Player scores

[chwooly]

I have mentioned this in the past and would love to see 2 things added to player score screen after you finish a map.

Right now when you finish a map it shows current time and best time. If they are the same it is redundant.  If you beat the map with a higher score/time you have to scroll thru the scores or filter it to show your previous best. So I recommend that it shows current best, posted best and current time. This way when your want to compare how much faster/higher your score is you don't have to scroll.

The other is playing time, I am a player that rarely pauses so I would like to see that reflected in my score somehow. Currently the game only shows time as a total and doesn't take into account time paused. If I play a map because I don't pause my time is much higher than someone who pauses frequently to move units, scroll to inspect the map ect. So say I play and beat a map I would like it to show paused time vs total time. 

Cheers.

[Karsten75]

Consider these scenarios.

1. A player's Mom calls for dinner, so they pause the game for 45 minutes for a pleasant family meal. Where does this time reflect?

2. A player that saves/reloads a game 20 times. How do that time reflect?

3. A player with a badly lagging machine that gets a consistent 15 FPS (effectively half of what others get - he never needs to pause) how does that time gets reflected? And if you think this is absurd, FisherCK was a player that played on a netbook, at a very low framerate and consistently scored very high. He in fact attributed it to the slow performance of his netbook.

The current "time" is merely a count of the number of frames, divided by the locked frame rate. SO regardless of how fast/slow the game performs, it represents a consistent measurement.

To actually confuse it with "real" time is a misnomer. To ask that individual play styles be considered for special scoring is problematic.

[Grabz]

3. A player with a badly lagging machine that gets a consistent 15 FPS (effectively half of what others get - he never needs to pause) how does that time gets reflected? And if you think this is absurd, FisherCK was a player that played on a netbook, at a very low framerate and consistently scored very high. He in fact attributed it to the slow performance of his netbook.

Exactly. You either:

• Use real time, and players playing on low FPS always have higher times because their game is slower.
• Use game time, and players playing on low FPS now have an advantage instead, because they have more time to give units orders.

Both scenarios are bad for the scoring system.

[chwooly]

Consider these scenarios.

1. A player's Mom calls for dinner, so they pause the game for 45 minutes for a pleasant family meal. Where does this time reflect?
For this I would say just save and come back. or count idle time as a function of button/mouse clicks sort the way a screen save knows you are using the PC.

2. A player that saves/reloads a game 20 times. How do that time reflect?
I hadn't considered saves. Will have to think on that but I don't really see it as an issue
3. A player with a badly lagging machine that gets a consistent 15 FPS (effectively half of what others get - he never needs to pause) how does that time gets reflected? And if you think this is absurd, FisherCK was a player that played on a netbook, at a very low framerate and consistently scored very high. He in fact attributed it to the slow performance of his netbook.

The current "time" is merely a count of the number of frames, divided by the locked frame rate. SO regardless of how fast/slow the game performs, it represents a consistent measurement.

I am not a coder, just figured it was using the internal pc clock to track time. As a non-coder don't understand why it needs to be based on FPS and will just agree that Virgil knows the best way to track that. 

To actually confuse it with "real" time is a misnomer. To ask that individual play styles be considered for special scoring is problematic.

Thanks

With your explanations, I am of 2 minds here, 1 part of me says do away with scoring all together
(I am sure this will be hugely unpopular) The other part says this is unfair, But life is also unfair so shut up and just deal with it.

Cheers.

[planetfall]

"Shut up and deal with it" is a poor solution when the unfairness in question is human-created and can be human-destroyed.

I for one would enjoy a return to the CW2 model, where score is awarded for both time and collectibles. On some levels these collectibles were placed far out of the way so that the resources they gave weren't worth the effort. If you wanted the highest score you had to figure out how to reach them without unduly prolonging the mission.

I'm not so sure using collectibles as the source of points would work so well in CW4. On missions where the goal is to activate all totems, there could be a score value for every enemy structure, and if they're nullified at the end of the map you get those bonus points.This wouldn't make sense on a "nullify all the things" mission tho. We'll have to wait and see what other mission objectives Virgil adds.

