League Scoring, Good idea for League scoring change
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G8Keeper Posted Dec 22, 2006, 4:09 am |
You don't want to penalize the guys that have more time to race for racing more often, and you don't want to make it impossible for the players who cannot devote enough time to run a bunch of races to accumalate league points. Your new system of averaging weekly scores does not encourage to continue racing if you place well after a run or two. What I suggest is to take the 3 (arbitrary number, can adjust it to whatever number you think an average player can compete or play each week) best finishes for each player each week, and average them for a weekly league point score. This would encourage everyone to race a little more, and would not penalize those that get 2 or 3 good finishes and have them sitting around the rest of the week doing nothing for fear of hurting their league standings. This also give the possibility of a very very casual player who scores well in 1 race each week some league points. If a player does not place in 3 races that week, a zero is recorded for each missing score up to 3 scores.
Any thoughts on this idea ? |
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*sam* Posted Dec 22, 2006, 9:43 am |
I can see your point, and that might work..
My concern with any system that allows you to use your best results from a set of results is that, once you have the good ones recorded, you have no "fear" and will not be hurt by a bad result. You might be playing in a race alongside someone who needs to do well, and you could easily sabotage him.. I know what we have now isn't perfect.. perhaps if we laid on a lot more non-league events? |
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JoeR Posted Dec 22, 2006, 3:04 pm |
i don't know if non-league events will help, sam.
the main reason i try to do the league events is because of the money. (that's also why i get so pissed when i don't win- i'm losing the cash AND wrecking my car!) but then, i'm not a rabid fan of the stock events either. when you have your own car, there always seems to be an advantage, even if it's totally imaginary. especially in combat. ok, i'm wandering. i posted these points suggestions before, but at the bottom of an older thread. thanks g8, for making a new one. these are all and/or: -every 2 or 3 events completed in each league gives a +1 to your score. -for every 3 events where you finish 1st, you get a +1. -for every human player that you beat, you get a +1. |
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*sam* Posted Dec 22, 2006, 4:44 pm |
Mmm.. these both would give an advantage to people who had loads of time though..?
Too easily exploited I think.. you could set up fake gangs and enter them in events in order to gain yourself points.. |
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G8Keeper Posted Dec 22, 2006, 5:34 pm |
well, at least if you keep the number of score to be counted low, even a casual player would have the same advantages as someone who played a lot. Considering the sheer number of events that are offered 24/7, I think there is very little chance to "sabotage" someone. As for having no fear of hurting score, I thought the point was to get people racing more frequently, your current system prohibits that. Two others have already posted that they scored 1st place in their 1st race for each league this week, and now they are not racing anymore for fear of hurting their league score. I am now in the same position myself for the combat league and race league. I score 1st place in two races back to back (one for each league) on Tuesday and now I am just sitting here doing nothing waiting for the weekly results to go in so I can go score more points. I don't think there is any perfect system to be honest. You just have to find the one with the least potential for exploitation or manipulation that gives desirable results for hardcore players as well as casual players. IMO any system that discourages racing will kill the game. Remember that when/if this goes public, you are trying to appeal to a large and varied audience. Part of what killed Motor City online was the steep initial learning curve, and lack of enough reward for new and less skilled players in an attempt to curtail or restrict the efforts/advantages of the hardcore powergamers. |
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*viKKing* Posted Dec 22, 2006, 7:55 pm |
I like that thread, I seem to recall there was another one very very (you meant very?) close, I posted my ideas... and I'll do again:
1) system must encourage racers participating events, even people not winning (newbies): Races: 1 bonus point per ended lap. Deathraces: 3 bonus point per ended lap. Arenas: 2 bonus points to reach ending of combat. Only 2 points for an arena: a) because one may hide unti the end. b) it is tougher than races and thus deserves 1 more point. This system will bring points even to newbies/unlucky drivers not ending the races/combats and won't discourage them. 2) system must preserve casual players and hard core racers: a) keep the best score scored over a week b) only allow 2 attempts a week in each league events kind and keep the best score. I know Sam will take a look at that post, and regarding direction Darkwind's universe may take, it could be good to limit access of league events only to Autoduellers. Others (named Rogues) would only be allowed to race in non-league events. Though this is not yet integrated in game and hasn't been discussed deeply enough between me and Sam. Leagues are very important and official events, I'm currently wondering why someone may be allowed to race more than one time such event... Are we racing Nascar, Formula 1, WRC events more than one time? no. Regarding tracks configuration, each player would only be allowed to run one league event/per track: which means, currently in Somerset, a race league event would allow and force players to participate in 4 races, 4 deathraces and 1 combat. That's 9 mandatory races a week. And it's finally too much for me... so we have to set a minimum number of races to be participated. Any other additional race being bonus... 3 races/3 deathraces/1 combat seems fine, as each race as to take place on a different track... hehe, don't expect to only race your favourite track! Phfew, what a long thread, but I'm feeling we are close to something good. |
