To Fix Competitive Multiplayer...

[joebthegreat]

1. Automatic sorting of players by a social rating system. Place similarly inclined players together, so that if you make an effort to be pleasant, you will play with other people like that. If you're an immature twat, the same holds true. Social rating can be done during or at the end of games, when you can upvote or downvote any number of other players, ally or enemy.

Grief downvoting. Or otherwise downvoting someone for reasons other than them being disrespectful in game, such as them just happening, through the course of the game, to run into and kill you often. Also, I really think if someone's legitimately griefing or otherwise ruining the game for people they should be hit with warnings, probation's, and bans from the server as a better method.

2. To challenge good players and protect bad players, never forget a regular rating system either. Automatic rating systems are nice, but even if your multiplayer has privately hosted game lobbies, show a rating.

3. Make sure automatic rating systems reward team play and punish selfish play. Games are rarely so similar that the same rating system can be used for each one. Appropriately tailor your system.

I've seen this done nicely with a point based system (in both MAG and TF2). So you DO have a Kill to Death ratio, but it isn't flaunted. What IS flaunted is how many points you get overall, so completing an objective is as good as killing dudes. Healing someone is as useful as killing dudes. And killing dudes is still useful, even if you die killing so many dudes, because your death's aren't necessarily going to hurt your points. While that's fun, I don't quite understand how you would reward or punish someone based on those points, the points are the reward. (Or is that what you were saying?)

4. Limit communication? A blunt, ugly solution, but one that might work. No free voice chat, no free text chat; only preset strategic/tactical communication. Any non-gameplay communication is unnecessary for teamwork, and communication with enemies is usually used for mocking in my experience. I won't defend this one, just thought I'd throw it out there.

I've seen this done and it's been a TERRIBLE idea. Allow me to talk to who I'm playing, otherwise it's no better than just playing a hard AI. Allow me to speak English to my teammates to explain what's going on, rather than try and work out a system of pictures. Communication is VERY necessary for teamwork and mocking/jokes aren't what ruin the game, people screaming into the mic or playing music over the mic is what ruins the game.

In any case I don't find competitive online multiplayer to be broken. It's just a kind of gameplay that not everybody enjoys.

 

[Zantos]

Your ideas are good in principle, however the whole principle is entirely subjective. For some people (such as myself) shouting and swearing is all part of the immersion and enjoyment. Others don't like this and prefer to play in a quieter and less aggressive environment. The second group would be unhappy with the first for their loud and aggressive nature, and the first would be unhappy with the second for the complaints which ruin their gaming experience. But I ramble, so to the point.

I think a good way to manage multiplayer would be on an opt out basis. It starts off with everyone in a big mix where matches are assigned based on wherever there is space at the time, basically like now. You introduce a tier system in which there are 3 tiers. Number one is for those who want quiet chatter with only serious tactical talk over the headset. Number 2 is for the bulk majority of people who just want to have a noisey yet enjoyable game, where celebrations are heard for excellent kills but everyone is friendly if not a little rowdy which would be the default setting. Finally there is tier 3, for those who cannot be named (because their gamertag contains words which are illegal to say in some countries) where people who cannot go more than 30 seconds without making a comment without any basis in truth about romantic congress with other players maternal figures.

I would like to say we trust people to choose which tier they go into accordingly, however this is not the case, so instead we have a complaints system. If the tiers are being used correctly then this does not affect gameplay as you just leave it be, however if you should so wish you can flag a player for innappropriate conduct. If someone is complained against by too high a proportion of other players in the match repeatedly they are banned from that tier and may only play in the tiers above (i.e. someone opting in to tier 1 that recieves too many complaints will only be allowed to play in tier 2 or 3, and if you get too many complaints in tier 2 you can only play in tier 3). If you are found to offensive for even the tier 3 players your ingame chat privelidge is removed.

It may be a slightly longer waiting time to join a game in tier 1 or 3, as i imagine most players would be in 2, however if you cannot treat others with the respect to leave their mothers out of gameplay, or if you cannot abide by others enjoying their game then the extra time to find a lobby of like minded individuals who you can enjoy your gaming with its a small price to pay.

OR FOR THE TERMINALLY LAZY (since there is far more text than i intended):

Start all players off in noisey but somewhat innoffensive group. Those who want to play a quiet game where all communication is polite and serious tactical talk can opt to go in a quiet group. Those who just enjoy insulting others can freely opt to only play with others who feel likewise. People misusing groups (as voted by people who can complain about particularly offensive players at the end of matches) are banned from that group until team chat privelidges are removed.

 

[SomethingGiant]

TO ALL: sorry about #4, can we just forget it ever existed? It's a terrible idea, but I thought maybe someone else would appreciate it.

But competitive multiplayer sucks.

Is the opinion of the minority

1) would be extremely hard to implement and really how would you even do it without completely pissing off your customer base.

2)Ok that would work. Except of course if you want to play with a bunch of your friends who are all of varying skill levels.

3) Alot of games already do this. You get more points for actually doing the objectives then just running around and killing each other, this is an incentive to actually win.

4) Unless your goal is to bankrupt yourself and not sell any games then no sane person would implement this.

Well, it's just my opinion. I don't speak for the majority, and neither do you.

2. There are workarounds, but yeah, that IS a problem. I know that League of Legends has a fairly complicated rating system when playing with friends, but it isn't very good in my experience.

3. Yes, but a separation between individual objectives and winning is important. Having a high K/D isn't necessarily good if all you do is steal kills and give away the position of your teammates.

