Some thoughts on the new scoring system

[Tzar]

Its a gangbang valour system atm.

So ranged is kinda fucked at this moment i say remove the proximity shit an make people grind their own valour instead of this....

[DaveUKR]

you never have an indication on how wounded someone is

It's wrong actually. Blood on the armour, arrows/bolts/spears sticking in the body. If you see someone with 4 arrows in the body - you can count that he needs 1 hit to die most of the time.
And you see who got ganked, who got hit a lot of times etc.

[Laconicus]

Sorry Dave its still guesswork to a degree.

[Micah]

Scoreboard is a minigame in the game - kinda sidequest to earn points. (why is it not proclaimed as such ?)

The approach aims to controle metagame through "score hunting".

Multiple goals of the minigame implicitly claim to be well defined due to the inner structure of the "score formula"  :
1) cause as much damage as possible to the enemy team (! atm its NOT killing as many enemies as possible! - as in including k/d in some way )
2) stay close to other attacking team members (3 meters afaik)
3) do not cause damage to your team or yourself

The current state clearly favours teamplay for melee close combat roles with especially short weapon length (1h, mauls) OR support classes (as in pikemen and maulers)  that CAN stay very close in a gank formation. Thats because their natural role playstyle does conform with all three of the current goals.
Other roles - long arc wepon class , ranged classes, cavalry, loner roles overall - can not yet effectively fullfilll the current goals without leaveing their natural role's playstyle and thus would only be able to play subefficient if they would try to do so. Thus there is need for class specific score rewards. Even better would be role specific rewards.
Furthermore the scoreformular is obviously far from being fit to distribute XP/gold in a fair way in its current state.

Overall the concept is capable of encouraging certain teamplay styles to some degree.
The same could be achieved by directly supporting teamwork with tools as improved grouping (improved flags), grouping bonuses (shieldwall bonus, attack/ATH bonus ) etc

The concept is particulary NOT capable of encouraging free minded tactical behavior, smart teamstructuring and communication BECAUSE its appealing on egoistic intent to maximise the score, contrary to cooperative decisionmaking ( im not stateing that cooperation, tactics and teamplay are contrary to maximising personal payoff in a game ).These items are heavily undersupported in the current gameplay , eventhough there would be serveral "easy to do" tools to improve team communication and tactics (commanding, (voice)chat improvements, grouping etc).

However, i see interresting and positive opportunities in combineing the scoreboard and direct support by tools.

[Kuujis]

Sorry Dave its still guesswork to a degree.

Sorry Laconicus, it is not. It is VERY obvious to see who had some love from enemies, and who didn't. Exceptions are the "falling" victims, but... fukit

[Laconicus]

Sorry Laconicus, it is not. It is VERY obvious to see who had some love from enemies, and who didn't. Exceptions are the "falling" victims, but... fukit

You know how much ironflesh they have etc? Sure you can see someone has been hit, but you will never know what it would take to finish them off.

[Arrowblood]

I also like the new scoresystem, BUT:

First minutes of a new siege map.

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Search for the fail and fix it.Fix it.

And i say that arround 25 of my arrows hit people. When i shot this pic  a few mintues ago was my quiver already empty so i should have dealed alot of dmg.

[Tindel]

So the system rewards you for staying in the heat of battle and working for the team.
It doesnt reward lone heroes, it doesnt reward frag hunters, it doesnt reward ranged.

Is it really a bad thing? Alot of people clamor for more teamplay and more tactics and formations etc.
This could be good, this could steer people toward a playstyle that is more about mutual support and staying with the team.

Im not sure myself yet, i want to give it more time and see how it works. But so far it looks like you are really rewarded for contributing, with valor being given too people who actually was in the  SHIT.

[Arrowblood]

Ah ok my fail sorry that im  a Archer. I respec to 2 hand sword swinging Hero cos its so cool and  i feel like a boss.

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Really?

[Tzar]

Ah ok my fail sorry that im  a Archer. I respec to 2 hand sword swinging Hero cos its so cool and  i feel like a boss.

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Really?

You cant block so plz dont try.

Yours truly a concerned 2h hero.

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[GuiKa]

What's wrong with you ? Kills matter, it's a good thing that you get rewarded as you're making damage but remember :

  A wounded enemy can still kill a potential infinite number of teammate, a dead enemy cant. If you hit with a bolt an xbower doing 90% of his life, if this xbower doesn't die in the round your hit could have done nothing to help your team but if you kill someone it will certainly help.

  Also i think it should be really fun to win score on kill based on the victim's score (or k/d ratio on the database), i mean when you Headshot with a javelin Chase in the first minute of the game you should be rewarded (and the inverse for the oposite scenario). It would also make assassin build more fun and rewarding.

