Introduction:
The fundamental balance issue in PVP is poor matchmaking. Some players experience 1:1 win:loss ratios, while others experience unbreakable losing streaks. The solution to this problem is a rating system that improves matchmaking.
The rating system would be based on player skill/prowess, in the form of participation points that account for all abilities: damage, shield repair, hull repair, buffs, debuffs; both given and received.
Fundamentally, queues would need to be separated between individuals ('PUGs') and registered ('premade') teams, with different ratings for each.
Please post any and all feedback here. Support is especially welcome. Falkoren (Cryptic QA) made it very clear that ideas like this cannot be implemented without tangible player support.
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Participation-based Ratings:
In order to make this work, the ratings need to be calculated per individual player and not per team. There should be a separate rating for team, but only if the team 'registers' for it.
Personal ratings should be based off participation (accounting for: damage dealt, hull repair, shield repair, buffs/debuffs applied, and AOE; also objective-based scoring), so it encourages support as much as kills. It should not need to record win:loss, since we all know that win:loss is determined far more by teamwork than individual participation.
Team ratings should be based off total participation as well as win:loss ratio vs. other teams' ratings.
How is participation calculated? The fundamental components should be damage and healing, but these two components could be split in the following ways:
- Damage = (DamageDealt / DamageReceived)
- Healing = [(HullRepairGiven + ShieldRepairGiven) / (HullRepairReceived + ShieldRepairReceived)]
Next, how do we account for buffs, debuffs, and AOE?
- Add a DamageAssist component to Damage, to account for damage buffs (non-self) and resistance debuffs. Whenever an ally scores Damage points while damage-buffed from another ally, the player who applied the damage buff (non-self) gains those Damage points as well.
Whenever anyone scores Damage points against a target with a resistance debuff, the player who applied the debuff gains those Damage points as well.
- Add a DamageMitigation component to Healing, to account for resistance buffs (non-self). Whenever an ally resists damage received, the player who applied the resistance buff (non-self) gains Healing points.
- CC abilities can count toward Damage Assist or Damage Mitigation, if approximations are used (e.g., base weapon stats = Damage Mitigation; power drained = Damage Assist). Otherwise, CC abilities should be ignored.
- Points received from DamageAssist and DamageMitigation could be weighted lower than base Damage and Healing points, if these points are the result of non-CC buff/debuff (or buff/debuff that require the output of other allies in order to generate points). Rather, the Damage and Healing points received would be reduced if from these DamageAssist and DamageMitigation components.
Thus, DamageAssist and DamageMitigation are weighted equally with the other components (output/input) of Damage and Healing:
- Damage = (DamageDealt / DamageReceived) + DamageAssist
- DamageAssist = (coefficient * DamageDealtByAllies) + EnemyPowerDrained
where coefficient is a fraction, most likely (1 / totalNumberOfAllies)
- Healing = [(HullRepairGiven + ShieldRepairGiven) / (HullRepairReceived + ShieldRepairReceived)] + DamageMitigation
- DamageMitigation = (coefficient * DamageReducedOnAllies) + EnemyDisabledWeaponDamage
where coefficient is a fraction, most likely (1 / totalNumberOfEnemies)
Lastly, how do we account for objective-based scoring (e.g., capture-and-hold scoring)?
- Add a third component, of equal weighting with Damage and Healing, called ObjectivePoints. Thus, the total participation score can be affected by ObjectivePoints without biasing all participation scores (for non-objective maps).
myParticipation = Damage + Healing + ObjectivePoints
- In order for ObjectivePoints to be consistent with the order of magnitude of Damage and Healing, they would need to be generated by players (just as Damage and Healing are generated by players) instead of taken out of an already existing points pool.
This means that the influence point scale (and overall system) on the current capture-and-hold maps needs to change. For example, the new victory condition would be that the first team to reach 1200 influence points wins (instead of the current victory condition, which is that the first team to reach 0 influence points loses).
- Create arbitrary values, based on approximate/comparable Damage + Healing, that could be considered equivalent to scoring an objective. ObjectivePoint value units would be the same units used in Damage and Healing values, so there would be no difficulty in conversion or scaling.
For example in capture-and-hold:
- For the moment, let's keep the system simple and say that an area is either captured or neutral; anything in between does not matter.
