NS2 Player Statistics and Ranking
perfectheat
Join Date: 2007-06-28 Member: 61405Members
Join Date: 2007-06-28 Member: 61405Members
I'm sorry if there is a discussion on this already. Please enlighten me if there is.
Has there been any indication that UW will be implementing online Player Statistics and Ranking in NS2? That was something I loved about the original UT. Even though I did really well on the ranking side I enjoyed the statistics just as much.
Would love to see how much time I spend building&welding, how my aim is doing week by week, how good I'm at following orders from above and compare all this up against the average player.
It's probably nothing for the release but it would be great to see something implemented on a later date.
- I want to know how much I weld!
Has there been any indication that UW will be implementing online Player Statistics and Ranking in NS2? That was something I loved about the original UT. Even though I did really well on the ranking side I enjoyed the statistics just as much.
Would love to see how much time I spend building&welding, how my aim is doing week by week, how good I'm at following orders from above and compare all this up against the average player.
It's probably nothing for the release but it would be great to see something implemented on a later date.
- I want to know how much I weld!
Comments
as a boasting/bragging tool, Statistics are game ruining.
The statistics for BF2, minus the medal award system, were amazing.
it wasn't super-easy to see them, so you weren't inclined to brag or browse them every so often.
they were incredibly detailed, and map-specific.
without the medal system, there would not have been a 'stat padding' problem, saying that, though, the medal system was kinda nice in BF2, it was a nice feeling to have your expertise in a helicopter rewarded, and perhaps even show your credentials to prospective clans.
The halo stats are ok, too, but they are too easy to pad and also the ranking system is extremely flawed with people creating a new gamer account, getting 1 round of perfection and becoming the 'best halo playa evar!!!!111oneone'
the problem is when people focus so hard on the stats that they stop playing the game for fun, and play it to get recognition of welding for 3hours solid, etc.
I think a possible way to prevent padding etc would be to update a web-based statistics table bi-weekly (fortnightly for the real english) so that people arn't going there everyday to see how often they knifed a skulk.
Without so much ego-boosting (via fortnightly updates) players will be less inclined to pad and more inclined to occasionally check out their stronger or weaker parts of the game, and see how to improve etc.
rankings => depends on what they are based
Has there been any indication that UW will be implementing online Player Statistics and Ranking in NS2? That was something I loved about the original UT. Even though I did really well on the ranking side I enjoyed the statistics just as much.
Would love to see how much time I spend building&welding, how my aim is doing week by week, how good I'm at following orders from above and compare all this up against the average player.
It's probably nothing for the release but it would be great to see something implemented on a later date.
- I want to know how much I weld!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's actually what I figured Nexus/BUS would be. I'd also like to see this in the game.
I don't think I would see the guy who decides to weld for 3 hours as a problem. He must be pretty dedicated if he manage to keep that up each and every day. I see myself lucky having him on my server as he seems to be more needed in NS2 then ever. Wonder how long the skulk-knifer would stick to his hobby. The success rate is quite low so there can't but much fun or reward. I know, I know, bad examples but why do you care about these people. Just play the game and don't let the terrorists win.
On a curious note, if I decided to be a bit of a tosser, how would I go about bragging about my stats? Just spam bomb the team chat?
I'm not sure what a perfect ranking system is but personally I never had a problem with most of them. A system that encourage people to statswh**e instead of playing for the team seems to be a ###### system though. UT had the option to be a part of it just by ticking a box. You actually had to go to a webpage (correct me if I'm wrong) to look it up. Maybe the ranking has nothing to do with kill/death rates. It should also point out your less flattering sides, so if you do like going after skulks with a knife it will show that you are loosing the battle. What if you could choose to make it public or if the server could decide if they are ranked or not? I would vote for the last one. The main reason for me asking for this is for me own personal stats and see how I'm doing compared to the average player. I feel the most reward in being a team player and I agree that if ranking ruins that part, it should not be implemented.
