Messages

616

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Tutor/Pupil system

« on: October 24, 2013, 04:09:25 pm »

I think we have a teacher program, but I'm not entirely certain on how active or effective it is.

http://gunsoficarus.com/novice-deck/#trainingDays



Overall I think it's a great idea, and I'd be interested in it. I know a lot of players bring their friends along and like to play with them as well.

My only suggestions would be a couple tweaks:

• Rank Limit may need to be adjusted (8 is a good solid number, but I've seen very experienced players at rank 6 as well. What about needing 4 in each role?)
• Adding Tags would only work with a limit of 1 tutor for each pupil, and 1 pupil for each tutor. I'd suggest having a 'pupil limit' instead, and just having current pupils and 'graduated' pupils listed on their in-game profile.
• I like the idea of achievements for tutoring, but they'd have to be adjusted to promote tutoring, and not just collecting pupils and waiting for them to rank up.

617

General Discussion / Re: No love from MUSE on these Boards?

« on: October 24, 2013, 03:18:52 pm »

Maybe an active mod could help them to copy over the news here? Just to let muse continue with more important things and let those (like me) who don't (and never will) use facebook or twitter as their own decision get a clue of what's going on? win - win? Except for the poor mod who needs to do the work of course. 

I think we found a winner.

618

Community Events / Re: Guns of Icarus Online - The Board Game!

« on: October 24, 2013, 03:09:04 pm »

Well with the map size, I wouldn't be against teams forming alliances. You are able to trade and such, but it ensures there's no way of entering someone else's node without claiming it as your own; limiting just how much people can work together. It'll also help the game from lasting forever and a day, especially we new teams being able to pop up during the game.

For ship movement, I really just looked at their speed and size. I'd like to keep the galleon at 2, just so it can make some progress; although since team movement is based on the average, taking it down to 1 might work better. For the Pyra movement, I just didn't want to stick it the same as the goldfish, although I agree that a 3-3 move-reaction might be too much. Still might work for the mobula since it's a difficult ship to use anyways.



50-ish Nodes for 5 teams seems like a good starting point. I think if we can get at least 10 teams we'll stick with this map, otherwise we'll do a new one more suited to the number of teams. I know a few of the larger clans our there could probably scrounge up 2-3 teams each.

619

Community Events / Re: Guns of Icarus Online - The Board Game!

« on: October 24, 2013, 02:11:28 pm »

The map was just commandeered from the one Muse released at some point. I just used my vast knowledge of paint to apply pretty colors. I was planning on using stars instead of circles for capitals, and squares or such for the major cities just to make them pop more; which can easily be done.

Of course if someone with artistic ability (ie: Not me) would like to redo the map, that would be lovely.



The reason I went with this map is mostly because it represents the game world, and the other being that I was lazy and didn't feel like drawing (really finding, who am I kidding? xD) a different map and putting nodes and connections on it. It is a bit large (just about 200 nodes), but for some reason when doing this I expected a large amount of teams.

What do you think would be a good node amount? If we're going to do a custom map, we should base it around the teams participating. Giving each team a starting capital, then have various 'major' cities in the neutral zones between them to fight over.



As for the needing to purchase weapons and ships, that's really just my desire to get players using other weapons. With the free stuff, you'll never be shipless/weaponless, and you'll still be able to kill the enemy (the gat/flak combo is free so it won't take ages). And it just gives players another reason to try and grab nodes, as well as protect their own nodes; while taking into account the risks of going into a fight. Combat is the fastest way to earn resources, but you can also end up losing a lot. Making teams have to weigh the pros and cons of doing so.

If we stuck with this map, the plan was to give players a starting 'zone', several nodes to begin with; so they can start earning resources right away. Then in two or three turns they should be in prime position to buy ships and weapons. Giving players that feeling of accomplishment.



If it is too much of a bother, it can easily be removed and just turn into more of a Risk type game, as the nodes would no longer need different values since the resources would serve no purpose.

620

Community Events / Re: Guns of Icarus Online - The Board Game!

« on: October 24, 2013, 03:35:37 am »

Well I was thinking it'd be something like risk. Was hoping for a good number of teams participating at the same time, say 8? (Although that's probably higher that what we'd get). Then players would get a little cramped and fight for space. You're not fighting everyone so much as you're competing with your neighbors.

