Idea: Score system

Floofy · 2018-12-02 21:32:47

I think it would be interesting to get some sort of score at the end of a game.
I realize a high score does not always mean you were the best player. A score system will never be perfect.
But i think it could be fun in the family tree of the web site to see some sort of score for each player, to get an idea of who did real work, and who only leeched.

Here is what my score system would look like. You get points every time you do any of these actions:
Planting a seed +1
Using a water bowl on a dry seed +1
Using a water bowl on compost +1
Feeding a lamb +3
Creating a basket +2
Forging a clay bowl or plate +1
Using bowl of berries/carrot on wheat +1
Putting dung on compost +1
Putting soil on berry +1
Creating a tilled row +1
Making thread +1
Making a rope +1
Making an hatchet +1
Making a fire bow drill +1
Making 1 adobe +1
Etc

This list is not exhaustive.
Now, its easy to understand that some actions in the game are extremely important and would be very hard to be properly rewarded by a system like this. For example, going very far away on a iron mission is very important and hard to score properly. But i still think this could be interesting to see.

Last edited by Floofy (2018-12-02 21:33:17)

wolfgang · 2018-12-02 21:59:57

I feel too many people might just stop doing important stuff to instead try to get more points and cause towns to fail from that. I dont think a point system would mesh with a game like this.

Fudschy · 2018-12-02 22:18:54

not with different scores thoug. But giving everything the same worth would mean every normal player would have a more or less equal score. but really productive ones could reach for the highest possible. through efficency not cherrypicking.

CrazyEddie · 2018-12-02 23:21:11

For me, a scoring system of some kind (any kind) would detract from the game.

On the other hand, I'm very interested to learn more about the accomplishments of my descendants (and predecessors, for that matter). I think that's a natural instinct. I can see how it might not fit Jason's vision (I'm of two minds about it myself), but he did add the lineage browser which suggests he wants to provide at least some direct connection to your posterity even though the whole point of the game is that you don't get to see what comes after you - you get one hour, one life, that's it, and you have to live knowing that you're playing a small part in something bigger than yourself that you'll never see.

Floofy · 2018-12-03 02:19:58

Fudschy wrote:

not with different scores thoug. But giving everything the same worth would mean every normal player would have a more or less equal score. but really productive ones could reach for the highest possible. through efficency not cherrypicking.

The idea behind "feeding a lamb" being worth more points than "planting a seed" is because feeding a lamb takes a lot longer. You need to fill a bowl with berries, add a carrot, mesh it, then go to the pen.

Floofy · 2018-12-03 02:21:23

CrazyEddie wrote:

For me, a scoring system of some kind (any kind) would detract from the game.
On the other hand, I'm very interested to learn more about the accomplishments of my descendants (and predecessors, for that matter). I think that's a natural instinct. I can see how it might not fit Jason's vision (I'm of two minds about it myself), but he did add the lineage browser which suggests he wants to provide at least some direct connection to your posterity even though the whole point of the game is that you don't get to see what comes after you - you get one hour, one life, that's it, and you have to live knowing that you're playing a small part in something bigger than yourself that you'll never see.

Exactly, the idea of the score system isn't to get an accurate idea of who the best player is. its just to get an idea of what role your uncle joe played in his life... he was a rabbit hunter.

CrazyEddie · 2018-12-03 03:36:36

Along those lines, then, I wouldn't use a visible scoring system. But I might assign some kind of weighting to all of the item transitions, ranking them not by importance or value but rather by interestingness. "How much do I want to know that my great-granddaughter filled a water bucket? How much do I want to know that she dug a well? Built a water pump?"

In general, the most interesting things will be those with more steps to build, higher technology, more importance to the survival of the settlement, greater rarity, or stronger aesthetic value. Those are mostly subjective evaluations, of course, but I would trust Jason's instincts if he wanted to give it a shot.

Then armed with that kind of information, perhaps the lineage page could report two things - the most interesting thing that a person made, and the most interesting thing that a person made in quantity. So for example: "Marcus Bookman skinned rabbits and killed a bear." "Theresa Solis planted wheat and built two water pumps."

By looking down through a lineage you'd be able to get a sense of how advanced a settlement has gotten by seeing the "most interesting" things made by each person in each generation. And I feel like that's something we're all desperate to know. "Did I have an impact? Did my descendants build on what I left them? How far did they get?"

