Skill system

[iRobot]

Add up the number of times you have seen someone calling someone a #.xx shitter. Doesn't need to be accurate, just rough. It's often though, and you know this.



...


Now add up the number of times you've seen someone saying "wow, #.xx, you're pretty good "



That is the epitome of the system currently.

[Azarael]

You're likely to receive more flak for being a sycophant than for putting others down.

Also, how many times do you see "a.xx shitter" being thrown without a reason? I use it to quickly put down people of that skill who are trying to tell me how to play the game or are giving me unwanted tactical advice.

[iZumo]

A) Because of constant comments about lowskiller, from you as one of the top contributors, people playing with skill in mind, not playing as they usually would, caring for stacking teams. I don't enjoy being people called 4.xx shitters, LDG should be a better place than that. The sad thing is it's the admin team who seem to use these phrases the most. Those 'shitters' are the ones keeping the server alive by using it.

According to the logs, Aza is the only one using .xx shitters (and frequently), the rest are either random occurences or replies, or speaking about the skill in general. I don't see a problem when people play with skill in mind on BW (unlike AS). Those who wish to play normally don't have to be
A) bothered by skill
B) hide it and keep it private

Secondly, caring about stack will not change, people will eventually be fed up to balance it if that is not automated (happened every time so far). It is true though, that the skill makes this to happen faster.

B) I am not wrong when I say most people do not know how, or are against the system entirely (as myself). Not to mention often when you hide skill it shows itself later. Besides, why should I even bother to hide it manually when everyone knows them from looking at the rankings or from previous memory. In its current format hideskill is just a placebo, and knowing about a placebo defeats the purpose.

I also suppose that most people don't care. As for you, skill or not, that will not change anyhow, the only way for you is to hide your identity completely. Just because there is some quantification doesn't change anything here + I already mentioned that I can hide ppl with hidden skill on the website as well.

B) 11% is significant. You have to consider the fact that a great many probably don't know much about skill or how to even hide it themselves. What you suggest is that if the default setting for skill is to be hidden, all but 89% of players would change their setting so it would be shown. You're lumping the people who actuaply care and want skill to be visible with the countless people who simply use default settingg because they are either indifferent or don't know how to change it.

I do consider 11% significant enough to do something about it, but insignificant to make a significant change affecting everyone. It's true that many players may not know how to or simply don't care (probably majority of them) and I'm counting these towards the default option. Also, have all the people giving negative feedback actually hidden their skill ingame (Oska, iRobot etc.), the percentage could be around ~15% still (it also makes me believe there is other reason for not having your skill hidden, honestly, and for the whole "hide the skill for everyone motion").

C) Because you only intended it for balancing purposes and with it visible, people play to raise their own skill, not to balance the teams. There have been many people complaining about the system, yet I don't see anyone coming to the forum especially to say how it's a good thing.

This is wrong, I made that a feature of the game - skill balancer was the initial idea. Besides even until I declared that the way to express the opinion is to "hide the skill in the game", the poll was still only 1:2 ratio (for : against).

[Skaldy]

Messing about with skill visiblity will not stop people from trying to protect their skill rating. Having a skill rating implicitly creates a separate competition that conflicts with the team goals.

However, when kill spectrum arrives then players who care about their skill rating will have a better incentive to face Robot rather than ragespec (fearspec!).

I am happy to wait for that.

[Azarael]

We're not actually sure whether kill spectrum is live or not. The numbers in PHGStats don't appear to add up.

[iZumo]

It's not live, not data enough collected yet

[Pinky]

However, when kill spectrum arrives then players who care about their skill rating will have a better incentive to face Robot rather than ragespec (fearspec!).

The kill spectrum only tracks your kills, not your deaths.

[iZumo]

As of now, most of the players don't have 1500 kills collected (j.a.m. is nearing it), most of the others have reduction between 50% - 20% in the weighting.

[Butcher]

I like to see my skill, makes me focus on how to improve my gaming and how to play against others. Challenges me to improve my skills.Also makes me look at the ones that have better scores to check what they do correctly in the game. I believe is a good feature to understand what you are against...

[iRobot]

Do you really need a simplistic 3 figure value to tell you if you're improving?

How did people cope all these years without the skill system