Statistics - what do you want us to track

[admin]

Captains.. 

 

What do you want us to track on the player and guild(company) level?

 

The general philosophy is to track meaningful things that really show the player or his company qualities (not his pure damage or number of battles like Battlefield or WOT does).

 

[Shel81]

i would like to track you sucessful missions - like 100% of a convoy survived his trip, than you escorted it. although how many of your crewmembers survived or how efficent you use your ship in aspects of repair or ammunition.

[Leviathan]

I think it's imporant to separate PvP and PvE statistics (just going off the current system). Maybe even make the leaderboard sortable to account for differences in 1v1 battles versus 5v5 or 25v25 type battles as statistics will vary greatly in these.

 

In general - Total number of battles, Average Accuracy, Win/Loss ratio, Average Damage (make this sortable by ship class and battle size), Average Battle Size, Ships Sunk/Captured and maybe Damage Received.

 

The same could be done for guilds by showing the Total number of battles, Win/Loss ratio, Ports Captured, and Ships Sunk/Captured

 

A Daily Leaderboard and an Overall Leaderboard would be nice as well. Perhaps even add in a Records section for things like "Most Ships Sunk in a Day" and "Most Damage in a Battle with X Ship" as this would encourage competition. All of these could be tracked at the Individual and Guild level and for Daily and Overall.

[Ned Loe]

Track - Mission progress if applicable. (Show all guild members that you are an active player)

Track - Sailing miles (Show world that you are an adventurer)

Track - Total world exploration (show how many % of world is discovered)

Track - Location discoveries (Show guild members you are an explorer)

Track - Damage done in gold to (Nation Name)

Track - Total gold stolen from ships.

Track - Rare artifacts collections (shows player what artifacts were found)

Track - Shots fired, missed, hit. 

Track - PvP victories/loses.

Track - National player/NPC kills/captures (France 25, Spain 10, Pirate, 30 etc)

 

Agree, make 2 or even more statistics sections.

 

PvP (player vs player kills , damage losses) 

Open World (exploration, loot and treasure)

Guild Missions (econ, group/guild missions, port deliveries)

Single Player (NPC kills per nation, total damage done to Nation)

 

Also, make leader-board with top 15 players for:

 

PvP

Econ

Role-playing

 

Each section should have a weekly rewards to promote player activity. Let's say top 3 players from each list will receive a bonus/item from Admiralty/Pirate headquarters every week. 

 

Maybe something like this:

 

 

[Grim DeGrim]

Will all stats be "public"? I would recommend that some of the ones below be tracked and available to Guild leaders, or as a private key (as in eve).

Track accuracy of fire, but would request that it is split between PVP and PVE.

Track on a guild level... I might like to see members prestige / honor ranking.

If there is a commander role, win /loss as commander. A subset of that is average gunweight ratios for battles won and lost (if I lose all of battles at a 1:1 gunweight ratio, I need new strategy).

Gunweight ratios for pvp engagements.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Grim DeGrim

[Laik]

Nothing. Or make it for personal view only. Why I am against leaderboards and things like that? In my experience from other games (will use War Thunder as an example - since there this problem is extremely evident), these can be very damaging to overall gameplay. In War Thunder you have this leaderboards and personal statistics card. This caused people to get more and more obsessed with their stats and being high on the leaderboard. Obsessed to the point that a very common occurance was this: a person went into the battle, flew quickly towards enemy AIs, killed them which took absolutely 0 effort, then cameback and left the game to not get shot down. Afterwards they would boast about their excellent K/D ratio. This effectively left their team handicapped for the rest of the game and spoiled the game for everyone. What's most interesting is that there were absolutely no rewards for having good stats.

 

What I would suggest is having statistics like those mentionad by Wind (excellent suggestions I must say), but for personal view only. For general view and measuring players effectivenes I would like to see them converted into some sort of 'renown points' in general areas like exploration, privateering, commerce etc. Those point would show up as 'renown rank' like novice merchant -> established merchant -> wealthy merchant. Something like in Guild Wars 1 maybe, where I think it worked pretty well. I'm sure I saw a more in depth topic on the forums about having renown, so won't dig deeper into it.

 

I know that this may seem like minor issue but, from my unpleasant experiences, if handled badly, this may turn out into a problem for gameplay. Although the statistics may seem like nothing important, many people will think otherwise (i'm looking at you War Thunder). Even without ANY rewards, people would find ways, often game breaking, to grind those statistics only to boast about them in front of other people.

 

Don't want to seem negative or anything like that. Just wanted to bring attention to some of the dangers with tracking statistics that may not be obvious. Whatever the developers decide I hope (and actually am pretty sure of it) that they will put a lot of thought to it and it's implications.