Floofy · 2018-12-03 04:32:20

CrazyEddie wrote:

Along those lines, then, I wouldn't use a visible scoring system. But I might assign some kind of weighting to all of the item transitions, ranking them not by importance or value but rather by interestingness. "How much do I want to know that my great-granddaughter filled a water bucket? How much do I want to know that she dug a well? Built a water pump?"
In general, the most interesting things will be those with more steps to build, higher technology, more importance to the survival of the settlement, greater rarity, or stronger aesthetic value. Those are mostly subjective evaluations, of course, but I would trust Jason's instincts if he wanted to give it a shot.
Then armed with that kind of information, perhaps the lineage page could report two things - the most interesting thing that a person made, and the most interesting thing that a person made in quantity. So for example: "Marcus Bookman skinned rabbits and killed a bear." "Theresa Solis planted wheat and built two water pumps."
By looking down through a lineage you'd be able to get a sense of how advanced a settlement has gotten by seeing the "most interesting" things made by each person in each generation. And I feel like that's something we're all desperate to know. "Did I have an impact? Did my descendants build on what I left them? How far did they get?"

The thing is, the bigger achievements are often team works. Maybe the great grand daughter built a well, but her uncle is the one who did a mission to get iron, her brother did the smithing to produce the shovel, and her mom brang the 10 rocks needed to make the well. I feel like if we did something like this, maybe people would fight over the achievements.

Also, "my great-granddaughter filled a water bucket" isn't too interesting, but "my great-granddaughter planted 23 seeds, created 20 tilled rows, and watered 15 seeds" is interesting imo.

Last edited by Floofy (2018-12-03 04:32:45)

CrazyEddie · 2018-12-03 05:28:05

The thing is, the bigger achievements are often team works. Maybe the great grand daughter built a well, but her uncle is the one who did a mission to get iron, her brother did the smithing to produce the shovel, and her mom brang the 10 rocks needed to make the well.

In the system I proposed, everyone's most significant ("most interesting") contributions to the settlement - whatever they were - would be recognized. Building the well, getting iron, gathering rocks, smithing, whatever. Everyone's contributions have knock-on effects, some direct, most indirect. No need to credit all four people with building the well; just show the main things that each person did - not just some particular well they helped with, but what they did for the community overall.

I feel like if we did something like this, maybe people would fight over the achievements.

I don't think they would, but perhaps I'm underestimating people's desires to chase after and fight over stupid things.

Also, "my great-granddaughter filled a water bucket" isn't too interesting

Agreed, although "The high-value thing she did most often was fill water buckets" would be.

but "my great-granddaughter planted 23 seeds, created 20 tilled rows, and watered 15 seeds" is interesting imo.

I disagree. The more data you provide about a person, the less interesting it is. That's why I would keep it small and simple as per my examples above.

subria · 2018-12-03 05:44:10

Planting a seed +1
Using a water bowl on a dry seed +1

Hm. Too many camp drowning by Gooseberry.

pein · 2018-12-03 05:55:17

im probably one of fastest smiths, yet i do not smith if someone else does it
why?, cause they can do it and i help more than they would help me and its good exercise for them
same goes for picking off berries, having carrots can be easy or super hard, feeding it to a sheep can be easy from ready resources
had a similar post on github, mostly for professions. like small quest which give you a title, not too grindy but not to easy either
make 12 pies to become a baker for example, this is a goal for a newbie but shouldn't be a goal for play, then some harder to master it
you cant measure by points how useful is someone, real heroes just plant milkweed and get firewood or retrieve items others lose or forgot

maybe i only get 4 water buckets, but that makes people survive longer, while others cant get cause not in their view distance

so cant be objective with things like planting a bush, it might be very good or very bad depending on location
yeah sure some form of score system would filter the sponges and useless people who hold onto the resources but shouldn't be a gameplay element or goal just a side information

the other problem is communication and lack of storage which makes hard to coordinate

also that there is no such thing as city, the game doesn't know that's a city or a camp, as there is no group of objects considered a group by gameplay rules, just multiple single items
what is a tortilla station for me, might be just resources for others to build a dumb road

lionon · 2018-12-03 07:02:58

Eating 5 domestic berries in a row -100 points.

Azrael · 2018-12-03 07:57:02

Hm this list is very subjective and situational.

For example, tilled rows, what if someone wants to get points so they take all the hoes and use them to make tilled rows, as well as using the soil. This creates turmoil and the town has no resources to maintain a farm which results in no crops which results in no food and starvation occurs. You get it?

And Feeding a lamb, let's say you want to accumulate points so you mass feed the lamb, you crowd the pen and make it impossible to do anything in that space so the sheep are momentarily useless. Then let's say you find a way to clear the pen, was it worth it? You may say you got mutton for pies! But think about it... all those berries and carrots were stripped from their places to be made into feed for lambs, and what happens from that? No compost, no berry/carrot pies, therefore no wheat and no dough, which means no pies for you! Catching on yet?

