Ideas to avoid "win at all costs" but still rank games/players

Reference this forum post: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/post.aspx?postid=300958&p=3, this paragraph:

Irconclad Online doesn't include a ranking system. That wasn't by accident. It wasn't an oversight. It was precisely to discourage "playing to win at all costs" style of playing. If other people want to set up their own tournaments, that's fine. But I don't want the typical ICO game to consist of one player trying to play a fun game versus someone who has figured out that the best strategy is to quickly bulld 5 light frigates and just harrass the heck out of the other player's home world in the opening 5 minutes.

Alright, Ironclad doesn't want people coming up with an optimum strategy every patch, and then players going online and finding that that strategy is all that gets used. I can understand that, seeing a glorious game reduced to a calculated number of mouse clicks every single game can get depressing. I have to say though, many of the most popular strategy games (Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Command and Conquer, and many others) had quite a few optimal strategies to choose from, not just one godlike strategy. If you wanted to be slightly less optimal, your strategies could still work, because it catches the opponent off guard. Once you start playing these games a lot, it becomes less about which units counter what, and more about which overall strategies counter what. Rush against techers, expand against turtlers, etc.

In other words, I don't think most gamers think it's a big deal at all that some strategies are generally better than others. But, it's all about probability. This game seems to be one of the most balanced I've seen as far as that goes, so I don't think there's any reason to be scared of a ranking system.

If indeed Ironclad is worried about gamers ripping the fun out of the game by playing only to win, perhaps there are other things that could be added to records in order to balance it out. For example, track wins, track losses, track drops (like all other similar games), but also track other things, like how many planets the person has captured in total, how many research points they've spent total, how many trade ships they've had in total. The system for pulling these records is already in place, as you can see everyone's totals at the end game summary charts.

You won't adjust peoples' play styles by having zero rewards. If you want to diversify play types, then reward players based on a diverse set of characteristics. I suspect that eliminating a ladder system altogether is going to make competitive people (the majority of gamers) ask themselves "Why even bother?" after a while. From the beginning of video games, gamers crave rewards. If you find a way to cater to that need, as well as achieving your own goal of promoting alternate strategies, you're going to do nothing but increase your playerbase.

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Nice point there. Perhaps extrapolate different stats and have rankings based on the playing styles.

What I mean is, you could have your basic warfare ranking, which lists players with the best kill to loss ratio (obviously taking into account the difference in races), and have the tech ranking, for the most tech researched total, then trade rankings, expansion rankings, etc. etc.

I don't think an overall ranking is even necessary - the ladder doesn't need to show who won the most games, just rank the different aspects of the game. An overall ranking probably won't give a proper view anyway - Sins is considerably different to other RTS games, and therefore the ranking should reflect its distinctiveness.

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In my opinion, most players of RTS and 4X games are using the games to satisfy their competitive urges and inflate their egos. (I know that is why I play.

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SO....

How about a ranking system that behaves like a ladder.

20 rungs would probably be sufficient.

There need not be individual rankings within each rung, but there could be.

If you beat someone on a rung above you, you advance 1 rung.
If you are beat by someone on a rung below you, you decline 1 rung.
If you win 5 games in a row on the same rung as you, you advance 1 rung.
If you lose 5 games in a row on the same rung as you, you decline 1 rung.
If you do not play for 1 month, you decline 1 rung.

If a rung (especially at the top or bottom) gets too populated, add another rung at the top and let time sort it out.

Higher levels on the ladder will eventually be populated by players who work to get every advantage the game will allow, even if others consider it 'gamey'.

Medium to higher levels on the ladder will eventually be populated by players who play well but do not use 'gamey' tactics.

Medium to lower levels on the ladder will eventually be populated by players who are improving or have not played for a while.

Lower levels on the ladder will, hopefully, be populated by players who are new to the game. They can now be identified as such and the community can be nice to them. This could include 1 expert taking on a team of 2 newbies. It could also include mentoring, teaching, training, etc.

This will allow players to identify suitable opponents of their skill level.

This will allow players to feel good about their game or identify that they need to work to improve.

This will not prove anything and therefore shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings.

This will provide lots of fodder for discussion, blustering, taunting, etc. and therefore add to the buzz surrounding the game.

I think something like this should be implemented and I hope it will.

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Already, on other threads, you have self-glorified, « high-level competitive » players who are bragging, in the wake of version 1.03's recent release, about their optimal tricks to mathematically manipulate the alleged weaknesses of the new version, with the overt intention of going online to rapidly crush anybody who does not use their optimal series of mouse-clicks.

I won't comment on the OP's proposals, since I have very little experience in online multiplay ... but I « warn » Ironclad & Stardock that they risk alienating the vast majority of their customers (who are casual gamers with no « high-level » ladder-climbing ambitions) if they tailor the MP dimension of their game to meet the excessive expectations of a tiny minority of extremists.

But, on the other hand, I would not mind if there was an online system to identify those « high-level competitive » players, and to pit them all against each other.

