Sense of Accomplishment

[Maverick]

May I propose a challenge... One I’m sure the Devs themselves found challenging as there are few examples in this genre to learn from.

There are many people with different kinds of motivations. If you were a Dev, how might you design PS2 to appeal to the masses sense of accomplishment?

Feel free to go to what ever detail you feel necessary.

My motive behind the question: I loved Planetside, but after spending countless hours playing, I slowly lost my ability to gain satisfaction from my victories in a never ending territory battle. I'm not exactly sure what might appeal to me and earn my subscription, but I am optimistic for PS2.

I'll start:

I think in my case a tangible reward that says "Look at me!<muscle Flex>" would be the best drive for me. I think WoW showed how affective this was. Not so easy in a FPS I realize since any feat of accomplishment you set will have a varying difficulty as it relies on the players to enforce so some conditions may have to be set.

THE FEAT OF ACCOMPLISHMENT:
--Each faction could have one or two bases that act as Capital battle fortresses. Capturing the battle fortress awards achievements and tangible rewards.
1. Fortress has not one command console but three.
1.1 All three command consoles must be captured.
1.2 Battle fortress command consoles must be held for two hours by opposing faction to claim its capture.
1.2.1 Home faction only need hold a captured battle fortress command console for thirty mins before it is returned to their control.

2. A captured Capital battle fortress is destroyed and another is not re-spawned for one 72 hour period in a new area adjacent to the sanctuary.

3. Fortress sports automated defense systems that take a moment to lock on but are devastating when target is acquired. This is to prevent small forces sneaking in while the fortress is undermanned. (controversial I agree, I’m open to better ideas)
3.1 Three separate security modules must be hacked to disable the automated systems.
3.1.1 Each Security module is protected by two light anti personnel turrets.
3.1.2 Each Security has an impassable shield that must be deactivated by deactivating small external power generators that are separate from the ones that power the rest of the fortress.

4. Those eligible to receive rewards upon successful capture of a Capital battle fortress:
4.1 Only those who have been online for the two hours prior to the capture of the fortress are awarded. Good standard raid time for many MMO's. Also discourages other factions hopping to the winning side at last minute to get achievement. Also discourages but not guarantee that players wont switch to a single faction and juggernaut empire their way to victory.
4.2 Realm Population difference between defending and capturing faction cannot exceed amount X. (Discourages Juggernaut Empire and low population back capping)
4.3 Population difference of fortress territory and surrounding territories between defending and capturing faction cannot exceed amount X. (Discourages Juggernaut Empire and low population back capping)


--THE REWARD:
1. Unlock a "You Win, The end" amazing video(S).
2. Awards the player achievements
3. Awards the company achievements
4. Awards Achievement points for purchase of
4.1 Achievement point buy's allow for purchase of new armor's, weapons, accessories for cosmetic flare and prestige (provides the "Look at me!<muscle Flex>) feel.
5. Unlock Ancient Tech (could be point buy based as well)

My thoughts on the idea: I tried to make it difficult for sake of making the achievement prestigious and yet the most exploit proof as I could think of. Tweaking needed? No doubt. Good idea? Ill let the masses decide.

And yes i'm a forum noob, please keep the hate to a minimum. looking for constructive thoughts.

Anyway, your turn...

[Bags]

Getting the kill, cap, or cont lock is all the sense of accomplishment I need. Merits and achievements are meaningless fluff that detract from a shooter, which should primarily be about shooting people. Not collecting every shiny.

[Surge72]

I like it. Seems like a well thought out idea on first read through.

I certainly agree that there needs to be a sense of accomplishment through the game. This is what keeps people playing many games, and while many people laugh at the thought of achievements, they have certainly proven themselves to be addictive (just look at Xbox Live and Steam achievements to see how effective they are at keeping people playing).

Planetside 2 could really do with something more than the occasional cont. lock (which only sticks around for a fleeting moment before disappearing again without any record of such accomplishment) and some achievements hidden away in the UI that no one else can see.

Thinking about it, I suppose the idea of quests in a conventional MMORPG act as achievements of sorts, tracking progress and providing a sense of accomplishment for the player. While I really do not think quests belong in Planetside, I do believe that some system needs to be put in place to provide a similar sense of progression of ones character which will help identify and track the achievements that someone may experience throughout their Planetside career.

[Malorn]

I need that sense of accomplishment that gives me more power, especially the kind that comes over time without me actually doing anything at all other than playing the game.

Oh wait, no, I don't want any of that.

[Valdae]

Ideas about how to give players a better sense of accomplishment have been about for ages. Years ago (and I do mean yeeeaaarrrsss), SoE were touting the idea of making it possible to invade Sanctuaries. Eventually they ended up with capital bases, and considered implementing more 'siege' based tactics like having to use ANT's to drain its shields etc.

