Kills, Deaths and Score

[GoodOl'Ben]

Hey guys!

I'm currently feeling very revolutionary and radical, so bear with me here.

One thing that I've come to notice with MB2 from time to time is that we've looked at this game with blinds on for so long that we've made some really wonky decisions and solutions. One of my favorite pet peeves is kills and deaths.

STORY TIME!

Right now if you kill a soldier with 3 lives, you will get 0.3333333 kills out of this. In turn the dead soldier will receive 0.333333 deaths. The reasoning here a long time ago was that we had soldiers give off a kill only when their last life expired. Then people didn't like this as people often rushed for the last soldier and killing the previous lives were meaningless. Then we introduced the system of giving 0.3333 kills for this and deaths would amount to 0.3333 as well. Sounds about fair right? Yeah kinda great!

Let's go forward a few builds. People felt it was unfair for deaths to be tracked like this for solds. You might be alive at the end of the round but you might've still accumulated a death this round due to dying once and filling up your fractional death pool. This sucked.

We changed it so that the sold would have to lose all lives to get a death. Fair since a Jedi won't get a death for losing 50 HP during a round right? This lead to solds camping with their last lives which could sometimes frustrate players. As of late we have returned back to the system we had years back.

Often from new players I've heard confused questions like: "I killed a player but I didn't get a kill?" This got me thinking if we should think bigger.

For years now we've had a scoreboard that tracks score earned by players and it's a decent measure of a player's input and ranks people based on their score/round ratio. The score earned for kills uses fractional kills to a degree: Killing a soldier will give you 4 points, killing a jedi will give you 12 points. Great! The score system seems to be the best way of tracking a player's impact on the round and K/D is more like a nice-to-have thing on the side. So now's the time for the big question: What if we made all kills count as kills and a player is counted as dead when their last life is killed.

There are some really cool things that would happen from this.

• No newbie confusion regarding hidden kill/death tally mechanics
• Your K/D stats would look far nicer as a single-lifer
• A positive K/D will not be nearly as hard to achieve

Technically all the important valuation for a soldier's life is handled in score, so we could turn K/D to match actual kills and deaths. In similar fashion we can bloat assists to match this since assists also were tallied in fractions.

I'll put this change in if people like it.

 

[Apelsin]

Well score/rounds already determines the placement. Kills just give too many points compared to anything else, assists and objectives are comparatively worthless which I'd like to see changed.

I am concerned with visual representation. Game wants me to be successful at something and on the scoreboard the only explanation to this is a logical bind between K/D ratio and placement. With new score system an old scoreboard will be even messier, because none of that data will logically bind with alignment rule, which is sad (score/round ratio is still not very informative, because i'm an ordinary meatbag and i can't calculate XXX/XX type of digits in my mind).

 

[Hexodious]

I tend to agree, I personally favour it being Score/Rounds and the only thing to worry about being more score = better and Kills, Assists, whatever else shown in the personal stats area. And console messages displaying how much score you get for everything you do.

And later on having a simple clean kill feed instead of console showing in top left by default. More like counter strike combined with the (+x) next to it depending on points gained for what. Something like, a guy getting a kill and two guys assisting:

[Class Icon] Padawan[2] [Saber Icon] [Class Icon] Padawan[3] (-12)
[Class Icon] Apelsin [E-11 Icon] [Class Icon] Padawan (+12)
¬ [Class Icon] Hexodious [E-11 Icon] [Class Icon] Padawan (+10)
¬ [Class Icon] Padawan[2] [Push Icon] [Class Icon] Padawan (+10)
[Class Icon] Hexodious completed the primary Objective (+14)

Moving away from K/D being the most important stat is good.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

I am concerned with visual representation. Game wants me to be successful at something and on the scoreboard the only explanation to this is a logical bind between K/D ratio and placement. With new score system an old scoreboard will be even messier, because none of that data will logically bind with alignment rule, which is sad (score/round ratio is still not very informative, because i'm an ordinary meatbag and i can't calculate XXX/XX type of digits in my mind).