Developers should have the bravery to not aim to please assholes. And what the hell are you doing citing profits like that in this forum? Would you rather have a profitable game company or a good game experience? Strive for the best, man.

1. Automated systems can be worked around, gamed, played like a harmonica and griefers will find a way. Human beings know exactly when they're being frustrated or bothered. If a disruptive player manages to do his thing without any players noticing, then the system has succeeded.

3. I'm no programmer, but I think even I could handle a multi-tiered rating system with a little preliminary research and willingness to patch bugs.

The social rating system is NOT complicated. It needs only a simple formula and simple UI. Player input is always a good thing, and it will complement the skill system if anything.

You'd be a terrible company if you were like "Fuck profits, we want nice people" and then you go bankrupt servers shut down, and you'll never make another game again.

1. Players that get frustrated also have the option to leave, mute, vote to kick, ignore, and play another game. I doubt they'll care to fill out a survey, or even at the end of a match go into a menu, find the players name out of the list of players, click "RATE PLAYER" and then click a check box for positive or negative. And more annoyingly if it had an automated system that took the best in score and worst in score and asked you to rate just them. The system would be abused to no end -anyway-. People would use the system to be dicks to people not good at the game. OH YOU'RE HORRIBLE I'MA RATE YOU NEGATIVELY. ....It's just silly. You're really pushing a perfect world scenario. A world where people are fair and just, and willing to go out of their way to make things better. sadly on the internet nobody cares

Look at it like Communism.

3. Try it. See how it goes. Create a unique rating system that rates people based on binary votes from players based on their experiences with others. Then make that binary vote count for something you store in a database in some numeric form. Then have that numeral coincide with who they play with, as they have to have the same numeral. Then have that work in tandem with a skill rating system, where you need to match a range of numbers in the social rating, with a range of numbers in the skill rating. And don't forget you'll need to program how to get skill rating, and just winning won't cut it. Because winning would mean you can carry people. It has to be an intricate process of damage, kills, deaths, objectives, wins, losses, accuracy, all that fun. THEN on top of all of that. you need to program a teamwork rating. A rating that will show how well this personw orks as a team. You'll need to program that into a numeric value based on any given number of variables you deem important. That one may be optional for who you play with. But you'll still need to program it to get the value to show other players. You'll also need to program the entire system on how it all works together and evaluated by said system.

...It's good on paper, I won't say it's not. However, it -is- complicated to implement. Plus people are lazy. You're going to have to make a few compromises in order for it to work effectively, and not go bankrupt. It's very delicate.

You'd be a terrible business if you didn't care about profits, but that doesn't mean your craftsmanship or art is bad. Many people struggle to feed themselves with their art, does that mean they shouldn't strive to make better art? The Escapist is not for people who care about money, it's for people who care about games.

1. Just because you can't imagine a decent UI for this doesn't mean it can't exist. It's in a conceptual state right now, leave specifics to whoever implements it. We can't really do more than discuss whether or not it's something we should be aiming for. The scenario you mentioned will happen at some point, and the result you mentioned would be fair. If someone gets negative ratings, it's because other people don't want to play with them. Never mind why, if you can show that you're fun to play with, people will rate you higher; and as long as you have a functional skill rating system too, that sort of skill disparity shouldn't be common enough that it makes much of a difference to peoples' ratings. What you missed in that scenario is that if someone is obviously raging without reasonable cause, they'll get voted down even more. They're a negative influence, they're nasty to be around, and as a result they'll be relegated to Social Rating Hell.

3. No, but you'll see it if I ever make a game

[
1. The problem with that system in Savage 2 is simply that the game offers a scapegoat naturally. Equality in the potential influence of players in reaching goals is the solution. Flaws may be unavoidable, but striving for perfection is a fool's errand anyways. What we CAN do is improve on the non-existent current system in many popular games.

2. HoN could take steps to solve this by introducing automated matchmaking and a hidden rating system. The developers implemented rating poorly, but that says nothing about the viability of rating, just like an upside down chair doesn't mean that chairs are useless.

You basically want two ratings to be implemented, one measuring your personal rating on whether you are an asshole or not, and another measuring your skill. Now, ripping off DnD's character alignment, that would be nine different rating sectors that would be divided into sectors for individual players (Friendly Skilled, Neutral Skilled, "Asshole" Skilled, Friendly Decent, etc), and that is assuming you have three different types of rating for each one. In games that have an insane amount of people playing, this would be feasible, but I doubt it would be that great on games with lower people playing. It would certainly make match-making longer, that's for sure.

The thing with a social rating is that a person being an "asshole" or not is very subjective to each player. A player that is frustrated with his team and tries to tell them to do the right thing to do can be considered an asshole by some, while others see his actions as being justified, regardless if he is an asshole to everyone or not. There just seems to be too many factors that cannot be considered by a rating system.

Nice comparison, it is very much like D&D alignment. Regular rating systems match you within a range on a sliding rating system and that saves a lot of time when matchmaking. That said, a two-pronged rating system will take longer to process information, but I think it's a reasonable trade-off if player experience is better.

Players that express their frustration in frustrating ways are going to be voted to the bottom, like they should. The cream will rise to the top, and if you make it there you'll likely have a much better experience. There is only one factor: your impression on your teammates. That's it. Fun to play with? High rating. Not fun? Low rating.

1. Automatic sorting of players by a social rating system. Place similarly inclined players together, so that if you make an effort to be pleasant, you will play with other people like that. If you're an immature twat, the same holds true. Social rating can be done during or at the end of games, when you can upvote or downvote any number of other players, ally or enemy.

