The Leaderboard Means Nothing

[Sgt Grizzly]

First off, Hi to the community! I'm an old school PS player(got he game the first day it came out after following it for 2 years), and I'm very happy to be back anticipating SOE's next installment. The screenshots look great and I'm happy to see T-Ray still on the project.

That said, I have a problem with the leaderboard from PS and would like to see some changes - feel free to add suggestions as I can't think of everything.

I bring this up as a person who was actually ranked #1 on the Konried Leaderboard for TR(during my time). The fact is, however, although I'm a good player, the only way I got to the #1 was because I had the time to play often this racking up the kills.

While I would still like to see a leaderboard that shows overall stats, there should be some way of recognizing the best players, even the ones who can't afford to play more than a couple hours a day.

I squared off with many players during my reign of terror only to come to the conclusion that there were MANY skilled players who were simply not recognized because they couldn't dedicate the time. I'd like to see that changed for the future.


Grizzly

[Sirisian]

There was a leaderboard? I didn't even know and I played on and off for years. Learn something everyday. :P

[Firefly]

My leaderboard is in my pants. It's a big One.

[LordReaver]

What you ask for is improbable. There are way too many variables to include to get a real comparison.

For example, how to do calculate leadership, support, or tactics? Lets say, person A is really good at killing, but person B is really good at evading. Who is the better player?

Leaderboards are really more for comparison than who is better than who. Although, I wish they would start adding how many hours people play.

[Miir]

I tend to agree... I was in the top 10 on Emerald for a month or two after release but that was pretty much because I was between jobs at the time and had less to do with my skill level.

I hope "if" they have a leaderboard in PS:N they do it based on K/D vs time played or something. So at least someone that plays 15 hours a week will rank against someone that plays 60 hours.

[Sgt Grizzly]

What you ask for is improbable. There are way too many variables to include to get a real comparison.

For example, how to do calculate leadership, support, or tactics? Lets say, person A is really good at killing, but person B is really good at evading. Who is the better player?

Leaderboards are really more for comparison than who is better than who. Although, I wish they would start adding how many hours people play.

I understand what you're saying about more technical aspects of the game but perhaps a simple kill/death ratio could serve to showcase top killers. As for things like squad tactics...I suppose you could do it like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 which allows players to set targets like, "defend a flag", and receive points for things like killing an enemy within the capture radius.

In addition they could have maybe two boards; one showing overalls points and one showing points per hour or something.

[Firefly]

Or, maybe we could nix all that MMO-RPG bullshit and just play the game. As you said: the leaderboard means nothing.

[Sgt Grizzly]

Or, maybe we could nix all that MMO-RPG bullshit and just play the game. As you said: the leaderboard means nothing.

I'm not a MMO-RPG player so I have no idea what you're talking about, really. I play FPS games almost exclusively, save single player games, and find a little competition can make the game more interesting. For me at least.

[Arkaiden]

Kills an hour, assists an hour, repairs an hour, heals an hour, hack an hour, and deaths an hour options to view.

There ya go, low play time people recognized.

[Traak]

I tend to agree... I was in the top 10 on Emerald for a month or two after release but that was pretty much because I was between jobs at the time and had less to do with my skill level.

I hope "if" they have a leaderboard in PS:N they do it based on K/D vs time played or something. So at least someone that plays 15 hours a week will rank against someone that plays 60 hours.

Player logs on, HARTs to near a two-enemy-empires battle. Whips out CUD, reveals, OS's busiest spot on the map as per reveal. Logs off. Does so every three hours or so.

We have a new leader!

If kills per minute was the criteria, it would encourage this behavior.

[Raymac]

With baseball season fast approaching, I'm reminded of the nearly unlimited number of stats that can be collected and measured. Of course there is no way to measure intangibles, but there are alot of other things that can be tracked and for players to look at. I don't think we need super detailed stats to promote TheorySide, but if they can track something, then post it.

Plus, no matter what the stats say, there will still be debate on who is the "best".

[Miir]

Player logs on, HARTs to near a two-enemy-empires battle. Whips out CUD, reveals, OS's busiest spot on the map as per reveal. Logs off. Does so every three hours or so.

We have a new leader!

If kills per minute was the criteria, it would encourage this behavior.

Good point.

Perhaps something like Orbital strikes could be an exclusion from the stats. Since not everyone has immediate access to it.