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*sam* Posted Dec 22, 2006, 10:02 pm |
Yes, absolutely. People want to be able to participate in as many events as they wish. How about when you sign up for each event you nominate whether it will be a points-scoring one for you or not? viKKing: I don't generally like the idea of bonus points, if they're applied to every event. Surely all you're doing is making the most active player win? I also don't like the idea of keeping your best score. Everyone gets 10 that way. The idea of limiting the number of events of each type has merit, but undue complexity needs to be avoided. What about the idea as I said above, of deciding before each event whether it's a league event for you? I think bonus points could be applied perhaps on a weekly basis rather than per-event. How about if the best laptime on each track each week gets a bonus point for the gang who get it (race league + deathrace league) and the best overall score in the arena gets a bonus point (combat league)..? This will be a good 'tie-breaker' if lots of us are getting 10 points in the events themselves. |
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*viKKing* Posted Dec 22, 2006, 10:42 pm |
[quote]I don't generally like the idea of bonus points, if they're applied to every event.[/quote]
Maybe we could change the name? 
No, ok, you are right the more you race the more you win. It will be unbalanced. I see another way to motivate people racing. I'm sending you an email. [/quote]What about the idea as I said above, of deciding before each event whether it's a league event for you? [quote] This is good, but I would really like to avoid which track players will have their league race on. We all have a preferred track we master more than others. On another hand we should be sure league events are restricted to players that passed the TT. No TT, no league. And I'm very concerned about that point. I never perform TTs. For the weekly bonus point yes, but based on all three league events. It means you must be good in every events. A little bit more challenging. |
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*Toecutter* Posted Dec 22, 2006, 10:58 pm |
maybe just a bonus point if you win a race on 2 other tracks...in other words, 3 tracks must be won on during the week to get the bonus point.
even just 3 races is do-able by the casual player and it gives a bit to risk for the addicts 
the risk for us addicts is "Do I risk my nice 10 points and go for the bonus point or sit at 10" losing a race kills your average making it quite a risk indeed.. I also figured 3 is a good number because all of us i'm sure (DW gods be quiet  ) have that one track they just can't get (or more  ) so a bit of pit lane strategy comes in on choosing which events to run ^^
anyhoo that's my bit |
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G8Keeper Posted Dec 23, 2006, 2:22 am |
Or just keep everything the same and have a lot more non league races spawn so we can do something without hurting our scores.
As far as everyone getting their "10"s, whether its the average of the best 3 scores for the week, or each player picking their best race setup each week, you are already having several people score their "10" each week. With my method at least they have to do it 3 times for each league each week to get that "10". I am also good with having the ability to choose before each event whether it will be a scoring event or not, but that could provide an opportunity for sabotage, as you were describing earlier, that could not be recouperated from as with the system I described. For a given event lets say you choose it for score, but someone else is not using it for score, they could really care less how they place and could just focus on greifing the score seeking player. Please do not get the idea that I am trying to be argumentative, just being devil's advocate and discussing the pros and cons of methods of league scoring. |
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*sam* Posted Dec 23, 2006, 9:14 am |
Yes, I think that could work. They could be dynamically generated in the same way as the league ones, rather than having to be only generated once per week. I get your point about 3 races per league.. I think that is possibly the most workable solution I've seen. I know you're not being argumentative! 
Getting this league scoring right is very important, and not easy... |
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JoeR Posted Dec 23, 2006, 2:43 pm |
(i'll have to read thru all these posts soon....)
but for a semi-random insert: personally, i try to stick with league events. there's more money, and i only have so much time per day to play. maybe, MAYBE, if i saw a non-league event with a few people in there i would join. i think there needs to be a -slight- tweak in the league scoring to give an advantage to either: players that are good, or players that play more often. why? because with the current average score system, it gets pretty emotional. if there's not that EXTRA bit of incentive, i just want to walk away when i have a bad race. because there should be some 'reward' to playing often. most new players play quite a few games anyway. the only reason why they don't have good scores is because they don't know the system yet. it's the older players that have to be encouraged more than the 1 a week event. when it comes down to it, if the league is just there for people to try and get their weekly average of 10, then it just exists in the background. i'm at the point now where i'm looking for contenders in the league who've already signed up for an event. if i can beat them, that'll ruin their perfect score. i think that aspect needs to be the issue. right now it seems that the issue is either: having people together in an event OR having a league. why not put them together? (i didn't really edit this, so hopefully i haven't contradicted myself anywhere...)
