It might work in the points you acquired were based on the suit you were wearing at the time of the kill. Scouts are paper thin, so going up against a heavy and winning and could yeild more points (let's say in the way of bonus points) as you technically risked more during that fight. It could also be based on your current weapon loadout as well, so that weapons like sniper rifles would (which do large amounts of damage) would be taken into account. This would prevent people from just running with a Scout Suit and SR and trying to rack up large WP rewards.

Additionally, you could have it also based on the overall level of equipment being used by the opponent. So if someone is running around in PRO gear, and gets gunned down by someone using MLT gear, the MLT user could recieve bonus points for taking down the more dangerous opponent.

While I don't think the OP's suggestion is neccessarily the right way to go, I do think that WP's awarded for kills should have more things taken into account. Having Risk Versus Reward as a game defining mechanic is great, and i think applying that mentallity to combat could be a very interesting dynamic. If a character is running around the field in **** fits, but still handing his opponents their *****, I don't see a problem in the gaming giving a little extra reward for the extra risk that he takes.

This is exactly the main idea behind my thougts, you have different risks in this game, I see it mostly from the assault site, for I am playing this the most. So a scout is normally no really threat so it should not be as good rewarded than fighting a heavy for example,
I tried to get all this gamemechanics in a quiet simple way to a fair balance of WP rewards. I like to keep things simple.

Unfortunately, a system like this can't really be simple. Or, more accurately, it can be detrimental if it is too simple. As I pointed out, just basing the WP's earned off suit types would mean that Snipers running Scout suits would be the highest earners of WP's in game, and while I usually do play snipers and Shotty-Scouts, I can see how this would unbalance the game.

Starting simple is great, but I think it would be benefitial to come up with as many scenarios as possible to see how that would affect the WP's earned. So off the top of my head (and based on what we've already mentioned), you could have a system that would these things into account:

Suit Type: In terms of Bonus Points-Scout>Assault>Logi>Heavy

Weapon Type: Not sure on this one but maybe something like-Lower Base DPS of Weapon>Higher Base DPS of Weapon

Tier Level: Lvl 1>Lvl 2>Lvl 3>Lvl 4>Lvl 5

Or perhaps have the entire thing based on the average Meta Level of your fitting versus the average Meta Level of the opponent. If the Opponent has a higher overall Meta Level you get more points, if it's lower then you get less points.

Right, I think the meta level might be the easiest way to find out how a player is fitted. On the other hand what do you think about the skills? You know, there are skills which boost you weapon damage 10% and others which boost your armour and shield 25% which might be nice to include to the whole WP-reward-system aswell.

Skills absolutely need to be taken into account, you are right about that. Even running Starter Fits for an entire match, the guy with 5 mil SP's is at much higher level that guy who just started a character. I'm thinking that skill levels would add to your overall Meta Level, maybe have each skill level (1-5) add a .1 or .2 to you Meta Level. So if you have 15 total skills and they're all at Level 3 you would add 4.5 to 9 to you Meta Level. I'm leaning more towards the .1 right now. So even running Starter Fits you would at a Meta Level of 5.5, instead of Metal Level 1.

I still think weapon type, or at least DPS should be factored in somehow as well. Again I'm going to use the Sniper as an example (although you could also use heavies as example here, but I haven't played as a heavy yet, so I'll stick with what I know); A Meta Level 1 Sniper can still take down a much higher Meta Level [insert fit here] due to its high damage. The system does need to be balanced in order to accomodate the different playstyles, so that no single fit type can really be considered the "best".

damned snipers, ruining everything again :D
But you are right. The idea with skills raising the meta level is pretty nice, this can make things much easier.
On the sniperrifles: thats a pretty tough one, because meta level don't really matters for them like you said. One option would be absolute no special reward for snipers, which would be queit unfair, on the other hand they have a quiet unrisky life which could be a reason for no extra WP for higher tier enemies.
I really have no idea how to handle them.

Thinking about it, I'm leaning towards DPS/100 then adding the result to your Metal Level. So taking the Sniper Rifle example if you have a SR that does 199.5 damage with a 50 RPM (I can't remember the name of the specific SR that does this, but it's in there) then the DPS would be 239.4. So 239.4/100 would be 2.39 (rounding to the second ecimal place). Then you would add 2.39 to the Meta Level.

So you would have the average Meta Level of the equipment, plus .1 per skill level, plus DPS/100 would equal the total Metal Level of the fit being used. Now the only thing to decide is how many bonus points a Merc would recieve based on relative Meta Levels.

