Points sytem needs work

Posted the following on ROF forum. Thoughts?



First off I would like to thank the developers for making and supporting such a wonderful game! It’s near perfect in my opinion aside from the points system which I feel is very unbalanced. Please let me explain.

A large part of the satisfaction for me and all other flyers I talk to is the feeling of accomplishment when your team works strategically to plan and accomplish mission objectives. These objectives often include recons, bombing factories & trains & aerodromes, escorting, artillery spotting, home defense and offensive patrols. The problem is the points system does not reflect the hard work required to accomplish most objectives other than simply shooting down enemy planes. With such a deep simulation aimed at accurately depicting air-power of the day while promoting team work and re-playability this seems odd.

Destroying an entire plane factory should warrant significantly more points that downing a single plane. Successfully completing a recon flight should at least be of the same or more value than shooting down a single plane. The same could be said for destroying a train, an aerodrome, a tank factory completing an artillery strike and so on.

I believe that by re-balancing the points system to reward all mission types appropriately it will change the battlefield for the better by broadening pilot’s mission scope and encouraging more teamwork (re-playability). For example, scouts would have more reason to perform escorts and defense since bombers, recons, artillery will now be more valuable targets (these were target #1). Accomplishing mission objectives (which is priority #1 in any battle) will warrant a score which would better reflect the outcome of a battle.

Please look at re-vamping the points system. This is only going to make a great game greater!

I agree, I guess I dont know how the points system work today but it does seem like its very difficult to rack up a good score bombing and doing recons. Typically on those few flights that I have done in this role I end up getting more for the AI fighters I shoot down than accomplishing the actual mission.

Frankly I am surprised that it hasn't been addressed before now. I seem to recall in IL2 a lot of the top scoring guys were bomber pilots.

I had heard that there was a problem with some bomber dude who would be out bombing when no one else was around thereby racking up huge points for himself. At least in a dogfight, you would need an opponent. I agree though that the scoring should get fixed. Maybe design a system that takes number of opponents into consideration, the time it took to accomplish the missions(even I could destroy whole factories, etc. if I had unlimited time and no enemies to deal with). Maybe that is why they have such unrealistic flak in the game.

I agree and have brought it up before and commented on similar threads started on RoF forums. I feel like I get better results banging my head against the wall. The reason the developers won't even consider changing it is what DooRight mentioned. Frankly, I think it should be up to the mission builder.

Personally the point system means nothing to me. I fly for the fun of it, if we ignored the point system totally the game would not change. I find it funny that the FEOW which is all about winning the war has begun to concentrate on the same point system for success while ignoring the required success. Oh well it was historical that the fighter pilot exploits were what was main fare for the morale of the populace so in that way the point system is historical

I'm with Zed here- let the bicyclers have their glory while we get the job done. At the end of the day, we know what is what.

I agree with Zed somewhat however...

Although points are not that important to those of us who already work strategically and as a team, there are many that do pay attention to them. Those that do certainly have an effect on how the rest of us experience ROF because it shapes the way they play the game to varying degrees.

I believe that by making improvements via balancing it would change the way many pilots play the game and encouraging more strategic type thinking which ultimately should make the battlefield even more realistic and more interesting for all of us.

Perhaps the implementation of a team score, along side the individual scores would be effective. For example destroying a plane factory could provides say 10points for the player but maybe 50points for the team. This way teams that work strategically are acknowledged for their efforts while players that don't can still focus on their personal score. This is win-win in my opinion.

 

S! All


The points system has some problems. At present, the rewards are for victories against human players, AI players, vehicles and a bonus multiplier for landing at a friendly aerodrome. The previous items were picked because they have a set hit point value that can not be changed. Buildings, bridges and some other objects can have their hit points adjusted. A person could set up a server with 20 factories in a row and bomb them all in one or two passes. The ability to abuse the existing system is high. You set up a server with 30 AI Fokker E3. Get yourself a Bristol with all the gun mods. Just keep shooting them down. Have a short server time so that it resets quickly. The reset uploads the scores to the master server. That is how these guys get to the top of the leader boards with only 10 hours of game play.