We'll probably have to re-evaluate a lot of the mechanics depending on the number of interested teams. But it's certainly plausible to have a condition where if you lose your major cities/capitals, the rest of your territories go neutral.

621

Community Events / Re: Guns of Icarus Online - The Board Game!

« on: October 24, 2013, 01:45:09 am »

Maybe. It really depends on the number of teams participating. What if they don't have access to such? Although if we don't overwhelmed with people (I don't think we will) I could see that working out nicely.

622

Community Events / Re: Guns of Icarus Online - The Board Game!

« on: October 23, 2013, 11:46:03 pm »

You're probably right about the Mobula.


The free stuff is essentially limitless. This is so that you can fill the guns up on any ship without having to buy weapons. The free heavy one is the flak cannon. Even if you lose all the ships you bought, you can still fall back to the spire or squid. I tried to make the least used things cheaper and what not, just to get people to use them, but I tried to make the free weapons actually have some things you can kill with, and a little variety.


I like the idea of this as well (obviously xD), but I can see it being tough to get things organized and rolling. I had this idea several months ago, just didn't have the time to put the effort into it, and was worried about the turn out.

Which is why I'm looking for a lot of input, since it's mixing gameplay and forum activity. I assume that everyone can hop on the forums at least once a day to post (with some rare exceptions), but getting teams together to fight each other can be difficult. That's why I tried to give a lot of substitute options (retreating, compromise, random).

Then there's the rate of the game. I fear it might end up going too slowly for most people to stay interested, but we'll just have to see.

623

Community Events / Guns of Icarus Online - The Board Game!

« on: October 23, 2013, 11:08:02 pm »

Introduction:
Welcome to Guns of Icarus Online - The Board Game! (proposal edition). The objective of this thread is explain and propose a different kind of contest/competition for GoIO and check for interested parties. It should be noted that this idea includes a combination of forum and ingame activity.

The game begins by players signing up and either choosing or being assigned some starting zones. The objective of the game is to control as much territory and resources as possible, ultimately aiming for 'global' domination. It could be considered similar to risk, but connectivity plays a large role. Largely strategy with some glorious combat thrown in. This is also a team game, just like a tournament.


Rules and Regulations:

• A Team must consist of at least 6 people
• Players on a team may not participate as a member of another team
• Substitutes may be used, but cannot participate on multiple teams during the same turn
• Each 'turn' consists of a Move phase, and response phase
• The turn order will rotate after each full turn
• Purchased equipment cannot be used in the same turn it is purchased
• If a team is completely wiped off the map, they may re-enter, but must start from scratch (Resources and equipment do not carry over)
• Any and all disputes are to be taken to the ref, all rulings on part of the ref are final and not subject to debate
• Teams may take a leave of absence, during such a time they may bring use a temporary replacement (Up to 10 turns)
• Teams may not use equipment they do not have access to

How to Play:
The game begins through the forums. Plays are assigned a turn order and have a limited period of time to complete their actions.

The first phase is setup and moving. Setup is where the team arranges their ships and ship loadouts. These are then locked, and cannot be changed until next turn. Teams start with access to the squid and spire, and may purchase other ships with resources. Teams also start with limited weapon choices, which can also be bought with resources throughout the game (explained in more detail below). It is during the setup phase that players also make 'purchases' with their resources.

Movement is based upon ship choice as well. Moving through neutral or your own territory costs 1 movement point. Going through territory claimed by another team costs 2 movement, and converts it to your team as you reach it.

After everyone has moved, the second turn phase begins, using the same turn order. This is the 'Response Phase', where you can move your ship back into your territory/what was your territory before your turn to attack enemy ships. This move range is based upon your ship choice, and can only be used when attacking/defending a town. You cannot move deeper into enemy territory, but may move into territory that was yours at the start of the turn, as long as it's still connected. Your piece must be able to reach the enemy ship.

These battles are first come, first serve based upon the turn order. Attacked teams have the option to retreat away one space, or battle for the territory. These battles occur in game, on the map that the node represents.

• Battle on the Dunes - Brown
• Canyon Ambush - Red
• Duel at Dawn - Yellow
• Norther Fjords - Blue
• Paritan Rumble - Black (only occurs at Major Cities and Capitals)

Teams must use the loadout chosen at the start of the turn. It is up to both teams to reach an acceptable time to meet and compete. If this cannot be done in a timely fashion, they may agree upon an alternative solution found acceptable by the ref. If no compromise can be made, the ref will determine the results by random chance. (If a team is found to constantly be refusing to retreat and/or compromise, they may be penalized at the ref's discretion).


