Showing XP on ScoreBoard

I think showing XP on the scoreboard would be very interesting. Although I also have my concerns about it encouraging people to act competitive instead of working together, I'm for it.

One thing that I'd more like to see though is a log file that looks at XPPH for players, possibly breaking it down by map. I think this would be an invaluable tool in looking at how players are gaining experience and a breakdown by map to show which maps are netting more experience for players.

As for class icons - I think showing up in the radar may be nice. On Monster Mash each class is displayed with an icon over the player's head. I don't check the radar much myself, but I can see how that would be useful for people.

So I ran a dedicated server with 2 clients. Looks good. Both clients could see the classes and xp of all the players.

On a ghost, it coped fine.

However, when a player dies, because I am using an inventory object to hold the values, the inventory object gets destroyed. Which means that
a) when you are dead you cannot see the xp scores. Which is when you have the time to read them.
b) when you rejoin, your display of the counts starts from zero again, because you re-assess what each player's starting xp is.

So I will try re-coding using a technique similar to denial to preserve the values over death. Shouldn't be too much of a problem.

BotFodder. If you do get around to modifying the radar, one nice feature to add would be for monsters out of range. Instead of not drawing them, you could draw them at the rim of the radar, so at least you know which way to go for the last monster.

Understanding that I just got a house and have barely enough time these days to play two maps, and that it's been so long that I'm not sure how CVS access is done now ...

Yeah, I think I can look into that ... don't expect it like "soon", but yeah.

..... and is there any reason why pets have bigger dots than either players or monsters?

... and I'll see if I can fix this "Sentinels showing on scoreboard" bug while I am in the scoreboard code.

Ok, so the current state on my test server:

XP is replicated from the server to the client, and displayed on the scoreboard as an extra column.

I am replicating the player class back, and on the scoreboard I am displaying the xp in a color according to the class. So WM Red, AM Green, Medic Blue, Eng Yellow.Perhaps it looks a bit too colorful?

I have adjusted the scoreboard so that sentinels do not get displayed

On a temporary basis, until BotFodder does it properly, I have modified the radar slightly.
Players are still blue, but medics have a slightly larger dot.
Pets are green (yours) or slightly-blue green (others), but are no longer large dots.
Monsters now go from yellow to red depending on relative health, rather than green to red, since green was also used for pets.
I also put the change in so that out of range objects are shown at the edge of the radar, so you know which way to go for the last monster.

Only "bug" I know of at the moment is that whilst you are dead, you can see the xp as it was when you died, but it does not get updated. When you rejoin, it will then jump to the numbers it should be. This is because when you die, the item I am using for replicating gets deleted.

So, does this sound about right, and is there anything that needs doing while I am in this code? Once we are happy, I will put it in cvs ready for the next build.

Szlat wrote:

..... and is there any reason why pets have bigger dots than either players or monsters?

Um. Not my doing and I'd consider changing that when I get in there.

greg11 wrote:

As far as the topic goes: Would it be handy to have a exp points per hour also (like PPH but XPH)

It is possible, but I think the screen is probably cluttered enough. I think we need the xp earnt, and while the xpph might be nice, I think it may be one step too far.

I'm interested in seeing a Screenshot if you could but sounds like its really going well.

About the dead issue, I dont think that would be too much of an issue as the value can give an approx value and wont be off by "that' much. Since it fixes it self at the start of each wave the only issue would be wave 16 but at most, it'll be off by maybe 100 if your dead if you got a ton of kills just before you died then another 70 for the map win.

For it being to colorful, i dont think it will be since the values should only ever get to be 4 digits.

Well done on working with it though.

BotFodder wrote:

Szlat wrote:

..... and is there any reason why pets have bigger dots than either players or monsters?

Um. Not my doing and I'd consider changing that when I get in there.

You know, after applying a little thought to this, I came to the following conclusions, based not on code review but memory, so take it as you will:

First, the RADAR code is in need of some clean up. This will become apparent as I go on.

Second, the RADAR code can show you clear examples of the weird things that happen when replication is slightly out of whack. The RADAR code colors all monsters, friendly or foe, the same way. Then there's another color/symbol overlaid for monsters that have a particular replicated object (a halo) attached to them (same symbol, but the color applied to it is based. The catch here is that if your client has two different positions for the monster and the halo (a symptom of replication being slightly out of whack), first you see the halo not over the monster's head, and you see the monster as a normal monster on RADAR, as well as the appropriate icon for the monster's relationship to you for the halo.

I think there might be a way to fix the RADAR portion of this issue, but I'm not sure ...

Third, now that I think of it, the larger size of icon for friendly monsters may be due to the desire to ensure that the original monster icon is covered by the halo icon, and to cover "minor" fluctuations in replication.

But these are more theories than fact at this time.

BotFodder wrote:

Third, now that I think of it, the larger size of icon for friendly monsters may be due to the desire to ensure that the original monster icon is covered by the halo icon, and to cover "minor" fluctuations in replication.

I think you are probably correct as to the reasoning. I'll see if there is a way I can get around having the dots so big.

Dracos wrote:

I'm interested in seeing a Screenshot if you could but sounds like its really going well.

How about this one.
I thought I'd add some little icons to show the class as well.

Resolution 1024x768
EDIT: Image is a bit blurred because I compressed it a lot. Real screen is nice and clear.

looks really cool, thanks szl

Szlat - I think you've done really good work - the colors on the XP only make it really tolerable, and the fact that it shows the score as well is very nice.

Now I know why I stopped coding here - your abilities always made mine seem pale by comparison.