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Korivak Posted Dec 23, 2006, 6:17 pm |
I've got an idea.
There seem to be three related but distinct reasons that people want to race. First of all, the game is fun and people just want to race exactly because it?s fun. Secondly, they want money to buy new cars and guns and to put the tires and armour back on to race another day. And finally, they want to earn points so that they can prove how awesome they are. Basically, people want to play, advance, and win, respectively. That?s when I realize that you?ve got it backwards right now. You?ve got a lot of ranked events and very few unranked ones - just the opposite of how it should be. With two ranked events firing every hour, anyone that is learning or just popped online for an hour tends to race in a league event - a lot of league events, usually. Similarly, anyone that is saving up for that nice new heavy laser is going to be doing ranked events one after the other. The serious leaguers do one (hopefully perfect) race a week, and then wait around for one of the unranked events to spawn, and they usually have to wait a while. Meanwhile, you get a lot of unusually high scores in the rankings because all the serious leaguers are coming in first against a field of NPC racers - and not racing against each other because there are so many races and not enough serious racers. Each different style of racing is playing the game the wrong way. What we need is a lot of unranked events, and a very few league ones. A proposal: Have the current two-events-every-hour spawn rate be reserved for unranked events. A good mix of stock and custom (maybe even one of each starting at the same time), no entry fees, small engines, fewer timetrials and more random starts. Beginner friendly, and anyone that logs on for an hour of racing in the evening can find plenty of quick little races. You can even push it farther - have races at quarter past the hour, combats at half past, deathraces at quarter to, and on the hour have alternating timetrials and their corresponding races for the slightly more serious. Lots of events, all the time. Prize structure same as it is now - enough to buy food, pay hospital bills and repair a 1L car. In addition to that, have a separate schedule of races with big prizes. Call them ?sponsored? or ?spectator? or ?prize? or something like that so they stand out in the lobby. Have one every two hours, with a mandatory timetrial the hour before and a small entry fee to make it a bit riskier of an investment. Make them all stock events to increase profit and prevent the richer racers from always winning. People that want to make serious money and leaguers done their races for the week will keep an eye out for them, and the new players will look longingly at the prize purse and dream of competing once they can win a place in the starting grid...but not before. And finally, once every three or four hours, have a league event. Give them mandatory timetrials against an aggressive field that?s double the size of the starting grid. Make them pay lousy, but give out those precious league points...which lead to a huge cash prize and eternal fame. Make them all custom events to add a bit of spice to the field. You?ll also get a lot more competition going by having a lot of leaguers chasing fewer races, and thus a lot fewer perfect tens and less need for tiebreakers. Make them fire based on the day off the week so that people can plan ahead - Monday and Friday for Combat, Tuesday and Saturday for Races, Wednesday and Sunday for Deathraces, with a mix of all three on Thursday...one weekend day and one point three (repeat, of course) weekdays each. Sure, the newbies won?t get to play in the leagues - but only one player gets to win the league anyway, so the newbies don?t really get to play in the league under the current system either (plus their distinctive one point averages are killing them). Suddenly, there?s an obvious race choice for every style of play, and people can play as much as they like without breaking the game. A serious leaguer can compete in all three leagues in just six hours a week (three evenings), and new players and the I?ve-got-one-hour-to-kill crowd can race all day every day if they like. And, even better, you suddenly get a clearly defined amateur, intermediate and professional league that is enforced my emergent behaviour instead of server-side rules. Suddenly, everything is right side up. |
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*sam* Posted Dec 23, 2006, 6:41 pm |
Korivak-
Yes, I had a vague notion that things were wrong-way around. The continually-created events being non-league and the less common, pre-scheduled ones being the league ones does make more sense. The events creation process has evolved rather than having been defined the way it currently is. Back before October all events were pre-scheduled, and there was only one race per week in each league (we had a Thursday 9pm league, a Friday 8pm league etc.) That didn't work well at all- people don't play games to tight schedules like that. A question: do we need the events at all that are scheduled a full week ahead of time (I kind of thought these would lead to planning your week, and extra sign-ups for these events), or are just-in-time created ones 2 hours ahead enough (or, if we're going with your model, perhaps up to 4 hours ahead).? Maybe the weekly-created ones could be the high-profile, high-prize ones you mention ? It's a difficult time of year getting anything major done, unfortunately -- lots of childminding etc.. I have the in-game audio 80% complete, and a set of really nice vehicle textures from Joer to put into the game too..
