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Separate Leaderboards - A Proposal/Idea


Velvet

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1 minute ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I support the idea, but I see problems.

 

1) How can you prove there is a team account?

 

You are allowed to play multiple games on different systems as it stands now. (i.e playing a telltale game on your ps3 and playing Uncharted 4 on your PS4). That means it is already accepted that if a timestamp is identical, it's ok. I could be missing something obvious here tho.

 

2) You're relying on the honesty of your fellow gamers.

 

Let's be honest, not everyone is honest. And if there isn't a reliable way to catch this, it turns into he said she said argument. This would probably be the mods nightmare.

 

3) You suggested a one-time click checkbox.

 

I think this would probably be a nightmare as well. I guarantee new members would play around with the settings and would need a mod to fix this. I think it needs a few "Are you sure about this?" popups.

 

 

It's definitely mostly honesty based and far from perfect.

 

That being said I think it's still an improvement over the current system. 

 

I agree a few extra "are you sure? this is reversible"  type popups would help with new users playing with settings etc. 

Edited by Tuffinz_
grammar
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4 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I support the idea, but I see problems.

 

1) How can you prove there is a team account?

 

You are allowed to play multiple games on different systems as it stands now. (i.e playing a telltale game on your ps3 and playing Uncharted 4 on your PS4). That means it is already accepted that if a timestamp is identical, it's ok. I could be missing something obvious here tho.

 

2) You're relying on the honesty of your fellow gamers.

 

Let's be honest, not everyone is honest. And if there isn't a reliable way to catch this, it turns into he said she said argument. This would probably be the mods nightmare.

 

3) You suggested a one-time click checkbox.

 

I think this would probably be a nightmare as well. I guarantee new members would play around with the settings and would need a mod to fix this. I think it needs a few "Are you sure about this?" popups.

 

 

Team accounts are usually outed due to a lapse. 72 hours straight of trophy earning, people being outed, people coming clean. The ways it happens varies. There's even an instance of someone playing COD alongside I think it was a Dragon Age game, like ok sure that's possible lol.

 

2) That's the big issue with it and my main beef with it. If you're going to be a team account and are currently #5, you'd move up by moving over to the Team Leaderboard, which I would think would be a positive, but you'd have a much more difficult time keeping that rank because you're going up against other teams.

 

3) Yeah the checkbox is a WIP, but the gist is there. Definitely at least a warning of "this action can't be undone". Agreed on that, 100%. 

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4 minutes ago, Squirlruler said:

I like the idea but it will never happen for a number of reasons, mostly being that team accounts are doing it specifically to rank on the "individual" leaderboard and thus will never voluntarily check that box.

And that's a fair point.  But as velvet said it's not hard these days to figure out with almost certainty which accounts are teams

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Love the idea, not sure how it work but all for it if ti can be done.

 

Position on the leaderboard is determined by a couple of things, one of them being time available to play and the other being a willingness to play trash just for trophies. I myself am happy with the games I play but know that my place is pretty much where it is now as I don't have the additional time and am not willing to play multiple stacks of the same 15 minute plats to move up because its kind of embarrassing in truth.

 

At least this idea would help move some of them out to a place where they are competing on a level playing field.

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24 minutes ago, Velvet said:
22 minutes ago, Velvet said:

 

Team accounts are usually outed due to a lapse. 72 hours straight of trophy earning, people being outed, people coming clean. The ways it happens varies. There's even an instance of someone playing COD alongside I think it was a Dragon Age game, like ok sure that's possible lol.

That's a pretty fair point. I didn't think about ridiculously long trophy earning sessions as an indicator.

Edited by sepheroithisgod
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The last thing I want this to turn into is a finger-pointing game of people being accused of being a team account simply because they binged out on trophies for 3 months. The finer details will need to be worked out and every account will have the option to be honest up front. We all know of team accounts just based on reputation throughout the community over the years, but it needs to be handled civilly as it can easily get out of hand. Even if it's something that's eased in to. Don't do a separate leaderboard right away, but offer the option for the checkbox to be preemptive. If that's not received well or ends up being a failing disaster, we can call the whole thing off and just pretend it never happened, lol. 