As to recon points, I think they could do that as long as everyone is using Ankor's recon system. It still has the potential for abuse but the work involved in doing that would probably discourage the abuser. There would need to be some code written into the game to count recons. Any new code is a long way off or at least till after Stalingrad has been freed from the Nazi oppressors.


All these problems are why tournament play is so important. There, you get rewards for bombing, recon and cooperative effort even if they do not show on the server stats..

Good points Butz. Maybe there has to be a more rigorous way of getting your server "Approved" for stats upload so you just cant have all these fly by night servers posting bogus stats. Or just do away with global server stats and list stat by individual server.

I am not a member of the 42nd squad, and I am in your house, so I will try to say this; without as the old saying goes, "coming to your house and crapping on the living room floor".

No.42_DooRight wrote:

I had heard that there was a problem with some bomber dude who would be out bombing when no one else was around thereby racking up huge points for himself.

Yeah, I have heard that too. Being semi-retired, I spend my days sleeping and am up at night for 2 reasons.

1. I try to supplement my income by working on computers, new builds, upgrades and repairing. Night time allows me to work without kids running around, and adults needing some favor done.

2. With 1 main computer in the house, that is adequet for gaming, it is usually occupied by any one of the 7 people in the household. from around 7 or 8 AM, till about 10 PM or so.

To that end, and pertaining to this topic, I fly when I can, at night. Now I do have a solution, the server is open, so feel free to log in and keep me from flying alone.

Specifically addressing my flights a week or so ago, on the 42nd server where I

"racked up huge points for myself", *edited for correct context.

I had just recieved a gift from a squad mate, of some aircraft (Strutters, Halbie Fighter and the Roland.) that I did not have, and could not afford to purchase right now. It was a gift that I am appreciative of, and as it came from a fellow squad member, I see it as not only a personal gift, but giving me tools that I need to be able to contribute more to the squad.

I felt a need to practice in those aircraft, so that I could repay his kindness with being able to more accuratelly fly the aircraft, so that I am actually contributing to the team effort. I felt like I owed it to my squad.

The main reason that I flew on the 42nd server alone, other than the previously stated reasons for flying nights, was that the Strutter was not available on Wargrounds at the time.

BTW, everyone or anyone is more than welcome to join in, as I have NO problem with flying against other opponents. Especially the ones that started the "crap", of interpreting my motives as being a stats whore.  I specifically challenged the 4 or 5 individuals to log on with me, and "protect (their) strategic points".

Just last night, 2 of those individuals and myself were on the Wargrounds server, and they were specifically hunting me. And that is fine, I like a challenge. But the fact is, that even with a populated server, and these 2 individuals making a concerted effort to stop me, I still managed to destroy MANY of the targets that they were suppose to be protecting (an actual objective of the game), and as an added personal ( between them and me ) benefit, I outscored both of them by a wide margin.

No.42_DooRight wrote:

At least in  a dogfight, you would need an opponent.  

In my opnion, this may be part of the problem. Some people who play this game believe, and the game itself is geared towards, the "dogfight" and there are people that think that this is the only way the game should be played.

I say that there are targets that need protecting and in lieu of, destroyed. And there are people intent on destroying those targets. IMHO, Your time would be better spent protecting your bombers and recon aircraft, so that they can destroy the enemies' targets. A side benefit being that you wont have to look for the dogfight, it will come to you. Bombers are a bandit magnet. In lieu of, you can try covering and protecting your strategic points, aka targets . It seems to me, that there is something about that in notices/ messages that pop-up on screen, on every server I have played on.

A lot of people do not offer escort to bombers and recon AC, or cover strategic points. They reduce the game to flying around looking for the "dogfight", neglecting or even ignoring their assigned missions and real objectives.

No.42_DooRight wrote:

I agree though that the scoring should get fixed. Maybe design a system that takes number of opponents into consideration, the time it took to accomplish the missions(even I could destroy whole factories, etc. if I had unlimited time and no enemies to deal with).

