Crichton Crichton

Metaverse - a joke?

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Metaverse - a joke?

from Stardock Forums
Does anyone else feel that the Metaverse is just one big joke anymore? :notsure:

I mean, the ranking is soley based on playing alot of games and posting them. Where is the skill? :(

Simply put, you can not possibly catch up to players with huge scores and lots of high score games already submitted. I just do not have the "TIME" to compete with them. Yes, time, not skill. If you submit any LOW scores, you hurt yourself(and please do not reply with the usual "I dont care about scores, or any other blah, blah, blah). If you have a competition set up ranking players,
1.give everyone the low down on how it works(what scores big, low and all inbetween, etc),
2.do not lump sum half dozen game sizes in one list, 3.make claims you are not a galciv player if you play for a score when you promote a top player list as a sell point for the game(anyone submitting a score is into the ranking or they just wouldnt do it; anyone who says they do not care, is either: high ranked already or on the way, or knows they can never catch up).

Why is there a lump of all the game types in one list, they are completely different playing experiences.

Check my scores out, it doesnt even calculate correctly for 8 games(last I checked). I checked several other 8 game players, some calculated right some not. I wonder how many others are not calculating right, but at 8 games it is messed up. BTW, one of my scores, the 86, I DID NOT submit. You can see I progressively submitted higher scores, I would never have submitted a simple level game score of 86 after the two I had in the hundreds. I did have a 800 some point game I submitted, that does not show.

The system is SERIOUSLY FLAWED. It should be addressed IMMEDIATELY before anything else, such as patches, or future expansions. The next best game is coming someday and some will move on when it does if there is no reason to compete here, but I had hoped to play a single player game with a posting competition spirit. That spirit is dead.

I mean, you are putting out all these patches and adding content, but the scoring/ranking is still seriously messed up.

Metaverse is one big joke. :notsure:

Suggest(You need rules in ANY competition/ranking):
1. Ranking for every different galaxy size played.
2. Cap points given for pop size at each of these levels, maybe even cap score at each planet size, period.
3. Limit submissions per wk, maybe one galaxy size per wk.
4. the square root thing of number of games played is bizarre; get rid of it; rank top 3 games(a total) in each game size for each player; that would eliminate the no lifers advantage of flooding the ranking, especially with gigantic crippling games one day right after the next(which I think is impossible to do without exploitation of game somehow, just time wise it seems impossible with all the ingame tasks per turn)
5. Put the current Metaverse in a museum as the way it was, and start over with a firm set of rules/standards.
6. Finally, do it, change the BS Metaverse.

Great and fun game, but for me, the next best thing to come out will take me away if the Metaverse is not completely overhauled. ;)
2,479 views 84 replies
Reply #76 from Stardock Forums Top
I also think that metaverse score can never be good enough for everyone - i mean there is no ideal scoring system.

So, i suppose it will be good if number of medals will be increased to like 100. I will be happy with that.

~SDC~
Reply #77 from Stardock Forums Top
Scores by galaxy size would be interesting.
I agree that all sizes are quite different. In particular, I see three different sizes as far as strategies are concerned:
Tiny, small/medium/(large), (large)/huge/gigantic.
You can't use the same tactics on tiny and gigantic maps, because contact with other civs don't happen as early in both games.
I wonder whether the difficulty itself dhouldn't be afforded a separate category, or at least a filter:
You should be able to setup the scoring formula to filter games on one galaxy size or not, on one difficulty level or all of them.
Currently, difficulty doesn't scale correctly. You can be in the top ten only playing normal games. That's fine, but that makes the ladder useless for someone who plays crippling/maso.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #78 from Stardock Forums Top
The chief problem with sorting by galaxy sizes is that it's not just size that's a factor. A Gigantic-Scattered-Abundant map is also an entirely different game from a Gigantic-Tight-Rare game.

