Rankings

[Darkaway]

I agree with Lewin. Why a noob, knowing he is noob, will join a pro lobby if he knows he will lose? I really like Lewin's idea. And I've already saw it on other only games, I think it will probably work...

[The Dark Lord]

everyone will use it!

I know at least one player who won't...
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I don't see how this is of any use. I don't think it's worth the programming as you could also write it down on a piece of paper, or even remember it. I'm not even convinced about Lewin's idea.
From my C&C3 experience (which is full of trolls), I can tell that many good players will join servers for beginners, even though it has NOOB written in huge letters in the title. Sometimes they do it for an easy win, sometimes they do it because other servers are empty and they want to play anyway.
I think a chatting system that shows who's online is enough. If you see skilled players you can ask if they want to play, which is even likely to be more effective than creating a game with a title like 'ONLY PRO' and waiting for people to join.

[Jeronimo]

I don't see how this is of any use. I don't think it's worth the programming as you could also write it down on a piece of paper, or even remember it. I'm not even convinced about Lewin's idea.

You might have passed the part, which makes matches balanced is the instantaneous "general consensus" among the players while organizing the teams (chat-room)... for that everyone contributes with his Skillmark respect 1 player.
So his Level may vary depending the players who take part of game (XoX is ** for strong players, but a **** for newbies).

Perhaps concept is difficult to understand, thus recieving bad critics.
Or interested players cannot foreseen what this innovation would mean in long term.
It is much more than just "private use" as it looks like at first glance. Think about it.

[The Dark Lord]

You might have passed the part, which makes matches balanced is the instantaneous "general consensus" among the players while organizing the teams (chat-room)... for that everyone contributes with his Skillmark respect 1 player.

Not everyone is looking for a fair, balanced game. There are always people who want to win no matter how.

This is what you said earlier:

That's because is a pioneer Idea, KaMR could be the first to implement into a game a multiplayer personal marker... Is much better than public labels, those really generate conflicts.

You want a personal marker so you can remember who are skilled and who are not. Because it is private, there will be no conflicts. But then you have to discuss each player's skill level in the chatroom to make fair teams, which kind of destroys the purpose of a personal marker. Right?

[Lewin]

I also wouldn't use the personal marker things, and I think most other people wouldn't either. Basically all it would do underneath is generate a list of names in a text file with a rank. You can already do that in Notepad or on paper.

[Jeronimo]

You might have passed the part, which makes matches balanced is the instantaneous "general consensus" among the players while organizing the teams (chat-room)... for that everyone contributes with his Skillmark respect 1 player.

Not everyone is looking for a fair, balanced game. There are always people who want to win no matter how.

This is what you said earlier:

That's because is a pioneer Idea, KaMR could be the first to implement into a game a multiplayer personal marker... Is much better than public labels, those really generate conflicts.

You want a personal marker so you can remember who are skilled and who are not. Because it is private, there will be no conflicts. But then you have to discuss each player's skill level in the chatroom to make fair teams, which kind of destroys the purpose of a personal marker. Right?

For 1, you are just repeating same argument that in Lewin's suggestion. My answer is a question for you DarkLord:
Will you cancel any initiative to make a move in order to improve the game just due to some jerks?

For 2, I will repeat again... that general consensus are something done in room of casual game, thus temporal.
Also notice that players will do it only if want Teams and dont know well each other... so it's a HELP, everyone cooperates.

Private Skillmarker? Always is you who makes/changes notations about the players... in FFAs this remains secretly.
Seems you prefer to discard an idea giving unnacurate examples (in Teams organization, revealing Skillmarks is positive).

I also wouldn't use the personal marker things, and I think most other people wouldn't either. Basically all it would do underneath is generate a list of names in a text file with a rank. You can already do that in Notepad or on paper.

Skillmarking is a good tool for a players organization in personal and grupal ways.
What's the point of being the only one who writes in Notepad? Will the others care about my opinions?
People will only start caring if this becomes a global feature from KaMR...

Sadly no other "competitive players" have supported me yet.
From my POV, is the best replacement of a standard flawed Ranking.

