Encouraging Teamwork in PS2

[Malorn]

Something that has become apparent to me is the degeneration of teamwork in modern shooters. I think a lot of it is attributed to kills and deaths being prevalent stats. K/D is another one that people strive for at the cost of teamwork.

I emplore the PS2 devs to leave kills, deaths, and K/D ratio out of sight and out of mind and make "Score" or "experience" the core indicator of how successful someone is. That allows you to weigh objectives and support activities in such a way that makes them appealing.

If score is all someone has to gauge on how awesome they are, they will do what gets them the most score, which will encourage teamwork if teamwork activities are weighted properly.

If score isn't the only measurement of awesomeness then whatever you make prevalent will become a goal. Dont' go there, dont' show us kills or deaths. Just show us the aggregation of objectives, teamwork, AND kills as one singular number. Deaths are something that should especially be off any charts because it discourages people from taking risks. As long as it is tracked people will use it as a measuring stick and adjust their behavior accordingly.

[Mastachief]

I disagree, people wanting to avoid death makes them think more instead of being zerglings.

If you crave better teamwork, join a better outfit or improve your current one.

Don't remove features that people want.

[TRex]

I disagree, people wanting to avoid death makes them think more instead of being zerglings.

If you crave better teamwork, join a better outfit or improve your current one.

Don't remove features that people want.

I agree . I also hope we have a robust system of things like Planetside stats , or a system capable for fans to run their own websites off. Features like this keep a sizeable proportion of players actually playing. Not everyone ,guaranteed. But games like this are competetive , its the essence of pvp .
It makes playing the game more of a hobby and vested interest in your character beyond outfit and faction. Your faction may suck on x server , you're in a random /spam outfit but on an individual basis you do well.
It's not the be-all-and-end all, but no need to remove it .As long as you can toggle it off screen if you dont care for that thing is all that is required.

[Malorn]

I dont' really care about my particular outfit, it always has and always will have superb teamwork. I'm more concerned about the level of teamplay in the community as a whole.

I want better teamwork in the community as a whole, but people are, for the most part, quite simplistic and improve whatever stat someone puts in front of their face. If you put kills and deaths in front of their face their goal will be to maximize one and minimize the other. It degrades teamwork as a whole.

People will strive for whatever measuring stick the developers put in front of them. Case in point: PS1 for a good chunk of its early history never had any sort of kill or death statistics and nobody noticed, minded, or cared. Many maximized BEP, which mostly meant capturing or defending objectives, but kills and support factored in in relatively equal measure. And you saw a lot of support and teamwork which you don't see at all in modern shooters that value kills and deaths as their primary measuring stick.

[HELLFISH88]

I dont' really care about my particular outfit, it always has and always will have superb teamwork. I'm more concerned about the level of teamplay in the community as a whole.

I want better teamwork in the community as a whole, but people are, for the most part, quite simplistic and improve whatever stat someone puts in front of their face. If you put kills and deaths in front of their face their goal will be to maximize one and minimize the other. It degrades teamwork as a whole.

People will strive for whatever measuring stick the developers put in front of them. Case in point: PS1 for a good chunk of its early history never had any sort of kill or death statistics and nobody noticed, minded, or cared. Many maximized BEP, which mostly meant capturing or defending objectives, but kills and support factored in in relatively equal measure. And you saw a lot of support and teamwork which you don't see at all in modern shooters that value kills and deaths as their primary measuring stick.

I believe some of these issue's will be overcome by gameplay mechanics itself. Planetside 2 will (or should) not lend itself to the kind of play style you are fearing. K/D whoring is popular in Deathmatch games because of how short term they are. In a persistent world being "number one" or chasing that Gold pin won't earn said player the same satisfaction or honor as presumably K/D alone does not dictate success. The Higgster has already said that resource's will play a major factor in PS2. A team comprised entirely of killwhore's who pay no attention to strategy will inevitably get stomped by a more well organised force as they will probably be outclassed. No resources means no access to certain weapons or vehicles which puts team killwh0re at a serious disadvantage...especially if they are so stubborn that they allow themselves to be beat so bad that they become the closest equivalent to "Sanc' locked" as PS2 will allow. We have a lot of veterans in this community and I'm sure they can all tell us the first rule of war: It's all about resources. Warfare is the most expensive and asset consuming undertakings in existence. By it's very nature it is so. I'm hoping a well engineer'd and balanced video game which pride's itself on depicting conflict on a massive "True" scale will reflect this concept.

I sincerely sympathize and understand your concern. I'm sure we have all been in a Battlefield game full of camping sniper's who refuse to take or adequately defend objectives. If what I'm thinking is in fact correct; the very nature of planetside will prevent many of these issues.