Good points. The fact that it's listed in such a complicated fashion is kind of awkward. The scoreboard is technically doing the sorting for you already as it will calculate people's score/round and order them based on that.

Perhaps instead of having scores and rounds listed like they are now, we create something else... Let's call it "Rating". Your rating is your Score per Round. This would make the value more tangible and simplified. My only concern here is that it doesn't exactly accumulate nicely. It will look fairly stationary already after the first round assuming your performance stays roughly the same as time progresses. What this will effectively do is show the current power rank of every player on the server, but what it won't show is how long has the player been playing which is great to take into account when measuring consistency.

MB2 can't exactly mime games like Overwatch for the scoreboard because the score for that game resets after each round and the player's results per round are carried over to the player's lootchest progress. What I like about showing both the score and rounds is that it gives a sense of accumulation and progression. You've been playing for 25 rounds and you've been this active in the game as a whole.

A rating system could look sexy. Perhaps the K/D stat next to it will help give sufficient context in terms of time spent playing?

 

[Apelsin]

Perhaps instead of having scores and rounds listed like they are now, we create something else... Let's call it "Rating". Your rating is your Score per Round. This would make the value more tangible and simplified. My only concern here is that it doesn't exactly accumulate nicely. It will look fairly stationary already after the first round assuming your performance stays roughly the same as time progresses. What this will effectively do is show the current power rank of every player on the server, but what it won't show is how long has the player been playing which is great to take into account when measuring consistency.

I just realised that biggest issue with rating will be it's punishing nature: rating's value will sometimes go up, but in every other situation it would go down and would be interpreted as "punishment" by everyone. Now I understand why it's not a story the Jedi would tell me.

I also understand why rating is implemented: it provides a competitive feeling most experienced players demands.

That's why I think that scoreboard alignment rule should spin around total score (= score, that remains during the match and resets with map change). Every inexperienced player (like me) will not be punished for inconsistent round activity and every hard-earned score point will stack during match and improve it's owner's position (and ego). Round counter should remain (to show how fast people earned their points). Top players will always get on top (i assume, they could climb very fast without any problem); people will get their own sense of progression. And, most importantly, there will be visual logical connection between alignment and fundamental gameplay value (current true logical connection is rating and it is hidden; false logical connection leads to K/D ratio).

This very simple UI change, but it can serve good (especially after score-system improvement), and it could de-emphasize an impact of k/d system by half.

Also, i don't suggest to force it, just ask to implement it and make it optional. Maybe bind command to a button which will switch alignment rules between current and suggested (let's call them "pro" and "casual")

 

[FRANK LAMPART]

@GoodOl'Ben @Hexodious

How does the current system work for gunners getting assists? Do they simply need to damage them before someone else grabs the kill?

 

[Gargos]

Ive grown to like this idea so I changed my vote to yes. I still do not mind the current system, to me it is fine.

 

[Hexodious]

How does the current system work for gunners getting assists? Do they simply need to damage them before someone else grabs the kill?

Yes. I believe there is something funky with Push's knockdown assist that keeps it above but apart from that, yes.

 

[MaceMadunusus]

MB2 can't exactly mime games like Overwatch for the scoreboard because the score for that game resets after each round and the player's results per round are carried over to the player's lootchest progress. What I like about showing both the score and rounds is that it gives a sense of accumulation and progression. You've been playing for 25 rounds and you've been this active in the game as a whole.

I think this goes into some discussion I brought up in private about what I was planning on doing with EC in terms of standardizing a range for the fraglimit. Still having multiple rounds, but giving a range for the fraglimit much like we do timelimit to have a standardized play period. Bring the bigger end-round scoreboard, cinematics into play, Give people that don't plan on playing for hours but want to play for a few rounds good starting/stopping points. You get the progression and accumulation, while simultaneously making it easier for people to understand other peoples scores by having a standardish window those scores can be achieved within. In addition to what you are saying about showing the physical average instead of people doing it in their head or guesstimating based off of scoreboard position of course.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

@GoodOl'Ben @Hexodious

How does the current system work for gunners getting assists? Do they simply need to damage them before someone else grabs the kill?

