Removing performance on small servers

[alex879ro]

This is not the first time I`m proposing to remove the performance to small servers. I consider that performance is extremely harmful for starting players.

I consider removing performance from servers 3,4,7 and 9 would be a good idea for starting players. Please state your oppinions

[imus]

Pro:
It really is the biggest difficulty for new players to reach a certain performance (perhaps even to figure out what performance is in the first place).

Con:

• Need a way to really make the goal difference clear to all players (especially new ones) to prevent confusion. (this might be a little bit tricky).
• Some of the charm of record attempts is lost. For example on s7: reaching 3M CV is easy, getting the required performance within 2 years is not.
• Doesn't this make it a lot easier to cheat on CV again? (the reason we use multiple goals in the first place for the scoring)

Overall I think it really is a good idea but we need a way to prevent the cheating and perhaps update (increase?) the CV goals a little bit.

[The_Dude]

If cheating is sending money and buying vehicles, you can prevent that by disabling sending money and calculate the CV little differently, so the vehicle trick can not be used.

[alex879ro]

The current scoring system is based on the idea that we can`t be objective enough to decide a certain maximum score for each server. But after this principle, we ended up making coefficients bigger or smaller and we`re left with a non-uniform scoring system unique for each server.

Personally, I have the greatest confidence in Der_Herr`s scoring implemented on the CityBuilder. It only decays points vs time. You start at a chosen maximum and with an algorythm calculated on the database of games that we have, it is set to decay points in order to reach an amount based on the period that you played.

The goal is very adaptable...with this scoring system we can implement as goal "grow 1 industry to 2295 tonnes or whatever"

With this algorythm , the goal can become whatever we want.

Also, there should be a way to find out if a certain company buys vehicles over the limit. For example if you would buy 100 vehicles in a single month...it would be obviously what they are bought for.

I don`t have anything against performance....I personally like it. But it bothers me a lot that whenever a new player joins, he smashes himself on this wall which most of the times is unpassable since OpenTTD does not have an interactive menu with explanations and in most of the games, the other people playing DO NOT ANSWER.

My point is that we should find a solution to remove the performance as fast as we can and leave the goals with only 1 simple and understandable criteria.

Also, would you agree with a removal of performance on Server 9? Scoring system is not working there so it would be a good place for a test...

[phmadore]

The current scoring system is based on the idea that we can`t be objective enough to decide a certain maximum score for each server. But after this principle, we ended up making coefficients bigger or smaller and we`re left with a non-uniform scoring system unique for each server.

Personally, I have the greatest confidence in Der_Herr`s scoring implemented on the CityBuilder. It only decays points vs time. You start at a chosen maximum and with an algorythm calculated on the database of games that we have, it is set to decay points in order to reach an amount based on the period that you played.

The goal is very adaptable...with this scoring system we can implement as goal "grow 1 industry to 2295 tonnes or whatever"

With this algorythm , the goal can become whatever we want.

Also, there should be a way to find out if a certain company buys vehicles over the limit. For example if you would buy 100 vehicles in a single month...it would be obviously what they are bought for.

I don`t have anything against performance....I personally like it. But it bothers me a lot that whenever a new player joins, he smashes himself on this wall which most of the times is unpassable since OpenTTD does not have an interactive menu with explanations and in most of the games, the other people playing DO NOT ANSWER.

My point is that we should find a solution to remove the performance as fast as we can and leave the goals with only 1 simple and understandable criteria.

Also, would you agree with a removal of performance on Server 9? Scoring system is not working there so it would be a good place for a test...

My thoughts summed up.