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]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

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]

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]

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.