As for teamwork I will see to it that there is absolutely NONE of it in the Conglomerate. It is not our way. You will run about spamming both your weapons and your mouths respectively while victory come's to us via sheer attrition and dumb luck.

[TRex]

I think the improved teamwork ethic is guaranteed with the introduction of the class system.It will be more like the old days when br20 was the max.

Doing a gal drop , you had 2 maxes, a couple of advanced medics , a couple of ad hackers ,most had engineering . You were restricted and had to have balance to be effective as a team.
Planetside now , people have access to everything and you end up with a gal full of everyone filling every role , heck you dont even need the gal any more, just fly there in mossie, hack and loadout to what suits.

Not everyone is a pure kill whore or stat hungry ,some just like to fly galaxies all day and happy with that. From a medic perspective ,its probably better investment of your time to help keep the better ones alive . From a outfit leader perspective , its a tool to see who is actually helping you complete objectives and those who 'leech' .You may like the 'leech' on a personal level, but maybe also suggest he try his hand at being more support type .Not a negative , he may help you overall more in that role than wearing heavy armour or a max suit.

[SKYeXile]

Screw K/D its all about the KPM.

[SgtMAD]

Planetside tracked kills and outfit points starting on day one, anyone remember the old leaderboards, SOE just quit updating the site so we got sites like Dicepoint and others that did the data mining.

[Traak]

If they do track kills, I might be tempted to take a trip through some country where I can find some skilled players who I can pay better than they are at their job to play on my team, 24/7/365 to do nothing but kill, kill, kill.

Just to show my scorn for the killwhore cheaters who will be, inevitably drawn to the game.

I could hire a team of ten guys for about $20/hr to become the baddest-ass most cohesive fighting organism PS ever saw.

Hm. We would be like the Hells Angels. "When any Angel punches a non-Angel, all Angels present must participate."

[Hamma]

I support Malorn's OP.

[Mastachief]

so far as i'm aware as has been already been said ps1 had stats tracking from retail, saw them with my own eye i think they actually still load on the planetside.com.

They have made a big song and dance about the levels that ps2 will go to in regards of data and social networking. My outfit has at least one person already making a stat site in preparation for PS2 release. Having had the 2 biggest kill whores of the game RAS and Korndemon in the same outfit as me just because someone cares for the amount of kills doesn't mean they aren't team players and great assets to have.

[Raymac]

I think it would be a huge mistake to ignore that a large percentage of shooter players look at their K/D ratio. Obviously it is more important to some players than others and affects how they play games, but it's not this huge evil.

I believe that teamwork will be important in Planetside 2 no matter what. Why? Because whether it's in sports, or business, or gaming...a great TEAM is better than a great group of individuals. Always.

Simply having outfits in the game at all means there will be mechanics to encouage and facilitate teamwork. And even though pretty much all of us here prefer the teamwork aspects of the game, we can't ignore that there will be players that just want to do their own thing, just as there was in PS1.

I think it's elitist and a huge mistake to ban or make it extremely difficult for players to do what they want to do. If people want to rambo, then let them. It's a game. An organized group will always trump a rambo anyways. This is a game afterall, and player freedom should be essential for a fun time.

TL;DR Groups are good, but let the people play they want to play.

[DviddLeff]

K/D ratio is I agree bad, in that it encourages people to focus on getting easy kills without taking many risks, often leading to camping of various kinds.

However it also encourages you to die less, which is good in that it encourages people to think and play in a manner that is more realistic and probably more tactically.

Teamwork works with K/D positively in that teamwork should lead to you being more successful, getting more kills while being better protected; a decent coordinated Gal drop could cut through tower defenders with minimal casualties for example.

However having your K/D on the screen all the time is a no from me, at least the deaths part. Playing BF3 atm I see my K/D is something like 0.8 - shit compared to BFBC2 where I was 1.6 and it weighs on my mind, so much so that I am actively hanging back and trying to farm kills as a sniper or in vehicles. It also makes me quit servers where I am getting killed a lot, even if I am having fun in the process.

[Malorn]

The inconvenience of dying and the negative impact it has on your team, and thus your score would be discouraging enough to avoid it when possible. If you're dead, you aren't supporting them, and your team is down one gun, less likely to take an objective, etc. And the fact that while you are dead/returning to the fight you are not gaining any score or doing activities that improve your score. Death is a "time out" and any time out would certainly affect your score and score/min

Score/Min is a stat that I think is fantastic to track. Kills should contribute to score, so someone good at killing will get a high score/min just as they would kills/min only it is a more aggregate number and not exclusive to just kills. Kills aren't important - winning the war is important. Kills usually move you closer to victory so they should count and they should be significantly counted. But actually taking an objective, resing teammates, providing radar, repairing tanks, etc also contribute to winning that war and should be encouraged. So would someone who is successful at obtaining objectives and supporting teammates. Someone who does ALL of these things will have the highest score possible (in theory anyway) by maximizing kills, teamwork, and objectives. Death lowers score/min, thus it would negatively impact this stat.

