Persistent Score, from a rookie point of view
kgptzac
Join Date: 2013-03-25 Member: 184391Members
Join Date: 2013-03-25 Member: 184391Members
I started playing the game since the free weekend and bought the game while it was still on the 50% sale. Needless to say, I like the game and want it to succeed. There are quite a few oddities that achieves nothing but prevent new players from effectively learning the game; nothing can't be overcome but still should be improved. Yet I feel I've now hit a "plateau" in the sense of progression. I did my search on various topics about persistent ranking, matchmaking, and even vote concede, and then came to a conclusion that a global, persistent score system that gives players a sense of progression is a positive addition to the game.
Firstly, "winning at all cost and nothing else matters" sometimes is anti-fun. I agree with the notion that the early and mid-game can be too punishing that a small mistake (usually a strategic one by the commander) can easily make the result apparent even though it will still take the winning team at least 30 minutes or more to muster enough firepower to score a hard win, where the chance of the weaker team to make a comeback is slim.
Ironically, some of the most epic battles I fought happened when the losing team turtled in their last base and it took the winning team many tries to break the final stronghold. However, under the premise of the winning condition, such "sieges" are the result of the losing team team does not have enough votes to concede, thus potentially wasting the time for majority of the players in that match. If a score that is meaningful across matches is implemented, both the losing team and the winning team are rewarded as more kills means better personal score.
I am against persistent ranking like Battlefield 3 where players need to reach certain rank/level to unlock items that gives definite advantage in gameplay. However, I do feel that as a modern shooter game, NS2 should have implemented a global score system that accumulates from game to game so the player has a better sense of progression. Servers too can benefit from knowing how experienced each player is and can add heuristics to the team scrambling algorithm so teams may be more balanced in terms of each team having roughly same number of veterans and rookies.
The following is what I have in mind:
- Actions (especially repair/heal, construct, and assist in kills) should give proper score to each player to accurately reflect their contribution to the team in winning the match.
- Simple statistics are globally saved, such as number of matches played and accumulative score, etc.
- Separate stats for commander (such as time played as commander, resource spent, etc).
- Personal scores are visible to public.
- Higher scores may grant players additional cosmetic goodies that don't give advantages or disadvantages in matches.
Since this obviously isn't a new suggestion, and I'm curious what is the developers' stance on it, or even whether it's technically possible.
Firstly, "winning at all cost and nothing else matters" sometimes is anti-fun. I agree with the notion that the early and mid-game can be too punishing that a small mistake (usually a strategic one by the commander) can easily make the result apparent even though it will still take the winning team at least 30 minutes or more to muster enough firepower to score a hard win, where the chance of the weaker team to make a comeback is slim.
Ironically, some of the most epic battles I fought happened when the losing team turtled in their last base and it took the winning team many tries to break the final stronghold. However, under the premise of the winning condition, such "sieges" are the result of the losing team team does not have enough votes to concede, thus potentially wasting the time for majority of the players in that match. If a score that is meaningful across matches is implemented, both the losing team and the winning team are rewarded as more kills means better personal score.
I am against persistent ranking like Battlefield 3 where players need to reach certain rank/level to unlock items that gives definite advantage in gameplay. However, I do feel that as a modern shooter game, NS2 should have implemented a global score system that accumulates from game to game so the player has a better sense of progression. Servers too can benefit from knowing how experienced each player is and can add heuristics to the team scrambling algorithm so teams may be more balanced in terms of each team having roughly same number of veterans and rookies.
The following is what I have in mind:
- Actions (especially repair/heal, construct, and assist in kills) should give proper score to each player to accurately reflect their contribution to the team in winning the match.
- Simple statistics are globally saved, such as number of matches played and accumulative score, etc.
- Separate stats for commander (such as time played as commander, resource spent, etc).
- Personal scores are visible to public.
- Higher scores may grant players additional cosmetic goodies that don't give advantages or disadvantages in matches.
Since this obviously isn't a new suggestion, and I'm curious what is the developers' stance on it, or even whether it's technically possible.
Comments
UWE have said in news posts that they want to improve the 'ancillary systems' involved in a game of NS2 and what you suggest would be a good step in that direction I think.
NS2 needs an educated guess on how to sort teams. More and more people are starting to invoke forced random teams, trying to counter stacks. Due to the importance of every major encounter, a few veteran players make an enormous impact on the games direction. I think a ranking system is the way to go. Separate ranks for alien, khamms, marines and marine comms.
check this out. when a little over the top but you seem to know what im after.
