The fallacy of the scoreboard

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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Yeah man, like, I find it pretty hard to contexualise the numbers based on the half an hour of gameplay I just directly experienced with the team those stats are about, to figure out whether they were working with me or being really inconsiderate. Especially the simple numbers. Those are the hardest to understand.

It’s either that scoreboards are bad, or it’s the massive amount of head trauma I took when that horse kicked me in the head a month back.

Anyway, I’m probably gonna refund the game now that the scoreboard is coming back, because when the simple numbers show up it gives my brain the bad feelings. I also hate the way that the scoreboard will cause people to focus on killing loads of stuff in this game and feeling good about it. It’s going to completely change the dynamic. It really takes the focus away from all the parts where you’re not killing stuff.

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It’s really hard not to get frustrated with you either my man. If the scoreboard compells a person to play in a way where they only care about the score in the end, it does not matter if YOU know how the last 30 minutes of gameplay actually went. If a guy only cares about their post game numbers it does not matter what happened in the gameplay, you are talking as if the score chaser cares about YOUR impression of the game, as long as they have the score to show how amazing they are. What is it that incredibly hard for you to understand with a concept of some random guy not caring what you think about the run as long as the post game screen tells them that you are wrong.

Seriously, give me some rope here man, it’s not like I am saying something completely outlandish that makes no sense when a bunch of random people come together in a match and the metric of their success is counted in simple numbers and not how well you think the run went. It almost feel like you think that the randoms care about your opinion compared to the hard evidence the game gives out after the game, so the hard evidence will be what a lot of people go for even if it hampers the cooperation part of the game.

The scoreboard is coming to the game, confirmed by Fatshark so you can calm down, you are getting what you want, it does not mean that everyone has to agree with you and that is life. You’re getting your scoreboard, I hope it will be better than pure numbers but in any case it won’t ruin the game. Have a good day sir.

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I hope the kick wasn’t that harsh because you sound a bit confused, remember to have your head checked for no internal damage because it could get worse over time. Anyway, get well soon mate and have fun at launch!

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Are you joking with this?

If you’re scared of people saying mean things because you did worse than everybody else in the lobby, just mute people, I don’t understand why everybody is afraid of a SCOREBOARD.

But that’s just it, it’s not the scoreboard they’re going after, it’s hypothetical bullies that only exist in their minds or in the past.

If you’re worried about looking bad on the board you can do better, or I guess mute your teammates before they can call you trash like some kind of timid little mouse person, but scoreboards are nice and plenty of players like to see how they performed.

Mid players can use the scoreboard to do better, but poor-performance head-in-the-sand players with no interest in personal improvement and several anti-social neuroticisms shouldn’t be able to cheat others out of the board.

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Welcome to the forum, almost everyone in a favor of a scoreboard already said that toxic players exist with or without the scoreboard, but most sensible responses have largely been ignored.

It’s a cooperative game and some of us don’t appreciate competitive players using DPS-only scoring to justify hogging ammo and kills instead of actually helping the team.

I don’t mind a total score that weighs cooperative actions higher than competitive actions. Sorry, getting kills doesn’t make you a good player.

I think almost everyone now has mentioned that toxic people will still exist with or without a scoreboard, but the real concern mentioned by OP is whether the scoreboard will or even can accurately reflect a player’s performance.

See my post here for links to actual studies that show competitive scoring can degrade cooperation and encourage unethical behavior, i.e. toxic behavior.

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But what about post-game stats? I can live without an in-game scoreboard, if I have post-game stats

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I missed the fact there’s a third topic about the scoreboard. Very cool.

I’m all for post-game stats. I like to see the whole entire team’s post-game stats too. No need to highlight or score anything. If it’s actually a good measure of overall performance and not just DPS, it’s nice too see a score.

