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Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:58 pm
by captainsnarf
I really think we shouldn't mess with vehicle heal scoring. It's not going to help the balancer very much. You could easily get a bunch of healing points for healing a vehicle that didn't help you win anything. It will look good for you on the scoreboard, but that's about it. Your team still lost.

IMO the only number the balancer should be looking at is the game win/loss ratio. I know from spectating that e.g. McLovin is someone you definitely want on your team even if he doesn't always have the top score. If the balancer is only looking at his kills then he's getting put on the wrong team.

You could sit in the corner of the map and continuously snipe their primary node so they can't get it to start. You'd get nearly zero points but you definitely help your team win. Only the win/loss should count. If the other numbers are used they should be weighted very heavily. win/loss should still be the main factor.

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 5:51 pm
by Enyo
captainsnarf wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:58 pm I really think we shouldn't mess with vehicle heal scoring. It's not going to help the balancer very much. You could easily get a bunch of healing points for healing a vehicle that didn't help you win anything. It will look good for you on the scoreboard, but that's about it. Your team still lost.

IMO the only number the balancer should be looking at is the game win/loss ratio. I know from spectating that e.g. McLovin is someone you definitely want on your team even if he doesn't always have the top score. If the balancer is only looking at his kills then he's getting put on the wrong team.

You could sit in the corner of the map and continuously snipe their primary node so they can't get it to start. You'd get nearly zero points but you definitely help your team win. Only the win/loss should count. If the other numbers are used they should be weighted very heavily. win/loss should still be the main factor.
Agree on vehicle points. That starts to get too convoluted and sounds like too much work anyway. Damage points, healing points, etc. all skew the scoring too much away from nodes being the primary reward.

Disagree on balancing by win ratio or percentage, it's too simplistic of a metric. There are some good players that get shafted with crap teams more than others, so their win % is going to be lower. Example, pooty and McLovin both have a 44% win rate... but, no offense to McLovin, pooty is a stronger player and more aggressive at nodes, but his win % doesn't reflect that. Conversely, you have crappy players that get lucky with good teams more than others and they have an artificially high win %.

Now, if you want to use Effectiveness % as a metric, that one is probably a much better reflection of the overall player. leon, SK10H, Xexx, Nautikal, Tater and myself all have a smaller effectiveness range of 62-68%, but our win range is wider at 56-68%. Using pooty and McLovin again as an example, they have the same win % but pooty's Eff. is 46.4% while McLovin's is lower at 33.9.%.
pooty wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:13 am So I'll start with 2. Scoring. (Snarf correct me if I'm off..)
Right now:
Node build = 4pts, shared when using linkguns.
Node Destroy = 5pts, shared when using stock guns/vehicles?? (not sure have to check ONSPlus code)
Node isolate bonus from ONS Plus.
Vehicle/Player kill = 1pt (person in tank = 2pts)
Important Vehicle kill (MAS) = 5pts. (plus 1pt per player)
Some of this we cannot change, as its in the base UT ONS game..well we probably could but I think we should keep that...
Why the Hell is building a node worth less than destroying one? It's incredibly more difficult to build a node than it is to destroy one, if anything it should be higher, like 6 pts. Can that be changed?

There was also some setting snarf referenced in another post that rewards extra points for killing an enemy at one of your nodes or within a certain distance to your node, or something. Why? That's stupid... if you kill a mino or MAS, it should be the same value regardless where you kill it. If it's not near your node now, it will be soon! I think that stuff is likely buggy and not working correctly, it's dumb anyway and should be turned off.

I DON'T want you guys doing a lot of work on this, unless of course you just wanna. Seriously, start with the simple fixes, like increasing value for building nodes if possible. Remove the stupid damage pts. Remove the extra reward for killing within a certain distance for your nodes, or someone attacking a node. Simplify it if anything, not add more stuff that rewards points.

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:13 pm
by DrScrotey
infinitecat wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:17 am
It's not only important to charge a node, it's vital to charge the node while fighting off attackers until the node builds, even if you die in the process. Such sacrifice is a good measure of a real team player.

Somewhere deep inside many players, I think, is a fear of their avatar dying, a remnant of vintage games which only gave limited lives. A ludicrous fear considering the Unreal game mechanism of immediate reincarnation.
I agree wholeheartedly with the first paragraph, and 99% of the second. For the sake of completeness though, a very practical reason for evading dying while linking a node is the sheer amount of time that it will take to get back to it after respawning.

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:41 pm
by DrScrotey
Enyo wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 5:51 pm Disagree on balancing by win ratio or percentage, it's too simplistic of a metric. There are some good players that get shafted with crap teams more than others, so their win % is going to be lower. Example, pooty and McLovin both have a 44% win rate... but, no offense to McLovin, pooty is a stronger player and more aggressive at nodes, but his win % doesn't reflect that. Conversely, you have crappy players that get lucky with good teams more than others and they have an artificially high win %.
I'd have to disagree with you on that. If what we are optimizing for is stalemate matches, I think it makes sense to simplistically look at win/loss ratios for the balancer. It's a simple one input/one output system that should capture all the information needed to make stalemate matches. Enough sampling, i.e. matches, would statistically mitigate the influence of luck. One would be bypassing the scoring system altogether, making a ton of coding work (thanks pooty) moot. There's a natural tendency for people (including me) to make systems unnecessarily complex with explanatory attributes (points), when a simple solution could work better. Albeit points wouldn't be explanatory. Do we want stalemate matches though?

edit: Nodes constructed per hour may be an influential stat.

