The Karma System

Development
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There has been (and are) a lot of problems and drama that resulted from the inadequacies of the admin systems that tremulous has had available. It doesn’t matter how good the game might be, if it is very easy for anyone to ruin a game with little disadvantage to evade and continue to ruin games regardless of how many admins a given server has, the same fundamental problems/drama would still plague any active public server regardless of who owns the server and who is on its administration.

Such distracting problems and drama have even delayed our own progress in developing 1.3 at times, and has previously delayed/ended other Tremulous mods/projects throughout Tremulous’ history. Either server owners (who might happen to also be modders) would shut down their projects from being overwhelmed by drama, or players would abandon a server that developed an undesirable environment.

The bottom line is that players should be able to have fun playing the game on most servers without being overwhelmed by excessive game-play disruptions and server drama. Otherwise the players, server owners, mappers, and developers can better spend their finite spare time on something else. Additionally, anyone who decides to host their own game server, should be given the best chances with the available default tools and systems out of the box to provide successful and competitive game servers with minimal required resources and headaches.

The karma system will be customizable for server owners’ preferences, and it could even be disabled (karma may not be needed for all types of servers, like private servers and clan servers).

The focus for the design of the initial release of 1.3 is to fix the major fundamental problems that got in the way of Tremulous’ success, so that the initial release would give Trem a good chance to regrow. I don’t expect the karma system to eliminate all the problems/drama (and we are working on other tools and systems to assist as well), but I do expect the karma system to address many many issues several orders of magnitude better than what is currently available in trem.

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I disagree.

English is not my first language. I would like to see a post where you try to give a concept in Italian.

About the Facepalms… We did when ITA servers were ups (2007-2010) and worked perfectly.

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this is a bad idea marco brasil doesn’t have time nor patience to download a client.

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regarding the karma system: be advized that a karma system hinders all users, most of which will be expected to be legitimate ones. it will induce exceptional annoyance

  • to players new to Tremulous — causing a decreased rate of acceptence and speed of population growth —; and
  • to players switching between servers — which is a counter to our1 goal of fairly supporting all servers.

1 well, let’s put the DICKBUTT out of my way

however, as chat may be external and irrelevant to the game, some state of karma system is to be independent of any game server.

which only means that there should be a proper admin system.

a key meta-advantage2 of a proper admin system (essentially control commands) over a karma system (essentially captcha-like limiters) (both being some sort of server defence systems related to user permissions and deterrence), is that an admin system is simple to use (modulo the non-existence of a proper UI), and its implications r easy to understand.

this feature is difficult to define properly, i don’t have a clear picture of it, and much of the so-far proposed workings of the karma system r shit, i’d say. so let me tell u: u will fuck this feature up, multiple times; first, u will iterate multiple times during pre-release testing, and second, the feature will be found to be fucked up after its first public release.

2 here, „meta” is used correctly:3 the advantage is not inherent to the system (vs the other system), but comes from a constrained set of developers not being able to get some good shit together
3 as opposed to usages like when „meta-game” is used to refer to „mainstream mode of play”

do u have any reason to disagree ?

  • pro: in general allowing — in fact, in this case, not specifically preventing — satisfies more users, and users more. if a user wants to connect with multiple clients (from the same computer, using the same „installation” of Tremulous; or from 2 different computers, whether or not from different IPAs), then why specifically make this annoying (or impossible) for him/her ?
    • contra: sometimes, allowing may also get the user to shoot himself/herself in the foot. sometimes, a 2nd connection to a server from the same computer is the result of an earlier client crashing.
      • pro: however, this is only reason to handle the other connection, not to prevent the new one.
  • pro: one legitimate use is game-behavior testing, in which someone wants to test eg. damages / attack ranges of a particular server. specific prevention is requiring the user to a contact human „assistants” and ask them to connect and do various in-game things (things that could otherwise be performed altogether by 1 user switching between multiple clients).

English is not my first language either, it’s actually my 4th.

the differences, between what u communicated and how i reinterpreted it, were not linguistic, but logical/conceptual.

i am a total fan of facepalming. explain ur story of perfect facepalming.