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Korivak Posted Dec 23, 2006, 7:06 pm |
I can see the development history that lead to the current system, and I know that it was never really planned out. All the more reason to take a bit of time to think about it now (and I mean now in the 'soon' sense, not the 'on Christmas Eve' sense).
I don't have any experience with the server-side distinction between spawned and set events - I just log on and see what's about to start. Of course, I'm still very much in the play and advance stages at the moment...I do too many races to rank well in leagues. I suppose that if the schedule for league events made sense and was easy to remember, there wouldn't be much need for them to be specifically set at the start of the week, rather than just spawned. A simple static HTML page with the basic scheduling rules might work just fine. That's a programming decision, not a user interface one - and I'm not a programmer. For the sake of quicker testing, I'd say make them all spawned so that you can tweak them in the middle of the week instead of having to wait until the end of the week...that is, assuming I correctly understand of how the system works. You can figure the rest out later. |
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ralphy_256 Posted Dec 24, 2006, 12:56 am |
My .02 worth;
If we're tied to the idea of averaging point totals for the league standings (and I'm ok with that), let's put other pressure on the league leaders from another direction. Balance the payout for the league champion more closely to a player who gets lots of purses by raising prize money payouts. Let's make that a harder call "can I get more money for the championship, or by racing this week?" I also think that Custom races and DMs should have a percentage bump to offset the the greater risk to your investment (cars), and particularily dangerous tracks (rally circuit) should have another percentage bump to offset the risk to your investment in drivers. I would also tie the value of the purse to the total value of all cars in the race. A field full of buggies/marleys shouldn't pay the same as a field full of asps. |
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Atomic Punks Posted Dec 26, 2006, 8:49 am |
I think Korivak's idea is great. I am a newbie and recruited my gang (signed-up) today and was looking for some unranked stock events to practice and learn the driving mechanics.
With so many ranked events, I found it difficult to find the event type I was looking for. I ended up finding 1 unranked stock racing event this evening and then decided to roll the dice and try out an unranked stock deathrace. I only joined the deathrace for lack of any other stock racing events. I ended up killing my driver in the deathrace. Had there been more stock racing events, I wouldn't have taken the unnecessary risk on my 2nd-ever race. Anyway, I think from a role-playing perspective, the structure that Korivak suggested better mirrors a real league schedule where there are plentiful unranked amature-level events, a fair amount of cash entry semi-pro events, and a few weekly(game-time) high profile pro events. |
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*Speedealer* Posted Dec 28, 2006, 5:43 am |
There are way too many league events vs non-league. I'm still trying to figure out the system and car handling and all I can play is league - which is fine, since I'm getting dough from it to get cars and meth heads, BUT there should be more non-league events for us noobs or anyone who needs an extra 1K.
How bout an entry fee for league events as well? throwing that out there if no one else did (I totally didn't read the entire thread - sorry) |
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*sam* Posted Dec 29, 2006, 9:21 am |
Thanks speedealer. Yes, we'll be moving soon to a situation where there are a lot more non-league events and a lot less league events. Plus a smaller number of high-profile 'professional' events.
Entry fees have been mentioned too.. they've been part of the database since day one, just never used. Charging a fee to enter league events could work, yes. I guess that's similar in effect to reducing league event prizes, which I think kovirak suggested. |
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JoeR Posted Dec 29, 2006, 2:56 pm |
there already seems to be a sliding scale per event prize to offset the damage taken. races are the cheapest to repair your car afterwards, while combat the most expensive. my point being, that the prizes shouldn't go so low as to put a player on a downward financial spiral. i earn $1500 for the win, but it costs $1700 to fix my armor. i go into the next event with less armor, because i couldn't afford to fix all of it, so -maybe- i still win, but my right armor was breached and now i have to replace a weapon too, etc, etc.
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ralphy_256 Posted Dec 29, 2006, 4:04 pm |
Ok, but then stock and custom events should not pay the same. |