As it is now, I won't waste time, on ICO, being mismatched and abused by smart-aleck manipulators who know how to exploit the Black Market -- for example.

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I won't comment on the OP's proposals, since I have very little experience in online multiplay ... but I « warn » Ironclad & Stardock that they risk alienating the vast majority of their customers (who are casual gamers with no « high-level » ladder-climbing ambitions) if they tailor the MP dimension of their game to meet the excessive expectations of a tiny minority of extremists.

I completely agree. I'd probably never go online if the ranking system became central just like in other games. I consider ranking systems to be incentives to cheating. Most games these days have this nasty habit of tieing unlocks to ranks and that instantly makes me avoid the game because of all the stat padding, cheating, and exploits used back in the Battlefield 2 days to get those said unlocks. I don't think that would be feasible to do in Sins, but having a ranking system still wouldn't discourage people from cheating or clanning up to create organized ways to manipulate the system. Even games with simple stats systems have clean servers that inevitably get raided by 4 to 6 clan members who promptly stomp all over everyone else's good time.

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Now, what if something was implemented to where people could identify if they're a competitive gamer, casual, low/medium/high skill, and so on? Perhaps these could be useful additions to the player's profile to help them find other players and matches that better suit their style.

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[...] Ironclad doesn't want people coming up with an optimum strategy every patch, and then players going online and finding that that strategy is all that gets used. I can understand that, seeing a glorious game reduced to a calculated number of mouse clicks every single game [...]If indeed Ironclad is worried about gamers ripping the fun out of the game by playing only to win [...] Already, on other threads, you have self-glorified, « high-level competitive » players who are bragging, in the wake of version 1.03's recent release, about their optimal tricks to mathematically manipulate the alleged weaknesses of the new version, with the overt intention of going online to rapidly crush anybody who does not use their optimal series of mouse-clicks.I won't comment on the OP's proposals, since I have very little experience in online multiplay ... but I « warn » Ironclad & Stardock that they risk alienating the vast majority of their customers (who are casual gamers with no « high-level » ladder-climbing ambitions) if they tailor the MP dimension of their game to meet the excessive expectations of a tiny minority of extremists.But, on the other hand, I would not mind if there was an online system to identify those « high-level competitive » players, and to pit them all against each other.As it is now, I won't waste time, on ICO, being mismatched and abused by smart-aleck manipulators who know how to exploit the Black Market -- for example.

I see what you're saying. But I must say, it's far simpler to see someones overall skill level. Look at wc3, there is a ladder matching service, and there is a custom game service, you can host the actual game over the custom game service and avoid the ladder and rankings entirely, while the "Hardcore" or whatever people play on the ladder.

Some of us competitive players are more in touch with the whole community that plays online than you all give us credit. We see the varying levels of skill, but we can't keep track of everyone. Especially people who change their nicknames on ICO. We don't want to effectively molest someone who just started playing online anymore than you want to be on the recieving end. A win is pointless if it was no challenge at all, such a waste of time. I ask people with less than 10 games if they're new and ask them to leave if they are as it stands. They don't learn anything dying in the first 15-30 minutes, and I certainly don't get the satisfaction of a hard won battle, nor do I learn anything.

Ladders are the perfect way of keeping games somewhat balanced. Assuming they're implemented effectively.

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Already, on other threads, you have self-glorified, « high-level competitive » players who are bragging, in the wake of version 1.03's recent release, about their optimal tricks to mathematically manipulate the alleged weaknesses of the new version, with the overt intention of going online to rapidly crush anybody who does not use their optimal series of mouse-clicks.I won't comment on the OP's proposals, since I have very little experience in online multiplay ... but I « warn » Ironclad & Stardock that they risk alienating the vast majority of their customers (who are casual gamers with no « high-level » ladder-climbing ambitions) if they tailor the MP dimension of their game to meet the excessive expectations of a tiny minority of extremists. (1)

But, on the other hand, I would not mind if there was an online system to identify those « high-level competitive » players, and to pit them all against each other.As it is now, I won't waste time, on ICO, being mismatched and abused by smart-aleck manipulators who know how to exploit the Black Market -- for example. (2)

(1) My friend, I would kindly ask you to read an admittedly long post on this very topic and reconsider what it is that you're saying.

You can find it here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/303809/page/3/ (forgive me, but I can't figure out how to link directly to the post, it's under my name, Mettra)

I would also say that mouse click speed is almost not a factor at all in this game compared to other factors when you're talking about competitive multiplayer. So an argument centered around the speed of mouse-click required is not a particularly strong argument.

(2) You seem to hold odd views. You are against multiplayer-centered balancing yet you state that the very reason you don't go online is because of abuse of imbalance (of which the black market is most definitely the center).

You also (at the same time) insinuate that competitive players WANT these imbalances in place, even though they are up in arms AGAINST the imbalance and using their games and situations as examples of what is wrong. It isn't bragging, they are trying to make a case for change. I urge you to reconsider your position and provide evidences of your own to make your own case.

Thanks.

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