Grief downvoting. Or otherwise downvoting someone for reasons other than them being disrespectful in game, such as them just happening, through the course of the game, to run into and kill you often. Also, I really think if someone's legitimately griefing or otherwise ruining the game for people they should be hit with warnings, probation's, and bans from the server as a better method.

2. To challenge good players and protect bad players, never forget a regular rating system either. Automatic rating systems are nice, but even if your multiplayer has privately hosted game lobbies, show a rating.

3. Make sure automatic rating systems reward team play and punish selfish play. Games are rarely so similar that the same rating system can be used for each one. Appropriately tailor your system.

I've seen this done nicely with a point based system (in both MAG and TF2). So you DO have a Kill to Death ratio, but it isn't flaunted. What IS flaunted is how many points you get overall, so completing an objective is as good as killing dudes. Healing someone is as useful as killing dudes. And killing dudes is still useful, even if you die killing so many dudes, because your death's aren't necessarily going to hurt your points. While that's fun, I don't quite understand how you would reward or punish someone based on those points, the points are the reward. (Or is that what you were saying?)

4. Limit communication? A blunt, ugly solution, but one that might work. No free voice chat, no free text chat; only preset strategic/tactical communication. Any non-gameplay communication is unnecessary for teamwork, and communication with enemies is usually used for mocking in my experience. I won't defend this one, just thought I'd throw it out there.

I've seen this done and it's been a TERRIBLE idea. Allow me to talk to who I'm playing, otherwise it's no better than just playing a hard AI. Allow me to speak English to my teammates to explain what's going on, rather than try and work out a system of pictures. Communication is VERY necessary for teamwork and mocking/jokes aren't what ruin the game, people screaming into the mic or playing music over the mic is what ruins the game.

In any case I don't find competitive online multiplayer to be broken. It's just a kind of gameplay that not everybody enjoys.

1. Grief downvoting is a legitimate concern, but it might not seriously affect anyone. If the rating system is changed so that single ratings from players in one game are almost inconsequential but multiple ratings get exponentially more significant, that would almost completely eliminate grief downvoting. Warnings, probations, and bans take a lot of time to process manually and are impersonal, and so less accurate. Somebody swore. Was it a joke? Was it in good humour? Was it a vicious insult? Griefers are separated from the rest of us by a fine line, and only the people directly affected by them should have the power to pass judgment.

3. MAG and TF2 definitely took steps in the right direction. I'd personally change some of their conditions for gaining points, but they set a good example. The points would directly affect your rating. More points = higher rating, implying you are a player that is more likely to win games.

 

[archvile93]

too open to abuse

I'm intrigued, where have you seen this? I think any well designed system can avoid abuse fairly easily, and the abuse you've seen is the result of bad design, but tell me what you know!

I'm not going to site specific examples since I've never seen a game that allows you to rate the pleasentness of other players (the closest I've seen is the kick option you get when someone betrays you in Halo), but can you honestly tell me that nobody is going to give you an incredibly negative score no matter how nice you are simply because they're a dick? Maybe I'm just too cynical, but my belief is that the only people who will use it are the ones that see someone not just cross the line but jump a car over it evil keneval style, or are dicks who just want to make the lives of everyone around them less pleasent.

 

[Kiju]

1) Trolls and dickwads will take it upon themselves to downvote everyone that's nice, and upvote their dickish friends so they get put in the 'niceguys' matches, and vice-versa.

2) Rating..what? Skill? Kills-per-second? Average kill-to-death ratio?

3) Interesting idea, but again, it's relatively flawed. People that are really good at the game can get to a certain point, then purposely start to fail at the game so their rating lowers, and they get put in easy matches.

4) I've thought about this myself, and my only solution is: No general voicechat. Only allow having squad-based chat, where you can talk to only your squadmates. Maybe you could have a squad-vote, where all squadleaders can talk to each other, but only if every squad leader agrees to this unanimously.

The only way you can really help to balance multiplayer combat is to give each player no advantage, and no disadvantage via equipment and starting area. Sure, there will sometimes be gaps in skill, but there is pretty much nothing you can change due to that. Equipment rating systems won't work, because good players will simply use bad equipment so they're put in matches with new players, for instance. A good example is something like, say...Bad Company 2, where you unlock better equipment, and yet get stuck in matches with people that have starter equipment. This? It is unfair to new players, and needs to be removed in my opinion...or to be made so that there isn't such a large gap in equipment level between a new player, and one that has unlocked everything.

Online multiplayer, in my opinion, will never be really, truly balanced. Why? Because while the new players are usually playing it just for the fun of it, there are people out there that will do whatever it takes to get the easy kill, the highest score, and the top of the list. Cheating/hacking, exploiting the game's quirks and flaws, using strategies that are unfair and weren't intended by the game's designers (planting landmines on a point so the other team can't disable a bomb, for instance), or using the "best" equipment/class in their game of choice to do this, nothing is below them. Trust me...

 

[SomethingGiant]

too open to abuse

I'm intrigued, where have you seen this? I think any well designed system can avoid abuse fairly easily, and the abuse you've seen is the result of bad design, but tell me what you know!

I'm not going to site specific examples since I've never seen a game that allows you to rate the pleasentness of other players (the closest I've seen is the kick option you get when someone betrays you in Halo), but can you honestly tell me that nobody is going to give you an incredibly negative score no matter how nice you are simply because they're a dick? Maybe I'm just too cynical, but my belief is that the only people who will use it are the ones that see someone just really take it a step too far, or are dicks who just want to make the lives of everyone around them less pleasent.