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238

At least I’m not the only one who is frustrated with this nonsense.
Somebody said this early in the discussion after I joined and by now I have to agree.
This whole removing the scoreboard nonsense is some kind SJW bull.
You know, SJWs the bullies who claim to be anti-bullies.
Kinda like antifa is claiming to be anti-fascist.

I always mostly joined random games in vermintide.
The way the anti-scoreboard people describe how the perfect game should be is how vermintide 2 has always been for me.
There were no problems with cooperation.
Because it’s very important if you’re playing cataclysm twitch and deeds and whatnot.
Occasionally there might have been somebody who played really selfish.
But very rarely.

I think the anti-scoreboard people are actually the toxic ones who shid talk in the chat because they think they know better and then they can’t back it up with a good score.
So, they look stupid.
But to get a negative spin on this they call the actual good players “green circle chasers”.
That’s increasingly the case in society where engagement is confused with the abuse of power or some kind of negative trait.
That’s why everyone gets a trophy now and we don’t count the goals.
Just like we don’t want a scoreboard anymore.

And if you don’t want a scoreboard and you didn’t regularly play cataclysm twitch and stuff like that then, sorry, you just don’t know what you’re talking about.
Of course the scoreboard is less useful on champion.
The higher the difficulty the more valuable the scoreboard.
Because the higher the difficulty the bigger the differences in performance.

And if you play the game long enough the scoreboard becomes the endgame if you believe it or not.
I’m pretty sure most people who play the hard shid will agree.

You’re describing a state of community I have never seen in vermintide.
But then again maybe I have never played with you guys.

:expressionless:

I would be perfectly fine with the scoreboard only being implemented for the highest 2 difficulties if this makes any difference to the anti-scoreboards.

But there has to be something you can focus on if you have all your gear.
What are you gonna focus on then?
Where is the longevity of the game coming from?
Evey new map they release will be old at some point.

I reached level 30 with my ogryn and have all orange gear at this point.
And it’s already starting to become boring.
Like what am I gonna do now?
Just play one mission after the other, I guess.
Or make a new character.
What if I have all 4 on level 30 with orange gear?
What am I gonna focus on to get any kind of sense of progression?

I can’t even really test different weapons apart from the meat grinder.
Playing a few games with every ranged weapon and comparing the average damage would be an idea.
Nope, can’t do it.

Well I could try to get better gear than what I have, that I then also can’t benchmark in a scoreboard.

I’m gonna play an entirely different game, I guess.
That’s how it’s gonna be for many people.

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239

personally im a marxist liberal and im coming for your guns!

how many times in this thread have we gone around , i explain how and why somethings bad , you put your fingers in your ears and refuse to listen, then you call it nonsense but rather than actual explain why with anything resembling logic or reason you have to resort to othering and ad hom attacks.

why do you think that is?

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Well, there you go.
We have something in common after all.
Sadly, this isn’t reddit where opposing opinions vanish into the ether.

Because this whole discussion is a clown circus.
We are talking about a table of numbers that show basic raw information about how you did.
That’s all. It’s not a controversial thing.
It’s perfectly reasonable to ask for.

I didn’t start imagining some deeper connections with this.
At the beginning I came to the forum to simply ask for a scoreboard because I like it.
But I had to find out that I’m asking for a toxic thing and I’m a “green circle chaser” and all that nonsense.

I’m supposed to just shut up and listen, right?
Because you’re gonna explain to me what’s going on, right?
Nope. Not happening. Not anymore.
I don’t give a shid, as I said before.

And apart from that I’ve read the arguments and I don’t agree with them.
It doesn’t change when I read the arguments for the 200th time.
I still don’t agree with them.

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241

no your supposed to explain your side not just hurl insults and refuse to listen to anyone who says something you dont like. its a forum

That Fat SHark with no input from us decided to remove because …

but why dont you agree with them? how am i wrong?

im gonna be very rude here and put words in your mouth in the hope of finding the bottom of this.
I am right. the scoreboard promotes competitive, its variance is too high to be productive , and the results are counter ie they go down as you get better.
Your right in that you just find it fun, its the sound of thousands of people calling your name. its validation of a job well done.

is the gain worth the cost? ill asume you think it is and myself well i think that reward is useful , just there has to be better ways to apply it.

