Ranks for Commanders
blackpiranha
Germany Join Date: 2003-03-11 Member: 14375Members, Constellation
Germany Join Date: 2003-03-11 Member: 14375Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">skill indicator</div>Just a quick idea:
Why not add ranks for commanders into ns2? In NS you had no real indictator for the experience of the com youre playing with. The Constellation Icon was no guarantee.
You would get ranked for every game you command and gain points for successful rounds or sieging a hive and destroy it, simple as this.
This way, the comm chair becomes more attractive, you have a a better overview of the com youre playing with (experience level), and also its kind of a protection for you, the one who actually wants to command the public game, because it reduces the chance of being ejected.
What do u think?
Why not add ranks for commanders into ns2? In NS you had no real indictator for the experience of the com youre playing with. The Constellation Icon was no guarantee.
You would get ranked for every game you command and gain points for successful rounds or sieging a hive and destroy it, simple as this.
This way, the comm chair becomes more attractive, you have a a better overview of the com youre playing with (experience level), and also its kind of a protection for you, the one who actually wants to command the public game, because it reduces the chance of being ejected.
What do u think?
Comments
"Player1 entered the comm chair. He has (0) wins and (0) losses."
"Player2: Vote to boot comm n00b."
"Player3 voted to boot comm."
"Player4 voted to boot comm."
"Player5 voted to boot comm."
"Player2 voted to boot comm."
"Player6 voted to boot comm."
"Player1 was kicked from comm chair."
"Player2 entered the comm chair. He has (256) wins and (14) losses."
You'd only be encouraging elitism amongst commander players, and as it usually goes, elitism is great for the elite.
Without ranking you would just eject the "noob" after the first actions, because he/she revealed himself being new/ bad.
Then the round might already be screwed up or it already placed a disadvantage on marines.
So as I see it, the difference between ranking or no ranks can be another valid, fair and fun round of ns.
Moreover there will probably be servers with not so good players that don't mind a newer comm, because they still struggle with the game themselves. There's room for new comms to learn the game and score.
In addition I expect the dev-team (from what they say about the learning curve in general) that it is easier to get into a certain class and maybe they'll even provide some kind of comm tutorial, which doesn't need real players on the field at all.
Even without a comm tutorial at release, someone will create one to help players who get into ns later on.
Why not add ranks for commanders into ns2? In NS you had no real indictator for the experience of the com youre playing with. The Constellation Icon was no guarantee.
You would get ranked for every game you command and gain points for successful rounds or sieging a hive and destroy it, simple as this.
This way, the comm chair becomes more attractive, you have a a better overview of the com youre playing with (experience level), and also its kind of a protection for you, the one who actually wants to command the public game, because it reduces the chance of being ejected.
What do u think?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe my idea is better?
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=106549" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=106549</a>
I kinda dislike games where players shout "OMFG you stupid idiot game over all F4" after one or two minutes of playing. Early quitters and whiners should get some sort of penalty marks..
So.. No, no rankings please.
EDIT: Just to clarify; rounds are boring as hell, when everyone expects the same tactics every time. Not having an elitist as comm makes the gameplay more interesting and more unique rounds.
Without ranking you would just eject the "noob" after the first actions, because he/she revealed himself being new/ bad.
Then the round might already be screwed up or it already placed a disadvantage on marines.
So as I see it, the difference between ranking or no ranks can be another valid, fair and fun round of ns.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can clearly see the advantage of implementing this and I can clearly see the disadvantage to not implementing this.
My point was to demonstrate what would likely happen under the new system. No player, whether it be a good comm player, bad comm player, new comm player, or experienced comm player would be allowed in the chair without a majority of wins on record. What if I'm one of the best commanders anyone's ever seen but I join a server which has never seen my handle before and I jump in the comm chair. "Hawkeye entered the comm chair. He has (0) wins and (0) losses.... Vote to kick commander has initiated..." You're going to see only frequent commanders comm because only they'd be allowed. You'd allow human players to pre-assess the commander's abilities which for many is already enough reason to f4 and/or sabotage the game. At least without these ranks you'd give a total newb a fair chance to be a good comm. If he fails miserably, at least he learned something. If you kick a comm without having done anything, you're only going to severely limit the amount of players who actually do know how to comm and furthermore probably make the chance of a newb jumping into the chair far more likely anyway both because there will be more comm newbs and because they'd only want to comm that much more since they've never been able to.
Bingo. If people can be asshats, they will be. Unless the method of generating this 'Ranking' is entirely objective, it's irrelevant. You buy the game 3-6 months after release, get a hang of commanding (perhaps on your own / through some in-game training?) you go to your first server and get 'z0mg n00b comm eject eject' regardless of how well you were playing, because a Rank <i>x</i> Commander fancies the chair and you clearly don't deserve it?
There needs to be mechanisms to prevent griefing, however these must swing both ways.
And how would this indication benefit anyone?
it encourages players to improve and the comming on public may get a higher standard, in theory.
I know the biggest problem with the whole system are, as already mentioned, the "n00b" commanders trying to get into the game and have a disadavantage over high ranked coms on the same server. They have to be promoted alot.
I think your theory is very flawed.
It is more important that you have squad leaders/squads willing to play as a team and work WITH the com not against him/her, regardless of his/her abilities.
On a side note, the only kind of ranking system that I would remotely be in favor of, is an automated com banning system that would track griefers. I have no idea how this would be calculated, but I am sure that it could be done in some fashion.