[cerkosan]

Lame system for range calss. Very little points for dedicated archers & xbowers.
Their k/d ratio in siege is top 5 but none of them in top 10. Middle section is reserved for best.
No fun beeing unable to get to the middle for a noob archer like me 

[Cepeshi]

I liked how ranged were bitching on melee to "just get a shield" to be able to survive. Want high score and valor? Grab yourself a pickaxe and go smash some stuff.

HA!

But otherwise, yeah, the system is flawed.

[CrazyCracka420]

My personal thoughts and observations:

1) Horses still give too much points. I don't like it because in any possible way horsemen should give more points than a horse. It's the same as if it would give points for breaking a shield more than for killing a shielder. I like the idea of giving points for damage to horses but it should be lowered.

2) Proximity based points. As far as I can understand it gives points in 3m radius of that who was attacked not who dealt damage. If it is so - then it makes no sense at all. I can just do nothing and stand close to enemies who got shot by ranged and get points. You should make it so that points are given to those who are in 3m radius of that who dealt damage. This will encourage archers to stay closer and give them some bonuses on strat while standing in formation. This will also encourage shielders and pikemen to protect archers against enemies. Charging horde has nothing common to teamplay, remember this.

3) Ranged is inferior scorewise. I understand that ranged should be given a smaller amount of points but archers suffer from this new score system, especially on open field as their team charges and they have only 2 options - follow the crowd or die from cav because nobody stays to defend them. The situation is even worse for crossbowmen (probably the worst class scorewise atm) since DPM of crossbowman is much lower than archer and drastically lower than melee player. According to the fact that you can make only 6 shots per minute with 180 wpf using your Arbalest makes it sad. The real situation demands movement and aiming from crossbowmen (amount of open maps is frustrating, there is only 1 city map without huge open spaces - Riot in Swadian city) and I get most of my points by killing player in melee fights. So it's impossible in most cases to make even these 6 shots.

4) Points for kills. Yes, I understand the statement that damage is everything, kills are nothing. But I kindly disagree. I'll mention some situations where damage means nothing and kills mean everything.
1. Horse Archer or Horse Crossbowman riding around and killing players. Damage doesn't mean anything at all since it doesn't affect him. He will do the same thing in the same way until he gets killed. And it's kind of frustrating when I'm making a perfect shot killing a rider in 50 meters who killed 6 our players and I get only a couple of points.
2. Hero who is killing my teammates all around. This is the most common case: a hero with great fighting skills eliminates the half of my team, he received a random ranged damage from my teammates so he has low HP but keeps killing my teammates one by one. I make a headshot and take almost nothing.
3. Rider who got his horse damaged to 1 HP but still he can ride, he will stop and change his horse to the one which has full hp.

I think this system needs some kind of tweaking.

110% agree with points 2-5 (especially #2 for ranged class...it should be how close you are to the person dealing damage, not to the enemy receiving damage).  I also whole heartedly agree with the killing blow sentiment.  Damage dealt is very important, but I've seen many str-heavy builds (or horse xbow and other classes) who are eventually killed with a glancing or light blow, but were able to go on a rampage before dying.  If you have 1 health and are still alive, you can still deal a lot of damage to the enemy team.

Your first point however is slightly different than shielders.  Horsemen rely on their horse for transportation.  I'm not nearly as efficient at picking my engagements, or my targets if I'm on foot, rather than on horse.  If I dismount a fellow cavalry lancer, I am satisfied that I neutralized a major threat to our team for that round (unless he finds another horse).

The best cavalry lancers are the most deadly on horse, you dismount them, and you have taken away their main source of killing your team.

[kongxinga]

110% agree with points 2-5 (especially #2 for ranged class...it should be how close you are to the person dealing damage, not to the enemy receiving damage).  I also whole heartedly agree with the killing blow sentiment.  Damage dealt is very important, but I've seen many str-heavy builds (or horse xbow and other classes) who are eventually killed with a glancing or light blow, but were able to go on a rampage before dying.  If you have 1 health and are still alive, you can still deal a lot of damage to the enemy team.

Your first point however is slightly different than shielders.  Horsemen rely on their horse for transportation.  I'm not nearly as efficient at picking my engagements, or my targets if I'm on foot, rather than on horse.  If I dismount a fellow cavalry lancer, I am satisfied that I neutralized a major threat to our team for that round (unless he finds another horse).

The best cavalry lancers are the most deadly on horse, you dismount them, and you have taken away their main source of killing your team.

Think it is WAD. Killing horses to obtain cavalry superiority is the top priority on most balanced maps. If infantry engage without at least being able to deny cav superiority to the other team, their friendly cav and HA can do a valiant job, but would not be able to screen friendly infantry enough to prevent the enemy cav from scoring backstabs. IE dont engage until enemy cav is neutralized, which is what this scoring system encourages. AS HA once I dehorse someone I pop 1 or 2 shots to see if he is paying attention, then move on to other horses. I leave the dismounts for the crunchies to use my arrows on high value targets like enemy light cavalry lancers.