Spring RTS Engine

I think that for the first few versions there should be no rankings or points while you guys are bugfixing, and balance issues are being dealt with. But once v1.0 comes out I think it should work like this; there are two kinds of multiplayer games;
Skirmish
Custom

Custom has no ranking attached to it, and should have a system such as that of warcraft III - therefore this is mainly designed for mods and the like. You can host games, join specific games, and put passwords on your games if you should wish.

In skirmish you start with zero points. Your level is calculated by your points, multiplied by the percent of games you have won. So 50 points, with 60% wins means 50x0.6 = level 30

Skirmish
In a skirmish, each team has the same number of players. You tick a box if you'd like to be paired as allies with others from your clan if possible.

You can choose before you start your maps of preference, your prefered resources (1000, 2000, 3000 or 4000), your prefered number of teams (2, 3, 4, or FFA) and your prefered number of players (2 through to 12 or whatever SY thinks the player limit should be)

Now, the game chooses your settings for you based on what you and other people want, but doesn't just average all the values. It picks the most popular settings for each attribute, and only if two or more are equally popular does it take the average of them. The exception for this is number of players.
For this it considers both the most popular settings and the average of all the settings, then takes the average of this, and then can randomly skew it one or two to either side. This ensures you get a good mix of big and small games.

When playing a skirmish, it does not try to match players together with similar settings, but with similar level.

When you win a game, your teams total level is added up.
You each gain 2 points, plus your team gains 1 point divided equally among every member of the team for each 1 point your opponents are higher than you.
So if it's just you, level 6, versus your opponent, level 8, and you win, you gain 4 points.
But if it's you, level 6, your ally level 7, and your two opponents both level 8 then your team has a total of 13, and your opponents 16. So you EACH get (2 points) + (half of 3), making three and half points each.

If you lose you don't lose points, but you do get a lower percentage of games won, thus lowering your level.

Now, you only get a win if your team actually wins, so in a three or four team game it is harder to get wins. Therefore, we need seperate points, levels and wins for each game type - 2, 3, 4 and FFA respectively.

Well thats what I think! Give me some feedback, hopefully i'm at least on the right track!

You seem to have thought this out fairly thoroughly, but one problem I've spotted is that points system just create elitism in some players who exclude noobs, if its just for torny's then its ok, I just wouldn't want to not be allowed to play with people cause I've just started playing.

What do you mean?

Ever played on Zone?

nope. I have no idea what that is. My TA multiplayer never worked.

Yes, but you can get points even if the player is a noob, and so why would you not play them? It would be easy points.

The type of person that don't play cause he thinks the other guys a noob is a wanker anyway, and he would not play them if this system was included or not.

IMHO

aGorm

I also disagree with any planned ranking system for TA.

It serves no purpose whatsover, but to increase elitism and exclusion.

However, it would be kinda cool to see carry over statistics, so that you can create an online 'account' of sorts, which keeps track of all your statistics, so it continually logs units killed, losses, etc.
(So after several months of gameplay, you'd see people playing with millions of kills under their belt... )

I am wary of my own system. It would be a cool little idea that could make things fun, but it could create exclusionism just as Doomweaver's idea.

I don't think a kills loses record would create any problems, but if we made it private ie you can see yours and other people can if allowed, then you could have kills/loses to different players listed.

Then we'll see the better player smokey, Mwuahahahhahaha.

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra wrote:... that points system just create elitism in some players who exclude noobs ...

Warlord Zsinj wrote:... increase elitism and exclusion...

Consider the fact that many players in TA really hate playing to newbies and even get to the point of insulting people that doesn't play well enough...

I saw that very often. And the more often the better the players were.

On the other hand, there were those players that were nice and didn't insulted but even those were constantly complaining that they wouldn't find players good enough to play against...

I, for myself, almost never minded crushing some newbies. Although sometimes i hoped to find players that would give a chalenging fight...

The idea is that in the above system, you cannot choose your opponent, so you cannot exclude n00bs.

you should be able to choose ur opponents.

When I see Warcraft 3, I don't thing it's a good idea.
I'v played some game on battle.net (I think 300+) and it's very hard to make knowledge. And people a rude too.
Spring, at least the first year, will be a small comunity. It's better to speak with each other to find a game.
And we will not plas versus "aGorm" but with the "first player on the serveur" or with one "2000+ points"...
Keep spring Fun, and don't take a big head with your ranking.

However, it would be kinda cool to see carry over statistics, so that you can create an online 'account' of sorts, which keeps track of all your statistics, so it continually logs units killed, losses, etc.

I think i could be very funny :)

Sorry for my crappy english

You can, look what hes saying is this:

You have two options in the client. Either play a skrimish in the big war, like on the original boneyards, or just pick an oponent like normal.

If you want to play a certain person you can in his "custom" option.

If you just want a game, and would like to get some points, then you'd chose the "skermish" option.

**NOTE: There his names not mine i think that there a bit confusable myself...**

I think I might have a better way though (based on his ideas)

First, the points should be a percentage figure of some sort, but not just based on wins and losses... so you could lose several matches and still be 100%. This means people cant go and get 1000's more points than other people.
Then:
Insted of it just choseing your opponents for you, it will take you to a similar chat room as the custom one. Here you would be given a list of games that you can join bassed on your lvl. All games would have a mix of good and bad players, and the games would open and close to you depending on who was currently in them. So say a game had 3 under 40% people and 3 over 80% people, it would then close to those people till it got a couple of 40% to 80% people in the game.

This means that noobs can learn form the pro's, and the pro's wont get bord because as the game goes on it will only be the good players left in the game, who will be chalange enough to keep them happy.

After the game points are adjusted and your percantage is reworked out (with a similar system to Doomweavers) but, obviosly a 100% cant go over 100%.

That should be fairer.

Thoughts? Comments? Feel free to slag me off...

aGorm

sounds intresting. is there going to be a way of playing direct through tcp/ip?

WillRiker wrote:sounds intresting. is there going to be a way of playing direct through tcp/ip?

Is there other choice that TCP/IP? (yes you can use UDP, but for an rts it isn't very good)

I liked the way Ensemble Studios implemented point systems in the Age of-series.
Don't see why it should have to create elitism or exclude anyone, if it does that is due to players' attitude.
I'd welcome playing a "noob" if he was friendly, just as I would happily play with a better player to learn from him/her.
The way the score system would work is you would gain/lose points proportionally to how difficult your oppoent(s) is meaning you don't have to play loads of games just to change it. The score would also decay with time unless you play(to keep any possible ranking list "clean"), say from 1900 to 1700 after 3 months of inactivity.

Way to ambitous. TA Spring will never be enough popular for such system to work. I mean, I'll already consider myself very lucky if I can find one sole player wanting a game in the same time as me. Believing there will so many people that you'll need such automated opponent finder is pure fantasy.


That said, if a system of ranking is ever worked on, what I would like is too have more than just a number of point stored with the profile. It would be nice to store all the end statics (M produced, kill, loses, etc...) for every game. That way, you could just select different ranking system as easily as changing skin, and also it an update to the ranking system is needed, you can recalculate it for past games.

MUHHAHHAHAHAHHA I shall create evil chat bots that start games then leave as soon as you start spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

all games are done via IP to a single host. i *think* its udp within spring, but im not too sure.

no no no UDP would lead to a greater risk of packet loss, meanwhile tcp sessions would lead to RDDOS vulnerabilities