Something like, it'd show the players name, and how many games they've won while being in the command chair when the round is over or something.
I just don't think things like number of kills should be shown.
Can you elaborate as to how stats are a positive feedback?
I too do not care about kill counts. I find myself looking at the scoreboard only at the end of a match. Would be interesting if it was points by achievements only.
Been playing NS since the very first public release and I have come across close to zero annoying players. I think we should have more fate in people. I can't see how a ranking system based on good values can be threatening. Just out of interest, can someone explain it to me step by step? Where can you see yourself hurting? In the actual game or by the watercooler?
@cerberus5: You should check out EVE online. It's nothing but work and still manage to have a huge player base. Somehow work can be fun. I know it is in NS. Sorry I just thought it was funny that you have a stats thing in your signature.
And you are right, EvE as well as all kinds of MMOs have alot of 'work' (usually refered to 'grinding') invovled.
Galaxies used to be nothing but a huge grind with very little reward and the rest of the game was up to your imagination (before the content overhaul)
WOW also has alot of grinding, depending on how you feel about it, but players like myself can avoid it at cost of reward
what I'm tryin to say is: Players will sometimes find work (grinding) in a game worthwhile as long as the reward is sufficient, and usually the only types of games that offer a tangible reward are MMOs where you build your character and accumulate items which you can use or show-off.
in a FPS where your character is identical to all others, without having a brag-board or stats system, any kind of grinding is pointless and people simply won't do it, thats why games like BF2 and Halo3 introduced their online-stat-tracking services, and Call Of Duty did it best with new weapons and items available with enough grinding (and it is a grind, cos you need to use each weapon, even if you dont like it!) <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Yea, I'll give you that, but I put it in there 3 years ago and never got around to taking it out. Haven't touch my 360 in more than a year.
But anyways, back to the topic at hand. Maybe private stats are OK as long as they don't evoke bragging rights. In fact, I would probably get rid of the scoreboard altogether, or at least relocate some of those stats to that same private stat page you were talking about (kills, deaths, accuracy, etc). The public scoreboard itself should be very stripped down and bare bone (Play names, their arsenal, and maybe ping). This will encourage "l33tz0rs" to cooperate with the team more, as oppose to running off to a enemy-heavy territory to rake up kills and essential being of zero benefit to the team.
<b>Psychology Lesson:</b>
"Extrinsic Motivation" defined by external goals towards which an activity is directed.
In theory, what should drive our urges to play games is called "Intrinsic Motivation" defined by pleasure that is associated with an activity but no apparent purpose.
There was a study done once, and I'll just quote from the book (Quoted from Psychological Science book):
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In a classic study, Mark Lepper and his colleagues allowed children to draw with colored marking pens, an activity that most children find intrinsically motivating. One group of children was given an extrinsic motive for drawing by being led to expect a "good player reward". Another group of children was unexpectedly rewarded following the task, and third group was neither rewarded not given the expectation of reward. During a subsequent free-play period, children who had been given the expectation of extrinsic reward spent much less time playing with the pens than did the group of children who were never rewarded or the children who received an unexpected reward<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In our case, things like Psychostats, 360 achievements, are all extrinsic motives and leads to playing games the way they weren't meant to be played. Obviously there are exceptions, but this does hold true for most of us, including me.
you would have to sort out the priorities for the game and modify the rankings to suit the style of gameplay imo.
S!eep
As mentioned before, making them brag sheets is the WRONG way to do it. This will lead to stat farming. Also, detaching it from a fixed account allows people to simply make a new account if they want to change their stats.
However, in terms of matchmaking and player feedback, they're pretty good.
Player feedback is the best since you can guide the player into good habits. If they see a stat for something like weld time, they realize that perhaps welding in an integral part of the game and will investigate how to do it.
