REMOVE stats and rankings

Honestly, objectively, and without getting into my own opinion:

They are not going to remove stats/rankings and doing so would be a foolish decision on their part.

The fact is that a lot of people play games online to compete with others. That's where they get their fun out of the game from. That's why a lot of people buy games like this. To compete. And the sense of competition requires stats and rankings. So if they removed stats and rank, a BIG portion of the online player pool would be gone. And NOBODY would like that, because it would make it far more difficult to get games going than it already is.

It would be foolish of Stardock to remove stats/rankings because they'd lose players and potential future customers. It would almost kill this game (online anyway). That's my perception of the issue, absent my opinion.

Np there you go

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/313497

I was suprised when i read that too. That really special and unique thing seems to be tournament mode which everyone calls 7 skirmish games witch voice over on the end :D:D:D.

I am very interested in ur opinion about stats remove/temp disable.

Actually I remember that from an early post Brad made about Demigod from the early beta period. It's true. A lot of the ideas they had way back got totally disregarded for one reason or another. They chose to focus on multiplayer and believed that the game's success lay there and people were going to play single player mainly to learn the game before playing online. I think that's what happened. What turns out to have happened though (which is both interesting and ironic) is that TONS of people play this game just in single player. Blame it on the multiplayer problems or just an underestimated number of single-player-preferring customers. Whatever the reason, there are statistics that show this is what happened. I think the numbers are in Stardock's fiscal-year report.

Yeah. What I was most disapointed about was Generals.

They were supposed to be so different. I couldnt WAIT! I figured my friends would be the big guys running around and I would be ordering big armies to support em.

But no. I get Assassins with minions.

Edit: Re-reading it sounds like I hate DG. I love DG, there was just a lot that didn't happen. The Generals are still cool, but not what I was hopeing for

I already disregard stats in my mind.  High win% usually means a decent player, or a chronic disc hax0r, but ultimately there is no final determinant of player skill in a game where you can choose your opponents unless it's two preformed teams.  Even so there are still a plethora of DG balance issues.  Yeah, at this point, I think I'm gonna stick with playing for fun, with whomever is willing to start the game in under 2 hours.

Stats are indicative of a different game I prefer to call "Lobbygod".

double post

Sad, but true...

I think we are on the same page here. 

@Irek:

I'm not entirely sure this will be all that constructive, but I'll take a shot.  I'll also add that because the general tone of this thread is hostile, I doubt the thread will last for long in a open state.  It is SD's forum after all, but who knows...

Here are some FACTS illustrating some pretty huge issues with the stats.  The only somewhat recent enhancement that I am aware of is that SD removed the AI from pantheon so that humans would no longer be able to fight against AI only for exp to improve their ladder ranking.  To the best of my knowledge, these following issues are NOT being addressed by anyone.  Not to say they aren't being looked at, but SD has not made any comments that I am aware of publicly.

1. The host of a 1v1 can make the game vanish 100% of the time if they want (lousy solution - only host your own 1v1 games and don't use the explot yourself).  This obviously should be fixed, but its so rediculously easy to do that you can't even really call it an exploit unless a player messages in game and says "This game won't count, ass.  I'm going to make it not count by using this dumb exploit."  Then, that player might get banned.  Otherwise, they can simply say I didn't know or ignore you. 
   
2. The host of a 2v2 can make the game vanish approximately 95% of the time (lousy solution - only host your own 2v2 games and don't use the exploit yourself).  Want to see a simple example of someone indicating that they "don't know about an exploit", but use it all the same? See here:  http://forums.demigodthegame.com/370938.  Are they really cheating?  Maybe, maybe not, but we can only say what happens when they play and lose and that stats are gone (incidentally, I'm just providing an example... not really looking to stir up shite with those fellows). 
   
3. The same tricks do not work the same way in 3v3's and above.  There, all you need it someone to trigger a desync.  Still a trivial matter.  This can result in a win for one person, a loss for all, or for the game to simply vanish.  
4. It is a trivial matter to not lose experience even if you lose a game.  So, using yet another obnoxious trick, people could lose all of their games and stay at the base level EXP. 
   

Banning:  Triggering desyncs is the only thing I've mentioned so far that appears to be considered bannable by SD.  To date ( that I'm aware of anyway) 2 people have been banned.  Those 2 people set up new accounts and still play the game.  SD has indicated that while they abused the system on their old accounts, they have not done so on their new ones, so its a-ok with them to still get to play.  So be it.  1 other person was banned due to a screenshot that looked incriminating and then had his account reinstated.  I don't think he plays DG anymore.  The only method (that I am aware of) for getting a ban is an incriminating screenshot, complete with a caption indicating some dummy is running their mouth, that is causing or about to cause a desync.  Or an idiotic post on the forum where an individual tells SD that they will hack the game and there is nothing they can do to stop it.  In short, to be banned, to date, you have to be a complete idiot.  And note, I'm talking about banned from Demigod, not banned from making posts on the forum.  That's much easier to get banned over

If anyone at SD is interested in resolving the existing stat issues that I listed, I am willing to assist if I am able.  I can run some test scenarios and provide you with specifics on how the exploits work, etc.  Obviously, putting together some test cases and working through various scenarios takes quite a bit of time.  Please don't ask me to provide the information unless there is something you can or will do with the data.  I'm not sure if you guys are aware that there are still pretty big issues or where you guys are with things now.