It was dropped I guess, because at the end of the day players get satisfaction from fighting - and winning - a big battle. That comes foremost in front of capturing a base, a tower, or even a continent.

[opticalshadow]

captureing a bases and deflecting puny enimies is all the merit i need to keep my hold. its worked for 8 years it will work for more.

the resources land is worth will be the ingame reward for the light hearts that need something more tangible then a continent as a reward...

[MasterChief096]

I need that sense of accomplishment that gives me more power, especially the kind that comes over time without me actually doing anything at all other than playing the game.

Oh wait, no, I don't want any of that.

Malorn go read my latest post in that thread, and tell me what you would think of a system like that in PS2.

@this thread

Hmm, idk, the battle fortresses seem too extreme in terms of difficulty to capture. We barely take bases as it is now lol. I'm all for brainstorming a "hard to achieve victory" type idea though, it just needs to be implemented right.

[CutterJohn]

Once I obliterated a 2 gal backdoor drop in a single vanny. That was awesome. Got a few hate tells from the guys, and a few 'Good Jobs!' and a few 'You lucky sob'.

Thats all you need for a sense of accomplishment, actually accomplishing something.

[kamikava]

I disagree with the "all i needz is to shoot da enemies to get ma acomplishmentz" approach. It might have worked FOR YOU, however many people (like me :D) require something tangible to give us that warm fuzzy feeling inside and keep us coming back and paying the sub month after month and year after year. I hate to compare it to the grindfest WoW but that is a game which has endless achievements which keep people coming back!

This is important i think:

"4.1 Achievement point buy's allow for purchase of new armor's, weapons, accessories for cosmetic flare and prestige (provides the "Look at me!<muscle Flex>) feel."

For many people the lack of not getting any achievments past level caps in PS1, even if its just a little badge in a book which you can link in chat, meant the game became stale.

Being able to say - Look at me! I did this! And i have this cool bit of armour to prove it! - is of paramount importance, and having hundreds of these is the key to making a game successful in the long term.

IMO it is very important in any MMO to have a tangible aspect to show accomplishments and continued progression that keep me wanting to play.

[dachlatte]

the problem with those "goals" is that players will do anything to achieve them. they will get fixated on them and they dont waste a second to think about the other players(enemys and allies).
why, you might ask. because the games says so. ultimately that leads to retarded gameplay like we see with the gen killing today. it ruins the fun for both empires involved. why? because the game says its all about waiting 15mins to cap a base.

[Duddy]

Well... all they'd have to do is bring back the merit system we have now (bar the unlocks from it) and you'd already have more "achievements" to earn than you could possibly manage in your time playing the game...

[DreaM]

Getting the kill, cap, or cont lock is all the sense of accomplishment I need. Merits and achievements are meaningless fluff that detract from a shooter, which should primarily be about shooting people. Not collecting every shiny.

I see no problem with having both, it's nice to have something to show off if you've headshotted 20,000 people. It doesn't detract from the game as you're still playing the game to get the "shiny things".

Fluff? Yes. Game breaking? definitely not.

[Zulthus]

Getting the kill, cap, or cont lock is all the sense of accomplishment I need. Merits and achievements are meaningless fluff that detract from a shooter, which should primarily be about shooting people. Not collecting every shiny.

Merits and achievements in no way detract from any game. They simply let you know you're doing a good job.

[Sovereign]

Or in some cases they distract people from being true asset on the field.

I wouldn't mind something new like achievements going out to the most valuable players a day for example...

[Valdae]

Yeah, so long as achievements are relevant to the overall game. I like the idea of having player of the day medals, or anything else that rewards you for just going out and kicking ass.

I dont really wanna see people detracted from the actual battle because they're trying to get some ridiculous achievement, like "get blown up 6 times whilst jumping up and down and squawking like a duck."

[Bags]

Merits and achievements in no way detract from any game..

I guess you've never played WoW or TF2.

[Malorn]

Merits and achievements in no way detract from any game. They simply let you know you're doing a good job.

I've seen a lot of idiots in games running around going for achievements. Nothing quite as dumb as having a couple guys running around on your team only knifing people so they can get their knife-platinum merit. Or using their pistol when they should be using their assault rifle simply so they can get their pistol merits. Or they bypass all teamwork and make suicide runs at objectives so they can be the ones to tag them for their merit.

Achievements just encourage people to do dumb things. Some achievements are OK, but the kind like "Kill x players with y weapon" only encourage people to be inefficient and detracts from teamwork.

This man said it best:
Thats all you need for a sense of accomplishment, actually accomplishing something.

[DreaM]

I guess you've never played WoW or TF2.

Provided the achievements encourage normal game-play there is nothing wrong with it. I really like the merit system PS1 has.

