asch

This question seems to come up quite often, even though we've got the question covered in the Server Configuration / Settings FAQ so I thought I'd make it more obvious for everyone. Here are some of the reasons that we currently do not host a ranked server.

1) Ranked servers cost about double what a normal server costs.

2) EA places additional requirements on private communities / clans that want a ranked server, including the number of servers that need to be hosted, the mods (or lack there of) that can be on the server, etc... in an attempt to keep these servers pure from those who wish to pad their stats through exploits.

3) TG is more about the objective team-based play and not individual score / rank. We understand that there are stats that can be valuable to the player to help improve their play and TG is looking into alternative solutions.

4) Ranked servers must be 'pure' servers. What this means is that we would have less control over making adjustments to the server settings. For example, our custom auto-balance routine would not be implemented. Our mod to kick squadless players could not be implemented. Reserved slots would not be able to be implemented.

__________________
| My Maps

Gaming Videos by Tactical Gamers

Fear the Frog! | Kill the Frog! | An Inconvenient Truth

"Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team." -- Tactical Gamer Primer

marstein

Well I understand all of that. I do like to have my personal score added up (receive the weapons upgrades and so on).

On the other hand, what TG offers is in the end the better deal: you get a clean server with improvements (have to join squad, no autobalancing of SLs), and enforced rules that make the game addictive.

Maybe your resident Python expert could whip up a homegrown statistics system. Instead of using the EA ranking build your own. Gather the score of each SL and their team. Individual statistics would be nice too, but maybe on your servers focus on team statistics for SLs and COs.
Having a tool that shows which people play best against each other (if Deveran and Gunrack are in one squad, the sqaud usually has 20% more points than with Deveran alone...)

You need an analytics person, a data warehouse and some enterprise servers :-)

__________________
Gigabyte P35-DS3R, 2GB, 8800GTS 640MB, Core2Duo E8400

Mateo

I don't care about rank. Really. The mods that we use are ESSENTIAL to the gameplay, and since EA won't do it themselves, thank god for "our resident python expert!"

If we ever do go ranked....I won't be on it. Not under those conditions.

TG_Bubba

I came to TG by invitation from Godfrey. He told me about the type of play here at TG. I for one rather have exciting and sometimes, brutal play here then on a ranked server. Teamwork to me is more important then stats.

__________________

TG_Mateo: "Forget freedom, democracy, the blues, New York Pizza: our lasting contribution to human society is Bourbon."
Sloppy Joe: "Don't play this game like you are on your own, because if you do... it might become a reality."
kin3: "I'll try but I have the grandchildren all day today and if I'm not wiped out I'll play."

TG_Trigger

As soon as we go to our own stats systems...people will be playing to improve their stats instead of working as a team. It's the fundamental reason the ranked servers suck.

__________________

[age-c1] [conduct]
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

asch

At this moment, I'd say we have more important tasks for our python expert. I don't know if stats would ever come in there, but it could.

I believe that having stats would be helpful for some players. I'm not talking about rank or awards, I'm talking about stats. A stat that shows your efficiency with a weapon, or your most effective roles, etc. can guide a player to learn and practice certain things.

We've been keeping an eye out for any third party stat tracking app, but nothing so far has shown itself that would be worth the time and effort.

__________________
| My Maps

Gaming Videos by Tactical Gamers

Fear the Frog! | Kill the Frog! | An Inconvenient Truth

"Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team." -- Tactical Gamer Primer

Xink

i much prefer the way things work now, you build your own reputation in your field, you dont need to prove anything with stats, play well and you will get recognized for it, no amount of virtual "ranking" will ever overcome the real image your peers hold of you.

__________________

perry

I think stats are fun! Not necessarily the rankings (cuz I'd be near the bottom), but just seeing how I do with various weapons and on various maps and all that.

I guess you guys have seen this stats package - http://www.bighamster.de/index.php Some stuff could be ripped out if it was thought that it would affect gameplay. Click on BF2Stats on the left, then click a player's name -- lots of detail! We wouldn't need to have the awards info, but the rest is cool.

jepzilla

Well, if you're going to do a scoreboard, the best way to do it in the style of TG is to correlate player presence with victory.

Your score would simply be how likely it is for a random team to win given your presence on the team. Given enough data that is very easy to calculate.

seppyk

Statistics are good, rankings are bad.

The TG community is mature and objective based when playing. However, look at the global ranked system currently in place. People play differently when rankings are in place and pad their stats. If rankings are implemented, then just take care that it doesn't shift the tactical experience as a whole on the TG servers.

Vulcan

n/m i found all the info!

__________________

Bold

What about the PoE stat system? Apparently they are bringing it up. I don't know exactly how it works, but maybe something could be done using that as a base.

www*.*poestats.com