The game board will be updated, and the next round of turns will begin. Turn order will rotate, everyone moving down in order by one, and the person who went last going first the next turn. Every 5 turns, new teams may enter the game, appearing at semi-random spots on the board as 'pirates' until the end of the turn.


The game ends when enough people vote for a reset, or when one team manages to dominate the map. Other victory conditions may arise depending on player suggestions.

Movement:
Different ships have different movement and reaction ranges

Ship	Movement	Reaction
Squid	4	1
Spire	2	3
Goldfish	3	2
Junker	2	3
Pyramidion	3	3
Mobula	3	3
Galleon	2	4

The teams movement and reaction is the average of the two ship scores rounded down. It should be noted that even though moving into a claimed territory costs 2 movement, you can still do so with only 1 movement left. You cannot do so with 0.


Resources, Territory, and Equipment:
You've heard a lot about resources and territory at this point, and you're probably wondering what it all is. Each circle on the map counts as a 'territory'. These come in three flavors, 'City', 'Major City', and 'Capital'. Cities are worth 1 resource, Major Cities are worth 2, and Capitals are worth 3 resources. These resources are added to your team total at the end of the round. The more you own, the more resources you get. As you gather resources, you can spend them to buy different ships and equipment, upgrade your territory, and even buy extra game pieces.

Territory is controlled by you as your game piece reaches it. Any upgrades on that territory will also belong to you. You can only own connected territory. If someone cuts off your connections to your other cities, those cities become neutral. You can upgrade any territory up to three times.

Upgrade 1 - x2 (costs 5)
Upgrade 2 - x4 (costs 20)
Upgrade 3 - x8 (Costs 100)

This makes upgrades very useful if you can hold the territory.

Prices:

Item	Cost	Other
Artemis Light Rocket Launcher	15	-
Echidna Light Flak Cannon	Free	Value of 10
Whirlwind Light Gatling Gun	Free	Value of 10
Dragon Tongue Light Flamethrower	25	-
Barking Dog Light Carronade	25	-
Javelin Light Harpoon Gun	10	-
Beacon Flare Gun	10	-
Mercury Field Gun	20	-
Scylla Double-Barreled Mortar	20	-
Banshee Light Rocket Carousel	Free	Value of 10
Phobos Light Mine Launcher	15	-
Hades Light Cannon	15	-
Typhon Heavy Flak Cannon	Free	Value of 20
Manticore Heavy Hwacha	30	-
Hellhound Heavy Twin Carronade	30	-
Lumberjack Heavy Mortar	30	-
Squid	Free	Value of 50
Spire	Free	Value of 50
Goldfish	100	-
Junker	110	-
Pyramidion	150	-
Mobula	150	-
Galleon	160	-
Game Piece	1000	Limited to 1 purchase

Each item is a single unit. Meaning that if you buy the Goldfish, you can have 1 goldfish on your team. Bought a hwacha? You can have 1 on your ship. Bought 3? You can have up to 3.


Player Interactions:
Teams are allowed to work in conjunction with another, and trade equipment and ships, so long as their territories are connected. Teams cannot enter a claimed territory and not claim it.

If a team cannot bring their whole team to a fight, they may bring in substitutes. Substitutes may not participate in any other team's combat that turn. If a player is registered on a team, they may not participate on another team during that game.

If a team must have a leave of absence from a game (for example, maybe most of their crew has exams that week and can't take the time to play), they may have another group of players play for them. However, those players cannot participate in combat in more than one team each turn, and they may only take over for up to 10 turns. If the team still cannot play after this period, their territories will turn neutral.


Combat and Salvaging:
What's the reason behind all these restrictions and costs? It comes down to the combat. When fighting other teams, you're both putting your equipment at risk. The losing team loses everything they had brought, but gets resources that amount to 10% of their total ship/equipment cost. The winning team earns the territory, along with 50% of the value of the losing team's ship/equipment. This is the salvage. The starting/free equipment is given a value in a table above.

You can also salvage any upgrades on territories, receiving 50% of the cost of the upgrade. The same rule works for equipment and ships, allowing you sell anything you own for 50% of it's costs (does not apply to the starting/free items, you have a limitless number of those). This can be done during the setup part of the turn.

