Damage-based XP proposal

[KingJackaL]

Let's do some math, to see how these XP system changes could effect a typical situation (I'm bored and have nothing better to do ATM ).


The situation

Consider a 3v3 clan match (to make the numbers easier), Allied offense picks 1med, 1eng, 1fop (123/110/110 HP respectively) - attacking a final blowup objective. Axis defense picks 2med, 1fop (134/134/120 HP respectively) - camping said objective. The defenders have a crossfire, and the attackers are attacking aggressively in a line (very common situation). Consider the combat goes as follows:

Allies attack in order fop -> eng -> med (typical). The fop runs into the Axis crossfire, getting some shots off on a medic before going down (does 70 damage, takes 110 split between all axis). The eng then runs up and finishes off that wounded medic (does 64 damage), but dies after starting to wound the 2nd axis medic (does 40 damage, takes 110 split between med2 and fop). Allied med runs up and revives the eng, but the fop is gibbed by the axis fop, while the axis med2 revives med1. Allied medic kills axis fop before dying to the two axis med's (does 120 damage - takes 123), while the allied eng only manages to do a further 80 damage on axis med2 killing med2, and 20 on med 1, but dying to the now revived med1. Axis med1 revives med2 and fop, allies respawn.

Pretty typical scene - allies with a good strong attack, but they fail to get both axis meds down, and the defensive crossfire and revive work are just too strong.

Systems for calculating reward

Now, consider the following XP systems:

Current
3XP per kill, 0XP per HP DMG

Kill-bias
2XP per kill, 1XP per 140 HP DMG

Damage bias (suggested new system)
1XP per kill, 1XP per 70 HP DMG

All damage
0XP per kill, 1XP per 50 HP DMG

We'll assume (for simplicity) that medic XP remains the same, 3XP for a revive and 1 per pack.

The calculations

First, lets see what each player does, such that they should be rewarded (I'll ignore packing - both teams will be packing and it just complicates things more):
Axis Med1: 145DMG, 0Kills, 2Revives
Axis Med2: 145DMG, 2Kills, 1Revives
Axis Fop: 113DMG, 1Kills, 0Revives
Allied Med: 120DMG, 1Kills, 1Revives
Allied Eng: 204DMG, 2Kills, 0Revives
Allied Fop: 70DMG, 0Kills, 0Revives

Now, lets see how the XP would stack up with the 4 systems:

Current:
Axis Med1: 0XP LW, 6XP Med
Axis Med2: 6XP LW, 3XP Med
Axis Fop: 3XP LW
Allied Med: 3XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 6XP LW
Allied Fop: 0XP LW
Defenders get 18XP, Attackers get 12XP
ratio def/att = 1.5

Kill-bias:
Axis Med1: 1XP LW, 6XP Med
Axis Med2: 5XP LW, 3XP Med
Axis Fop: 2XP LW
Allied Med: 2XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 5XP LW
Allied Fop: 0XP LW
Defenders get 17XP, Attackers get 10XP
ratio def/att = 1.7

Damage bias:
Axis Med1: 2XP LW, 6XP Med
Axis Med2: 4XP LW, 3XP Med
Axis Fop: 2XP LW
Allied Med: 2XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 4XP LW
Allied Fop: 1XP LW
Defenders get 17XP, Attackers get 10XP
ratio def/att = 1.7

All damage:
Axis Med1: 2XP LW, 6XP Med
Axis Med2: 2XP LW, 3XP Med
Axis Fop: 2XP LW
Allied Med: 2XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 4XP LW
Allied Fop: 1XP LW
Defenders get 15XP, Attackers get 10XP
ratio def/att = 1.5

Discussion

Bear in mind I set up the situation, calc'd, and am NOW looking at it to see how it balances. I'm most amazed by how SIMILAR the XP distribution is in all 4 cases team-wise. The all-damage and current modes wound up giving the same XP to each team (I'm guessing a fluke? ). What is more interesting is WHO gets what XP. It appears that the only change is that the LW's XP gets spread more with damage-based systems (as expected). So with damage-based XP, Allied fops (who typically are at the front of any RTCW/ET assault, and get owned the most ) actually get some XP, rather than it going to the eng's and med whores behind them.

Anyone else think of a better example to calc that might show some bigger differences in the systems?

[Gamma]

How about this:

1 xp point per 100 damage given
1 xp point per kill
1 xp point per gib

[Majikthise]

"so I land 1 headshot, recive my XP even though my teammate shot him 4-5 more times?"

You know, when forming strats, crossfire is a very important factor. The more crossfire you can get into an area, the better. With the new system, each player will get their earned XP, instead of picking whoever gets the kill to get the full XP. Not to mention, if you charge into an area where there is heavy crossfire, you're most likely going to get obliterated, and -maybe- take down one guy on defense. (the garage on Assault [rtcw] comes to mind) Also, the medic is probably going to be back a safe distance, ready to revive afterwards. So, with the new system, you'll get XP based on how much damage you can do before dying.