I could tell you that nobody is going to abuse the rating system, but that would be a baseless statement with no supporting evidence, just as any other conjecture about how people will actually use the system. I think it's worth a try at least, and I hope this thread inspires a game designer to try it before I have the opportunity to.

 

[archvile93]

too open to abuse

I'm intrigued, where have you seen this? I think any well designed system can avoid abuse fairly easily, and the abuse you've seen is the result of bad design, but tell me what you know!

I'm not going to site specific examples since I've never seen a game that allows you to rate the pleasentness of other players (the closest I've seen is the kick option you get when someone betrays you in Halo), but can you honestly tell me that nobody is going to give you an incredibly negative score no matter how nice you are simply because they're a dick? Maybe I'm just too cynical, but my belief is that the only people who will use it are the ones that see someone just really take it a step too far, or are dicks who just want to make the lives of everyone around them less pleasent.

I could tell you that nobody is going to abuse the rating system, but that would be a baseless statement with no supporting evidence, just as any other conjecture about how people will actually use the system. I think it's worth a try at least, and I hope this thread inspires a game designer to try it before I have the opportunity to.

Well I'm just telling you my personal experiences with people. They will usually only act on something if they don't like it or want to be dicks. That's why there are rarely any posistive writings in newspapers editorials. One more thing, please re-read my previous post. I edited it to have a much funnier crossing the line analogy.

 

[oplinger]

You'd be a terrible business if you didn't care about profits, but that doesn't mean your craftsmanship or art is bad. Many people struggle to feed themselves with their art, does that mean they shouldn't strive to make better art? The Escapist is not for people who care about money, it's for people who care about games.

1. Just because you can't imagine a decent UI for this doesn't mean it can't exist. It's in a conceptual state right now, leave specifics to whoever implements it. We can't really do more than discuss whether or not it's something we should be aiming for. The scenario you mentioned will happen at some point, and the result you mentioned would be fair. If someone gets negative ratings, it's because other people don't want to play with them. Never mind why, if you can show that you're fun to play with, people will rate you higher; and as long as you have a functional skill rating system too, that sort of skill disparity shouldn't be common enough that it makes much of a difference to peoples' ratings. What you missed in that scenario is that if someone is obviously raging without reasonable cause, they'll get voted down even more. They're a negative influence, they're nasty to be around, and as a result they'll be relegated to Social Rating Hell.

3. No, but you'll see it if I ever make a game

I don't appreciate those assumptions being plugged into that first bit. Are you saying I don't belong on The Escapist? That's sort of uncalled for, even if it's a nice way of putting GTFO.

In the short term, yeah, making a better game is what you want. In the long run? If you don't pull in cash, you're not going to have the resources to make anything better. A painter needs to buy paint, yes? Well if his paintings never sell, and he has no other job...How can he buy paints? He can't. So he'll paint with ketchup. It's severely sub-par for the art he wants to create.

You care about a very narrow part of a much larger picture. You want great games, but companies can just die in a fire? Who will make those games then? Indie devs? Oh that'll be a riot. Companies need profits to continue development. Plain and simple. You have an idea for a game, you have to make a few compromises in order to make profits, stay afloat, and continue paying workers to patch and add new content to the game. Really -that- isn't complicated.

So if you care about games. How about the people that make them? They need to be there for your games to care about.

Now...

1. Nevermind -why- they're taking a chunk out of your social rating? As subjective as it is, I think a good why needs to be there. It will affect who you play with after all, which affects your experience. Bad idea. Not to mention if you're not playing the game exactly how someone else thinks you should be playing, you will be down rated socially, and play with a different group of people. Why should we subject the player base to that? Moral correctness? Having connection issues? Down ranked. Didn't kill that guy fast enough? Down ranked. Got killed while grabbing the flag? Down ranked. Told some 12 year old to commit suicide because his mom didn't have the abortion soon enough? Up ranked.

The system is flawed. And in that respect, utterly meaningless.

 

[SomethingGiant]

too open to abuse

I'm intrigued, where have you seen this? I think any well designed system can avoid abuse fairly easily, and the abuse you've seen is the result of bad design, but tell me what you know!

I'm not going to site specific examples since I've never seen a game that allows you to rate the pleasentness of other players (the closest I've seen is the kick option you get when someone betrays you in Halo), but can you honestly tell me that nobody is going to give you an incredibly negative score no matter how nice you are simply because they're a dick? Maybe I'm just too cynical, but my belief is that the only people who will use it are the ones that see someone just really take it a step too far, or are dicks who just want to make the lives of everyone around them less pleasent.

I could tell you that nobody is going to abuse the rating system, but that would be a baseless statement with no supporting evidence, just as any other conjecture about how people will actually use the system. I think it's worth a try at least, and I hope this thread inspires a game designer to try it before I have the opportunity to.

Well I'm just telling you my personal experiences with people. They will usually only act on something if they don't like it or want to be dicks. That's why there are rarely any posistive writings in newspapers editorials. One more thing, please re-read my previous post. I edited it to have a much funnier crossing the line analogy.

I know where you're coming from, but a system like this has the potential to form a self-correcting community. It might even attract players who have shied away from competitive gaming because of the stigma surrounding the stereotypical online gamer.

You'd be a terrible business if you didn't care about profits, but that doesn't mean your craftsmanship or art is bad. Many people struggle to feed themselves with their art, does that mean they shouldn't strive to make better art? The Escapist is not for people who care about money, it's for people who care about games.