I think the base WP for a kill should stay at 50 WP, so if I have a Meta level of 5 and kill a enemy merc of the same meta level the reward should be 50 WP, 1 Meta Level should stand for at least 10 WP, but if I am at Meta Level 5 killing a Merc with Meta Level 1 I should get less WP than for an equal kill, but we should not go under 20 WP for a kill, what do you think about this?

WP is fine, don't touch that. The reward you get for taking down harder and more expensive enemies is more isk and as you level up and SP becomes less important (and thus WP also, as they are directly tied), the isk earned from harder kills will become more important.

As for your WP per damage done idea - the problem here is that players can regen some shield and/or armour and then how would this calculation be worked out? more than 100% kill WP? What if 5 people are shooting the same guy at the same time? Do they all average 20% kill WP?

You would be better served by getting WP and not wishing you got more by playing some other FPS. Not to mention the act of writing the entire thing down proves your concept of balance is anything but balanced.

Leave it alone CCP. There is nothing to see here.

200k isk seems to be pretty much the base contract amount for playing a full game - you only get less if you're in for less than a whole match. If you kill a lot of really expensive gear, you can get 400k or more (though that much is pretty rare even when I'm out tank hunting).

WPs are only linked to SP. That is all. The points that appear on the screen are exactly equal to the SP you gain, so everytime you get 50 points for a kill, that is 50 SP.

As I previously stated, more isk is rewarded for killing proto and advanced gear. SP is awarded for killing the merc, not destroying the suit he's in.

Well I generally suck at FPS games (this one included) so I usually get about 150K-175K. If I hit 200K it's because the gaming gods decided to smile upon me and temporarily grant me the power of Thor. But that's beside the point. WP's can't possibly be linked to SP's on a one for one basis, as you've suggested here. I average about 4500-5000 SP's per match and usually earn less than 1000 WP's. Win or lose it doesn't seem to change. I would like to point out that I rarely hit the weekly cap, and that I don't use Passive or Active Boosters. Now, you might be getting 1000 WP's and 1000 SP's per match, I grant you, but that's probably because you've hit the cap so early in the week in you've forgotten that's it's there. And again, I ask why they don't just replace WP score with SP scores if what you say is actually true? Since WP's would appear to do bugger-all as a an actual game stat or mechanic.

It's 1 WP = 1 SP and 1 sec in battle = 5 SP until the weekly cap is reached, then you only get 1SP/WP.

Ah yeh, sorry, thought I'd already pointed out that part about how SP is earned.



And FYI - I've still not hit the cap this week, so don't go making bad assumptions.

I agree, to a point, that assaults and other roles that focus on killing enemies could use a WP boost. I can make double or triple what the heavy in my squad makes shooting guys by healing him while he's shooting guys. However, I don't think basing WP on type of enemy killed is the way to go. Dust is a team game at heart, and the rewards should reflect that. Like I suggested above with a bonus for killing enemies that've damaged your teammates, other ideas include:

• a bonus for killing enemies who are hacking your team's installations
• a bonus for killing AV-equipped enemies within a certain radius of friendly tanks
• a bonus for killing enemies within a certain radius of teammates who are hacking
• a bonus for killing enemies within a certain distance of teammates who are using repair tools
• bonuses for counter-hacking should definitely be implemented, as well as bonuses for repairing vehicles and installations, especially now that tankers seem to target them almost exclusively.

The idea is that the bonuses will encourage people to stay near their comrades and work together to destroy the enemy. I've seen plenty of tankers complain, with good reason, about missing infantry support. But if you get the bonus I suggested above, wouldn't you want to stick around and help?

I agree with all of this, except for the part highlighted above. The initial idea presented was based off of enemy type, but somewhere along the way we switched to Meta Level. Namely your Meta Level versus the enemies. If their Meta Level is higher than yours, then you are taking more of a risk when going up against them. The higher the risk, the higher the reward.

More things giving more points making it more likely that your team mates will stick around and do what they're supposed to because they want the points.

Also this idea could help with the Pub-Stomping issue. Not that anything will ever get rid of it completely. If you're running around in PRO gear, and the enemy is running Starter Fits, you get less points for killing them because they just aren't that much of a challenge. So you can lower your Meta Level by choosing lower ranking fits, and earn more in the way of rewards. Or, keep on as you are and wipe the floor with who ever happens to be unlucky enough to cross your path, but take a hit to your ISK and SP gain.

Ah, I seem to have missed that. It doesn't sound terrible, but I think better matchmaking could help with that.

Okay, so the crux of the issue is starting to emerge here and it essentially comes down to pubstomps and poor matchmaking. With that in mind, it should be remembered that what we are currently playing will be a very small part of the eventual game and in the next 6 months (release is slated for summer 2013) everything will change massively.