I totally agree. It is total BS, that you can spend an hour, flying to a objective/ target and back, destroying/ accomlishing the mission or destroying the target, and get squat. When fighter jocks can get into 5 or 6 dogfights in that amount of time, and rack up 130 or more points. So I agree that it needs to be fixed. How about a huge deduction from every fighter pilots points, for every bomber or recon AC on their side, that gets shotdown. Or reductions for objectives that go unmet, because the fighter jocks are looking for the "dogfight", and ignoring thier real duties.

No.42_DooRight wrote:

Maybe that is why they have such unrealistic flak in the game.

Trying to rationalize the most Un-Realistic part of the game, that does not really affect anyone, but the people and AC, that are attacking the targets, ie Bombers and ground attack aircraft ?

Last thing. If this attitude is the prevailing attitude here @ 42nd, then I have 2 possible solutions for you.

1) Please remove ALL of MY points from my stats. I do not really care. If you will leave my stats for ground kills and such, that would be fine, but please remove all of the points for all of those killed targets. That will surely cut down on the whining and "I had heard that there was a problem" crap.

2) Set it up so that NO One, can spawn an aircraft until there are at least 10 people on the server. The number of 10 is arbitrary, but you understand what I mean.

I hope that I have been measured in my response, and this comment, while quoted and responded to 1 individual poster, is not directed at that 1 individual, but an attempt to address this whole scoring issue crap. I agree, the scoring system is a joke, but do not try to assign motives to when and why someone flies. I fly when I can.

Lastly; and again, I fly when I can, and if you do not like me flying alone, then Please, log on and stop me from reaching and destroying my targets. That is the same challenge that I offered to the group of 4 or 5 whiners that actually started with the ,,,,,

"there is a problem with some bomber dude who would be out bombing when no one else was around thereby racking up huge points for himself."

A challenge that they have miserably failed, every time we have been on servers at the same time. And there have been many times that we have been on the same servers at the same time.

It is that they are so busy playing with themselves, that they ignore the jobs/ objectives they are assigned by the game, so that they can go "Dogfight"

My intent with this post is not to offend. My apologies if anyone was hurt by my comments. My intent is to clarify what "some" are trying to portray as a real problem, when it is more a justification of their inablities to, or unwillingness to do their job. That way, they can play the way they want to, instead of the way it is suppose to be played.

~S 42nd.

20thBG_GreyWolf

GreyWolf, my reading of the original post was not pointed at anyone on our server, it was the comment of an original point system that could be exploited for Global stats. They would set up a map with multiple easy targets and bomb continuously to bring up their stats on the worldwide list.

I haven't seen or heard anyone complain about racking up points on our server, as a bomber pilot I know how very difficult it is, one bicycle pilot can make more points with one kill then a bomber pilot taking down a whole country!

Personally, continue doing what you are doing, I challenge the bicycle riders to stop us at any time of day!

  

Stats?   
We have stats?

No.42_Zed wrote:

GreyWolf, my reading of the original post was not pointed at anyone on our server, it was the comment of an original point system that could be exploited for Global stats.  They would set up a map with multiple easy targets and bomb continuously to bring up their stats on the worldwide list.

I haven't seen or heard anyone complain about racking up points on our server, as a bomber pilot I know how very difficult it is, one bicycle pilot can make more points with one kill then a bomber pilot taking down a whole country!

RGR. no one made a specific comment about this server, but the fact is that I did fly it a few nights back, and most of the time alone, and did rack up some points. But that was not my objective. I was just looking for practice time in my shiny new AC.

No.42_Zed wrote:

Personally, continue doing what you are doing, I challenge the bicycle riders to stop us at any time of day!

  

Thank you sir, I will. If the points are removed, that is fine by me. Points, is not WHY I fly ROF, or any other sim.

No.42_Space, good one. made me chuckle.

