Please No Win/Loss Tracking

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by ayceeem, May 4, 2013.

  1. ayceeem

    ayceeem New Member

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    I can not stress this enough. Win/Loss tracking means no one wants to blemish their account with losses. It brings back so many nightmares of padding, smurfing, stacking and disconnecting that were present in Command & Conquer: Generals and Dawn of War: Winter Assault. It got in the way of good healthy games, and was a real case where the developers could have made their games better just by not bothering.

    Forged Alliance Forever uses a trueskill ratings system - all it does is raise or lower your skill bar depending on your current overall performance. Nothing recorded or irreversible. This seems a much better way of tracking player skill than a rudimentary record for win/losses.
  2. syox

    syox Member

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    So why not let the player select what is viewed?
  3. ayceeem

    ayceeem New Member

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    Even if you personally made it a point not to care about your own win/loss record, you still have to contend with players who do, hosts who kick you for having a bad record, and disconnectors.

    It would be better for everyone if it was not a thing.
  4. nlspeed911

    nlspeed911 Member

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    Agreed.
  5. syox

    syox Member

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    First if they are able to disable the showing of their losses, Why then shall they kick me?
    Second, how shall they kick me? With PA's server client arcitecture? There is no P2P, so they have to attack the server which will also kick them.

    And uber is not Blizzard who let a DDos'er run lose for days. And with identication verification such guys wouldn't be able to ever connect to official or official related servers agian. Until they purchase a new key.

    My experience tells me, though it happens such a thing isn't with the majority of Players.
    And hackers gonna hack anyways.
  6. BulletMagnet

    BulletMagnet Post Master General

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    If you can show your own W:L, then you'll be inclined to play in a way that maximises it. It's partly about ego... the whole my commander-**** is bigger than yours.

    The goal is to maximise fun, not to maximise your W:L. People are a little irrational at times and can't help but focus on the wrong thing.
  7. McCuddles

    McCuddles New Member

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    Terrible idea, this exact thing happened to starcraft 2 when blizzard took it upon themselves to remove the win ; loss details and everyone hated it.

    when they brought it back in HOTS everyone was loving it and myself personally love the statistics i wish they added more in.

    Removing of features is just that.. it adds nothing to the game, only subtracts.

    i would be very upset if i had to keep track of my own win ; loss record and with games like this (player vs player) it would be stupid to hide it from players.
  8. syox

    syox Member

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    Well it seem this goes to far into the non rational kind of things for me. Well i play to have fund and win. I mostly only have fun if i win though. Or at least see myself improving.

    I just say again: Make it so that a player can chose if and what of his stats is shown to anybody else. Like it should be in social networks. Won't that help?
  9. ayceeem

    ayceeem New Member

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    "enable stats or I kick you plx"

    And mccuddles, I am glad I do not play Starcraft then.
  10. apocatequil

    apocatequil Member

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    It may go a little far into irrationality for you, but you just have a more standard morality about it than they do. You have fun when you are winning. They see that picture of having a high win/loss ratio meaning power, and they often want to fake it, or they are terrified of losing it.

    Say someone is good in the start and they rapidly get better and suddenly they haven't lost once, but they've only won 20 games. They flip over to the leader board, and the people in the top ten all have 0 Losses, they've just won a lot more than this someone, So they think, "Hey I'm good, maybe I can be FAMOUS" and they slowly start to resort to moral wrongs and just plain boring, out of game tactics to gain and maintain fame. They are faced with a situation where if they lose once they drop out of the top ten or so, and if they lose twice and they fall off the front page, probably down in the 500s and only going to drop lower because now they're in with the Skilled players that get no recognition, and there's an ocean of skill above you, and millions of sharks below. All that fame, all that baseless ego gone in an instant.

    So yeah, don't display it, but those irrational people seeking fame and adoration more than fun are just encouraged to be boring, assholes of players that panic and cheat whenever things go wrong.

    EDIT: Though, if win/loss isn't on the leader board, then it isn't as powerful a motivator, but you are still going to have ego stroking irrational people who just like to look impressive no matter the cost, and you're going to have to implement something other than a win/loss to rank everyone anyway. I'd say have a decaying win-loss as a compromise, and then do any serious ranking through a True-skill evaluation.
    Last edited: May 4, 2013
  11. McCuddles

    McCuddles New Member

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    it was just a comparison i dont understand why people would want things removed from a game like this, and in Starcraft you dont get that kind of retarded talk, the lowest ranked players play in games vs veterans and nobody cares.

    i dont think i have ever.. ever seen anyone say "let me see your stats or kick" rubbish
    and why would you want to play with people like that?

    Also. in starcraft, only you get to see the nitty gritty of your stats.. thats right.. its only there for your viewing

    *Edited for more sense making*
    Last edited: May 4, 2013
  12. Zimeon

    Zimeon New Member

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    Personally I prefer to see some statistics, and I bet most ppl do as well. Perhaps a good solution would not be to throw it at your face after/before a game.
  13. nlspeed911

    nlspeed911 Member

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    A good solution would perhaps be to have it off by default, and if on, only viewable by you yourself...?
  14. apocatequil

    apocatequil Member

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    lol Since I ninja'd myself out of the topic by making a huge post just before you three finished yours, I'll just restate my compromise of having win-loss meaning nothing with regards to ranking, and have it decay over time. No win or loss lasting more than 30 days or so.
  15. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    Maybe do it like Blizzard in SC2 and only show losses once you are in the upper region of the ladder. Apart from that, don't take away stats. Everybody loves stats.
  16. McCuddles

    McCuddles New Member

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    just like i was saying =D hehe (the do it like blizzard part )
  17. veta

    veta Active Member

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    I was going to write why I disagreed but I'm persuaded. The FAF system was developed by players of competitive RTS and that's why it's so well thought out. You only have games played and a supplemental rating, certainty in the lobby is indicated by grayscale - dark ratings are very uncertain, lighter rating are more certain.

    FAF even incorporated a league system which is supplemental to trueskill, it's all really well done.

    Here's an explanation of the FAF systems:
    http://www.faforever.com/mediawiki/inde ... ing_system

    Edit: I should clarify, there is a persistent "ranked" rating for "standard" games and then a separate league system for ladder players. Ladder games affect your rating but "standard" games do not affect your ladder position.
    Last edited: May 4, 2013
  18. McCuddles

    McCuddles New Member

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    i would still like to be able to see wins ; loss even if it was just for me to see. as i enjoy being able to read stats like that, and maby more stats would be cool, most used unit or something like that
  19. veta

    veta Active Member

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    win percentage could be a private stat, win % and games played essentially gives u losses

    although ideally your win rate should be around 50% if you are playing ladder.
  20. BulletMagnet

    BulletMagnet Post Master General

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    Yeah, we can solve the problem by never showing W:L to others. Viewing it yourself is comparatively benign.

    It certainly doesn't preclude showing a rank somewhere. I think ranks are fundamentally better because you can be an amazing, hardcore, competitive player and still have lost a lot of games.

    But in fairness: ranks have the downside of being changed by outside influence.

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