Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

Just to mention that the player rating system may be a good idea, but it is not as easy as it seems (NO, the math is not simple, however bright you are! I'm part of the research community working on this topic and I can tell you this is still a really open issue). It requires a lot of careful design so that it can achieve its objectives with minimum "false positives" (=those real and honest players that couldn't get a good rating for reason XYZ). It is a desirable feature, but one that entails more problems that it seems (notably due to the fact that the "bad guys" are ready to go to great length to abuse any system, remember that they can make money out of this!).

There are many websites and applications out there implementing such reputation systems (a notable one is the one from slashdot.org) and it is quite an art, because whatever rules you use to define "reputation", there are always ways to defeat the purpose of the system, but this is fine if the cost of doing this is prohibitive (in the end, you want to make the life of those who try to (ab)use GW and its community). For example, collusion can always be a problem, e.g. a spammer owning several GW accounts and providing several good ratings for each of his accounts (there could be no way to say that these accounts belong to the same person, not even from IP addresses?), a bit like shill bidding in auctions, but one can detect if the ratings always come from the same people/account and then decrease those ratings accordingly (side effect: honest people who associate with less people will have lower ratings, but this is fine as long as the rating does not buy you anything, it is here to help find the bad guys).

It would also also need to be tweaked regularly in order to adapt to those who seek to bypass the limitations imposed by such a system (which would, ideally, enable to ban bots). And I think that there needs to be a lot of publicity on the principle before it is rolled out, as this is not necessarily something everyone will understand out of the blue. In the end, the success of such a system will also depend on the community (i.e. the good guys, those that do not want to (ab)use GW) using this feature often, so as to provide good "numbers" (i.e. ratings).

And there's always the problem of finding a nice and non-intrusive way of implementing this feature. If it's a "reputation window", there's the risk of it not being used (and thus not providing good enough ratings). If it's by adding a symbol/button next to avatars, there's the risk of people being annoyed, but it could also lead to more ratigns being provided. And there's always the possibility of adding a command, or one button in the chat window (next to the IGN maybe?).

post-edit: I realised that what the OP called "rating" is something different: you rate other people, not you! That's the whole point, because otherwise anyone can lie about their abilities (and after all it's very subjective, as many people mention, e.g. look at the PUG thread, some people think of themselves higher that they actually ARE). The rating is here to sort-of give a community opinion on a character (possibly player if you aggregate all his character ratings). It can be seen as a social status, but shouldn't be confused with fame or rank: its ultimate goal is to help in detecting the bots and people abusing GW (but one should still contribute to it by rating people so as to make this efficient).

post-edit 2: the rating system could also use the guild system, as often guilds are made of people that know each other well. But this is not an aspect of GW I know well...

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

Just to mention that the player rating system may be a good idea, but it is not as easy as it seems (NO, the math is not simple, however bright you are! I'm part of the research community working on this topic and I can tell you this is still a really open issue). It requires a lot of careful design so that it can achieve its objectives with minimum "false positives" (=those real and honest players that couldn't get a good rating for reason XYZ). It is a desirable feature, but one that entails more problems that it seems (notably due to the fact that the "bad guys" are ready to go to great length to abuse any system, remember that they can make money out of this!).

There are many websites and applications out there implementing such reputation systems (a notable one is the one from slashdot.org) and it is quite an art, because whatever rules you use to define "reputation", there are always ways to defeat the purpose of the system, but this is fine if the cost of doing this is prohibitive (in the end, you want to make the life of those who try to (ab)use GW and its community). For example, collusion can always be a problem, e.g. a spammer owning several GW accounts and providing several good ratings for each of his accounts (there could be no way to say that these accounts belong to the same person, not even from IP addresses?), a bit like shill bidding in auctions, but one can detect if the ratings always come from the same people/account and then decrease those ratings accordingly (side effect: honest people who associate with less people will have lower ratings, but this is fine as long as the rating does not buy you anything, it is here to help find the bad guys).

It would also also need to be tweaked regularly in order to adapt to those who seek to bypass the limitations imposed by such a system (which would, ideally, enable to ban bots). And I think that there needs to be a lot of publicity on the principle before it is rolled out, as this is not necessarily something everyone will understand out of the blue. In the end, the success of such a system will also depend on the community (i.e. the good guys, those that do not want to (ab)use GW) using this feature often, so as to provide good "numbers" (i.e. ratings).

And there's always the problem of finding a nice and non-intrusive way of implementing this feature. If it's a "reputation window", there's the risk of it not being used (and thus not providing good enough ratings). If it's by adding a symbol/button next to avatars, there's the risk of people being annoyed, but it could also lead to more ratigns being provided. And there's always the possibility of adding a command, or one button in the chat window (next to the IGN maybe?).

post-edit: I realised that what the OP called "rating" is something different: you rate other people, not you! That's the whole point, because otherwise anyone can lie about their abilities (and after all it's very subjective, as many people mention, e.g. look at the PUG thread, some people think of themselves higher that they actually ARE). The rating is here to sort-of give a community opinion on a character (possibly player if you aggregate all his character ratings). It can be seen as a social status, but shouldn't be confused with fame or rank: its ultimate goal is to help in detecting the bots and people abusing GW (but one should still contribute to it by rating people so as to make this efficient).

post-edit 2: the rating system could also use the guild system, as often guilds are made of people that know each other well. But this is not an aspect of GW I know well...

