Scoring System Overhaul Suggestion

[Kaleo]

This has been discussed before, but in a more general sense. I wish to focus on a single system idea which I have given some thought to.

I propose that the scoring system should be overhauled for the following reasons:
1: There is alot of complaining about "killstealing" going on in game. This is stupid, because Tremulous is a team game that focuses on teamwork, and thus, killstealing is pointless whinging.
2: Since the current scoreboard only shows kills, it is only usefull for seeing who has been whoreing the most kills, which can be demeaning to players who have been focusing on supporting their teams by building, repairing and such.
3: It can also cause more arrogant players to start abusing other players or bragging about their score because they have been whoreing, while other players may have been more useful to the team by maintaining the base or assaulting the enemy base.

The way I can see these problems being overcome is thus:
I'm sure at least some of you have played games such as W:ET/ET:QW or the Battlefield series. In these games, points are awarded for completeing objectives and such, not only for kills. Even in Q3's CTF gametype scoring is awarded as one point for a kill, two points for a flag return and ten points for a flag capture. It is my personal opinion that Tremulous should adopt a system like this.

My proposition is thus:
If a player kills an enemy player single handedly, he/she is awarded with one to five points, depending on the enemy class/equipment.
If a group of players bring down an enemy, they are each awarded with one to five points, depending on the damage that they have delt.
If a player destroys an enemy defence structure (turret, tesla, tube, trapper, barricade), they are awarded with one point.
If a player destroys an enemy support structure (DC, armoury, medistat, booster, hovel), they are awarded with two points.
If a group of players destroy an enemy support structure (DC, armoury, medistat, booster, hovel), they are awarded with up to two points, depending on the damage they have delt.
If a player destroys an enemy spawn structure (telenode, egg), they are awarded with two points.
If a group of players destroy an enemy spawn structure (telenode, egg), they are awarded with up to two points, depending on the damage they have delt.
If a player destroys an enemy essential structure (reactor, overmind), they are awarded with five points.
If a group of players destroy an enemy essential structure (reactor, overmind), they are awarded with up to five points, depending on the damage they have delt.
If a player spends five minutes maintaining base (repairing, building during attack), they are awarded with up to five points, depending on who else is assisting base maintainance.

I feel this will improve the game in the following ways:
1: It will improve "team" attitude. Letting players see who was most useful in ways other than kills is rewarding and improves player relations.
2: While it may not prevent bragging, it will give braggers a better reason to brag.
3: It will remove the whole element of a "killsteal", because you will see irrefutable evidence of who did more damage. Evo's and credits are the only way we have to see this, and it is often very hazy.
4: Players will feel rewarded for base maintainence or base assault.

I hope that the developers consider my propositions.

~Kaleo

[daenyth]

Lower the number of points given for killing enemy team members and raise the number given for spawns and control structures. This will encourage players to camp less and actually leave their base and attack. Maybe 25 points for RC/OM and 10 for spawns.

Also make it possible to lose some points for doing FF to team or base, and for feeds (Where a feed is defined as a death that gives the enemy points toward the next stage). For example, if killing a node is worth 10 points, then if you do 50% damage to it and one alien does another 50% damage to it, then you lose 5 and the alien gains the full 10.

Gain points for healing. Say that X structure hp repaired is Y points. Maybe 50/1 or something. Make sure that behavior like base FF on a structure followed by a repair to full health yields a negative total. Might be hard to do so if the structure is never killed though. Possibly make the point loss instant? Not sure how that would work though. Could be ok though, since in theory the structure death should send score nosediving.

Big +1 on this idea. I hope you can find a coder who knows how to make it work.

[Roanoke]

I agree, I was surprised that spawns didn't yield so many points. I also think that the kill messages should list the players that killed someone and the percent-damage dealt.

[gimhael]

The DnC-Madcat mod / fork / whatever has a similar system, only you don't get points for repairing (but for surviving some time). Every killed player gives the opposing team a number of credits depending on his equipment, and these credits are split among all the players proportional to the damage inflicted.
The score menu doesn't show kills, but credits earned.

[Kaleo]

Big +1 on this idea. I hope you can find a coder who knows how to make it work.

I was actually hoping to see this in 1.2, but yeah, as a mod would be fine in any case.

[kevlarman]

Big +1 on this idea. I hope you can find a coder who knows how to make it work.

