145 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Asmosis, on 18 November 2012 - 01:19 AM, said:

On a positive note, they are rebalancing the rewards to be more team focused so if that works, and the KD ratio gets removed as a result it might promote better teamplay. It'll probably factor into phase 3 for matchmaking as well.

I still would like to know how often I die v how many you rubes I kill

Seriously though, I would like to see how many kills I assist on. Its the team that has the most assists that wins every time .. unless its a base rush victory.

[dario03]

Hiding your own stats isn't going to stop the show offs from padding their stats at the expense of the team.

Wolf Ender, on 18 November 2012 - 06:20 AM, said:

I hope they keep stats of EVERYTHING how many kills, how many deaths, how many kills you have against lights, mediums, heavies, assaults, how many deaths from which enemies. how much time you spend in a particular mech, class, variant. how much damage do you do with particular weapons. do you have more kills with a gauss or with streaks or with lasers? there is a mountain of wonderful stats that can be got. i want to see it all i say this fully knowing that im a mediocre player at best. a total noob at worst. i know fully well that my stats are going to look bad. IDGAF. i think the fact that people are so obsessed about the stats is basically a dead give-away that they're presupposing that they will be judged based on their stats, and that they probably expect to judge themselves and judge others based on those stats. this is a bad presupposition. most people are able to articulate that truth, that stats are not necessarily indicative of SKILL...they're just numbers...stats... so if that's the case, and everyone knows that your skill is not expressed only in your stats...why is that an argument not to have them? we should have all the stats we can get our hands on...just take them with a grain of salt and understand that what you're looking at is not the true measure of a pilot. and think about all those hot shots who are going to be padding their stats and babying their numbers. its going to feel 3 times as sweet to take out those noobs.

Of course you should take the stats with a grain of salt but the problem is those "hot shot" padders won't do that. I got no problem with people seeing my stats but when a teammate leaves me high and dry to protect his stats, chases after a weaponless mech instead of saving the team from a cap loss, blocks shots on nearly dead mechs, etc, etc, sot that he can pad his K/D, then I have a problem.
So basically I'm saying that sure more stats would be great, the more the better and definitely let us look at them per mech. But I'm not so sure if I want public stats because that might increase the number of people padding their stats. Though public stats for 8v8 premade teams as a whole (so stats for the team not the individuals) probably wouldn't be bad since then its a whole group working together and they can kick out stat padders if they want.

[Alexa Steel]

dario03, on 18 November 2012 - 07:40 AM, said:

Hiding your own stats isn't going to stop the show offs from padding their stats at the expense of the team. Of course you should take the stats with a grain of salt but the problem is those "hot shot" padders won't do that. I got no problem with people seeing my stats but when a teammate leaves me high and dry to protect his stats, chases after a weaponless mech instead of saving the team from a cap loss, blocks shots on nearly dead mechs, etc, etc, sot that he can pad his K/D, then I have a problem. So basically I'm saying that sure more stats would be great, the more the better and definitely let us look at them per mech. But I'm not so sure if I want public stats because that might increase the number of people padding their stats. Though public stats for 8v8 premade teams as a whole (so stats for the team not the individuals) probably wouldn't be bad since then its a whole group working together and they can kick out stat padders if they want.

^This is why I dont care about stats. If a damaged mechs needs a shield and Iam there I will take the hit, if I need to sacrifice my mech to stop the enemy from capping, I will do so.

Of course my stats would be "bad" compared to the "hotshots", but I believe I did a better job.

[Schrottfrosch]

I love stats!
When I played EvE I spent a considerable amount of time looking at killboards and was amazed at what some people pulled off solo or in small groups against all odds. In world of tanks a lot of clans base evaluation of new recruits on their stats. If you want to join a high profile clan you better bring whats needed!
It wont be different in MWO.

Stats allow people to measure themselves and to try to become better. In a highly competitive game you cannot leave stats out. Look at "Starcraft" and "Leage of Legends" - there are teams that can basically live from what they win at big tournaments.

I sure as hell want MWO become quite like those aforementioned games - with big tournaments and high prices for the winners and live streaming or even live tv shows broadcasting those!

A Solaris-style gamemode would be extremely nice to have! Lonewolves could play as Mech-Gladiators and earn their C-bills that way. It would also be a nice way to find new promissing recruits for Merc-Corps.

I dont plan to be at the top of those statistics and ladders - I am far too old for that. But I sure as hell want to look at other peoples stats and admire their skills!
I love stats!

[Faldrin]

Stats should not be used on a ranking board.