I also wonder if you could use the wares system for bonus points. It would have to be carefully tuned with heavy diminishing returns, but you could manufacture (for example) farming equipment for people to colonize the planets you clear or whatever other lore-based thingy, which has no in-game use but grants score.

[chwooly]

"Shut up and deal with it" is a poor solution when the unfairness in question is human-created and can be human-destroyed.

Just to be clear, The "shut up and deal with it" is meant as an internal dialog to myself. Not be construed as a statement to anyone else.


Cheers.

[planetfall]

My apologies. I've been dealing with some unpleasant people as of late and jumped too quickly to conclusions.

[Karsten75]

I for one would enjoy a return to the CW2 model, where score is awarded for both time and collectibles. On some levels these collectibles were placed far out of the way so that the resources they gave weren't worth the effort. If you wanted the highest score you had to figure out how to reach them without unduly prolonging the mission.

It seems to me that regardless of collectibles, the basic, underlying score is exactly similar. it evolved from CW1 all the way to where we are today.

I am not a coder, just figured it was using the internal pc clock to track time. As a non-coder don't understand why it needs to be based on FPS and will just agree that Virgil knows the best way to track that. 

Since you're into fairness, let's take some time to delve into how all the CWx (and Particle fleet, for that matter) basic scoring system works. I will also highlight the evolution from CW1 scoring.

All Virgil's games (with the exception of custom games that use RNGs and the isolated instances of issues arising from save/load of CRPL states are intended to be repeatable and similar for all players - regardless of the speed of the underlying processor.

Hence all games are frame-locked - which means they are intended to run at a specific speed. Up to Particle fleet, that speed is 30 frames per second.  For simplicity's sake, imagine the entire game contained in a gigantic loop, that self-dispatched every 30^th of a second. If the loop completes within the 30th of a second, the game will essentially pause until the time elapse - not that you'd see it, because it's a fraction of a second.  So the game essentially records (and exposes) the loop counter - divided by 30 it is the seconds that is shown as score (or for CW1, it was an inverse logarithm that was subtracted from 1,000)

So, a guy with a super-fast computer can't get more game moves into a second than a guy with a super-slow computer. In all cases, the game clicks are the same and will be counted the same.

In fact, I made CS map 2571 to prove this exact point. This is the  ultimate in fairness. Doesn't matter how good your hardware is, it's the skill and precision  you bring to the table that determines your score.

Adding gems and a roundabout route to collect them doesn't really make the game any different, it merely adds another dimension of challenge. But over time we've come to see that most people play by the metric of "fastest time".

On a final note, save/reload is simply a more elaborate way of  pausing. You can go back and repeat some moves in a more optimized manner - so if you can't pause and plan your moves, you save, plan your moves, reload and execute.

in short, if you want a great score, you will have to use the pause button. ot play for fun - like I do mostly. :)

[Grabz]

With your explanations, I am of 2 minds here, 1 part of me says do away with scoring all together
(I am sure this will be hugely unpopular) The other part says this is unfair, But life is also unfair so shut up and just deal with it.

I think what would help your enjoyment of the game in this case is for the game to give more emphasis on just completing levels. Basically more fluff to give completionists some more goals to keep them playing. Achievements in CW3 did this pretty well though they could have been done better - a lot of them need very specific maps to be completed, and there's not enough just progression goals to keep people hooked. Then getting a good score becomes a secondary objective you're not necessarily enticed to pay much attention to when there's other goals you could be completing.

Though as far as completionism goes it is really nice that you can filter out completed maps in Colonial Space, but over time the only goal the game gives us, i.e. beating the entirety of it, becomes more and more impossible so it's not as interesting to go for it, and there's no other goals really that the game throws the player's way.

[milo christiansen]

The only thing I want to see different in the score system is less cheaters, or even better, no cheaters.

Currently in CW3 it is hard to tell what the legit record is, and what is just some idiot with a hacked game.

[GoodMorning]

That would be ideal, but anti-cheat systems tend to become a challenge on their own to cheats.