A Ranking System...

[zone trooper]

Is there a ranking system in Ham and Jam?

If not i think that it would be a great way of adding to the replay value of mutiplayer, take a game like Rainbow Six: Vegas, i love ranking up and gaining new weapons, clothing and armour. Ham and Jam could be impleted with a ranking system, you could make it historcally accurate.

Example:

Private
Private First Class
Corporal


That was just an example. Also, is there any chance of being able to customise our guy, by adding different armour, or by unlocking new weapons when you reach a certain rank, this could work with the classes.

So what are your thoughts.

[fess]

Personally I'm not too keen on the idea, firstly there weren't really enough weapons used to really make a system of unlocking weapons viable, and I think having ranking would distract people from playing as a team. It is better to have the goal of complete an objective as a team then climbing the ranks as an individual.

[zone trooper]

I can see where your coming from but they can add new weapons etc. Say, the higher the rank you are, you can give orders to everyone online, people don't have to do what you say but it could help your team win.

[fess]

Well, they can't add new weapons when there aren't new weapons to add...
And your second suggestion makes no sense, if you go up in rank and gain the ability to give commands but these commands can just be ignored it's pretty pointless. It's just like voice commands anyone on the server can use which I'm sure will be included. Generally I'm against a ranking system, I don't think it enhances the game in anyway and isn't suited to a game like HaJ.

[Ginger Lord]

Indeed.

There really arn't anymore weapons to add. Not ones that you'd actually want to use or could even find anyway.

I wouldn't mind a rank system, but only as a purely visual thing. Such as arm patches changing etc and maybe it resets on map load etc.

[Jed]

Time "Mr. Negative" chimed in... :D

Yeah, ranking isn't something we want really with "unlocks" etc. First of all, how do we manage it? If its on the server than thats an extra overhead and we can't sync rank between different servers. If we keep the rank records on the client it's prone to being hacked.

As GL and Fess pointed out, there isn't anything extra we could add as an unlock anyway, there really aren't more than a couple of weapons the Commonwealth used.

For ages now we've discussed the ideas of adding visual clues as to a players "rank" although we haven't formally planned it or implemented it. The main problem is how to construct the formula which decides what your rank is. Theres a lot of factors we need to take it and rank should be something you get for good gameplay not just getting a high K:D ratio.

There *may* in future version be some sort of "commander" option for certain maps where gameplay demands it. However who gets to be commander is yet undecided and it'll probably come down to the server using a formula to pick a couple of candidates from the current players and the remaining players vote for one.

[zone trooper]

Well its good that you guys have thought about it, i suppose if we think about alot more than we could churn out more ideas for some sort of ranking system.

[mXed]

how about a round / map based skill up system ?
you'll gain "xp" from assisting your team in winning or capturing a flag point. E.g lets say a flag point gives 1000 xp total, you need to be a least 2 players to capture the point, meaning you will max get 500 xp for assisting a flag point capturing. If you were 4 players helping to capture the point, then you would get 250 xp. when you have reached a specifik amount of xp, you will rank up and unlocking my features, to your class or just as a player in general. These new features could be used to "boost" your team on some areas, like on assault or defence. E.g on defence could be when suppressing with your mg, enemies within the cone of fire, or a certain area around the mg, would get blured vision. Once the map is over, after a few map rounds and the server change map, the rank and xp would be reset. So by helping your team, you make your team "better" at some aspects of the gameplay.

[Jed]

Stop thinking. We haven't even got the team/class selection working properly in the new codebase yet! At this rate we'll be able to think about ranking in 2009.

[zone trooper]

Stop thinking. We haven't even got the team/class selection working properly in the new codebase yet! At this rate we'll be able to think about ranking in 2009.

I thought you had alot of coders ? and let us come up with random ideas while you concentrate on making this an excellent game.

[Pierog]

I thought you had alot of coders ? and let us come up with random ideas while you concentrate on making this an excellent game.

Theres a difference between just coding up a mod for release and developing a mod which opens up time for future development.

We're trying to keep a lot of thing dynamic so we can change them as the mod progresses. Mods nowadays just program everything they want and finish the game on their first release and hope everyone likes it. We're taking the tried and true Day of Defeat/Counter-strike route which is progressive development over time.

[zone trooper]

Theres a difference between just coding up a mod for release and developing a mod which opens up time for future development.

We're trying to keep a lot of thing dynamic so we can change them as the mod progresses. Mods nowadays just program everything they want and finish the game on their first release and hope everyone likes it. We're taking the tried and true Day of Defeat/Counter-strike route which is progressive development over time.

Thats because they didn't hard code everything which is very good to be honest, I think that Gears of War is soft coded or whatever you call it.

[Yeti.B]

As G.L. said. If there is ranking I think it should not give any noticable advantages for gameplay, and for "xp" in any game, ideally it should be reset for every map or game/server session, otherwise you get "play-for-kills".

[zone trooper]

I think INS Mod has a Gobal ranking system but I'm really not sure how that is gonna work.

[newmodel]

I want to become a 4 star general.

[Ginger Lord]

Not in HaJ you wont, thats an American rank. Equivilant rank is General, and they wouldn't be in front line combat.

Jed's got a neat system in at the moment where each spawn you are assigned a random rank and your model reflects this with the relevant arm patch.

[fess]

Is the rank assigned completely random? Or based on your performance or some other factor?

[Blue]

I could imagine officer-esque classes being given a random junior commissioned officer rank (1st and 2nd Lt, Captain, maybe even Major), riflemen getting EM ranks that may or may not include NCO levels, etc.

If it's done with believable ranks being applied, it could be pretty cool.