Post-match Award Screen addition

Hey Everyone,

                I’m giving serious consideration into making an add-on for TF2. This mod won’t change any gameplay mechanics or core elements of the game. Instead, this mod will simply add an Award Screen that will display at the conclusion of every match or campaign. This screen will highlight the players who performed exceptionally well during the last few rounds and give awards based on their accomplishments. Although I am a big fan of the current scoring system, (pitting the player against their best past performance) I feel it would be nice if the player could compare themselves with their teammates and opponents. Now I don’t want to make TF2 into Counter Strike by only rewarding kills. Most of the Awards will be based on how and how much a player contributed to the team.

                I already have a little modding experience. I have made add-ons for WoW, added a faction to C&C Generals, and did a balance revamp of Red Alert 2. However, I have never done anything with Source (Half-Life 2 Engine) and could use all the help I can get.

                Right now, this addition is still in the design phase and I would like as much input from the community as possible before finalizing the concept. I would like to know what awards you want included in this mod. Things that you would like to know about your personal performance and the performance of your teammates that would help you perform better during upcoming matchs. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Help me make this mod something nearly any player would want.

Award Screen Overview:

                After every match or campaign is over, an Award Screen appears in place of the “Top Three Players” box. The Award Screen will be a large, semi-transparent, rounded trapezoid filled with the winning team’s color (or a neutral gray in the case of a draw) that occupies all but the edges of the screen. Centered at the top of the award screen, the name of the victorious team will be displayed in large stylized text.  The main body of the Award Screen will be populated by a series of awards and honors given to individual players that performed well that round. More detail below.

Immediately below the winning team name, a horizontal bar (part red, part blue) will stretch across the length of Award Screen. At each end of the bar will sit the team icons (bomb and wrench). The length of each portion of the bar will reflect the average number of points scored by the players on that team during that round. For example, if the players on team BLU had scored more points (total divided by the number of players on the team) than team RED, the blue portion of the bar will be longer then the red portion (even if team RED won the match). The number of players on each team at the end of the round will nest next to the team’s icon.

The player can close the Award Screen and return to the “post game” by pressing ESC or can switch to the “Match Statistics Screen” by pressing TAB.  [I’m thinking about having a second screen that displays the player’s personal stats. More on that later]

Objectives:

-          The file size is as small as possible. I don’t see this addition being more than 3 MBs. This insures a client’s fast download speed if a server shares the mod.

-          The addition can be installed via a simple installation package. The user need simply double-click the .exe file and the mod will extract to the appropriate folder and make necessary backups. The mod can also be shared over a server with the clients.

-          The features in this mod can be turned on/off in the option menu.

-          The mod can be fully uninstalled and all TF2 files will be returned to normal.

-          The player can play using this mod against players who do not have the mod installed/enabled.

-          The mod stays up-to-date with the latest TF2 patches.

-          The mod will not be considered unfair or cheating. It will in no way give a player a gameplay advantage over players without the mod. It will simply assist in evaluating player and team performance following a match and give i

it seems to me like quite a few of these concept points of you require server support. The server would have to have this mod running and would share the data with clients on endmatch. Many points should be possible on the client side, but certainly not all of them. I imagine the server doesn't even send you any info on what is going on outside of LOS or some defined range from the players location. (Probably based on BSP calculations etc.) If this is not the case; Valve has done a horribly bad job and the game requires WAY more bandwidth and computing power to run than whatsoever necessary. And I don't see the Valve guys as being that stupid. So recording mapwide stats on the client side would be impossible. Also stuff like damage done etc would be hidden to any client, only the server would know this. I bet if the server code is released or opened up a bit this mod would be quite doable, but like i said, it would be required to run on the server to be accessible. Some of the data used in your points already exists in the current endgame stats and would probably be pretty easy to use to dreive more complex awards or whtever you wish. But any awards using data not derived from the endgame statistics or midgame notices (upper right cap/kill/teamswitches etc) would require server modding.

