11 replies to this topic

[Fluff My Garfield]

The goal is simple: Give us (PUGers) an obvious indicator as to who we're dropping with that deserves to be listened to. Disorganization is rampant in PUG matches because we're all apparently equals so why should anyone listen to anyone else?

The idea is simple: A small dot next to players’ names that (based off color and size) shows how winning a commander they are. To get a bigger, brighter dot:

• You must be a lance or company commander at the end of the battle,
  
• Your team must have won,
  
• Other players must choose to give you a +1 at the end of the match. Players only have a single +1 to give out EACH WEEK, regardless of how many games they play or money they pay.

Here’s a couple of mock-ups using screen grabs I stole from the internet at large and modified in MS Paint:

Spoiler

Pre-game lobby: The smaller the dot, the less that player has been a leader in a winning match and been upvoted; in contrast, the larger and brighter the dot, the more they have. Checking pings/scores mid match would look the same. The red arrow indicates the change:




The dots would show up in game for your lance and any time someone is talking. Red arrows show the changes:




Score Screen: The dots are replaced by little plus sign buttons to add your +1 to your choice of person. Again, the red arrow shows the change.

And that is the idea. Be a leader, win matches, get votes of confidence that are visually represented, and have an easier time getting people to listen to you next time.

Or, as a regular player, play PUG matches like normal, win games, express your support of a leader who has given the best performance you’ve seen in a week or just continue to ignore people like we do now.


The nitty-gritty stuff:

Spoiler

• The brilliance and color of one’s leadership dot represents what percentile the player falls into within the leading population.
  
• The leadership points a player has expire 3 months after being awarded
  
• The minimum points a player can have is 10% of the highest total they ever achieved
  
• Players who have never been given leadership points or whose points have expired don’t count in the leading population.

The above aspects keep the dots relevant over time while respecting the strategic and tactical skills that good leaders have that are not affected by new mechs coming out or slight tweaks to the meta they may have missed during a time of inactivity. In short it keeps the leadership fresh while respecting timeless skills.

• Example 1: Someone is top of the heap but goes inactive for a month. Points from 3 months previous are constantly expiring and other people are doing good work so the subject is surpassed and pushed down in the percentiles, their dot fading to reflect that. They come back to the game and, being a great leader, climb back up to their rightful place.

• Example 2: Someone is top of the heap but goes inactive for 4 months. All of their points have hit their expiration dates and the subject is reduced to the minimum 10% of their former glory. This could still put them high enough in the percentiles to be listened to in games but if they aren’t gaining leadership points faster than the rest of the population (either through intensive gaming and pretty good leadership or outstanding leadership over fewer games) they won’t be climbing back up.

The lesson? Either:

• Stay current and competitively competent,
  
• Be so amazing for a while that you can get by on residual points once you have faded,
  
• Or just plug along being as good a leader as you can and getting points here or there.

WALL OF TEXT BREAKUP PARTY!







More nitty-gritty stuff!

• Every player gets 1 leadership point to award per week. If unused, these expire every week. These do not count toward a player’s own leadership points.
  
• At the end of a match a player can only give a point to a lance or company commander on their team but only if their team won.
  
• Players with significantly more (20% maybe?) leadership points can take over a lance or company commander position from another player at any time.

The first aspect here makes leadership points rare, causing people to only award them when they see something truly worthy. Basing it on time instead of number of games played avoids an obvious source of abuse.




The third aspect here ensures that the best available and willing commander is always in control. There isn’t really an effective way to abuse this system, as discussed below in a snippet from my original thread (yes, I am necroing my own thread (http://mwomercs.com/...ven-leadership/) from over a year ago. I botched the survey portion and wanted to present the same idea in a better way):

Example: Noob starts playing MWO, decides he/she wants to be a respected leader but fears he/she will get booted from a leadership role by a player with a higher leadership score or not listened to.

• First, the only people that can boot you from lance commander role are the 3 other PUGers in your lance. If they don't care to do it then you've got a chance.
  
• Second, by trying you open yourself up to as many as 11 leadership points per match, something that is definitely worth a little effort.
  
• Third, a green-dotted leader is still at least 1 leadership point better (read: 1 victory in a leadership role that impressed somebody) than someone with no dot at all and at present that’s all we are following anyways.