Seems to me that the people opposing this idea are afraid of change. They're quick to say, "this is a bad idea!" before really thinking it through. Imagine the system has BEEN like this since the begining. Then someone comes along and says, "I think only the person who gets the kill should get the full XP". Every last one of you would bitch and moan over that, me included. "But I did the most damage, he just stole my kill, AND my XP!" Please, think these ideas through before spouting your ideas of "don't touch it! they made it like this, it MUST be right!".

[KingJackaL]

Thought I'd have a look at an Allies-win scenario, to balance the above Axis-win scenario.


The situation

Consider a 3v3 clan match (to make the numbers easier), Allied offense picks 1med, 1eng, 1fop (123/110/110 HP respectively) - attacking a final blowup objective. Axis defense picks 2med, 1fop (134/134/120 HP respectively) - camping said objective. The defenders have a crossfire, and the attackers are attacking aggressively in a line (very common situation). Consider the combat goes as follows:

Allies attack in order fop -> eng -> med (typical). The fop runs into the Axis crossfire, getting some shots off on a medic before going down (does 80 damage, takes 110 split between all axis). The eng then runs up and finishes off that wounded medic (does 54 damage), but dies after starting to wound the 2nd axis medic (does 70 damage, takes 110 split between med2 and fop). Allied med runs up and finishes off the axis 2nd medic just before he can revive med1 (does 64 damage, takes 50 from fop), revives the eng, but the fop is gibbed by the axis fop. Allied medic and eng kill the axis fop (do 120 damage split - med takes 40), then rush on to plant the objective.

Pretty typical scene - allies with a good strong attack, succeeding in getting both axis meds down, then revive-whoring it up to eventually outnumber and dominate the remaining defender.

Systems for calculating reward

Now, consider the following XP systems:

Current
3XP per kill, 0XP per HP DMG

Kill-bias
2XP per kill, 1XP per 140 HP DMG

Damage bias (suggested new system)
1XP per kill, 1XP per 70 HP DMG

All damage
0XP per kill, 1XP per 50 HP DMG

We'll assume (for simplicity) that medic XP remains the same, 3XP for a revive and 1 per pack.

The calculations

First, lets see what each player does, such that they should be rewarded (I'll ignore packing - both teams will be packing and it just complicates things more):
Axis Med1: 35DMG, 0Kills, 0Revives
Axis Med2: 50DMG, 1Kills, 0Revives
Axis Fop: 165DMG, 1Kills
Allied Med: 134DMG, 1Kills, 1Revives
Allied Eng: 174DMG, 2Kills
Allied Fop: 80DMG, 0Kills

Now, lets see how the XP would stack up with the 4 systems:

Current:
Axis Med1: 0XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Med2: 3XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Fop: 3XP LW
Allied Med: 3XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 6XP LW
Allied Fop: 0XP LW
Defenders get 6XP, Attackers get 12XP
ratio def/att = 0.5

Kill-bias:
Axis Med1: 0XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Med2: 2XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Fop: 3XP LW
Allied Med: 3XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 5XP LW
Allied Fop: 0XP LW
Defenders get 5XP, Attackers get 11XP
ratio def/att = 0.46

Damage bias:
Axis Med1: 0XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Med2: 1XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Fop: 3XP LW
Allied Med: 2XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 4XP LW
Allied Fop: 1XP LW
Defenders get 4XP, Attackers get 10XP
ratio def/att = 0.4

All damage:
Axis Med1: 0XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Med2: 1XP LW, 0XP Med
Axis Fop: 3XP LW
Allied Med: 2XP LW, 3XP Med
Allied Eng: 3XP LW
Allied Fop: 1XP LW
Defenders get 4XP, Attackers get 9XP
ratio def/att = 0.44

Discussion

The more damage is taken into account vs kills, the more a successfull offensive push benifits. People that just get owned (axis med1) get little/no XP under any system. In this situation, it looks like the damage systems would need LOWER amounts of HP's in order to give a similar amount of XP to the current system overall (the total amount of XP given out is much less on the above all-damage model than the current model). Again, damage-models spread the XP more evenly between all active attackers/defenders.

[Digm]

Proposal:
Change to damage-based XP.
Players will be awarded 1 XP for each X damage they inflict on the enemy. X yet to be determined, and up for discussion. 50 hp per 1 XP sounds good to me.
A kill will be awarded 1 XP.
A /kill will be counted as a death.