1. Just because you can't imagine a decent UI for this doesn't mean it can't exist. It's in a conceptual state right now, leave specifics to whoever implements it. We can't really do more than discuss whether or not it's something we should be aiming for. The scenario you mentioned will happen at some point, and the result you mentioned would be fair. If someone gets negative ratings, it's because other people don't want to play with them. Never mind why, if you can show that you're fun to play with, people will rate you higher; and as long as you have a functional skill rating system too, that sort of skill disparity shouldn't be common enough that it makes much of a difference to peoples' ratings. What you missed in that scenario is that if someone is obviously raging without reasonable cause, they'll get voted down even more. They're a negative influence, they're nasty to be around, and as a result they'll be relegated to Social Rating Hell.

3. No, but you'll see it if I ever make a game

I don't appreciate those assumptions being plugged into that first bit. Are you saying I don't belong on The Escapist? That's sort of uncalled for, even if it's a nice way of putting GTFO.

In the short term, yeah, making a better game is what you want. In the long run? If you don't pull in cash, you're not going to have the resources to make anything better. A painter needs to buy paint, yes? Well if his paintings never sell, and he has no other job...How can he buy paints? He can't. So he'll paint with ketchup. It's severely sub-par for the art he wants to create.

You care about a very narrow part of a much larger picture. You want great games, but companies can just die in a fire? Who will make those games then? Indie devs? Oh that'll be a riot. Companies need profits to continue development. Plain and simple. You have an idea for a game, you have to make a few compromises in order to make profits, stay afloat, and continue paying workers to patch and add new content to the game. Really -that- isn't complicated.

So if you care about games. How about the people that make them? They need to be there for your games to care about.

Now...

1. Nevermind -why- they're taking a chunk out of your social rating? As subjective as it is, I think a good why needs to be there. It will affect who you play with after all, which affects your experience. Bad idea. Not to mention if you're not playing the game exactly how someone else thinks you should be playing, you will be down rated socially, and play with a different group of people. Why should we subject the player base to that? Moral correctness? Having connection issues? Down ranked. Didn't kill that guy fast enough? Down ranked. Got killed while grabbing the flag? Down ranked. Told some 12 year old to commit suicide because his mom didn't have the abortion soon enough? Up ranked.

The system is flawed. And in that respect, utterly meaningless.

I'm saying that this is the wrong place to discuss business models. Please stay, but don't stay to reject ideas based on bad business, because that's not what The Escapist is about. Actualization takes finance, but inspiration is not borne on the wings of dollar bills.

In the long term, making a better game is exactly what I want. I only need money in the short term to be able to accomplish that. Artists should have enough respect for their work that they can reject using it to make money, and instead strive to fulfill their creative needs.

I think the idea of games as a business directly conflicts with the idea of games as art. Yes, some artists make enough money to sustain themselves with nothing but their art, but those people are rare and incredibly talented. The world simply doesn't have consumption needs grand enough to sustain the game industry if it starts producing art instead of bite sized, overpriced fast-food.

This does not mean we should talk about games, praise games, or study games as money-making software. That's not in the proper spirit of somebody who truly cares about the medium. I care about some games, but games devoid of personal sacrifice or auteurship are inundating the market, and I want to change that trend however I can. Making financially safe decisions does not advance the sophistication of games, it advances your bottom line.

1. To limit downvotes to meaningful ones, you can limit players' rights to give downvotes to one for every upvote they receive. This limit adds value to them inherently so that downvotes aren't being handed on a whim. Who the fuck would upvote somebody for telling a 12 year old to commit suicide? I'm a pretty cynical guy, but that is beyond belief.

The current system is flawed. This system is potentially less flawed. Why is everyone so afraid of change? Instead of going on the warpath, be constructive and come up with ways each system could be improved. I don't mind criticism, but I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall every time I post a suggestion in these forums.

 

[SturmDolch]

But competitive multiplayer sucks.

Is the opinion of the minority

1) would be extremely hard to implement and really how would you even do it without completely pissing off your customer base.

2)Ok that would work. Except of course if you want to play with a bunch of your friends who are all of varying skill levels.

3) Alot of games already do this. You get more points for actually doing the objectives then just running around and killing each other, this is an incentive to actually win.

4) Unless your goal is to bankrupt yourself and not sell any games then no sane person would implement this.

Yeah, you said it. I love competitive multiplayer. Bring on the Blops, BC2, SC2, hell, even Audiosurf could count. Assholes add some character and flavour to these games. Everyone else hardly ever talks. They make the game more fun because you have someone to complain about.

 

[SomethingGiant]

Competitive Multi-player is already fine at high level.

There are no problems like this once you reach high level competitive status.

These are suggestions to fix regular multi-player and I agree with only one of them, and that is because it's already in place.

1- Social rating is crap because there is zero way to regulate it, the real assholes are the people who will be (for lack of a better word) de-ranking others for a laugh.

2- Already done in many competitive multi-player titles.

3- In actual high level competitive games, there is no selfish play. Slayers kill, Assist players assist and objective players focus's on the objective. In regular multi-player it is often hard to assign roles as people aren't as communicative (and don't want to be told what to do by a random), so naturally most people just act like a slayer and complain when nobodies achieving the objective. Then there are those who are taunted for having a horrible K/D ratio, while they are trying to achieve the objective without help (which in itself is stupid but I digress).

4- I don't get this point at all, and as you said in your OP I'll ignore it.

