Winning/Victory in PS2 with statistics

[Graywolves]

Originally Posted by Malorn

The reality of people is that they are motivated by the things which the game and social influence tell them is important.

Statistics are just numbers of stuff that happened. By itself it is not particularly interesting. When statistics become interesting is when it is used to motivate by elevating certain statistics over others. It isn't the stats that are relevant; it's which stats the game elevates to the status of "important" that matters.

But not all stats are equal. Each stat promoted will affect gameplay because that's what the game is telling them is important. If the game promoted nothing but healing and reviews - no kills, nothing else, you'd see some pretty strange behavior no doubt of people working to improve those healing numbers. Likewise, when the game promotes a lot of killwhore stats - that is exactly what you're going to get.

If you want a game focused on results-based play, then there are some stats that reflect results-based play. To name a few...

• Facility captures
• Territory captures
• Facility Resecures/Defenses
• Territory Resecures/Defenses
• Resources gained
• Critical resources gained (stuff your empire direly needed)
• Resources denied (stuff the enemy direly needed)

These are all statistical measurements of various aspects of results-based play. If you want efficiency, then divide that by time-played. Players with high numbers of these stats are, without a doubt, contributing significantly to the advancement of their empire and leaving their mark on the persistent world.

If these things are featured prominently in the game then these will be what the players in general will strive to improve and the large measuring stick by which people compare themselves.

If you want a more personal measurement of productivity or how much you as an individual are contributing, there is but one calibrated answer:

Score / Min

Score/Min is also a results-based stat. Score/Min does not care how you got the score, whether it was by a kill streak of head shots or healing/reviving/repairing teammates, or a base capture. Score/Min does not care how many times you died (though you weren't likely earning points while dead). Score/Min is the great equalizing stat of Planetside 2. Score/Min promotes all walks of life in the game, not certain walks.

By promoting things like kill streaks, K, and other garbage stats all you are doing is discouraging teamwork and results-based play. Those stats work fine in a game without a persistent world or games revolving around deathmatch. Those aren't PlanetSide, though I understand the developer's desire to cater to the "modern FPS", but I do hope they grow a pair on this subject and do what's right for the game instead of carbon copying Modern Warfare and promoting all the terrible playhabits prominent in that game.


Promote results-based stats and you will see more results-based play.

I agree with this and especially what is bolded. Everything we need for "Victory/win" conditions is already here, the battle is just making it easy for players to identify and promoting the right kind of play. Even if the reward was just an achievement and another stat that was tracked on your record.

The only possible problem with score/min is making them equal enough so that kills don't trump everything. But I think this could be fixed or balanced out easily enough.

[ThGlump]

Sigh. Cant we just play for fun? But if has to be then rather play for results than for kills/leaderboards.

[Knocky]

Originally Posted by Malorn

I'd prefer people played for results, not stats.

As do I.

However there is a certain type of person that demands to be rewarded for what they do. They are generally rewarded based on kills since they are kill whores. This is why I bring up the fact that Support gets screwed. Empires should receive rewards as a group, not individuals.

[oosik]

Malorn,

I'd love to see these kinds of things promoted and emphasized, while still having the other stuff be able to be accessed. Is this kind of stuff doable in PS2?

These kinds of result-based stats could really lend themselves to some great immersive propaganda.

Originally Posted by Malorn

The reality of people is that they are motivated by the things which the game and social influence tell them is important.

Statistics are just numbers of stuff that happened. By itself it is not particularly interesting. When statistics become interesting is when it is used to motivate by elevating certain statistics over others. It isn't the stats that are relevant; it's which stats the game elevates to the status of "important" that matters.

But not all stats are equal. Each stat promoted will affect gameplay because that's what the game is telling them is important. If the game promoted nothing but healing and reviews - no kills, nothing else, you'd see some pretty strange behavior no doubt of people working to improve those healing numbers. Likewise, when the game promotes a lot of killwhore stats - that is exactly what you're going to get.

If you want a game focused on results-based play, then there are some stats that reflect results-based play. To name a few...

• Facility captures
• Territory captures
• Facility Resecures/Defenses
• Territory Resecures/Defenses
• Resources gained
• Critical resources gained (stuff your empire direly needed)
• Resources denied (stuff the enemy direly needed)

<snipped to end>

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

The most beautiful part of PS1 was that it was completely driven by the players. The players decided whether they succeeded or failed by their ability to organize and cooperate. It made every victory sweeter and every defeat a lesson. I have quoted that line many times, "Rome is the mob" because that is what PS1 was. My personal experiences involved recognizing, devising and inventing strategies and coordinating with other players to effectively apply them. I did not need a mission system, we decided our mission. We did not need a Platoon System, we created our platoons. We figured out what we wanted to accomplish and then we figured out how to get it done.