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I don't know I think others would maybe be honest.  Maybe I'm being overly optimistic.  I didn't want to flat out delete my account off of here and I haven't broken leaderboard rules but I don't feel real great about being #6 in the US when I've admitted to having someone else work on my account.

 

So what I did was throw "team account" into my about me.  Which I suppose is sort of what V is proposing here, just in a more official way.

 

I think it's worth, if nothing else a trial period.

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1 minute ago, Squirlruler said:

And then you have mods marking them, the owners getting pissed that they don't think they are a team account and you have lots of drama. Sounds fun.

 

I have lots of :popcorn: ready.

 

I think this would be the unfortunate outcome.

 

Regardless of people's honesty in ticking "Team Account" I feel it could end up like a dispute system where it would come down to moderators to analyse accounts, messages from users saying that an individual account is a team account based on certain trophy patterns, backlash for changing accounts over from one to another.

 

I'm not saying it's a bad idea for a leaderboard if something could be done to determine Team Accounts at Sony's end, but getting it to work on PSNP could prove to be more trouble than its worth.

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1 minute ago, FawltyPowers said:

I'm not saying it's a bad idea for a leaderboard if something could be done to determine Team Accounts at Sony's end, but getting it to work on PSNP could prove to be more trouble than its worth.

 

This is something I thought about as well. The last thing I want to do is make anyone's job more difficult than it has to be and it's easy to propose something like this, but it's just words. The hands on and dirty work will be done by other individuals who already do a lot around the site, so it's basically saying "hey girl, I heard you wanted more work to do, got good news for you!".

 

The initiation of it will be the, pardon my French, shittiest part. It's a massive change that involves everyone on the leaderboards and isn't a "snap of the finger" change that can happen. That's impossible. It'll basically go from "this is shit", "this is less shit", "this sucks", "this doesn't suck as much", "is everyone done yet?", "good enough", "dammit Bob where did you come from". It's not a days change, even a weeks change. It'd have to be implemented over a long enough period of time so everyone understands the rules and so everyone has a chance to make their decisions. Then a grace period after the cut off date for those who didn't get it the first time. After awhile, it'll start to mellow out and will end up being like Flagged games. Daily stinkers, but no where near the volume if this was attempted to be done in a short time frame. 

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I think everyone can agree it's a touchy subject for sure . And there would be things to work out. I honestly think it would be more positive than negative.  Yes there will always be those that cry fowl, but most of the time those that do are hiding something to begin with . 

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I don't see this going anywhere. It would ahve to be policed by the mods and what would the team leader board really look like. There's probably only a couple hundred teams. There's no way to definitively prove someone is or is not a team. So it would just be a bunch of drama as people are accused of actually being a team.

Edited by spacey_dweeb
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1 hour ago, Velvet said:

Here we go, kiddos. Grab your snacks and a capri sun, it's time to rock'n'roll. 

 

If you saw “leaderboard” in the title of this thread and immediately rolled your eyes, I feel you. Roll away, boo. But hear me out while you’re rolling around, as (hopefully) you might cling on to something in here. Looking for a civil conversation/debate about this. 

 

The LBs have been hot topic for... well, years now. “They’re cheating”, “they’re a team”, “he’s a hack”, “this isn’t fair”, etc etc. We’ve all heard it, read it, watched the disastrous arguments that have come from it all while sharing a giant bowl of buttery popcorn. So I have a proposal. Full disclosure, this is not solely my idea. I’m the one posting because sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I also don’t really care about my personal position on leaderboards (unless I know you and I'm close to passing you, then I care a lot because I'm trying to take you down, lol), but I’m not oblivious to the fact that something is wonky with them right now. This also isn’t meant to tear down any specific top-of-the-leaderboard people. It’s simply to level the playing field. The timing of this going up is questionable, but I assure you, it’s unrelated to recent events. This has been an ongoing discussion with some friends for a few now. 