The huge percentage of the players who aren't at the high level don't deserve to be ignored just because they're bad, and the good players shouldn't have to play with them. A good rating system separates players who shouldn't be playing together, whether it's because of a skill gap or a social divide.

I agree with only one of them, and that is because it's already in place.

I'm going all squinty eyed at this. Are you trolling?

1. Downvote griefing can be prevented by limiting right to downvote based on how many upvotes you have. If someone makes the effort to get upvoted just to downvote others, would anyone care?

3. A more precise rating system serves the same purpose as #2 except that it organizes players by their contribution to wins instead of their accomplishment of intermediary objectives (killing, scoring flags, not dying). It is the same system with a broader scope.

 

[oplinger]

I'm saying that this is the wrong place to discuss business models. Please stay, but don't stay to reject ideas based on bad business, because that's not what The Escapist is about. Actualization takes finance, but inspiration is not borne on the wings of dollar bills.

In the long term, making a better game is exactly what I want. I only need money in the short term to be able to accomplish that. Artists should have enough respect for their work that they can reject using it to make money, and instead strive to fulfill their creative needs.

I think the idea of games as a business directly conflicts with the idea of games as art. Yes, some artists make enough money to sustain themselves with nothing but their art, but those people are rare and incredibly talented. The world simply doesn't have consumption needs grand enough to sustain the game industry if it starts producing art instead of bite sized, overpriced fast-food.

This does not mean we should talk about games, praise games, or study games as money-making software. That's not in the proper spirit of somebody who truly cares about the medium. I care about some games, but games devoid of personal sacrifice or auteurship are inundating the market, and I want to change that trend however I can. Making financially safe decisions does not advance the sophistication of games, it advances your bottom line.

1. To limit downvotes to meaningful ones, you can limit players' rights to give downvotes to one for every upvote they receive. This limit adds value to them inherently so that downvotes aren't being handed on a whim. Who the fuck would upvote somebody for telling a 12 year old to commit suicide? I'm a pretty cynical guy, but that is beyond belief.

The current system is flawed. This system is potentially less flawed. Why is everyone so afraid of change? Instead of going on the warpath, be constructive and come up with ways each system could be improved. I don't mind criticism, but I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall every time I post a suggestion in these forums.

I'm not discussing a business model. I'm discussing how games are not the same sort of art as say..a photographer, or a painter, or a writer. It's more along the lines of working on a movie, as much as I hate to compare the two. People who make games? Yeah, that's their job, that's how they earn a living. They work for companies, they have deadlines, they work over time. Red-eyed and running on caffeine sometimes. It's not like writing a book, where you can work a side job, and in your free time write a chapter or two. They -have- to make the money. Or they do not make games. It's not about their bottom line, it's about respect for the work they do.

You're thinking of art in a very constrained narrow way. Games as a business does not conflict with them being art. It can, but it does not have to. Games are just a very expensive type of art, requiring teams of people with specialized skills and knowledge. Similar to movies. Do you think the best artistic movies we have, came about because some guy ran around with a camcorder and posted it on youtube? No probably not. it takes money to make a movie. Money they also have to make back to pay the people who worked on the movie, the publisher, investors. They got their artistic message out there, but at a cost. A needed cost. We gladly look at movies are a wonderful art form though, without a second thought to the business model behind it.

The Escapist is here about games, not games as art, games as a whole. That includes the companies, the people that make the games we all love, the artistic side, and the technical side. Gaming as a whole. Please don't belittle that ideal.

To further this talk however, I must point out, that we were never speaking of games as a vehicle to make money. We were saying your fixes would drive away those that love the games you make, which in effect would cause you to cease making games as you have no cash flow, no resources. Inspiration is not borne on the wings of dollar bills, but being inspired won't get your game to anyone. If you don't think that's important. That's fine.

On a side note: I did offer something constructive, some of us really have. I've offered numerous suggestions. However you're sticking to your guns. Am I suppose to keep heaving ideas at you until something sticks?

1. The internet is a terrible place. I don't know if you've noticed. Look at all the XBL horror stories/jokes. 4chan. ...well, just 4chan can give you a good idea. >.>

We also are not afraid of change, if we were, we wouldn't come up with our own changes. We just think it's a dumb idea. Why are you afraid to have your idea declined by others? Maybe give the wall a rest and listen?

 

[SomethingGiant]

I'm saying that this is the wrong place to discuss business models. Please stay, but don't stay to reject ideas based on bad business, because that's not what The Escapist is about. Actualization takes finance, but inspiration is not borne on the wings of dollar bills.

In the long term, making a better game is exactly what I want. I only need money in the short term to be able to accomplish that. Artists should have enough respect for their work that they can reject using it to make money, and instead strive to fulfill their creative needs.

I think the idea of games as a business directly conflicts with the idea of games as art. Yes, some artists make enough money to sustain themselves with nothing but their art, but those people are rare and incredibly talented. The world simply doesn't have consumption needs grand enough to sustain the game industry if it starts producing art instead of bite sized, overpriced fast-food.

This does not mean we should talk about games, praise games, or study games as money-making software. That's not in the proper spirit of somebody who truly cares about the medium. I care about some games, but games devoid of personal sacrifice or auteurship are inundating the market, and I want to change that trend however I can. Making financially safe decisions does not advance the sophistication of games, it advances your bottom line.

1. To limit downvotes to meaningful ones, you can limit players' rights to give downvotes to one for every upvote they receive. This limit adds value to them inherently so that downvotes aren't being handed on a whim. Who the fuck would upvote somebody for telling a 12 year old to commit suicide? I'm a pretty cynical guy, but that is beyond belief.

