<!--QuoteBegin--DarkAngel+Nov 18 2002, 01:43 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DarkAngel @ Nov 18 2002, 01:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yes, it does not necessarily amount to which player is the best team player, or the most responsible, strategy minded player, but if I need a certain marine to make exceptional use of expensive hardware, being able to guage their combat effectiveness through frag counts would be very useful.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Great idea DA. Easy to implement, and effective. The best variation of your idea that I've seen was the colour-coded auro idea. I expect that to do this properly would be a non-trivial task, thus unlikely to appear in the game. My version of the aura would be:
Coloured bars floating next to a marine in comm mode, representing two statistics: Combat effectiveness and Resource effectiveness.
Combat effectiveness represents damage taken / received, with bonuses and penalties applied for kills and deaths. (taking into account a marine who retreats before death, for instance).
Resource effectiveness represents amount of resources spent on marine / resources returned (e.g. building, welding).
The combination of these two bars indicates what a marine is good at - a good combat marine may have an excellent combat effectiveness, but a poor resource effectiveness, and vice versa. The average between the two could represent a third bar, being overall effectiveness.
I have to agree with DarkAngel here--sounds like he's alluding to a bit of an Invisible Hand theory here. I myself have problems working with teammates on some servers, because quite frankly most of them don't really know or care what they're doing. It's frustratring to try to assault an objective and watch your teammies wade haphazardly into enemy chambers and whatnot.
The worst part though...the abolute worst, though, is trying to command a team where nobody will tell you what they are doing before they go and do it. If a marine is going to go out "on your own," he should at least have the courtesy to 1) Tell the team what he is doing, and 2) do it well enough to justify seeing the stray blip on my tactical map and wondering why XXXX is hobbling around when the rest of the team is trying to hold the friggin double airlock. :/
There is no proper way to measure properly the effectiveness of a marine; In case of a frag/death ratio, it's easy to be effective if you're standing behing a wall of turrets, lobbing grenades on blimps that are charging your base; also a pair of HA+HMG marines are just as effective as the LMG marine behind them, who is constantly welding them;
%hit is also unrealistic, because it favoures LMG; we all know the 50% of HMG bullets stray off-target
System that is based on following orders is also unbalanced: There are different styles of commanders; my CO has a deputy system developed: every squad has a leader, who is allowed to communicate with the CO; also, every order is given to the whole squad, and then squad leader determines who will do the job Fairly complicated, but effective command structure <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Oh, yeah, one more thing: <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> is usually worth more than <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--Lt. Jose Jimenez+Nov 18 2002, 05:57 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Lt. Jose Jimenez @ Nov 18 2002, 05:57 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->There is no proper way to measure properly the effectiveness of a marine;<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I dont think we are saying that this feature should try to evaluate how "good" a marine is. All we want to know (as commanders) is if marine X can kill without being killed, or does marine X die before he can kill anything. A simple K/D ranking would tell a commander just who dies more than they kill.
By no means should a commander use this ranking to decide who the best marine is. That can only be decided by the commander, no rating system could ever tell a commander which marine preforms the best overall. Thats why we shouldn't ask for a complicated system, only a simple system to be there as an aid.
On the other hand, maybe a system that just showed the average amount of time a marine lives for. This way a commander will know that marine X will at least keep that gun for about 5 mins before it's lost. Yes maybe some marines are just too scared to go out and figh, so they never get into a real battle where they might die. But if you think about, it if he never dies, then those resources spent on that HMG wont ever have to be spent again. Therefore it would be a small price to pay, compared to someone who may kill more, but dies every 2mins. (in a given game the one who died every 2 mins would eat up thousands of resource points, where the marine that never died would use maybe 100 total).
P.S. of course with a K/D ratio an ornos kill would have to be worth much more than a skulk kill
I really disagree with this...commanders if they know what they are doing will notice their good marines. But adding some kind of ratio it not the answer...what about the marines that are doing as the commander says but because the people who are covering him while he is building dont do their job he dies? no no no...you see people spawn gear is a different style of play from ha/hmg. You have me in spawn gear and tell me to kill some hard to reach place i will suicide run on it till it falls...and it will over time. yet you give me ha and some heavy weapon i will ask for someone thats going with me to get a welder and i will be pretty impossible to kill.
I like the idea of being able to gauge a marine's performance, but I don't think kills/deaths is the best way to go about it. There's more to being a good marine than fragging a lot of aliens and staying alive. A kill/death rating wouldn't be fair to the marines that stay back and keep the heavies welded, or build a lot of structures, or focus on taking down alien buildings. I think there should be different "awards" given to marines to show what they're best at, and a little icon would appear next to the marine on the commander's scoreboard and top-down view showing what their specialty is. Some ideas for awards would be:
Sniper - Has a high shots fired/hits ratio. Welder - Keeps marines and structures welded. Survivor - Has the lowest death/time in game ratio. Rambo - Does the most damage. Thrifty - Takes care of his equipment and retrieves guns from dead marines. Cautious - Uses their flashlight alot.
