Ranking System
SjN
Join Date: 2003-01-07 Member: 11983Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Join Date: 2003-01-07 Member: 11983Members, Reinforced - Supporter
<div class="IPBDescription">in order to add balance to the game</div>While reading another forum post, I came up with an interesting (not very original) idea. I already posted it as a response to another post, so I will just paste it here.
NS2 needs a ranking system similar to Tribes, not for the purpose for unlocking new weapons, but to balance the games. read on.
The total score gained in a round should be added to the player's total score of all rounds played. The more games you played, the more knowledge you gain about the game, and the higher total score / rank you will have.
And that can be used for couple of things:
1) Ability to tell if you're on a team of experienced players
2) Server admins will be able to lock their servers for experienced players only
This will certainly improve balance in games and add fun. I do understand that for newbies to learn faster, they have to play the game with experienced players. But on the first day of NS2's release, most people on the server didn't know what they were doing, and we kinda all learned together which was fine.
So perhaps the solution would be to block all the new players from experienced servers, and have them play on rookies servers instead. All the rookies servers can be hosted by UWE, and experienced servers can be hosted by others. In fact, there can be 3 or even 4 different ranks. Rookie, Intermediate, Experienced and Pro.
It would take around 10-20 hours to become an Intermediate player, another 20-30 hours to become an Experienced players, and 100+ hours to become a Pro. Pro servers would only have the players who know NS2 inside out, games on those servers will have enourmous amount of communication, team work, and dedication. So if you're a very experienced NS2 player and you want to enjoy a quality game and avoid any frustrations that can be caused by new players, there will be a server like that to join, which will filter out the "nubs".
From my experience in NS1, I know that there are many professional players who tended to avoid pub games because they were too messy. But with my solution, that shouldn't happen.
NS2 needs a ranking system similar to Tribes, not for the purpose for unlocking new weapons, but to balance the games. read on.
The total score gained in a round should be added to the player's total score of all rounds played. The more games you played, the more knowledge you gain about the game, and the higher total score / rank you will have.
And that can be used for couple of things:
1) Ability to tell if you're on a team of experienced players
2) Server admins will be able to lock their servers for experienced players only
This will certainly improve balance in games and add fun. I do understand that for newbies to learn faster, they have to play the game with experienced players. But on the first day of NS2's release, most people on the server didn't know what they were doing, and we kinda all learned together which was fine.
So perhaps the solution would be to block all the new players from experienced servers, and have them play on rookies servers instead. All the rookies servers can be hosted by UWE, and experienced servers can be hosted by others. In fact, there can be 3 or even 4 different ranks. Rookie, Intermediate, Experienced and Pro.
It would take around 10-20 hours to become an Intermediate player, another 20-30 hours to become an Experienced players, and 100+ hours to become a Pro. Pro servers would only have the players who know NS2 inside out, games on those servers will have enourmous amount of communication, team work, and dedication. So if you're a very experienced NS2 player and you want to enjoy a quality game and avoid any frustrations that can be caused by new players, there will be a server like that to join, which will filter out the "nubs".
From my experience in NS1, I know that there are many professional players who tended to avoid pub games because they were too messy. But with my solution, that shouldn't happen.
Comments
if they build something like this I'd prefer if it was based on skill instead of hours
all they need is auto-shuffle by skill at the start of round, maybe putting friends on the same team if that's possible
Serveral reasons:
Marine experience != alien experiecne
player experience != com experience
Also naturally, time played != experience in a sense. People don't learn stuff at the same rate
Something like this has to be thought out rather well, otherwise it's just a pointless number.
Sometimes you see team stacking by a clan on a Pub server and they just rape the point everyone on the other team quits. It's not fun, it's not going to improve you, if you constantly die.
With automatic matchmaking it could be used to ensure a balance of skilled and unskilled players overall and per team, but we don't have that and I think ti'd be a far too great sacrifice.
I would sugest looking for an alternative server instead. It's how every single other MP FPS in the world works, and we're not going to be even mroe unfair to the new players than the other communities, are we? Because that would destroy a great appeal of this game, the great teamwork and solidarity exhibited by people. The way experienced people are considerate towards me as a new player is one of the main reasons I fell in love with it, and it's a reason and is going to be a reason for many others.
And as Omega_K2 pointed out, it's fairly hard if not downright impossible to implement a truly working experience-sorting ranking system. K/D ratio won't help when you're a guy who generally likes to "takes one for the team" because your K/D is going to suck donkey ass, and also your K/D can be high but you can be a terrible teamplayer who by his enemy grinding only contributes to a stalemate rather than progress, just like snipers in Bad Company 2. Time played is very unreliable and thus a worthless indicator as Omega_K2 highlighted.
I think people are going to have to live with the fact that if you put thousands of totally different people together, things <i>are</i> gonna be unbalanced here and there. Just try a new server, or try to find acess to a pw-protected one.
A different in-match team balancing mechanism is all I would advise for.
In a certain skill gap, you can; I've seen pro players from HBZ and RwD carry games with 30-2, but I've also seen them with the same score not able to make a difference in the game at all.
If there was to be a matchmaking system, I think it should at the very least start out with teams only. Where the best teams of the seasons get to play in qualifiers, where they win their tickets to the biggest LAN tournament NS2 has to offer.
For the casual competitive teams, there could be medals in your profile and trims around your avatar to be earned, for what Elo bracket you represent.
Sometimes you see team stacking by a clan on a Pub server and they just rape the point everyone on the other team quits. It's not fun, it's not going to improve you, if you constantly die.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But why shouldn't the clan people be able to play a game with their friends? If they got on a team together, good for them.
<!--quoteo(post=2018151:date=Nov 10 2012, 09:26 PM:name=Safewood)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Safewood @ Nov 10 2012, 09:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2018151"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A ranking system for individual players would be really hard and inconsistent. An Elo ranking wouldn't work, MMR would be too hard to justify what is expected from you and the same for PSP, really. You can't individually "carry" a game by yourself in a 6 vs. 6, like you can in say, League of Legends, Counter-Strike and such games.
In a certain skill gap, you can; I've seen pro players from HBZ and RwD carry games with 30-2, but I've also seen them with the same score not able to make a difference in the game at all.
If there was to be a matchmaking system, I think it should at the very least start out with teams only. Where the best teams of the seasons get to play in qualifiers, where they win their tickets to the biggest LAN tournament NS2 has to offer.
For the casual competitive teams, there could be medals in your profile and trims around your avatar to be earned, for what Elo bracket you represent.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A fully automated matchmade ladder system for teams would be really sick. Some sort of ingame gather finder would be cool too, IMO, individual MMR could even be used to attempt to make them even teams.
I think most simple and effective should be.
(Wins/total games played in a x month period = probability of victory. Match average of probability of victory (after normalizing players with less games played) for two teams.
If whatever team your on is winning constantly, your doing something right. Of course you risk that lucky individual that gets carried a lot or grief comm'ed a lot but eh it's simple
However I don't see this working currently for several reason; the limited number of players allowed in a server means player skill distribution will be wildly uneven and it will be extremely difficult to get teams that satisfy both the needs of the player(whether they personally feel like playing rines or aliens regardless of skill in either - no point forcing someone to play alien if they don't want to or if they want to play with their friend on marines) and the need for balance.
To truly make this work we would need a bigger system - something to incentivize people to join teams in a way that balances the game, and such a persistent system is just too big for the team to implement right now.