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That’s debatable but it’s the core of your argument.

That might be true but it’s not a reason to remove it.

We did explain things.

How many headshots do I make with this weapon?
How much damage does that weapon on a boss in a full team of good players?
How much boss damage does every class do on average? Who do I protect so they can focus the boss?
How much damage do I do with this weapon compared to other weapons on average?
How many elites do I kill with this weapon or that weapon?
How much damage did I take? How much do others take?
How many heals does everyone use? Do I use too many?
How much friendly fire did I do? How much the others?
How many specials did I kill? How many the others?
Did someone do an outstanding job with a certain class?
Who killed the most horde enemies and kept them away from other people during boss perhaps?
How many enemies did I stagger or throw to the ground? That would be a new one I guess.
Did someone do loads of damage but has a low kill score? Speaking of bleeding, fire and stuff.
Who spent the most time outside of cohesion? That would be new as well.

And with all those questions there’s always the secondary question:
Do I have to improve in that field?
Am I worse than the average other player using that class?
Maybe I have to switch talents.

All good and valid questions that a scoreboard could answer.
That means more engagement from players because they have information on what to improve in their gameplay or try different things.
The meat grinder is not good enough for that.
We want to analyze our performance in a real game.

And your counter argument is “to just pay attention during the game”.

Of course the values reflect a certain game that was played and they’re not perfectly reliable stats.
Nobody claims they are but that’s no reason to remove it.
And it’s not like I create excel sheets or something but if you keep certain numbers in mind you see an overall pattern that tells you you’re good in that particular field or not.
If I always kill the least elites I’ll try a different weapon because that means someone else has to kill more of them and I’m not doing my part adequately.
On the flipside if I always kill the most elites I know I’m doing my part and others have to kill less of them.

Someone is always gonna be the one with the most kills. That’s just how it is.

I would even like to see boss damage live in the game where the empty part of the boss health bar has different colors for the different players so you can immediately react and protect the person doing the most damage.
Because if the boss is dead faster you can revive everyone else not doing the damage that may have been knocked down because nobody helped them.
But at least you’re alive.

That’s #1 lesson I learned in vermintide 2.
The best way to ensure success is to kill everything as fast as possible.
You have to kill them anyway.
An ironbreaker is nice and all but an additional damage dealer is just as good.
Depending on the players skill of course.

If you played cataclysm twitch and dealt with 4 bosses you know what I mean.

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I mean… The Psykhanium exists. So if you want to test stuff just take it there? There’s no outside variables messing with you in there so if you want the most stable environment you can find, I can’t think of a better one. Better yet, you can even adjust difficulty of enemies in there so you can figure stuff out. A scoreboard doesn’t really mean much in the long term. If you take 2 veterans for example with the exact same loadouts, builds becomes ultimately irrelevant as someone above me stated that circumstance of the run can have a major impact on your performance. Player skill also contributes to this fact. You could have a VT2 Legend/Cata player and then a casual Veteran/Champion player with the same builds but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who on average would perform better. But then again, s*** happens and this VT2 vet gets launched off the map by an unfortunate barrel and so the casual player ends the game with a higher kill score.
Tldr: Use the Psykhanium for a controlled environment.

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Well, but that is the whole issue in my eyes.
It’s too encapsulated.
I don’t want to know how I perform in a seperated sandbox where enemies don’t move.
Literally the only thing of value in the meat grinder is you can check how your weapon performs against various armoured enemies or which enemies you can one-shot with your skill.

Yes, that’s exactly right.
I want to see my scores in an actual game with all it’s circumstances that make the score interesting.
Because after a while you get a sense for an average value, which is either good or bad.
Some people can get used to the weapon some people can’t.
But with the scoreboard they see that maybe they should try a different one.
And stupid shid will most likely always happen here and there. So, what?

