The Karma System

[DevHC]

@dGr8LookinSparky

The primary purpose of the Karma system is to […] provide encouragement to behave well [(1)], and protect against new accounts maliciously griefing (which many times are evaders [(2)]).

on top of both being primary, what is the purpose weight between (1) and (2) ?

@DevHC

• suppose that, in addition to the karma value, a CRIMINAL™ history is shown for a player, and suppose that it shows a few malicious decons.
  so fucking what ?

Yes it is true that in-game behavior of a player known to disrupt game-play could improve, as well as in-game behavior of a player known to not disrupt game-play can deteriorate. However, those are not counter examples against the karma system

WRONG, and u’re missing the point. the point shows that even with the hypothetic additional information, one can’t seem to derive a really valuable behavioral property for the purposes of considering to accept the player in a clan.

any player could have a net gain/lose in karma based on [new] behavior.

eg., one who plays 30 hours per day can permit himself/herself to decon every now-and-then.

@DevHC

@Ckit

What if all players online are new/have low Karma, nobody would be able to build and games would be shit.

headshot ! this is an example of what could have been fucked up.

@dGr8LookinSparky

In general various abilities should take into consideration the availability of other active (not afk ofc) players on the server and their karma levels in relation to a specific player and his/her karma level. This would help a new server with an unestablished playerbase grow.

@DevHC

headshot ! this is an example of what could have been fucked up.

[Blizz]

@DevHC

and here u’ve just suggested a metric that directly changes the way ppl play the game (not the meta behavior (such as whether they grief), but what they regard as winning). this is exactly the opposite of what the karma system aspires to influence.

No mine was just a question to @cengique

@cengique

To avoid camp, we need the karma/review system, not the stats. Players would know when a teammate has been camping the whole game. The stats should be simple. Complex/mysterious calculations can hurt as much as they help. They should be left as optional statistics that could be used if someone is looking into competitiveness.

I would like to see a game with a level of competitiveness comparable to games like battlefield for pc.
If we continue to give against all possible ideas, not finding at least a decent solution, I’ll settle for seeing the same number of players who currently populate urban terror.

In any case, camping is a part of all games. You can fight it, not abolish it.

@DevHC

one can’t seem to derive a really valuable behavioral property for the purposes of considering to accept the player in a clan

A good clan member should have a good mix of decent skill/decent behavior.

[dGr8LookinSparky]

@Blizz

In any case, camping is a part of all games. You can fight it, not abolish it.

There are ways to addressing camping, however, the Karma system is not meant to address camping nor other game-play behaviour, but rather like DevHC mentioned, Karma is meant to address poor meta game behavior (such as griefing and other violations of game server rules).

The problem of camping in Tremulous is discussed in this topic: Is camping in Tremulous a problem?

@DevHC

on top of both being primary, what is the purpose weight between (1) and (2) ?

They are two parts of the same primary purpose and carry equal weight in the design.

@DevHC

eg., one who plays 30 hours per day can permit himself/herself to decon every now-and-then.

The maximum amount of karma you could earn each day would be capped.

[DevHC]

@Blizz

In any case, camping is a part of all games. You can fight it, not abolish it.

i believe proper game design can nail it.

@DevHC

one can’t seem to derive a really valuable behavioral property for the purposes of considering to accept the player in a clan

A good clan member should have […]decent behavior.

which is exactly what u can’t derive.

@dGr8LookinSparky

@DevHC

eg., one who plays 30 hours per day can permit himself/herself to decon every now-and-then.

The maximum amount of karma you could earn each day would be capped.

then u instead advance 30 accounts per day.

[DevHC]

ppl ! let’s not forget that invincibility to griefers should be established through technology to reverse the effects of griefing, as opposed deterrence of griefers. and with that said, the design of the karma system is to be scrapped,¹ as the remaining purposes r:

• to deter ppl from bad behavior in general — this has no justification to be implemented by punishing by revoking potentially useful capabilities (see below);
• to protect n00bs from „their alter ego” — and this has already been argued to be only detrimental in general, if forced.

elaboration on revoking „potentially useful capabilities”:

• what if use of weapons stronger than X were forbidden ? then, the player would feed more, and thus be more detrimental to the team.
• what if the power to kick was revoked ? then, the admin would be unable to kick griefers, and thus be less useful to the server.
  • one could now say: „but the power to kick includes the power to abuse !” yes, but in what circumstances is revocation warranted ? when the admin starts teamkilling ? that is rather irrelevant. instead, when the admin starts abusing the power to kick ? this, however, is something the karma system can’t detect.

though, by contrast:

• some cautious applications of values like „value of time played minus value of teamkills, etc” is acceptable, such as X in „need ≥X% support to be vote-kicked” (however, this example metric is very weak).
• there is nothing bad in affecting immaterial values, such as one’s position on the scoreboard.

¹ well, there is almost nothing to scrap yet.

[Blizz]

@DevHC

which is exactly what u can’t derive.

LoL system review isn’t good too? @DarkMicrobe @Ckit

[MaeJong]

@Blizz

LoL system review isn’t good too?

LoL’s review system is used for a very large community, and as such is directly dependant on the quality of said community (which is too often shit to be good). The same system is usually better at smaller scales when admins review the reports. The process is exactly the same except that the admins are behind the decisions, the results can sometimes be achieved faster than with LoL’s tribunal and on top of that, you are certified the result is not bullshit or retarded.
You usually don’t need to involve players in handling reports on these kind of games where each server has their own smaller community and assigned admin team. That is unless you have an overwhelming amount of reports and not enough people to deal with all of them so they keep stacking up. (In which case, in Tremulous you would seriously need to recruit admins.)

This is what we are doing already on GHub at the moment though. Our only problem is the lack of a report system in-game, (which is, soon to be fixed, until then @DevHC can keep fucking my mom for creating so many bugs) and serverside demos.

[Blizz]

@MaeJong: you always give me gud answers. You’re my second fav French

[DevHC]

@Blizz

@DevHC

which is exactly what u can’t derive.

LoL system review isn’t good too?

review systems r not part of the karma system.