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SNoB wrote:The current system is less based on skill than the old one. Before you try to argue with me look at the point modifiers for each weapon. Are you going to try and argue that its just as easy to get a kill with the spys revolver or engy pistol as the flame thrower?
 - I give up, lol.
If its any consolation, last night we modified the kill streak bonus to reward skilled players more. It now scales the bonus up with every successful kill up to 12+ (god-like). Previously you would only recieve 11 bonus points for getting 12 kills in one life, now you will receive a maximum bonus of 30 points for attaining a god-like kill streak. We agreed that the difficulty and skill needed to attain higher kill streaks needed to be rewarded more than they had previously.
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Giller [GwDR wrote:]
SNoB wrote:The current system is less based on skill than the old one. Before you try to argue with me look at the point modifiers for each weapon. Are you going to try and argue that its just as easy to get a kill with the spys revolver or engy pistol as the flame thrower?
- I give up, lol.
If its any consolation, last night we modified the kill streak bonus to reward skilled players more. It now scales the bonus up with every successful kill up to 12+ (god-like). Previously you would only recieve 11 bonus points for getting 12 kills in one life, now you will receive a maximum bonus of 30 points for attaining a god-like kill streak. We agreed that the difficulty and skill needed to attain higher kill streaks needed to be rewarded more than they had previously.
This is exactly the opposite sort of thing I was talking about and changes I was proposing. The system views point and flag capturing as secondary or even tertiary objectives. The stats system rewards/penalizes disproportionately on kills and deaths rather than objectives captured. I know kills are important, but nearly every point gained and lost and point-generating action focuses on kills. The purpose of the game is to get up off one's little turtle tail and go storm the point. Instead, most points generated are some big irrelevant fight off to the side. Maybe it's because I see the game and purpose of the stats system differently from the rest of you, but I think that standing on the point for 15 seconds is far more important that lobbing grenades over a wall for 10 minutes hoping for kills. This new addition further rewards players for not completing the game's objective. Now, if you play defensively and such, you'll probably get around 87 points if you achieve 12 kills. If you play tactfully and sneak around the front line to stealthily capture the point, you get 20 points. In which of these situations did one display the most 'skill'? In my eyes and probably the eyes of Valve, the second player--but in the eyes of the stats system, the play style of the first player is infinitely superior. Since we're having fun making graphs, here's another roughly exponential one once it has been smoothed. Yes, we 'high-ranked' players have lots of points. Far, far more than most players. It does look like higher ranked players do indeed capture more objectives than other players--by a huge margin. Somehow the y-axis label got lost in space, but it's supposed to read 'captures/minute'.  Interestingly, among the top 50 players, the average percentage of points from captures to total points is 12.25%. The mean is relatively close to this at 10%. Among the top 50, though, there is no clear pattern percentage of points from captures relative to rank.  (y-axis = % of points from captures, x-axis = rank) Based on these data, the exponential increase in points is entirely justified and should even be more diverse, in my opinion. It is clear that some people capture objectives far more efficiently and rapidly than others, but are not fairly compensated for their commitment to objective capturing. Although this 'smoothed' graph doesn't show it, there are several people with a much higher percentage of points from captures than the top two spots. This, as I have pointed out, is the basis of my argument for stat changes. Completing the explicit game objectives should be more rewarding than simple, inconsequential kills. Some people do it more efficiently, so it's only natural that they be considered 'more skilled.' Why should one death take 6-8 captures to compensate a point change? One death is common, but a point capture is far more important and much rarer. Though I've said it before, here it goes again: a player who plays the game the game's way should justly see a greater point total than a player who simply plays for kills. This seems like common sense to me, but this is exactly the opposite of the basis of the current stats system.
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the change is not its not really a move in the "wrong direction". It actually accounts for a pretty small percentage of points when you look at all the action points combined because its much harder to get 12 kills than capture a point. Infact it balances the objective/fragging - split a tiny bit more. More on that in sec.