What about friends upvoting each other? Yes, such circle jerks will definitely exist. However, while they are slowly taking turns getting a few leadership points (with only 1 per week to use, if they are taking turns they are only earning 1 per week on average) actually good commanders dropping with new groups every time will likely be winning a leadership point or two every victory or two. If a good commander spends 1 hour a day 5 days a week and 2 hours a day on weekends, average of 4.5 games an hour that's 40.5 games a week and exposure to 445.5 possible leadership points. Figure half are wins and on average 1 player each win thinks the commander did well then that's 20.25 leadership points per week.




TL;DR: Circle-jerks = 1 leadership point per week average, good commanders = 20+


WALL OF TEXT BREAK UP AFTER PARTY:



Yes, this takes on another dimension once clans/guilds get involved but they'll circle-jerk their choice commanders up to high levels all for what? So PUGs will listen to them? They're in a clan/guild, when do they ever play with PUGs? And even if/when they do they DO still want to win so what would it hurt to listen to them?

To be a problem a group would have to spend months upvoting themselves to blazing yellow dot stardom, then go into PUG matches, steal the commander roles, and either work to sabotage the match (which honestly wouldn't be much worse than just having an average terrible team) or work to win the match and hog all the possibility for leadership points. Either way, the experience is either no different or actually better for everyone else. Remember that potential leadership points aren't even being wasted with this maneuver and the likelihood of dropping with the same dingbats again isn't high enough to worry about.

Edited by Ogrecorps, 04 August 2016 - 04:16 PM.

[Jarl Dane]

The answer is me.

[Brody]

Mech The Dane, on 26 July 2016 - 05:22 PM, said:

The answer is me.

basically this.

[Kynesis]

I'd like to be able to 'upvote' and 'downvote' people at the end of a match (from the score board).

ie have a list attached to my account that nobody else can see, of people that I enjoy playing with so that there's a greater chance that I might be matched with them, whether they're good leaders, good pilots, funny...; And conversely of people who I'd prefer not to be grouped with and thereby be matched with them less frequently.

I'd like to be able to review that list and modify it between games, ideally with a field for comments. To curtail its misuse, make the viewable / modifiable list only show those people that I've 'upvoted'.

In doing so you'd also generate an intrinsic motivation to play well and be nice - if too many people don't want to play with a given person, that person's going to find it more difficult to get into games.
If you play well and contribute, people are going to want to have you on their team - with real results.

PGI would need to be careful about limits - people are people and you'd have to expect less mature people might gang up on an individual or stack votes (whether they deserve it or not).

Edited by Kynesis, 28 July 2016 - 10:07 PM.

[Seddrik]

Puggers will not listen anyway, even if you have a dot.

You can be a great leader and have bad groups who do not listen.

You can be a bad leader and have great groups who win despite you.

[Fluff My Garfield]

Mech The Dane, on 26 July 2016 - 05:22 PM, said:

The answer is me.

.... ....

How do I put this delicately...? Great though you may be, it is clear that if the answer is you, you is insufficient to the task, mostly due to a notable lack of omnipresence.

Seddrik, on 30 July 2016 - 12:20 PM, said:

Puggers will not listen anyway, even if you have a dot.

You can be a great leader and have bad groups who do not listen.

You can be a bad leader and have great groups who win despite you.

Think about WHY people don't listen: they know nothing about the person talking. When I'm in a match and someone starts giving commands my first thought is "Who does this guy think he is?" Well, under my system if he has a bright yellow dot next to his name I'd be able to see immediately that this is someone who wins as a leader AND is more than just lucky enough to have been in the seat at the time, he was specifically marked by other players as being worth listening to. If he has no dot then I know he's entirely untried or a useless commander who can be safely ignored.

Now think about what good leadership is: reading the situation (terrain advantage, local enemy and friendly force strengths) and then issuing one of the following commands: "Advance", "Stop", "Retreat", or "Shoot target X". More important than getting good trades, deploying UAVs/Airstrikes/Artillery, shooting unarmored sections, or any other things players do individually, moving as a group is the single biggest factor in winning PUG matches and that is best accomplished by 1 person deciding when it is time to do what and everyone else doing it. This means that the best way to win is to listen to someone competent and my system would make it very clear who the competent people are. Since Puggers want to win, they'd listen because their biggest reason for not listening now would be answered.

Edited by Ogrecorps, 01 August 2016 - 01:36 PM.

[Brody]

I support the idea.

