Concept Idea for activity

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kierra
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Concept Idea for activity

Post by kierra »

With the consolidation of the leagues, there is still the need to include players (teamless and inactive team members) into league gameplay.

For those who recall zaphod’s BzMatchball set up:
2 teams: Team A and Team B....where ALL players are assigned to one of these teams (in a balanced manner using LOS player stats, brad's !statbot, or 1vs1 zelo so that both teams are as equally balanced skillwise as possible).

So, active league players will then be in 2 teams: their regular league team and a huge team (A or B). This helps mitigate the problem of finding a mate to match with by mobilizing every possible player into a match pool.

A & B teams would have a presence on team page with zelo standing for wins/losses. Team A can match Team B, or lettered team can match any regular league team as long as the players involved in the match are not members of both teams. For example, if I were in Team A, I could not actively match for Team A against [FF], since I am also an FF member.

Team A & B concept creates the opportunity for more official matches and team activity and has the potential of wooing more players into regular league play.
It greatly reduces the waiting time for an official match while only 1 regular Team is around - and it allows new players an easy way into league play.

This is the best time to introduce it....
  • (per alezakos) bzion has made it just more likely to get this feature implemented
  • With all the potential changes in elo/zelo, incorporating this now would have least impact.
  • The biggest problem league faces is the lack of player mates online at same time to match. Team A/Team B helps expedite matches and contribute to league activity.
Last edited by kierra on Wed Apr 08, 2015 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by hj »

This is a pretty solid idea. You can match for your assigned team if you want and if not, then it's fine. Probably a great way to get large official/quasi-official matches going.

I'm on board.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by figurines »

I support this idea...loved it when it was implemented in zaphods league.

I would like to see seasons, maybe 3 months, where new captains are voted on and then those captains pick players (like gym class dodgeball). That way we can add incentive and a rhythm to regular league play.

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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by Monster »

I like the idea. In opposition to figurine I think that the teams should be assigned automatically via player score each 3 or 6 months. It would also help if the team one is currently assigned to appeared in the email string of a player (same as the real team)

ie. : +Monster [Beer - RED]

Furthermore I suggest that the two teams are called whatever the teamcolours will be. As it is right now the teams would be team PURPLE and team RED. If team RED plays vs FF they would have to play as red obviously.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by gorgomol »

i enjoy the team A and team B concept , i suggest the use of pass_flag concept.
pass_flag should be a clone of flag_give command ( with no @ rights needed ) , first you will have to lock your target with yours actual define key then drop it with your actual define key , then send it with a define key by the plugin , maybe it would be easier to associate pass_flag command to only one key that would be able to cumulate the 3 commands ( lock drop pass ).
Last edited by gorgomol on Wed Apr 08, 2015 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by figurines »

I guess it was made clear, but I still was thinking these teams would ONLY vs eachother (Red vs Purple)...not playing against other teams (the common example is RED vs FF).

That is why I was hoping to "pick" teams and have seasons so that there is a league within the league that does not disrupt how team competition currently functions (but still involves incentive for activity and proving your skill).

If any team can offi vs, essentially, half the league population at any time (RED or PURPLE) we might as well just let any team offi against any combination of players at any time (why are we placing players into RED or PURPLE as opposed to just allowing random matching)... I feel that RED/PURPLE would undermine the whole idea of having a team score, since score will no longer accurately represent a team vs team ladder.

I was thinking RED vs PURPLE would offer players an opportunity to offi more often, keeping players on the server in hope of mates arriving for "genuine" offi, while also offering a game play mode that is more formal than a fm, but less official than an "offi".
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by figurines »

I want to be clear when I say that I am for the implementation of this idea - be it original idea or slightly changed I think both/all would greatly improve league activity

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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by sn0w_m0nkey »

i like this idea too, don't recall the matchball server. for a player like me who likes to fm, this is appealing.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by Frank The Tank »

This is not a new idea, had a robust discussion beginning Feb 2013, refer link
http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=18415
4 pages of discussion.

