Community Question: Campaign Rewards and Unlocks

(DarkangelUK) #101

What shooters are standing the test of time and holding their replay value that don’t have ‘mods or stuff’s’ or originated from one?

(SockDog) #102

The player has the opportunity but I’d argue few would ever achieve it. Ultimately you have exactly what you’ve been wanting, a team comprised of people with different skills, the exception of course is that those skills are really learned rather than awarded in some faux grading system. What exactly is it you want, a nice set of graphs next to a player or a game that allows players to build up real actual skills and experience.

If you want more differentiation then by all means make things like advanced weapons harder to handle, movement akin to Q3 where there is a lot more to it than simply bunny hopping. Let the game world be a platform for people to play in not some obstacle course to puzzle around.

I suggested better mod support at release because frankly you seem to want a niche game of a niche game. That isn’t something SD can afford to make but they could (and should) include enough support behind the curtains so that people can build on the game from the get go. And I’m totally with you on the mods creating a inconsistent experience but that is perhaps another subject to be addressed outside of this thread.

(Testeo) #103

In principle, I like the rewards NOT PERMANENT (I share most of the reasons given by the rest)

The current system of rewards for campaign is quite well, although it has some negative consequences (which is to be expected, nothing is perfect).

Perhaps the best solution is a balanced mix of the many good ideas proposals posted so far, implemented in a kind of layers.

In all these solutions, I would add that the rewards that can transform or convert between classes (so the change of class is not so hard), maybe this can be implemented through XP used as a basis (Example: to transfer the fast spring , reload faster, armor vest, etc) and in the rest specific to each class, do some kind of equivalence where possible (with the help of XP) to avoid having to start from scratch to unlock something specific.

The downside of this idea is that if not implemented carefully, can result in players to use classes where it is easier to collect the XP that can transform or convert to later switch to their preferred classes where the same XP convertible would be more difficult to obtain (a style of transform XP Farming).

(tokamak) #104

This is just a pathetic attitude. Big shooters didn’t become big by chasing whatever the crowds wanted at that moment. Quake, Battlefield, Unreal, Gears of War, Team Fortress and yes, ET all did something radically different to the genre and became huge through it. If you create something good that is also unique (and okay, if you market it well) then the masses will come.

If you constantly compromise any creative flow by constantly nagging about ‘that may not be what the masses want’ then you’re just sticking to regurgitating the countless thirteen to the dozen games that this industry is already overflowing with.

(Dormamu) #105

I think both of your ideas are great, let SD think outside of box, and create something unique, something different from the rest, but also include a mode support to cater for the die hard fans of the big games.
With all this Community Questions i fell like we are flushing away all the creativity , imagination and new stuff from their next game. I wonder why they don’t use the W:ET formula with the pub/vanilla with all the stuff they can think off and some mods for those who want to keep it simple or very fluffy.

(tokamak) #106

Regardless of how far they conform to my wishes, I certainly hope SD doesn’t take them without questioning.

(SockDog) #107

[QUOTE=tokamak;396976]This is just a pathetic attitude. Big shooters didn’t become big by chasing whatever the crowds wanted at that moment. Quake, Battlefield, Unreal, Gears of War, Team Fortress and yes, ET all did something radically different to the genre and became huge through it. If you create something good that is also unique (and okay, if you market it well) then the masses will come.

If you constantly compromise any creative flow by constantly nagging about ‘that may not be what the masses want’ then you’re just sticking to regurgitating the countless thirteen to the dozen games that this industry is already overflowing with.[/QUOTE]

I think this is pretty defensive and avoiding the point. I’m not saying don’t innovate or just imitate. If I want CoD I’ll go buy and play CoD, but likewise SD shouldn’t be looking to run off in the opposite direction just to be different and hope that’s what is going to make it big for them. Hasn’t worked for them in the past (Brink stunk to high heaven of a conflicted game) and we all know W:ET was in part popular due to being free.

They’re after all making a product to sell, the skill IMO, is making one that is accessible and fun for the market while maintaining a uniqueness of it’s own, they kinda did that with ETQW but fell down on the accessibility out of the gate and that stumble, like many others, was enough to muffle any good word of mouth. Patronising but getting it executing right with a polished product is going to give them more success than any gimmick to appeal to this demographic or that.

(tokamak) #108

Brink exactly failed because it tried to cater too much to what they they were expecting the mainstream gamer to be like.

(SockDog) #109

It was schizophrenic in its goals and pleased neither group, this is what happens when you know what sort of game you want to make and then bolt on tons of crap to appeal here or there, it breaks the core game and leads to compromises all over the place.