First is spike weapons builds that are used to kill a mech with out doing loads of dps to 1 single point.
Second is weapons that have a large spread damage to strip armour but a high dps.
People will kill other team players if they think that some one has stole their kill. as well as many other things to pad their stats.

Only ranking should be a Solaris type ranked game with 1 on 1 battles if you guys want a leader-board that means any thing..
Simple it would be mech type i.e. light, medium, heavy and assault ranking with a free for all type game as well with any mech type.

[Tuku]

I am also a brawler and I see the game in terms of my F/NF ratio.....fun to not fun. I could be a god....I could have 30 more kills than deaths or whatever is a high number...I simply do not care ....ever....in any game. The only thing I need to know is if I am having fun . Win or lose....live or die....am I having fun? With this game the answer is yes.

[Denno]

We need both TK and disconnect stats added.

*crosses arms*

[SamizdatCowboy]

Red squirrel, on 18 November 2012 - 03:22 AM, said:

Tl;dr A runner up for the most stupid post in this forum

Trollololol

Quote

What do stats tell you? Nothing. Because mechs and play styles are not comparable.

player A has low XP and high TK's

Spoiler

probably a lamer

player B has low damage done per death/match but high XP per death/match... digging into their stats shows high spotter XP and high cap XP.

Spoiler

probably a scout

player C has high damage done per death/match, with XP primarily in kill assists, kills, and component destruction

Spoiler

probably a combat oriented player

you're right, stats tell you nothing

Quote

And Paul is f***ing right to say that public stats will negatively impact the play style.

Actually that isn't what Paul said at all (and why it pays to actually read posts before Flame On). Here's the quote again for your convenience:

Paul Inouye said:

The K/D ratio always steers the way people play. MWO is not your typical FPS (CoD, BF etc) where you are ranked based on your personal kill count.

In order to push gameplay to a more team oriented, strategic game style, XP and overall damage will be the ranking system for our leaderboards. Padding your personal Kill count will do nothing for you in the long run. Padding your XP gains will 1) rank you higher on the leaderboards and 2) greatly benefit your team. This game is not about personal gain but gains of the well rounded and thought out combatants which makes up for valued MechWarriors.

link

Maybe that was still too long to read so here are the cliff notes:

• K/D is a bad metric to base a public leaderboard on but a good private metric to gauge individual progress and tactics.
  
• Stats that reflect a player's team impact like overall damage done and XP earned are good leaderboard stats, will be published, and chasing them positively impacts team play
  
• This was the point of my OP.

Oh and even hardcore eSport competition style rankings are coming:

Paul Inouye said:

The developers at PGI are all veteran game players. Many of us were or still are competitive gamers and truly know the feeling of a great match played between two equally matched teams.

...

Phase 3:

We have been examining the various ranking systems in other games/structured tournament play etc. This includes ELO, TrueSkill and others. Our current plan is to use a hybrid system that uses the mentality of ELO with a weighting system that we’ve determined that drives down to player effectiveness/skill in a match. In order for this to work properly, we will need to do heavy pre-release testing before it goes live to the community and hence the amount of time to get it implemented.

We currently cannot go into detail as to how this system will work because we are not going to over-promise something that may change during implementation. We will try to keep you as up to date on this as possible.

link

So saying the devs think public stats will negatively impact play period is just plain wrong.

Quote

First off: KIll stealing. This is again one of the most stupid terms made up in this forum. It is a team game. It is a war simulator. I have never ever heared of soldiers in real life complaining "But Sergant, that rookie stole my kill!"

How is a term made up if lamers in games actually try to, you know, 'steal kills.' MWO is not real life, it is a video. game.


The rest of your post seemed to just be repeating the previous points, which I think have been covered.

[Ritter Cuda]

SamizdatCowboy, on 18 November 2012 - 01:39 AM, said:

Well this really goes to the point that you need more, and more detailed stats, including things like number of headshots, accuracy, etc... with all those things laid out it's easier to understand/judge a player in aggregate. And there's no reason you couldn't have 1 leaderboard per stat. But I still think damage done per death is a pretty good overall metric. Spray and pray pilots are probably also going to have more deaths, which would offset the extra damage they're doing...

every thing you post come across as the GLORY OF ONE. nothing you look for permote team play. MY K?D ratio sucks I play a suport role . I get a peace of every mech in a good game but seldom get the kill shot. here is what I have seen with public stat .
1) greifing... hay your stat suck leave
2) disco before death
3) waiting to only take a kill shot
4) hey! you stole my kill!!
none of this is team play
on the other hand I have never seen a player improve because of public stats

[Taiji]

SamizdatCowboy, on 17 November 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

So for all you care bears who think it's "bad" to chase stats 1) tough, they're coming and 2) I look forward to turning you into rainbow colored slag, climbing a public leaderboard, and helping my team all at the same time.