I was actually hoping to see this in 1.2, but yeah, as a mod would be fine in any case.

Code: [Select]

15:23  kevlarman> Norfenstein: http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=9865.m
sg150373#new <- any thoughts on doing something along those lines (specifically
s/kills/credits/g)
15:24  Lakitu7> I think a lot of us have said a lot of times that players' dumb
mentality will not / cannot change until you put something else on the scoreboar
d
15:24  kevlarman> reason i bring it up now is that it's a fairly trivial change
on mgdev
17:10  Norfenstein> I don't see a problem with letting humans "repair" structure
s while they're building; I don't see a reason to make them take longer to build
 if they're damaged; and I don't remember what my objections to a scoreboard cha
nge were, but since Timbo said he plans on manually transplanting individual cha
nges you guys probably don't really need my approval for non-gameplay changes (t
hough I still have my opinions like everyone
17:10  Norfenstein> else)
17:10  Norfenstein> .
17:17  kevlarman> i don't have any opinion on the scoreboard thing
17:17  kevlarman> i was just curious what yours was
17:18  Norfenstein> I think it should be as simple as possible, 
since there's no way to get a perfect metric for contributions to a team
17:24 Norfenstein> for the scoreboard, score could be based directly on how man
y credits you earn, plus time spent as a builder



[Urcscumug]

1. As a matter of principle, I'm against pushing anything down anybody's throat. If some people want to play Trem like a pure FPS and go for kills, good for them. I don't, and I think people on various servers will have something to say about such people. But I don't see much sense in enforcing it in software.

2. It wouldn't do much good anyway. You would just be changing a metric with another and it's debatable whether the one you proposed would really improve things. If "proper" Trem players can ignore amount on kills and focus on what they consider proper Trem play, then what's to stop killwhores from ignoring whatever scoring method you come up with and still play for kills?

3. The metric proposed here would be hard to implement. Some of the actions, such as base maintaining, is highly subjective. How would you judge that a person camping in the base there was any use to his team or not?

4. The metric proposed here can be just as irrelevant as kills on occasions. Say I'm a mean Trem player (I'm not ), I spawn naked/dretch, am uber-cunning and pop all the alien eggs/human nodes without killing anybody in the process. So I just basically won the game (or made a major contribution anyway) and I get what, 30 points, while mates who have 50 kills still come ahead? How's that fair or relevant?

5. Is number of kills really that irrelevant? I mean, this IS a FPS after all, albeit with strategy overtones. If I join a random game on any server (newbie training notwhitstanding) and proceed to get 50 kills without dying once are you telling me my team will kickban me in disgust? When I look at the current scoreboard I get all kinds of useful information. The ones with the highest number of kills are bound to be doing something right, aren't they? I usually spectate them and decide for myself if I can learn anything from them. I also do quick-checks of the scoreboard kills to mentally gauge when a team is approaching a stage.

6. Speaking of stages, I haven't seen it explicitly mentioned (although it was probably implied) that this new scoring method would affect stage change as well. Which it should if it's gonna be worth anything and not just a scoreboard metric, but I'd like to hear about how the levels should be defined.

It's not my intention to put your idea down. I think there are a lot more experienced Trem players and devs who will make the decision. But what I'm saying is that players ultimately make the game what it is. The core just gives us the tools, it's up to us how we use them.

If a player goes on a 50-odd killing spree I don't think anybody on his is going to mind; and if they do it's going to be because the game becomes very unbalanced, not because killing lots of enemies is inherently wrong.

And finally, the issues you're trying to address (killstealing, bragging, harrassing, improving team attitude) are all in the people's heads. You're not going to change them by changing the scoring. You might cause some undesirables to stop playing but you don't need a core change for that, you can simply tell people to leave and kick/ban them. If you want "proper" Trem play you need to educate people and associate with others that have the same idea about "proper" as you do.

[player1]

I personally wouldn't change the Stage Counter. And it is good to remember that the only thing that currently has any bearing on Stage Advancement is getting kills. So people who rack up the kills are really sharing and donating to the whole team, albeit indirectly, by providing their teammates with a wider variety of useful tools for helping out.

I agree that it is largely up to the players not to act like jerks, the admins to educate them, and the ops to maintain some sort of standard as to what is "sportsmanlike" in a game about wanton destruction.

