Player Profiles & Achievements

[DoomKnight]

Thanks for the input.

I still think user awards given out to other users isn't a bad thing. All the medals though-out all of time has been "user given." Take the highest award achievable by the U.S. Military, the U.S. Medal of Honor, it's given by the U.S. Commander-In-Chief to those soldiers (or next of kin) by those deserving of it. When the medal of honor was 1st implemented in the U.S. Armed Forces during the American Civil War they were given out like candy. As time has progressed, that medal has become harder and harder to attain. Soldiers literally have to die to earn one, and that's still not enough.

Of course, the President wasn't there to see the soldier on the front line do the deeds to earn the medal. That soldier's commander had to have requested the medal for his troop by typing up a report and sending it up a long chain of command. After a few levels of bureaucracy and only if everyone in that chain of commands agrees, does that soldier get the medal.

I'm not suggestion anything as complicated as the U.S. Medal of Honor, nor am I suggesting anything as complex.

Look at the following as a possible mock up:

QUOTE After the game:
Player X (pilot) recommends to Player Y (commander) about Player Z's performance

Player X(12):[Player Y]Great game last game, you did a good job at comm! What do you think about Player Z's awesome nanning there at the enemy expansion?
Newbie A(0): How I join taem?
Player Y(14):[Player X] Ya man, Player Z was freakin awesome, I didn't think you guys could pull it off.
Player X(12):[Player Y] only reason we did was bc of Player Z.
Newbie A(0): Need a ahipyard.
Player Y(14):[Player X] Ya dude, I saw that! Great job.
Newbie A(0): Need better weapons.
Player X(12):[Player Y] I think he needs a medal or something.
Player Y(14):[Player X] You're right. Lemme check the forums/wiki.

Player Y goes to the forum >Community Zone>Award Zone>
Player Y creates a thread titled "Player Z" which goes something like this:

Last night at about 10:30 Pm EST Player Z was solo nanning an HTT into an expansion. He laid a road of prox for the HTT run and killed 2 ints by the time he got back to the HTT. Then, he starting flying an orbit around the HTT and managed to keep the HTT alive as well as himself and kill another int with missles or prox. 3 kills. He then Rammed into the htt boosted and podded himself (FF was on) and HTT secured the station. Yeehaw! I recommend that Player Z get the OMGiWin medal.

Player W chimes in on the forum:
Ya man, Player Z podded my int before i even GOT to the HTT, GJ man!

Player V adds:
I was the HTT driver, He rammed me so hard I thought I got killed and PK'd by that belt int! then i saw Player V has captured Expansion from the base window. I was both Happy and shocked!

Player U says:

GG

Player T types

Now go make me a sammich

Now that the thread has been hijacked, a few days later Player A@Medal checks the forums and emails Player B@Medal to check the logs to verify the aforementioned convesation and the in-game chat.

Player B@Medal emails PlayerA@Medal as confirmed

Player A@Medal emails Player C@Medal to implement that Player Z gets the OMGiWin medal.

Player Z gets the OMGiWin medal a week later [/quote]

Is this going too far?

[DasSmiter]

Aye

More load on admins (any of our admin flavors are really loaded up for bears already) is a bad thing. More automation is better.

I'd rather see medals implemented ala freyja's original suggestion, or more likely Andonn's suggestion.

What we want to do is encourage the development of "core skills" such as drone killing or bomber defense, not a reward by consensus for one time achievements

[Solamnus]

Also monthly Top 10 lists can be published showing The Top Miner killers, Best Comms etc for every month like in Fwiffo's www.spathiwa.com

[Freyja]

QUOTE (Andon @ Jul 23 2010, 05:27 AM) I would say "$#@! NO" to any proposal to have an achievement for mutiny/resign voting...

Oh I see your point and that one is a bit far out there. It's just an example and of course doesn't have to be used.

QUOTE (Andon @ Jul 23 2010, 05:27 AM) I would say the game lends itself more to a "Medal" style of system as opposed to an "Achievement" style system, for the simple reason that you can have many levels of "Medals" and not have it seem funky.

That's semantics, have an bronze/silver/gold outline on a badge or a medal is the same thing, just a different name with a slight difference in appearence.

QUOTE (Andon @ Jul 23 2010, 05:27 AM) Platinum - Nigh-impossible to obtain, depending on whatever it is.

One thing that people want is the ability to obtain the achievements without it becoming overly involved and detracting from the gameplay itself. I do think that they shouldn't be so easy everything is automatic in a week, it's about finding a nice balance that fosters a learning environment and good teamplay, such that within a few months most should be obtainable and the harder ones within a year approximately.