In PS2, I hope things like securing resources & defending resources are highly rewarded activities. Normalizing all activities into one "score" instead of having separate categories like kills, deaths, revives, etc allows players to focus on what they do best to help their empire and contribute to victory. It gives the most versatile players who can do all things well the highest standing of all.

[Malorn]

I think it would be a huge mistake to ignore that a large percentage of shooter players look at their K/D ratio. Obviously it is more important to some players than others and affects how they play games, but it's not this huge evil.

And do people look at their K/D ratio because they care about it or because it is a very prominent and visible stat in any round/match? I would argue they look at it because it is a visible stat and that if you replace it with something that aggregates more than just K/D you will see much more rich gameplay.

It IS a huge evil because in modern shooters it is elevated above all other stats due to its visibility. Take BF3 for example. What are the 3 stats you see on the scoreboard? Kills, Deaths, and Score. If it was just Score, that would be the only measuring stick, but because Kills and Deaths exist, people work to make those numbers appealing too, often at the cost of Score. BF3 is also a bad example because it doesn't reward support activities nearly as much as kills, at least when it comes to ammo, health, repair, and spotting.

If BF3 had "flag captures/neutralizes" or "bomb placing/defusing" or "objective defenses" as prominent stats, you would see a lot more people doing those things.

PS2 can still track K/D for people who really care about it, but it doesn't need to be a visible stat. It could be a private stat that only the player sees. It doesn't need to be a visible stat for everyone to see - that elevates its importance. It isn't important. Accomplishing things is important. Getting resources, taking territory, and defending resources and territory is what is important. Kills and Deaths is an instrument for that, but should not be a measurement of success.

Success should be a measurement of success.

[Mirror]

Teamwork is the and always should be the way forward.

[klu]

i think the lack of teamwork in most shooters has little to do with k/d displayed or class system. the objectives in most games are simple and dont really require teamwork. the more complicated the objectives are the more teamwork will follow.

[Atuday]

Something that has become apparent to me is the degeneration of teamwork in modern shooters. I think a lot of it is attributed to kills and deaths being prevalent stats. K/D is another one that people strive for at the cost of teamwork.

I emplore the PS2 devs to leave kills, deaths, and K/D ratio out of sight and out of mind and make "Score" or "experience" the core indicator of how successful someone is. That allows you to weigh objectives and support activities in such a way that makes them appealing.

If score is all someone has to gauge on how awesome they are, they will do what gets them the most score, which will encourage teamwork if teamwork activities are weighted properly.

If score isn't the only measurement of awesomeness then whatever you make prevalent will become a goal. Dont' go there, dont' show us kills or deaths. Just show us the aggregation of objectives, teamwork, AND kills as one singular number. Deaths are something that should especially be off any charts because it discourages people from taking risks. As long as it is tracked people will use it as a measuring stick and adjust their behavior accordingly.

My only worry about this is the things that need to be done won't be the things that get people points. Kills get points. Manning a turret to suppress targets might not. Filling the air with flak might not kill aircraft but it will scare them away. Hacking a door gets nothing but it may pave the way for a max crash. In a game like this doing what is needed might not be what gets players points or kills. The only thing that's going to be effective is rewarding the winner of captures that way doing what is needed gets the most points.

[Malorn]

My only worry about this is the things that need to be done won't be the things that get people points. Kills get points. Manning a turret to suppress targets might not. Filling the air with flak might not kill aircraft but it will scare them away. Hacking a door gets nothing but it may pave the way for a max crash. In a game like this doing what is needed might not be what gets players points or kills. The only thing that's going to be effective is rewarding the winner of captures that way doing what is needed gets the most points.

PS1 did a great job of giving support XP. If you res'd/healed/repaired someone/something then you got assist xp whenever they got kills for a short time after. Which makes sense because you are a significant reason they were able to get those kills.

There's more they can do with hacking objectives/taking resources or territory with PS2 than they did with PS1. Probably some things for engineer deployables that could be done also.

[xSlideShow]

I think it should just be done the same way planetside 1 showed your stats. You don't need to see your ratio immediately if you care you'll do the math. But not showing kills/deaths at all takes away imo. I don't play an FPS to see how much I can help my team. I play to see how many noobs I can slay. This doesn't mean that I'm not a team player.

[Raymac]

And do people look at their K/D ratio because they care about it or because it is a very prominent and visible stat in any round/match? I would argue they look at it because it is a visible stat and that if you replace it with something that aggregates more than just K/D you will see much more rich gameplay.


