fifth map with -3 to 3 frags and 40-60 deaths, its no wonder they quit playing.
One way to solve this would be to implement a ranking system, with the CD-key as key (it has to be the CD key, since thats the only absolute id available). Some servers that wants to let new players have some fun could then set a filter that only allows new players or players that arent skilled. This system would also make it possible to implement a 'Find Server' functionality, i.e. you press the Find Server button and joins a server with a good ping and good competition skillwise.
For us experienced players, the ranking system is not really needed, although it could be fun to play on servers with high ranking requirements. And ofcourse its always fun to inspect your own stats to find weakness and strengths, etc. I used ngWorldStats a lot in UT for this purpose.
If this ranking idea is taken one step further, and computes a ranking for the whole clan as well (based on results against other clans and the individual clanmembers ranking), it would definitely be a help to league admins when they assign more or less unknown teams to divisions.
All in all, everyone would benefit from a ranking system, and the ranking should be computet for everyone, although an option should probably be available to hide your ranking from other players if you want.
/Kronon
Indeed good points.. JaFo you sound paranoid - if there's a good stats/ranking system for the purpose of proper game balancing then it wouldn't be about who got the most headshots, and the multiple ways of collecting stats such as teamplay etc have already been mentioned in my first post.
The biggest challenge would be taking meaningful statistics and applying them, as well as keeping the stats up at all times like above. IMHO the chance of having an active part in the server name declaring it's current skill and having a client side option to filter such things would probably be a good solution, but in order to stop the 'in at the deep end' or 'cat amongst pigeons' situations then there would have to be enforcement along the way at some point.
On those servers that choose to follow it..
The biggest challenge would be taking meaningful statistics and applying them, as well as keeping the stats up at all times like above. IMHO the chance of having an active part in the server name declaring it's current skill and having a client side option to filter such things would probably be a good solution, but in order to stop the 'in at the deep end' or 'cat amongst pigeons' situations then there would have to be enforcement along the way at some point.
On those servers that choose to follow it..
My point exactly.rhirud said:
That's the two major hurdles :edhe said:
- it is impossible to collect meaningful-stats as everyone has a different opinion as to what constitutes 'meaningful' compared to how they'd think the game should be played.
Endresult ? Stats are only 'valid' if you follow Epic's rules of conduct in games. I'm sure plenty of people would have something to say about how a game should be played according to them, thereby making the ranking immediately useless for them. Plus there's nothing that can be done if gameplay-tactics change as overall player-experience increases.
- enforcement : also another biggy.
The basic problem here is that stats-based servers attract the same kind of lazy admins that AntiTCC did, with exactly the same kind of problems.
In effect this will result in servers set to skill-levels with zero enforcement of such levels.
Paranoid ?
Sure, but I think it is closer to the real world endresults.
You're presenting statistics as 'the ultimate' solution to a games' problems regarding the different skill-levels of players.
I seriously doubt that.
It could be done, hence the thread 
What makes good players... well let's ask clans - that would help. If epic wanted to do their stuff they could measure the kind of play that good clans manage. Not just the fragging skills, becauase that's pretty meaningless overall without context, but other things even down to weapon tossing (a player that regulary uses weapon tossing on WS on servers = more throughtful player, WS Off servers = likely team play aspect).
Good CTF clans have common features:
The players stick well together, they backup eachother meaning there are plenty of times when they share the same space on the map and target the same people. Good D players will spend time close to the flag, not near it, and will coordinate with another to take down the nme, and will be between the taken flag and the nme flag. Good O players will stock up, avoid fights on the way in and get out fast sharing map space VERY closely with eachother by the time they hit midsection, a good backup player will stay with their FC very closely, and make a lot of frags whilst doing so/perform flagswitches etc. These things *can* be measured into percentages which can then be worked out in practice.
It's not a perfect idea, it's a do-able concept. As with server setup, that will obviously have to be a mandatory part of setting up a server - just like server password or playercount, or gametype, be it not-on, indicative, mandatory, variable or limited settings.
One thing would be.. would there be actual levelling involved, or just a comparison in general. Mean having a 6-part level system would be inadequate, 20-30 levels would be confusing (but nice for a +5/-5 or +3/-8 type system) but general 'see as you go' levels of difference may not help.
What makes good players... well let's ask clans - that would help. If epic wanted to do their stuff they could measure the kind of play that good clans manage. Not just the fragging skills, becauase that's pretty meaningless overall without context, but other things even down to weapon tossing (a player that regulary uses weapon tossing on WS on servers = more throughtful player, WS Off servers = likely team play aspect).
Good CTF clans have common features:
The players stick well together, they backup eachother meaning there are plenty of times when they share the same space on the map and target the same people. Good D players will spend time close to the flag, not near it, and will coordinate with another to take down the nme, and will be between the taken flag and the nme flag. Good O players will stock up, avoid fights on the way in and get out fast sharing map space VERY closely with eachother by the time they hit midsection, a good backup player will stay with their FC very closely, and make a lot of frags whilst doing so/perform flagswitches etc. These things *can* be measured into percentages which can then be worked out in practice.
It's not a perfect idea, it's a do-able concept. As with server setup, that will obviously have to be a mandatory part of setting up a server - just like server password or playercount, or gametype, be it not-on, indicative, mandatory, variable or limited settings.
One thing would be.. would there be actual levelling involved, or just a comparison in general. Mean having a 6-part level system would be inadequate, 20-30 levels would be confusing (but nice for a +5/-5 or +3/-8 type system) but general 'see as you go' levels of difference may not help.
Go&nd said:
to this i say, use a punishing system when one player is clearly outclassing all the other players... like, he becomes a 'mutant' , but with the opposite characteristics, doing little or no damage while helplessly being hounded down by what was one his prey... weapons spew out random nonsense instead of bullets, he shines with an extraodinary glow, his head gets extra big for headshots, etc etc
but only implement this if you have a classing system for it to defend , otherwise people would literally be punished for being good at the game
You cannot punish people for being good at a GAME that they have BOUGHT to PLAY for FUN. If fun is newb bashing then sadly that happens. It would be up to server admins to choose to instigate a policy of booting them - maybe after one or two games then it'd kick in in that way... It's a harsh one, but the fun of the greater is more important than the fun of the few.
And more profitable.
And more profitable.