We need to TOTALLY remake the comm badge(s)

FriendlyNeighbour

Basically, the issue today is that it's way too easy to get a comm badge.
A comm badge should be a near-guarantee of a skilled commander. Today, that is not the case at all.

It's very, very common seeing people with comm badges making extreme rookie mistakes, such as not recycling a lot of expensive stuff when a base has been COMPLETELY overrun. I'm talking when every single marine is dead and nobody is close by. Yet it's not uncommon to see comm badge commanders not recycling at all. I could go on.

So either we introduce a layer. Comm badge level 1 to 3. Or we make it much harder to get comm badge to begin with. Either way, the system needs a total refresh and a new beginning. The comm badge today is not an indication of a good comm. It's simply TOO easy to get one.

Lambo

badges = skill

Nordic

Similar ideas were discussed long ago. They never went anywhere.

2cough

personally anymore when is see a comm badge, I never assume that they know what they're doing. Just means they've done it... a handful of times. never meant that they were good at it.

Calego

What you're suggesting is that we figure out a way to teach a computer what makes a good comm. I would certainly love to hear how to do this because I've racked my brain many times and can't think of a way to measure that.

There's no formula or metric that we can teach a computer to measure because #1 for commanding is communication and decision making. We can't tell the computer to listen to voice comms and decide whether the comm made a good call based on the info they had at the time, so anything we do will by nature be insufficient and broken.

Wins? Medpacks dropped? Medpack accuracy? Drifter usage? Time spent outside the hive building? Beacons thrown? Techpath used? Average Maximum resources?

None of these things give a good picture of commanding skill.

MuckyMcFly

Take your pick :-

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/134812/commander-badge-frustration/p1

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/133466/commander-badges

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2199811#Comment_2199811

MaxAmus

AM sorry but the whole point of the commanders badge was to get players to command. Once they get the badge they stoped commanding. Thus they should at least know the basics of commanding - but may not know much more about it.

I dont think it needs changed as such - perhaps give them more a reason to keep commanding ? like has been talked about before, Different Tiers - Bronze silver and gold etc would be best.

MuckyMcFly

There was a discussion about why people don't want to command:-

http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/138483/why-dont-you-want-to-command/p1

A lot of people hate being blamed, as the OP states "making extreme rookie mistakes" I would class that under that banner. Med spam over recycling? Its tough in that chair eh

ZEROibis

Actually, I think the solution may be a rate your com plugin at the end of rounds. There would need to be a system to detect trolls.

M - Rate Com. That would be cool and it just stores that users rating. Then you can identify good coms from bad.

Then you could create a supplementary mod which recommends players on your team who would make a good com.

There could even be a mod for situations when multiple users want to com where a player could start a com vote and users who have nominated themselves can be voted on. Players would be able to see the current com rating of the player.

Calego

ZEROibis wrote: »

Actually, I think the solution may be a rate your com plugin at the end of rounds. There would need to be a system to detect trolls.

M - Rate Com. That would be cool and it just stores that users rating. Then you can identify good coms from bad.

Then you could create a supplementary mod which recommends players on your team who would make a good com.

There could even be a mod for situations when multiple users want to com where a player could start a com vote and users who have nominated themselves can be voted on. Players would be able to see the current com rating of the player.

That's a very solid idea. Would just need server ops to publicize the thing and get the community to take this up.

BabblerKing

Probably won't work because random joe calls a bad comm when every veteran would agree the comm's decent and vice versa.
There would be those trying to cheat the system by having their friends vote for them.
Also the mod would require to use a unified database for all servers.
Often comms get replaced for whatever reason mid round, how2deal.
You'd have to have a whole bunch of ratings that, if threshold reached, will display as:
[Yes] Does the commander use voice?
[No] Does the commander like scans?
[No] Drifter use?
[Yes] Is he pretty?
etc...
It's something that will lose itself into complexity, sadly.

I wish something like that would exist but... It's gotta be simple.

Kouji_San

[Cat/Dog] Likes cats or dogs
[Yes/No] Where are my torrents, bacon and shirtgun cornmandor!

But ya, complexity point is a valid one @BabblerKing

Nordic

I have pos

ZEROibis wrote: »

Actually, I think the solution may be a rate your com plugin at the end of rounds. There would need to be a system to detect trolls.

M - Rate Com. That would be cool and it just stores that users rating. Then you can identify good coms from bad.

Then you could create a supplementary mod which recommends players on your team who would make a good com.

There could even be a mod for situations when multiple users want to com where a player could start a com vote and users who have nominated themselves can be voted on. Players would be able to see the current com rating of the player.

I suggested something very similar to that long ago. I was told social measures should not be used in a game etc etc. So yes, I would love to see that in game. Even better if it complemented your hive score. Like Nordic 1500 hive 2 star comm, Calego 600 hive, 5 star comm, Then Kouji being mr goldilocks with 1200 hive score and 4 star comm.