The idea failed then, the concept in bzmatchball failed, simple reason your labelling tanks.
Another example where good maps have failed due to ELO are Connie's maps (trinity fairserve) that have ELO, some great maps, activity was fantastic but the notion of players playing using statistics is a bad idea. Identifying and giving tankers a pecking order is a good idea??

Perhaps team structure and the makeup of teams needs to be looked it as this is more the core problem why the lack of activity and growth ie creating elite teams, smashing novice players, how does the present selection of teams encourage novice players to learn if experienced teams do not have a combination of novice to seasoned players.
That's whats great about fun matches, no player carries a label, teams are random, mixed up again almost after each match if the previous fm failed or lets do that again same teams if it were a tight fm.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by figurines »

I think frank has a point in what he is saying, but are you saying that we need to change the "makeup of teams"...I was thinking to create a "season" between RED/PURPLE as an alternate way to increase league activity, but without messing with how the league is currently active.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by macsforme »

Shouldn't we just try to encourage players to make bigger teams, so there are bigger pools of possible opponents, before we try something elaborate like this?
Frank the Tank wrote:Perhaps team structure and the makeup of teams needs to be looked it as this is more the core problem why the lack of activity and growth ie creating elite teams, smashing novice players, how does the present selection of teams encourage novice players to learn if experienced teams do not have a combination of novice to seasoned players.
Yes, exactly... also, a lot of the skilled/active players are on "stacked" teams, which are frankly not fun to play after being soundly beaten again and again.

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_creep... our league site is still missing some critical features that we need, so we should really ask them to focus on those projects first so we can get this thing off the ground.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by kierra »

Frank The Tank wrote:This is not a new idea, had a robust discussion beginning Feb 2013, refer link
http://forums.bzflag.org/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=18415
The idea failed then, the concept in bzmatchball failed, simple reason your labelling tanks.
  • BZ matchball team A & B predated the forum discussion you referenced, frank.
  • it did not label tanks openly with player stats like on trinity server. It merely used stats to evenly distribute players on those 2 teams.
  • that discussion failed because there were so many variations posted by players, no real consensus and no developer willing to code the necessary changes to the site. So yes, it died.
  • BZ matchball league: died because not enough players then to support 4 leagues (bzmb, duc, gu, ol)
  • Having Team A/B is not mutually exclusive to fms. fm will still occur.
Frank The Tank wrote:Perhaps team structure and the makeup of teams needs to be looked it as this is more the core problem why the lack of activity and growth ie creating elite teams, smashing novice players, how does the present selection of teams encourage novice players to learn if experienced teams do not have a combination of novice to seasoned players.
That's whats great about fun matches, no player carries a label, teams are random, mixed up again almost after each match if the previous fm failed or lets do that again same teams if it were a tight fm.
Don't take the fun out of Fun Matches
mlg made this point and I've asked him more than once to post it here.
mlg wrote:The main problem i see regarding inactivity of the leagues (especially GU) is that we have too many teams and not enough players. Usually you can see 5-10 players online and theyre all from different team, one single team or teamless. So no match would be possible. We could tackle this issue by not merging the existing leagues and teams but setting up a new thing. Erase all the teams and maybe only allow 5-10 teams to the league. Then everyone has to be in one of those teams or teamless and matchmaking would be improved.
The problem with this is forcing team changes. You're talking doing away with teams as they are --that is going to be problematic for some/many players. I think you will see a major push back from players over this idea.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by figurines »

I believe that the BEST solution to inactivity would be to force players into a limited pool of teams (4 or 6)

Regardless of how much it would suck to lose all of our match statistics and teams I'm pretty sure it's the best and easiest solution

Maybe we can add a separate scoring ladder that is all players divided among 4 teams. This way we can keep our current idea for consolidating teams, but also do what's best for league activity.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by kajo »

I support this idea and I think it can increase overall activity under two conditions. First and foremost, teams need to be balanced which will be the hardest part ( I don't think player rating like used in 1vs1 league will work properly, however, I'd suggest assessing the players and allocating them by a group of experienced players)
I think the time would worth it as the success of the idea stands or falls with both teams being balanced.