A kill is a kill. The major flaw in your proposal is that it presupposes that everything is 1v1. If you're up against 4 people, 3 with 10 hp and 1 with 100hp, you damn well deserve the 3/5xp per kill. To say "well you only inflicted 130hp worth of damage, so you only get 4 xp" is completely ABSURD. You were up against 4 fully functional smgs. The more people you're up against, the less hp is a factor (and vice versa).

This "sharing xp" concept is horrible, in my opinion. Hell, it'll probably have the opposite effect that you desire. People will rather go off by themselves so they can get the full xp rather than work as a team and share it. Ironically making it the exact opposite type of game that it's supposed to be.

[KingJackaL]

A kill is a kill. The major flaw in your proposal is that it presupposes that everything is 1v1. If you're up against 4 people, 3 with 10 hp and 1 with 100hp, you damn well deserve the 3/5xp per kill. To say "well you only inflicted 130hp worth of damage, so you only get 4 xp" is completely ABSURD. You were up against 4 fully functional smgs. The more people you're up against, the less hp is a factor (and vice versa).

That's true. But how did those 3 guys get down to 10HP? That's right, one of your teammates put them down there - and got no XP for it, I might add.

However, the fact that you beat 3 or 4 fully functional SMG's IS highly relavent, and yes it DOES deserve recognition. Again, a matter of where the balance comes with kills XP vs damage XP.

This "sharing xp" concept is horrible, in my opinion. Hell, it'll probably have the opposite effect that you desire. People will rather go off by themselves so they can get the full xp rather than work as a team and share it. Ironically making it the exact opposite type of game that it's supposed to be.

That's not even relavent. For BayonET yes, but not for ETPro - people will play with their teams' goals in mind, not their own - this is for clans, not pubs. ( and if you've got pure-rambo's in your clan, perhaps you should be considering either dumping them for a more team-oriented player, or beating teamwork into their thick skulls :p )

[Majikthise]

Interesting, I didn't know that ET competitive play was only about gaining XP, and not working as a team to acheive the objective. If you have people in your clan that actually run off and try to get XP, then your clan flat out sucks, and you deserve to lose. If you are a well established clan that works well together, and has good teamwork, then this will have no effect on you.

[bani]

the levels in ET are called 'skill levels', eg a measure of skill/proficiency in that category.

why should soemone who can get the last 1hp required to kill a player be awarded skill in light weapons, while someone who with carefully aimed smg managed to pour 100's of damage into multiple players gets none? is the 1hp kill really a more reasonable & logical measure of light weapons skill?

in the documentation and the code, it is called 'light weapons skill', not 'light weapons kills'. imho, counting skill purely as frags (as it is now) is completely antithetical to that definition.

from a consistency point of view, it makes no sense that healing teammates hp with medpacks counts as medic skill while conversely damaging enemies hp with smg doesnt count.

[gotenks]

just a question... what happens if a person does X-1 damage to the enemy? is it rounded(X/2->1.5X-1...), does it go to the next step (0->X-1=1xp, X->2X-1=2xp...) or do you need atleast that xp(X->2X-1,2X->3X-1,...)
would be a good way to leach xp by snipers though... take a shot at a medic... wait a sec, take a shot, wait... etc

[NewdeaL]

bani: i see your point. you're lumping in XP from all fields together.

we are discussing XP for 'killing' or XP for 'damage given'.

a medic recives XP for healing teammates because that is the purpose of the class.
a lieutenant (fldops) gets XP for handing out ammo because that is 1 of the purposes of the class.
the rest of the classes follow suit. When it comes down to shooting and killing, the KILLING part is EVERYONE's purpose. Of course, you could broaden that by saying "well isnt everyone's purpose winning the map/round?" Well of course, but you can't win without killing the other team.

Reciving XP for only dishing out damage would be like a medic handing out half med packs, or a fldops passing out just pistol ammo, or an engineer who only armed the dynamite half way. Giving damage and actually killing someone are two totally different things. Would I recive XP for getting in a 1v1 and losing, although i took the opposing player down to 10hp? If thats the case, I should get NO XP due to the blatantly obvious fact that I DID NOT KILL THE PERSON. Even then, a teammate could then step in and kill that person i took down to 15hp and recive MINIMAL XP for it due to the fact that he only inflicted 15hp worth of damage. Is that fair to the second guy? Hell no, because he got the kill, he gets the XP.

it SHOULD be as simple as that, but for some reason, you folks like to make stuff* more complicated.

* = SHIT. last time i said SHIT the line was edited out of my post completely rather than just the word. gg's bani.


bani said: "why should soemone who can get the last 1hp required to kill a player be awarded skill in light weapons, while someone who with carefully aimed smg managed to pour 100's of damage into multiple players gets none?"