- 1 ObjectivePoint = 100 DamageDealt + 50 HullRepairGiven + 50 ShieldRepairGiven
- It takes 60 ObjectivePoints to capture an area from neutral standing.
- Each player generates 1 ObjectivePoint per second, only while within a certain range of an objective area that they do not own.
- Once an area is captured, each player of the same standing generates 2 ObjectivePoints per second, only while within range of the objective area.
Individual un-ranked rating is then calculated as a ratio of individual participation to everyone else's participation (total). So my individual (un-ranked) rating would be calculated as:
myParticipation / totalParticipation
This would need to be modified to account for all player ratings, in order to provide relative scaling rather than absolute inflation. A simple scaling system with ranked ratings might look like this:
myRating = (myParticipation / totalParticipation) * (AvgParticipationOfAllPlayers / totalParticipationOfAllPlayers)
which is the same as
myRating = (myParticipation / totalParticipation) / totalNumberOfRatings
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Ratings Brackets and Matchmaking:
Ratings should be bracketed based upon the average participation possible per tier.
Normalisation to 50% win (or loss) does require a large population. However, matchmaking in general -- and the operation of the ratings system -- does not require any particular population (above 10 total, of course, if 5v5 is our most basic unit).
More accurately, we do not need to constrain players to their ratings brackets.
Matchmaking will first select from within a ratings bracket, and then move outward if there are not enough players available within that single bracket.
While it is true that there may be situations where PVPers from one bracket might be matched up with and against PVPers of other brackets, this will happen only if it becomes necessary to create PVP matches (i.e., quality-of-service oriented, instead of best-effort oriented). In this scenario, ratings are still calculated normally and largely unaffected, as long as we also apply weights to the different brackets.
For example, a scenario where a PVPer from Bracket 3 is forced to play with and against PVPers from Bracket 1. Without bracket weightings, the participation calculated would be extremely high for the player from Bracket 3, which would temporarily inflate that player's rating. To compensate, we can then apply weightings in the form of a (fractional) coefficient applied to the participation component, where the coefficient represents a ratio of the brackets' average participation.
So my individual (un-ranked) rating becomes:
Participation = (myParticipation / totalParticipation) * (AvgParticipationOfHighBracket / AvgParticipationOfMyBracket)
And the ranked ratings formula becomes:
myRating = Participation / totalNumberOfRatings
By applying the bracket coefficient to the participation component and not the entire ratings formula, players from lower brackets are rewarded slightly for competing against players from higher brackets, while the ratings calculation (in that situation of mixed brackets) would be largely unaffected for the players from higher brackets.
In order to account for bracket-jumping at the margins (high-end and low-end of each bracket), we could impose a constraint that limits backwards movement. In other words, it would be easier to move up in ratings and brackets than it is to move down. This could be accomplished by applying a weighted additive to all ratings calculations, where the additive represents a weighting of my new rating relative to my previous rating.
So the weighted ranked ratings formula becomes:
myNewRating = additive + myOldRating
where additive = (myNewRating - myOldRating) * (myNewRating / myOldRating)
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Continued in the next post.
Comments
All queues should then be separated into two categories: one for individual sign-ups (based on personal ratings only), and one for team sign-ups (based on personal + team ratings). Remember that team ratings are based upon overall team participation as well as win:loss.
Players would be matched up by ratings within their bracket. Teams would also be matched up by ratings within their bracket.
This separation is necessary for the sake of keeping a premade team together, otherwise the system would replace low-rated team members with higher-rated individuals from outside the team.
In this way, player experience is accounted for and matched up, in far greater detail than simple rank/level-banding. Teams are also provided a more competitive experience, since their ratings depend on win:loss as well as participation.
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Rewards:
This system assumes the same reward pool as is currently in use in-game (i.e., skill points, energy credits, merits/honor, medals). This system can be applied to any reward pool, but the fundamental requirement is that the reward pool must be fixed per bracket, similar to how our existing reward pools are fixed per tier.
So in any given ratings bracket, there is a fixed reward pool for every match.
This pool is then split among the participating players according to each player's Participation. 0 Participation should yield 0 rewards. As for scaling, I am open to suggestions.