When we have full EvE integration, there will be 3 security zones in which to play - hi-sec, low-sec and null-sec. The current version of pub games will likely be quite similar to hi-sec. High level experienced players will not be playing here much because the rewards will likely be quite limited. They will all be in low and null-sec fighting over territory against other high level players and corps.

As stated, I really don't think there needs to be any change because the isk rewards adequately take care of the meta level differences but to just make one point about what has now been suggested - if there is a difference in reward between meta levels (or gear types), would you only apply this to the suits? the weapons? the modules used? Do you see what I'm getting at here? It's not just about the suit.

@Tiluvo agreed - WP does need tweaking in general, especially rehacking objectives and hacking vehicles need WP reward.

I think that Meta Level could help with matchmaking. Basing matchmaking on say, SP's, doesn't really help because some people (like me) have a whole bunch of SP's that they haven't assigned to anything effectively making them the same challenge from week to week until they do. Basing it on Skill Levels is better, but it doesn't take into account how much ISK you've spent on your currently available fits.

But since we can choose our "Favorite" fit (which is curently being used to decide how you appear to other players while in the Warbarge), the system could take the Meta Level of your fit, combine it with your skill levels (as outlined in an earlier post), and come up with a Meta Level range that it would then use to match you with other players. If you feel that the matches it puts you in are unchallenging (or too much of a challenge), then you can simply pick a different fit as your "Favorite" and see where that puts you. It's a system that players can manipulate until they get the challenge level that they want.

I'd have this apply only to Instant Battles, leaving Corp Matches and FW to their own devices.

Okay, so the crux of the issue is starting to emerge here and it essentially comes down to pubstomps and poor matchmaking. With that in mind, it should be remembered that what we are currently playing will be a very small part of the eventual game and in the next 6 months (release is slated for summer 2013) everything will change massively.



When we have full EvE integration, there will be 3 security zones in which to play - hi-sec, low-sec and null-sec. The current version of pub games will likely be quite similar to hi-sec. High level experienced players will not be playing here much because the rewards will likely be quite limited. They will all be in low and null-sec fighting over territory against other high level players and corps.



As stated, I really don't think there needs to be any change because the isk rewards adequately take care of the meta level differences but to just make one point about what has now been suggested - if there is a difference in reward between meta levels (or gear types), would you only apply this to the suits? the weapons? the modules used? Do you see what I'm getting at here? It's not just about the suit.

Only problem here...what do you do when people are in squads outside of an individual game? The Meta/SP level system is great for determining rewards and I like it, but how would it place a squad of different leveled people?



For example, I am a squad leader with proto gear and huge amounts of SP but all three of my mates are newbs with starter fits. Does matchmaking set us up in a proto instant battle or a starter instant battle? Also, anyone could set their fav fit to a starter fit, get thrown into a lower Meta level match and then hit up a supply depot and switch to a proto fit.



Granted, switching to a proto fit would still effect their SP/ISK rewards. Also, I am aware that part of the algorithm involves total SP in addition to fit meta level. Theoretically, a guy with 5mil SP and a starter fit still won't be playing against newbies since his Meta/SP level would be too high.

Balancing this system correctly would be an absolute beast, fyi. Think about it. Okay, so one of the ideas here is to stop rewarding proto guys for going 31/1 in public games, right? To balance this so that actually happens you need to make the SP/ISK rewards SOOOO small for running a proto fit against starter fits that going 10/5 against other proto guys is better than going 31/1 against newbs. Not only that, you have to balance it so that going 31/1 in starter fits with 6mil SP is STILL worse than going 10/5 against other proto guys. You have to make it so that the hit you suffer for going proto against guys with 4 mil SP when you have 4 mil SP isn't ridiculous, since they should also be able to run proto at that skill level. It sounds like an absolute boondoggle to balance, is all I'm suggesting...



At the end of the day, I think a Meta/SP level WP system would do wonders to curtail (if not prevent) SOME pub-stomping since the big-wigs wouldn't get jack for contract rewards for owning newbies, but balancing a system like this seems like an arduous battle for the developers at best.

Ok people still don't seem to be grasping the fact that isk takes care of rewarding your for killing higher level geared players. WP does not need to do this too.

As for the matchmaking system - it doesn't work on just SP count, or even SP spend or meta-level. It's a pretty complex algorithm that produces a 'skill level'. There was a dev post recently explaining it better - I'll try to find the post to link for it.

Why do you instantly need to know whether you've killed a proto guy or a militia scrub? Why does not finding out at the end of the battle how much you've contributed satisfy?

I couldn't find the dev post but I've linked the wiki page for the system that is used.