The main problem that is being shadowed by round and round arguements of the point assignments is that at the top of the ranking system, and the design has been changed so that your rate of point accumulation slows...then Really slows as you reach higher and higher point totals. The rules are the same for everyone else...don't fret because you are slowing and are afraid that other players are hot on your heals because you cannot maintain a 1000-3000 positive point total every night.....because as other players chase you...they are slowing down too and will still have a hell of a time catching you.
These arguements that Captures are the ultimate contribution to TF may be well founded (and I honestly am with you on that they are commendable achievments in play)...but I dont think Valve would agree with you wholly. "Worthless killing", turtling, and a de-emphasis on the combat skill element would have you leave the sniper, spy, and to some extent engineer out in the cold. You say that capping points is the superior play in TF, that classes like the sniper cannot contribute superior play that genuinely affects the outcome of the game. I simply disagree and think that the system needs to evenly balance both.
Look; There needs to be a balance between skill acquired through objective based actions, and those based on kill skills. You favor increasing the capture bonus because you are most directly involved with that aspect of the game...and back in 2008 the ranking system LOVED the point capture....thats why all the top players never played intel cap maps, myself included.
The balance is struck and the rewards are not disproportionate if you look at the Action skill bonus records.
Even if we had been running with this small skill based bonus from the reset..it would only amount to 8% of the total points earned for every bonus event. (thats including the streak bonus earned from 2 kills all the way up to 12+ total.) Now objective based points (intel caps/flag pickups+losses/capture point ) account for 14.7%. So the system is still favors point capturing, but is actually pretty balanced if you factor in the additional kill award points. While you may feel that they point loss is disproportionate, but you can't argue that the kill reward is out of control. By your own admission:
FatPidgeon wrote:Yes, we 'high-ranked' players have lots of points. Far, far more than most players. It does look like higher ranked players do indeed capture more objectives than other players--by a huge margin. Capturing points is the way to maintain high rank, and its working for you...but not apperantly enough because you want more more more. It just looks like if you further incentivise the capture point..well its just a way for point farming to commence again, knocking the system out of whack and favoring a ranking system that leaves only one style of play as a successful one.
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Lets not for a second assume that valve thinks that skill/team work are the way to play this game. Evidence they dont want skilled players to have advantage over shitty players has been in the class updates.
Pyros. They shout and curse. Stabbing wildly. More brawlers than warriors. They make a wondrous mess of things. Brave amateurs.
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On a related note....I have enjoyed this thread immensly. Both from an geek intellectual aspect and the fact that everybody has positively contributed and respected eachothers positions.
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I do have to think that your real argument isn't about points GAIN, but rather points LOSS - you're trying to compensate points loss by adding ever bigger gains. The issue there is I think the system would start countering by increasing your losses even more based on its expectations.
At this point I think it's too early to say exactly how losses should be handled, and we really need to give it some more time to see if adjustments need to be made. Since your average gain has been 1,600 points per day over the last 28 days, I'm not certain that the evidence supports that it's broken yet. I'm not saying that to be rude or to dismiss your overall argument, but it would be easier to see what needed adjusting if something obviously needed adjusting. Also I would expect SOME slowing in the "per hour" growth rate of points the higher you get, to stop fantastical numbers from being achievable. I know Whut has said in the past he'd LOVE to see actual shake-ups in the top ranking players, rather than static exponential grown (as is STILL the case), even if that meant things like 1,500 points lost/gained by a single kill. We're not there yet.
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Doesnt really matter but I just noticed it today playing.
Did the points for an assist change from 5 to 3? and Did doing things liking destroying a sentry change from 10 to 5? Not a big deal, just wondering if you guys were the ones who changed that.
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Paterson wrote:
Doesnt really matter but I just noticed it today playing.
Did the points for an assist change from 5 to 3? and Did doing things liking destroying a sentry change from 10 to 5? Not a big deal, just wondering if you guys were the ones who changed that.
I noticed it too.