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Conclusion:
The rating system is not a new idea. But basing ratings on participation (i.e., all player output possible) will make the rating system much more accurate and fair than simple kill:death or win:loss records.
This will help balance player experience more appropriately, so matches are fairer and more exciting. The ultimate goal is to normalise the win:loss ratio by improving the matchmaking.
Ratings will always be relative to each other, and ratings are designed to increase more easily than decrease, so ratings will always change. This means that players will never be 'stuck'; players will regularly face more challenging opponents, but the difficulty will be scaled more appropriately to provide more incentive and a better 'learning curve'.
Further separation of individuals from teams (i.e., joining a queue as an individual, or joining as a team) is a key step toward this goal. Team ratings will also be based on win:loss, providing a more competitive environment for teams.
Rewards will also be scaled with participation, ensuring an effective incentive.
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Summary of Raw Stats Required:
The following list contains all the stats (for each participant, per match) required for this ratings system. The game will need to track these stats for the purposes of participation and ratings calculations at the end of every match.
Ideally, these stats should also be tracked in CombatLog, regardless of whether or not the ratings system gets implemented.
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Summary of Formulae:
where coefficient is a fraction, most likely (1 / totalNumberOfAllies)
where coefficient is a fraction, most likely (1 / totalNumberOfEnemies)
where additive = (myNewRating - myOldRating) * (myNewRating / myOldRating)
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Acknowledgements:
Changes to this post have been made based upon feedback from the following contributors to this thread:
Please post any and all feedback. Support is especially welcome. Falkoren (Cryptic QA) made it very clear that ideas like this cannot be implemented without tangible player support.
So please post your support!
1. The focus-fire target in any given situation almost inevitably ends up with a poor showing in damage dealt and damage healed, due to a combination of forced defensive play and CC abilities being used to shut down active defenses. Team-based win/loss rating systems account for this by essentially ignoring this issue - if your team wins, you dealt with it in an empirically effective way. A system with an individual rating such as the one you're proposing would have problems providing a fair assessment of skill in this situation.
2. Buffs and debuffs are very difficult to compute meaningful values for. A well-timed Beam Target Shields is a single debuff that makes or breaks an encounter. A poorly-timed VM is a waste of a 90-second cooldown. Dampening field is a very minor effect, but can potentially apply dozens of times over its duration (a carrier can cover all its fighters, plus ships entering and leaving the bubble will "gain" the ability multiple times).
3. It can be difficult to statistically detect the difference between a good fight and a bad one. If a fight goes on for a very long time and generates very high damage/healing numbers as a result, does that mean the teams were good or bad? Should they rank up or down as a result?
How would you judge this? There is no computer in the world that can detect "skill" when it comes to MMO's. Bringing the most overpowered comp has always been the best way to boost rating and I just see this system as forcing players to do just that. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for this idea to go through. I just don't see how it would be possible. Individual ratings cannot exist in a team play game unless the game can detect when / how abilities are used and how meaningful they are being used. This game is far from doing anything like that.
Would be nice down the road though once the development catches up a bit.
The end result is your PvP Rating. And given your performance rating, you can be moved to the appropiate skill set (Novice, Average, Expert) in the queue so your not overwhelmed or have easy kills all the time.
Though the one thing I hope is that Cryptic would keep such numbers private. When numbers get out like in WoW, egos really start to take over the game an ruins the fun.
I took my escort captain from LTC to Com this weekend and I was definitely doing very well personally with some 0 death matches and top damage rankings, some which were actually losses for us. But there is no chance in hell I could compete with anyone shooting off viral matrix, which would have happened if I went cross tier and had to compete against commander level BOPs.
After I got promoted, it was a real change, suddenly I was sucky again, even with the new ship and APO to counter VM. Yes I was fighting higher level players and getting smoked by them and their extra skills and experience in the tier, but if I was then deemed sucky enough to be worthy of playing the best players in tier 2 ships, I would easily mop the floor with them.
Now I grant you, I'd probably only get stuck with 1 match like that before getting properly switched again, but the tier differences between ships are just too massive. To have access to 3 extra BO powers between LTC and Com and a tougher ship with more weapons and higher level weapons, consoles, etc. is a huge difference, no matter how lousy you are.