Let's say "My corp saves my stupid *** every time and share kills with me." and then compare my stats with your genuine hard work.

Haha you suck and I rock

[BoomDog]

There's only one stat that matters in this game.

Win/Loss ratio.

This is truth in it's purest form. You can have a four to one K/D ratio, but if your W/L ratio sucks, then you are a bad team player.

W/L ratio is the only stat that encourages correct play. Winning.

Currently, the system is all screwed up due to MM. Pre-mades still trump solo players, even with only 4. When they fix it though, they should reset everyone's W/L ratio and start from scratch.

[Cataphract]

The way this game works and its similarities to things like WOT will bring the worst out of people when stats go public, period. Every other game of similar form and function have absolutely atrocious communities to play with as soon as a competitive mode for playing emerges. The only thing that would save this community from nitpicking merc corps from showing up and shunning anyone without exceptional records would be regular ladder and stat resets. There are too many people that will suffer from having poor stats from having to grind trial mechs and or not having premium. Its sad that the premium bonus is even calculated into your stats average so you'll always look better than those without. Any game with a K/D W/L ratio regardless of how important/unimportant the devs say it is will always be considered the determining factor when a clan leader looks for recruiting thus those with poor averages out the gate regardless of actual skill later on down the road will always be an odd man out. No one really gives a crap about training members or waiting for them to learn because they want instant success and gratification. I for one will find better things to pass my time with if thats what comes to pass with this game. Ive heard many promises of improved MM and stats to help the community better evolve from many developers from up and coming and past games and all have fallen very short on those promises thus far always catering to the leetists in the end, but heres to hoping.

[SamizdatCowboy]

Ritter Cuda, on 18 November 2012 - 09:11 AM, said:

every thing you post come across as the GLORY OF ONE. nothing you look for permote team play. MY K?D ratio sucks I play a suport role .

Sure that's both fair and true. I'm more of a lone wolf type and chasing personal achievement is something I find fun and addictive. It's what makes a game replayable for me. This isn't exactly a new concept in gaming - hello High Score from days of yore?

However the point of my original post was that the devs are planning on structuring stats in a clever way so that by pursuing personal achievement on leaderboards I have to do things that help my team. People keep getting hung up on K/D but, again, the devs are not using K/D as the leaderboard metric. They are going to use stats that reflect helping your team. In my case that would be overall damage done, in your case it would be XP from being support.

Quote

I have never seen a player improve because of public stats

In my case watching my K/D ratio has absolutely helped me improved by guiding me towards a more effective style of play... i.e. less ramboing and more working with the group (does wonders for your K/D surprise surprise).

Edited by SamizdatCowboy, 18 November 2012 - 10:44 AM.

[dario03]

SamizdatCowboy, on 18 November 2012 - 10:42 AM, said:

However the point of my original post was that the devs are planning on structuring stats in a clever way so that by pursuing personal achievement on leaderboards I have to do things that help my team. People keep getting hung up on K/D but, again, the devs are not using K/D as the leaderboard metric. They are going to use stats that reflect helping your team. In my case that would be overall damage done, in your case it would be XP from being support.

People keep bringing up K/D because as it is now kills will get you a lot of xp. For example the other day I had the most damage on my team, was on the front lines so had some spots, and got 5 or 6 assists but no kills. However I didn't get the most xp, a LRM boat that set at the back and did 30% less damage then me but somehow got 4 kills and no assists did.

Also even if PGI does make kills count less there will still be people that count that as their main stat. Like how in some multiplayer games you're suppose to go for a objective but some people just camp because they can get a high K/D. Saw some guys talking about this on another forum (game was COD IIRC). One guy was talking about how he had a really high K/D but then another guy came in and showed that the high K/D guy also played a lot of objective modes and had a really bad win ratio.

So while I agree that what PGI is intending on doing should help I bet we will still have people protecting their K/D at the expense of the team (espectially once they are close to dead).

[Ritter Cuda]

SamizdatCowboy, on 18 November 2012 - 10:42 AM, said:

not using K/D as the leaderboard metric. They are going to use stats that reflect helping your team. In my case that would be overall damage done, in your case it would be XP from being support. In my case watching my K/D ratio has absolutely helped me improved by guiding me towards a more effective style of play... i.e. less ramboing and more working with the group (does wonders for your K/D surprise surprise).

and were those stats public? at this time they are not. public stat = greedy behavior has been my experience

[Hood]

KDR is a silly stat IMHO and here is why.. You get in a atlas and do a ton more damage in one shot that a Jenner can do in almost the whole game. The Atlas can take that hit and keep going where the Jenner is dead in a couple of good ones. These are just side points.