The system can also be damaging towards a society. Let's say we got a top tier city with all the most advanced things, and babies spawning left and right, plenty of food, everyone's need taken care of, paradise!....But then think what would happen when the bored players decide their lives aren't fulfilling enough and want to gain the most points possible in their lineage. The players start rapidly, planting as many seeds and feeding as many sheep as they can, doing all the things that could potentially add many points to their overall score. But wait. Someone just used all the carrots to feed the lambs, and you can't spam compost anymore? What do you decide to do? You fight! Creating havoc and resulting in death and cursing vigorously from both sides. This effect will butterfly and soon that advanced top tier civ, turns into a post-apocalyptic wasteland (ironic right?).

Even if Jason can make this system avoid all these problems, what's the worth in a system like this anyways? Now we are judging every player on how good they are based on which things they can click on and do the most? Not even a very intelligent system either, because someone plants 100 berry bushes all together and I only plant 4 by 4 bushes in certain areas, I'm the worse player? What if someone makes 50 batches of compost but I create 1 deep well that can sustain the society for much longer, is he the better player because he made lots of compost that can be used up quick? Even if my well can sustain generations? These things are trivial and do NOT create an effective system that you might've had in mind, it's frankly ridiculous and I HIGHLY HIGHLY doubt something like this would even work.

Keep trying Floofy, maybe one post will be decent

lionon · 2018-12-03 08:14:49

pein wrote:

. like small quest which give you a title, not too grindy but not to easy either
make 12 pies to become a baker for example, this is a goal for a newbie but shouldn't be a goal for play, then some harder to master it

IMO it's going to be only a matter of time until steam community pressure builds up to get steam badges.

Should be useful for learning professions when they come instead of "kill 10 players with a knife", "pick up and drop your kid every second, then munch berries, do until town is starved of food"

Last edited by lionon (2018-12-03 08:15:07)

Tramax · 2018-12-04 00:57:15

pein wrote:

make 12 pies to become a baker for example, this is a goal for a newbie but shouldn't be a goal for play, then some harder to master it
you cant measure by points how useful is someone, real heroes just plant milkweed and get firewood or retrieve items others lose or forgot

Yeah I think this is a nice idea too. Perhaps a good compromise is that the point system is invisible and at certain thresholds different titles are earned such as apprentice baker once the most points you have in a specific genre is past twelve points - upgrading to baker then master baker the more you specialize. On top of the basic titles hybrids such as renaissance man should be obtainable. Naturally you don't see the point values in the family tree either - just the titles.

Last edited by Tramax (2018-12-04 00:58:12)

Floofy · 2018-12-04 02:07:26

I think a lot of people who commented are missing the point: I realize a system like this will never be fully accurate. Its impossible to make one. But i think have some sort of data about people's lives could be interesting. A score like this could give an idea how usefull people were.

Monolith_Rans · 2018-12-04 02:41:35

score yourself. I've been playing since version 58 and I still have not crafted everything.

BlueDiamondAvatar · 2018-12-04 06:05:44

I enjoyed playing user defined challenges, back when I played the Sims. I've been thinking about how to set up a "Pioneer" challenge, to encourage people to spread out from an established town. It has a similar problem - how do you make it easy to score? Maybe Jason could make it easier for us to look back on our actions, but we could choose to look at different kinds of data, based on what we were trying to do that play session.

Floofy · 2018-12-04 16:21:43

Monolith_Rans wrote:

score yourself. I've been playing since version 58 and I still have not crafted everything.

its not really about scoring yourself. Its about seeing how your lineage did after your death. I don't need data to know what i did during my life, i need it to know what future generations did.

Auner · 2018-12-06 04:36:58

A scoring system held privately at end game would be neat for steam achievements-- but it needs to be implemented carefully- or insanely simply.

The big issue is that then- trolls will 'cut in' on a player's efforts and steal the points-- making it all the more frustrating for the guy who made it from scratch. It also could easily be abused- like feeding all the sheep til it's overflowing- or needlessly hoeing valuable soil.

You might want to low bar it, and have it simple-- like the least abuse-able task presently in game - would be said berry bush watering and soiling as well. You could also perhaps also use "feeding people with yellow fever" or "Healing people from a boar/bear/snake wound" It's gotta be really hard to abuse basically and ensure the points were earned.

Last edited by Auner (2018-12-06 04:38:37)

Tramax · 2018-12-06 07:51:20

To reiterate I reckon if you don't see your score and it only tells you the title associated with your lifestyle it would give a sense of accomplishment and prevent people from trying to abuse the system.

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Idea: Score system

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