Your problems, abuse and exploit concerns

[Figment]

Now that we know some more basics of the game, let's start considering how people would use it in unintended ways, would come across problems or would see options to exploit. We can then go into beta and playtest specific concerns.

Please provide:

1. Related to design decision
   
2. Problem description
   
3. Context
   
4. User Scenario(s)
   
5. Optional solutions
   

And you can add which game mechanics might already provide a (partial) solution.


Example:

1. Related to design decision
   Vehicles can't be deconstructed, but have to be destroyed.
   
   
2. Problem description
   (Un)intended griefing through acquisition of multiple vehicles.
   
   
3. Context
   Limited space around vehicle acquisition areas and chokepoints providing the ability to setup a blockade.
   
   
4. User Scenario(s)
   • Player pulled wrong vehicle at vpad, leaves vehicle at end of autodrive path as he exits as soon as possible to get a new vehicle
   • Player(s) deliberately block entrances or exits with vehicles to create walls and obstacles, with the intend that other (friendly!) players have to remove these before being able to pass through.
   
   The next person may have to be forced to gain griefpoints by destroying a friendly, abandoned vehicle in order to move passed it, or is blocked and gets stuck.
   
   
5. Solutions
   • Limited resources so not too many vehicles can be pulled per player. (PS2 Resource system?)
   • Faster auto-deconstruction in such choke points (akin to parking next to doors in PS1)
   • Vehicles without owner can be claimed and moved by other players (Need certification, or can you drive any vehicle in PS2?)
   • Vehicles can push or ram other vehicles out of the way (PS2 Sunderer)
   • Ability to pass through friendly obstructions (Akin to PS1 TRAPs)
   • Provide incentive to player to move their vehicle out of the way - allow recycling of vehicles with a return of a small portion of resources (currently not possible in PS2)
   • No grief points for destroying non-owned, friendly vehicles.

[Shogun]

mission system

players can set up missions for others to accept and complete.
completing missions gives more xp.

my problem: what keeps players from just spamming every possible nearby missiongoals to the system, to make everything the zerg does more rewarding in terms of xp. especially if the mission-giver gets xp, too if his mission is completed by some players.

solution: hard to come by!
missions could be placed by voting, but as we all know, the zerg learns to exploit any voting systemv very fast. any ideas?

[Figment]

@Shogun:
Some temp and more sustainable solutions for your problem:

• Limited amount of missions per player. Either on a time limitation basis (Y minutes/hours) or a numerical limitation: for instance, maximum X active missions, or X missions within Y minutes/hours.
• Expensive certification to set goals outside of your platoon (short term solution, not long term in system where you can get everything eventually). Would prefer having to give up something else type of cert tree, but oh well.
• Use them more as indicators than actually providing exp bonuses
• Only one mission per objective possible at the same time (to avoid multiple people spamming same objective to get a lot of points for completing one objective for many missions at the same time).
• Set mission expiration time.
• Allow reporting of players who mission spam or otherwise abuse the system
• Limited amount of text characters.
• Allow setting of limited amount of players that can accept the mission (to try and prevent everyone going there as the person setting the mission: missions could create zergling tunnelvision!).

Got some more ideas and concerns about it. Abusive language in the descriptions is one, while too short macro descriptions or too few options may also pose a problem ("securing the gen" may be interpreted as "destroying the gen" by some zerglings, for instance).

[Azren]

Related to design decision
Driver guns for main battle tanks

Problem description
Driver guns for main battle tanks makes effective driving near impossible in said vehicles. It reduces the situational awareness of the driver, often resulting in premature destruction of the vehicle. These constant deaths will lower the number of players who are willing to gun for the MBTs resulting in the predominant use of single manned tanks.
MBTs are supposed to be a team vehicle, hence lightnings, ATVs, assault aircafts, ect. were added for solo use.