QUOTE (Andon @ Jul 23 2010, 05:27 AM) and have the Platinum level that is something that would likely have to have a Zone Game or other event to get.

If people were in favour I'm game. Of course you run into weird logic situations;


Killed 2 Miners in 1 game. (bronze x1, silver x10, gold x100)

Then getting a platinum would mean what, killing 2 miners in 1 zone game after you've already done the badge 100 times?

Or would it make more sense to have some badges that applied only for zone games, and if so what kind?

QUOTE (Andon @ Jul 23 2010, 05:27 AM) I would also lean away from any user-given awards, since those quickly become meaningless. IMO, all achievements/medals/awards should be automated so one person can't ruin the whole thing by refusing to give any/giving them to everyone.

I agree for the most part, possibly with the exception of a yearly set of special medals voted on by the community.

[Freyja]

QUOTE (Omni Wraith @ Jul 23 2010, 06:34 AM) Thanks for the input.

I still think user awards given out to other users isn't a bad thing. *example*

Is this going too far?

Well I don't think a system that was overly work intensive would be the way to go, and I really don't think JoeBlow comm playing a 5v5 should be able to give out a bunch of medals.

It would be possible to integrate something with the current player feedback option using asgs and tagging it there, you could even say it only applied to zone games or 50v50 games, or what have you. Then you could automate it such that if player ABC made the criteria for being in a game, playing in that game, and then was given the achievement feedback, and that feedback was given ### of times, then maybe you can automate something.

I'm personally leery of anything like that unless it only could be given under fairly stringent situations.

However having said that, it could be interesting to have something with the asgs feedback system where if enough people or @alleg or @help gave a "newbie friendly" feedback or some such, that yes after ### of those maybe having a badge saying yes this player doesn't eat newbies for breakfast.

Maybe that could work, maybe not.

[Freyja]

QUOTE (DasSmiter @ Jul 23 2010, 02:08 PM) More load on admins (any of our admin flavors are really loaded up for bears already) is a bad thing. More automation is better.

What we want to do is encourage the development of "core skills" such as drone killing or bomber defense, not a reward by consensus for one time achievements

Yes and yes. Having an achievement system effectively turn key and very low maintenance and effort after it's setup is important.

And it should work primarily to foster fun and learning.

[Freyja]

QUOTE (Solamnus @ Jul 23 2010, 02:59 PM) Also monthly Top 10 lists can be published showing The Top Miner killers, Best Comms etc for every month like in Fwiffo's www.spathiwa.com

Well it definately could be doable to have the stats viewable withing alleg itself, and a page for top 10 stats could be worked into that.

[Botzman]

We need to improve trainings and give different medals for a complition. Commanders are like to now how (#)s performed in a trainings. Gold, silver, bronze (or none) for turreting vs endless waves, x-naning other scouts, time spend to find the map, etc.

[KGJV]

QUOTE (Imago @ Jul 23 2010, 06:22 AM) Well alot of cool @#(! can be brought back from the Zone days with the old AllClub server and clubScreens w/o too much swearing.

I've already looked at this years ago and I really don't recommend the path of reusing AllClub server (which use DirectPlay to talk to clients...)

Reusing the existing client ClubScreens and replacing AllClub networking with soap calls to web services is a better approach.

I started this back then but I had to give up because Pook wouldn't give me the ASGS server code and I was too lazy to rewrite an ASGS sandbox... (and coding on the live ASGS server wasn't a good idea ...)

When (if?) CSS is done, it should be easier.

Once again, a lot of ideas discussed in the forums these days have already been discussed in the past.

if nothing was done then it was mainly because of that 'ASGS blackbox' problem...

People don't realize the level of frustration this generated for devs like me. Nice ideas smashed again a wall of bricks because someone was to stubborn to open ASGS.

Don't repeat history. If you don't want the same frustration today, I highly recommend to help/push/wait for CSS FIRST...

[Gandalf2]

Do we need that much server change? Can TAG or whatever AllegSkill uses check for achievements achieved at the end of a game?

I definitely think the purpose of these achievements needs to remain central. They should not be for vets, they should be for newbies, to give them a pat on the back for achieving things whilst they are on their way to understanding the bigger picture. People who have been here for 6 months should have pretty much done most if not all of the achievements, so that Allegiance remains about trying to win for the team rather than getting achievements.

AN example - I've been playing Team Fortress 2 for a few year and have over 250 hours racked up, but I'm only at about 55% of achievements and sometimes do slightly crazy things in order to try and get a new one. Granted. a bit of odd behaviour matters a bit less in TF2 then allegiance - but I think 4-6 months should be the target range for 95% of achievements/medals.