(.Chris.) #110

If only there was some way you could test new ideas on existing games.

(MoonOnAStick) #111

Splash Damage don’t need to reinvent the wheel. EA have already found the perfect formula: hundreds of permanent unlockable items, which you can achieve by grinding away on your virtual hamster wheel. Or you could pay them another £25 to instantly unlock everything, saving you from having to play the game.

There is no shame in acknowledging the superiority of this system. If you absolutely must reset people’s rewards, at least let them pay £25 at the start of every campaign to get their unlocks back again.

(SockDog) #112

Now sir, I do believe you’re just plain living in the clouds!

(Apples) #113

Never said these mods or stuffs have to be freely released in the game and creating the mess that ET was (each server has his own mod…). But it’s really not quite hard to lock certain stuffs such has UI / loading screen / sounds / skins and let other (Jaymod, ETpro etc) be released at the discretion of the server owners, I never found too much “mod” per se on ET, what I did find annoying was the skins / sounds / loading screen auto installing in the autodownload.

I think that you are misunderstanding me, I think any game dev should start with a solid core, then implement add-ons or let the users create mod (with a good modding distribution and promotion), you want a game where the core is already that complex that they wont be able to do both (RPG style + Solid FPS experience), they tryed with Brink, they had monies, maybe not enough time but well, we see where it went…

The thing is, basically they should make a good game and create the right tools for the community to do their own stuffs, but also create the grid (the bounds)for these new stuffs at release, its like building a home, you only build the bigger core part, and then you let other people build the rest, but these people still have to follow the total blueprint you already draw (I might be cinfusing here but I think you got my idea)

Peace

(tokamak) #114

I got your idea but it’s rarely the custom community that makes a game popular. It’s the other way around, first there’s the critical mass, this, combined with mod support causes the game to have a thriving custom community complementing it. It’s a bonus. An unappealing game will stay unpopular no matter how great the mod support is.

(SockDog) #115

And that has been my point. Making a game a niche of a niche isn’t going to create a critical mass. Hell I’ll risk some horse flogging here, but sticking to the one game mode doesn’t bloody help either, neither does having no real single player mode. Create a fun game, something solid, accessible (that doesn’t mean with no depth or dumbed down) and ensure it has a solid framework for improvement (SDK on or before release, adequate features behind the scene to allow better customisation and yes, thanks Apples, restrictions to prevent trashing the experience). Then you can add to the game either via mods or official DLC.

(tokamak) #116

Just because you don’t like complexity and depth does not mean that the people who do are a small minority in the gamer populace. Complexity and depth doesn’t equate obscurity, look at what Starcraft did. Yeah I hear you say, that’s a different genre but you’ve yet to demonstrate why the shooter genre would be any different. W:ET took the genre and made it considerably more complex and it was a hit. ETQW might not have been a a popular hit but that was mainly due external factors as it was still critical acclaimed. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing that suggest we can’t get away with even more complexity provided it’s handled in an elegant manner.

A game can be simple and playable on the surface while behind the curtains a highly complex array of gizmos and counterweights maintain a balanced environment of enormous possibility and variety making sure not a single match plays the same.

The cerebral factor is inherent to the tactical shooter genre. Take it away and it’s no longer a tactical shooter, it’s just a thirteen in a dozen shooter.

(SockDog) #117

It’s not a matter of personal preference, it’s simply looking at what makes the genre appealing and then saying that jamming in an RPG and all this other stuff is going to detract from that appeal. Frankly people lurrrvvee the RPG stuff in current games because of the crack appeal or because it give them RPG jollies, not because it adds depth to the game. To be crude but it’s hardly any different than early games sticking some big tittied woman on the cover.

What bemuses me is why you’re do dead set on installing some old crumbly RPG mechanic into an FPS and then justifying it under some snobbish assumption that the FPS genre needs to move on. It does that by copying elements from other games? Why not think of a more original way to add depth to the genre without the many penalties I and others have outlined in this thread.

(DarkangelUK) #118

Fake complexity and depth aren’t welcome. Forcing a play path on the user is rather simplistic and very restrictive and as shallow as it comes. It seems the only way you can try and convince players along that route is with fake ego strokes for those that want it, and insults for those that don’t “You are a tactical player that likes depth, well done!” “I guess you’re just a simple player that doesn’t like depth”… that just lowers it to the realms of pathetic since it can’t sell itself on any other merits because it doesn’t have any.

(tokamak) #119

That makes as much sense as saying that the tech-paths in an RTS are fake and shallow.

(DarkangelUK) #120

I’ve known all along that you don’t understand.