The current system is flawed. This system is potentially less flawed. Why is everyone so afraid of change? Instead of going on the warpath, be constructive and come up with ways each system could be improved. I don't mind criticism, but I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall every time I post a suggestion in these forums.

I'm not discussing a business model. I'm discussing how games are not the same sort of art as say..a photographer, or a painter, or a writer. It's more along the lines of working on a movie, as much as I hate to compare the two. People who make games? Yeah, that's their job, that's how they earn a living. They work for companies, they have deadlines, they work over time. Red-eyed and running on caffeine sometimes. It's not like writing a book, where you can work a side job, and in your free time write a chapter or two. They -have- to make the money. Or they do not make games. It's not about their bottom line, it's about respect for the work they do.

You're thinking of art in a very constrained narrow way. Games as a business does not conflict with them being art. It can, but it does not have to. Games are just a very expensive type of art, requiring teams of people with specialized skills and knowledge. Similar to movies. Do you think the best artistic movies we have, came about because some guy ran around with a camcorder and posted it on youtube? No probably not. it takes money to make a movie. Money they also have to make back to pay the people who worked on the movie, the publisher, investors. They got their artistic message out there, but at a cost. A needed cost. We gladly look at movies are a wonderful art form though, without a second thought to the business model behind it.

The Escapist is here about games, not games as art, games as a whole. That includes the companies, the people that make the games we all love, the artistic side, and the technical side. Gaming as a whole. Please don't belittle that ideal.

To further this talk however, I must point out, that we were never speaking of games as a vehicle to make money. We were saying your fixes would drive away those that love the games you make, which in effect would cause you to cease making games as you have no cash flow, no resources. Inspiration is not borne on the wings of dollar bills, but being inspired won't get your game to anyone. If you don't think that's important. That's fine.

On a side note: I did offer something constructive, some of us really have. I've offered numerous suggestions. However you're sticking to your guns. Am I suppose to keep heaving ideas at you until something sticks?

1. The internet is a terrible place. I don't know if you've noticed. Look at all the XBL horror stories/jokes. 4chan. ...well, just 4chan can give you a good idea. >.>

We also are not afraid of change, if we were, we wouldn't come up with our own changes. We just think it's a dumb idea. Why are you afraid to have your idea declined by others? Maybe give the wall a rest and listen?

Agh, I'm just feeling butthurt because every time I post a new thread trying to spark a meaningful discussion, I give a few suggestions to start and people do nothing but focus on them. I'm stubborn with my ideas, but I've bent them and changed them in response to some really good criticism. But at the end of the day, this thread was NEVER meant to be about me.

Movies and games are very similar, especially when it comes to the way artists use them as expression. AAA movies and games all tend to stay well within comfortable standards to make comfortable profits. It's the low budget indie films/games where we get to see some truly creative stuff that might advance the media. It's where risk-taking can be found, and were I a movie buff I would be reprimanding AAA movie fans just as I would reprimand AAA game fans. We should demand more and applaud and pay for games conceived outside of the box. But you're right, The Escapist represents the whole package whether I like it or not.

You have offered numerous suggestions about my ideas. I appreciate that, I'm glad that they warrant some response, but what I honestly want is a better solution to the terrible conduct of the competitive multiplayer gaming nation. This thread should not be about my ideas.

1. The internet is so horrifying because of anonymity. Take that away, put something of value at stake (an account that represents a real time/money investment for example), and we turn out alright

This community rejects change. It's a conservative group that's content to sit around and discuss minutia when they could be shaping the foundations of the next generation of their medium. That's the average attitude of the group from my perspective, not a judgment of individuals, but it's just an opinion anyways.

 

[oplinger]

Agh, I'm just feeling butthurt because every time I post a new thread trying to spark a meaningful discussion, I give a few suggestions to start and people do nothing but focus on them. I'm stubborn with my ideas, but I've bent them and changed them in response to some really good criticism. But at the end of the day, this thread was NEVER meant to be about me.

Movies and games are very similar, especially when it comes to the way artists use them as expression. AAA movies and games all tend to stay well within comfortable standards to make comfortable profits. It's the low budget indie films/games where we get to see some truly creative stuff that might advance the media. It's where risk-taking can be found, and were I a movie buff I would be reprimanding AAA movie fans just as I would reprimand AAA game fans. We should demand more and applaud and pay for games conceived outside of the box. But you're right, The Escapist represents the whole package whether I like it or not.

You have offered numerous suggestions about my ideas. I appreciate that, I'm glad that they warrant some response, but what I honestly want is a better solution to the terrible conduct of the competitive multiplayer gaming nation. This thread should not be about my ideas.

1. The internet is so horrifying because of anonymity. Take that away, put something of value at stake (an account that represents a real time/money investment for example), and we turn out alright

This community rejects change. It's a conservative group that's content to sit around and discuss minutia when they could be shaping the foundations of the next generation of their medium. That's the average attitude of the group from my perspective, not a judgment of individuals, but it's just an opinion anyways.

Indeed, you have bent them and changed them. However it's the core concept we find dumb, and that's what we think won't be working. We've morphed the core concept into something, overall (no one person really pieced it all together in my mind) workable I think, and that is to say: Topping up a rating system on a rating system on a rating system will not work. However if we remove the skill rating, and the social rating and mold then into say...a team rating. Where you're rated based on how well you've been on the teams you play. That may improve things. Rather than a straight K/D ratio, or points based on winning/killing. I also think winning should not give you a large gob of points. but say...a percentage bonus of the points you earn from team objectives. To top that off, have a certain flare with banning. Text communication I think should have the option to be disabled. In my experience..if you're typing, you're not helping. But for voice, like I mentioned before. A system in place, to limit the length and volume of what you put through, or you get auto-kicked. That would be an interesting system. It'd stop the singing, the yelling, and all that. I think combined it'd be a decent system.