Once a ship loses, they may 'respawn' anywhere in their owned territory. They choose this location at the start of their next turn. If they do not have any territory, they are totally destroyed and removed from the game; but may still re-enter at a later point with a clean slate (nothing carries over, they count as a new team).


Thoughts?

Well that's my proposed game/competition. A little different than having tournaments and such, and it involves a lot of strategy and planning. I feel it might be a little too complicated, although I didn't want to make it too simple either. Any thoughts/suggestions about it? What should be changed/removed/kept? How long should turns last, how long should teams have to take their turn?

And most importantly, would this interest you or any other plays you know?

I plan on updating that map frequently to represent the game board, using colors or logos for the different teams (who I'm assuming will be mostly clans).

-------------

Example Turn:

Team: Flaming Examplers


Buy: Galleon, Hwacha (2)
Sell/Salvage: None

Ship 1: Squid (Gatling, Flamethrower, Carronade)
Ship 2: Junker (Gat, Gat, Flak, Flak, Carronade)
Value: 275
Move: 3
Reaction: 2

Current Location: Sabakumura
Move: -> Chirishi -> Landmark


End Turn
Another player moves to Kiro, which we'll pretend was in the example team's territory


Reaction Phase:
Attack Team Blueberry Muffin Makers at Kiro

Team leaders communicate through PM to establish a match that night. Blueberry Muffin Makers win.


Flaming Examplers lose: Junker (1), Flamethrower (1), Carronade (2)
Flaming Examplers receive: 28 resources (round up)

Blueberry Muffing Men recieve: Kiro, 138 resources (round up)

New turn starts and Flaming Examplers choose to start at Chirishi. Game continues.

624

General Discussion / Re: Voice Acting

« on: October 23, 2013, 07:07:09 pm »

If only it had the "Ok, get ready to fire on the right side.... and... now!... fire!...... >.> Guys? Anyone? No? Well.. ok then."

Or my personal favorite when I get sleep deprived and things go terrible, "Get the hull~ the hull~ the hull, the hull, hull, hull, hull!" (In an ever increasingly loud and sing song voice, with just a hint of panic and despair)

625

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Team Stacking - Match Balance

« on: October 23, 2013, 06:00:13 pm »

I usually just do a 'blanket' response, trying to cover all the points from people above. Which is why my posts tend to be so long winded and repetitive, sorry about that. D;

But right now we're faced with the exact same player base. Changing how the system works will not change that. Also I like to pretend that the suggested design filters down players that don't cooperate, as they tend to have poor performance anyways (and also have a lower chance of winning). Since it's hopefully randomized, you shouldn't get paired with them as often, and will create a larger gap in your ranks. And if you really really want to avoid players like that, you just have to form your own team ahead of time. Something that's always been encouraged in GoIO. This system just makes it so that you don't -have- to premake your team for a decent chance of victory.

626

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Team Stacking - Match Balance

« on: October 23, 2013, 05:26:15 pm »

I figured the 'why' had been beaten half to death. The issue being unbalanced matches being not very enjoyable to everyone involved. Higher skilled players tend to like facing players their own skill level, where lower rank players like to face people around their skill level. No one likes an easy win, and no one likes being absolutely stomped. Then you can add in lobby wait times for high ranked players to get a challenger, trying to stick with playing with friends instead of being forced to swap teams, player retention, etc, etc.


Our current system more or less forces unfavorable teams to occur. This is from the differences in experience with GoIO, as well as our desire to play with our friends. They generally do not start with the intention of going pubstomping. You start playing with your friends, maybe against another clan, play a few rounds, and then one team ends up leaving. Your team wants to play more and the enemy ends up filling with random relatively low experience players. A series of 5-0/1 matches occur. The newer players call hacks, complain about stacked teams, etc; and very often end up leaving. It's unsavory for everyone. The 'stacked' team ends up having to leave and find a new lobby, or do some switch swapping to balance out the teams. This often results in them not being able to play with their friends in a way they wanted.


If you don't believe team stacking happens, I don't believe even a pile of screenshots and videos could change your mind. I'm actually looking at one right now.

The important thing to restate is that we're not trying to vilify the high skill teamed. They've essentially achieved the GoIO dream, putting together a great crew that communicates well and gets things done. However, they did not achieve this to whomp on new players, they want a 'real' fight.


