A PvP Mission System for SWG

- Rimarath - 30 July 2002 -

[ Other SWG Commentary ]

[Version 1.0: Reformatted dev board post.]

Abstract

The Galaxies mission system provides a way to address the 80/20 problem with PvP in MMPOGs, where 20% of the players win 80% of the time. The PvP ladder rankings could be integrated into the system's mission generator, and the mission generator could then generate PvP missions that are appropriate for the player's rung on the ladder. Even large PvP conflicts could be handled by the mission system to ensure an even match.

Background

In a computer game, we are trained by past experience to expect to win most of the time, and furthermore almost entitled to it given that we're paying money to play for fun, and it's a truism that losing isn't fun. At the very least we hope to win more often than not, but this results in a fundamental problem when discussing player-vs-player combat: someone is going to win, and someone is going to lose. On average, you can't expect to do much better than winning half your matchups. In fact, Holo's theory on this states that PvP is actually a scale-free network, where preferred nodes of the network keep being preferred (the rich get richer), or, in this case, the few top-tier PvP players win a disproportionate amount of the time. This means that the average player can actually expect to win significantly less than half their matches. The standard statistic for such systems implies that 20% of the players win 80% of the matches, meaning that the other 80% of the players only win 20% of the matches. By the time you get down to the average player at 50%, you're not winning many matches.

One way this is addressed in competitive sports, competitive chess, and some (one-on-one or few-on-few, not massively multiplayer) competitive computer games is with ladders. You enter the system either at the bottom of the rankings or, depending on the rules, at the level where you think you belong. As you play matches, the rules determine your change in position on the ladder, sometimes with fairly complex algorithms to smooth out fluke results and ensure that you get appropriate extra credit for a win against a tough opponent or appropriately little penalty for a loss to that opponent, and vice versa for an easy opponent. The intention (and often the rule) is that you play your matches in your rung of the ladder and therefore play most or all of your games in a situation where you can reasonably expect an even match, so you can expect to win about half your matches. Of course, if you improve over time relative to your rung, you will tend to move up the ladder because you will be winning matches against your non-improving opponents, and the steady state is that you play at your level.

Holo has mentioned that SWG's PvP system will include ladders and leaderboards, presumably as a way to score your results outside the game. However, it doesn't seem that this will solve anything in the game, since matchups will still be done based on who comes to the party and the weaker 80% of the players in the scale-free network are still going to lose most of the time. The fact that a better (but still losing) effort moves the 80%'ers up the ladder will be little consolation, and as a result the ladder will be mostly of interest to the top 20%. In the long term this does not seem sustainable, as the other 80% lose interest and drop out of the system.

Proposal

The Galaxies design provides several systems that, taken together, form a way to address this. The first is the ladder, described above. The second is the mission system. The third is the PvP battlefield. The three together could create a "PvP conflict mission" system which would not be subject to Holo's scale-free network theory.

The initial state for the system is that PvP players are not always PvP+ with their enemies and awaiting arbitrary conflict. Instead, the players are treated as "ready for PvP" and the mission system will use these players when seeking to populate PvP missions. Note, however, that this system is not incompatible with a system that allows arbitrary PvP in the same world -- they could exist side-by-side.

PvP missions themselves would be fairly straightforward. You are invited/allowed to participate in a PvP mission only if your position on the ladder matches the mission's specifications. This would apply to both sides, and as a result players in PvP missions could expect an even fight. The PvP battlefield provides a simple way to set up a boundary for such PvP missions; so simple, in fact, that it really begs for a minor addition combining it with the ladder and a PvP mission, as proposed here. General-case PvP is quite a bit trickier, but can still be handled by a system like this one.

The ladder scores would be regularly updated with the result of the PvP missions, including variables that would scale a given player's result based on the performance of their entire team in the conflict and also adjusting for the expected result -- for example, certain battlefields could have intentional bias due to strategic conditions surrounding their creation, and the algorithms could easily incorporate when scoring each player's results.

None of this is particularly complicated algorithmically, and in fact many of the mathematical tools needed to handle it have already been created for other settings.

Implementation

In Galaxies, this system could be implemented through communication between the PvP faction member and their "superiors" in the Rebel or Imperial hierarchy, essentially NPCs (communicating largely via communit) who relay available appropriate PvP missions to the players based on data from the ladder rankings. Upon accepting the mission, a player would receive a token allowing them to enter the PvP conflict. They would take this token to the front or battlefield, where they would be allowed to enter only if they had the correct token. Players from the other side would similarly be invited to participate based on their ladder rung, and again given an appropriate token for the same battle, resulting in matchups in a given battlefield that are approximately fair.

The easy case for this discussion involves battlefields. The game's mission and battlefield systems would cooperate to create a battlefield and select a PvP ladder rung from which to invite participants. During the initial stages of the battle, the systems would ensure balance and excitement on the battlefield by spawning NPCs to maintain an even keel until a pre-determined target population from each side has joined (a feature of this system could allow that -- depending on the strategic position involved -- there might not be equal numbers of players on each side).

The more difficult situation is general PvP conflict not in a battlefield. This aspect is required to provide for those players who wish to be enabled for (and/or involved in) PvP at all times. So: you could implement this feature by giving such players an in-game ranking based on their ladder position. This ranking would be visible to other players, perhaps implemented as some sort of medal or other badge, such as the stars fighter pilots paint on the side of their planes to commemorate a victory. Then the system could spawn global missions according to that ranking. When you accept such a "general-purpose PvP" mission, the system would generate for you an open-ended mission to terminate your opposite number(s) on the enemy side, i.e. those on your rung of the ladder. The system would, however, prevent you from interfering with combat happening on the other rungs, even if it was happening around you (using the same logic as Holo described for the NPCs in a PvE battlefield, "under orders from your commander, do not engage, they can handle it!").

Issues

Good PvP players might start new characters and intentionally score themselves low on the ladder to enter matches where they will win more often than not. However, the system should self-correct for this in a very timely manner.

Some people may want arbitrary PvP encounters. Fortunately, this system is not exclusive with a "bring it on!" switch for those who want it. As an alternative, the game could allow almost-arbitrary PvP with enemies, with a check against ladder rankings to inform a would-be attacker in a mismatch that their orders are to stay out of that action, and disallow the attack. (In a separate post I discussed the possibility of using negative ladder/leaderboard scores for wins against very badly overmatched players as a disincentive. Although I still think this is an interesting possibility, I don't think it is sufficient unless there is some in-game consequence of your leaderboard position, such as unavailability of key items, lower pay, etc.; even then, good PvP players might still be inclined to ignore the drawbacks and take their wins as they find them.)

In the open-ended system, it would be extremely difficult to deal with two lower-rung players who gang up on a higher-rung player. You can't force them to group. This is actually a general problem with ladders in any system that is not one-on-one or a match between equal-sized teams. It would be possible, mathematically, to factor in how many people did damage (or healing) during the battle and distribute ladder points accordingly; but that would be plenty hard even after the fact and literally impossible to do in advance.

Rim

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