Zeylon Rho
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
2049
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Posted - 2013.08.23 16:20:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hmm... I thought Zdub's scaling post was interesting, and the idea for bonuses for the winning team.
I think you can't really get away with the fact that WP-incentives don't really cover the range of team-focused behaviors, and if your no-WP behaviors only benefit you in the event of a win - that's also restrictive. I suppose that's why passive is the bulk of SP in battle now, but it still needs addressing from a reinforcement of player behavior perspective.
If it did become WP-weighted, it shifts a focus to WP-whoring to some degree. I can probably be in the top three of most matches if I really try. That's not meant to sound arrogant, and it's not even suggesting that I'd be a significant help to my team. You can be focused on getting WP and not be the "most helpful" player. The game rewards all sorts of behaviors that aren't necessarily helpful, and does nothing for others. That's part of why I liked Zdub's post, because there's at least some discouragement of WP-whoring.
You want a few different things out of the design I think. Discouraging AFKers is a bad way to look at it; the focus should be on incentives for playing. You want players to be rewarded for helping their team, especially in ways that don't necessarily involve shooting someone in the face. You don't want failures on the part of player that is unskilled or unlucky to result in a seemingly punitive skill-gap with people that are already better.
The passive SP mostly helps with the latter case I think, and I think that's due consideration when you're asking what happens to a proto-stomped player in a WP-ruled system. Do they end a match with 16 deaths, no kills, and a handful of SP? That the sort of problem that would create a skill-gap where the winners get the SP for better gear (and feel good going into the next match), and the losers suffer a SP deficit and have problems hitting the cap regardless of playtime. If the end-message of Dust is "losers should quit", then that probably will cause issues with the playerbase over the long-term.
I don't really like the cap to begin with though (not exactly the issue of the OP), it would be more kind to players to have some sort of rollover. I'd like to see WP rewards fleshed out and SP rewards generally higher. I wouldn't want to see passive take a big hit before fixing some of the other issues. |