Secondly people are lazy and maybe don't want to bother looking up online which team they belong to when they can just do a normal fm at once, that's why you could implement a "A" or "B" in the motto behind the regular team they belong to.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by macsforme »

Frank the Tank wrote:Another example where good maps have failed due to ELO are Connie's maps (trinity fairserve) that have ELO, some great maps, activity was fantastic but the notion of players playing using statistics is a bad idea. Identifying and giving tankers a pecking order is a good idea??
I have never heard someone allege that the ELO stats system is the reason my maps failed to take off. Player score, or the "pecking order," as you call it, is already an intrinsic part of the game. Everyone has their score (and possibly normalized) score next to their names... how does one more rating have such a negative effect? Furthermore, I am only aware of one player who played games with the system, signing off before a capture, waiting in observer for favorable conditions, etc. I don't see eliminating or downplaying team statistics as being good for the league at all.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by Frank The Tank »

Kierra wrote about why things failed in previous threads etc, that's fine but not the point I was making.
I'm not adverse to A & B but how we get to make up A & B.
It has to be done in a sensitive way and not by placing labels on tanks with a ELO system displayed for all to see.
Otherwise you'll take away the innocence of fun play, which is what we all enjoy, the random nature of constructing a team on who is available on the day.

Constitution wrote about focus on what we have to do to create the merger. Totally agree otherwise we'll get distracted by other things.
I've made a proposal in Ruling admins and called it Outline Community Based Model.
But the essence of the merge has to grapple with the elephant in the room and that is growth/team structure/activity.
We are about to merge and have new to us
New League name
New Admins
New Maps
New Website

So why not add new team structure as that is what the league is all about ctf apart from quintessential social gathering.
But Connie is right if we have too many irons in the fire we'll achieve nothing anytime soon.
So I have suggested a proposal in ruling admins to manage and navigate our way forward.
And we should put this on the back burner until we have our management structure in place and then put people to things they get excited about.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by Monster »

If we ever want to implement this idea with the goal to increase the number of official matches played we will have to allow RED vs FF matches. I am aware that it will be difficult to evaluate points for such.matches And im not even sure it is possible. On the other hand i am sure that this option would increase official matches played immediately. This option also makes it easier for new players to become a part of official matches. If after the merger we come to realise that we actually want to do something about activity we should look at this idea again. Excuse typos as im on a mobile right now.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by kierra »

Constitution wrote:our league site is still missing some critical features that we need, so we should really ask them to focus on those projects first so we can get this thing off the ground.
Frank The Tank wrote: Constitution wrote about focus on what we have to do to create the merger. Totally agree otherwise we'll get distracted by other things.
I've made a proposal in Ruling admins and called it Outline Community Based Model.
But the essence of the merge has to grapple with the elephant in the room and that is growth/team structure/activity.
We are about to merge and have new to us
New League name
New Admins
New Maps
New Website
So why not add new team structure as that is what the league is all about ctf apart from quintessential social gathering.
But Connie is right if we have too many irons in the fire we'll achieve nothing anytime soon.
So I have suggested a proposal in ruling admins to manage and navigate our way forward.
And we should put this on the back burner until we have our management structure in place and then put people to things they get excited about.
While the league site is missing some key items, only 3-4 players are actively involved in working on this portion. There are >25 additional players here waiting and time is wasting away. We can still be dialoguing about this concept, come to some conclusions that will be ready to be put into a functioning element when the site is ready for it. No time wasted by putting it off till after the merger. We can decide this now and have it ready. This concept helps to deal with one elephant in the room, Activity!!
League name/maps will be decided with the survey.
New/ruling admins has its own thread.
You want to discuss 'team structure, start a new thread!
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by dauphin »

kajo wrote:I support this idea and I think it can increase overall activity under two conditions. First and foremost, teams need to be balanced which will be the hardest part ( I don't think player rating like used in 1vs1 league will work properly, however, I'd suggest assessing the players and allocating them by a group of experienced players)
I think the time would worth it as the success of the idea stands or falls with both teams being balanced.