1 Like
19

To a certain extent this is true. The trick is to create the correct balance in the “low tier” player abilities between minimizing potential damage low karma players could cause while still allowing the game to be enjoyable and sufficiently sociable for those players.

Whatever minor inconveniences there might be for players starting with low karma on a given server, it would be a great benefit to everyone (including the low karma players) to be able to play on a server with far less instances of game play disruptions, and to even protect new inexperienced players from accidentally causing disruptions that may result in administrative consequences or at least from negative verbal reactions from the other players on the server towards said new players (which can be a turn off for new players). So the karma system also serves an additional purpose of protecting inexperienced new players from themselves.

Additionally, all of these inconveniences imposed by the karma system would be temporary, many restrictions would be lifted after playing regularly for a week without incidents.

In other words, the benefits from such a system implemented correctly would outweigh the cost of the temporary inconveniences.

With database support and inter-server authentication/accounts , a single “game server network” could have karma synced across all of its game servers that use karma for each registered player. However, it is true that a new “game server network” (which might only include one game server), would be at somewhat of a temporary relative disadvantage when essentially everyone would be starting with low karma compared to an established “game server network”, however it beats the greater disadvantage from experiencing a lot of game play disruptions, and from starting out with very few admins (in most cases).

But as mentioned in a post above, the karma system would customizable, which means a server owner could start out with less strict settings to make it easier for a new playerbase to become established, and then the settings could become more strict thereafter (increased activity does tend to correspond with increased instances of game play disruption).

Also as mentioned above…

In other words, the benefits from such a system implemented correctly would outweigh the cost of the temporary inconveniences.

A karma system would be even simpler to use than an admin system as the karma system would be mostly automatic. The implications of a karma system would generally be if you play regularly without causing significant negative incidences, you would gain abilities/benefits. Such implications are very easy to understand.

Of course an improved admin system can compliment a karma system, they don’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) exclusive towards each other.

Another advantage of continuing to allow multiple connections from a given IP address, is that there are instances where multiple players from the same general locations would be able to play simultaneously. Such examples include family members, roommates, “in real life” friends, public internet hotspots, etc…

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however, it may turn out that the correct balance is almost no startup restrictions.

mind u that „n00b team” (incompetent to make proper moves) is almost as significant a disruption as malicious deconning. often, new players constantly feed and waste (even donated) funds, which may be accentuated by being disallowed to use some items. for example, it often happens that new players r urged to buy light armor and helmet, sometimes even credits r donated just to make this possible (however, sometimes, wasted donations cause a bigger annoyance). on the alien team, there is no helping a new player, who will generally feed no matter what !

this isn’t an easy thing to decide, but it seems that the best way to deal with new players is to force them to play humans, use light armor, a helmet and a shotgun (to the extent sustainable) and nothing else (the rifle being a fallback), and to camp behind rets.1 which leads us a crappy dilemma revolving around the following:

failed attempts at using dangerous equipment (high-cost („feedy”) or fallout-prone) due to inexperience cannot be avoided, because the only way to actually learn to use them is to use them is through trial-and-error, which, if not directed through a drill — tutorials, bots or human-aided walkthroughs2 —, has a chance to cause real damage and annoyance. all-in-all, the karma system should not be a de-facto replacement for proper tutorials.

however, if each new player could opt-out of „being protected from themselves”, because they know better (it’s already the 5th server, for Lucifuck’s sake !), then we have less of a PROBLEM.

1 on a side-note, with the existence of a proper team organization system, where the HUD could display comments like „pay attention, fuckhead, because u’ve been ordered to follow ⟨this⟩ player”, it would be possible to allow n00bs to move out more safely, in groups.

2 however, we don’t want ppl sitting at the back of the base firing (even safe) practice shots at walls (essentially idling) in active, focused games.

i hope that by „regularly”, u mean something of the magnitude of 30 minutes (not 8 hours) per day.

so far, the existence of a correct definition is yet to be established. the current set of ideas yields only bullshit.