[Brigand]

If whatever statistic will be available, I think the hashed bitmasks used as keys in EVE are really worth looking at. For me personally? No statistics please. Statistics have a negative impact on a game and gameplay if you ask me.

~Brigand

[William the Drake]

Wealth - the overall amount of wealth you possess. This includes all actual gold and silver bullion, as well as factoring in the value of the ships one possesses, value of luxury trade goods (coffee, cocoa, spices, etc.) Invested trade ventures, stocks and the like.

Social- track things like how many other players you have assisted, how many group/epic missions done. Gold/resources gifted to others. Emphasise teamwork and friend aspects

[Chustler]

Leaderboards and stats are in interesting issue.  In many ways I like them as someone who tries to become as good as I can at the games I play, but I think the above concerns about it's effect on gameplay are very valid.  I think the loss mechanics will help to keep people in check to some extent.  The stats that Leviathan lists are the kind of stats I would like to see, but only as private stats, we don't need public leaderboards. 

[Arvenski]

I agree with Laik and Brigand. We don't need players having the "you have a X stat of less than Y; FU noob" attitude. If the devs want to add a whole bunch of stats, that's fine to me (although I find a lot of them to be pretty pointless, myself), but make them private. The only people who I think maybe should be able to view another person's stats should be clan/guild leaders and recruiters, since the competitive clans will want to recruit the statistically best players available. 

 

Also, about global leaderboards, which some games seem to like to implement: Forget 'em, IMO. The only use I can think of for them would be boards to show like the 15 players with the highest bounties on their heads that have been recently spotted around whatever port or island or area of land that you're docked at. Otherwise, they seem like a pointless waste of time and UI, if you ask me. 

[Grim DeGrim]

I'm less interested in global leader boards. But as a society leader, of a pvp organization, I might want to know how accurate a shot a potential recruit is. If hit average is 65% in pvp setting, I'd want to know Joe blow has a 35% ratio.

There is a risk of the "fu noob" mentality, but this is more about society leaders having a tool to use (if they do choose to use it) to determine if a player meets minimum qualifications for a role.

Lol, there, I said it... No throwing stones, stick to admin's request!

Edited March 11, 2015 by Grim DeGrim

[Tom Selleck]

I wouldn't like Grim's hit average implemented, after all If we are going to be limited to one character (and I'm assuming we are) and weapons get tweaked on a regular basis, then these kinds of statistics are misleading at best. ((For instance what about those players that play light/small ships and help a team out by firing chain shot at an enemy's sails/rigging? By its very nature 70% of chain shot is going to be missing its target)).

 

As far as what data I would like to be tracked I would like more generalized data to be tracked. For instance:

 

Average play time per week

 

Average time zone played during

 

Average time spent PvP'ing

 

Average time spent PvE'ing

 

Total number of PvP instances fought in.

 

Total number of PvE instance fought in.

 

Time spent on the Open Sea/Distance Traveled

 

Financial stability of player (this one would be a bit hard to track, but i'm thinking along the eve online terms, does the guy use ships he can't afford to lose often and how quickly does it take him to recoup his losses?)

 

Etc.

 

This kind of data would give you a general idea of how skilled a player is in what areas of the game and whether he would be a good fit or a burden or liability to your guild.

[Hethwill]

I like the abstract Reputation / Infamy counter type. A simple way that reflects the captain importance to the game world.

 

Other than that ?

 

- amount of time played

- trade net worth

- prize net worth

 

Competitive statistics ? No thanks. I am all about achievements, not bragging-meters.

[Grim DeGrim]

Captains..

What do you want us to track on the player and guild(company) level?

The general philosophy is to track meaningful things that really show the player or his company qualities (not his pure damage or number of battles like Battlefield or WOT does).

Guild:

- ports owned w/names & infrastructure upgrades (if any)

- total player count, with an "active players past 30 days" sub-metric

- alliance history (if such a mechanic will exist)

- number of nation/allegiance changes in time period "x"

Other? I don't know enough about guild game mechanics to suggest based on upcoming design...

[thomas aagaard]

Don't see the relevance. Did the Spanish navy track stuff like this?

 

Focus on making the best game possible.

[Grim DeGrim]

They tracked the win/loss of their captains. I'm sure they tracked #of crewmen killed. # of ships wrecked (needlessly). I'm sure they had records of time blockaded, merchant ships captured. The Navy would track all of this.

Service records type stuff...

What would you want remembered in your service records if that helps you think on it differently.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Grim DeGrim

[Arvenski]

I like the abstract Reputation / Infamy counter type. A simple way that reflects the captain importance to the game world.

 

Other than that ?

 

- amount of time played

- trade net worth

- prize net worth

 

Competitive statistics ? No thanks. I am all about achievements, not bragging-meters.

