Beren Hurin
Onslaught Inc
RISE of LEGION
1795
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Posted - 2013.11.21 16:01:00 -
[1] - Quote
So a lot of conversation has happened about whether TTK is in the right spot. There hasn't been a lot of talk around the numbers, but mostly roles, classes, balance, and the squishy and amorphous 'feelings' about how things 'should be'. People bring their FPS baggage and experience to the game with their own subjective viewpoints. I wanted to articulate what I think are some of the 'experiential' and 'subjective'.
Fairness
A reason why people don't like the feeling of a short TTK is because in an extremely short engagement, they don't feel like they got to 'pick' the fight. You can say 'deal with it/HTFU' or you can start to listen about this concept really means to people and how conflict could be structured differently. Also, with the advent of 'scanning 2.0' the liklihood of being killed by someone whom you never saw on your minimap or face to face, has significanly increased. As TTK increases, what you build into your combat models is that, everyone (most times) CAN have some (small) window of time to choose whether or not they want to fight. If they CHOOSE to stand their ground, they will have a greater liklihood in owning the outcome of whatever happened. The bigger that window, the more time they have to evaluate the situation, and decide if that battle is right for them, their team, and their objectives.
Investment and risk:
You could take the above information about fairness, think about other FPSes and say, "Hell, war just isn't fair. If you die, just get back up and dust yourself off." But Dust is unlike those other games, because you are invested financially in your successes and losses. You lose things you deploy on the battlefield, and the way you lose them affects (or should affect) how you think about deploying them. So here are some feelings I have noticed I personally have.
-If the enemy has successfully managed to deploy two HAVs and exploit an area of the map with them, I will go AV to try and push back against them. When I continually lose this fitting to the HAV squad, I FEEL significant frustration when my team does not share my risk. I have gone to an effort to help them, and I feel like they have failed me. My frustration isn't directed at the HAVs, but my own team.
-When I die to a sniper, my frustration is twofold. Like the HAVs, I'm frustrated at my team, if this sniper is racking up kills. I feel like I've been playing my role as a logi, while nobody has fallen into their place to eliminate this effective sniper. Similarly, I am frustrated at the sniper, because the risk that he and I are leveraging to achieve our objectives are asymmetrical, from my perspective. From my POV, he is risking next to nothing to get his kills, while I have to trudge through hostile ground.
So as we are continuing to discuss these slippery ideals like "TTK" could we try and share and articulate the 'why's' of out thoughts rather than just what we think is broken? I hope these anecdotes of what I shared goes to show that CCP has a long way to go before we can effectively communicate to each other that the game does not have an efficient way to communicate personal investment to teammates, or give an effective feedback to those who's investment is disproportional to their teammates or even their enemy. What is really incentivized is MINIMAL investment for MAXIMAL reward. This results in an attitude toward teammates, that is only coincidentally cooperative.
I think the next step in the ability to 'share fair risk' in the game is to provide a greater incentive to cooperate. Teams must collectively determine their objectives for themselves in each match.
I propose a kind of 'voting system' where a team can decide on a subset of secondary objectives in each match. If these secondary objectives are achieved, then a reward could be added to the whole team's wallet. The objectives could be easy, medium, and hard, but have an isk reward for completing them. The hardest one would have the best reward and would most reward victory. The easiest, would least reward victory, and give little benefit if lost. The medium option would have the highest reward if chosen, and achieved, even if you lose. The list of possible objectives would change from map to map and your choice and progress would be revealed to the other team.
Possible Skirmish/FW objectives could include (pick only 1):
-HARD: hold all objectives for 3 minutes.
-HARD: have 50% or more of your clones remaining by end of match.
-HARD: Do not lose any of your MCC's armor by the end of the match.
-HARD: Average team WP must be above 750 at end of match.
-HARD: Capture and hold at least two objectives the entire match.
-MEDIUM: hold more than 50% of objectives for 5 minutes.
-MEDIUM: have more than 30% of your clones remaining by the end of the match.
-MEDIUM: Average team WP must be above 500 at end of match.
-MEDIUM: An orbital must destroy an enemy vehicle.
-MEDIUM: Capture and hold at least one objective the entire match.
-EASY: Have 50% of your MCC's armor remaining by end of match.
-EASY: Win with at least 10% of your clones remaining.
-EASY: Destroy 5 enemy installations.
-EASY: Average team WP must be 300 or more at end of match.
So as you can see, not only would the map change, but your choices of what to do, how to survive, and how to work together would change from map to map. Do you focus on ceaselessly capturing your objectives? Do you go on the offensive? Do you go for a clone victory? Is it going to be an overwhelming loss that you can still salvage some reward from? Can you do something to keep your enemy from accomplishing their secondary objectives? |