WRONG.

there r implications relating to

  • annoyance to new server visitors, affecting the chance that a new server may become regularly visited, etc — ??? —; and
  • promotions/demotions, affecting the predictability of behavior and protections.

use of the karma system extends to its proper configuration. i mean liek omfg wtf g_karmaShotgunAvailabilityThreshold 450000, g_karmaStopFeedingWarning1Threshold 10000 ? also, only (a usually small set of) admins have direct contact with the admin system, while everyone gets to face the karma system.

apparently u’re (wishfully) thinking of the karma system as an artificial admin dealing with n00b and griefers, which would be hard to design.

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I would like to know which are first 3. For each language you should use the right terms to achieve the concept. In addition, the Latin languages have a composition of terms and idioms, in addition to disposition of sentence, different from Saxon languages. So to say what I want in logical understandable terms I should spend time that I have not for a language that now I use only for a game.

Anyway.

I think we should reinvent what is outside of the game: connect your game account to that of the forum, create a system of classification of players TremStats: Prolinux NG - www.tremulous.it (like the link, but more “professional”), also a classification for clans.

Let me explain better.

Players and Clans Rating:

By providing players with a rating system, you will create more competitiveness. Clans, looking at the standings updated, will be able to pick them and recruit players who prefer. In addition, a classification for clans will show which are the strongest teams.

CW system:

At the end of each challenge, clans who played will suffer a change to current point total. Obviously the score is given by the level of the clan won (on this one should clarify the issue and maybe create formulas).

More or less a system similar to CS:GO (if I remember correctly). For sure, something like League of Legends.

This will solve the problem of multiclient, as each player will want to climb the ranks as quickly as possible. For the ip actually is right @dGr8LookinSparky .

Karma system will help because every player will have more possibilities to climb the ranks as it’s more easy to do it when you have everything unblocked (like @dGr8LookinSparky described before).

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stats will most likely induce more camping as the main thing people will look at / boast is their kd ratio. As in: more human stacking as humans generally just get more kills and more md whoring.

It might be a good idea for clans though, but for individual players this system will be both a joke as there are only like 100 ish players left and campy for reasons above.

CS:GO has hidden elo and the ranks themselves don’t really have any value (look at the rollback from half a year ago, maybe longer idfk)

League is toxic, no denying it. I think it has something to do with throwing 5 random people together, calling it a team, and having them play for something that really matters to them, elo. This almost always results in excessive team blaming and toxicity, especially at lower elo (who hasn’t heard the ol’ “Nigger team fuck you learn 2 play fuck garbage bot lane shit jungler” League created its own problem with the whole elo-booster situation: it’s obvious people care too much about rank in LoL. Now if someone in trem decides to feed the other team 3 goons at 2 minutes, i will get mad, i will most likely lose the game, i will shout at him for a bit, and then i move on to the next map, not really caring about the whole situation anymore. I don’t play league anymore but i have in the past, and if someone would throw my placement series (10 games for initial placement on leaderboards, if you get low elo it can be very hard to get out so everyone wants to win those 10 games) i would probably, like the rest of the toxic LoL community, get very fucking mad.

Tl;dr More camp because of rank, game is already dead anyways don’t bother, stop rantspam and md whoring because that shit will happen more if you introduce ranks.

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Tremulous stats should not show kill/death ratios, nor should it even show kills (those would be accurate metrics for Quake 3 Arena, but not for Tremulous). A Tremulous score system should accurately indicate the quality of game play that directly and efficiently leads to the goal of the game (kill all enemy spawns and any remaining enemy players) which includes the factors of combat, base building/attacking strategies, and team coordination (more about Tremulous score info at the following link: Player Efficiency rating and K/D rating idea for 1.3 - #7 by dGr8LookinSparky ) .

So if the scoring is done correctly, it shouldn’t encourage camping. Having such scores tied to your account would be yet another incentive to not get banned and not abandon your account for evasion. I was also planning on having such a scoring system factor into game activity for earning karma (although the maximum amount of karma you could earn in one day from such game activity would be capped as how well you play game play wise should only be one of the factors in earning karma as karma is more about behaving well than skill ).