Those are just some ideas. I could think of others if I had time.
<!--QuoteBegin--Carbon14+Nov 18 2002, 02:51 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Carbon14 @ Nov 18 2002, 02:51 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I can see where you are coming from, but the reason fargs were not included was because they didn't want marines trying to get high frag counts and running off on their own. If you include any reason to get high frag counts (such as impressing the commander and therefore getting better armor or weapons) then you might as well just enable frags for the whole team. It was made this way to encourage team play.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I agree with you, it would just end up where ppl will neglect team work to get tons of kills so cmder things there really good and they get all the good stuff when it comes.
<!--QuoteBegin--Jeed+Nov 17 2002, 09:52 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Jeed @ Nov 17 2002, 09:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Correct me if I'm wrong, but even though you cant see individual scores arent the names listed from most kills to least? If so it kind of gives you an idea of whos doing the most destruction.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> As far as i can tell the top player is located about 90-95% down the list. Atleast thats what it seems liek when i frag 5 alies right off the bat and thats where i am all the time <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
The issue I see here is that...well...yes, it might tell you whether or not your guy is killing, but it isn't telling you how he is doing it--what good is having a 17-in-1 wrench if not one of the heads fits the bolt you're trying to remove? The point I'm getting at is that a high kill/death ratio isn't necessarily useful. It just means he's involved in a lot of fighting (and usually on the better end of it.) Chances are it's at the expense of his teammates.
Comments
Great idea DA. Easy to implement, and effective. The best variation of your idea that I've seen was the colour-coded auro idea. I expect that to do this properly would be a non-trivial task, thus unlikely to appear in the game. My version of the aura would be:
Coloured bars floating next to a marine in comm mode, representing two statistics: Combat effectiveness and Resource effectiveness.
Combat effectiveness represents damage taken / received, with bonuses and penalties applied for kills and deaths. (taking into account a marine who retreats before death, for instance).
Resource effectiveness represents amount of resources spent on marine / resources returned (e.g. building, welding).
The combination of these two bars indicates what a marine is good at - a good combat marine may have an excellent combat effectiveness, but a poor resource effectiveness, and vice versa. The average between the two could represent a third bar, being overall effectiveness.
The worst part though...the abolute worst, though, is trying to command a team where nobody will tell you what they are doing before they go and do it. If a marine is going to go out "on your own," he should at least have the courtesy to 1) Tell the team what he is doing, and 2) do it well enough to justify seeing the stray blip on my tactical map and wondering why XXXX is hobbling around when the rest of the team is trying to hold the friggin double airlock. :/
In case of a frag/death ratio, it's easy to be effective if you're standing behing a wall of turrets, lobbing grenades on blimps that are charging your base; also a pair of HA+HMG marines are just as effective as the LMG marine behind them, who is constantly welding them;
%hit is also unrealistic, because it favoures LMG; we all know the 50% of HMG bullets stray off-target
System that is based on following orders is also unbalanced: There are different styles of commanders; my CO has a deputy system developed: every squad has a leader, who is allowed to communicate with the CO; also, every order is given to the whole squad, and then squad leader determines who will do the job
Fairly complicated, but effective command structure <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Oh, yeah, one more thing: <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> is usually worth more than <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
I dont think we are saying that this feature should try to evaluate how "good" a marine is. All we want to know (as commanders) is if marine X can kill without being killed, or does marine X die before he can kill anything. A simple K/D ranking would tell a commander just who dies more than they kill.
By no means should a commander use this ranking to decide who the best marine is. That can only be decided by the commander, no rating system could ever tell a commander which marine preforms the best overall. Thats why we shouldn't ask for a complicated system, only a simple system to be there as an aid.
On the other hand, maybe a system that just showed the average amount of time a marine lives for. This way a commander will know that marine X will at least keep that gun for about 5 mins before it's lost. Yes maybe some marines are just too scared to go out and figh, so they never get into a real battle where they might die.
But if you think about, it if he never dies, then those resources spent on that HMG wont ever have to be spent again. Therefore it would be a small price to pay, compared to someone who may kill more, but dies every 2mins. (in a given game the one who died every 2 mins would eat up thousands of resource points, where the marine that never died would use maybe 100 total).
P.S. of course with a K/D ratio an ornos kill would have to be worth much more than a skulk kill
Sniper - Has a high shots fired/hits ratio.
Welder - Keeps marines and structures welded.
Survivor - Has the lowest death/time in game ratio.
Rambo - Does the most damage.
Thrifty - Takes care of his equipment and retrieves guns from dead marines.
Cautious - Uses their flashlight alot.
Those are just some ideas. I could think of others if I had time.
I agree with you, it would just end up where ppl will neglect team work to get tons of kills so cmder things there really good and they get all the good stuff when it comes.
As far as i can tell the top player is located about 90-95% down the list. Atleast thats what it seems liek when i frag 5 alies right off the bat and thats where i am all the time <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
They are ranked by ping.
Please no flames before I confirm this.