Integrated UI Leadership Rating System

[Red Beard]

PROBLEM BEING ADDRESSED: TOO MANY "CR5s" AND ORBITAL STRIKE SPAM...THIS SYSTEM DOES NOT NEED TWITTER OR FB TO BE IMPLEMENTED...THIS CAN BE COMPLETELY IN-GAME.

ALSO: FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT READING, I'M TALKING ABOUT EXPERIENCE GENERATED PER SOLDIER UNDER YOUR COMMAND, NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST...THANK YOU! :)


This system is primarily designed to address the top heavy command structure that made late PS1 command rankings pointless...I'm not big on social networking being integrated into the game (and it's not necissary to do so in order to implement this system, so if you don't want Twitter in game, talk to Higby).


I think a feedback system for rating legitimate leadership skill and reputation through a combination of peer-review and compiling data on experience generated would be the best way to provide a soft barrier to bad leadership, while still giving the players the freedom of choice.

Leadership is inspiring others to follow you due to your ability to produce the desired results, and if good leadership in this case generates more experience gain than bad leadership, then even the zerg can be induced into giving accurate leadership feedback, as long as the experience reward system is structured properly.

Assuming that is the case, then I think these two things should be combined:

A leadership ratings system based on "underling feedback" that's compiled on a leader based on 'exit reviews' (something like consumer feedback on Ebay) or experience generated for those who decided to follow you (something like genius on iTunes)...the incentive being experience generated for those under his (or her) command. It could be an automatic calculation based simply on experience generated for your followers, or peer review, or a combination of both. Potential leaders could then be ranked (proper criteria is everything obviously).

Once that ratings system is established and applied to potential leaders (stats and historical data could continuously build in leadership profile available to the PS2 public), that system could be used as a quick reference as people "shop" for leaders (in whatever capacity that might be).

The key part of this design relies on the proper implementation of criteria for experience rewards both on the leader and follower side of the equation. If that is set up properly, I think a command structure would form organicly and intuitively, without any micromanaging from the Devs, and would easily integrate into the missions system.

Yea or Nay?

EDIT:

Certs could then be linked into their achievement through their leadership rating. Since the pool of high end leadership would then be limited to those consistently producing results, more meaningful (powerful?) certs could then (potentially) be rewarded to those who both maintain a high leadership rating and a consistent presence on a server (ie, followers kept happy). This kind of competitive "public servant" mentality would in and of itself develop into a meta game, without taking anything away from the overall gameplay experience of the server population (actually enriching it).

Furthermore, this funtion of leadership could potentially be utilized as a COST EXTERNATIALIZATION MECHANISM for server administration purposes, if you really wanted to go crazy, but at this point I'm just throwing ideas out there...

[Red Beard]

NObody has anything to say? Come on! :P

[ArmedZealot]

NObody has anything to say? Come on! :P

Needs to be moved to Idea Vault?

[Red Beard]

Can I do that, or is it limited to admins to transfer threads?

[ArmedZealot]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/554/facepalm.jpg

Mods only

[Red Beard]

Yeah thanks for the help.

[IMMentat]

just copy -> paste then leave this to get swallowed/deleted by the relevant discussion threads. :)

[Red Beard]

:thumbsup:

[sylphaen]

"Vote with your feet."
:)

Edit: just to give more substance to my post, apart from many other reasons why rating commanders is not useful (because you should just leave bad commanders), there is also the risk of voters not being the best persons to judge.

Some leaders could get bad grade because:
- their empire was losing (not their fault)
- the other squad members were not playing well or willing to listen (kind of his fault but you have to try players to know if they're good just like you have to try commanders)
- their leadership style does not fit your own
- their decision making is not in touch with your own ideas
- etc...

Just let people play with who they like and leave who they do not. Why ? Because when you find people you like to play with, there is no need to look further.

[Synapse]

I like where you're going with this. you should stick with your guns and make sure the feedback clearly makes it into a bug on the design team's plate.

It's always been my feeling that some amount of real feedback from players should be part of becoming a faction commander, and that limiting it to a grind-able rank like cr5 was a poor substitute. Good grinders don't always make good commanders, especially as the game gets older and you're not even talking about efficient grinders anymore.

[Xaine]

I really like the idea.

We need a way to distinguish the decent commanders from the awful ones at a glance, and i think this would work.

Two thumbs up. :)

[Red Beard]

"Vote with your feet."
:)

Edit: just to give more substance to my post, apart from many other reasons why rating commanders is not useful (because you should just leave bad commanders), there is also the risk of voters not being the best persons to judge.

Some leaders could get bad grade because:
- their empire was losing (not their fault)
- the other squad members were not playing well or willing to listen (kind of his fault but you have to try players to know if they're good just like you have to try commanders)
- their leadership style does not fit your own
- their decision making is not in touch with your own ideas
- etc...

Just let people play with who they like and leave who they do not. Why ? Because when you find people you like to play with, there is no need to look further.


My feeling on this is that these criticisms are more to do with command structures in general, and will have the equal opportunity to be levelled against all potential leaders, so as more data is compiled, those opinions should cancel each other out, leaving as a remainder the relative comparison we'd be looking for.

If we can safely assume that (all other factors remaining the same) even zombie lemmings like getting more experience than less from similar leaders, then I think this mechanism (or something like it) would in fact work.

[Red Beard]

I really like the idea.

We need a way to distinguish the decent commanders from the awful ones at a glance, and i think this would work.