Meh...
and I won't discuss 5 pages about it since you can't predict the developement of the "new" pub play. It's just an idea.
By having a permanent label on players like me that practically says "Hey guys I'm a noob comm!", even I wouldn't bother to go to the CC because I'd most likely be voted out.
On the other hand, if the UWE website has a listing of ranks of the top 50(?) commanders or something like that, it would accomplish what the OP is probably trying to do without hurting casual players.
Also, we can have a voting system at the beginning of each round like the way they do it in the Empires mod (HL2). For a minute or two before the round starts, players can "opt in" to be a comm and others can vote for their favourites among the list of interested comm candidates.
<b>0. They create rank-obsessed players.</b>
This is a fact of life. Wherever there's rank of some sort, people will deviate from team goal, fair play spirit, and respect for other people.
<b>1. Rank-obsessed players quit when their side is about to lose, to avoid getting a 'loss'</b>
So rank is not a good indication of a person's skill or experience. It can be manipulated.
<b>2. Rank-obsessed players avoid taking risks.</b>
Why command a weaker team if there's a high chance you're going to lose ? Stay on observer until you can join the better team. More wins that way !
Players who don't take risks and don't play against people at least as good as them, don't improve their skills. Again, rank does not indicate skill or experience.
<b>3. Rank-obsessed players love team stacking.</b>
We all like to play with friends on the same team. But once in a while it's better to spread evenly so that teams are not too imbalanced skill-wise and there's actually a good game (not to be mistaken with 'gg' - a knee-jerk reaction to end of match, and and occasionally an insult when used by a Starcraft player). People like me like playing games when teams are evenly matched. Rank obsessed players would love nothing more than a match that ends in 3 minutes, with their side winning.
Bottom line:
Ranks suck. Ranks are harmful. So are achievements. When you see a person with high rank, there's high chance he's a quitter, team stacker, and worse. He plays the stats, not the game.
if assurance about commander skill etc is ever a real issue, i'd vote for 'hours played commanding' as a stat. wins/losses/kills would be counterproductive as borsuk pointed out realy well!
I think hours plays as comm is alot more unbiased as in indicator than win/loss. It better measures underlying experience as opposed to stat abuse, stacking, luck. Theres no incentive to stat abuse something like hours commd etc.
Your more likely to be less harsh on a comm when marines lose because he/she has 0 hours compared to a comm with like 0win/99999loss.
I guess i was just trying to make a measure that protects the interests of both the comm and rines while giving some useful information.
Maybe perhaps games commd / number of times ejected instead of hours.
*edit* no matter the situation, i still believe we need to give people with little comm experience who want improve a go. even if we noe rines will lose horribly lol. so imo if theres any measure implemented to measure comm stats, theres no way working around providing info that says a comm has little experience.
"Player1 entered the comm chair. He has (0) wins and (0) losses."
"Player2: Vote to boot comm n00b."
"Player3 voted to boot comm."
"Player4 voted to boot comm."
"Player5 voted to boot comm."
"Player2 voted to boot comm."
"Player6 voted to boot comm."
"Player1 was kicked from comm chair."
"Player2 entered the comm chair. He has (256) wins and (14) losses."
You'd only be encouraging elitism amongst commander players, and as it usually goes, elitism is great for the elite.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was going to make this exact post when I read the initial one, but you said it well enough.
- The newbie probelm is partitially solved by not displaying the exact stats. For example you can have a golden comm chair icon for the very experienced comms that are way above the average. Meanwhile the average comms don't look any different from the newbies. It doesn't completely remove the issues, but gives you a good idea if you've actually got a very decent comm in your team.
- The ranking based on pure wins gets abused, but for example a purely game time related rank is more difficult to use on wrong purposes. You could also force certain requiriments before a player can be recognized as 'experienced'. For example an experienced commander must constantly break 60 actions per minute (APM) before he gets the icon. Almost every mouse click or key pressed counts as actions, so 60 is still ridiculously low for a decent comm. In comparsion a decent starcraft player fluctates somewhere around 200 APM, if not more.
The APM can be dodged by spamming useless commands of course, but it still encourages people to learn the hotkeys and be active.
So there could be two ways to manage it :
- revoke the right to enter comm for players who didnt finished the tutorial
- add an icon next to a player to show if the tutoriel is done or not.
the tutorial shouldn't be boring neither too long, just a few minutes to explain buildings and how to siege, to create sub bases, distress etc ^^
So there could be two ways to manage it :
- revoke the right to enter comm for players who didnt finished the tutorial
- add an icon next to a player to show if the tutoriel is done or not.
the tutorial shouldn't be boring neither too long, just a few minutes to explain buildings and how to siege, to create sub bases, distress etc ^^<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A short tutorial doesn't ensure the player knows anything about the game or has the skills to perform the comming at any level.
That's on my list right after getting rid of the famine and diseases from the world. Nevertheless, I've got a bit of understanding for people being angry if someone wastes 10+ minutes of their free time.
New commanders wouldn't be allowed to command, because they don't have an impressive track record. Because they don't get allowed in the chair, they don't get any opportunities to improve, and they remain bad.
The best way to fix this is not by categorizing commanders from good to bad, it's by making commanding on a whole user friendly enough that it becomes easy to do, rather than complicated like in NS1.
Commanding should be impressive through tactics and strategy, not through knowing where every little button is.