Hide hive skill now
jrgn
Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58289Members
Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58289Members
Please hide the hive skill. Seems to be one of the major motivation factors for ppl to play the game, yet it it is still not a individual skill progress system, it is only there for teambalancing. I mean, the web site is down and many servers suffer from a few really good players vs maybe 30 % rookies, the rest medium. Loads of frustration comes from this.
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Hive 2.0 currently doesn't have an official website, but there are a few sites that give some information based on hive 2.0 statistics etc.
But I do agree that ELO shouldn't be viewable to the playerbase if it isn't a measure of individual skill level, because of it being abusable it will end up causing unbalanced teams.
This thread should be directed at server operators who show hive skill in their servers by choice. NS2+ allows this. It is not in vanilla NS2.
I do agree it should be hidden, but I also think server operators have the right to show it if they want to.
I would recommend that you ask your favorite server operator to hide hive skill values on their server, but there will be many more players asking them to turn it back on. Instead, you should try supporting a server that does not show hive skill. That is really the only option I see.
UWE does have real player progression systems coming...
https://trello.com/c/ov771Jrf/16-player-level-progression
https://trello.com/c/Y03Driqa/22-progression-rewards
... and some additional player stats systems coming...
https://trello.com/c/N0djMvpp/20-player-stats-system
https://trello.com/c/AbN8RzW4/24-steam-stats
... as seen on the NS2 roadmap.
https://trello.com/b/njrpasjl/ns2-roadmap
If you are interested in what UWE is working on right now, not what they will be working on, or want more details than the roadmap might give, check out their development tracker trello.
https://trello.com/b/uFv64kH6/ns2-development-team
Really? I had an amazingly low hive score for awhile. It didn't last, sadly.
One of the improvements was adagrad which is a sort of adaptive learning rate. Hive originally worked in small increments, which made it take forever to be relevant. With this adaptive learning rate, new skill values can move around a lot. When hive 2 began recording everyone was considered new. Everybodys skill value moved a fair bit
Personally, I dont care if its hidden or shown, but I'm not clear on your justification here. You say hide it cuz it's not representative of individual skill, which IMO is right and wrong - it's a representation of your likelihood to win, which reflects your skill, but does not define it. Anyways, you acknowledge it's there for team balancing... but whether its shown or not does not fix what you're saying is causing you frustration. There will still be just as many good players vs inexperienced players. I don't see how hiding hive skill would fix that.
Frankly, just sounds like you've tried to come up w/ a more "reasonable" answer for not liking seeing your or other's hiveskills, or how it motivates some ppl to play better. Hiding hiveskill does not change the player makeup from server to server.
Sounds like you've got a personal problem there mate.
You might say that it causes some players to abuse certain exploits in order to gain a greater rank - those are outliers I think though.
To name a few:
I linked UWE's plans for a real progression system above, but I forgot one. UWE plans to add a competitive ranking.
Hive skill values can be used as a competitive ranking or as a progression system. Just because it can doesn't mean it is good at it. Hive's purpose and real strength is in its ability to balance teams. UWE has plans to introduce a real competitive ranking and a real progression system. Hive is separate from those plans.
As someone who runs a server that displays the hive skill average per team (not individual), I notice shuffles very often being insufficient at even getting to semi equal levels.
When that happens, its nice to shuffle again - or however many times required to get a better balance.
That all being said, even with matched hive levels between teams you can still easily get an imbalanced round that you don't realize is the case until 5+ minutes in.
I just like having it to pre empt any claims of stomps beforehand, and then everyone can be disappointed by how inaccurate its assessment was later on.
It's the lesser of two evils, imo.
Today we have loads of players who joins the team with the guy with the highest hive score just because they have a higher probability of boosting their own if their team win. There are plenty of other behaviours connected with hive score wrongly mistaken for a skill number/ELO/Progress bar that is not good for getting a nice game of ns2 going (whatever that is
I am pretty sure loads of people who are dependent in their self esteem by looking at the hive score would hate to see it being hidden, but i am also pretty sure otherwise we end up with a game of hive score masturbat*rs, if we are not there already.
Please just give these thoughts a serious think-through before posting...or attacking me personally or my hive score
Or show it like the return when you use sh_teamstats in a shine server.
And finally:Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
It doesn't solve the balance problem but does help alleviate the hurt on the smaller team
What about a server configerable setting in shine that if the average skill difference is greater than X and or the standard deviation of skill is greater than Y, a shuffle vote is automatically started? People could still vote not to shuffle.
If you shuffle, people don't switch teams or leave the server, and it is still unbalanced there is not much else that can be done.
( as most high hive score players do, since the punishment on doing that is less than staying and losing) before endgame? Like they have in ENSL? It just doesn't count?
If you disconnect and lose, pretty sure you still get what you would if you had stayed. What ppl do to defeat the system is different. Also... Comp games and gathers affect your hive skill just like any other game. Not sure what you're referring to.
And why would you want to nullify skill changes to ppl who leave? if anything, they deserve it the most if the leave is intentional/rage motivated.
The time at the beginning of the round is weighted to be worth more, so what you propose is pretty much pointless for your purpose.
Doing this would defeat the purpose of hive. You are not awarded points. Your skill is adjusted. It is not like some high score on a pinball machine.