I hope this helps you a bit on at least the scope of the mod and maybe how to implement some of your stuff I'm not a great coder but i do know how shiz works behind the scenes and if i can be of any further assistance, don't hesitate to ask! :-]  Good luck with your addon!

Why Not go ahead and add all *insert class name here* Hunter.

Plus, you would have to save the page so that players have time to look at all of these achievements on their own time. I really like the idea, and I hope Valve has their own response to this.

Arve, I have come to realize this dilemma. As you stated, it is impossible to record and track all the actions of the every player. This information is completely hidden client-side. I have racked my brain as to workarounds, but there seems to be none. As I see it I have three options.

A)Trim down the design DRASTICALLY. This means removing all awards that couldn’t be recorded client-side. If I were to do this, the Award Screen would be bare-boned. Nothing but kills, deaths, and captures could be recorded.

B)Make all the awards Team Specific. It seems a lot of the information I need is only available for the client’s team. The Best of Class, Off/Def/Support awards, and awards based on kills and points would still be doable. However, all the awards would go to the players on the same team as the client.

C)As you suggested. Design it specifically for a Server. All (or most) of the awards could stay, but that would mean all clients would be required to download the mod to play on that server. I would also have to wait for the release of the SDK.

TheRileyDuo, A save feature is a really good idea. I was thinking the player could just press F5 to take a screenshot of the screens he/she liked. But I agree that it would be nice if the player could thumb through all their achievements. Maybe I'll have each screen automatically save itself to a folder.

It would be fun to have an Engineer Hunter, Medic Hunter, etc award too. But nobody would care about who killed the most scouts (they drop like flies anyways). It may be too space consuming as that adds 8 more character portraits paired with the winners' names. Perhaps adding a second screen worth of awards isn't a bad idea.

it wouldn't necessarily mean ppl have to have the addon to play on the server (im not 100% sure here but)

1: if possible, have server push the addon when connecting like new custom maps etc are handled
2: with mod installed; send an additional message to the server on connect; stating that the client has the addon. Upon end-match, the server could send this additional stat data to the client he knows has the addon.

Problem with this is it won't be as widespread as you might have hoped, since server admins has to install it manually, and even possibly clients as well (if push isn't allowed)

Great idea man, really nice way of showing who did what each round rather than just a score which some classes aren't really suited to getting compared to others.

Anyways list of things that should be removed imo:
Bull's Eye  -  accuracy in TF2 is completely irrelevant to gameplay, even if its balanced per gun
Vengeful  -  useless and takes up space, could possibly be embarrassing to the player who gets it, but mostly it's just pointless
Spy Hunter  -  unfair award since stupid spys can tend to suicide over and over again, or smart spies suicide in the name of capturing intel
Identity Crisis  -  also seems pointless, and encourages players just play classes they suck at just for an award
Betrayer  -  friendly fire has been completely removed except maybe from some server mods, again pointless
AFK  -  your telling people that a game is more important than real life, good job

Also add in:
Domination  -  A fun award for prestige , and everyone gets to know how much ass you kicked, just put in the number on dominations and not specific names
Most Damage  -  This could easily go to heavy,pyro,demoman,soldier,or engineer, no need to take it out
Most Healing  -  Very good award, but I recommend making a minimum amount of healing before it can be recorded

I also suggest not adding "Class" Hunters,too much space and stupid idea, as I said in the Spy Hunter one. Also this would be better off as a server side mod, leave it as that,you could make an optional client side one of you wanted to but this would just work better as a server side mod; less buggy and everyone can then see it, making it a bit more balanced and making everyone love the server it is on.

Oh, and don't forget the demoman's bottle chug with a broken bottle! Man thats epic.

Actually i just had an idea:

In my opinion this mod has to be done serverside. There's no question about it. It isn't possible client side. However, to start things off you should get all the recording routines down, and focus on that. For the first iteration, have the server send the stats through console messages at end-game. (not to the players console, but as "server messages". The chat window says  Console: <whatever text>

That way you wouldn't have to worry about client installs for now. Then you could probably add a client  thing later which picked up those messages and displayed them in the HUD.