ZEROibis

Calego wrote: »

ZEROibis wrote: »

Actually, I think the solution may be a rate your com plugin at the end of rounds. There would need to be a system to detect trolls.

M - Rate Com. That would be cool and it just stores that users rating. Then you can identify good coms from bad.

Then you could create a supplementary mod which recommends players on your team who would make a good com.

There could even be a mod for situations when multiple users want to com where a player could start a com vote and users who have nominated themselves can be voted on. Players would be able to see the current com rating of the player.

That's a very solid idea. Would just need server ops to publicize the thing and get the community to take this up.

Good thing it was a server op that came up with the idea then lol... but yea if other ops think this is a good idea I think it would not take long for it to catch on.

If you have it say in chat player X rated commander Y Z. Then there is accountability for trolls. If a person is commanding for over 45min it should have something in place preventing < 3 star selection regardless of win or loss. The issue is knowing they were the commander that long when they hop out and in the chair/hive during game.

The system should store the ratings a player has made. So that they can see what they currently have rated the commander if they already have.

The tables to store the data would be by commander where as the table for commander X stores the ratings of players X and Y who rated them. (would optimize performance)

Nordic

ZEROibis wrote: »

Calego wrote: »

ZEROibis wrote: »

Actually, I think the solution may be a rate your com plugin at the end of rounds. There would need to be a system to detect trolls.

M - Rate Com. That would be cool and it just stores that users rating. Then you can identify good coms from bad.

Then you could create a supplementary mod which recommends players on your team who would make a good com.

There could even be a mod for situations when multiple users want to com where a player could start a com vote and users who have nominated themselves can be voted on. Players would be able to see the current com rating of the player.

That's a very solid idea. Would just need server ops to publicize the thing and get the community to take this up.

Good thing it was a server op that came up with the idea then lol... but yea if other ops think this is a good idea I think it would not take long for it to catch on.

If you have it say in chat player X rated commander Y Z. Then there is accountability for trolls. If a person is commanding for over 45min it should have something in place preventing < 3 star selection regardless of win or loss. The issue is knowing they were the commander that long when they hop out and in the chair/hive during game.

The system should store the ratings a player has made. So that they can see what they currently have rated the commander if they already have.

The tables to store the data would be by commander where as the table for commander X stores the ratings of players X and Y who rated them. (would optimize performance)

I think decoy's post here describes a quality way of going doing this.
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2259704/#Comment_2259704

Rusty

ooooh mods! I love mods. Omnomnom.. I'd run that on DMD

Legend_Boss

I have a system that could work for comm badges which is not based on just sitting in chair/hive, but winning also. The information would be uploaded to HiveStats so it can be accessed by servers for when assigning badges, unless there is another/easier way to record the information.

A player can have a Bronze comm badge provided their win/loss ratio as commander is greater 35%. If their win/loss ration as commander is greater than 75%+ they should have a Gold comm badge. 50% would be
Silver com badge. Less than 35% win should be a Red comm badge.

Some factors to take into account:

1. The longest commander in the round should be credited with the win/loss.
2. So even if the comm jumps out of the chair towards the end of a losing round he will still have the loss marked against him.
3. This would therefor not impact players that jump into a second chair/hive to spawn eggs or quickly drop IPs or whatever.
4. Rounds needs to last at least 10 minutes for a win/loss to be recorded
5. There needs to be atleast 5 6 players on each teams
6. There should be a minimum of 50 games as commander recorded before the relevant badge is shown
7. Team skill should not be greater than 100 difference at the 4 minutes mark of a game. (alternative could be a difference no greater than 150 at the 10 min mark so it syncs with Rule 4 - less calculations to be done by the server that way?)
8. Only the last 200 games as commander should count towards the win/loss ratio

I will add more criteria to the list if there is interest in this idea.

Just to be clear. the win/loss would be a separate one to the current round win/loss, it will be a win/loss if you were commanding.

ZEROibis

Win loss would result in rage coms very easily. The amount of times good commanders lose as a result of teams would be even more frustrating for coms than it is now. Right now these is sometimes games that a good com knows they are not going to win but still tires to do everything he can so his team can put up the best fight. The system as described above would instead encourage the smarter coms to jump out when they know the game is not possible to win, recycle or avoid comming in the first place unless they believe there is a good shot for the team they are on to win in order to increase their "rank". This is the problem with ranking things like winning and losing too much to a team based game.

GameOver

Legend_Boss wrote: »

I have a system that could work for comm badges which is not based on just sitting in chair/hive, but winning also. The information would be uploaded to HiveStats so it can be accessed by servers for when assigning badges, unless there is another/easier way to record the information.

A player can have a Bronze comm badge provided their win/loss ratio as commander is greater 35%. If their win/loss ration as commander is greater than 75%+ they should have a Gold comm badge. 50% would be
Silver com badge. Less than 35% win should be a Red comm badge.

