Encouraging Teamwork in PS2

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Atuday

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]

Originally Posted by Malorn

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Mirror

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]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

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]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

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]

Originally Posted by HELLFISH88

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.