If you poured 100's of damage into the guy and didn't kill him yourself, you didn't deserve the kill in the first place. That AND someone who aims "carefully" will not encounter the "frag stealer" situation, for he will have killed the person HIMSELF.

again, you should really take this poll to the TWL forums where the votes will ACTUALLY count. It'd be a shame if some RtCW banimod noobies altered the way competitive players gained XP.

[NewdeaL]

magikthise: I think I'm probably the LOUDEST voice on these forums anyway, against the damage based XP proposal, yet I feel I've explained my POV fairly clear. I'm not afraid of change. I see this as a way to coddle the people who can't actually muster the kills to keep up with the herd.

If my teammate gets the kill on someone we're both shooting at, it's not harming me at all, whatsoever. If he's awarded with the XP and not me, so what, he IS on my side, remember? If you're surrounded by players who have higher XP than yourself, chance has it that you're going to get your opportunities to get kills, usually by leeching them. Is that going to effect the guy with 100xp points? HIGHLY DOUBT IT.

When people don't like what they hear, and speak out AGAINST the change, it's not because they're afraid, it's because they don't see the change doing any good for the community. The current changes have been made to better improve the competitive community have been WELCOMED, (i.e. spawn times on oasis and railgun, the spawnable cp on fueldump and dynamitable back door for battery in the next release of etpro) but this one shot down on sites like www.et-center.com

Kinda interesting, the fact that competitive players DON'T want this, yet all of the no names posting here are begging for it.

Do the competitive ET scene a favor and add this damage based XP system to some other mod, not the one we use for scrims/matches.

[bani]

my point is, the documentation and source code refer to it as skill, not frags.

you are awarded XP as a measure of skill/proficiency in a category.

i'm arguing it takes more proficiency/skill to damage a player 160hp than it does to damage that same player 1hp. you disagree?

[KingJackaL]

NewdeaL bro, you should look at the numbers I provided above ( even if they are long and tedious ).

If you poured 100's of damage into the guy and didn't kill him yourself, you didn't deserve the kill in the first place.

No, you don't deserve the kill. Nobody is disagreeing with that. What they're disagreeing with is that you don't have any skill. YOU DO - you did 100's in damage.

Look at my above examples, specifically the Allied Fop. Under current systems, he gets no XP - and given he's running into a 3-man crossfire, he'd have to be 3x as good (not going to happen) to take them. You seem to think that if you can't kill somebody, you don't deserve compensation because you lack skills. This may be true 1v1, but we're talking about clan matches, not 1v1 (although I don't discount the possibility of 1v1 ladders). But if you're the first in a line to hit a crossfire-covered defensive position, it hardly matters how much skill you've got - you're NOT going to get frags. The guys behind you will, even if they DON'T have the same 1v1 skill as you do.

Under a damage-based model, first players to hit crossfires recieve some compensation in recognition of their ability to do damage. Frags are irrelevant - if you run into 3 or 4 SMG's, you're not going to get frags - you could be GMPO or iNF or whatever - doesn't matter, you're running into a crossfire. In that situation, what shows your level of skill is the damage you do before you die ( and in a heavy crossfire, you WILL die ).



BTW, my personal opinion ( so you know where I stand ), is that the current system is flawed, and that Bani's system is better, but takes things too far.

I feel it should be 2XP per frag + 1XP per 120 HP DMG.

[edit] Oh, and Bani's system DOES reward kills. You get 1XP for the kill - even if that was with a single pistol bullet shot at the dudes little toe on his right foot .

[NewdeaL]

i agree with you, that giving 80hp of damage is harder than 20hp. But in all the scenario's you posted, the guy getting the kill deserves XP. "Player 2 runs away and gets killed by a lucky pistol from behind" Well, that player was in the right place at the right time and should be awarded for that.

I just simply feel that getting awarded for not finishing the job is going easy on the lesser skilled players in the game. I understand that they are a majority at the moment, but they're not the ones that are improving the game, and playing with purpose like some of the players who are on TWL/CAL teams. My purpose? to play the game competitively, with ETpro, getting credit for my kills, and the same for my teammates, and ultimately playing this game at LAN events such as QuakeCon, or maybe one day CPL.

Look back at RtCW or Q3. No one recieved .5 points for ALMOST killing an enemy, and ET should be no different. Leave it as it is, there is nothing wrong with the current system, unless people are constantly stealing kills from you, in which case you should try to practice more.

[NewdeaL]

kingjackal:

you're missing my point. i'm not talking about 1v1's i'm talking about actual teams going out and playing. On a pub, I'd be somewhat troubled by one of my noobie companions leeching a kill out from under me, but on pubs i play for 1 purpose, to kill as many people as possible.

In a Team/Clan match, the relevance as to who gets the XP for the kill or who inflicted the most damage is irrelevant, so long as the enemy is dead, and the friendlys are still alive.

^^If you can't see the cold hard truth there, you're looking at the game in the wrong way.