Now this is a very good idea. Simple and effective, with no room for the crappy player mentalities that can come about as a result of competitive statistics. Have my +1.

[DeRuyter]

Good ideas. +1 to exclude K/D ratio and other competitive stats (XVM anyone?).

 

Not sure I see the relevance of total hours/time played though. That could lead to the same sort of prejudice as the competitive stats. I like the real world measures: assets and achievements. I think the number of battles and encounters also plays a role in determining player experience.

[Prater]

My thoughts

Statistics/leader boards are hard.  How do you truly measure how good someone is?  Does it really matter?  That depends I guess.  And all statistics are subject to manipulation and people trying to fake their way onto the leaderboard and to stay there, so we need to keep that in mind as well.

 

Possible statistics (for a player):

Must haves:

1.  Total value of enemy assets destroyed or captured in PVP.

2.  Convoy system:  RATING 1-5 stars.  Merchants rate how well players protect them.  Merchants can deny certain people escorting them.  If the merchant survives, the minimum rating is 3 stars.   This is a 2 fold rating.  There is the leaderboard/statistical rating for the entire world.  Then there is the personal side of it.  If a merchant rates a player 5 stars, this means FOR THAT MERCHANT ONLY, a player they rated as 5 stars will chosen over one they rated as 3 or 2  stars.  1 star basically means that that merchant doesn't ever want to be escorted by that player.  This will not stop this player from being assigned to escort other merchants, unless that merchant also rates this player poorly.  This should stop merchants from poorly rating players they dislike, because if you just poorly rate them, you won't ever be assigned them again and that might end up costing you a lot of money if that player was a very good escort but you wanted to ruin their rating just for the sake of you don't like them.

3.  If there is some type of war score like in EU4 or CKII for nations/societies, maybe a statistic on points that a player's battles have contributed to it.  That or how much assets a player has destroyed against a society's war target.

4.  Each battle should have a rating based on difficulty of the match.  If I am in a Constitution and I chase down a Brig, then that shouldn't count as much as if I was in a Brig and defeated a Constitution.  So if there is a win/loss rating, it shouldn't be a percentage but points should be given out based on the difficulty of the match.

 

Would be nice

1.  How much time is spent in manual sails.  A percentage spent in manual sails might be better than time otherwise those who have been playing the longest will probably be in the top players and that isn't really the point.  There is no way to know if this is being faked or if the person is using manual sails right, but it might show an interesting statistic.

 

Eve has a bunch of interesting statistics that can be accessed from an api.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Prater

[Grim DeGrim]

A stat like manual sails would need to be normalized down to time/minute of battle. Something crazy like that. Then if you've played 2 years, your stats can be compared to that of a 2 week captain...

Maybe my denominator is wrong, but the point being is that stats that lend well to "long term playing" might be candidates for normalization.

Once we have "the list" we could then critique how a stat can be portrayed meaningfully.

Edit: as I reread, it is clear to me that I'm interested in competitive stats. I don't care if they're public, but they are the genre of stat that makes me strive to do better. Just my preference. Leader boards be damned!

Edited March 11, 2015 by Grim DeGrim

[Kao1808]

In open world I believe statistic leaderboards on player level are not the way to go. What I would prefer is some kind of reputation system were statistics have an effect on your reputation. For instance if you manage to regularly sink bigger ships, if your hit ratio is very high/low, if you have sailed a lot of miles, if you have traded a lot in a certain product, if you sunk a lot of ships of a specific nation. This could perhaps all translate somehow in your reputation visable to other players.

 

The normal stats could be private and comparable to the average of all players so you can see how you are doing in a specific category. 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Kao1808

[Prater]

Ah yes, it would be very cool to know how many "nautical miles" you have sailed. This doesn't have to be on a leaderboard.

[Balsafer]

Allow the player to pick and choose if they wan't their stats public.

[Pullie]

Prater's convoy rating system sounds amazing, definitely worth implementing!

 

I'll say no to any straight player statistic leaderboard, societies however could be ranked in some way I guess.

For personal glory (although some awards could be for societies or the specific ship you sailed instead) we should instead have an award system with some typical medals, decorated swords, titles and whatsoever, historically accurate or not.

The requirements for any of the awards should be kept hidden to everyone all the time, even after receiving them, so that noone can really grind for them on purpose, although some of them may have rather obvious requirements. Receiving the awards should be delayed until porting, until porting at a port of specific criteria, or until being in contact with the necessary authorities in any way, to ensure that figuring out the exact game statistical requirements of the award will be very hard or hopefully impossible for players to figure out. For an example, you "receive" an award at moment X but for whatever reason you don't happen to visit your nation's port for a week in real time and upon your next visit you are awarded for whatever you have done. The award descriptions should contain big words of praise, mentions of specific battles or events but no too accurate details about how you obtained it.

