Scoring systems in objective-based games

[JustinPierce]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while but haven't settled on what I'll be doing for AoT. I do feel like it's a big problem in FPS games when players ignore the objectives and instead try to maximize some other metric like K:D. Currently in AoT, only a single score number is available in the score screen during a match and you have to wait till the end of the match to get a breakdown of kills/deaths etc. The thinking behind this is that I want people focused on winning while playing -- knowing how many kills they have isn't really going to help them much.

But at the end of the day, that score number is only valuable if I'm able to accurately represent all the different ways you can contribute to a team in a numeric way, which is a real challenge that all games deal with when there's a dynamic objective. Experts will learn to ignore individual scores because in most games the scoring system is out of line with at least some acceptable strategies (you may be helping the team in a really important way that is simply hard to measure formulaically), but I think it's probably a good driving force for newer players -- something they use as a guide to aid self improvement.

Recent interview about Overwatch talked a bit about how they're dealing with it. They're taking an even more extreme approach -- there isn't a visible score and they're hiding the data for everyone but you so you can focus on self improvement. If you are still placed (you can see if you're in 2nd place, for example), there's obviously still a score number in the background, but maybe it creates enough friction to where players don't bother thinking about it. Here's the full quote:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/10/06/overwatch-interview-geoff-goodman/

In our latest build we really revamped that whole system. In fact the scoring been completely pulled out. You don’t even see a number anymore. The way it works internally – what we’re testing – is instead of seeing the score you see your own stats so you can see how much damage you’re doing and stuff on the corner if you want that kind of information and you can see where you stand relative to other people. So I can see if I’m first place or if I’m second place let’s say you get a little medal there [on the screen]. You can’t see who is in first place or how much they have or anything but it gives you a good understanding of how well you’re doing and streamlines the whole thing and cleans everything up.

So far we’re kind of liking it. it’s a shock at first because we’re so used to scoring and you know – I feel like I’m doing well or that guy’s better than me, I’m going to try and beat him. But scoring has some problems and we thought this was a different approach we hadn’t seen before and wanted to test. So far it’s been going really well so we’ll probably end up rolling that out, hopefully pretty soon.

What do you all think?

I guess the way I see it -- if the scoring system accurately reflects all the different ways you can contribute to the team, it's probably best to show it so people can strive to improve and have a metric to measure that improvement. And while I'll strive for that, it's probably not realistic to expect a perfect scoring system, so how do you make sure people aren't afraid to play in ways that still benefit the team but don't get the proper recognition on the scoreboard?

[PrettzL]

K:D, accuracy%, top speed, # of caps, damage dealt per life average, time spent defending the flag, multi-kills, headshots, healing given out, healing received, skillshots, flag returns, and kill streaks overall aren't that important when it comes to end of match score calculation... But the problem is that effective use of time and cooperation with team mates cannot really be measured effectively without a fully encompassing and smart player tracking system.

Kills being king in objective based games, to me, seems like it'll always be an issue that will either be overlooked as not being a design and execution problem, or will be embraced as the "true meaning" of the gameplay (as it is with most Multiplayer-FPS titles).

[JustinPierce]

The topic has been getting more discussion on the Overwatch subreddit. Someone complained about not being able to see how much they're contributing to the team.

So, I see my stats. Ok.

But I have no benchmark to determine how well I'm actually contributing to the game.

I've been in FPS games where I'm dying a lot, but when the score comes up I'm in the top-3, because I'm doing the objectives, or passively buffing players - not a Mercy active buff, but a Symmetra shield buff, for example. But without knowing how you're doing compared to the rest of the team, you don't know if what you did actually made a difference. Especially if you're on the losing team.

You will end up with players who think they're awesome, and suck. You'll have players who think they suck, and yet they're the top-10 player for that particular class and have no way to know it.

I feel like we're all back in kindergarten. Everyone wins! Even the kid in the corner eating paste.

My reply:

You're assuming the scoring system in games is always an accurate representation of everyone's contribution to the team. Especially when the game has a dynamic objective, it's not always easy to come up with a numeric formula to find an individual's value for the team.

In a lot of games, you'll see people playing to maximize their kill/death ratio instead of the objectives. The scoreboard becomes meaningless and can even become a negative incentive that encourages bad strategies.

You might think "well, just make the scoring system better" but it's really not that easy. Let's think of a simple hypothetical: Bastion is set up as a turret covering a main chokepoint. The enemy team knows he's there, so they adapt and use a different route. Bastion isn't going to be getting many kills now, but he's still helping to funnel the enemy, making it easier for his team to defend and reducing their chances of getting flanked. How do you quantify that in a number? Even if you had algorithms that let you accurately track the effect it has on the match flow and you could somehow single out the enemies that wouldn't have gone this other route anyway, how do you calculate it's worth? For each enemy that goes the other route, how many points does Bastion get? There's not really a solid answer -- it's made even more complicated because the value could depend on the map, team compositions, and other factors (funneling might help a lot on Map A but not help at all on Map B).