[Zulthus]

I don't see the whole problem with using x weapon to get y amount of kills. Not sure how it's regarded as "inefficient". Not everyone is going to have their knife out 24/7 doing their own thing, so I don't see how it detracts from teamwork if you just want to have fun with the game you pay for. There's thousands of other linear players who don't do that stuff, so it'll be fine if there are merits/achievements.

[Zulthus]

I guess you've never played WoW or TF2.

I made the mistake of playing WoW for a while. WoW is a completely different game from Planetside and has absolutely no relevance to the current thread. It doesn't involve hundreds/thousands of players all using teamwork to capture an objective.

TF2, played it once, crap game, also nothing like Planetside

[Bags]

I made the mistake of playing WoW for a while. WoW is a completely different game from Planetside and has absolutely no relevance to the current thread. It doesn't involve hundreds/thousands of players all using teamwork to capture an objective.

TF2, played it once, crap game, also nothing like Planetside

My point is that achievements discourage efficiently completing objectives. They always do. It's a moot comparison if you haven't played either game though, as you won't understand.

[Malorn]

I don't see the whole problem with using x weapon to get y amount of kills. Not sure how it's regarded as "inefficient". Not everyone is going to have their knife out 24/7 doing their own thing, so I don't see how it detracts from teamwork if you just want to have fun with the game you pay for. There's thousands of other linear players who don't do that stuff, so it'll be fine if there are merits/achievements.

Its fine for people to do their own thing, but the game shouldn't encourage stupidity and things that detract from teamwork. If people want to do that anyway, great. The game shouldn't encourage it.

[Tatwi]

the problem with those "goals" is that players will do anything to achieve them. they will get fixated on them and they dont waste a second to think about the other players(enemys and allies).
why, you might ask. because the games says so. ultimately that leads to retarded gameplay like we see with the gen killing today. it ruins the fun for both empires involved. why? because the game says its all about waiting 15mins to cap a base.

Absolutely. The battleground achievements sure did that in World of Warcraft for the first few months after they were introduced. Yet these same people would report others as being AFK for doing the quests in Alterac Valley, because they would rather zerg the NPC boss than complete the PvPvE objectives and actually play the map...

Seems to always be lose, lose with this kinds of things, despite the best of intentions that the developers may have had and (as with the case of AV in WoW) the really cool events that can be created when people play the game as intended.

[Zulthus]

My point is that achievements discourage efficiently completing objectives. They always do. It's a moot comparison if you haven't played either game though, as you won't understand.

Well, since I said I played both, it's not moot.

How does "pick up enemy weapons and kill 5 players with them" discourage efficiently completing objectives? You haven't even given an argument other than saying "Achievements discourage efficiently completing objectives. They always do."

All I'm saying is a return of the PlanetSide 1 merit system would be great. I liked being able to display some of my decorations of what I'm good at.

[Tatwi]

I made the mistake of playing WoW for a while. WoW is a completely different game from Planetside and has absolutely no relevance to the current thread. It doesn't involve hundreds/thousands of players all using teamwork to capture an objective.

TF2, played it once, crap game, also nothing like Planetside

WoW has 40 vs 40 maps with co-op objectives, plus many other large scale PvP types, including "world PvP" that grants zone wide benifits (like 5% more XP) which could have thousands of players in a battle. However, no one does this, even though the game has millions of players world wide from all walks of life, which probably means something.

Wintergrasp used to have hundreds of players per battle until Blizzard decided to throttle it for performance reasons. Unlike a simplified combat game such as Planetside, WoW simply has way too many spells, procs, dots, movement vectors, and other things to process for that many players simaltaniously. That's not a knock to Planetside, just pointing out that Planetside has more optimized, simplified player interactions that translates into being able to support more players per zone than WoW. Even the EQII team had to scale back on the amount item procs in the game, because they were beging to effect the server performance in raids, which also helps to clarify the difference between Planetside's combat "logic/math" and other games that have more abilities/spells/items firing in a battle.

None the less, I see that it's cool to hate RPGs in the Planetside community, just like hating WoW was always the cool thing to do in Everquest II & Star Wars Galaxies, so I most likely just wasted my time explaining this...

[Maverick]

I think a stamp of accomplishment or “achievement” is just one idea available. I can say it’s not enough for me personally unless it was for something truly prestigious. Personal achievements based in little things like number of knife kills or base hacks mean little to me. A driving achievement for me would be company or multi-company magnitude challenges such as capturing a capital fortress that is almost never taken. But I’m only one of a sea of many.

Remember the intent was to hear ideas about how to appeal to the different kinds of motivations different players have simultaneously, to win their continued subscription of PS2 through the years to come.

What other ideas can you guys think of whether it be a challenge, reward, or other?