 

The proposal is simple. Two separate leaderboards – One for individuals, one for teams. Again, just… hear me out.

 

How do you separate them? With one little checkbox. Mind you I know very little about coding/setting up sites, but what if a checkbox was added to your profile settings that simply said “Team Account”. Checking this box will remove you from the Individual Leaderboard and move you to a Team Account Leaderboard. There won’t be any sort of red flag on your profile, no sort of “shaming”, no bright colored “T” to go next to that shiny “P” and “H”, none of that. Just a crisp and clean separation on the leaderboards.

 

“As if people are going to admit to being on a team”. You might be right, but the proposal continues. Along with the checkbox is just very simple and clear instructions/guidelines regarding the separation. If you claim to be a team and check that box, good on ya - but that action cannot be undone. Once you’re claimed as a Team, you’re a Team forever. If you want Individual status, a new account would be the way to go (or a really, really, really nice message to a Mod asking to overturn it). If you’re a Team and you do not check that box, then tread lightly. If it comes out (with proof of course) that you are a Team account, your account will be marked as a Team and you’ll be moved over to the correct leaderboard. Further actions can be taken if staff so wish, but the separation is delicious enough imo. No dispute thread (no matter how entertaining they can be to read at times).

 

How is a team account defined? That’s the gray area that needs to be worked out. I had a friend help with the Crushing run for UC 2. Because he helped, does that make me a team account? I don’t think so, I think it just means I suck at games like that, lol, but others might think differently. If you actively have multiple people earning trophies/playing games on your account, that would better qualify as a team account obviously, but again, gray area. Make it a %, make it a certain # of games, make it whatever your heart desires. Just define it as best as possible.

 

What will this change? Well, for starters, Joe with the fulltime job earning his own trophies doesn’t stand a chance against Larry, Moe, and Curly who are all playing on the same account. It would be nice to see Joe go up against someone in his same boat, the same playing field, if you will. Larry, Moe, and Curly on the other hand, are better to go up against Ike, Mike, Jake, and Sam who all play on the same account. 

 

Team vs Team.

 

Individual vs Individual.

 

Obviously this is a rough draft that is far from perfect and far from clean, but it’s a proposal none the less. Just to reiterate, this is not meant to tear anyone down or take anything away from anyone (emphasis on anyone). That's not my gig. It's simply an attempt to level things out. 

This wouldn’t stop the “Player XYZ is really a team of people” accusations. Do we distinguish between teams of 2,3,4 etc to further level the playing field? 

 

Just sounds like a nightmare for the mods and I’m not really seeing the upside. 

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There is a theorical and immediate way to find out who's playing as a team or solo. The first thing to see is, obviously, what is their "trophies per day" percentage in their main profile. A number > 8-9 is a good starting point. But then things get complicates because there are 3 things to check:

 

  • 1 - which kind of games they play
  • 2 - if the team "takes turns like they would do in a factory -> 4 friends: A plays 2 hours, then stop - B plays 3 hours, then stop - C plays 6 hour, then stop - D plays 5 hours, then stop. This way they would cover 16 hours on 24 total (it's just an example, could be more or even less, but if less can be just 1 player with no job)
  • 3 - if the team plays all together with undefined numbers of consoles all at the same time

 

Thus, if someone stays silent and doesn't voluntary mark the "team account checkbox", then a system bot or a mod should do for them at that point.

Now: 

  • If they fall into the 1st case the whole team account thing will be wrong, because I've seen a lot of people that plays just visual novels and/or very easy games and platinuming 5 of those 1 hour plats in a day won't do them a team.
  • The 2nd case is a grey area. A guy with no job can play even 15 hours in a day
  • The 3rd case is the only way to find out who's playing as a team
Edited by X_Wizi_X
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Wouldn't work as it's basically an opt-in system that has a LOT of grey areas and the forums will just be flooded with 'disputes' of how to prove that you're working alone that I can't see even a big team of moderators willing to put up with. I like the spirit of the idea but in practice it's a non-starter.

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