Its likely also easily exploited by performing terribly in matches just so you can go down a "rank" and stomp all over lower level players for a bit.
But I think the biggest problem with this idea is that there just aren't enough people that PVP. You see a lot of the same people from match to match, and better than you or not, if you start separating us into thinner bands of skill, then you could end up killing PVP. At best, you could get away with halving the bands, so its 5 levels thick instead of 10, but that would still potentially leave too few players to fill the queues.
Really its not perfect, but I like the system as it is. You learn when you come into a new tier that you have to adapt quickly, and figure out how to deal with the new powers and the new abilities and tactics of ships in that tier. And by the end of the tier, you'll be reaping the rewards for your learning process and the skill gains while teaching the lower levels they have a lot to learn.
So long as players are on-board with the concept, then we have some basis for improving the current system.
I will attempt to offer some more detailed suggestions, point-by-point. Agreed that the individual rating is much more problematic than the simpler team rating. If we factor damage received into the rating, in combination with the duration and magnitude of buffs, then defensive play can be rewarded and rated appropriately. We might also consider factoring in deaths.
The real question is the weighting of the different participation components. Which components weigh more or less than others? I think damage dealt, hull repair, and shield repair should be weighted highest and equally, since they are the most basic components to life and death. Again, I agree. The question is how do we measure and weight buffs/debuffs compared to what I consider the Big Three (damage dealt, hull repair, shield repair). I would suggest that, for weights, we only care about abilities that modify damage dealt or received. (Heals are already accounted for in the Big Three.)
So CC abilities don't count toward participation ratings.
This gives us two options for buff/debuff weighting:
1) Assign weights on a fixed participation-point to resistance ratio over time (e.g., X points per % resistance over Y duration, with -X points possible for -% resistance).
OR
2) Ignore these weights as well, and simply rely on the Big Three, remembering that buffs/debuffs directly affect the Big Three anyway. I don't think we need to take match duration into account. Rewarding a specific duration is more easily exploitable than rewarding raw numbers.
I do agree that participation inflation can be problematic as a result of good (i.e., long) matches.
I propose the following:
1) First, we distinguish between participation and (individual) rating.
2) Participation is calculated by the weight points as described above.
3) (Individual) Rating is then calculated as a ratio of individual participation to everyone else's participation (total). So my rating would be calculated as (MyParticipationPoints)/(TotalParticipationPoints).
Thoughts?
Yes, but my point was that if you take a super awesome T-1 player and the ratings then put them up against average T+0 players, they will still get hammered easily. So the next match they are put back into their proper tier, and then being so awesome, they slaughter everyone, then get promoted again and go back to sucking, and it goes back and forth until they truly get a real promotion.
Anyone fighting a tier above their rank is automatically at a severe disadvantage, with less BO powers, less consoles, and weapon, shields, all their equipment is likely 2 levels lower, not to mention the captain skill differences. I don't believe anyone can overcome all those obstacles, which is what a rating system would assume possible. The curve between the ranks just isn't as smooth as it would need to be for such a system.
A possible solution would be to impose a constraint on backwards movement. In other words, it is easier to move up in ratings (and to higher brackets) than it is to go down. In order to accomplish this, there would need to be a (fractional) coefficient applied to negative ratings.
For determining Participation values:
One way to deal with this would be "damage mitigated" and "damage assist" stats. If I throw Engineering Team on somebody, they get a heal (credited to me) and a 30% resistance buff. If we were to calculate the damage mitigation (30% of the incoming damage) and credit it to me as Damage Mitigated, then that could help to better represent the full contribution of the ability. Ditto if I throw Fire on My Mark on somebody, in the Damage Assist column. Mitigation and Assist would count at a lower rate toward Participation than actual damage or healing, perhaps half or so.
This concept makes it possible to account for many complex abilities using approximation methods: VMing someone credits me their base weapon DPS as damage mitigated for the duration of the effect (crude but better than nothing). Beam Target Shields gives a damage assist equal to the shield+regen over the duration of the ability.
The other major upshot of this idea is that it scales directly with the effectiveness of what you're doing - if you're throwing Eng team on somebody who's not actually getting shot, you're not mitigating any actual damage and it's not going to be worth points.