The real point is the Jenner's main job is scouting where the Atlas main job is damage... How do you define a good Jenner pilot if he is doing his job?

Last and most important if they do go to some kind of ranking no matter what the stat, it will be easy to drop that stat just so you can kill the lesser player. This is a team game, it always has been... Learn to work as a team, learn to fight as a team and win or lose it will be fun. I cant count how many times I have been in close matches and those are the ones I remember the most.

[Wispsy]

Really people should be judged on their deaths/gamesplayed ratio imo. Dying is bad.

hood, on 18 November 2012 - 11:26 AM, said:

KDR is a silly stat IMHO and here is why.. You get in a atlas and do a ton more damage in one shot that a Jenner can do in almost the whole game. The Atlas can take that hit and keep going where the Jenner is dead in a couple of good ones. These are just side points. The real point is the Jenner's main job is scouting where the Atlas main job is damage... How do you define a good Jenner pilot if he is doing his job? Last and most important if they do go to some kind of ranking no matter what the stat, it will be easy to drop that stat just so you can kill the lesser player. This is a team game, it always has been... Learn to work as a team, learn to fight as a team and win or lose it will be fun. I cant count how many times I have been in close matches and those are the ones I remember the most.

You have no idea what a good Jenner does if you think they are at their best scouting. That is but a tiny portion of what they should be doing.

[Quxudica]

SamizdatCowboy, on 17 November 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

While browsing the forums, I've noticed that there seems to be a significant number of MWO players who fear public stats, leaderboards, ladders, etc.  They seem to think stat hound and team player are mutually exclusive concepts... that by introducing public stats there is no longer any incentive for team play.  There also seems to be this care bear mentality that players shouldn't worry about their personal stats period.

I am a brawler, and the thrill of Mechwarrior for me is honing superior piloting skills:  The ability to maximize DPS without overheating (or smartly overheating to shutdown to get in a final kill shot).  Riding my throttle to maintain optimal position (staying behind a lumbering atlas... using a well timed engine stop to throw off an opponent's aim).  And of course having precise aim myself, taking into account any lead a particular weapon needs.

And I haven't even mentioned the thought necessary to configure an optimal chasis/loadout...

K/D ratio is the essential metric that indicates where I'm at as a pilot.  High K/D demonstrates my piloting skills are at a high level, low K/D tells me I need to make adjustments.  As a brawler having high K/D is (surprise surprise) pretty challenging.

Considering the time, effort, and ability needed to be a superior pilot you're damn right I want to be able to compare myself to others.  I am competitive, and I'm sorry but chasing the top of a public leaderboard motivates me to play and get better (and spend MC.. converting Mech XP to General XP is where I spend most of it).

Now, while K/D is an excellent metric for gauging personal ability, it's a terrible metric for leaderboards given things like kill stealing.  Damage done on the other hand is a great leaderboard stat as it truly reflects your impact on the battlefield, while negating kill stealing.

If I have a high amount of damage done per match I am implicitly helping my team in a significant way.  Also, I HAVE to be a team player and stick with the group to have both high K/D and high damage done: if I go rambo and run around in the open or into the middle of an enemy lance by myself... hello insta-dead.

Fortunately, this is exactly the direction the stats system in MWO is going:


So for all you care bears who think it's "bad" to chase stats 1) tough, they're coming and 2) I look forward to turning you into rainbow colored slag, climbing a public leaderboard, and helping my team all at the same time.


Postscript:
All that talk about team play aside, I would LOVE to see Solaris VII style competition.. so I could compete in say the 1v1 hunchback ladder or some such.  In that case it would be purely about individual play, but if it were siloed in such a way it would satisfy the cravings of tourney players such as myself without polluting the 'standard' team play mode.

If public stats go live this forum will go down the tubes. Any idea people don't like and any debate people have will devolve rapidly into trolling peoples stats. If you don't have amazing K/D or W/L or whatever other arbitrary value a poster deems significant your post becomes null and void. Further it adds even more incentive to "stat *****" when they can be seen by everyone.There is no need for publicizing stats, they serve their function perfectly fine being private.You can show off your stats right now if you want, just screen cap it and post the image. That is all that is needed. Leader boards are also almost always meaningless, community warfare will give lances the glory they need, not a pointless online board that screams "This is a video game".

[SamizdatCowboy]

Quxudica, on 18 November 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

not a pointless online board that screams "This is a video game".

... This IS a video game

[Ritter Cuda]

SamizdatCowboy, on 18 November 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

... This IS a video game

this is forums.