As usual, you make an excellent point. I would like to see other stats elevated in PS2 like Score/Time.

The only devil's advocate reply I can think of is that K/D is so ubiquitous in shooters already that it will be near impossible for 1 game to change that. Considering that PS2 is not your everyday shooter, hopefully it can be a step in the right direction of making that change.

[CutterJohn]

i think the lack of teamwork in most shooters has little to do with k/d displayed or class system. the objectives in most games are simple and dont really require teamwork. the more complicated the objectives are the more teamwork will follow.

Yep. Teamwork is natural. Take any game you care to name, and the simple truth is people working together > people not working together. This is as true for a game of Quake3 as it is for a game of arma2 or some other hyper realistic shooter.

Teamwork is more effective. Nothing else needs to be added to encourage it.

[HELLFISH88]

Teamwork is the and always should be the way forward.

God dammit.


T-Ray's goons are starting to show up.


<3

[DviddLeff]

BF3 does have really nice "assist" features; Points for Suppression for one - I've decided to focus on playing Support and with a LMG I get a ton of points even if I don't make the kill, I still get points for throwing lead in the enemies direction. And of course you also get points for doing some damage to enemies even without the kill.

I can't remember which FPS it was but there was one that did not show you K/D until the end of a round, instead giving you points if you checked the scoreboard and it worked well.

[Xyntech]

Teamwork is more effective. Nothing else needs to be added to encourage it.

But that's not the entire picture.

There are games that favor team work more and then there are games that favor individual skill more.

8 v 8 with everyone at equal skill levels will always come down to which side works better as a team, but what if one side is a little more skilled and the other side works a little better as a team?

In shooters that emphasize skill, it doesn't matter how much team work you use if you aren't as skilled. In games that focus more on team work, you have to be extremely skilled to compete with a team that has better team work than you.

Why would you bother with team work when you can practice your solo skills which are more important? The trick is to make sure they aren't more important.

Solo play is a legitimate and important part of Planetside, but it shouldn't be the primary focus of game design. Team work should be at least equal to if not greater than personal skill when determining the outcome of any even numbered fight.

I'm certainly not worried about this point, since the first Planetside was already a team oriented game and it sounds to me like PS2 is following that tradition in it's own way.

That takes care of the mechanics, now the only part I want to see PS2 get right is public image. Even if teamwork is more important than individual skill in large fights, will that be obvious to new players? This is where I want to see little things to encourage people to try working as a team. If they don't like it, there should be plenty of ways for them to have fun as a loner, but they should at least be given every chance to see how effective and rewarding teamwork is in a game like Planetside.

The game will hopefully be attracting a large number of new players who know nothing about Planetside. Many of those players may be much newer FPS players who haven't seen much other than the killwhoring fragfests that many shooters degenerate into. I'd like to convert as many of those players into longtime PS2 players who are valuable contributors to the efforts of their empire.

[Senyu]

I liked PS1's option of turning on the stat tracker and showing your k/d ratio on the bottem left. With that said, the devs said this is a game you can do what you want. So if someone wants to flying their aircraft in circles at the edge of the map or just charge in mindlesly and only focus on k/d, they can. And thats alright. Because it doesn't force anyone to play a specific way. Now granted I support your post in the terms of making teamwork more prevelant and more common of an occurance than just only outfits using teamwork. That is something that should be sought after and defintly supported in any way that doesn't impede on a single players rights to do whatever he wants.

[Graywolves]

As long as there is no "scoreboard" type of deal/feel I think people will stick to working in teams.


They need to allow solo play to be viable and support the lone wolves and make it fun without making it want people to not squad up.


Only reason anyone has to not be in the platoon right now is because they're not doing fun stuff. If I spend 20minutes organizing or moving I don't feel like I'm missing alot or that people are going to think I'm a bad player.


Any type of visible score in a large scale battle would only be dilusional anyways.

[Xyntech]

Yeah, I like playing solo myself sometimes. It definitely should be a fun, viable and effective way to play.

Team work should just be made that much more fun and inviting. We already know there will be a ton of solo zerglings based on the first games performance and considering that we will have an influx of brand new players, those percentages may go up. I see no downside to encouraging some of those players to at least give team play a try. A lot may find that they like it, especially if it's fun and easy to get into.

[CutterJohn]

8 v 8 with everyone at equal skill levels will always come down to which side works better as a team, but what if one side is a little more skilled and the other side works a little better as a team?

Then you lost and you shouldn't neglect personal training to the point of incompetence. This isn't an arena shooter. The mere fact that there are 8 of you working together will help you win most battles against an equivalent number of randoms. The odds of them each being skilled enough to compensate for their complete lack of teamwork is low.