So:

-Teamwork rating, or a modified skill rating based on team objectives. Not kills and winning.
-Auto-kick/ban for abuse of voice chat, in ways like decibel limits, and timers.

That alone I think would address a multitude of issues people have with competitive multiplayer online.

Also, AAA games are fairly artistic, or..used to be. ..They've kinda gone downhill lately. Indie games are the most artistic. it's the AA games that tend to be horrifying unabashed crap. Like everything in the universe though. Most of everything is crap. No matter how well you try to mold the future. We should demand more from games however, just like we should demand more from news reporters, kids, and people in general

 

[SomethingGiant]

snip

Okay, I said competitive multiplayer is fine as it is, I didn't say ignore the masses who aren't at that level and just want to play a multiplayer title.

Firstly, the thing is, a game can't properly decide if one player is more valuable than the other for a win, unless one player is AFK'ing.

To put it in perspective, in a recent Battlefield game my friend was playing, he ended up with a K/D ratio of about 40/3, yet he gained far less points than a somebody who captured 3 objectives and had a KD ratio of about 10/41. (Numbers are not exact, but this is the basic gist of it). Now, the game clearly valued the second player as contributing far more than the first. Why?. For all the game knows, the first player was sitting back sniping enemies off the objective point so the second player could capture the base. The first player could have been systematically removing any helicopter threat hovering over the capture point with rockets so the second player could capture it. The game clearly valued the second players contribution as much higher than the first. While there might not be anything wrong with that, many players would deem this as extremely unfair when they felt that they were helping out the team to a much higher standard than person.

The games system of *player worth* could end up severely lowering someones overall score because the game did not deem their play as *helpful* which many casual FPS players would not appreciate. Making the game less accessible for everyone and accomplishing exactly nothing.

Second, when I said (one of these ideas is already in place), I wasn't trolling, this is in place in several online games. It's commonly referred to as matchmaking. In many online games you are separated by rank (usually based on a win/loss ratio).

Thirdly, the social ranking system. If everyone used the system properly 100% of the time, then great it could work out perfectly and online gaming would be a utopia. I'm afraid it's not though. I don't know if anyone remembers, but Halo 2 implemented this very system for about two months, all that happened was that people (like they do in every game) abuse the system. They'd get friends to give them +rep, then they'd -rep of actual players just for fun. This isn't a rare occurrence by any means either, people do this for fun when they're bored because the reactions are pretty hilarious. These systems favor whoever is in the game at the time. If there are more people who are dickheads than saints in the one game, then the dickheads will win regardless. Soon you'll have a system where the good are mixed with the bad, and the bad are mixed with the good, although we already have this system, it's called regular multiplayer.

I've been gaming online for a long time and I've racked up countless hours on RTS games, MMO's, FPS's, etc. The one thing I can tell you about sure fire way to avoid being annoyed by someone, it's muting them. That's the only system that I've ever found to be remotely effective at limiting the amount of crap you hear/cop from other players.

You've made some points that look great on paper, work terribly in execution, lots of these have been tried before. (The grouping people by skill level is already in quite a few games, it's called Matchmaking).

I'd love to offer constructive criticism and help you further your idea, but unfortunately I have no idea how to improve basic multiplayer for everyone, or how to remove all the tossers in a fair and balanced way that can't be abused.

1st. One sure way for a game to decide the value of a player is to track his wins. If he wins more, his rating goes up, regardless of his performance in-game. Given enough iterations, this system will balance out and players will fall into the right bracket. To make the process faster, rating systems can cheat and also boost or lower a player's rating based on in-game performance. You can make that faster process more accurate by using mass stat-tracking during the game's beta, and revaluing kills, deaths, objective completion etc. based on the statistics you amass.

2nd. Lots of games use a rating system, but that alone shouldn't be why you support it. Logic and reason should be trumps.

3rd. Regarding Halo, I would still blame the system and not the players. Letting you rate your friends and giving players unlimited downvotes are both bad design features.

Muting simply isn't enough some of the time. I've also ranked up countless hours in competitive games, and if a player is doing their best to be an ass, there's nothing you can do to prevent them griefing you. If they are suiciding on enemy positions, TKing you, grabbing the best weapons and wasting the ammo, driving off a cliff with you in the passenger seat of a vehicle, muting doesn't help.

For a better system, severely limit downvotes, only let players upvote non-friends, and only let players upvote others at the end of a competitive game which they both participated in. Don't allow players to invite non-friends to games, and all the problems mentioned disappear without any real collateral damage that I can think of. The system is almost definitely not perfect, but it can always be tweaked when new problems arise.

 

[Platypusbill101]

How about an addition to the friendly fire mechanic? Instead of having on and off options, a server could also have friendly fire that does not cause any actual damage, but the teamkiller gains negative points. That way, players have to be careful but will not annoy others with their stupidity in case that one nade lands next to a teammate...

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Reading the OP i get the feeling that "competitive multiplayer" in your vocabulary is only something existent in Shooters.

This is not the case.


Fighting games are and will always be the top competitive games of existence and those do not suck at all, inform yourself a bit more next time.