Free Allegiance Forums

Way to take a really brilliant idea, designed with some real math and science behind it, and then going back to..................... whatever this is......

It's great how we went from something that was literally designed by a guy who spent time reading academic statistics papers in order to develop something that would be reasonably accurate...

To "eh, we'll just let you accrue points."

The thing is, these aren't even bad ideas... but for example, there was a squadgame where Student had taken a miner down, by himself, to about half health then ran out of ammo in his scout. I took over in my mini1 lt int. I got credit for the kill because the game counts that based on raw damage and so I dealt more "damage" to the miner. I get credit for a miner kill, and the "skill" thing you dropped in thinks Student was just some voob who had no impact on the game?

Lets not forget that the guys you're implying are retarded for implementing a ranking system you disagree with, are the same guys you should be thanking for allowing you the privilege of playing.

If you have an opinion, perhaps you can express it without being so ungrateful.

I too think this is a step in the wrong direction. Feelgood points stop feeling good once people realize they don't correlate with anything meaningful.

Or in other words: any leaderboard that TenForward is #1 on is a leaderboard I don't care to be on.

If you use that rank based on time playing, you will have to use a second rank under the hood to determine which team is stacked and which isn't. It works right now, because you see which team has more noobs, but it won't work to compare voobs.

Rank should be based on wins/losses only in my opinion. It's simple, fair, and works.
I'd also like to see a separate rank for commanding and flying.

Is your goal to remove tank as predictor of "team strength" and replace it with a "play more, do useful stuff in game, and your number goes up" system?

I don't know how many of us care about rank when its not quite so predictive. There's no skinner box reward system attached like you see in other playtime-based rank systems (HATS!). Some people might care, and attaching it to metrics of successful play might be an additional incentive for newbies to do good stuff (along with the achievements).


AllegSkill was really really good at predicting which team would win a match. If you're trying to hide that information for whatever reason - fine, I don't really have a problem with that.


I think there is value in "hiding" some aspects of the game's predictive power, and tying it into "just playing" - but it also removes some of the drive from those of us who are ultra competitive, and want something to say "I'm the best" even if we're not.


If we do go to an actions-based system, I wouldn't modify points gained based on team total points difference, even if we do have a newbie bonus multiplier. Besides, I don't think the stack is as much from players wanting to join the better team, as players just wanting to fly with friends, or for one commander vs another. I think commanders matter more for stack influence than anything else, a large part of my decision on which team to join in a given game is based on who I'd rather fly for.

The "Newbie" , "Novice", "Inter".... label could be point driven and provide the players with progression self esteem, and the numbered ranking could provide the more specific behavioral characteristics that comms need for maintaining balance. A win-win. imo

If a point-based progression system stays in place, then anti-stacking measures shouldn't be implemented.

Skill based rank and anti-stacking measures are what is best for the game.