Selfish play welcome and/or encouraged???

(Kryptyk Samurai) #1

Watching that XP counter in these recent vids is really cool. Now I’m curious how much XP can a good, solid player achieve in one match (regardless of the variables associated with the map). At some point in the endless play testing, SD has established a “Good round” score…if you will. I’ve already seen the counter over 5k in the recent vids (Get Smart Series) and it seemed like the match was still in full swing.

I appreciate the fact that literally everything you do will earn you XP…seems like you constantly achieve something.

This has the potential to be addicting as an old school arcade game where you want to beat your previous score (XP total for a round). Double plus to the fact that the only way to beat your score is to discover ways to help your teammates even more. Has SD essentially been able to negate the negativity associated with selfish play?

(amazinglarry) #2

As long as I don’t see medics bleed healing, engineers secondary objective destroying (provided mg’s can be destroyed via nades) or anything like that… I’ll consider it a success. Especially since there’s the inclusion of XP while being in the objective area (defending), maybe it’ll encourage more people to stick around.

Not that I still won’t be a “rambo medic”. More on that to come later though, I’m sure.

(Daystar) #3

What do you mean exactly? Do you mean eliminate selfish play, which is negative, or only eliminate negative thoughts on selfish play? It’s a bit ambiguous.

Anyway, I’m glad they’ve done this ‘bribing people to play as a team’. It’s difficult to buff your teammates health or destroy the objective and not be helping your team at the same time, eh?

(Herandar) #4

The XP bonus for guarding/defending is going to be huge in changing behaviour. You mean I can get tons of XP if I blast the enemy from that area instead of here?? No problem!

(Linsolv) #5

[QUOTE=Daystar;284900]What do you mean exactly? Do you mean eliminate selfish play, which is negative, or only eliminate negative thoughts on selfish play? It’s a bit ambiguous.

Anyway, I’m glad they’ve done this ‘bribing people to play as a team’. It’s difficult to buff your teammates health or destroy the objective and not be helping your team at the same time, eh?[/QUOTE]

He means that, in many games players who are selfish are viewed (often correctly) as bads who are hurting their team.

The question he raised was, are those same players who are still selfish now going to be helping (or at least not-hurting) their team?

(SuperWaz) #6

In many interviews the devs have made a huge deal of how helping others is the only way to progress well.

Put simply, play selfish and you’re going nowhere fast. The more you do for others, the faster you progress.

I’m sure the XP abusers will find lame ways around it though. They always do.

(Linsolv) #7

Here’s the thing. Selfish needs to be defined. Enlightened selfishness in this case (the pursuit of maximum XP) helps the team a TON, unless griefing simply hasn’t been addressed.

On the other hand, if you’re selfish in that you like blowing up your teammates and sitting in a corner staring at the wall, then no. Selfishness still is bad.

(obliviondoll) #8

Basically, being selfish in the sense of caring more about earning XP for yourself than anything else, is fine in Brink.

Because being selfish by hunting all the high-XP options means that you’re going to be making yourself useful to the team, thus helping out the other players.

It’s not eliminating selfishness, it’s taking advantage of it by rewarding selfless behaviours in a way that will encourage selfish players to ACT selfless. They’ll still be out to get their own XP, so they’ll still be just as selfish, but their selfishness will be a benefit to others instead of a frustration.

(Realirony) #9

Operant Conditioning is a hellava drug.

positive reinforce behavior and the players will for the most part adopt this positive behavior =D

(Humate) #10

It’s not eliminating selfishness, it’s taking advantage of it by rewarding selfless behaviours in a way that will encourage selfish players to ACT selfless.

Nope. Its not selfless behaviour when the intent is selfish.

(Gamer2Gamers) #11

I think being selfish on this game means being a team player, lo.

(Whydmer) #12

I’m playing an engineer, another bloke is playing an engineer. We both take the objective to hack the enemy’s demo charge on a the objective gate. I am closer, I am in position to do the job. An enemy gets the drop on me. The other engineer however arrives in time to shoot the enemy allowing me to complete the objective, but instead he allows the enemy to shoot/kill me, then he kills the enemy, runs up and finishes the job.

Will that engineer get more XP for killing the enemy after I am dead and completing the objective himself? Or would he get the most XP for killing the enemy first, thus guarding me, and allowing me to complete the objective? This is how true selfish players are going to “game” the system if possible.

(obliviondoll) #13

That’s what I was trying to say. Thanks.

But it looks selfless enough to the guy who just got all his health back with a bonus on top.

(Cankor) #14

[QUOTE=AmazinGLarrY;284896]As long as I don’t see medics bleed healing, engineers secondary objective destroying (provided mg’s can be destroyed via nades) or anything like that… I’ll consider it a success. Especially since there’s the inclusion of XP while being in the objective area (defending), maybe it’ll encourage more people to stick around.

Not that I still won’t be a “rambo medic”. More on that to come later though, I’m sure.[/QUOTE]

I would expect this is dealt with the same way it was in ETQW: things like you only get XP for healing damage caused by enemy fire. I can’t remember but I don’t think you can damage your own teams buildables either.

You can probably still farm XP by having your friends on the enemy team, and there’s more reason to do it in Brink that there was on ETQW where there were some guys who spent hours doing that. meh, who cares so long as they aren’t doing it on a server full of peple trying to actually play.