The Difficulty with Scoring "Kills" and "Sinks"

• two pirates score hits on the same enemy... easy to flag... whomever did the most damage or scored the final blow
• Low health but finished off by... well... finishing off a pirate is a kill... so.. ding
• Score a hit on a pirate but a skellie finishes them.. it's really not hard to track if the player died by environmental issues such as skeleton mobs... or even the environment itself. If it's not something that deserves to be counted the software can easily ignore if it's a legitimate death by player or otherwise. But.. honestly, if a player dies within a window of PvP assault.. it really would be appropriate to count it as a PvP kill, otherwise the dying player can antagonize the credit by suicide.
• Pirate dies by powder keg? In most games deaths like that count as suicide. But there is nothing to prevent it coming down to tracking the fired shot/sword swing and accounting for it as a death/kill earned properly.

Ships:

If we're discussing players getting proper account for sinking ships... it doesn't matter the erroneous factors, in fact those very factors are part of the pvp play as I've sank many ships by using their inability to properly avoid ground as a deciding factor. And I've even fought during skull forts and let the tower crews of skeletons help if not out right sink the enemy ships.. it's a tactic. If proper accounting need be made for purposes of 'claiming' the kill... that's as simple as tracking the last cannonball fired or powder barrel used finally 'most damage given by' is also a valuable means to track this concern fairly.

• Two or more ships? Same deal... most damage provided in the fight claims the credit.

• If a powder keg.. most damage award goes too......

• Does credit count after a time delay? Sure, why not... As in most games tracking would likely end once a group leaves the server... also many games do have a cooldown on tracking damage. In SoT that window may be somewhat larger than some games.. perhaps 2 minutes after an engagement. But overall... none of what your complaining about hasn't been dealt with in hundred of other PvP games.

Literally all your comments can be tracked with a simple series of rules. Sure, the rules themselves may need to be hashed out.. but it's hardly a technical issue that can't be overcome.

Like I've already said... hundreds of PvP games answer these questions and track accordingly. Granted, any given set of rules may be quibbled over or require a certain hashing out to accommodate whatever logic the devs might have on the topic.

And I'll give credit in saying that... considering how big the explosion was that nearly destroyed the play ability of the game when the act of sharing inventory was implemented... there is always room for worry over the ability to code new things into the game....

Your still posting questions and worries that have been solved in hundreds of games before... and aren't exactly technically difficult to apply here.

@blooddoll22

I've even fought during skull forts and let the tower crews of skeletons help if not out right sink the enemy ships.. it's a tactic.

So, do you earn the credit for sinking another ship when the skellies, that you deliberately left alive in the cannon towers, do the job for you?

Two or more ships? Same deal... most damage provided in the fight claims the credit

So Sloop 1 puts 40 holes in a Galleon, over a prolonged battle. The Galleon crew repairs every hole, and sinks Sloop 1, just as Sloop 2 joins in the attack on the Galleon. Sloop 2 scores just 3 hits, but the Galleon has run out of planks, and sinks. Which sloop did the most damage?

Pirate dies by powder keg? ... there is nothing to prevent it coming down to tracking the fired shot/sword swing and accounting for it as a death/kill earned properly.

What if multiple powder kegs explode in a chain reaction? Do you track who triggered the initial explosion?

@surveyorpete there is literally no reason to quibble over what the rules might be.

Unfortunately the position your taking is that the proverbial wall is unassailable. This isn't true. The 'rules' for tracking credit themselves require only the devs to decide upon (with or without our opinions) said rules.

Sadly, you seem to take the position that the implementation is impossible....

It's not.

I have answers to your questions, you might not agree with them, but they are fair answers.

For example the first thought experiment you pose is simple to me: If you didn't do any damage... you don't get credit. But if you do inflict damage, then yes it counts.

Second question is also easily remarked upon. The first sloop that hit 40 times would get the credit, unless some timer accounting for the last hit expired (say 2 minutes later as above) at which case... it'd go to the second sloop.

Powder keg damage is powder keg damage. If 4389574893 kegs blow up in your face ... there will be ONE keg that actually finished you off or did the most damage... that one would get the credit... since kegs are not players...it'd go to whomever set that keg off... and if it were a chain the credit for the boom can be traced back to the primary sword swing. If someone interrupted the chain and perhaps set off a later keg farther up the 'chain' well... that would be the one getting the credit.

Credit for a kill is merely a variable. This variable would trigger based on specific criteria. Even if 2 gun shots are fired off simultaneously at the same distance and interact with a characters hit box at the same time... the variable will flag in favor of one versus another. ONE of those two shots will be the one responsible for the players death... therein lies the credit.

@blooddoll22 said in The Difficulty with Scoring "Kills" and "Sinks":

• two pirates score hits on the same enemy... easy to flag... whomever did the most damage or scored the final blow
• Low health but finished off by... well... finishing off a pirate is a kill... so.. ding
• Score a hit on a pirate but a skellie finishes them.. it's really not hard to track if the player died by environmental issues such as skeleton mobs... or even the environment itself. If it's not something that deserves to be counted the software can easily ignore if it's a legitimate death by player or otherwise. But.. honestly, if a player dies within a window of PvP assault.. it really would be appropriate to count it as a PvP kill, otherwise the dying player can antagonize the credit by suicide.
• Pirate dies by powder keg? In most games deaths like that count as suicide. But there is nothing to prevent it coming down to tracking the fired shot/sword swing and accounting for it as a death/kill earned properly.

---

Ships:

If we're discussing players getting proper account for sinking ships... it doesn't matter the erroneous factors, in fact those very factors are part of the pvp play as I've sank many ships by using their inability to properly avoid ground as a deciding factor. And I've even fought during skull forts and let the tower crews of skeletons help if not out right sink the enemy ships.. it's a tactic. If proper accounting need be made for purposes of 'claiming' the kill... that's as simple as tracking the last cannonball fired or powder barrel used finally 'most damage given by' is also a valuable means to track this concern fairly.

• Two or more ships? Same deal... most damage provided in the fight claims the credit.

• If a powder keg.. most damage award goes too......

• Does credit count after a time delay? Sure, why not... As in most games tracking would likely end once a group leaves the server... also many games do have a cooldown on tracking damage. In SoT that window may be somewhat larger than some games.. perhaps 2 minutes after an engagement. But overall... none of what your complaining about hasn't been dealt with in hundred of other PvP games.

Literally all your comments can be tracked with a simple series of rules. Sure, the rules themselves may need to be hashed out.. but it's hardly a technical issue that can't be overcome.

Like I've already said... hundreds of PvP games answer these questions and track accordingly. Granted, any given set of rules may be quibbled over or require a certain hashing out to accommodate whatever logic the devs might have on the topic.

And I'll give credit in saying that... considering how big the explosion was that nearly destroyed the play ability of the game when the act of sharing inventory was implemented... there is always room for worry over the ability to code new things into the game....

Your still posting questions and worries that have been solved in hundreds of games before... and aren't exactly technically difficult to apply here.

ROFL. Its so easy we just need rules. We just have to hash out those rules.

Thats the point of this thread. The details. Those are where most good ideas die when a simple rule system can be easily abused or ends up insufficient. And not to mention this is more benign stuff, the better question is will these sort of systems actually solve anything and is it safe to introduce without unwanted side effects in the core game loop.