[Mirror]

God dammit.


T-Ray's goons are starting to show up.


<3

What makes you think that DT are going VS in PS2? We are yet to decide.

[Trolltaxi]

You won't get real teamwork just because you remove stats, esp. K/D.

Teamwork means training, means a lot of time spent together, means tactics and procedures, means good leadership and coordination.

You won't instantly get these as soon as they remove stats. You'll get teamwork with your outfit. Most players need k/d, let them have it! I personally always focused on my assist/death (at least that was positive), and didn't care if anyone came with his uber k/d. (That meant either a spawncamper or a reaverwhore most of the times anyways.)

Killwhores won firefights, but AMS-drivers won the battle, and good leadership won the continent. That's what counts.

[Raka Maru]

Build the mechanics. People will use them. Don't force it.

Even RPG's allow any class to do their quests solo, but players learn quickly that teamwork is much better. What sucks is if your random team causes you grief. Thus, forced team play is a recipe for bad experiences. This has been seen over and over.

[Xyntech]

Yeah, I never want to force team work, I just want solo play to be fun and team play to be even more fun, with a lot of mechanics to invite players to give team play a try. They may not realize that team play can be more fun than solo. Lets educate some noobs.

[DviddLeff]

Its the times where the solo players see what can be accomplished with a bit of teamwork that will win them over; seeing a tank column or organised gal drops cutting through the enemy will show them how much more effective they can be if they join an outfit.

The solo zerg is certainly powerful, but nothing compared to the same number of coordinated troops.

[EASyEightyEight]

Its the times where the solo players see what can be accomplished with a bit of teamwork that will win them over; seeing a tank column or organised gal drops cutting through the enemy will show them how much more effective they can be if they join an outfit.

The solo zerg is certainly powerful, but nothing compared to the same number of coordinated troops.

Not to mention how ****ing cool/intimidating it looks. Really, that's the first bit that gets them, not its effectiveness. They're not paying too close attention to how destructive a column can be.

[HELLFISH88]

What makes you think that DT are going VS in PS2? We are yet to decide.

Well then. You and I should have a drink Friend.

[SKYeXile]

What makes you think that DT are going VS in PS2? We are yet to decide.

Knew you guys were not homo enough to stay VS.

[Bravix]

Knew you guys were not homo enough to stay VS.

Sky honey, quit bothering with those Delta Tools and come back to bed :brow:


:vsrocks:

[FIREk]

I kind of agree with Malorn, however moving the K/D somewhere less convenient, or removing it utterly, will never encourage teamwork. I would, however, remove one of the mechanics that promote killwhoring for the sole purpose of farming numbers.

In games like CoD and Battlefield, where you've got timelimits, your kills, or K/D is the only way to compare your e-peen to other players' e-peens. You will either play for kills, or to win the map (if it's Battlefield), but at the end of the map there's this huge scoreboard that shows whose e-peen is the longest/thickest. :P
In PlanetSide, however, there's so much more that you can do, however, and the e-peen measurement system should be centered around what you did for your faction, not what you did for yourself.

What could be used to measure your performance instead of K/D, though? The answer may seem obvious (territory gained, resources gathered), but this is excruciatingly non-trivial. If you used territory and resources for measurement, a good player playing on the losing empire's side will be told his performance is bad. This would be both unfair and would lead to empire hopping, on an alt account for instance.
So what can be used as a team-oriented e-peen meter? I don't know. But every FPS needs one, even if the K/D meter sucks for a game like PlanetSide.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but was the "session stats indicator" added post-launch? I haven't played PS1 seriously in many years, but I have this memory of the Outcasters Teamspeak chatter degenerating to "my K/D is X/Y" soon after session stats were either implemented or after they gained popularity. That's around the time when some of my fav outfitmates turned into solo Reaverwhores, too... I think the Werner NC started farming tubes instead of blowing them around that time, as well... :P

[Bravix]

I like BF3's version. It shows Kills and deaths, but points are what put you in first and its a lot easier to get first by helping the team as opposed to being a kill-whore.

[2coolforu]

The only true way to create teamwork is to force people to depend on others. One man MBT's is the worst thing you can do, for such a centrepiece of battles to be mostly solo controlled is a crippling blow to cooperation.

The reason Planetside had such a good playerbase was due to the fact it was impossible to get very far on your own, especially at the start.

[Bags]

I like BF3's version. It shows Kills and deaths, but points are what put you in first and its a lot easier to get first by helping the team as opposed to being a kill-whore.

No, it's a lot easier to get points for being a kill whore since they're worth as much as an entire objective.

[EASyEightyEight]

The only true way to create teamwork is to force people to depend on others. One man MBT's is the worst thing you can do, for such a centrepiece of battles to be mostly solo controlled is a crippling blow to cooperation.