Two thumbs up. :)

Thanks Xain; I appreciate that. I too hated the screaming 12 year old spam, lol

If the Devs can figure out a way to define "good leadership" (as defined through community feedback) and create a set of in game criteria for it to measure leader performance (heck even subordinate officer performance!), they should be able to structure experience rewards appropriately...And if they can do THAT, then it's simply a matter of putting leadership performance in a spreadsheet and having a leader board, which you could integrate into a selection list when looking for a leader through the mission system, potentially categorizing it for situational specialization, depending on how comprehensive the mission system/outfit system is.

Technically it's not terribly easy, but if the programmers got it right, it would remove the organizational limitations that will occur with huge numbers and lazy zerg! :)

[Knightwyvern]

If there is peer-review, I'd be worried about a popularity contest where "famous" people get more good reviews than they should and vice versa.

[Electrofreak]

Yep, was just gonna say, popularity != competency.

[The Kush]

No.

[The Kush]

And can a mod please move this to the idea vault.

[Red Beard]

Yeah; and for that reason I like the idea of equally weighting "experience generated under your command" with player feedback, or even favouring the former.

You could even compare the two ratings amoung leaders that generated a lot of experience per follower, and come up with an @-hole rating! :lol:

[GTGD]

"tower of death on amerish gogogo"

YEAYAYAYYAYAYAYY BEP BEP BEP


^^^ why this is a bad idea

[Zar]

I think even if they implement this i doubt ill follow someone cause he or she has a *Tag* that says *faction or good leader* as the game starts and moves into it's first month on your server you your self will be able to tell who is a freaking idiot and who is general bad ass of the kick ass brigade i follow what i can see not hear say or what people tell me =3 also most people will have outfits leading the charge

[Red Beard]

Yep, was just gonna say, popularity != competency.

I'm talking about experience generated *per follower* (ie performance over time), not a popularity contest.

[Knightwyvern]

I'm talking about experience generated *per follower* (ie performance over time), not a popularity contest.

What we mean is that people tend to go with the "cool," "famous," or "popular" person over the competent ones, even if it is to their detriment. 3 times more people follow Ashton Kutcher on twitter than they do the White House. 11 million to 3 million. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, lol.

[Red Beard]

What we mean is that people tend to go with the "cool," "famous," or "popular" person over the competent ones, even if it is to their detriment. 3 times more people follow Ashton Kutcher on twitter than they do the White House. 11 million to 3 million. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, lol.

*this system does not require twitter to be implemented*

This idea is primarily for addressing the problem of a million 12 year olds on global chat with orbital strike spam.

Buuut, in case Higby is SOLD on twitter...

Would you? I think PS2 players are more likely to go with someone that will advance your character faster...That, in and of itself will allow leaders to gain their own reputation, since that's how it worked in PS1. I just want to see a way to quantify PS1's system, to make it more efficient.

If people want to go with Ashton Kutcher, let them, and then we can compare HIS performance with everyone else's, and PS2 players can decide if we'd rather go with fame or performance (assuming they don't have both ;)).

[Red Beard]

* Original post updated for you poor kids that can get twitter out of your head! ;)

[Knightwyvern]

* Original post updated for you poor kids that can get twitter out of your head! ;)

The twitter thing is an analogy, a metaphor, designed to show how people tend to gravitate towards the "cool" kids rather than the "geeks."

You're saying "let people decide if they want flash or substance," (paraphrasing) but the point of what I was saying is that the majority of the time people will pick the flash over the substance.

More people would follow Simon from yogscast than would follow a skilled yet relatively unknown leader.

[Red Beard]

The twitter thing is an analogy, a metaphor, designed to show how people tend to gravitate towards the "cool" kids rather than the "geeks."

You're saying "let people decide if they want flash or substance," (paraphrasing) but the point of what I was saying is that the majority of the time people will pick the flash over the substance.

More people would follow Simon from yogscast than would follow a skilled yet relatively unknown leader.

No I'm not saying that...read the original post again; your original misconception of what my idea was in the first place has us talking about twitter, which I don't even care about.

Having said that, what you bring up just now can be addressed by incetivizing real leadership through the generation of experience. Even if the majority of people go for more flash and less substance, you'll still be able to see how good of a leader people are when YOU are choosing.

I'm not interested in defending twitter, as this system does not require it, but I do think it would work either way.

[LordReaver]

Any rating system is bad, unless it's strictly regulated.

Look no further than Metacritic. It's supposed to just say whether or not the general population likes or doesn't like a game/movie. Yet one hot topic issue, can net a game/movie a 1 or a 2. While almost no game/movie will get a 10.

An example of a good system is the ESRB. Which is strictly regulated, and is really only supposed to give the user a better idea on what to expect out of a game, rather than saying the game is good or not.

I just really can't see any practical and reasonable system being implemented in PS2, for the purpose of filtering out bad commanders. Even if you were to get only good commanders, you can come to an issue where two commanders are giving different orders. Both orders will get the job done, but both are different. Who do you follow? How do you rate both commanders?

Let's say you put in a system that did filter out the junk. How does one prove themselves to be a good commander when they have no experience? Nobody is going to listen to them, because they don't have any rating. Unless the rating system is forgiving enough to let them show on the list. If the system is forgiving enough, wouldn't that allow the junk to show up? So with a proper filter, you make it really hard for anything new to show up on the list...

I think the best system is to just let people figure out on their own if the person is worth following or not. This isn't the military, or politics, people are just here to have some fun. So there's really not whole lot to be done.