Besides score, if karma was publicly displayed for player accounts, various clans might take that into consideration, as many clans factor players’ behavior into membership and not just skill. Additionally, displaying the average karma of a given clan’s members could factor into a player’s consideration of joining a specific clan.

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Not showing kills is a great way to piss off a huge amount of the population.

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@dGr8LookinSparky: stats should include everything. Maybe an unique formula where we find everything (K/D, time outside the base, building, teamwork, karma points, etc.).

The only question is if this is possible.

We must give at this game more competitiveness. Maybe not for PUB games, but for sure for Clans/CW games.

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It is possible technically speaking, however, if values are shown that are not actually relevant to neither playing the game well nor behaving in the game well, players will be doing activities to maximize those values that don’t actually contribute to the game and could even hinder the game.

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Once we find a formula, we don’t have to release to the public.

Can’t we start to think at the formula and then figure out how to branch work? You have already thought something?

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I’ll repeat what I mentioned in the slack group.

I think the Karma system concept is a good solution to evaders, although it may take more time to implement and fine tune.

Although I am in disagreement with some incentive’s you have proposed here. The focus should be on providing MORE to those who behave, you should never take away currently available features to players because they are new. Especially something as vital to enjoyment and gameplay as the chat.

Possible positive incentives could include the new colours added recently to the test server. Perhaps gold colour could be the highest karma rating unlock.

Another positive incentive which is a little more controversial, is that those with a higher karma level can have access to join a team before those with a lower karma level. That means that those who respect the rules and raise Karma have very small priority on what race they would like to play on which map.

So for the first 5 seconds nobody can join (warmup). First 10 seconds only those with karma level threshold (above lets say 2000) can join. Finally after the first 15 seconds anyone can join a team regardless of Karma.

These are the type of incentives we should be thinking about. NOT removing currently important and basic features.
Assuming the Karma system doesn’t remove features currently available in tremulous to new players I am all for this system.

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Like being able to join a team whenever you want?

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That’s not entirely true though. For the first 5 seconds nobody can join due to it being a “warmup” you also cannot join a team if it is full. So to expand the “warmup” for almost 5 seconds to allow players some incentive to behave might be worth it.

I would not like to see it cut into the warmup as that is not fair to those with slow PC’s.

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I have at this post: Player Efficiency rating and K/D rating idea for 1.3 - #7 by dGr8LookinSparky

The thing is, should new players be able to do things like decon the om/rc or spamming floor trappers on a public server with a lot of other players in the match before gaining a basic understanding of how building works in Tremulous? With the warmup mode that we have been developing, such actions are far more forgiving, and learning by making mistakes would not be so devastating for the rest of the server.

However, for the actual matches, imo it is better that completely new players are not allowed to build at all to start to get familiarity through observation of the other builders and of what those buildables actually do in the game, and then gradually give them building abilities as they gain more karma, along with having players with karma above a certain threshold treated like designated builders in relation to players with karma below that threshold.

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How to access to this http://forum.grangerhub.org/t/player-specific-gameplay-statistics/33/2?

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I agree, and there is a potential problem with coming up with a ranking formula and then fine-tuning it: it may piss off people to see their ranking mysteriously changing around. I would make player ranking not based on some unknown formula, but directly with karma. And karma should not be only automatic, but also people-driven, like a review system. Intermissions would the perfect place to distribute a few karma points to your best teammates. This would avoid any type of abuse of an automated system because it would be people-driven, and people are smart. :slight_smile: And reviews are a time-tested way to provide feedback.

In addition to the karma/review system, all stats should be available - including a complex total formula for player competitiveness. However, this should not be used to give advantages in game so that we don’t end up like in League as @DarkMicrobe explained. Instead, the stats should be available to filter and rank players freely and can be used by clans, etc.

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How you avoid the camp with this? By doing for everything x*time_outside_base ?