GreyWolf, most of us in this Squad could care less what our stats are. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never be a high scoring pilot on any server. I am a bomber pilot and I get my sense of doing a good job when we go onto a server and take it down by getting all of the objectives. Our fighters usually protect the bombers when we have several members of the squad flying on a server. I applaud them for their efforts. They do have a hard time staying with me because I like to fly low enough to go around trees and not over. I say to you, fly whenever you can and tell the stat whores to shove it. I know of no one who is a stat whore in this squad. Again, our fighter try to protect the bombers. Our unofficial motto is "Remember the mission".

No.42_Stubby wrote:

GreyWolf, most of us in this Squad could care less what our stats are. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never be a high scoring pilot on any server. I am a bomber pilot and I get my sense of doing a good job when we go onto a server and take it down by getting all of the objectives. Our fighters usually protect the bombers when we have several members of the squad flying on a server. I applaud them for their efforts. They do have a hard time staying with me because I like to fly low enough to go around trees and not over. I say to you, fly whenever you can and tell the stat whores to shove it. I know of no one who is a stat whore in this squad. Again, our fighter try to protect the bombers. Our unofficial motto is "Remember the mission".

First let me say, that I would have probably not even responded to this thread, on this forum, if not for the

"I had heard that there was a problem with some bomber dude who would be out bombing when no one else was around thereby racking up huge points for himself."

This is a sentiment expressed towards me by some of the pilots I mentioned before, that anyone that would fly a server alone is only doing it for the stats, being a stats whore, and while those pilots are not here, I did find the same sentiment expressed here. That is why I responded at all.

I did not mean for it to sound as though I feel that such is a wide-spread case in the 42nd.

But seriously, I do not mean for any of my comments to be taken as a blanket accusation against all fighter pilots or the 42nd at all. I have flown a few times with the 42nd, and found a lot more co-operation and co-ordination between fighters and bombers. I was addressing the attitude in the above statement.

If I made it sound like I dislike ALL fighter pilots, let me assure you, such is not the case, and I feel kind of bad that someone got that idea from my words. My bad. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

No offense fighter pilots, especially those of the 42nd, that is not what I meant.

That phrase is a common mantra on the RoF Forum as a general rule for why nothing is (or ever will be) done regarding this issue. It should be noted it is the "Stat whores" of the community that are worried that a bomber pilot might...mmm...whore some stats in this manner. Look to BraveSirRobin (a.k.a. Krusty, a.k.a. Stat whore) as the chief champion of the status quo.

Last time they had global stats up there had to be 3 people in a server for the stats to be included. That was done to prevent what has been mentioned here. Maybe it would have been better if they had made that 5 or 8 people minimum.

I've always wondered if the reason they couldn't fix the global stats was because they didn't fix the server stats as well. As bugged as the global stats were they were more reliable than the server stats.

There has been many threads on any game about score whores or gamers "gaming the game". In WarBirds there was a bomber guy that would bomb, then bail, respawn (airstart) and bomb again. While frowned apon it was with in what the game allowed.

I think the main problem is more points are awarded to a player who can shoot down an aircraft than one who can bomb and close a base or kill a target. If thats the case why would the mission briefing list targets to "win" the map? Unless everyone is bombing you can't do it. Why not just list shoot down planes?

If I log onto a server alone I will start to kill the targets listed, not for points as much but because thats the mission and the way the builder designed the map and battle.
In a perfect server bombers would go up, head to target and fighters would cover them and thats how and where dogfights would stem from. Protect your heavies so they can get to target.
It is one of the many reasons we like to fly with the 42nd. They do cover their bombers(and us too) and work well together.

Since 2004 I have seen many games where bombers are all but ignored, It would be nice to get more than seven points for an hour flight climbing to target, dropping, killing five or six listed ground targets and landing without getting shot up or wounded.

Its not all about the points but when a fighter can rack up three hundred or more in a few flights in as little as a half an hour and as a bomber you're lucky to get a hundred the whole night, it stings a little.

That being said I care about the points |.| that much. It is nice to see bomber pilots on the scoreboard around the top though. :)