So team stacking happens, and it is a problem. Is it a big problem? It's hard to say. On some days it's tough to find an imbalanced match, on other days it seems that every other match seems heavily skewed. A lot of people never say a word about it, while sometimes players are very vocal about the conditions of the match. Which causes a response from the other team, which is not very often positive.



So why would matchmaking help?

-Balanced teams. The main objective is to create a competitive atmosphere by placing teams against each other who have 'as close as possible' skill level and chance to win. This is more likely to end up with closer, more intense matches.

-Teamwork. The system I proposed is in no way the only idea. However, it does emphasize teamwork. You have a much higher chance of winning with an organized team than an unorganized one. This will reflect itself in player ranks. Those that don't communicate and don't work together will end up getting lower scores. While those who do will be higher up. You're ability to work with others highly reflects on your skill.

-Fairness. So what about people trying to max out their rank? Remember that the stats should be invisible. They have no idea what they are, what they do, or how they're calculated. People who end up on a team they don't like and immediately leave should be penalized, the same in any other game where this happens. GoIO is very team dependent. Let's take a look at the MOBA style games. Not as highly team dependent (Nothing can compete with GoIO level of teamwork required) but still up there. Leaving a match essentially puts you in timeout, requiring your to wait a while before you can join a new match. But still allowing you to connect to the old one. Could easily do that.





The current system we have is nice, but does lead to the match imbalance problems. And the achievement system only represents the amount of achievements you've completed. I'd argue that it does not actually support teamwork, as I've seen a lot of cases to the opposite. Players running around only buffing while the ship is under fire to get their buff achievement, captains only going for rams to get ram kills, or just keeping moonshine on for 240 seconds straight while in a match. Gunners refusing to use ammo appropriate for the guns because their achievement requires different ammo. I've even seen people join as pilot when there already was one, just to get some of their rebuilding achievements.

I can't see how it takes away from fun or creativity. You still get all your loadout choices, you pick your ship, vote on the map, and still choose how you want to play. And the old 'make your own match' option should still exist for those wanting to play around with just flamethrowers or even do a tournament. The matchmaking is just for balancing things out, and randomizing them a little. You don't have to fight the same people over and over again, and you can go in solo and meet lots of different people and play styles. It essentially is just an automated lobby system, finding matches for you that you can feel confident in doing well in; instead of forcing you to enter and leave lobbies over and over again manually, looking for something that fits you.

Then it also gives player something else to do. Having clans and teams stay active longer as they vie for the top of the ranks, getting in some real significant practice against other similarly skilled teams (instead of being forced to plow through lvl 3's and such).

And finally, I am hoping that it would increase player retention. We can't seem to keep new players around long, which can be seen in the steam charts link I posted. A system change such as this might be just the safety net they need, giving them a learning curve, allowing them to improve their skills at their own pace. Not the 'sink or swim' method we have had.

627

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Team Stacking - Match Balance

« on: October 23, 2013, 10:28:44 am »

Points don't do anything besides give a rough estimate of your rank. In a system where you gain points by losing, everyone starts hitting the 2000 cap. You could always have no cap, but then the gap in skill level just increases infinitely, and you're back to square one.

Winning earns your points. The greater the enemy, the greater the points. Losing loses you points. The greater the enemy, the less the points lost.


Ideally you'd be facing people around your rank -most of the time-. Losing lowers your points, but the better you do compared to the other players, the less you lose. Winning will earn you points, but if you do awful, they won't go up very much.


Ultimately the idea is to create a nice spread of players across the ranks. Inevitably the best players will end up on the top, and the worst will inhabit the bottom.

Again, points don't do anything. It's not like money, or credits, or even a score in a classic video game.




And a system that rewards points purely on a win/loss neglects individual skill. You could have a terrible player constantly group with great players and shoot up rapidly with them. You could have a great player rapidly sink in rank by being paired with awful players. It stops being an individual rank, and more about how many times you get lucky with a good team (or unlucky with a bad team). By putting the individual element in there, players rise and fall at different rates based upon their relative performance.

And again, if you win, you get points. You lose, you lose points. The amount of either depends on the difference between the ranks. Going back to the mmorpg analogy, you're asking to get a level up from killing lvl 1 slimes on your level 70 character.

628

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Team Stacking - Match Balance

« on: October 23, 2013, 09:57:55 am »

Well you can guess the outcome based on the system. In this fictional rank system, there's a queue system that tries to match players as best it can to players of a similar rank. (In my head it uses the avg rank of each team, meaning you can have a whole rainbow of different ranks).

