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Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 11 Sep 2010, 19:20
by Jazcash
So, currently, you gain ingame time just as easily as you do playing, speccing instead.

Could this be changed in some fashion? It's kind of silly that a player's rank should increase when all they have to do is sit and watch a game, or even go afk.

Hell, with the Autoquit widget, people can leave their PC's on all the time and keep gaining rank time. This isn't fair on those of us who play all the time trying to increase their rank :(

Maybe even just half the amount of ingame time for specs? So if you spec for an hour, you only get +30 mins onto your rank.

But again, it is a little frustrating seeing people just leave their accounts specced on a game whilst they go do other things for hours and hours.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 11 Sep 2010, 20:11
by luckywaldo7
What is the point of increasing your lobby rank? Compared to say, the league system in SC2, it is pretty much meaningless.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 11 Sep 2010, 20:22
by CarRepairer
Yeah, why do you care? Don't call it rank. Call it ingame-time. It's not a status symbol. It's just a number (well, icon) next to your name just like your flag or whatever. Springie hasn't used the server "rank" to balance in ages, it uses Elo rating. So it's virtually meaningless to Springie and SD users.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 11 Sep 2010, 20:26
by Jazcash
CarRepairer wrote:it's virtually meaningless to Springie and SD users.
But not to Spads which is the more popular hosting system. This is the primary reason I made this thread. Increased fuxoring of the balance system.

Regardless, 99% of people regard them as ranks, so they should at least act a little like ranks, surely?

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 11 Sep 2010, 20:53
by CarRepairer
Jazcash wrote:
CarRepairer wrote:it's virtually meaningless to Springie and SD users.
But not to Spads which is the more popular hosting system. This is the primary reason I made this thread. Increased fuxoring of the balance system.

Regardless, 99% of people regard them as ranks, so they should at least act a little like ranks, surely?
But they aren't really ranks. They just look like it because they use military ranks as symbols. What if I proposed that you enter your age and you were given a rank based on that. Or a rank based on your country flag. Ask the maker of SPADS to use a a real rank to balance instead of ingame-time.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 11 Sep 2010, 21:01
by zwzsg
Please exchange the meaningless time rank with meaningful elo then.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 11 Sep 2010, 21:48
by Peet
Is this the Spring community's version of Godwin's law or something?

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 12 Sep 2010, 15:01
by TheFatController
What if the people spectating are learning how to play better!

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 12 Sep 2010, 17:56
by CarRepairer
Add webcam support with face recognition to determine amount of time spectator is looking directly at the screen or not to report to server.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 12 Sep 2010, 18:10
by Jazcash
CarRepairer wrote:Add webcam support with face recognition to determine amount of time spectator is looking directly at the screen or not to report to server.

Code: Select all

If {(tits, onscreen)}
then {ingame+=500}
else{ingame++}

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 13 Sep 2010, 02:31
by Forboding Angel

Code: Select all

If {(notits, onscreen)}
then {spring.print("GTFO!")}
elseif{(tits, onscreen)}
then {ingame++}
Fixed.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 13 Sep 2010, 13:59
by AF
Then what do you do with my secret Shard lobby account with the custom rules thats been playing BA DSD on and off for the last 9 months?

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 13 Sep 2010, 15:48
by TradeMark
Spectators shouldnt get any ingame time IMO.

How many of you got better in playing football by watching the games on TV...? lol okay bad example... but its almost same.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 13 Sep 2010, 18:43
by Neddie
Peet wrote:Is this the Spring community's version of Godwin's law or something?
Pretty much.

Not replacing time ranks with a similarly though more deceptive inaccurate method of tracking "skill".
TradeMark wrote:Spectators shouldnt get any ingame time IMO.

How many of you got better in playing football by watching the games on TV...? lol okay bad example... but its almost same.
Thanks for your opinion. The example is incredibly dissimilar, which is why it is bad. Spectators can control their view point and see multiple levels of activity, from individual unit orders to mass unit flow. They can control the rate of playback to manipulate focus and change the scope of what they are analyzing. Now, spectating is hardly as useful as playing, but it is substantially different from and more useful than either watching on a television or beside the field of play.
CarRepairer wrote:Add webcam support with face recognition to determine amount of time spectator is looking directly at the screen or not to report to server.
Allow me to get my cardboard cutout of David Hasselhoff.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 14 Sep 2010, 01:30
by knorke
i like having the lowest rank ^ as a warning:
never played before, will either crash on load or not connect properly.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 25 Sep 2010, 18:12
by babbles
knorke wrote:i like having the lowest rank ^ as a warning:
never played before, will either crash on load or not connect properly.
Or I'm on SpringDownloader and I'm going to leave/rejoin 10 times, not say a word and still have map/mod download progress 0%

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 25 Sep 2010, 20:11
by Johannes
If you don't learn from spectating a good game it just means you're stupid or lazy or afk.

Maybe games with 10 or more players sholdnt give ingame time

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 25 Sep 2010, 20:16
by Krigsmaskin
I think many of you miss the entire point of ranks (ingame time); it's to prevent smurfing, nothing more.

When you set a rank limit to such and such you make it impossible for people to create an account on the fly and skew the autobalance. At the very worst it's highly impractical to spec multiple games just to get the minimum rank of many of the more popular servers, and even then the autobalance will put you closer to your actual skill level (which really is only semi related to your playtime).

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 25 Sep 2010, 21:01
by TradeMark
I dont know anyone who smurfs and doesnt have more than 1 or 2 accounts... they usually have at least 10 accounts which ranks are above or equal to silver star... So, it wont prevent real smurfs from joining your games.

If we want to kick all noobs off the game, Spring days are over. Yes, low rank doesnt equal smurf.

Re: Spectator's gaining ingame time

Posted: 25 Sep 2010, 22:48
by Krigsmaskin
If they have a silver star they aren't exactly smurfing now, are they? Certainly not to the extent that would be possible with no in game time recording.