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 8:28 pm
by captainsnarf
The problem with win/loss ratio alone is it doesn't tell the whole story. I could play once, win, and have a 100% win ratio.

There really needs to be more to it, e.g. win ratio where the number of matches is greater than say, 300.

The idea of using win/loss ratio is simple - that's the metric we are trying to balance. If you keep balancing on that eventually it will be 50/50 for everybody. Can't get more balanced than that. If you look at those then yes it has pooty at 44% win rate. That doesn't mean pooty sucks, it means the balancer does.

When I look at the stats, if I'm only going to pick one number, I guess it would be the 'Eff.' column (efficiency?). That will be weighted more towards snipers and mino whores though. That might be ok.

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2022 8:42 am
by pooty
And right now there's several instances where the higher (aggregate) scoring team loses:
https://www.omnipotents.com/utstats/mat ... match=3283
Red had the 1,2,4,5 leading scorers and lost. This probably happens 1 in 5 or 6 matches. It again comes down to team work. Some players like to hang back, some are aggressive node builders or killers. Right mix is key.
Node build = 4pts, shared when using linkguns.
Node Destroy = 5pts, shared when using stock guns/vehicles?? (not sure have to check ONSPlus code)
Node isolate bonus from ONS Plus.
Vehicle/Player kill = 1pt (person in tank = 2pts)
Important Vehicle kill (MAS) = 5pts. (plus 1pt per player)
Some of this we cannot change, as its in the base UT ONS game..well we probably could but I think we should keep that...

Why the Hell is building a node worth less than destroying one? It's incredibly more difficult to build a node than it is to destroy one, if anything it should be higher, like 6 pts. Can that be changed?
Those are base UT ONS scoring, not something we implemented. Maybe there's some thought to keeping it simple, maybe a mutator to adjust the node scoring, as I agree building the node should be worth more.
I do think the linking points is a good think, yes, you might link someone who doesn't do much, but that's at least rewarding team play that otherwise isn't rewarded. I'd rather have someone who links me in the mino that someone sitting in a tank and spamming/sniping at a locked node -- getting lots of kill points.

I know the UTStats has lots of good metrics, but there's no easy way to integrate that data back into the game itself.

If we narrow the scope, and make a wish list (again)
Base Scoring (if we can change it)
Node build = 6 pts, shared when using link guns/vehicles.
Node Destroy = 5 pts, shared if possible
Node isolate bonus from ONS Plus (this rewards intelligent node destruction)
Vehicle/Player kill = 1pt (person in tank = 2pts)
Important Vehicle kill (MAS) = 5pts. (plus 1pt per player)
Love to make a scale for vehicles... even if its 1-3 or 1-5 range.


Bottom line though sounds like at least spending a bit of time investigating the scoring would worthwhile. If I get some time this weekend I'll dig into it. I've got a bunch of vehicle updates to push (hopefully today) and test.

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2022 11:47 am
by Enyo
captainsnarf wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 8:28 pm When I look at the stats, if I'm only going to pick one number, I guess it would be the 'Eff.' column (efficiency?). That will be weighted more towards snipers and mino whores though. That might be ok.
I'm glad to see the programmer agrees with my logic. :D We discussed before why Efficiency % might be a good metric to use:
https://omnipotents.com/forums/viewtopi ... 84a63#p374

But, it's a moot point because as pooty pointed out in that post and in here, it would be a lot of work essentially creating a new balancer that could use data from the Stats DB. So, I like pooty's proposal on scoring changes. I could even go along with a scale for vehicle pts, but we may want to consider making Node build = 7 pts (or 6pts and lower Node destroy to 4 pts).

If you look at any random player, EVERYONE destroys more nodes than they build, at about 60/40 or 65/35. That just illustrates how much harder nodes are to build than destroy, so maybe the pts rewarded for build/destroy should be 7/5. Gets you pretty close to that 60/40 ratio, but in favor of building.

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2022 12:47 pm
by Terminator
In freon, efficiency is your kill / death ratio. How is efficiency in ONS?

When we set up freon tournaments, we grade each player by efficiency ( Kill / Death ratio) into A, B, C, D player categories.

60+ = A
54-59 = B
49-53 = C
48 below = D

https://utstatsdb.houseofcarpe.com/inde ... ts=players

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2022 4:28 pm
by McLovin
captainsnarf wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:58 pm ...
I know from spectating that e.g. McLovin is someone you definitely want on your team even if he doesn't always have the top score. If the balancer is only looking at his kills then he's getting put on the wrong team.
...
captainsnarf, thank you for the encouraging words of praise.
Enyo wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 5:51 pm ...
but, no offense to McLovin, pooty is a stronger player and more aggressive at nodes
...
Way to kill my ego Enyo. Now I feel like I'm the last kid to get picked for dodgeball, LOL

Image

I only play maps I like, pooty plays all the maps. Even stays when his team is doomed. Yes, better and more honorable than me. If I have a shit team, I'm outta there.

Can we give points for giving the Mino to the enemy when you know they can't win?

Re: Fix the scoring?

Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2022 4:37 pm
by Enyo
McLovin wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 4:28 pm Way to kill my ego Enyo. Now I feel like I'm the last kid to get picked for dodgeball, LOL

I only play maps I like, pooty plays all the maps. Even stays when his team is doomed. Yes, better and more honorable than me. If I have a shit team, I'm outta there.
Sorry man, truly wasn't meant to be insulting. I agree with snarf, you are definitely an asset to your team and always happy to have you on mine. But, if I gotta pick between you and pooty, well you kinda made the case for me.