There will certainly be times the high ranks have to face the low ranks. In most situations the high ranks will win. They will receive a lower addition to their score than if they played just as well against a similar ranked team. In the same way that the lower rank team will lose less points. If this were an mmorpg, you could compare it to killing mobs for experience. Killing mobs lower than your level gives less exp, while killing things around your level gives average exp, and killing the things much higher than your lvl give great exp. It'd be silly to give players a massive, or even regular score increase for crushing a team that barely poses a challenge.

That's fair. Essentially these high rank teams are near the top of the charts anyways, and the score doesn't do anything but increase your rank. Once the match is over, that personal score you got is gone, and all your left with is your rank number, which is already high.

I can't imagine how this favors one skill level over another, as it's only purpose is to determine skill level.

----------------

So we lead in with an example. We'll pick a player on each side, the captains. The high rank team is 1800, the low rank is 600. That's an R of 3 for High, and 0.3333 for Low. We'll say it's a death match. It ends up being a slaughter, 5-0.

Captain High Rank (1800):
Damage Done/Total Damage=0.3 * 30
(Damage Taken/Deaths)/(Total Damage Taken/Total Deaths)=0.4 *30
(1-Deaths/Total Deaths)=1*30

Sum = 51. They've done so well they broke the 50 point cap on skill alone.


Captain Low Rank (600):
Damage Done/Total Damage=0.2 * 30
(Damage Taken/Deaths)/(Total Damage Taken/Total Deaths)=0.1 *30
(1-Deaths/Total Deaths)=0.4 *30

Sum=21, a pretty average score (they did some damage)


High rank wins, their new rank is 1800+ 51/3 = 1817

Low rank loses, their new rank is 600-(55-21/0.333)= 595           (21/0.333 > 50, and therefore gets capped at 50)


Low rank probably would have lost more points, I think I set the damage they did a little high. But the point stands.


High rank has an increase, low rank has a decrease. What more could you want?

629

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Team Stacking - Match Balance

« on: October 23, 2013, 09:22:05 am »

Totally understandable. One way to avoid players like that is to not reveal how starts are calculated, although in this case they're all pretty obvious and common thing. Since they only affect your rank, and the only way to rank up is to win; I'd expect most people to be doing their best teamwise. Personally I don't think it's plausible to do separate ranks for different maps, ships, weapons, etc. So it'll never be perfect, it'll just be a pretty good guess.


For the example, we're going to be following a few players through different scenarios. (Also I'm taking out component kills because it seems redundant)


We'll start off with Johnny, a solo player who just gets hooked up with random teams. This is Johnny's first time playing GoI, so all his ranks start at 1000. He queues up and gets tossed into a match as a gunner. This match goes pretty rough, Johnny is a terrible gunner, but they still manage to squeak out a win. Both teams have an average rank of 1200.

Accuracy(%)=0.3 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.08 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.0 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.001 *5

Sum = 10

Giving him a score of about 10 (rounded), since they're equal teams. With their win, his gunner ranks goes up to 1010.


He re-enters the queue and plays a gunner again which a whole new team, this time he has a better idea of what he's doing. His avg team rank is 1030, and the enemy is 1250. They end up winning. His stats this time are:

Accuracy(%)=0.5 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.10 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.4 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.01 *5

Sum=17.05

Giving him a +21 (rounded up). Why not 17.05? Because his team had a smaller avg rank than the other enemy team. His score was divided by (1030/1250). His new gunner rank is 1031. As you can see, players will tend not to skyrocket up in the ranks.



He goes again, getting a gunner, new team. This time his avg team rank is 1200, and the enemies avg is 990. His team seems to have an edge, and he does about the same as last time, but they end up losing!

Accuracy(%)=0.55 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.09 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.4 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.02 *5


Sum = 17.6
R=1200/990 = 1.2121
His personal score is 14.52 (his team had a higher rank, causing a score penalty. The greater the difference, the bigger the penalty/reward).

Since he lost, his score is 55-14.52 = 40.48
Making his new gunner rank 991.

His low performance in previous matches caused a small climb, but this poor performance along with his team outranking the enemy and still losing caused a much larger decrease.




Now we'll look into two trickier scenarios

Johnny plays again, and has the best game of his life! He's hitting just about everything and wrecking the enemy team. But the engineers on his team just aren't paying attention and the enemies get a win! Booo~! In this match, their avg rank was equal.

