Please No Win/Loss Tracking

Yeah the stats in FAF are ... not very intuitive ^^

You've based your request on experience you've had with very poor implementation of some kind of win-loss tracking that is not even remotely close to the proper implementations that games like FA, WC3 or Starcraft use. I've played all of those games and never felt the problems you had.

So I'd say you ask not for "no win-loss tracking", but rather for "not this kind of win-loss tracking".

FA was even fun to play while Playertrack was used during GPGnet days. It was a global player-stats tracking tool that tracked stats to the most extreme detail. My main-account stats i.e. look like this:



A few explanations:
Overall - Skill-Rating that other's gave me. You could chose between a few given values.
oDNP - % of other player that gave me a Do-Not-Play. I.e. because of cheating, bad behavior, etc. pp.
G# - Game counter
+ other gameplay-related stats that try to describe a players skill in comparison to the other player he has played with.

Even with a tracking system like this I rarely had problems. Things like "I kick you because you are bad" only occurred when newbies joined "pro only" games or when I joined "noobs only" games. Which is obviously good, since it helps to create balanced teamgames.

Old data is still accessible with an account under http://bitgoblin.com/fapt/

FAF does not have that many stats, but instead gives every player a global trueskill-rating. It helps to create balanced teamgames and that's all.

Personally I am all for stats tracking even beyond what Playertrack did. I like playing for numbers. And yes, there actually are ways to play for numbers without behaving bad.

Ofc it needs to be done well. I.e. it needs to clearly state the skill of a player in a useful way. Trueskill is an example of this. Using only a global win-loss stat as a measurement of skill is very bad, I agree.

And yet, ayceeem is absolutely and completely right.

You sir, deserve a medal.

This is what PA should do! Track the positive things! The amount of wins, enemy bots destroyed, amount of times you kicked the enemy robotic butt, etc...!

This encourages people to play a lot and get better at all times! The only thing stat whores can whore about is... nothing. Because it doesn't mean anything. If you track the amount of wins, but not the amount of games played, stat whores can't go "My W/L ratio is better than yours". Even if their win count is higher, their game count can be way higher as well, thus discouraging stat whoring, whilst still keeping people happy about their stats.

And it'd encourage people playing too, as playing, no matter how or with whom, would increase at least some of these stats.

This is an excellent way to discourage a competitive scene.

I still say the simplest and best solution is to just have Unranked/Casual Matchmaking (Only positive stats counted or whatever), and a separate Ranked/Ladder (Wins/Losses/all stats recorded) Matchmaking.

Some people, like myself, like to keep track of their wins and losses to know how they're progressing at the game, instead of perpetually getting a pat on the back.

Take it for what you will, but Mavor mentions at the 5:10 minute mark of the last stream having an achievement for high win/loss record, suggesting the intention for a haphazard implementation of stats.

I responded to this suggestion earlier, but it is being repeated now; only recording positive stats is a bad idea, because that is lying to players about their performance. Also, non-ranked matches should not be recording anything about the player at all; otherwise it would be ranked.

mkultr4, how does win/loss tell you your progress, if matchmaking causes everyone yo win 50% of the time?

It mostly just tells me how I'm doing in the short term. If I lose 8 out of 10 games on a day I play a lot, I log off lol

I'm not opposed to having other ways of ranking players, I'm just saying I want to know my W/L ratio in ladder.

No poll? That's strange.

Anyway, absence of win/loss ratio, as well as any other form of publically exposed player statistics, rating or ladder position increases adequacy levels in online communities drastically. No metrics means no tools for self-assertion of immature kids and aggressive "pro-gamers", and that makes that kinds of people less likely to go rampant on servers and drive away ten times more common players than their total count.

He didnt say that at all. He said they will track stuff like win-loss, units destroyed and whatever else and have little badges. There was nod direct connection between "little badges" and "track win/loss". He might as well have been talking about badges like "10 wins achieved" "1000 units destroyed", which is far more probable, since a badge "90% wins on ladder" is basically a badge telling "bought a smurf".

I don't like tracking of any stats ever, but that's mostly me being self conscious. Perhaps a tally of the last ten games played would function, but nothing persistent in game please. This is a game, not a sport.
To use a horrible metaphor; You don't tattoo your W/L ratio of checkers on your arm.

I don't see why we should be discouraging a competitive scene. I agree with the suggestion that there should be an "unranked" and a "ranked" set-up. That will allow the competitive players to be able to track their progress (personally, I like to have a LOT of different stats on my profile so that I can see precisely how I'm doing currently as compared to in the past), but also allow people that just want to play for fun to do so as they wish.

Perhaps there should be a hidden skill rating like in SC2, and maybe even some sort of league system. But there shouldn't be an expectation that players have no choice but to be involved in this competitive area of the game. Personally though, I'd prefer to have as many (useful) stats as possible so that at the very least I can see for myself, even if others can't see them on my profile.

just track wins ya

edit: track ladder win-loss, track games played for regular matches. have a separate rating for "standard games" and leagues for ladder --- FAF

and of course number of played games ...

Tracking wins and number or games will still face the same problems.

People who have played few games, or simply don't play that often will face the same discrimination.

I am astonished how this is still generally assumed, because it is simply not the case from all I know.

We could also try a reputation system. After a match someone can +rep or -rep someone, depending on whether they did a good job or not. This way good players get a lot of +rep and bad/noob players get a lot of -rep. This way it does not matter if you win or lose, if you played well (according to the other players) you still get +repped. If you caused your team a couple of near-death moments while still winning you can be -repped for being a ****. I say W/L doesn't track enough. You can win with a good team and not do anything. You can lose against a far superior player while still performing very good.

that was kind of the point... played-wins=losses (assuming no draws)
but that was just my basic math based comment on tracking just wins instead of wins and losses

I have yet to encounter people who discriminated other players based on stats... perhaps I only played the wrong games or the right ones with the right people depending on the perspective

Yes please.

Played games and wins is exactly the same as a wins losses system.

And I have met and been the kind of player who got booted form games for not having played many games, the CNC3 system where players would level up from played just meant players could be classified into players who have and have not played enough, meaning that many games were essentially unavailable, and you could easily tell that when the games title stated that low level players would get booted.

This even happens in FAF.

So you are saying making games "good players only" should be forbidden? So you want newbies to play against veterans in teamgames making interesting high level games impossible?
You want "noobs only" to be forbidden? So a veteran can join such a game undeteced and ruin the game for the newbies?

That's nothing negative. A system that helps to balance out teamgames should be embraced, not feared. I agree that missbehavior such a cheating, disconnects, etc needs to be prevent, but balancing teamgames? Is it that hard to accept that maybe some people want to play fair games?