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

Lastly I think I wouldnt like my name smeared by some random ....... because he/she rages for not getting it the way he/she wants it, or he/she is just a griefer. It sounds all promising, but in the end its results might be much worse then what it will cure.

Furthermore what do you do when an account is transferred from a "good" player to a one not deserving a penny? Don't implement it IMHO.

Originally Posted by Darksun

For one: it's allways easier to remember to give a bad rating than a good one. And Second: Jerks/Rage quitters & Scammers can get their jerk posse to vote against legit players.

I just don't think human nature allows for a useful rating system to even WORK.

Originally Posted by gameshoes3003

I did read the whole thing and many people have agreed to this idea. A problem that you said was that everybody will run into someone that'll hate their guts. What does the angry guy do? Makes the others' (can be more than one lol) rating worse which can be oooogly! Also there's always those people that try to be funny then giving that guy a bad rating too. I personally can get "overexcited" about the game and totally flip out, and uuh... my rating will go down the toilet.
I do accept any new player for I do believe that the new people in the game, are the ones keeping it going because if the people on the game are total asses then that player will tell anybody he/she meets not to get it. And those titles can potentially do that because there are some picky people out there you know. So then, a new guy with that "I'm still learning" title tries to join people who are on their 2nd-8th+ character and then id denied. Well that's not nice. Then a pro tries to join a new people group. Generally the new people will let he/she join, but sometimes they want a NEW people party ONLY group which therefore pushes the "pro" out.
I did see you mentioning about Factions ruining the "spirit" of the guild. Yes there are times when the alliances are all crabby about faction. What do I do as a leader? I let my people do whatever they want lol, therefore my faction drops since I'm such a cool leader that I relax then my guild gets kicked for "leeching" no matter what my guild has done to help the alliance (guild battles, money...).
But just to sum it all up, I don't think there should be these titles because it'll make the game look like a whole competition for ratings since people are likely to say, "please give me a good rating so I can get a super-duper title." No, that's not what this game is about. Titles are fancy sure, but not the centralized focus of the game.
If people are going to be stingy and anal about having pros everywhere, they're not challenging themselves to play a game that's suppose to be challenging. What do leechers, scammers, rage quitters do? They add a level of difficulty to the game which I would call, REALITY. Therefore, these titles will take away the "reality" of the human mind away from the game and then taking away many challenges from the game itself.
/notsigned
clearly elaborated, just will not work.

Originally Posted by gameshoes3003

I personally can get "overexcited" about the game and totally flip out, and uuh... my rating will go down the toilet.

Originally Posted by gameshoes3003

I did see you mentioning about Factions ruining the "spirit" of the guild. Yes there are times when the alliances are all crabby about faction. What do I do as a leader? I let my people do whatever they want lol, therefore my faction drops since I'm such a cool leader that I relax then my guild gets kicked for "leeching" no matter what my guild has done to help the alliance (guild battles, money...).

Originally Posted by Lord Zado

You know, I've always been against a player rating system due to the griefing and elistism others have mentioned, but you have a very well thought out system.

You avoid guild/alliance/multiple account buffing with your 1 vote per person and "guild votes count less" idea.

You avoid most griefing by forcing people to complete a mission with someone before they can vote. How many people would go through an entire mission just to give some stranger a single bad vote? You can perhaps even extend the protection by saying lower rated players' votes count less. The low rated players will either be griefers who were voted down or actual beginners. Beginners usually have no idea what builds their allies are using and how well they are using them, so it would make sense that their opinion of someone would count a little less than a veteran.

The flaw in the system isn't griefing or artifical rating buffing though...it's getting people to use the system properly. As others have pointed out, most PUG's finish a mission and disband right away, most times without even a "thank you" or "nice job". How can you expect people to be patient enough to rate 7 others? There's no real incentive to rate others. In fact, we could see a situation similar to what we see on the forums. Few people are compelled to make positive posts, but as soon as someone sees something they don't like...off to the forums they go! There could be a general trend to just vote for the people that did poorly.

Secondly, there is the issue of how to judge other players. I'd classify myself as an accomplished veteran. I have at least one of every character type through at least 2 campaigns and I read these forums regularly to see the latest PvE build ideas and such, so I am extremely familar with all the classes strengths and weaknesses, common builds, etc. But even with all this knowledge, when I am in a mission, my job is to fulfill my role, not observe what others are doing. So how would I know whether or not they are doing a good job? In fact, the only people able to accurately rate others are people who I would rate down for paying more attention to the group than fighting!

It becomes a "shades of grey" issue. Sure the group makes it through the mission, but maybe the tank was bad and we had a really good healer? My monk is my primary character and I can tell you that they would be the hardest to judge. Most people unfortunately believe deaths = bad monking. I've had level 5 monking outings where the whole group nearly wiped and level 3 monking outings where everything went just peachy.