Accuracy(%)=0.8 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.30 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.8 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.1 *5

Sum=35.5
Loss = 55-35.5 = 19 (rounded down). Making his new rank 972. You can see that his great performance cause a much smaller decrease (although not as small as his increases for performance. Maybe need to tweak the numbers?)


His last match for the day. He's full of confidence, but the captain is driving like a complete scrub, causing him to miss nearly all his shots! His avg team rank is 900 while the enemy is 1200.

Accuracy(%)=0.1 * 20
Damage/Total Damage=0.02 * 50
Rebuild (explained below)=0.4 * 5
Repair/Total Repair=0.02 *5

Sum = 5.1
R=900/1200=0.75, making his score 6.8. Obscenely low. With the loss, he gets a -48. Quite a huge loss, and not even his fault!
This is probably the most glaring problem in my proposed ranking system. Along with pilots having an abysmal crew. I can find a way to compensate for engineers dealing with bad team mates, but how do manage with gunners? You can't reward them for missing, and you can't give them points for your ship not taking damage like the engineers. You can't give them points for the ship taking damage either, because that could lead to a crazy amount of points. Or maybe that's ok?


The other poor scenario being a captain/pilot with a terrible crew. How do you lessen the severity of a loss (or the reward for the win) when you crew doesn't shoot or fix well? I suppose one method could be to alter the (total damage/deaths)/(total damage everyone/total deaths everyone). To where you get a higher % for taking less damage before a death? I think that would work. Maybe. If you were a good pilot, and they were terrible engineers, they wouldn't fix it as much before you were taken out. But if you were a bad pilot, and they were bad engineers, it'd be the same situation. Although I suppose the other parts of your score would reflect that. So yeah, that could be changed.



If an engineer is good on a bad team, they can still get a high score by repairing and rebuilding rapidly. However, if an engineer is on a great team, there's not a lot to repair/rebuild, and buffing and such only gets you so far. That's why there's the (1-Total Damage to Ship/Total Damage All ships). The less damage you take, the higher your score. However, you can still be a bad engineer and take no damage. And again, the other parts of your score should represent that.



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So it's far from perfect, but it's a feasible rough idea. You do well, you get more points for winning, and lose less for losing. You do poorly, you earn less for winning, and lose more for losing. This is all based on everyone else's performance as well, and even the estimated team balance. And while it can't perfectly protect you from bad players on your team, their poor performance should have already lowered their rank in previous matches, lowering your team's avg rank; and thus causing you to get a higher reward for winning, and a lower penalty for losing.

630

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Team Stacking - Match Balance

« on: October 23, 2013, 04:26:35 am »

Possible Score/Rank System:
Here's one possible way this could work. It's just a concept, probably won't be adopted, and so obviously nothing is concrete, absolute, or un-debatable. We're also going to skip over the match-making concept.

The theory is to give each player a 'score' in each of their respective roles. In this system, it's a static score that is only changed during post match. The scores range from 0-2000 (totally arbitrary). They can go up or down a maximum of 50 points each match (again, arbitrary). Winning a match will increase your points (+personal score), while losing  match will decrease your points (55-personal score). The amount increased or decreased is based upon personal performance and some other factors. Now we math.



First we're going to take the (Avg Team Rank/Avg Enemy Team Rank) to get 'R'. So the higher your rank compared to the enemy, the larger R becomes. The lower your rank compared to the enemy, the lower R becomes.


Captain/Pilot
Depending on the match, the captains role is to keep the ship alive, kill the enemy, capture points, or defend points. Using those as the basis, we come up with this:

Damage Done/Total Damage * 30
(Damage Taken/Deaths)/(Total Damage Taken/Total Deaths) *30
(1-Deaths/Total Deaths) *30

Point Cap/Total Point Cap *30
Point Block/Total Point Block *30

Immediately you'll notice that all of these numbers end up as a ratio or % multiplied by 30 (30 is arbitrary). These numbers are then summed and divided by R (It will cap at 50, even if this number ends up higher). 30 was arbitrarily chosen because you're unlikely to get these numbers very high. For the pilot, that's all the damage done by your ship, taken by your ship. In a relatively even match, they should all be around .25 *30, which is 22.5 when all summed. If the match is perfectly even, R=1, and you'll get 22.5 points for winning, or lose 32.5 (for losing. Obviously). (In retrospect, that seems a little high for an even match, might need to lower the 30 to 20 or something). (Should probably toss in rebuild/repair for the captain/pilot too, with a low score modifier, ie: 5-10).