The downside of this is simply that it's a accounting nightmare keeping track of whose buffs and debuffs are whose. Damage mitigation is not constant, so if TWO people throw +resist on somebody, each of us will mitigate less absolute damage. I'm sure there are more disadvantages, but I think for now, I've at least expressed the basic idea.
Ratings vs. Participation:
The Participation point metric alone allows the scoring system to distinguish how well someone did relative to other players in the same match, but not how well they did in an absolute sense. A big fish in a big pond, and a small fish in a small pond look exactly the same. Some sort of "pond size scaling" needs to be included.
How this is done, however, requires that you answer a related fundamental question: whether ratings are cumulative always-increasing totals, or closer in principle to a "True Skill" valuation (e.g. ELO). That is, do your Rating points keep going up, or are they supposed to stabilize at some point?
There are pros and cons to each, of course. A perpetually increasing scale simplifies rewards and motivates point-hungry players. At the same time, it rewards high playtime as well as high skill - you can grind rating, as it were. A stabilizing-value system would eliminate playtime as a variable and instead reward mostly skill. However, such systems are known to promote irrational behavior such as rating-protection where players stop playing in order to preserve a high numeric rating.
A simple Accumulation system might look like this:
myNewRating += AverageRatingsOfPlayersInGame/100 * (myParticipation/totalParticipation)
A True Skill Value system would have to follow something like a modified ELO or WoW individual rating calculation. It seems like this would be the intent, since otherwise players who play a lot could essentially rank themselves out of having any chance whatsoever of winning a match (T1 plays a ton and ends up fighting T5). I'm not familiar enough with the ELO computation, however, to figure out exactly what would happen here.
Regarding diminishing returns on (for example) resistance buffs, I don't see a need to compensate for that. Also something I had mentioned ('ratings brackets') but didn't elaborate on. Thank you for providing some detail, which I have included in the original post.
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Can you take a look at the original post again and then tell me what you think?
Thank you, again, for the excellent feedback.
One thing that's a little unclear also is under what circumstances a player would drop in rating - the equation provided doesn't actually allow for that, as it's purely additive.
Finally, how would rewards work with cross-tier matchmaking? Right now there's a base for the bracket, modified by damage dealt. In a cross-tier system, how would you determine this? It seems intuitive that you'd use the Participation point ratio to divide up a pool of rewards, but did you have something special in mind?
Lastly, do you agree or disagree that the proposed concept is a good improvement? Just because there is a priority development list, and other priorities might be higher on that list, does not necessarily mean that other ideas should never make it onto that list. Should this idea make it onto that list at all?
imo there should also be something like an black list information file or data base, that allows players to look up another player to see what they have in equipment load out, and traits. This will allow others to see why one specie may have an advantage over the other, not to mention equipment brought to the fight.
Said another way, my victory or defeat should be a function of my skill and the skill of my enemies and teammates. Adding additional conditions, like escalating my T3 ship into a T4 map because the numbers suggest that's where I'll be balanced, is just another way of placing a handicap on me to even the playing field for inferior players. I do not believe that my opponents should be given a significant effective buff to make up for the relative difference in our skill levels. If my team is better than yours, we deserve to win; not to be placed in a match with a group of lousy players who are flying better ships so that the game will be closer.
Now, that said, the assumption here is that the playing field is even (independent of skill) if you're fighting against ships from the same tier. In practice, given that Klingons and Feds are different and have access to ships with different capabilities, this is not the case and so I understand that your idea is formed with the goal of bringing balance to an imbalanced system. I'm simply pointing out that I shouldn't be getting blown up by T4 Escorts in a T3 Cruiser just because the system thinks that would be more fair to the feds.
The counterpoint is simply that if those T4 escort captains were any good, they'd be fighting T5 people and not you. A high-rated T3 captain would more likely get bracketed with low-mid rated T4 captains.
-ken
I'm sure we have all been in situations where we see (or perform) participation that outmatches everyone else in the match, yet we still lose that match due to poor teamwork. My proposed system takes this situation into account, and rewards participation instead of win:loss. This is, therefore, a function of your skill in relation to the skill of your team and your enemies.