Optional solutions
Remove the driver's option to use the main gun on any 2+ seater vehicle. The use of a secondary gun would be acceptable.
An other solotion could be to allow drivers to choose if they want to control the main guns or the secondary guns.

[nomotog]

Originally Posted by Shogun

mission system

players can set up missions for others to accept and complete.
completing missions gives more xp.

my problem: what keeps players from just spamming every possible nearby missiongoals to the system, to make everything the zerg does more rewarding in terms of xp. especially if the mission-giver gets xp, too if his mission is completed by some players.

solution: hard to come by!
missions could be placed by voting, but as we all know, the zerg learns to exploit any voting systemv very fast. any ideas?

Limit the amount of missions you can have active at a time (1 or maybe 2 with upgrading.) and let missions form multiple people stack. It is a form of vetoing the important objectives will have lots of people calling missions on them. That will make that them give out more exp there fore convincing more people to accept that mission. That fulfills the goal of the mission system to give direction to people.

[Bags]

Wait, did they release beta already or something?

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Azren

Related to design decision
Driver guns for main battle tanks

Problem description
Driver guns for main battle tanks makes effective driving near impossible in said vehicles. It reduces the situational awareness of the driver, often resulting in premature destruction of the vehicle. These constant deaths will lower the number of players who are willing to gun for the MBTs resulting in the predominant use of single manned tanks.
MBTs are supposed to be a team vehicle, hence lightnings, ATVs, assault aircafts, ect. were added for solo use.

Optional solutions
Remove the driver's option to use the main gun on any 2+ seater vehicle. The use of a secondary gun would be acceptable.
An other solution could be to allow drivers to choose if they want to control the main guns or the secondary guns.

thats not the optimal solution, thats the solution you want.

the best solution would be, lets the driver drive and aim in 3rd person. it allows them to have more situational awareness, but it also means still that not everybody is going to be good with a tank. also given that tanks require resources to pull, not everybody is going to want to be driving their own tank, gunning one might be a better options for some players.

[ThGlump]

There should be camera at front, so even if you aiming in different direction, you can still see in front of a tank on a smaller display, located somewhere at the edge of screen. That would be best if they want to keep driver/gunner viable without making tanks too much stationary.
And another display for driving in reverse would be nice. Come on, its future, no reason they shouldnt use technology we can use today.

[VioletZero]

My big worry is how they're going to handle boosting with the mission system.

Proposed fix: Limited selection of missions people are allowed to do.

[nomotog]

Originally Posted by VioletZero

My big worry is how they're going to handle boosting with the mission system.

Proposed fix: Limited selection of missions people are allowed to do.

What do you mean by boosting?

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by nomotog

What do you mean by boosting?

powerleveling. i doubt it willbe possible.

[VioletZero]

Originally Posted by nomotog

What do you mean by boosting?

High level guild members getting commander positions and giving cheesecake missions to their guild mates to power level them.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by VioletZero

High level guild members getting commander positions and giving cheesecake missions to their guild mates to power level them.

they weren't that stupid to reward doing nothing in PS1, i doubt they will start now.

[nomotog]

Originally Posted by VioletZero

High level guild members getting commander positions and giving cheesecake missions to their guild mates to power level them.

I'm not worried about that myself. I imagine that your meant to be on mission most of the time, so someone setting up missions for you is just normal leveling. not powerleveling. Then they could just jump on anyone's mission no need for a guild. Also the computer can put up counter missions to your missions.

[sylphaen]

In the end, while the mission system will be a nice tool to focus efforts of the zerg, I do hope that it is not intrusive to the point of being required (i.e. feeling that you must do mission lest you fall behind in XP/rank or whatever the reward is).

Hopefully, the missions' rewards will be provided by the players setting the missions (transfer of your own points or greater percent allocation of points from a global pool of points being one way to reward mission players).

If missions cost something to somebody, you can bet that missions will be set for critical stuff. Not what's going to be blown up anyways.

It may feel like farming from quests otherwise.