Hive Skill suggestions
argentum
Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
It would be great if there was a separate hive skill for alien and marine.
there should also be a separate hive skill for alien comm, marine comm..
When shuffling, the algorithms should be written in such a way to take into account his feature. perhaps after both teams have comm, initiate a shuffle, making the average alien hive skill match the average marine hive skill and discount the commanders.
If you think this isn't a good idea, think about what happens when the teams are shuffled to make a 2.5 k hive skill player balance out against ~1k hive skill players and the 2.5 k player jumps in the chair.
some players are better at one side of the game than others, would be nice to have separate skill ratings for this.
Consider making long term measurement metrics of different in game actions as a stat that shows up on hive profile.
How awesome would it be if you were able to view overall parasite percentage, overall shotgun/rifle percentage, weld time, build time, heal sprays etc.
perhaps have an average of "last ten games"
A little chart on the hive profile that represents the overall % of these different metrics and then "last x" amount of "time" or "number of games" to reflect whether the player is increasing or decreasing their averages.
there should also be a separate hive skill for alien comm, marine comm..
When shuffling, the algorithms should be written in such a way to take into account his feature. perhaps after both teams have comm, initiate a shuffle, making the average alien hive skill match the average marine hive skill and discount the commanders.
If you think this isn't a good idea, think about what happens when the teams are shuffled to make a 2.5 k hive skill player balance out against ~1k hive skill players and the 2.5 k player jumps in the chair.
some players are better at one side of the game than others, would be nice to have separate skill ratings for this.
Consider making long term measurement metrics of different in game actions as a stat that shows up on hive profile.
How awesome would it be if you were able to view overall parasite percentage, overall shotgun/rifle percentage, weld time, build time, heal sprays etc.
perhaps have an average of "last ten games"
A little chart on the hive profile that represents the overall % of these different metrics and then "last x" amount of "time" or "number of games" to reflect whether the player is increasing or decreasing their averages.
Comments
I think the second largest factor is the map.
As for alien and marines skills a server already tried this and it worked pretty well. Some players had a huge difference between them.
And I wonder if you could add maps as a variable too. Like going for a 50/50 winrate on every map by adjusting marines and aliens average skill. Although you would need a lot of data/time/adjustement to achieve that.
That is correct, and completely misses the point I was saying.
What I was saying was that (a) there are a multitude of variables influencing outcome (b) we have information on only a few of them but (c) if we want to do anything useful, one variable we must use in allocating players is commander skill because (d) player skill is not the same as, necessarily correlated with or substitutable for commander skill and also (e) commander skill probably has a far larger impact than the skill of an individual player.
Optimally we would like all information on a player; if he uses laser mouse or touchpad, which kind of internet etc.
We don't have that information, and it would probably be way too complicated if we had.
So the question is which variable is actually needed to predict the outcome, thereby shuffling to fair teams.
I answered the following question:
Given 2 teams that have 50/50 win chance, what is the minimum change to a single team that have the largest influence of the outcome?
That variable should be considered when creating a (non) optimal shuffling heuristic.
I suggested that a minimum change I could see with large impact was
a) changing the com.
b) changing the map.
E.g. For marine comm (for the sake of simplicity of explaining competency):
Does the commander know the standard viable build orders?
Does the commander know how to manage res properly?
Does the commander know how to adapt to changing situations?
For mid/low skilled pub servers:
Does the commander respond to med requests in a timely fashion?
For high skilled pub servers:
Does the commander med during engagements without being prompted rather than after the fact?
If all those answers are yes, then a commander has the level of competency demanded by typical pub games. If any of those answers are no, then a commander doesn't have the required level of competency.
Whether the commander is competent by these guidelines is what has the massive impact you're describing on a games outcome. Sure, if 2 potential commanders are both competent, but one is highly skilled, while another is just above the bar for "acceptable", the more skilled one is nice to have.
However - even though you're right that players have different skillsets - more often than not, a really really good comm is also a really really good field player too. And thus, more often than not, it's better to have that really really good comm on the field instead, as even though he will technically comm better, he will probably have a greater impact on the field, as as long as there is a competent comm willing, it is not necessary he take the helm.
Not sure if I explained that well.
To illustrate it a bit more:
I've seen games more lost than won because a god tier skilled comm went comm rather than be on the field, because teams were balanced under the assumption that said player would be on the field where he would have more impact (despite being one of the top5 comms in the community).
The impact of such a player going comm is sometimes just as crippling as a slightly incompetent player going comm. You're right though - if a player who can't comm does go comm, it's a variable that does go a long way towards determining whether a game will go well. But once you go above the minimum competency "bar" - it becomes more about keeping a good balance of field players - any skill a comm has above that minimum competency bar (as outlined by the criteria above) will have an impact, but a minimal one compared to the greater impact that the field player skill lies. Granted, I've seen exceptions to this rule (e.g. here in aus, a few times I've lamented a hero player going comm to balance out similar hero players on the other team, only to hero comm an average skilled team to victory).
Point is: to get good balanced teams = both have competent comms, and balance the skill of field players from there. Worry less about whether a comm is amazing skilled or just good enough because it really doesn't matter (and often will have a negative impact if it throws off the balance of field players). But make sure he is at least good enough because if he isn't THAT will make a huge difference.
Commanding is an extremely important role with a fairly (relatively) low skill ceiling. Some would say that is bad game design, since ideally player importance should scale with player skill. Regardless, commanders needs to be treated differently than field players in the hive skill system.