Encouraging Teamwork in PS2

[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]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

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]

Originally Posted by Raymac

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]

Originally Posted by FIREk

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]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

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]

Originally Posted by TRex

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]

Originally Posted by TRex

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by FIREk

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.