Encouraging Teamwork in PS2

**Malorn** · 2011-10-29, 05:36 AM

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 · 2011-10-29, 06:00 AM

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 · 2011-10-29, 06:17 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

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** · 2011-10-29, 06:27 AM

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 · 2011-10-29, 06:42 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 2011-10-29, 06:45 AM

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 · 2011-10-29, 07:01 AM

Screw K/D its all about the KPM.

SgtMAD · 2011-10-29, 07:20 AM

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 · 2011-10-29, 08:05 AM

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 · 2011-10-29, 01:48 PM

I support Malorn's OP.

Mastachief · 2011-10-29, 02:52 PM

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 · 2011-10-29, 03:58 PM

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 · 2011-10-29, 05:32 PM

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** · 2011-10-29, 06:02 PM

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** · 2011-10-29, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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.