So it's not just 6 categories, it's 90 categories that provide different play factors. And if you wanted to see things separated by difficulty, it breaks down to over 500 different categories - what's the point of being ranked at all in such a system?
Reply #79 from Stardock Forums Top
How about some seperate tournament rankings for the competitors/achievers. Each with strict rules about map size, scatteredness and planet abundancy. And with a known scoring formula (winning fast should be very important). Hmm, it will probably be a CTRL-N fest.
Reply #80 from Stardock Forums Top
Blue Ocean:

I completely agree with that. Is it possible to get more points on Simple in Gigantic than Masochistic on Small? I mean, not including the old points totals. I'm not sure it is.
Reply #81 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, I can answer my own question. The top two players in my Empire play those two cases. One plays small maps on Masochistic, and other gigantic simple maps.

The Gigantic simple maps are generating more points than the small Masochistic.

You can add my voice to those that think that's wrong. I think you deserve more points for larger maps, but you also deserve more points for higher AIs too, and in extreme differences in difficulty of the AI, it should weigh more favourably to the difficulty, not size.

Although, I'm sure coming up with a scoring scheme is not easy. Hopefully Stardock will tweak it over time.
Reply #82 from Stardock Forums Top
I think now StarDock trying to change code in a way so game score will be calculated on a server and then sent to a player (so a game under any path sends to a metaverse score based on latest path algorythm). Also they need to make later recalculations (then they'll change scoring again) easier (and possible too). IMHO that's why they changing it for so long.

Tournaments is a good idea - just a save of the 1st turn and no (Ctrl-N's) - but if they officially don't support this, then almost noone will want to play. But really we need a somewhat different save - so game id must be generated after a loading, so everyone can send a score to a metaverse. Or just say enter a Name/Empire Name during first loading and game will treat different names in same game id as different games on the metaverse.

Also, there must be some prizes (medals?) for a several places in a tournament, and in game listings it must be written as a 'tournament XXX game', not just medium galaxy etc.

I think it will be better than metaverse.

~SDC~
Reply #83 from Stardock Forums Top
"The Gigantic simple maps are generating more points than the small Masochistic.

You can add my voice to those that think that's wrong. I think you deserve more points for larger maps, but you also deserve more points for higher AIs too, and in extreme differences in difficulty of the AI, it should weigh more favourably to the difficulty, not size."

Hear, hear!
Reply #84 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the metaverse in its current state is somewhat of a joke, because anyone that has posted scores on the latest release patch is going to find themselves at a huge disadvantage to those who sent in scores early. Honestly, if they're going to change how points are scored for Metaverse, they need to recalculate scores that were already posted so that everyone is on the same level as it were

So for example, in my situation, if you're only going to give me 2000 points for a cripling win while I got several scores that are much higher, but at lower difficulty for the same map, then those need to be adjusted to be in line with the most recent score. The same thing should go for everyone. That way people won't feel so miffed.

Secondly, how in the world does a Beyond Human win on crippling give me just *barely* 100 points more than a Beyond Human win on painful? That is the second reason why the scoring is a bit of a joke in my opinion.

One of the big points in an interview I saw on Galactic Civilizations was that metaverse was there in lieu of multiplayer and that players would in a sense compete against other players. Gamespot had that interview...here's a quote:

"One of the more interesting innovations, though, is going to be in the metaverse. Galactic Civilizations is a single-player game in itself. But users who play on Stardock.net will be playing as part of the metaverse. Think of it as all the players who play the game combined into a single galaxy (or universe) where their victories, defeats, and campaigns are recorded. From that, we put together a map of the galaxy in which individuals or empires are mapped in real time. Additionally, players can opt to allow us to record their games in the metaverse itself. The AI can then automatically download the strategies used by the top-ranked players and incorporate it. As any game AI developer can tell you, sometimes the difference between a challenging computer player and a lame one is something simple, like what technology path they take or what order they build certain things and at what times they do so. These are things that the AI can download and thus simulate different players. "

Thus far I dont see the AI automatically downloading any kind of AI. I certainly dont see individual players occupying empire space, and it certainly isn't being updated in real time. This comes across to me as somewhat disingenuous as this was supposed to be one of the selling points behind this game in the first place.

SeanB