That said, I have proposed many such changes in the past, including some sort of bonus or medal for structure destruction, and some sort of reward for building and repairing. Most of the veteran players here have reminded me repeatedly that you get evos/credits just for surviving, so that's your reward for building and repairing (oh, you weren't building or repairing - were you defending?), and you get evos/credits for killing (so, then: either build, repair, defend or attack; that's pretty easy to understand). I do support some sort of special recognition for Structure Destruction. I also support some sort of mini-poll/vote-of-confidence as to the abilities of the Builder, but its so subjective, I can see why the devs just left it as kills on the scoreboard, kills to advance the Stage Counter, you figure it out, and remember to play nice, it's only a game.

And Good Luck to any Proposed Scoreboard Changes which will positively affect the sense of community and general gameplay experience of Tremulous.

[Kaleo]

My entire idea is not gameplay changing at all. I just want people to realise this, because I have the feeling that people think it will affect gameplay.

I hope my idea will improve ingame attitude by stopping tards from gloating about killwhoring, something I find painfully annoying.

[Urcscumug]

From my [short] experience, if I'm playing a game of Trem and someone is racking up dozens of kills, leaving everyone else behind AND is being an ass about it, then something's wrong at a deeper level. It's not [just] about having 59 on the scoreboard and everybody else under 10. That person will usually also be spawn camping, prance around jumping aimlessly if he's an alien, luci/pulse/blaster-spam if he's human, and generally endulge in stupid behaviour. Whereas a pro player would just take the opportunity to end the game properly.

It takes a very imature kind of person to derive that kind of childlike satisfaction out of what basically amounts to being a bully. You won't teach a bully to behave by preventing him from advertising he's a bully. You need to kick his ass, it's the only thing he understands. Either kick him out of the server immediately, or gang up on him or put a better player against him. The moment they start getting beaten I've noticed they immediately disconnect, or throw a tantrum and then disconnect.

As for the case when the killwhore/ass is on your team... First of all, tell me honestly that you'll mind. Because if the rest of the team is half decent they'll let him kill and get his fix and in the meanwhile they do what has to be done about the game, then pat each other on the back for a gg. Usually it's seen as a problem only when the killwhore is in a weak opposing team, and even so your own team can't stand up to the ass, and he gets to run the show. Which makes the whole thing a tiny bit two-faced if you ask me. Just kickban him or get better then him. Leave the poor scoreboard alone, it's an innocent victim in all this.

PS: I've just remembered a particular game I spectated once (sorry, don't remember the server). When the killwhore started being really annoying, his own team silently isolated him. They pretended to make runs to the armory and medi and then out of the base but only ran to the nearest corner then came back, or pulled back just before engagement. The killwhore never noticed, kept going out alone, taunting the other team and being an ass. Meanwhile, the other team put together an organized hunt especially for him. The moment he showed his face he was stamped down by 3-5 enemies. At some point he finally figured it out and from his last words before he disconnected I can only imagine how humiliating it must've been. I suspect that most of the players on the server knew each other well enough to be able to pull this off silently, or maybe they had VoIP and he didn't. I bet that's a server he didn't come back to.

[Jalaco]

I got an idea while reading this for a similar idea.

Keep points on the scoreboard, yet implement a points system. You get points for every hit point of damage, repair, buildings built, buildings killed, and get subtracted points for killing teammates, and possibly for dying. The buildings built and repaired would have to be tweaked a bit as the builder would just be the top player every game. So for instance a rant has 400 hp, and an om has 2000 (I think?) so you'd have to kill 5 rants to equal out killing the om (might also need tweaking). Therefore if someone goes and kills the om and all the eggs, they get a huge load of points. Or a goon hops the rc, goes from 3rd place to first. kills would still be used for stages, and still would be on the scoreboard but the main factor would be points, depending on the kills and the points you have would reward you with creds. So if you kill something like now you always get creds, but you can also get creds from just getting 100 points or something like that. Well that's just my idea.

\\^// Jalaco \\^//

[Kaleo]

I had thought of somthing along these lines, but the only problem I can see with it, is that aliens regenerate health, and therefore, humans will (or should) score higher in most cases.

I like the idea of the scoreboard showing accumulated credits... Or evos, which would make more sense, because then there would be less digits on the scoreboard.

[mooseberry]

Jalco's idea seems ok, but I think your worry of destroying buildings is not needed. Some statistics may need to be tweaked, but if someone does take out the om and eggs like you said, I think he deserves to be on top don't you think?