The reason Planetside had such a good playerbase was due to the fact it was impossible to get very far on your own, especially at the start.

It will still be that way. A tank with a dedicated gunner and a dedicated driver > a tank with a single dedicated driver and gunner. One can focus on evasion and not running into things, the other shoots. The solo guy doesn't get that luxury and has to manage it all himself. The tank is still effective, but not 100% so.

[Raymac]

One man MBT's is the worst thing you can do, for such a centrepiece of battles to be mostly solo controlled is a crippling blow to cooperation.

Pretty sure the MBTs have 2 seats, so the sky is not falling.

[Raka Maru]

There will never be a "time limit" so what's the need of a "victory screen"???

Everyone knows if that area is all red then the TR were there.

[Raka Maru]

The only true way to create teamwork is to force people to depend on others. One man MBT's is the worst thing you can do, for such a centrepiece of battles to be mostly solo controlled is a crippling blow to cooperation.

The reason Planetside had such a good playerbase was due to the fact it was impossible to get very far on your own, especially at the start.

I've had some really awesome gunners that took care of business till the bitter end. Jumped out and helped repair, covered me when I had to resupply. It will always be better to be teamed up, but forcing the gameplay to rely on randoms for success is velly velly bad.

I do like to solo a lot too. Does that mean I can't pull out my expensive tank for those times?

[TRex]

The incentive should be whatever xp you get for completing objectives , and cert points for your progression , and should always be tangeably a lot more than those rewarded for straight kills.
In ps1 you could either kill 3 or 4 people ,or stand looking at a cc for 15 minutes , and probably get better reward for killing those 4 .
It was just fucked up . People naturally went for option A , since standing defending wasn't sexy or fun , and gave you squat.
Have the kill stats or whatever ,believe me it keeps people playing , but give the real carrot as a reward for taking objectives and a bonus for being in a squad .And something for defending territory as well.
If you want to solo, nothing wrong with that , but give a bonus to being in a squad . If you always log in and have same squad leader each time , give a bonus for that .Hopefully command certs allow you to reduce the time it takes to hack an objective.
Don't pigeon hole people or restrict their playstyle ,instead give them incentives.
If you are command certed , I'd like to see like sergeant stripes etc or similar introduced . Completing objectives improves your rank , poor leadership gets you demoted.
It swings both ways .

[SKYeXile]

Well they are giving us an incentive to work together as a team, the whole resources thing, people want the resources to have improved gear so they they will try to hold and take land...if that results in massive amounts of KPM and K/D then SO BE IT!

[FIREk]

Actually, the mission system, with tangible objectives and squad leaders possibly being able to conveniently tag immediate targets etc, should be incentive enough.

[SKYeXile]

Actually, the mission system, with tangible objectives and squad leaders possibly being able to conveniently tag immediate targets etc, should be incentive enough.

what rewards are from completing missions?

[Bravix]

No, it's a lot easier to get points for being a kill whore since they're worth as much as an entire objective.

Since when were kills worth 250, or even 200 at that? I'm almost 100% that they're worth 100 each, a bit more for headshots/savior etc.

You can get an easy 500 from sitting at a base a neutralizing/capping it, plus a couple more for killing the infidels who try to stop you.

[Traak]

Since when were kills worth 250, or even 200 at that? I'm almost 100% that they're worth 100 each, a bit more for headshots/savior etc.

You can get an easy 500 from sitting at a base a neutralizing/capping it, plus a couple more for killing the infidels who try to stop you.

Are you kidding? I used to get 2000xp + for shooting down a bomber.

Base cap XP was diddly compared to that.

[Bravix]

Are you kidding? I used to get 2000xp + for shooting down a bomber.

Base cap XP was diddly compared to that.

Can you explain to me why you are using past tense? I am talking about BF3 after all. Not only are there no bombers (unless you call an A-10 a bomber), you surely don't get anywhere near that much for shooting aircraft down. It's like 100 for the disable and and another 50 if it blows up. If you manage to kill the jet with the person still in it, its like 200-250.

[TRex]

When they first brought in the lattice system and prior to it , getting 2500+ bep and 5000+cep per cap was common , a nice bonus at end of it all.
Don't just know when it went to pot , but like Traak says ,2000xp for a lib ,1300 for a vanguard versus ,what, 500 for a base makes it a no brainer.

[Bravix]

Again, I began by stating that I liked Battlefield 3's system. Not Planetside's 'system'.

[TRex]

Again, I began by stating that I liked Battlefield 3's system. Not Planetside's 'system'.

Sorry, had to scroll back a page or 2 to find the BF3 reference . I thought you'd entered wrong forum for a second there.

[Traak]

Oh. it was bf3? I meant PS.