There should be awards for almost all roles and activites in the game, but apart from a small number of basic ones the most of them should only be acquirable through very special events and grand successes in whatever is being done. So by making these awards rather difficult to obtain and keeping the requirements hidden from the players it would be ensured that they are something people obtain simply by playing and living in the open world rather than going through a meta grind. The greater awards should automaticly end up being awarded to the people who really deserve them because they really have been succesful enough to receive them. By making all the awards a meaningful proof of experience like this and with noble titles and stuff like that as the highest awards this system could give us the more truthfully accurate version of a leaderboard that lets your fellows know who really are the best, the most experienced and the most respected.

 

an award for receiving a quick promotion after an outstanding battle, (you weren't promoted just because you've been in steady business for X amount of time)
an award for the merchant(s) who achieved a grand economic victory for their nation,
an award for that captain of the brig that just happened to be around at the right time to save something important from sinking

an award for a grand discovery of a flightless bird and a giant tortoise

etc. etc.
I shouldn't be the one coming up with them and/or I shouldn't be the one allowed to come up with them so these are just a few simple examples.

 

Everyone is allowed to further this idea more, or make a thread about it if I actually went too badly offtopic here (and hopefully I haven't missed an already existing thread about such awards).

 

 

 

And back to the very topic, things that may or may not have been mentioned yet
 

A "captain's log" (permanent player/character statistics) about

 - Assets destroyed / Assets lost

 - Profits / Expenses of your voyages

 - Average length of your voyages

 - Mission and voyage count

 

Apart from those I don't think we need more player statistics, instead I want to have a ship's own "history log", which was suggested in some thread already (I don't remember what exactly it included and I don't want to find it and quote it).

The ship's log, in addition to the complete service log of the ship would be the one that can contain statistics about the amount of kills, hit accuracy, crew survival rates and battles won/lost along with the stats listed in the "captain's log", telling the ship's own values regardless of who's using it.

The ship's log should be stored and made available for public view for the faction that it belongs to in the end of the ship's career, should the last in command wish so. The ship logs with their statistics and mentions of possible awards gained by X, Y and/or Z person (if something like the award system I'm suggesting is implemented) would then create a Ship Hall of Fame which indirectly tells about how great the captain(s) of the ship may have been.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Pullie

[Arvenski]

For personal glory (although some awards could be for societies or the specific ship you sailed instead) we should instead have an award system with some typical medals, decorated swords, titles and whatsoever, historically accurate or not.

The requirements for any of the awards should be kept hidden to everyone all the time, even after receiving them, so that noone can really grind for them on purpose, although some of them may have rather obvious requirements. Receiving the awards should be delayed until porting, until porting at a port of specific criteria, or until being in contact with the necessary authorities in any way, to ensure that figuring out the exact game statistical requirements of the award will be very hard or hopefully impossible for players to figure out. For an example, you "receive" an award at moment X but for whatever reason you don't happen to visit your nation's port for a week in real time and upon your next visit you are awarded for whatever you have done. The award descriptions should contain big words of praise, mentions of specific battles or events but no too accurate details about how you obtained it.

There should be awards for almost all roles and activites in the game, but apart from a small number of basic ones the most of them should only be acquirable through very special events and grand successes in whatever is being done. So by making these awards rather difficult to obtain and keeping the requirements hidden from the players it would be ensured that they are something people obtain simply by playing and living in the open world rather than going through a meta grind. The greater awards should automaticly end up being awarded to the people who really deserve them because they really have been succesful enough to receive them. By making all the awards a meaningful proof of experience like this and with noble titles and stuff like that as the highest awards this system could give us the more truthfully accurate version of a leaderboard that lets your fellows know who really are the best, the most experienced and the most respected.

 

an award for receiving a quick promotion after an outstanding battle, (you weren't promoted just because you've been in steady business for X amount of time)
an award for the merchant(s) who achieved a grand economic victory for their nation,
an award for that captain of the brig that just happened to be around at the right time to save something important from sinking

an award for a grand discovery of a flightless bird and a giant tortoise

etc. etc.
I shouldn't be the one coming up with them and/or I shouldn't be the one allowed to come up with them so these are just a few simple examples.

 

Everyone is allowed to further this idea more, or make a thread about it if I actually went too badly offtopic here (and hopefully I haven't missed an already existing thread about such awards).

That sounds excellent. And it covers a lot of the potential hurdles, too: historical accuracy is dealt with by offering historical/semi-historical awards; stat-grinding is largely dealt with by the unknown requirements; and the '"FU noob"' mentality might also be dealt with, because winning those awards would be a result of luck, daring, and personal playstyle than raw statistics. 

 

And you should create a separate thread for this; it deserves more attention, IMO. 

Edited March 12, 2015 by Arvenski