However, when it comes to an overall victory condition, I experienced a system with WWII Online that was very satisfying. It was simple, fight to the last city and win the war. The map would reset and the next campaign would begin. Accomplishing this usually took months, so it wasn't an easy task. So, for all of my feelings about leaving a game wide open, having a way to ultimately win was something that I would support, because I experienced it in a way that felt right for such an environment.

exactly i think that was one of the draws of Planetside, depending on your goal, you always felt like you were winning. Future Crew and Hostile Takover always had this argument, they would argue that they won and took the base, FC would say we won because we farmed the shit out of them in the base defence.


I really do think thats the beauty of it, it really does depend on your goals as an individual or outfit, some people play for kills, K/D KPM, bases, achievements. its really all good.

[Brusi]

Just make Base and Territory caps a big, BOLDED stat...

[BorisBlade]

Winning based on xp or resources or K/D etc is lazy design period. We are fighting for territory, we should win by capping said areas. They seem to want to make it boring with just constant circling around each other and capping but they are gonna need somethin that is physical, tangible, and meaningful, and its gonna have to seem as some kind of endpoint or breakpoint like a cont cap in ps1 was.

Just completely meaningless and boring "wins" based on some boring tally is so completely uninteresting to me. Its very cheap and lazy design and will not keep people playing. You get no sense of accomplishment from boring numbers, nor is there any sense of you winning a hard fought battle when at some random point all of a sudden you get some message saying you reached and arbitrary number. Who effin cares. They gotta get some real win scenarios in and not take the lazy route.

While i would play short term, screwin this aspect up would kill it long term for sure.

Now i know their very limited number of conts and the terribad safe zones on each cont mean that old ps1 "win by capping the cont" idea wont work, but that doesnt mean they have to give up and go the stupid route. This is definitely an area that will need alot of ideas to come up with something else that could be used instead.

[EVILPIG]

Originally Posted by BorisBlade

Winning based on xp or resources or K/D etc is lazy design period. We are fighting for territory, we should win by capping said areas. They seem to want to make it boring with just constant circling around each other and capping but they are gonna need somethin that is physical, tangible, and meaningful, and its gonna have to seem as some kind of endpoint or breakpoint like a cont cap in ps1 was.

Just completely meaningless and boring "wins" based on some boring tally is so completely uninteresting to me. Its very cheap and lazy design and will not keep people playing. You get no sense of accomplishment from boring numbers, nor is there any sense of you winning a hard fought battle when at some random point all of a sudden you get some message saying you reached and arbitrary number. Who effin cares. They gotta get some real win scenarios in and not take the lazy route.

While i would play short term, screwin this aspect up would kill it long term for sure.

Now i know their very limited number of conts and the terribad safe zones on each cont mean that old ps1 "win by capping the cont" idea wont work, but that doesnt mean they have to give up and go the stupid route. This is definitely an area that will need alot of ideas to come up with something else that could be used instead.

Beta testing never really ends. Sure, there will be a release date, but the game will change as it goes. Right now, core mechanics, graphics and bugs is the focus. After that, the world is their oyster.

[SKYeXile]

I really like gw2 system of winners every 2 weeks.

You could do the same in ps2 based of empire resource gains.

Your total resources gained over 2 weeks basicly = empire points since the resource ticks are based off land you own at the end of 2 weeks or maybe well beforehand, you can see a clear winner who held the most land over a period of time, not just at the last min.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Knocky

As do I.

However there is a certain type of person that demands to be rewarded for what they do. They are generally rewarded based on kills since they are kill whores. This is why I bring up the fact that Support gets screwed. Empires should receive rewards as a group, not individuals.

Why should the game cater to one type of person? Can't please everyone all the time, so do what's right for the game to encourage the type of teamwork and objective-based play that Planetside 2 will need to thrive.

Players will improve the stats the game tells them to improve.

Sort of like one of Homer Simpson's great quotes... "Women will like what I tell them to like."

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

I really like gw2 system of winners every 2 weeks.

You could do the same in ps2 based of empire resource gains.