Last to deal damage takes precedence if no knockdowns are in play during death.

I just realised that biggest issue with rating will be it's punishing nature: rating's value will sometimes go up, but in every other situation it would go down and would be interpreted as "punishment" by everyone. Now I understand why it's not a story the Jedi would tell me.

I also understand why rating is implemented: it provides a competitive feeling most experienced players demands.

That's why I think that scoreboard alignment rule should spin around total score (= score, that remains during the match and resets with map change). Every inexperienced player (like me) will not be punished for inconsistent round activity and every hard-earned score point will stack during match and improve it's owner's position (and ego). Round counter should remain (to show how fast people earned their points). Top players will always get on top (i assume, they could climb very fast without any problem); people will get their own sense of progression. And, most importantly, there will be visual logical connection between alignment and fundamental gameplay value (current true logical connection is rating and it is hidden; false logical connection leads to K/D ratio).

This very simple UI change, but it can serve good (especially after score-system improvement), and it could de-emphasize an impact of k/d system by half.

Also, i don't suggest to force it, just ask to implement it and make it optional. Maybe bind command to a button which will switch alignment rules between current and suggested (let's call them "pro" and "casual")

It's a tricky road to tread indeed. With the system we currently have in play, technically a good player will be topping the scoreboard instantly. That is its strength. Its weakness is that it devalues time spent on the server as people will be able to jump to the top after one good round.

Whether time needs to be valued is another question.

One of MB2's strengths and weaknesses is the lack of structure. It gives players a very relaxed environment to play around in, but also weakens the sense of goals and diminishes the importance of success since there is no clear winner or loser.

This is kind of why the scoreboard revamp which was done back in the day turned out this way. A rating system didn't celebrate sustainable success and MB2's hop-in/hop-off aspect makes it hard to keep players on the same page.

bigger end-round scoreboard

This would definitely help. It does hurt the instant action and rapid flow of rounds if we had an end-round scoreboard.

Perhaps introducing an MVP system could be nice even?

Either way, there's a lot that can be explored and should be. Right now though my idea is to do small changes here and there as I'm not extremely confident I can pull off big stuff yet. This is essentially why I'm most interested in looking at just number tweaks with minimal UI/logic changes.

 

[Dra-Gon]

I think a general good spec is roughly this:

• All kills are equal: kills count as +1 kill
• Death repurposed to Defeat: losing your last life counts as a +1 Defeat
• Add better indicators for score earning: You killed Padawan (+12) (console feed only)

Honestly, I think the whole scoreboard UI needs a rework. It was sufficient in earlier versions (similar to base JKA), but now I think it should be reworked (for example by reducing font size, etc.). Right now, the scoreboard takes over a majority of my screen, but it is still quite hard to make sense of it, unless you play the game for a long time and got used to the mess

I did not write the above for no reason. Taking your idea to re-design 'death' to be 'defeat' - how would you achieve that? Unless you remake the scoreboard, it would still stay the same (there would be a column K/D) and the only mention of death being defeat now would be in changelog.
Having a column Kills/Defeats, instead of K/D would make the change obvious, instead of it looking like an old hag's tale or a troll bait.

Also, we did have such system, IIRC, in one of the beta versions - it was basically Kills and Deaths, but you got a death point if round ended in your loss. Honestly, I never understood why the +death for objective loss was removed, the change only led to people camping and losing objective, so their score was tarnished.

The console feed looks nice, though. Not something I would personally want, but it would be nice for me to see if I got assist for something, etc.

As for one kill = +1 kill point: I dunno. Some classes are simply far too easier to kill than other, so I think awarding +1 kill point for easy targets will decreaase the value of K / D in scoreboard. But if you guys want to diminish its importance and make it really a statistical thing and score to be the main thing, then I such change would be ok imo.