Here's the thing.  As much as I hate to say it, Demigod is a game that in its current state, is designed for casual players.  It's overlay feature is designed to help balance games, but also keeps friends/clans from playing together.  The stat system, while functional, is easily manipulated.  There are enough loopholes so that the ladder is not only inaccurate, but isn't really a reflection of who the best players are.

Oh and regarding the hall of shame - I'd be pretty surprized if its even monitored.  If you have a point blank screenshot of someone saying "Check me out.  I'm desyncing this game yo" followed by a screenshot of the desync, start a post requesting a ban.  That's my 2 cents anyway.

It's overlay feature is designed to help balance games - > true

but also keeps friends/clans from playing together -> wrong

you just cant stomp. look for other teams and play against them.

Since u can have unlimited smurf accounts premade can hide themselfs quite good. say 2 guys play it would take about 10 games or so for them to get 20% similarity. Then one of them switches account another 10 games. second one switches another 10 games. on and on and on

I disagree.  And your reply is not exactly insightful and more of the same F anti-team play rhetoric.  You can look at things however you choose to.  You should know as well as anyone else that there are very few actual teams out there now.   Be constructive if you like.  

@irek - do you really think, for a second, that stats and rankings will be removed?

Here's a few more counterarguments for you, btw:

1. There won't be info available to BALANCE! games.  You'd have to go on memory alone.
   
2. People will still desync if things aren't going their way. 
   
3. People will still leaves games early even without stats. 
   

People will still desync if things aren't going their way. 

Why would they do that? there would be no reason for it.

I dont think it will removed, but i really belived it is the right thing to right now.

DO YOU really belived it will be ever fixed? Wait till sd starts working seriusly on Elemental, i bet even when server for lobbys will go down everyone will be too busy to reset it for week.

Dont forget stats are also reason why people dont want to play againts us (lotss of games, win ratio, similarity) feel free to sit in lobby for 45 minutes to have 25 game going. This is also caused by stats.

Do you think  Zen_God deserves to be ranked 16th? He also exploits system to get there. i played fev games with him most of them he ragequit. he dosnt have skills to be in top 10 000

So whats the point of having this broken stat system in place. I does more bad then good

pacov you didnt say much there. the only useful thing you said was that there arent many teams and i agree. ok, thats not good but you cant blame stats for that. also there arent no teams at all, there are many that play very often together. theyre just not organized anywhere. i guess that this is the real problem. i understand that you dont wanna play esl and would rather like to have an ingame clan-support but its not there so you gotta find a way around which is NOT stomping pugs.

in one game with frogboy i expressed the wish that i would like an option for unranked games and he agreed. just that you know.

btw. what i hate the most is that the disconnects are being counted. i dont know how often i ended up with a sucking team and wanted to leave but couldnt because the disconnects are being counted and i dont wanna be a "leaver". so even if the overlay was deactivated and there were some unranked game option you would end up with matches that end very quickly because the people just leave when they see theyre losing. and aint it boring to play against noobs?

No.  Not 100%.  Not even 90%. 

Probably not.  All in all, I know about 10 excellent demigod players, several good/great players, and quite a few meh.  I don't think any of the excellent players are in the top 10.  They might very well be, but I haven't checked.  As in, I don't look at stats that much anymore.  Its not worth getting worked up over.  I want it fixed, but I can't fix it myself.

Thank you

Right. I do understand the current state of the game.

I don't think its that big of a stretch to think that someone in the Dg community would do something obnoxious just to be a dick.  Think about it.  Oh, you think you're going to beat me.  Desync.  I don't think the root of people acting like jerks is caused by stats.  (quick side note - anyone looking for a quick break from DG, team fortress 2 is having a free weekend now - I played a bit of that and it was pretty relaxing and nice change up for a moment).

Anyway, I get what you are thinking - even if someone did desync, it might not matter as there are no stats, but think about it some more.  Someone can still wreck your experience because of exploits in the game.  I trust you'd find it quite annoying to be at the 10 minute mark, just start pushing a portal and then POW - desync.  Yes, you still probably would have won, but... anyway, crap like that would annoy me anyway, stats or no stats.  Remember, we desyncs first started happening, they were generally connection issues and not exploits... that sucked quite a bit and not primarily because of a win or loss... but because it wrecked what might have been a good game.

Hi there,

Screw the stats. Left the game because of that.

I mean, because I'm good I can't find anyone to play with, they all whine at my ex-90% ratio.

If they decide to remove the stats, which is IMO the best thing that could ever happen to this game, I'd go back to it.

remove stats.

im not pro, but im not ignorant on how to play.

since the stat reset im 0/4 and no one stays in my lobbies. before the reset i had a 60-70 percent win ratio and no trouble starting a game. now im a "noob" who "better not feed." a "noob" with 125 games played on my "game's played" list.