[Furret]

Perhaps staying in the base SOI would give you experience for defending, much like the ANT experience, but much slower.

[Malorn]

I believe some of the purpose may have been missed from my meaning.

To break it down, Players will go after the things that are perceived as important measurements of success.

The reason K/D is a problem to teamwork in current FPS games is because its prominent position is a passive indicator to players that it is important and therefore something players should strive for.

If you ask someone in BF3 "how are you doing in this round" very few will report their score and almost none will say whether their team is winning or losing. Most will report their K/D, because that's 2 of the 3 things on the scoreboard. Most also don't even care whether they win or lose, they just try to maximize K, minimize D, and get score points when convenient.

The problem this has is that K/D is only indirectly related to the success of team and by promoting it they are actually discouraging teamwork because K/D is much more of an individual stat.

What I'm trying to get across here is that there is some psychology involved with players and what people choose to achieve will be significantly impacted by what the developers choose to value and promote stat-wise. Along with how they get rewarded for those behaviors.

What stats the developers make salient to us are the stats we will seek to improve. A corollary of that is that and we will do so at the cost things not made salient. This is why K/D is generally bad. Teamwork and objectives are not valued as highly and therefore not prioritized.

Therefore in very simple terms the purpose of the thread and proposal is to recognize this and promote things that further our respective empire's goals. Its subtle but it's significant.

Specifically for individual scoreboards that appear somewhere on our screen I would strongly recommend putting experience earned per-minute, which is an aggregation of all activities (kills as well as support), as well as indicators of empire-success like captures of towers, facilities, and resources, as well as defenses of the same. Don't flood it with tons of stats, and keep the personal achievement stats like K/D, etc off the main view.

What you put in front of us is what we'll work to maximize, so put stuff that encourages empire-wide success and puts reasonable weight on teamwork and support activities.

The result will be the population naturally gravitating towards activities they are good at which further the war effort and create intricate and complex massive clusterfuck battles.

[Raymac]

What you put in front of us is what we'll work to maximize, so put stuff that encourages empire-wide success and puts reasonable weight on teamwork and support activities.

The result will be the population naturally gravitating towards activities they are good at which further the war effort and create intricate and complex massive clusterfuck battles.

It's possible, but I think even if they totally bury the K/D stats, players will still seek them out and elevate their prominence on their own simply due to the fact that it is already so common across all shooters.

I like your idea of elevating other stats, but what you are suggesting is not just an adjustment in players minds, but a whole paradigm shift which will take much more than 1 game to change.

[Xyntech]

How about if the other statistics are on some stats page, but K/D is no more prominent than anything else. Meanwhile, more teamwork oriented stats like points per minute or whatever are prominently displayed and aggrandized in several places, including at the forefront of the stats page.

It doesn't have to be a paradigm shift to be effective. I always look down at the bottom of the scoreboard in Team Fortress 2 to see how my kills and deaths are doing, but I also always check my number of points to see how I'm stacking up compared to my team. That's because the stat they promote on the scoreboard is number of points and the person at the top of the board is the person with the most points.

You don't need to change the entire FPS genre to make a change in PS2's community.

[FIREk]

what rewards are from completing missions?

To be honest, I wouldn't care.
If you've got a visible waypoint and the game keeps telling you to go there and capture something, or blow something up, you will do it. If you also get shoved into an ad-hoc team (I think this will be the norm for non-outfit players) and see a handful of other guys with same-colored names, running in roughly the same direction, that's the first step towards building teamwork and fighting together. :)

[Bravix]

Malorn, I dunno. I personally might brag my K/D (AGAIN, this is BF3), but on a matter of who did best in my squad it always goes to score. Overall I have a positive K/D, but many games I might be a few deaths more than kills yet be first simply because I helped out my team. I think BF3 has really done a good job at refining incentives. Bad company 2 was okay, but they did great with BF3...though of course its not perfect.

I think PS2 would do pretty good with a similar system. That way when you shoot down a aircraft and they bail, you still get points for destroying the vehicle. That's but one example.

As for K/D whores...fact of the matter is, they're lost causes. There is only so much one can do to encourage teamwork, while still trying to make the game enjoyable.

[Talek Krell]

I like your idea of elevating other stats, but what you are suggesting is not just an adjustment in players minds, but a whole
paradigm shift which will take much more than 1 game to change.
We're not trying to change the world here (Although if we were we'd be a lot more likely to succeed by trying).

The objective is to simply draw people in the right direction. Planetside 2 will attract people. To a greater or lesser extent, each of them will log in for the first time and think "So what do I do? How do I advance? What is important?" If you present to them their K/D, always on by default, in the bottom left of their screen then they will cling to that for direction and affirmation. Give them a metric that rewards them for advancing the cause of their empire while playing the game how they prefer and they will focus on that instead.