What about having the scoreboard like Name | Kills / Defeats | Score | Rounds | Rating with Rating being the Scores/Rounds average. Ordering would be from top-most score to lowest score per faction. The reason is that a player with highest score is the most valuable to said team - even if he is playing 20th round on that map. On the other hand, ordering scoreboard by rating would lead to a player joining first round and having a lucky streak (e.g. 5 kills) seem like he is one of the most valuable players.
Thus I think:

• Score should be the top stat by which players are ordered in the scoreboard. It tells how the player contributed to the game on said map
• Show rounds so we know how many rounds the player has played.
• Rating would be displayed for players so they see how much a player contributes each round. Then they have to determine on their own if the Rating holds good information about that player or not - a rating would have different 'impact value' for a player that has rating 40, because he got score 80 in 2 rounds, or a rating 36 for a player that had score 720 in 20 rounds.
• Kills / Defeat written in full name, so a K/D is not being mistaken for Kills/Deaths

As mentioned only damage and knockdowns give kills at the moment:

• Grip someone and they get sniped before it ticks for hp damage, no assist.
• Mblock someone and they get shot, no assist.
• Domino someone and a jedi kills them all, you get 1 assist for the primary knockdown and nothing for the domino.
• Drain all fp and someone else snipes them, no assist.
• Drain all bp and someone else sabers them, no assist.

Is it even possible for MBII to track these things without it having a high performance impact because of the statistical data gathering?

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

What about having the scoreboard like Name | Kills / Defeats | Score | Rounds | Rating with Rating being the Scores/Rounds average.

This is definitely the best assuming everything fits.

Perhaps even adding a dynamic for the scoreboard that it highlights players with high ratings. An "On Fire" indicator of sorts.

Is it even possible for MBII to track these things without it having a high performance impact because of the statistical data gathering?

As long as it is handled right, yes. It would require a lot of refactoring to make it optimal though.

Basically a lot of new instances of re-assigning the "assister" on the player entity if certain conditions are met. This is surprisingly lightweight. The real challenge is prioritizing them.

 

[Mr_Oujamaflip]

Remove death tracking. All it does is make you feel bad.

 

[Chaos the Chaotic]

?

Uh, makes me want to do better. But hey, if this is the time where everyone gets a trophy.....

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

What even is this thread.

The K/D system works demonstrably fine as it is. We should be focusing on balancing the damned game properly.

 

[KaineMAF]

What even is this thread.

The K/D system works demonstrably fine as it is. We should be focusing on balancing the damned game properly.

How is this at all related to the thread? If you have nothing of importance to say on the threads topic, don't speak.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

My two cents of 'importance' are that we should be focusing more upon fixing the actual gameplay first, before overhauling systems that already work perfectly well.

 

[Lessen]

My two cents of 'importance' are that we should be focusing more upon fixing the actual gameplay first, before overhauling systems that already work perfectly well.

I Liked this is agreement but i'm also now super fond of where the gameplay is (except maybe saber vs saber which i am still very inexperienced at and incapable of passing real judgment on).

(and maybe wookiee rage but maybe i don't mind even that anymore)

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

My two cents of 'importance' are that we should be focusing more upon fixing the actual gameplay first, before overhauling systems that already work perfectly well.

Assuming I'm into doing demanding projects like that.

 

[KaineMAF]

My two cents of 'importance' are that we should be focusing more upon fixing the actual gameplay first, before overhauling systems that already work perfectly well.

Again, how is this important to the threads topic? If you don't have anything relevant to say on the threads topic, do not speak. You don't see me going into threads and trying to derail them because my problem is more important than the threads topic.

 

[eezstreet]

Again, how is this important to the threads topic? If you don't have anything relevant to say on the threads topic, do not speak. You don't see me going into threads and trying to derail them because my problem is more important than the threads topic.

I don't think what he said is really irrelevant. He's just saying "why are we focusing on this, there are other areas of importance?" -- which is fair.