G'day mates,
The reason I request this discussion is because as there are people who feel there are not-as-good players ruining the more advanced lobbies; there is another side where extremely good players who just go lobbystomp the not-as-good players.
Some initial proposals I have are:
- A ranking system tracking aggregated stats from logs.tf based on the users SteamID and possibly IP address (IP being kept private) and public logs (logs.tf) only generated from TF2Center servers. Rank would based on points scored, K/D or A/D (for medic), advantages both held and lost, DPS*, overall team performance if you can track that, and overall win/loss ratio.
1a. There needs to be a way to rank players in a system like the one you are trying to create. Especially with the prospected release of advanced and casual lobbies, as well as the projected size of this community overall. I read that you have over 55,000 unique players logged now, that is a large number.
1b. *I reccomend DPS because I feel DPS will be a better indicator of how well a player actually performs versus damage dealt. A player could get a good spike of damage dealt in chokepoints or off of a Kritz but perform more poorly overall in dealing damage. This also needs to take into account a baseline of desired stats for any given class. i.e. buildings sapped as spy, important picks as sniper, charges given as medic, etc.
- Discourage, very heavily, the use of alternative accounts, maybe even going as far as making this a bannable offense (for the alt) or for their main account (for repeat offenders)
2a. I understand this may be a hard one to deal with because TF2 is free, but it also sets a standard of what is and is not acceptable in the community, as a whole. Smurfing is a an immature practice, and should be frowned upon. The limit already imposed on hours played would make this relatively easy to deal with after the initial phase of weeding out those who already do this.
- Allow players to report the other player(s) for "frowned upon" behaviors
3a. I will use this as an example. Yes, I understand this particular match is an isolated example but it is a certainly an example of how extreme this can get. The sniper rawr completely dominated the entire match. By the end of the match, he had 6 dominations, double the score of second highest scoring player on their team, and overall a 9:1 KDR. That is unheard of in any competitive games across the board. People like naknak, who is extremely good and joined that match late, come into lobbies with less skilled players. They have absolutely no reason to be playing matches like this. I mean no disrespect by that, they are incredibly good players, but it ruins the game for anyone playing when they play far below their skill level. The enemy team and their team included. It feels like nobody gets to participate, because you are struggling simply to make any moves possible.
- Despite the launch of Advanced Lobbies, still implement a cap on who can join based on lobbies and hours played. Also, in the same vein is imposition of ranks.
4a. Hypothetically, if ranks were to be imposed, they should not be rigid. This allows lobby creators to still have freedom on who they really want in their lobby and still giving the community the chance to be all-inclusive. When you lose all of the time, it is no longer fun to even be involved in communities like this because there is no room for growth. This also may very well make new players feel more confident in joining certain lobbies which have low caps, as they will not look at peoples hours/lobbies and be scared off by the fact that certain members of this community have played the game an incredible amount.
In closing, I strongly believe it will create a stronger sense of respect and responsibility for the players; and a better sense of community overall. It will encourage players to stay in/around their skill bracket, allowing new players to grow to be better. With that comes encouragement everyone to become better players and people so that they can advance in the community. This gives players an opportunity to get a feel for what the people of this community can truly acheive as individual players, and a team. It gives people something to strive for. I do not know the amount of work that would be required to code a system like this, so if anyone has an idea an honest estimate would be good to have. Also, this is all obviously open for discussion.
Edited by TheMattgician, 01 September 2014 - 04:36 PM.
Changed Title from "A serious discussion about a few things"