Lewin, it's programming work... if that's the reason, no problems.
I have talked too much, but surely won't move a single digit for it.

[Lewin]

What's the point of being the only one who writes in Notepad? Will the others care about my opinions?

What's the point of being the only one who uses skillmarker? Will the others care about your opinions if most of them don't use it or don't know about it?

Seriously though, if anyone thinks they'd use this feature please say so.

[Da Revolution]

Most people just remember who is bad and who is good...no need for any type of notes for now i think.

[Itlerion]

i have read these last 2 pages, and if i am right skillmarks are a sustitution of rankings.

but skillmarks are for free, no need of paying extra servers and each person is actually responsible of updating their opinions respect players (if he cares). 4 levels of evaluation is enough.

skillmarks looks like "own ranking" evaluation. its weird, but is not bad idea, i kinda might like that.

said in other way , people who is not interested in skillmarks probably dont care about any rankings eihter.

[`Maurice]

I for one would be happy with this skillmarker. I play against so many people and a skillmarker would be a nice tool to have.

[Mulberry]

Guys. I read you carefully but i havent seen any straight arguments against ranks, but i am sure i can understand your point and emotional contest of it. So i cant see the reason for conflicts here , because as for me it is just very practical thing wich can save your time, sometimes! offcourse.
When the 1v1 match will get more popular, it will be very good thing. Why i think it would become popular? Very simple - if skill of players grows then 1v1 will be more and more interesting for players, much more challenging. It is those thing wich cybergame world calls "professional" - it is 1v1... And rank in 1v1 is very very important. So let us look on this as on opportunity

[Lewin]

Here are my arguments against ranks:
- People will try to find ways to cheat to improve their rank, e.g. playing 1vs1 games against a dummy account, or exploiting security flaws in our server protocol
- I think it will lead to mean-spiritedness in the community "Lewin is a noob he has a bad rank!" "I'm not playing with that noob on my team he has a bad ranking" "I'm only playing if <pro player> is on my team!" "You idiot you made us lose now I get a bad ranking!!"
- People will probably leave games when they start losing so they don't lose points on their rank, and if we make leaving the server also give you a bad ranking, how do you quit legitimately if you need to leave for some good reason?
- It will require paying for a more expensive server
- It will require an accounts system, which means we have to store passwords, email addresses, etc. on our server. Trying to make that secure will be very very hard and if we get hacked people could have their passwords stolen. (passwords which they probably reuse for email, etc.)
- An accounts system is annoying because you can't just jump online and play a game, you have to login first. I think we'd want a guest mode too, but then maybe everyone would use guest mode to be lazy and we'd have no rankings anyway...
- It will take a lot of time to implement, I estimate 1 year at our current development rate if we want an accounts system, rankings, etc.

As a principle rankings aren't a bad idea but I don't think it's worth the effort, and I think it could make the community too mean and competitive, not accepting of new players.

[Mulberry]

I've got the point. Thanks. Really hard and unreasonable for the moment.

[Jeronimo]

For Lewin's reasons, I also prefer Skillmarks over typical Rankings.

IMO the triple room idea (begginer/average/veteran) wouldn't work either... divides small group of players at certain hour, which will lead to everyone entering any "channel" disgarding their skill levels, making the idea useless.

With Skillmarks... everyone will be still sharing the same lobby, and doesn't require to program accounts system, servers, etc.
No need to hurry, this can be put in the Todo List for a future release. I bet this will be popular (even among the suspicious).

[Danjb]

As ever, I agree with Lewin here. From a programming point of view if nothing else, many of these ideas are impractical. And personally, I wouldn't want to have to log into an account to play, and I wouldn't want to have to worry about my rank.

I think the best solution is exactly what Lewin suggested: have the hosts of the game declare the kind of skill level they're looking for, and leave it up to the players to try and keep teams balanced.

Perhaps the game could detect how well players are getting on, however, so that if one player is still building his woodcutter an hour into the game, it does something about it, rather than prolonging the inevitable moment of disappointment when you stumble into their completely undefended base?