[SKYeXile]

To be honest, I wouldn't care.
If you've got a visible waypoint and the game keeps telling you to go there and capture something, or blow something up, you will do it. If you also get shoved into an ad-hoc team (I think this will be the norm for non-outfit players) and see a handful of other guys with same-colored names, running in roughly the same direction, that's the first step towards building teamwork and fighting together. :)

for you maybe it is, but I presume you have been playing games for more than 8 years. Enter the WoW generation, they want to be rewarded for their time and will always take the path of least resistance to GLORY! A mission system at first will work for new plays but once they learn its pointless in progression they will cease doing them and do whatever they can can to get the best rewards, it maybe heading to the next big battle and getting kills..it may not.

I think ghost hacking(or attempting to) will be a big thing in PS2, though with the incentive to hold ground hopefully that will balance things out. Time will tell though.

[TRex]

Enter the WoW generation

I think ghost hacking(or attempting to) will be a big thing in PS2, though with the incentive to hold ground hopefully that will balance things out. Time will tell though.

I can just see the hate tells and forumside '' Waah , can't complete my missions'' '' why not? '' '' someone keeps killing me , nerf them plz '' ''can we have a pve server?''

[Raka Maru]

I can just see the hate tells and forumside '' Waah , can't complete my missions'' '' why not? '' '' someone keeps killing me , nerf them plz '' ''can we have a pve server?''

Oh garsh!!! LOL!

[SKYeXile]

I can just see the hate tells and forumside '' Waah , can't complete my missions'' '' why not? '' '' someone keeps killing me , nerf them plz '' ''can we have a pve server?''

you joke, but this is what happened with warhammer, bunch of people avoiding all PVP and PVEing objectives for high PVP ranks. I dont think SOE are as stupid as mythic/EA when designing a game though. They're atleast on the right track of taking all the good stuff from PS and trashing all the bad stuff and not trying to reinvent the wheel.

[FIREk]

I wonder if this can be hammered out during beta. I have no idea how many typical beta players are dedicated vet gamers that want to help with development, and how many are randoms/casuals that just want early access to a game they heard about. I'm actually hoping that it's 90%+ of the latter.

[TRex]

Yeah I played warhammer , pity they didnt make it like DAOC from the get go , or else I would have carrried on until ps2 came out.

[Xyntech]

I hope the rewards for holding on to territory are significant.

I hope it's significant enough that it's just as valuable to hold on to territory against an attack as it is to capture new territory. I'm not sure exactly how the rewards system would work out, but maybe if your base has been under assault for a long enough time by a large enough number of attackers, you get the same amount of reward for ending their siege as you would for capturing a new area.

[Malorn]

I don't think a game like WoW or WAR is a good comparison to PS or PS2. Those have both PvP and PvE at odds with players having a choice between the two and developers splitting efforts and designs amongst both, while PS is a PvP only MMO. And its extremely off topic.

[SKYeXile]

I don't think a game like WoW or WAR is a good comparison to PS or PS2. Those have both PvP and PvE at odds with players having a choice between the two and developers splitting efforts and designs amongst both, while PS is a PvP only MMO. And its extremely off topic.

Not really, if you want to to encourage teamwork then you must reward players for it or you may just end up with a whole lot of people who solo or "pve" for ranks because its more efficient that way.

[Malorn]

Need only make it worth doing, they dont' need to go over the top with it. Given the option to stop and heal someone or move up and try to get a kill, the stop-and-heal option should be worth doing.

PS1 did a good job roughly of experience as a measurement of score. Same ideas, just promote that score/min as the stat to maximize. If they do a good job of weighting support abilities it will be natural to do them.

It's two things really.

1) Adequately rewarding support, teamwork, and objective-oriented behavior - all stuff that helps your empire win.

2) Make the stat that reflects that prominent and glorify it.

The rest will happen as a result of those things. The fewer other stats that get glorified the better. It shouldn't be one among a dozen, it should be the primary thing people see as a measure of success and contribution. Kills are of course important and should weigh in there, but not deaths. Lack of generating points from kills or support will be reflected in ones score/min naturally.

If on the contrary they go the modern fps route and glorify personal killwhoring stats, that is what people will gravitate towards doing.

[Traak]

To be honest, I wouldn't care.
If you've got a visible waypoint and the game keeps telling you to go there and capture something, or blow something up, you will do it. If you also get shoved into an ad-hoc team (I think this will be the norm for non-outfit players)

Why would people have to choose between having an outfit, with their cross-dressing little Hitler outfit leaders, and being "shoved into an ad-hoc team."?

Outfits are like relationships anywhere else. We shouldn't be punished for not being in one.