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As someone who actively tries to maintain the lowest score possible, I must applaud the decision to lower the kill assist points from 5 to 3 points. It's always such a pain to try to get kills while receiving the fewest points possible, that because you accidentally grazed some guy with your pistol, you get an unacceptable five points when an inconsiderate teammate summarily finishes him off. My hat's off to you, sirs. Please keep point generation restricted to those that actually want them. HolyJaw wrote:In the end, everything Endyss said.
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5 points per assist was based on the old system, where it was quite easy (once you hit the minimum number of kills) to get 50 points for killing one person. I've noticed now that the max seems to hover at 20 or under... usually around 7... so 5 for an assist seemed too high based on that. Note that medics still get 5 points since that's their primary point system (and playing medic should be generally attractive.)
I had initially made sentries a high point value - 10 - because I wanted to make it more attractive for people to kill them. However it turns out that killing sentries already comes naturally, and is the fifth most-performed action (Kill Assist, Medic Kill Assist, Double Kill, Built Sentry, Destroyed Sentry) so I lowered it. If people are pissed off at that I can move it back. If there were a way to get more points for killing a L3 versus an L1 sentry I would, but that isn't possible.
The arguements we had on the OLD SYSTEM mainly stemmed from the fact that we had all sorts of players get points based on one system, and then that system was completely changed so that it would have been very hard for anyone to get up to the level in the first place. Top players basically had months of "negative progress" to look forward to, until some sort of equalization occurred. Now at least everyone's in the same boat.
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Sunfox wrote:
5 points per assist was based on the old system, where it was quite easy (once you hit the minimum number of kills) to get 50 points for killing one person. I've noticed now that the max seems to hover at 20 or under... usually around 7... so 5 for an assist seemed too high based on that. Note that medics still get 5 points since that's their primary point system (and playing medic should be generally attractive.)
I had initially made sentries a high point value - 10 - because I wanted to make it more attractive for people to kill them. However it turns out that killing sentries already comes naturally, and is the fifth most-performed action (Kill Assist, Medic Kill Assist, Double Kill, Built Sentry, Destroyed Sentry) so I lowered it. If people are pissed off at that I can move it back. If there were a way to get more points for killing a L3 versus an L1 sentry I would, but that isn't possible.
The arguements we had on the OLD SYSTEM mainly stemmed from the fact that we had all sorts of players get points based on one system, and then that system was completely changed so that it would have been very hard for anyone to get up to the level in the first place. Top players basically had months of "negative progress" to look forward to, until some sort of equalization occurred. Now at least everyone's in the same boat.
Now it seems slightly harder to catch up or gain in the ranks. Can we set it where some action besides capping or protecting a cap still gets you 10 points or somewhere in there thats not killing a highly ranked person. Im in the 130's for rank right now, and though eventually with alot of caps I can get closer to that top50, it seems like its going to take forever now, but I havent played alot with this new system so im just speculating.
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I'll just throw this in here for discussions sake... http://www.wdfnews.com/forums.aspx?g=posts&t=10297 Here is a list I did some time back about changing the point system and some reasoning behind it.
Do not eat the contents of this post.
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Paterson wrote:
Now it seems slightly harder to catch up or gain in the ranks. Can we set it where some action besides capping or protecting a cap still gets you 10 points or somewhere in there thats not killing a highly ranked person. Im in the 130's for rank right now, and though eventually with alot of caps I can get closer to that top50, it seems like its going to take forever now, but I havent played alot with this new system so im just speculating.
There are plenty of points out there to be earned if you don't cap often, but you still need to cap and make intel runs to really have the best chances of moving up in the ranks hastily.
Some of the non-cap bonuses that can be made:
Assisting in kills (non-medic) - 3 points
Assisting in kills (medic) - 5 points
Destroying engineer constructs are a good source of points
- Destroy dispenser 3
- Destroy tele exit 5
- Destroy tele entr 10
Kill streaks greater than 7 starts getting you into a decent bonus.
Building constructs as an engineer
Deploying uber charges - 10 points.
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i beleive you start loosing massive amount of points on high ranks, this is why the previous " 50 " limit wasnt so bad....we could mix the actual point system with a limit on point lost and everything would be ok...i beleive
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