Secondly people are lazy and maybe don't want to bother looking up online which team they belong to when they can just do a normal fm at once, that's why you could implement a "A" or "B" in the motto behind the regular team they belong to.
Agreed!

Though those two big teams will make the match look like a big fm. Higher level fair fm than any normal fm.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by -panda- »

Great ideas. I had a thought that maybe if you're on a team aswell then that team also gets a portion of the points, so, if team A wins and a player is on FF for example, FF gets some points too because really they're not just funmatches and it might promote activity more I think! What do you guys think?
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by hj »

damns3xy wrote:Great ideas. I had a thought that maybe if you're on a team aswell then that team also gets a portion of the points, so, if team A wins and a player is on FF for example, FF gets some points too because really they're not just funmatches and it might promote activity more I think! What do you guys think?
It makes some sense for small A vs. B offis (2v2, maybe 3v3), but any larger and I feel it's not as justified. It might also inhibit activity because people won't want to play with someone below their skill level because they'll fear losing points for their own team.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

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hrj wrote:people won't want to play with someone below their skill level because they'll fear losing points for their own team.
It seems to me that the biggest obstacle (that league leaders have the power do something about) to increased activity is the fear of losing team points. The simple solution to this is to penalize teams for inactivity, which can be done in several ways including:

1. reset all team scores at the beginning of each season (perhaps keeping a history of previous season final scores)

2. only count recent match results in team scores

3. gradually lower the value of match results as they get older

4. increase team scores by a small value for a loss, a medium value for a tie, and a large value for a win

This is the type of change that does not have to be done at the time of the merger. It can be done whenever BZiON is modified to make it happen.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by -panda- »

That may be true but I think it would encourage players to match more if they know they could actually support their team while playing red vs purple, otherwise it's not much different to an fm? Only thing different is it will be a team on the website. It gives an opportunity for 1 player to make a difference for their team instead of waiting for a mate to arrive, it would also make activity ratings better on the teampage.
The new league is about generating more activity and if people won't play because they're worried about losing a few points it's silly. The other option would be to have a /officialwithteampoints (for example) command instead of /official making it optional?

We have 11 teams on the gu page with activity and 15 inactive, I can't be bothered to go through and calculate how many people on these teams are still active but I've had a look at a few and some players just don't have anyone to match with and are too loyal to their teams, would be nice to see the teams back on the active section, even if it's kinda fake activity at least it makes the teams page look better giving people the perception of higher activity.
Last edited by -panda- on Sun Apr 12, 2015 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by Monster »

Bullet Catcher wrote: The simple solution to this is to penalize teams for inactivity, which can be done in several ways including:

1. reset all team scores at the beginning of each season (perhaps keeping a history of previous season final scores)

2. only count recent match results in team scores

3. gradually lower the value of match results as they get older

4. increase team scores by a small value for a loss, a medium value for a tie, and a large value for a win

This is the type of change that does not have to be done at the time of the merger. It can be done whenever BZiON is modified to make it happen.
With our current level of activity I do not like this idea at all. While it might help activity in some places it would also punish people who do not have enough active mates. Dishearted by such a system besaid players might distance themselves from leage play all together.
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Re: Concept Idea for activity

Post by Bullet Catcher »

I am aware of the social club aspect of leagues, but right now it seems like we have too many players chatting and not enough playing matches. As the saying goes, "less yap; more cap."

Monster, what value do you see in league members who choose (for whatever reasons) not to play official matches?
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