The Community

[Argh]

Er, I did note that most of the abusive stuff would be fairly easy to catch... I mean, spoofing and other behavior is going to be fairly simple to detect, tbh.

So long as real player IDs are required... and LAN-only games do not count for score (to prevent the easiest form of abuse)... it'd be pretty easy to police it, imo.

And... so what, if some retard spoofs the system? He/She will get caught, when it's obvious that they cannot play people of equivalent rank and win.

If nothing else, having a server-side tool that actually looks at w/l vs. equivalent ranks +/- 10% should catch the vast majority of fakes, imo.

[Gota]

Im sure that if other games can deal wiht this Spring can as well,especially with the tight community we have ATM.
After you make a few scapegoats you can pretty much scare people out of anything IMO.

[Machiosabre]

seems like the only think I'm not doing is writing an essay every time a MTR topic comes up again.

I couldn't care less about cheating the system, hell, I would probably cheat it, the problem is the people who may take it seriously and start caring too much.

[Neddie]

@Argh - It can be dealt with but often isn't, which is why I'm designing the system if it is desired. I feel that I can account for most of the loopholes and I don't trust anybody else as much in this situation.

@Gota - Also, on smurfing;
In my current model, the S-UID is registered to an email address and physical address via web interface or lobby. That establishes a profile which keeps track of overall play statistics and in the future interfaces with the ladder (If I can ever find Mel). Different names are registered from there to the profile, names cannot play online without a S-UID. Multiple accounts are thus mastered to a single identity; the content of which is just a click away. This removes player-view anonymity, which was something I wished to protect, but it also allows a player to be somebody else for the purpose of different content packages, role playing, etc.

Other S-UID can of course be generated via false data input, but given some automated procedures and moderation oversight we should be able to catch 90% of abuses in any given week, and so eventually any circumvention of primary S-UID will be caught.

[Neddie]

seems like the only think I'm not doing is writing an essay every time a MTR topic comes up again.

Hardly essays, I see little more than drabbles in this thread.

This system will not, even with full support and implementation by the lobby teams and server head, be in place for the next release.

[Gota]

@Argh - It can be dealt with but often isn't, which is why I'm designing the system if it is desired. I feel that I can account for most of the loopholes and I don't trust anybody else as much in this situation.

@Gota - Also, on smurfing;
In my current model, the S-UID is registered to an email address and physical address via web interface or lobby. That establishes a profile which keeps track of overall play statistics and in the future interfaces with the ladder (If I can ever find Mel). Different names are registered from there to the profile, names cannot play online without a S-UID. Multiple accounts are thus mastered to a single identity; the content of which is just a click away. This removes player-view anonymity, which was something I wished to protect, but it also allows a player to be somebody else for the purpose of different content packages, role playing, etc.

Other S-UID can of course be generated via false data input, but given some automated procedures and moderation oversight we should be able to catch 90% of abuses in any given week, and so eventually any circumvention of primary S-UID will be caught.

Sounds good.
So that profile ca nbe made to be viewable via a lobby or a website?is that correct?
What other info wl lhe profile include?
IMO it can have 2 categories.
#1 info and statistics about RANKED gameplay wich will always show #a ganeral info and statistics which can be hidden from the public.
As a start..

Oh and i think that even if you rename,the lobby should still show some signs of you being an advanced player(when you join a room) either based on the same "time scale",or,ladder ranking in the ladder of the mod which the room is hosting.
I say that cause in a 8v8 game you wont start going through all the players profiles ot see who is uber and who isnt so you need a fast indication as well,just a "im not a noob" sign of some sorts.

[El Capitano]

There's no one way to determine how good a player is. I'm good at team games, less good solo (you could say I suck). Still, in team games, a god-awful team seals your fate from the get-go. In the end, there's only really "time in game" to go off, which only tells you whether somebody should know what they're doing somewhat. In reality, I've seen many silver and gold stars who still epically fail and many lower-chevron players play really well because they get how to play RTSes.

You'll just have to rely on your own experiences of other players to know whether they're any good or not. Any other measure is easy to game.

[Google_Frog]

The time based ranking has some uses. On average players with more ingame time are better than players with less time. If smurfing was stopped you could be sure that a 1 stripe player is bad. Even if they are great at rts they don't know the controls or the units.

Any other ranking system can be easily exploited. Winning a teamgame depends a lot on your allies so I don't think it would be very useful. People might become hostile to noobs that lose teamgames because it affects their rank.

[BaNa]

If smurfing was stopped we would see like 2 1-stripe players per year.

[Jazcash]

If smurfing was stopped we would see like 2 1-stripe players per year.

Please tell me you don't believe this...

[manored]

If smurfing was stopped we would see like 2 1-stripe players per year.

WOW! I didnt knew smurfing caused memory loss, thanks for warning me!

[Neddie]

You'll just have to rely on your own experiences of other players to know whether they're any good or not. Any other measure is easy to game.

The core of my personal stance on this, thank you, Cap.

[Argh]

Meh, I know that's the case. But we need... something. Rank based on 1 v 1, rank for multi, 1 v 1 weighted heavily, to favor people who are really very good (because, let's face it, team games usually don't involve as much skill, unless everybody's good).

Heck, even an end to smurfing would be a worthwhile step in the right direction. I'm just sayin', the current system doesn't represent anything useful- with smurfing, it's not seen a reliable indicator of anything, basically.

[Gota]

I have to say from my experiance with commercial games iv never seen people not playing cause they dont like the fact they have statistics shown about them,whether good statistic sor bad ones.
Everyone is used to it.
You dont have ot say,hey this player is awsome.You can say,this player won 200 1v1 games or 300 team games etc..
I peronnaly dont see any benefit in players who frequently change names or smurf.
I dont understand why some people here like this idea or not against this phenomenon.
Why would you want anonymity?I dont see any good reason enough to ocunter the bad things that such freedom brings.
You have one user one nickname.Why allow for more..i still dont understand.

[Argh]

The excuse has always been, "newbies won't play us, if they know we're good", etc.

To me, that sounds like some serious whining. If you want to play, and nubs are all that's around... then advertise that you're looking for nubs to spank 3 on 1, or whatever. It's not like there aren't solutions for top-tier players. Oh, and they could also do something useful, like teach people how to play...

[Teutooni]

People might become hostile to noobs that lose teamgames because it affects their rank.

Team games with huge skill differences should be avoided anyway, imo. Newbies won't learn much nor have a good time getting stomped in 2 minutes.

Btw, has anyone tried reverse smurfing - a newbie playing with a high ingame account? A friend of mine tried BA for the first time with my account ([SmuG]Teutooni), and it was hilarious. All the "wtf, you suck" and "kick him plz", haha.

[Gota]

You dont need ranks for non ranked game results.
You need achivments.

[El Capitano]

lolAchievements...

"Death of 1000 cuts" - Kill an enemy comm using only fleas or scout units.

Acidd does a good job of giving people that

[Forboding Angel]

The excuse has always been, "newbies won't play us, if they know we're good", etc.

To me, that sounds like some serious whining. If you want to play, and nubs are all that's around... then advertise that you're looking for nubs to spank 3 on 1, or whatever. It's not like there aren't solutions for top-tier players. Oh, and they could also do something useful, like teach people how to play...

That's waht me and Drexion used to do back in the glory days of AA. 5 vs 2 on riverdale. Was a lot of fun

[TradeMark]

Btw, has anyone tried reverse smurfing - a newbie playing with a high ingame account? A friend of mine tried BA for the first time with my account ([SmuG]Teutooni), and it was hilarious. All the "wtf, you suck" and "kick him plz", haha.

lmao i do that with my own account