I think a 'ladder' system like the one used for Angband variants at Oook would be nice.
http://angband.oook.cz/ladder.php
Key features are
- ability to post comments with score updates.
- no cheating (on the honour system)
- competition ladders (e.g. those with special restrictions on conduct, specific configurations / equipment / mods etc.)
The position on the ladder is generally some combination of
* biggest score
* score / time
* fastest time to win condition
Idea: Online score-boards
The problem is that Angband is not usually modded, and when it is modded mods are usually mutually exclusive. Effectively any Angband mod is a proto-variant. Transcendence supports multiple mods simultaneously so there's really no way to determine easily if games are directly comparable.
You can't even compare two WE games with the same modules installed if they're using different randomization settings.
That's not to say character dumps aren't a good idea, but a ladder is inapplicable.
Pav manually adds variants to the ladder database. There are rarely two new variants in a year. Mods are not mutually exclusive, unlike Angband variants, and come out far more frequently. There have been more major mods in the last year than Angband has had since I've been in the community, which I think is getting close to a decade.
You can't even compare two WE games with the same modules installed if they're using different randomization settings.
That's not to say character dumps aren't a good idea, but a ladder is inapplicable.
Pav manually adds variants to the ladder database. There are rarely two new variants in a year. Mods are not mutually exclusive, unlike Angband variants, and come out far more frequently. There have been more major mods in the last year than Angband has had since I've been in the community, which I think is getting close to a decade.
I think it's well accepted that random chance and luck plays a large part in how well you do.Atarlost wrote:You can't even compare two WE games with the same modules installed if they're using different randomization settings.
Assuming you do allow mods, there are two main categories of game that would be roughly (emphasis on roughly) comparable.The problem is that Angband is not usually modded, and when it is modded mods are usually mutually exclusive. Effectively any Angband mod is a proto-variant. Transcendence supports multiple mods simultaneously so there's really no way to determine easily if games are directly comparable.
1) All mods allowed except for godmods.
Obviously there would be a huge range in ease of gameplay, but providing information on mods installed is included in the char dump you would quickly be able to get an idea on which mods make the biggest difference allowing you to a) fine-tune what mods should be allowed in ladder dumps and b) providing feedback to mod creators on how overpowered (or not) they may be.
2) Only 'balance approved' mods allowed.
This has the advantage of being able to demonstrate whether they really are balanced. Also you would probably be able to add new 'balanced' mods from the first category as they are fine-tuned.
Basically it's all in good fun so I doubt flame-wars are going to break out over 'unfair' advantages players may or may not have.
The difference between WE modes is a lot greater than the potential variance in Vanilla. Vanilla has no OOD encounters. WE can place OOD equipment on any encounter in hard mode, providing a degree of uncertainty in your enemies that can't exist in Vanilla. Most of the luck possible in Vanilla is in which equipment is available to the player or how much wealth is available, not in what enemies you face.ptbptb wrote:I think it's well accepted that random chance and luck plays a large part in how well you do.Atarlost wrote:You can't even compare two WE games with the same modules installed if they're using different randomization settings.
Perhaps if the online tracker checked the .tdb, the player was not in debug mode and no mods installed you could reasonably say that the games were 'pure' and eligible for inclusion in the tracker.
Coming soon: The Syrtian War adventure mod!
A Turret defense genre mod exploring the worst era in Earth's history.
Can you defend the Earth from the Syrtian invaders?
Stay tuned for updates!
A Turret defense genre mod exploring the worst era in Earth's history.
Can you defend the Earth from the Syrtian invaders?
Stay tuned for updates!
That would be good for the main, 'official' tracker. I still think that competitions with special setups of some kind are worth having as well though.Prophet wrote:Perhaps if the online tracker checked the .tdb, the player was not in debug mode and no mods installed you could reasonably say that the games were 'pure' and eligible for inclusion in the tracker.
Also I really think that scores should require a manual decision to upload. A lot of people *cough*me*cough* like to play around casually with save game backups and stuff. So automatic submission would be a bad idea.
Except mods can't do file IO. And that's a very good thing because if they could malware could be written in T-script.digdug wrote:i think that for mods we have to wait for the "official mods".
We can do it for now with vanilla. We could keep some stats too.
What about a mod that collect tons of stats ?