Intelligence Mission Concern

(Cankor) #1

Some background info for anyone not familiar with the Intelligence Mission:

(Intelligence is) a particular objective that can come up when one team is completely dominating. Sometimes that’s just unavoidable. It’s just random luck of the draw that this team has a combination of people and combination of ping. For whatever reason, they are just dominating that other team. That’s demoralizing for the other team, and the kick ass team isn’t having that much fun either, really.

When we recognize when that’s happening, the team getting dominated get a new objective called collecting intelligence. It’s a side-objective. They go off and find some intelligence that’s generated in the world, they carry it to the nearest command post. Generally we try to look for players who are clearly having a bad time, who have a negative 5000 (note: exaggeration) kill ratio, and they’re clearly about to quit. We say, “hey, this is the most important mission on the universe, there’s intel out there on the field, nobody knows where it is; you are the only one who knows where it is, follow the arrow and collect that thing.”

As soon as you pick up that intelligence, everybody in the enemy team goes: “****. Someone has intelligence, find this guy, track him down.” Now suddenly you become the most important person in the team, even though a few minutes ago you couldn’t carry anyone’s [ponders various analogies]. Suddenly you’re really helping a lot.

If you successfully deliver that intel, what that does is: for your entire team – for the next (we’ve still to work out the exact time) say one minute or two minutes – the respawn wait gets cut in half. So, suddenly that can help the team that’s been getting completely dominated, and suddenly they’re spending twice as much time on the field and can start turning it around, and they can start feeling good about themselves.

You were an epic hero for making it happen, and that’s right after you were having a really terrible time. We found a way to get you involved, and I would argue that the other team is having a great time as well because they now have some competition. It’s not an empty victory for us if we continue to win. It helps create that incredible drama and tension, and suddenly everyone is back together, and it’s neck and neck. In the end, the good team will likely win anyway as it’s not a game-breaker, but it is something that can help the other team… and give them a chance to kick it back into overdrive."

I have to say I really like this idea. It sure beats a shuffle in mid map, or even a shuffle at the end of the map. It has the potential to take what might have been a boring or frustrating match and turn it into a great match. It will help keep servers from emptying out from players leaving because they are getting steamrolled (a cyclical condition which once started is hard to slow down because the more people leave the worse their team does and the worse it does the more people leave). There’s a whole lot to love with this one and I can’t wait to see how it works in practice!

My concern with it as described above though is that in giving the mission to the guy who is doing the worst on the losing team you drastically lower the chance that it will be completed successfully. You’re giving it to the guy most likely to flub the mission! He could be a guy who just started and doesn’t even know where the command posts are, and he may just completely ignore it because he’s so overwhelmed. It’s a lot more important to help the entire team than that one guy, the needs of the many etc.

In my mind if this mechanic is going to be successful then the losing team should have a good chance of completing the mission, so I think the mission should go to someone who is doing at least reasonably well. How about the guy who’s doing well and sticks with the losing team even though he could quit and go to another server? Or better yet, the guy who switches sides when guys on the other team start leaving because they are getting stomped, give it to that guy as a reward for switching.

Probably it’s already been thought out and tuned, but if not maybe some more thought is needed as to who it goes to?

(KnollDark) #2

First off, he will know where the command post is by the waypoint directing him. second it sounds like a good idea because it gives the player who isn’t having fun and dying all the time something that will make him feel like he is part of the team (especially when people come over and help escort him there so he isn’t mobbed)

(Cankor) #3

The arrows are little help if he can’t stay alive long enough to even start the mission, or if he’s too confused to even accept it.

edit: but that’s a good point about the arrows anyway.

(X-Frame) #4

Wow, didn’t hear about this until now. I think it’s a good idea too. As they said, dominating/spawn camping is not fun for either team.

(H0RSE) #5

Well, those intel missions can be disabled.

(Cankor) #6

lol, what good does that do? My point is they sound great, so lets give them half a chance to succeed.

(LyndonL) #7

It depends entirely on where abouts the intel is though. Maybe the intel is in the opposite direction from the objective in which case old mate who’s getting owned can get away from the firefight for a little bit to find the intel.

(Nail) #8

on PC I would assume so, on consoles I’m not sure, either way it’s an exceptionally good idea, solves the shuffle by xp problems

(Cankor) #9

But did you read the part where as soon as he gets it, he’s a wanted man since everone now knows he has it?

(Tawmee) #10

Wow. What a fantastic idea!

I can’t think of any other company that cares more about the player’s fun than Splash Damage does. So many companies are so competitive and thinking about what’s going to impress the MLG crowd so much, or what’s going to impress the casual crowd. What’s going to get in as much money as possible by copying what many other games have already done.

SD, Nah. They just want to make games for the sole purpose of allowing people to have a fantastic time. The way games were meant to be played. For fun.

The issues in this you mentioned are true, but at least it’s giving hope to the team and letting the really bad player feel important and a part of the game. What a fantastic idea this is.

(Mad Hatter) #11

And of course once the guy picks it up the rest of the team will get a heads up saying that they need to protect and escort him to a command post. His enemies won’t be the only people coming for him.

But yeah, I have seen some rather willfully ignorant players who might potentially botch a task even as simple as “find this, take it here, don’t die.” But like they said, it’s not exactly a game changer. It’s not of…vital importance, shall we say.

(LyndonL) #12

I did, but it didn’t explicitly say that the person is named. Besides, if you’re behind the fire zone it shouldn’t be too hard of a run back to a CP (especially if you run back to one at the start of the map - your end that is)

(DarkangelUK) #13

How disheartening will that be… the intelligence mission pops up “awww even the game thinks I suck ass :(”

Anything that can even out an uneven game is fine by me.

(Bullveyr) #14

I like the idea of that but only for some random pub campaign, I will most likely end up mainly playing SW.

I’m not really a fan of giving they guys who suck an unfair advantage. (uneven =/= unfair)

(LyndonL) #15

I know I hate it when I’m playing a game that is unfairly stacked. It’s boring. So anything to even it up a little is great by me.

I even do that in BC2. When we’re playing Rush and annhilating to the point of ridiculousness and people start to creep to the spawn and griefing I start CGing and C4ing the MCOMs to help out the other team. Bad teamwork, but my team doesn’t deserve it in that situation. To some people they only want the win and at any cost (spawn raping etc).

(Fireseed) #16

It´s new for me, too. But a nice try to prevent total domination for some time, I hope the losing team get a good xp boost for this.
It should work so far so I´m looking foward :slight_smile:

(.Chris.) #17

Sounds a lot like the blue turtle shell in Mario Kart but guess you can stop this one though, we will see.

(SockDog) #18

This sounds pretty neat and a lot like the stuff I was suggesting about balancing pub games with AI driven drops and perks. May not be fair on the surface but a pub game should be fun and challenging for both sides and of course if you don’t like it then damn well move to the losing team and even stuff out. :slight_smile:

Agree with the concern about the single player though, I hope it’s design is flexible enough to allow changes after release. I’d hate to see such an idea get switched off on servers simply because it’s billed as a idiot award that idiots can’t get.

(Cankor) #19

Maybe make it a server option on who it goes to:

si_intelligencerecipient 0 = noob, 1 = random, 2 = last guy who switched sides, etc.

(SockDog) #20

Not sure I’d like the option and the drama that would come from it but it probably is the most practical of solutions if SD wasn’t prepared or capable of tweaking it after release.

This makes me wonder (if I may) if this would work tipped on its head. Say that a winning team has it’s spawn times doubled unless their “best” player breaks off and gets the intelligence. It would give that player a challenge and also draw them away from the objective.