PS:
And now that I’ve written an extensively long text, with a whole bunch of arguments and examples, that everyone can ignore again or give the same counter arguments of variance and unreliability and how the scoreboard is useless, we can go back to name-calling, insults and ad hominem.

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245

Almost every pro-scoreboard guy rolls into this discussion and immediately gets immediately irate and claims the people who want to take away scoreboards are using ad hominem then uses ad hominem constantly as they actively taunt everyone who doesn’t want a scoreboard. It’s a game man, relax, I’m sure we all “look stupid” and your scores are always higher than mine. If your self-esteem is good now, perhaps we can have a respectful discussion.

While I don’t appreciate all the attitude over a simple game mechanic, I think in your case we do want the same thing: a useful metric that provides feedback on performance, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. There are a few key differences I’ve already gone over that I think we might be able to agree would make a better scoreboard.

Yes, even on Cata, Twitch Cata, or Twitch Deeds in VT2, I’ve still run into players who selfishly seek to grab kills and supplies at the expense of the team and use the score to justify themselves; especially when we lose. If you never have issues with players like this, I envy you but I also question if it’s not you that’s doing that stuff and then saying it never happens. Luckily, now I’ve got a group of friends that play VT2 and I don’t have to deal with random players who struggle not to play selfishly.

Well, the VT2 scoreboard definitely didn’t do a good job of that. A post-game stats page could for the team without any highlights or scoring gives you feedback.

Rather than highlights, I’d like a scoring system that places emphasis on cooperation.

First,
I want a see a lot more metrics than kills, damage, saves, and revives. Things like stagger, how many times downed, the value team buffs (in terms of how much extra damage the team did to enemies or had mitigated due to my buffs), damage avoided by dodging/blocking, etc.

Second,
no highlighting who got the most of anything since, instead for competitive purposes, it is better to use a ‘total score’ that weighs cooperative actions more highly, that way competitive players seeking a higher score prioritize team play.

Here are some measurable cooperative actions that could factor into the ‘total score’: tagging ammo when a teammate is low, tagging specials, using the ammo/healing crates to good effect by tracking the amount of ammo and healing used by the team, reviving/saving team members, staying in coherency while many enemies are present.

Anti-cooperative things that can be a negative for ‘total score’: going down, taking health damage, taking ammo / using health station when a nearby ally is low and you’re close to full, leaving coherency for a long time while far ahead of the entire team.

It’s not perfect but I think tracking more stats is better. Scoring has to penalize people who abuse resources, get downed a lot, run ahead, and scoring has to reward players who help the team.

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If a guy only cares about their post game numbers it does not matter what happened in the gameplay

Nobody thinks this way.

a bunch of random people come together in a match and the metric of their success is counted in simple numbers and not how well you think the run went

Nobody thinks this way.

I’m done with you.

247

It must be a powerful feeling to speak for everyone. The Ordo Hereticus would like to have a word with you.

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Alright, so, it’s been a few hours now.
But I guess people will understand now why I don’t write arguments anymore.
Nobody specificly adressed anything I’ve written that you would need a scoreboard for.

Back to the circus, boys.
Unfortunately we only have sad clowns, otherwise it would at least be laugh.

What do you mean by total score?
I’m all for adding more things to the scoreboard but I don’t want it to just be a singular number.
And I want to see the differences between players.

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Amazing, earned a like. If people after this still don’t get why the toxicity argument is dumb, they are really just insecure about their own skill period.

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At the end of a match, a full range of stats shows each player’s performance, but instead of just having DPS circles, there’s also a total score that uses weighted values for each measurable part of a player’s performance.

This way you have a competitive value to look at and feedback on your performance vs. that of the team. And when I say stats on each individual and each performance factor, I mean a lot more than the VT2 scoreboard shows.