Now I know your ratings are designed to indicate playstyle, not necessarily player skill, but the ratings WILL become all about player skill. And there's simply no way to adequately judge who gets a 2, 3 or 5. So for this reason, may I make these suggestions:

Keep your self evalution idea. It lets players indicate to others how they feel like playing and if they think they are a veteran or not. Sure some people might lie, but I doubt many beginners will go around with "hardcore veteran" showing. At least this will get people in the ball park for the most part. And more importantly the playstyle thing will get people on the same page.

Second, instead of a complicated peer evaluation system, simplify it so that its usable. At the end of a mission or quest (after everyone resigns I guess), there will be a countdown timer similar to what is at the end of every PvP battle or tombs...say 15-30 seconds. During this time on the party menu, on each person's health bar (or next to it like when someone calls a target) there will be a + and - symbol. You can vote someone down, up or not vote at all. This is quick and simple. (Side note: People could also use this time to cap skills from end of mission bosses. It's another common request around here to give players more time to cap skills from such bosses)

To keep your protections in place, you can only vote for a person once ever. If you vote for someone a second time, it simply replaces your old vote. People with a -.5 or less rating should not be allowed to rate others. People with a -.75 or less should not be allowed in places like RA and Fort Aspenwood. (Sidenote: This would likely solve the leeching/quitting problem as everyone would immediately give leechers/quitters negative votes).

The other, deeper, problem with ratings is ratings are most useful where lots of people are gathered. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of places where people gather nowadays! Now I could create an entire thread on this, but I'll tack it on here. If you look at Prophecies, after everyone played through the game, they went to 1 of 3 areas: Tombs, Sorrow's Furnance or Temple of the Ages. Why? Because those were fairly challenging areas that had nice rewards (greens, ectos, shards). Something you can do over and over. What was introduced with Factions and continued with Nightfall was this whole "every boss has a green" idea which is a huge, huge mistake. The biggest worry with an ever expanding game is you stretch the playerbase to thin, so why not create more gathering places like SF or ToA instead of putting valuable items all over the map just to spread us even thinner.

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

All of this is wrong. There are so many examples, but I would like to cite only one: slashdot.org. (etc)

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

All of this is wrong. There are so many examples, but I would like to cite only one: slashdot.org. Many years ago, this was a place of flame wars, with groups fighting against each other (windows vs. Linux, commercial vs. free, americans vs. europeans, etc. etc. etc.), with so many people nitpicking, spamming, trolling, and so on. They designed their rating system (see more info here) so that: people would actually give credit to good posts/people (design objective: they wanted the system to show only the best contributions, while the ones with low rating would be hidden), so this invalidates your point one here; they introduced moderators to avoid abuses (and then meta-moderators to moderate the moderators) to the point that scammers would actually be invisible, which answer to your point two; they also assigned "Karma" points to everyone which would be used to moderated and would be earned if you have a post with high rating or moderate often (rules of moderation are quite complex) without a problem; and it SO worked that the slashdot community is so big that they have a "slashdot effect" (so many people following links given in their news can actually make a webserver collapse under the load ...).

It is all a question of careful and delicate design (once more, let's say again that people /= rating, i.e. your character is not only its XP or rank or fame, it's also its guild, its appearance, its history, its interactions with other characters, etc. etc. etc.), and also of transparency in the sense that the community should know what the system what designed for (many people sometimes "think" they know the system better than their designers...). And completely honestly, I think that there's probably the seeds of such a system in GW, Anet may be using internal ratings to detect fraudsters and scammers. But the rating system I was talking (which is different from the OP's one) was the occasion to push the effort a little bit further by asking the help of the community (and after all it's in our interests, the majority of us don't want to see GW become a WoW-like plagged with a subgroup of people greedy about virtual money or fame to the point that there's a game in the game, don't we?).

But I guess that since it's a social feature, if the community doesn't like it, it should only be implemented by Anet if there's a risk that the GW system will collapse under the assaults of the spam-scammers. As I said above, it's a bit like passports: the world could work without them (well nations can live without ID cards), but it would just be more painful for those managing the rules and (more importantly) damaging for the victims of those abusing the system. But a passport does NOT say who you are, it just says something useful about you.

Originally Posted by Kuldebar Valiturus

How about an automatic rating system based on weighted values:

Positives:
-Number of Friends list entries that other players have for your account
-Guild affiliation and longevity of membership

Negatives:
-Number of Ignore list entries that other players have for your account
-Guild Hopping (frequency of guild changes)

These values would be rated on a curve based off overall game population and would not require DIRECT player input for rating.

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

The devils advocate:

People could abuse the ignore function to smear u.
If u are kicked from a guild for a reason that is not your fault
I could pay people to put me on friends list
I could make my own guild.

Don't think these parameters would hold for a good player, in fact, what is a good player. This will be subject to your own vision, thus subjective.

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

The devils advocate:

People could abuse the ignore function to smear u.
(snip)