Missing from the Metagame - Recognition

[Rahabib]

I am going to start by saying, this is not the end all to metagame, this is the first but crucial step.

I am a fairly competitive player. After sharing this game with a few friends, a lot of people felt that the game felt shallow.

"You log in, kill a few people cap a few bases, log off, tomorrow do the same thing, because anything you did the first day was erased."

I feel pretty much the same way. However, these are people who play Counter-Strike a lot, doesn't that feel shallow? To them no, and to me, no as well. The difference, recognition - I came in first, or we wont that round; in PS2 there's nothing really like that. So here are some ideas.

Continent locking should reward the faction with a real sense of accomplishment. A bit of a stat boost isn't recognition, its like receiving a thank you in the mail, its nice, but no one sees it nor cares. To combat this, continent locks need to feel like a huge event. It should be rare and difficult, like once every few days or even once a week. Next, add something to make the players feel like they accomplished something, like display on everyone's screen some interesting stats "TR decimated 300 tanks" (since the last lock) and maybe even for the losers - "NC managed to hold the crown for 8 hours." These should be displayed to all people when the lock occurs kinda like an end round score board.

But lets not stop there - Outfits play a bit part in this, so they should be rewarded as well. During that "scoreboard moment" they should display top Outfits - "Ronald McDonald's Hamburglers capped 52 outposts," "The Cast of the Facts of Life killed the most VS"

For those who are not around when the lock occurs, they will be greeted with the "scoreboard" when they next log in (they can close it, and perhaps it only persists for 24 hours). Those who are on other continents when this occurs will get a message and maybe an icon where the notification icon appears, to click on to see the scoreboard.

What this does is share a sense of accomplishment and give recognition especially to the major outfits where its due. The scoreboard isn't just kills and deaths (you can tab and see than anytime) its more caps, hold times, faction vrs faction stats, outfit vrs outfit, etc. (if you can think of some feel free to post).

Again, this is just the start. Inter-continent travel, home worlds, etc. all can and should add in later, I am just thinking of what are the first steps we could do soon.

Anyway, what do you think?

[xuur]

frankly, it sounds like a lot of unnecessary ego stroking to me.

[Beerbeer]

I was thinking about the differences between small fps games and this and that recognition is indeed missing...

Which got me thinking, after each match, a leader board would pop up. People love that crap, maybe they should add some real-time continental leader boards that resets after an hour or even a few hours?

Maybe they can have it per base?

This will give everyone that small sliver of recognition on an IMMEDIATE basis that can be found in cod or bf, but is missing here.

[dookxzr]

I agree with the recognition part and the cont locking because to me it feels pointless constantly fighting on a cont without truly being able to lock it down it feels like the game has no meaning

[SixShooter]

frankly, it sounds like a lot of unnecessary ego stroking to me.

Agreed. There will be plenty of leaderboard and recognition crap to make people feel special when the mobile app comes out and metagame stuff is coming as well.

[Maidere]

IMO the game will have seasons. Each season will have a winner, winner will build some badass structure which probably wont affect the gameplay but will show that the faction acomplished something. Also, I realy like GW2 matchmaking system (you are getting rematched against other servers every week) - so you have a leaderboard of the servers.

[Beerbeer]

You're missing the point. An immediate leader board is what makes people come back again and again to these even shallower FPS games.

You have to think like they do. Just because you don't care about it, obviously many others do and I think it would help expand and keep people playing, who would otherwise be grinding it out on the same three maps in cod.

[bpostal]

It's the sense of accomplishment IMHO, that's missing. Not recognition.

[zomg]

I like the idea of overall faction stats in the style of "NC managed to hold Crown for 8 minutes"..

I don't know if outfits or individuals need such, since it's pretty unlikely that they alone achieved it (remember the other players are tying up enemy forces elsewhere even if a base is capped only by members of a specific outfit at some certain time - thus it's not their solo effort even in a case like that)

[Rahabib]

It's the sense of accomplishment IMHO, that's missing. Not recognition.

I will agree accomplishment is the main missing factor. But how do you do that? The scoreboard was a way to show finality. It can be optional but honestly, locks currently do nothing.

[Beerbeer]

I get a sense the devs aren't very empathetic in regards to seeing things from a different perspective. Especially when it comes to simplicity and replayability. They can't walk a mile in another man's shoe from what I've seen.

[Timealude]

They are adding outfit banners and stuff for the outfit 2.0 patch thing next year. Im guessing that could add add some sort of sense of accomplishment or even a sense of carrying about a single base. Me personally i get a sense of complishment when our empire captures a continent...Hell on mattherson it was like a freakin celebration when we controlled the whole world, even though it was for about an hour.

[Rahabib]

Its great locking... If you happen to be logged in when it happens, but for those in between, there's nothing. Even if you do lock, there's not much to it.

Banners are cool but are going to be awhile off. The scoreboard is an idea as a short term solution.

[Mr DeCastellac]

After sharing this game with a few friends, a lot of people felt that the game felt shallow.

"You log in, kill a few people cap a few bases, log off, tomorrow do the same thing, because anything you did the first day was erased."