But I already lead most of my games, or try to, and what ends up happening is this. I also have learned that the little gold star means nothing. The commands I can issue on the battlegrid are a waste of my time. They take me out of the fight while I issue them, reducing my ability to see, move, and shoot. Also, what happens when two people with your leadership rating show up in the same game and argue with each other?

The questions isn't who can lead, it's who can follow.

[Fluff My Garfield]

Brody, on 04 August 2016 - 04:22 AM, said:

I support the idea. But I already lead most of my games, or try to, and what ends up happening is this. I also have learned that the little gold star means nothing. The commands I can issue on the battlegrid are a waste of my time. They take me out of the fight while I issue them, reducing my ability to see, move, and shoot. Also, what happens when two people with your leadership rating show up in the same game and argue with each other? The questions isn't who can lead, it's who can follow.

I agree with you mostly. Yes, the gold star of "I nominate myself to be in charge" means nothing and the map commands are ignored and even dangerous to use. The difference between that and the these leadership dots would be that you will not have nominated yourself to have the dot, others will have given it to you as a show of confidence in your leadership AFTER you have successfully proven it.

Then it isn't "Who is this "Brody" guy?!", it's "Oh wow. This bossy fella over here is clearly indicated as one of the winningest leaders in the entire population!"

As for people arguing, there's nothing I can do about that. The highest ranked takes the command (Company or lance, that thing you've been doing) and keeps it because the other can't kick them out and either the other goes along or gets muted by those who care to. Free will to argue and follow or not stays intact, my suggestion just makes it easy to see WHO to follow instead of a great leader giving up an argument because a mediocre one was too annoying to be worth the fight.

[Brody]

Ogrecorps, on 04 August 2016 - 04:12 PM, said:

a great leader giving up an argument because a mediocre one was too annoying to be worth the fight.

exceedingly this.

[Jon McFuzzy]

Seddrik, on 30 July 2016 - 12:20 PM, said:

Puggers will not listen anyway, even if you have a dot.

Hasty generalization is kind of negative and not helping. IMO, having a bad plan is still better than no plan at all - but based on non-scientific data (my own experience with the game), most of the time ppl are not interested to communicate. Even when you are dropping in group (QP) the communication tends to stay within that group only. Of course this is just my personal experience - I also cannot generalize this to represent everybody.

I don't think this is an issue that PGI should solve, as this is more within the community ourselves - but PGI CAN help to improve/facilitate the interaction between players.

Some people have recommended to have chat window everywhere, for example in mechlab so that we can ask for advice, add the ability to modify the friend list and name, fix the friend list issue (they are still shown active while actually offline), add the commands from the MW4 game such as "form up on me", "attack my target", "protect my target" etc.

Quote

You can be a great leader and have bad groups who do not listen.

You can be a bad leader and have great groups who win despite you.

I agree with this quote. Still, we need to move forward.

[Fluff My Garfield]

Jon McFuzzy, on 05 August 2016 - 01:01 AM, said:

Hasty generalization is kind of negative and not helping. IMO, having a bad plan is still better than no plan at all - but based on non-scientific data (my own experience with the game), most of the time ppl are not interested to communicate. Even when you are dropping in group (QP) the communication tends to stay within that group only.

I agree but I think part of the reason people don't tend to communicate is because they don't want to be talking to themselves. I've been in games that were silent until someone pointed out a UAV and then the whole group opened up into marking targets, calling out flankers, etc. Next game, half of the people are the same 'cause we're all synched in our drops and again: silence on the voip.

In those moments when I'm feeling like being a leader I usually don't because it's usually too frustrating under the current system. If I had a colored dot next to my name that said I was worth listening to I would be more confident that opening my mouth wouldn't be a waste of energy and I'd do it more often. Yes, it's cowardly but the reality is that this is a game and I'm here to take it easy; an avoidable 5% decrease to game enjoyment is a no-brainer for me so I just let the team do or do not while I just try.

[Ultra-Laser]

Jon McFuzzy, on 05 August 2016 - 01:01 AM, said:

-snip-

If were going to start making wishlists of comm features the one big thing I want is a secondary communication wheel for when you're pointing directly at someone else. having a split second to say simple things like "your blocking my shot" or "fall back!" can give players with as little as two brain cells the heads-up they need to back out of a hopelessly wrong move. Alas, nothing can be done for those poor single-brain-cell souls, but such is the way of things.

Spoiler

I for one would have a great deal of use for a "my mistake" signal, as I am a living freindly-fire incident.