Your total resources gained over 2 weeks basicly = empire points since the resource ticks are based off land you own at the end of 2 weeks or maybe well beforehand, you can see a clear winner who held the most land over a period of time, not just at the last min.

I like how that's an empire-wide goal to go out and secure the valuable resources and deny them from the enemy.

That's a sort of resetting victory condition that doesn't hurt the gameplay, I like it.

[Neksar]

Originally Posted by ThGlump

Sigh. Cant we just play for fun? But if has to be then rather play for results than for kills/leaderboards.

I would leave it at simply "QFT," but I think that gets thrown around too often on these forums.

Fun was always my motivator, and I was always capable of making my own. Maybe that's why I'm content sucking as an infiltrator, as long as I set a goal and have fun trying to achieve it. I've noticed that 'fun' tends to have a very specific definition among many PS1 vets, or even PC gamers in general. Most of it comes from the method of input for the game though. I'm procrastinating some coursework, so I'll elaborate in an unnecessarily lengthy way.

For the dedicated PC gamer to find a game fun, it must make full use of the keyboard and mouse as input devices. PC games appear to be deemed "dumbed down" if they fail to include such things as freelook or several weapon holsters. Iron sights also fall into this category, since ADS is considered a mechanic necessitated by console controllers. TTKs need to be fairly long to reward sustained fire over a specific point, since a mouse is arguably more capable of such things.

Input must also be specific and calculated, in the sense that raw reflex is not rewarded. The prime example is that of the quick knife/quick melee. Because it allows a person to rifle butt with one quick button press in close quarters, as opposed to a key stroke combined with a well-timed click of the mouse after the knife has finished drawing, it is considered a dumbed-down mechanic for console kiddies.

"Accessibility" has become somewhat of a naughty word to many people, regardless of console or PC preference, because they feel that the game series they love is "theirs" in some sense, and making it easier to transition into by way of implementing mechanics similar to other popular games is, in essence, intruding upon what they know and love. For PS1 veterans, PS2 is looking this way. For consoles, consider Dark Souls compared to Demons Souls. The Demons Souls crowd felt Dark Souls was a much less difficult game by comparison, and there were many that didn't take to that change very well. 'Tis the dilemma of continuing a series.

I do hope for cont locks, though. That was something I liked in PS1, since it gave people a reason, though a meta-game reason, to fight for a continent. With no motivation aside from some ill-elucidated resource system, it seems like it'll be little more than a glorified continent-wide deathmatch. And as much as I can enjoy CoD or BF3 from time to time, I would prefer something a little more immersive.

[cellinaire]

I originally thought of writing some ideas of mine, but seems to me that people here already explained it better.

Dev team. Are you watching this thread?

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Malorn

I like how that's an empire-wide goal to go out and secure the valuable resources and deny them from the enemy.

That's a sort of resetting victory condition that doesn't hurt the gameplay, I like it.

yea i think its good.

its a further look at GW2s score, while its more meaningful in GW2 since servers are then roated, in PS2 it would jsut add to a sence of accomplishment for an empire.





so yea i figure the way points are generated are similar to how resources in PS2 will work, so they could have the same sort of bonuses as GW2 for holding specific points.

in GW2 each empire gets points for the land they control at the time, every 5 min, i think that will be prettymuch exactly how resources work(how they're distributed is another thread)

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Originally Posted by oosik

Malorn,

I'd prefer people played for results too. But the reality of the situation is that stats can help provide the population that will provide us our game as well for a longer period of time.

As a math teacher I always wanted students to be taking my math classes because they were interested in the subject. But the reality was that the vast majority were there to get their ticket punched and any learning they did was actually incidental to that.

But also being a math-oriented person and in addition to my desire to have people play for results, I like fiddling with the stats and checking them out.

Like I said in another thread, we need stats for E-V-E-R-Y-THING in the game.

So then you can take your stat sheet and waggle it in front of people and say "Look, I rezzed 102 guys last night and healed 2,874 hit points and ended with 602 assists. Without me the war effort would have been 602 kills harder to achieve"

Or, "I used 8,402 units of engy glue in a 4 hour period last night. That's a total of 400 complete vanguards repaired. I saved the faction XXXX resources"

That way support players like myself have some measure of worth that isn't K/D.

The knuckledraggers can wave their K/D ratios as much as they want but without a sunderer and galaxy to provide a forward base, they're not gonna be combat effective. Just remember that!