[Zulthus]

I really liked BF2's ribbon/medal system. It didn't so much make you try to get them as it did pat you on the back when you were doing a good job. It felt really good to see those awards pop up and the music start playing.

[exLupo]

I'm sure there will be some kind of cheevos and flair rewards. It's so common anymore. Hopefully things will stay serious and in line with the PlanetSide aesthetic. That kind of thing is part of what keeps a segment of players active in repetitive games. It increases the market appeal but, if they don't screw up the lore feel, doesn't detract from the play experience of those who dgaf.

However, I will say that Bags put it best.

Getting the kill, cap, or cont lock is all the sense of accomplishment I need.

When home for lunch, I'd make a sandwich while logging in and spend a few minutes just trying to get one good, long range snipe. Not a huge goal but satisfying.

"There is no better cause to fight than the simple need that blood be spilled. Do not fight because you receive reward or praise. Fight because that other bastard exists solely to die at the end of your blade."

[cashfoyogash]

Getting the kill, cap, or cont lock is all the sense of accomplishment I need. Merits and achievements are meaningless fluff that detract from a shooter, which should primarily be about shooting people. Not collecting every shiny.

Not true I think halo xbox live achievements are awesome. Like capture the flag in a ctf match or get a double kill with the shotgun.... i like the idea of achievements.


"There is no better cause to fight than the simple need that blood be spilled. Do not fight because you receive reward or praise. Fight because that other bastard exists solely to die at the end of your blade."

Eh, spartacus quote?

[InternetZombie]

The thing with Planetside is it really shows how redundant gaming is. WoW's battlegrounds and even the "world" PVP are the same, your always fighting over the same thing, even if you win it has no effect on anything. This is the same as Planetside, the only difference is that in Planetside it's not instanced.

There isn't a game out there that isn't redundant.
Achievements are a gimick only ment to keep people from realizing that the game there playing is redundant.

What happens once you have all the achievements? Will you keep playing the game once there all gone? If you wont stick around and play the game for the game, it isn't likely you'll stick around once all the achievements have been earned.

Earning things is great if there meaningful.

My sense of accomplishment comes from seeing my side winning, even if I'm doing horribly there is always something I can do to help out. It's a team effort, that being said what happens when you get something for killing X soldiers in a row without dying but I get squat and the only reason you were able to kill X soldiers in a row is because I was healing you?

[exLupo]

Eh, spartacus quote?

I'm to blame for that one. Re-hashing myself from the Rift forum but I thought it appropriate for this thread.

Style question - more appropriate to restate something in quotes or just say it like you're saying it?

[Bags]

Not true I think halo xbox live achievements are awesome. Like capture the flag in a ctf match or get a double kill with the shotgun.... i like the idea of achievements.



Eh, spartacus quote?

But capping the flag or getting a kill is the objective. It's annoying that now-a-days every game hands out achievements for doing what you're supposed to be doing.

You get an achievement for buying a tabard, joining a guild, leveling up, etc in WoW.

It's fucking ridiculous.

[exLupo]

But capping the flag or getting a kill is the objective. It's annoying that now-a-days every game hands out achievements for doing what you're supposed to be doing.

And it prints money. Setting up a simple milestone system with an "achievement" label gets players in the door. Look at my wife. When she's in TF2 she plays simply for the joy of murdering people. Clearing the cart elicits a shout of joy. However, when it comes to buying a new game she usually goes xbox. Why? Cheevos. It doesn't matter if there's better preorder swag or graphics, xbox wins on cheevos alone.

It doesn't do anything for you but achievements represent concrete goals for others and it keeps them playing games long after they would have stopped. It's like hats in TF2. In only the barest sense can it be called content but the Pokemonesque need to catch-them-all bolsters numbers. I know plenty of WoW players who limped on long past the point of boredom simply to watch their cheevo score increment.

Like nuts on a sundae. Not for everyone but it's an optional extra that broadens the market appeal.

edit: And the dev time, once the system is in game, is nil. The only reason to not do one is that some players refuse to play games with achievement systems but the buyers drawn in by such a system well eclipses the nay-sayers.

[Talek Krell]

A return of the merits from PS1 seems like it would work perfectly well to me. They were displayable but not gaudy, gave a sense of accomplishment and personal advancement, and were generally relevant to the success of your empire. There wasn't any "Blow yourself up with your own boomers 100 times" achievement for people to go off and work on because Vanu forbid they have to wait until the 100th time they accidentally boomered themselves.

If you want to add an elevator chime and a self affirmation popup to it then that's fine, but I do require that I be able to turn those off. I find them annoying and feel like they break up the atmosphere of the game.

[Senyu]

The years worth of speccing into skill trees will probably motivate me enough to keep playing