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/129415/unlockables-the-route-to-even-teams#latest
BF3, Killing Floor and other games with leveling systems need this kind of progression. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it works well in those games because they aren't complex and the only progression a player can get is that 'progression feeling' statistics give you.
NS2 however is a hard game to play (to begin with), which means the progression of the player is actually learning how to play the game, mastering strategies and finally becoming a good player. You know when you are a good player and it's one of the things I enjoy most about this game. The progression is real progression, which is key.
The negative aspect statistics bring is that every game is for the stats, not for the game. So what if you lost this one? You weren't really playing the game anyway, but just hoarding points, it doesn't matter overall because your score was good. Each individual game means less, while each player has less enthusiasm to win the game because 'the game isn't about the game, it's about the overall stats'. I used to play a bit of CoD 4 back when it first came out, most of the time I had crappy games in which I didn't win due to bad game design (stupid killstreaks!) and it was rubbish, but the statistics and unlocks kept me hooked. I looked at this behaviour and figured out that the majority of time spent in the game was actually frustrating and boring. I'm not saying adding statistics to the game will mean it will turn it into CoD, but why add the crutch a bad game needs into a game that is actually a good experience to play (and in my opinion, one of the only games I've played that is still fun while losing).
Overall the game is great once you've learned the basics, why pointlessly add a metagame ontop of that? Let the other games keep that redundant element.
But I'm getting a bit off-topic in this thread now, sorry!
This isn't Call of Duty. Its NS2. Ranking is for those who want to show-off to friends and others. It spawns those types of people that think the ranking is the only thing that matters, and next thing you know it you got 10 year old kids acting top dog, because they have a better ranking than someone.
NS2 is about having fun, and working as a team to achieve victory. Simple.
Ranking would just further discourage new players.
Example: If a new player has ten poor games. No one will want him to be playing, because his ranking is bad.
The stats collected wouldn't have any relation to the circumstances under which they occurred.
Got a 3/20 K/D ratio? Is it because you are a bad player or just because the enemy team was stacked?
Especially the tracking of deaths is a bad thing. In some roles you simply tend to die a lot. Skulks are cannon fodder in my eyes, I often don't get a positive K/D against a competent marine team before I actually go for a higher lifeform and I also treat my Skulk in such a lighthearted way by often initiating a fight by jumping in an sacrificing myself as bullet sponge and distraction so that marines unload their rifles and the rest of my team can clean them up during the reload. No stat tracker in the world could recognize that those deaths are good deaths and not something to denounce.
Or walking alone deep into alien territory as marine on a suicide mission to harass them a bit and cause some distraction. Even if you didn't kill anything but only damaged it, you might have actually contributed to your team with that distraction.
I enjoy NS2 for it's classiness where just the fun in itself matters and every match is a new start on an unwritten paper, where you can quickly forget about a bad stomp match that you just had last round and where people don't really care about being on the winning team. Completely ignoring this pathetic modern trend of games chumming up and feeding players carrots in form of artificial progress just to keep them interested. If a game has to resort to that kind of stuff, it seems to not believe in it's own gameplay merits in my eyes.
Call of Duty actually becomes extremely boring once you've unlocked all the stuff and have no actual goal to pursue anymore. Which is why they actually have that prestige mode to reset your stuff and start over, so you can keep that carrot going on for longer. This is how little value the actual gameplay has.
I agree that players "hording score" instead of trying to contribute to the team. That's why I suggested that the scores should be as accurate as possible in reflection of personal contribution to the team. With or without a persistent stats, there will be "selfish" players out there who prioritize personal score/"K/D" ratio over making meaningful contribution to the team. An ideal score system should take this into consideration, so the best way of accumulating points is to play as a team and contribute to the team in overall victory.
And as I said, persistent score is not about unlocking things in NS2. It currently isn't possible anyway due to the existing game design. I also don't favor tracking K/D ratio, as it's been proven to be the greenhouse for epeen flapping behavior.
Rest assured, the last thing I want to see is NS2 turn into a "game about stats", which is heavily depended on the actual implementation of the system which I'm purposely not diving into with details in mind. A properly implemented score system will ultimately not force people who aren't interested in them to suffer, but will help ease the steep learning curve this game already has, making it have a broader appeal.
PS: It's good to see the devs are considering personal profiles. Hopefully it means more parameters for the server to play with!
I like looking at personal stats in game. It lets me set objective goals and aim for improvement. Plus, it makes it easier for me to identify good players so that I can follow their play.