Bastion might be helping the team by staying put and keep funneling, but if he wants to maximize his score, he'd want to move to a new location to get more kills. Now there's a big hole left in his team's defense.. and he's rewarded for it.

So Blizzard's thinking is that maybe if players weren't concerned with their stats, they'd instead focus on the objectives and measure their success intuitively rather than rely on some number that probably isn't going to be accurate anyway.

I really wish we had case studies for games that literally don't have scoreboards. Would players be less distracted by arbitrary metrics and force themselves to learn what actually matters in a match? Would the lack of feedback make them more likely to get bored with the game?

I'm convinced scores can be problematic, but I'm not totally convinced things would be better off if you removed them. I think it parallels my feelings on AI bots in competitive games. They can teach bad habits, but do they provide a net positive for the growth of the game anyway?

[Canapin]

I've not played a lot of objective-bases FPS except Tribes Ascend.
A lot of people seems to like playing like it was a team deathmatch instead of caring about the flag on CTF servers.
In T:A, the two fastests way to have a big score is repairing the base assets and, of course killing people.
It makes you win credits you can spend to upgrade base assets or use brainless tactical strikes/orbital strikes from the sky. These two ones can make you kill a lot of people at once (and win more credits, yay !).

So, despite the fact that you're playing in a CTF mode, the credits (that acts as your score) which are supposed how much you have contributed to your team does in fact represent how much opponents you harvested. That's not 100% true of course and you can sometimes find someone who didn't kill much people in the top scoreboard, but that's not that frequent.

And as aware I'm about this, I can't stop myself to constantly look at the scoreboard and tell myself "damn I'm good" (duke nukem voice) if I'm on the top scorers or "I'm so bad I shame on me" when I'm not. It can't be helped. I know that doesn't mean anything but my brain is following the game rules and the game rules tells me I'm good if I have a lot of credits and I'm bad if I doesn't.
Sometimes, I play an amazingly funny game with good teamplay, good opponents, which leads me not to look at the score board. When, I look at it at the end, if I was glad of my own actions in the game and I was pretty sure I was a good team player and I did a good job, if I have a bad score, it frustrates me and convinces me I was not as good for my team as I thought.

Silly, eh ?

[Fixious]

I'm reminded of those old T1 base PUGs where I was the one repairing everything, and making sure the base was up and running so people could get their right armor/loadout. You aren't rewarded at all for any of that, even if it's a fairly crucial role. At the same time I found it incredibbly annoying in T:A where you'd just get constant accolades while repairing something. That kind of role is really hard to accurately score, at least regarding how helpful you were during a match.

Then I look at what Day of Defeat: Source does, which I like quite a bit. The score-screen has several columns for each player. One for kills, deaths, and objectives captured. Priority is given to objectives captured, since in that game the overall goal is to capture and control all the flags. Someone with an insane K/D ratio may have a shit objective score, which makes you wonder if he was being useful at all (in some cases he probably is, such as guarding flags from a distance). Still, I like how it gives priority to those who go out into the field and capture flags for their team, rather than focusing on those who simply kill kill kill. Fairly certain you also get an OBJ point if you block an enemy from capping.

I do think people put too much importance on the in-game scoreboard in most games. I'm not sure removing it entirely is the right move, but perhaps toying with different priorities other than K/D might help.

[JustinPierce]

So, those of you who've played Overwatch -- what do you think about the scoreboard? Doesn't display K:D, just gives you some stats and awards medals based on how well those stats compare with the rest of your team. So for example, if you have a gold medal for kills, you know you have the most kills on your team.

[Omniraptor]

IMO the ovw system works well in a casual setting to mitigate raging, and encourages cooperation- forces people to evaluate their performance during the process instead of just raging after seeing a number they don't like. The medals, votes, etc. are a fun social feature (i like it) but don't influence gameplay at all. Compare the savage 2 post-game karma system, that was pretty well designed. In general the social and community features were pretty amazing on savage 2, but it had big problems in other areas ;(

In a 'serious' competitive setting I want people to have as much information on the scoreboard as possible, about your own team. The other team should only have ping data. Sure this enables a bit more raging but it also provides valuable info about performance that can be used to improve your own play, both during and after the match. Imo the best way to handle it would be to just make it a server option, so the server admin can control how much info players can see about themselves and others.

[fiddlebender]

[EDIT] Forgot to use the Reply function but this is actually a response to JP's post above

I think it works very well in any objective game mode. The only fit place for a K:D ratio is in arena modes and such. Insurgency has it like this; in the Push game mode you have both kills and objective points, however you only really see the K:D when you are dead and waiting to spawn. Objective points are very valuable and having 2 or more objective points puts you quite high on the scoreboard regardless of your K:D.

The way I see K:D it is an incentive for those who like to excel in player killing. That's all good but in a game mode where kills play an important role (depending on the situation) but successful objective actions play an even greater role, it's is counter-productive for organized team play to have any constant incentive for the less meaningful actions.If you are able to implement some kind of a medal system for AoT that'd be cool. Just like in Overwatch, there's many different things you can excel at, be it killing, healing, capturing or going fast, accuracy etc.