Some factors to take into account:

1. The longest commander in the round should be credited with the win/loss.
2. So even if the comm jumps out of the chair towards the end of a losing round he will still have the loss marked against him.
3. This would therefor not impact players that jump into a second chair/hive to spawn eggs or quickly drop IPs or whatever.
4. Rounds needs to last at least 10 minutes for a win/loss to be recorded
5. There needs to be atleast 56 players on each teams
6. There should be a minimum of 50 games as commander recorded before the relevant badge is shown
7. Some kind of time limit for each badge

I will add more criteria to the list if there is interest in this idea.

Just to be clear. the win/loss would be a separate one to the current round win/loss, it will be a win/loss if you were commanding.

Good concept, edited it a bit with my additional suggestions.
Don't give red badges to anyone. This just would cause bm against a person with such a badge. It would basically say that "you're very not good".

Legend_Boss

ZEROibis wrote: »

Win loss would result in rage coms very easily. The amount of times good commanders lose as a result of teams would be even more frustrating for coms than it is now....

I will admit that sometimes a commander loses because of the team, but this happens very rarely when I command. If a person loses as commander and frequently blames the team then perhaps there is a communication issue or lack of leadership by that commander. I command frequently (on Playground so larger team to manage) and rarely have this problem. Even if this does occour often, I still believe it will be a better system than the current one

ZEROibis wrote: »

...The system as described above would instead encourage the smarter coms to jump out when they know the game is not possible to win, recycle or avoid comming in the first place unless they believe there is a good shot for the team they are on to win in order to increase their "rank". This is the problem with ranking things like winning and losing too much to a team based game.

If a commander thinks the teams won't win, so he wouldn't want to command as doing so may affect his rank, then he should force vote even to make the teams skill balanced before the round starts. This made me think of another rule:

• Team skill should not be greater than 100 difference at the 4 minutes mark of a game.

Should the skill change after this then it doesn't matter, as long as once the gameplay has reached 4 minutes the skill difference is within 100.

I know sometimes ppl deliberately stack so this rule should allow a player to command without fear of it affecting his rank. 4 minutes because by that time ppl should have joined a team and the pace of the game figured out. This could ulternativly be at the very start of the round.

Also if the teams are stacked and it's a very fast game (less than 10 min) it wouldn't count as a win/loss for either teams - because of Rule 4. It's also possible to concede before 10 min which i see often, so it shouldn't matter.

GameOver wrote: »

Don't give red badges to anyone. This just would cause bm against a person with such a badge. It would basically say that "you're very not good".

My thought was for it act as a warning to ppl, but I suppose that it would not allow a person to improve. Saying that if after commanding 50 games and you are losing a significant amount of games perhaps that person should give up commanding. However, I have just thought that the red badge may also lead to commanders deliberately losing a game just to get the red badge then not bother commanding again

Would you elaborate on the time idea? What would be the benefit of a time limit? Currently a player needs to command 50 games which lasts at least 10 minutes each which means they need to have commanded for at least 8.33 hours before they get a badge. I reckon this is sufficient time for a person to prove themselves; bear in mind that a long game could last much longer than 10 minutes (I played some on Playground that lasted well over an hour) but will just count as 1 win/loss and count as 1 game out of the 50

I agree with some of your other suggestions and amended the original list

DC_Darkling

Im actually interested in this idea, as a server admin.

But it is also quite true that a comm can be good, but the team just to clueless to realise what he is doing. This could potentially result in a bad score for that good comm.
And its happening more and more in pubs as people with some hours think themselves masters of the game.

Hell im passed 1800 and id not even dare call I mastered it. :P

GameOver

Legend_Boss wrote: »

[...]

Would you elaborate on the time idea? What would be the benefit of a time limit? Currently a player needs to command 50 games which lasts at least 10 minutes each which means they need to have commanded for at least 8.33 hours before they get a badge. I reckon this is sufficient time for a person to prove themselves; bear in mind that a long game could last much longer than 10 minutes (I played some on Playground that lasted well over an hour) but will just count as 1 win/loss and count as 1 game out of the 50

I thought that the badges shouldn't be only dependent on the results you achieve, but also on the time/games you played. Just as an example: Bronze badge default, silver badge 75 games, golden badge 100 games, so you can really tell that a golden badged player played a lot more games as commander and is therefore more experienced. On a second thought that might be not that significant, because 75% win/loss ratio on 10 minute games is hard enough. What do you think?

Two other things which should be considered:
Players who want to achieve the golden badge will rage quit as commander if they see that their team can't make it, because they don't want the loss to be counted.
--> Quitting a running game (via RR or quit/disconnect) until the end of the game must count as loss.

Secondly ... only the most recent "put number here"(200) games should counted, so it's a representation of your more current performance.

Does that make sense? I hope so