[Rbstr]

I never gave two shits about he leader board or who was on it...except for about a minute when someone said I was on it, I checked it, and stopped caring again.

I do get some pleasure out of gold stars in BC2...those are actually easier to get by healing/ammo than killing people.

[Lonehunter]

K/D still isn't a good way to track a leaderboard IMO.

as a total support cloaker in a big battle I'll run around repair/healing, placing CE, repairing turrets and vechs, pullin an AMS, or Gunship.

All of those things can impact the game in a big way. If there's a leaderboard for kills, there better be one for support.

[LordReaver]

I think no matter what reasonable system you use, you will have to take it with a pinch of salt.

[SKYeXile]

K/D cant be done, since people would make a new character get in something like a skeeter, find epic farm, go 100/0, be at the top.

KPH..yea orbital strikes.

only way maybe a skill based system like in TF2

2 even ranked players kill eachother you get 10 points for kill, and -10 for the death

a high player kills a low, he gets like +2 a low player kills a high ranked, he gets like 20.

give different muitiplers for different equipment based on how easy it is to get kills with.

I personally liked PS stats, be nice if it tracked deaths though and kills with each weapon.

[wildcat140679]

Planetside never really was about being the first or the best and appearing on the Leader boards. But for some this played a big role.

I don’t know how the ranking got calculated, but it was in favor of those who played a lot. I’m much more in favor of having game data being used to calculate a score and split them up in several groups, much like how windows 7 rates computer hardware, the sum of these entire score groups make up for your leader board score.

All scores should be limited to an average per day, 12 hours, 6 hours, 3 hours, 1 hour or each play session. This should bring the scores closer to one another and the gap between those who got plenty of time to play all day long and those who can only play during the weekend or a few hours during the week should become much smaller.

It`s far from perfect, but I believe it to be better that it ever was.

Example groups/scores

Infantry Combat Score
-Kill/Death Ratio (kills scored by weapons, not from an Orbital Strike)
-Accuracy Ratio (hits/misses)
-Combat Assists
-Average live time

Infantry Support Score
-Healing/repairing armor/MAX armor (no self heal/repairs)
-Revives
-Combat Engineer kills (mines, turrets)


Vehicle Combat Score
-Kill/Death Ratio (road kills/gunner kills)
-Accuracy ratio (hits/misses)
-Combat Assists
-Average vehicle live time

Vehicle Support Score
-Repairing (no self vehicle repairs)
-Resupplying (adding ammo to trunk/lodestar reload)
-Passenger transportation

[FortunadoAE]

I say make it all outfit-based. That way you can actually do things like KPH and even K/D ratio, since it's spread across a bunch of players.

Make it only for the past week. Who cares about absolute totals? They're just as arbitrary as weekly totals.

I say leave all of the individual acclaim up to the outfits, too. Anyone who has played in a good outfit knows that a compliment from a teammate means infinitely more than some stupid global leaderboard.

I'd much rather be "The Reaver guy" in my outfit than have "Most Reaver Kills" on the leaderboards.

[Rbstr]

I'd say some version of Points per hour or half hour.

Then assign some amount of points for each kill/heal/hack whatever minus points for team damage. So if you're good at just killing or good at doing what's needed you still get points. Hopefully weighted by relative importance/ease.

[TRex]

I think they should incorporate some kind of rested xp or something into the game. Nothing to do with leaderboard , but at least give those of us with a RL a chance to level up a tad faster.

Maybe they could add a separate leaderboard for 'leaderboard kills' . I could log on for an hour and go predator-like hunting just to stalk and kill the leaderboard players. Might make for an interesting sub-game for both sides. Being on leaderboard could be then either a bragging right or you become a painted target.

[LordReaver]

I disagree with rested XP, you shouldn't earn rank faster because you play less.

[Firefly]

Rested XP is stupid (even if you know how it works PROPERLY). The basic concept, for you non-hablars, is that when you're offline beyond a certain reasonable point, you accrue a bonus percentage. When you next log back in, for a certain time period every bit of XP that you earn has that percentage multiplier modifier.

[Sirisian]

I think they should incorporate some kind of rested xp or something into the game. Nothing to do with leaderboard , but at least give those of us with a RL a chance to level up a tad faster.
Don't worry about that. In the original Planetside battle rank was just a training period to ease the player into the game. It took only a few weeks to hit the max BR. The current BR 40 was just to keep the game going.