I feel pretty much the same way.

Yes, because spunkgargleweewee games NEVER erase your progress.

[Memeotis]

It's the sense of accomplishment IMHO, that's missing. Not recognition.

Recognition contributes a lot to a sense of accomplishment, but of course there are other ways to achieve a sense of accomplishment. If you are going to make a statement like that, at least come up with your own suggestion as to how that might be achieved.

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I totally agree with the premise of this thread. In a game with so many players, if individuals and groups can feel a sense of recognition the appeal of this game would reach new heights. Unfortunately the scale itself is part of the problem.

Perhaps when a point is flipped players who have been within the hex for more than 5 minutes will have their performance listed in an optional leaderboard, where the 'ranking' stat would be points per minute. This leaderboard should of course go into great detail to be of any relevance to Planetside players. In other words, the KDR stat should be dwarfed in a sea of stats such as 'Spawns from (your) sunderer', assists, revives, repairs, heals, resupplies, points captured, etc...

The reason for the 5 minute requirement is that if someone enters the hex the second it is captured and gains 500 xp, his points per minutes will be ridiculously high.

This leaderboard could also be designed to show platoon and squad performances, as well as stats of the other factions.

[Memeotis]

It's the sense of accomplishment IMHO, that's missing. Not recognition.

Recognition contributes a lot to a sense of accomplishment, but of course there are other ways to achieve a sense of accomplishment. If you are going to make a statement like that, at least come up with your own suggestion as to how that might be achieved.

---------------------

I totally agree with the premise of this thread. In a game with so many players, if individuals and groups can feel a sense of recognition the appeal of this game would reach new heights. Unfortunately the scale itself is part of the problem.

Perhaps when a point is flipped, players who have been within the hex for more than 5 minutes will have their performance listed in an optional leaderboard, where the 'ranking' stat would be points per minute (PPM). This leaderboard should of course go into great detail to be of any relevance to Planetside players. In other words, the KDR stat should be dwarfed in a sea of stats such as 'Spawns from (your) sunderer', assists, revives, repairs, heals, resupplies, points captured, etc...

The reason for the 5 minute requirement is that if someone enters the hex the second it is captured and gains 500 xp, his points per minute will be ridiculously high.

This leaderboard could also be designed to show platoon and squad performances, as well as stats of the other factions.

[ringring]

I haven't read it closely but I think these things you mention are on the way.

More conts. is the place that we should all be looking forward to which if done well will solve the issues, but the big problem will be the amount of time it will take to get there.

The other big problems are that presently it is all just too easy, we turn up at a base roll it over, move onto the next, roll that over and so on.

[Qwan]

I will agree accomplishment is the main missing factor. But how do you do that? The scoreboard was a way to show finality. It can be optional but honestly, locks currently do nothing.

I dont know if you guys played PS1 or not but they had a charactor stats page, were you could actually punch in the name or outfit of any charactor (yours mainly) and see you number of kills, xp, bases capped, level, what outift you were currently in and they even usta put outfit points and all that. My understanding is they will be bringing this back and I think that is pretty cool. Just so you guys know this is not the finished product I believe PS2 has a whole lot more in store for us. As the months go by bugs will be fixed devs will be reading and thinking and adding new content, as I learned from playing PS1 all those years Planetside will evolve I just hope you guys hang around to see the game get better and better. (no big mechs please).

[Sledgecrushr]

Higby did a gamesradar interview recently and he said there was going to be a leaderboard for outfits. This leaderboard would allow outfits to participate in special tournaments.

[bpostal]

Recognition contributes a lot to a sense of accomplishment, but of course there are other ways to achieve a sense of accomplishment. If you are going to make a statement like that, at least come up with your own suggestion as to how that might be achieved.
....

If I had a good idea, trust me I'd share it. The best I can think of is adding some mechanic to reduce the churn. You can see the progress of an empire go up the side of the cont and right back down in the space of 20 min. Half an hour later it happens again.
Opening up some of the smaller hexes (on Indar for example) so that a march across the cont takes longer than the time for a bunch of tanks to drive the distance from base to base.

[Rahabib]

The problem with the leaderboard is that they generally favor those who just spend a lot of time and they are kind of like an after thought. A scoreboard after an accomplishment is a way of notifying of a an accomplishment to all not just those who look at stats. I havent played PS1 but I have played other games with leaderboards etc. and nobody pays attention to them.

I really like the idea of after each base capture you get a brief screen saying at least your accomplishments like - most sunderer spawns etc. and/or for your outfit like most points captured, most kills, etc. These can be turned off in the settings if you don't want to see it. The 5 minute rule also wouldn't need to be an issue because if you were there for only a second, chances are you/your outfit wouldn't show up anyway.

The premise behind doing it at continent lock was that say if you were on Amerish when Indar gets locked, you would get notification that "NC has successfully locked Indar!" and then you can see who was involved etc. Then it may also encourage people to back to take it rather than just treat it like as if it was on another server.

But remember, I am not saying this is the end all of metagame, just something that could be implemented in the next few patches to give meaning to the metagame until they work out the larger logistics.