This rating will contribute toward your future victories such that it will attempt to normalise your win:loss ratio to 50% by matching you against those who participate relatively the same as you. In some cases, this might mean higher tier players, but, again, only if they are already participating the same as you. Which means, there is no difficulty imbalance between you and them. There is no impediment to you.
Unless you see normalisation of win:loss to 50% as an impediment. In which case, well, not everyone likes a challenge.
1) There are only, at best, 5:15 Klingon:Federation (1:3) PVPers at any given time. Or, Klingon PVPers at best represent 25% of the total PVP population at any given time.
2) Klingon PVPers will be of the same rating 100% (or even 51%, a majority) of the time.
I question the veracity of these assumptions. I furthermore purport that my proposed system offers the most challenge to all PVPers while also being equally fair, yet it also takes into account faction population imbalances because of its 'blindness' to tiers. (No pun intended.)
Furthermore, there is freedom of movement between ratings brackets (albeit slightly impeded for backwards or downwards movement), so there is nothing stopping similarly rated players from seeing different opponents over a short period of time (e.g., a night, in your example).
I think the queue line speaks for itself on this issue dude.
Right now at tier 5 there are over 100 federation in line with less than 5 klingon.
Ok assuming there are 50 per side engaged in various games, that gives us 150-50. That is 3-1 and I am thinking it is more along the lines of 4 or even 5-1.
This is an assumption yes and without knowing how many people are engaged in various battles we have no way of knowing if it is true. However it is still a very safe assumption. Also factor in how long you are in that line.
So yes I think it is safe to assume there are roughly 4-5 times as many federation pvp players than klingon pvp players.
As for overall who knows? I can only go by what I am seeing through the queue line.
At the bottom tier lt6? There were way more klingons and probably still are.
But I don't want to go off about all the tiers, my main concern is what's going on at tier 5.
if we had 5 times as many klingon players as we do now, then this might work for FvK as well. but as low as the klingon population is right now, too often you'll find that the people with the ratings you need simply aren't logged on at that moment. the problem is that low populations magnify the effect of outliers. with higher populations the distribution of players smoothes itself out.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I happen to think it's a very good idea. but you need to have enough players in the pool that you're able to find good matches. for the matches to be fair, the distribution of player ratings needs to be the same on both teams. but if there are too few klingons queued, you won't get a good distribution on their side. but you can guarantee that the distribution of players on both sides is the same if you simply use the same population for both sides, i.e. FvF.
here's an extreme example: 5 fed players log on. they are all Lt6, and the worst pvp'ers to have ever lived. there are also 500 other fed players on, of average mean ability with the expected standard normal distribution. on the klingon side, you have 10 players total logged on (it's a slow night). because the klingon population is so low, you don't have a standard normal distribution, instead, 8 of the 10 are above average (because they do nothing but pvp every night, and by now are very good at it). who are you going to match those 5 awful fed players up against so that they will win 50% of the time?
it's a contrived example, of course, but it illustrates the problem when the distribution of ratings isn't the same on both sides. applying this rating scheme to FvF fixes the problem completely, these 5 horrible feds are paired with the 5 next-worst fed players in the fed queues, mixed up into appropximately-equally-rated teams, and they can play each other.
-ken
Fed team gets a big lead due to the Ks starting out shorthanded, so the Feds get overconfident and decide to stop caring about the flags and just slaughter the outnumbered Ks around the sensor array, leaving one noble and heroic Fed to defend the other 4 flags. Spoiler: Said noble hero was me. If I was a Klingon, boisterous songs would be sung of my deeds that day... but enough about me (for now).
So while every other Fed is racking up damage and points, and even buffing and healing each other, I circle around the starbase for several uneventful minutes keeping a close eye on the 4 undefended blue flags. Of course, a couple smart Ks decide to stop getting slaughtered at sensor array and decide to make a play for the undefended flags. As everyone knows, no lead is safe in SalvOp, the momentum can totally change in under a minute. So I jaunted back and forth between the 4 flags, making sure that white didn't turn into red, barely getting in a couple phaser blasts before the Ks cloaked. We won that contest, but if you based everything off of stats (all stats included, not not just damage), you'd look at the scoreboard and assume I got in one skirmish and then spent the rest of the game parked in front of the Fed spawn point.