For matchmaking, even if some farms their stats once they arrive in a real game against real/appropriately ranked players they will get demolished and forced down the rankings. Pros who intentionally farm their stats down to pwn noobs will lose their ability to play higher level games (recall we are attaching the accounts stringently). In theory, at the end of the day, the stats will accurately represent, within acceptable error, a player's skill.
A halo'esque player ranking would be cool as well, but I think it would probably negatively affect the game.
However i liked the old style of NS INGAME score table. Kill/Death ratios for marines was good with bonus points for being a good soldier and building and so forth. And also another good idea was having the Alien scoreboard without a visible death total. This made sure players even on a losing team would continue playing without having to look at a negative kd/r.
as a boasting/bragging tool, Statistics are game ruining.
The statistics for BF2, minus the medal award system, were amazing.
it wasn't super-easy to see them, so you weren't inclined to brag or browse them every so often.
they were incredibly detailed, and map-specific.
without the medal system, there would not have been a 'stat padding' problem, saying that, though, the medal system was kinda nice in BF2, it was a nice feeling to have your expertise in a helicopter rewarded, and perhaps even show your credentials to prospective clans.
The halo stats are ok, too, but they are too easy to pad and also the ranking system is extremely flawed with people creating a new gamer account, getting 1 round of perfection and becoming the 'best halo playa evar!!!!111oneone'
the problem is when people focus so hard on the stats that they stop playing the game for fun, and play it to get recognition of welding for 3hours solid, etc.
I think a possible way to prevent padding etc would be to update a web-based statistics table bi-weekly (fortnightly for the real english) so that people arn't going there everyday to see how often they knifed a skulk.
Without so much ego-boosting (via fortnightly updates) players will be less inclined to pad and more inclined to occasionally check out their stronger or weaker parts of the game, and see how to improve etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree with Stats ruining the game, in fact it may actually draw more players to the game to actually play. I'd rather have people playing the game going for stats then less people playing it with no stats. Stats are only a really a problem for those who negatively interpret them. I think a global rank/stats system would be good, but just for show/fun.
Bottom line is I don't care why people play, a popular game gets more popular, a less popular game dies out. Ego-boosting is a primary reason most players play online to begin with. Why not give something to quantify that boost?
Stats are ok if done right- keep them in the background. Keep them basic (TF2) but stay away from the really detailed stuff (Quake Live). I shudder at the thought of someone posting in a clan reccruitment section "mid skilled, speak english, 27% accuracy with LMG".
Taking away unlockable weapons, then TF2 did it right. Nice and basic so there's no need for stat padding.
(I've made the assumption ranking is meant as in a ranked ladder, not a WoW/CoD4-style levelling system)
Stats are ok if done right- keep them in the background. Keep them basic (TF2) but stay away from the really detailed stuff (Quake Live). I shudder at the thought of someone posting in a clan reccruitment section "mid skilled, speak english, 27% accuracy with LMG".
Taking away unlockable weapons, then TF2 did it right. Nice and basic so there's no need for stat padding.
(I've made the assumption ranking is meant as in a ranked ladder, not a WoW/CoD4-style levelling system)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well Sherpa, if people want to recruit teams based off the public stats, I would let teams do so. Obviously we both know better but if there are new teams that want to play that way, I would encourage it personally.
Having a stats system keeps people competing with themselves as well as others, gives people a slight more incentive to play the game.
That's what actually leagues are for not some automated clan ranking calculation based on global stats. It's not like high skilled players don't find a random server and stack a team to steamroll randoms even without a global stat system anyway. It would certainly be nice to have a stats system built into the game so you can parse logs and find out the overall stats of various players in competitive matches.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well Sherpa, if people want to recruit teams based off the public stats, I would let teams do so. Obviously we both know better but if there are new teams that want to play that way, I would encourage it personally.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I recall being on a server when some guy was trying out for a clan and to get in he had to score at least 30 points on the map or some such.
basically you got more out of the game rather than just the vanilla game play