Why 55-personal score for the loser? Essentially this is so that even if you manage a magical '50', you'll still lose points for losing, even if it's not many. Most of these points are comparisons against the other ships, and highly dependent on your crew. This is just to give a number to add or subtract from your personal ranking.



Gunner
The gunners role is to shoot stuff, kill ships and components, and to a much lesser extant, keep things fixed. With that in mind:

Accuracy(%) * 20
Damage/Total Damage * 50
Component Kills/Total Component Kills * 20
Rebuild (explained below) * 5
Repair/Total Repair * 5


I'll explain the rebuild part below, because I got a little fancy with that. You'll see that the gunning takes a much higher precedent, but they can still get some points for rebuilding. I didn't do ship kills because that would just make gunners fight over the last shot. Instead I did components, which includes all sorts of happy things like engines, balloon, armor, and weapons. Then they'll still get points for damage. You'll notice it has a much higher number, this is because there's going to be engineers and such shooting as well, with lots of people dealing damage, the gunner can't expect too high of a % of the total damage. Then they're all summed, divided by R and still capped at 50. Again, numbers are arbitrary and will probably need to be reworked.



Engineer:
The engineers job is to keep the ship alive through repairs, rebuilds, putting out fires. They also keep the ship buffed and even go so far as to shoot down the enemy. Probably the busiest role.


Repair/Total Repair * 50
Rebuild (see below) * 20
Buff/Total Buffs (includes chem spray)* 10
Fires extinguished/Total Fires * 20
Accuracy * 5
Component Kills/Total Component Kills * 5
(1-Total Damage to Ship/Total Damage All ships)* 30



We're going to avoid explaining the rebuild and go from the bottom up. The 'total damage to ship/total damage all ships' is basically just a safety net for the engineer. There may be situations where their ship takes very little damage, giving them noting to repair/rebuild. So the lower damage the ship takes, the higher that value. Of course the more damage they take, the higher the other values should be (since there's stuff for you to repair/rebuild/put out). Buffs and chemical sprays take up a slot, but aren't very good for repair/rebuilding/ or even putting out fires. They should still get some points for using them, but not enough to make you go crazy with it and avoid helping your ship.

Engineers often act as secondary gunners and should receive some points for that. The numbers chosen might be a little low, especially if they're stuck on the gun a lot and don't need to go about fixing stuff. Wouldn't hurt for them to be higher (remember, arbitrary).

Finally we get to the 'rebuild' bit I've been building up. Rebuilds are nice, but I find them not as important as reaction time. Based off some of the achievements in the game, I thought it might work better to time them. Essentially you get 1 point for rebuilding within 5 seconds of something going down, 0.5 for rebuilding within 10, 0.3 for rebuilding within 20 seconds, and 0.1 after that. You then sum them and divide by the total number of rebuilds done on the ship. You shouldn't have to get the last hit on a rebuild, just help with it. This also ends up giving you a % which you multiply by a number. Then Sum it all up, divide by R and apply the result just as you would any other score. (still capped at 50).





This system uses a lot of comparisons to help set the scores. Essentially it's not how good 'you do' it's how good 'you do compared' to everyone else. Essentially if you gun poorly compared to the other people gunning, or repair not nearly as much as them, or can't capture/block as many points, you're going to gain less points for winning (because you're team essentially carried you), and you'll lose more for losing, since you shouldn't be rated that well.

It takes into account the average rankings on both teams, since it is a team game. If they're much higher ranked than you, you'll lose less points for losing, and win more for winning. But if you're a higher rank than them, it will be the opposite. The closer the rankings, the less impact R has.



Then with a proper matchmaking system, you can set up relatively even teams. Once the scores settle down (it will take players several rounds) players can be relatively confident their ranking is accurate. You do better, you go up. You do worse, you go down. All compared to other players.

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With all that being said, the actual mechanics of how the rankings work should be hidden. This is just showing an example of how a system could work in this kind of game. I'd still try to have ranks shown, just so players know where they stand and what they're up against in a match. With the low population, players will likely end up against players who have a significantly higher or lower rank. The system is still set so that they won't be overtly affected by it, but it'll help them understand why the results were how they were. (There's other little quirks that would have to be employed, like reconnecting limits tweaked, punishment for leaving a match, etc)