Now I personally don't play to top the scoreboard, I'm cool with being unsung support (the songs are still being written), but if we brought in a definitive number to judge PVPers it would leave a lot of stuff out. Just food for thought.
Regarding overall population imbalances, see below. These two posts address a fundamental issue with any matchmaking system, which involves population.
According to my proposed system, normalisation to 50% win:loss does require a large population. However, matchmaking in general -- and the operation of the ratings system -- does not require any particular population (above 10 total, of course, if 5v5 is our most basic unit).
More accurately, we do not need to constrain players to their ratings brackets.
Matchmaking will first select from within a ratings bracket, and then move outward if there are not enough players available within that single bracket.
While it is true that there may be situations where PVPers from one bracket might be matched up with and against PVPers of other brackets, this will happen only if it becomes necessary to create PVP matches (i.e., quality-of-service oriented, instead of best-effort oriented). In this scenario, ratings are still calculated normally and largely unaffected, as long as we also apply weights to the different brackets.
For example, a scenario where a PVPer from Bracket 3 is forced to play with and against PVPers from Bracket 1. Without bracket weightings, the participation calculated would be extremely high for the player from Bracket 3, which would temporarily inflate that player's rating. To compensate, we can then apply weightings in the form of a (fractional) coefficient applied to the participation component, where the coefficient represents a ratio of the brackets' average participation.
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So the participation formula becomes:
Participation = (AvgParticipationOfHighBracket / AvgParticipationOfMyBracket) * (myParticipation / totalParticipation)
And the ratings (accumulation) formula becomes:
myNewRating += (AverageRatingsOfPlayersInGame / 100) * (Participation)
Note that PVP match rewards, and the score screen, will still be based upon (myParticipation / totalParticipation).
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By applying the bracket coefficient to the participation component and not the entire ratings formula, players from lower brackets are rewarded slightly for competing against players from higher brackets, while the ratings calculation (in that situation of mixed brackets) would be largely unaffected for the players from higher brackets.
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How does this sound?
I have edited the original post to reflect this feedback. Take a look and let me know. And thanks again for the excellent feedback.
This applies best to arena (deathmatch). I am still unsure how to include objective-based participation, such as in capture-and-hold maps. My first reaction is to ignore objective-based scores for participation and ratings calculations, but keep objective-based scores as part of the reward calculation at end of match.
If you're a member of a "good" capture and hold team, your role may be to ninja unguarded points or to stand guard at one that's not seeing heavy fighting in order to prevent it from being stolen. Strategically smart play should be rewarded, not punished.
One mechanism for doing this could be to have all scoring areas on a map "pulse" contribution points to people who are near them. Contribution per pulse could be something like:
Tier modifier * 1000 * number of points held by your team / number of players at that point
This would make it more lucrative to guard flags when your team is ahead (i.e. strategy favors a defensive posture), but not to pile defenders at "cold" points (because of the splitting).
Flags also pulse points during combat, so a solo defender fighting off a ninja would continue receiving flag points in addition to the (relatively sparse) combat contribution. If an area gets "hot", the flag bonus becomes less and less significant since more people are present - but you'd be getting combat contributions instead.
Flags would pulse points to both friendly and attacking players, so sitting at an unguarded point while it caps gives you contribution points as well. Attacking a lightly-defended point would similarly give you contribution points (you'd be splitting them 50/50 with a solo defender until one of you died, of course).
Finally, the system rewards player who fight near flags in general. It pulls action toward the important areas of the map and slightly penalizes people who chase way outside the normal map area - that kind of combat generally contributes less to your side's victory, after all. Arguably, if your team was winning, then you might be doing something useful by pulling enemies away from the points, but you'd be getting combat points for your effort most likely, and it's pretty much indistinguishable whether you're in the middle of nowhere because you're really smart or really dumb.
I see two options:
1) Leave objective-based contribution points out of the ratings system. It should definitely factor into the rewards calculation at end of match, but is otherwise unecessary for matchmaking (and therefore unecessary for the ratings system).
OR
2) Include objective-based contribution points as components of participation (i.e., a third component, alongside Damage and Healing). So the individual participation formula becomes:
myParticipation = Damage + Healing + ObjectivePoints
where ObjectivePoints can be calculated as you describe.