LvL up progress - Achievements - the never ending story?

(acQu) #21

If i am perfectly honest: i never liked the campaign system of W:ET, because it was a system of temporary inequalness with no end. As i played back then i was either for getting these levels, improve the character finally, so that i can play on an equal level with the same chances as my opponents or just play from the start from the campaign and have that leveling system accentuate skilllevels even further by making the better become better anyway (felt like constantly thrown into a mousewheel with all others, too stressy after some time). That was kinda what the W:ET leveling system was all about in vanilla ET.

As i joined a server back then i just wanted to frag and do a bit of objective. For that i found the leveling system quite annoying. So i was for two approaches: either give me the chance of xpsave, so that i can get this done quick, so that i am on the same level as my opponents after some unstretchy short time and then have to go this leveling process never again, or have no xpsave and try not find it annoying. What i also found interesting was the leveling system of kernwaffe.de, they basically have xpsave forever but with an endless road to max skill levels. Was kinda stupid, but you had to do it if you wanted to stay. Can’t really say if that encouraged me to come back, but it was interesting nevertheless, maybe because it was not mainstream if done in such an extreme way and somehow was a rare experience compared to all other servers.

Nevertheless, the W:ET leveling system was actually trash from an addicting point of view, because to me it was just something to get over with or to keep up. Today the situation is a bit different. You can give people all kinds of rewards. The trick is to give it to them only once, then never again. Otherwise it becomes stupid (guess this also depends, usable items which have to be earned and used once are something different, but skins earned repeatedly over and over again is just lol, W:ET had character abilities implemented within the lvl system, so that was your reward there, and with a campaign level system you had to earn it over and over again … ). Just my real opinion. I think some think i am in favour of such a leveling system because i propogate pub that much, but it all depends on how it is done. Gotta still check out the new SC2 system. There i think you can unlock all cool character skins or portraits by leveling up. Kind absurd that you get XP just for building a drone, but mkay … the problem is: SC2 is already commercial, so they can sustain such a system by offering skins and portraits via XP leveling, but is that an option for DB ? Really hard to say.

(j4b) #22

[QUOTE=Volcano;437118]like a leaderboard j4b?[/QUOTE] yes but in a small version. maybe with a random pic of 2 or 3 leaders. i think of something like best k/d, most xp, accurate …

(RasteRayzeR) #23

The unlockables are all that really matter when it comes to F2P : it grants to the dedicated player more game content and a wider experience of the game too. I believe one of the key to success here is offering tons of unlockables, some you get via XP, some via in-game rewards (statistics), and some that you can unlock via the in-game’s currency.

Examples of such unlockables are :

  • Weapons : maybe a system of mounts unlockable that enhence some properties of the gun but reduces others to compensate.
  • Gears : can be the look of the characters (which already exists), tattoos, special helmets, etc,
  • Uncaped number of levels : that would be probably the first game to do it (from what I know ofc).
  • A reputation system : in-game reputation based on skill and votes of the other players. League of Legends introduced such a system to stop the expansion of lousy players in the game (leaving, raging, insulting, etc.). They put it in categories : fair opponent, teamplayer, etc.
  • XP-boost : one of the best thing to sell probably.
  • Rewards system : we need tons of unlockable achievements like in StarCraft II where you unlock portraits for example which could be nice.

In the end, some unlockables should only be unlocked by the way the player is playing and how he/she treats others in-game. This would bring the player and his character closer, thus increasing the commitment level to the game. The RPG mechanics are what allows people to fully identify themselves to their character in-game. I would love to see some RPG elements in DB. Can only help it make players become more addicted.

(Bloodbite) #24

I think I can safely speak for the serious and pro gamers that were into W:ET… the xpsave servers were the beginning of the end for W:ET.

The challenge of getting good enough to level up your preferred classes and skills within a half or full campaign was what made the system so satisfying. In decently populated pugs it really wasn’t hard to level up at least one character class in a single map even for an average player. It took skill to max out 1 class plus half/most of your light arms and battlesense in that first map too. And in the first few years of the game that was really an awesome mechanic combined with the community that was playing at the time

One of the nicest things about the game pre-xpsave was that the level perks were a nifty advantage, but they couldn’t prevent a skilled player that had just logged in from pulverising their way into a dominant role on the battlefield.

The era where xpsaves were an option brought in a new breed of players that lacked the skill and determination to hammer out every single objective and milk every moment of advantage they had. XPsaves, from what I experienced, were a haven for lazy players, The regulars with the consistently giant XP accumulations on those servers, from memory, most of the time had a bit of an attitude problem like they thought this easy-mode in a once challenging game was now their mark of true elitest power.

It was a real shame when it reached a point where it was practically 90% of any activity was on an xpsave only server.

(acQu) #25

Personally i joined W:ET just on early 2010, so i missed that whole transition from non-xpsave to suddenly bad bad xpsave mods and servers i hear some jell about. I find that xpsave is great to disable that mouse-wheel inequality.

Maybe, and just maybe, i think that there are people having a problem with change. The first reaction when there is coming something new is usually rejection. I do not say that this counts for all, but after some time that feeling tends to define the meta and what your friends think is suddenly what you also think …

On the other hand: etpro takes out that xp stuff for comp matches, so for comp it was decided it is no good (EDIT maybe i am wrong here, i am just referencing to what other comp players said at this forum and how etpro pro matches were played , since i never played a real one myself). For pub, if it was on etpro with skilled comp players just playing for fun or on pub player, i can’t really say. After some time me personally just found it annoying and xpsave is a solution for all that :slight_smile:

EDIT joining a fairly progressed campaign session in etpro is a hell of a hard for fairly low players like me was at that time. I would say at my best times i was low+ (as they say in etpro) :slight_smile: And it was still hard as … pretty much you can’t join during a fairly progressed campaign anymore, and that is already saying alot imo.

(Bloodbite) #26

[QUOTE=acQu;437793]…
EDIT joining a fairly progressed campaign session in etpro is a hell of a hard for fairly low players like me was at that time. I would say at my best times i was low+ (as they say in etpro) :slight_smile: And it was still hard as … pretty much you can’t join during a fairly progressed campaign anymore, and that is already saying alot imo.[/QUOTE]

that may have been the handicap of simply not being as experienced in the maps as the high performers on those servers. Those early years for the default maps really were an awesome exercise in exploiting every tiny strategy for each class on every map. A little like chess, if you saw someone buffed up deep into a campaign you could still counter them with an alternate class strategy which was also based on where your team was being choked, or enforcing a choke point at whatever point of that particular map… of course a crappy team was a big deciding factor in how well you could adapt as a newly joined combatant.

With that kind of map knowledge, it didn’t make that much of a difference if you were playing Pro or Shrub (or whatever the other pub variants were called)… it was fairly straightforward to adapt… for the original and minimally modified original maps of course.