XP boost for playing unfilled roles/classes?

(Raviolay) #1

Just as the title states, don’t know how this would work exactly, without being intrusive. However in PUG’s I think it would encourage a better split of classes, as the masses seem to be XP points driven. Maybe after death a notification comes up with the class and the percentage gain for picking that class?

(potty200) #2

Would be a nice touch indeed for public play! Say if a team has 5 medics give them all a -%. If there is only one engi give him a +% and as more people play engi decrease the xp given.

(Breo) #3

I think this is a nice idea but what if it’s 5v5 or lower + everyone play another class? All get more XP? Maybe only if there are more then 10 players in total.

(BTMPL) #4

Maybe the other way around then? If there are too many of given class, they get less XP?

(Breo) #5

Yeah that’s even better :wink:

(tokamak) #6

Symptom treatment. We need a free-xp market. The xp-boost should come naturally from filling in the niches that go occupied by being more useful to the team. If players aren’t able to extract more xp from that then three things may be wrong:

  • Classes are unbalanced
  • XP distribution is inadequate
  • There’s simply no real usef for that class for the time being

To hand xp over from the get go however is only cheapening the meaning of xp and thus the score player can get from it which in turn plays a role with both the rankings and the F2P system.

So all in all this is a really bad idea.

(Raviolay) #7

I suppose in a 8 vs 8 (or whatever the game size) there needs to be an agreed optimal team setup for each map. So if your team is made up of this exact set up you all get a set EXP bonus.

(tokamak) #8

Also ghastly idea. The optimal team setup is not only highly subjective but also in constant flux. It’s dependant on all kinds of factors, the map phase, the skill and composition of the other team, the metagame and whatever your team is trying to do. Even if there was such a thing as an optimal team balance for each map, which thankfully there is not- because that would be a serious failure in game design- then it’s not up to the developer to point it out for the players. It’s something the players would need to figure out themselves.

The responsibility of the game designers is to make sure all four classes are equally useful, not always at the same time but on average and that their performance is accurately assessed and rewarded accordingly.

(Raviolay) #9

Do classes need to be balanced for a balanced game with classes? Would it not be easier to have unbalanced classes that have counter classes to each other, forcing you to adapt your play style or just (shock) run away against certain classes?
If there is no need for a class at the time is their even a point having the class at all?

(Raviolay) #10

You mean five right?
If you had each objective require the three none support classes to work in tandem to get passed each objective, I think 5v5 would be VERY interesting.

(Breo) #11

I thought it was a good idea to reward a player to choose the class nobody wants to play at that moment :o

(tokamak) #12

What can we gain from rewarding people for playing a class that nobody wants to play? Aside from all the reasons I already mentioned on why this is a bad idea, I think the biggest threat comes from removing the need to look at the underlying causes as to why players don’t want to play a particular class.

SD already did something similar with the Assault. Nobody wanted to play him so now he has an objective forcing people to play him. Completely artificial and in the end it’s just highly unfulfilling to only be doing something because there’s a reward attached to it.

[QUOTE=Raviolay;438385]Do classes need to be balanced for a balanced game with classes? Would it not be easier to have unbalanced classes that have counter classes to each other, forcing you to adapt your play style or just (shock) run away against certain classes?
If there is no need for a class at the time is their even a point having the class at all?[/QUOTE]

If there’s not always the same need for a class then you got yourself a diverse game. And I don’t like the idea of classes countering other classes, there’s no need for that.

[QUOTE=Raviolay;438386]You mean five right?
If you had each objective require the three none support classes to work in tandem to get passed each objective, I think 5v5 would be VERY interesting.[/QUOTE]

Five of course. My point is that their necessity should come from the gameplay and not from tacked on incentives.

(Breo) #13

Ok after thinking about it probably not the best idea. But the case with the assault is similar, giving this class a object + getting XP for doing it is also rewarding.

(Nail) #14

remove xp from kills, problem solved

(tokamak) #15

That makes xp less accurate for scoring players. Kills are still of substantial importance. Brink had less xp for kills and that made xp worthless for rating players.

(Nail) #16

it’s a game not the SATs, all rating methods are subjective
ofc, kills are important, but not the most important
this isn’t a study in theoretical math, although most of your posts sound that way

(tokamak) #17

They are subjective and there are different ways you can weigh something. But there’s also a clear difference between accurate scoring and worthless scoring. A score that doesn’t take kills into account clearly leaves such a large blind-spot in assessing the player’s worth that people will start to reject it entirely. As happened with Brink.

(Raviolay) #18

If we are going into scoring systems now, would it not make sense for support based classes getting score for only doing their duties, RE healing, repairing & feeding ammo, sitting on and around objectives. Where as kill based classes get score for kills alone?

(tokamak) #19

You don’t want to discourage support classes from fighting when they need to. You need to take the whole performance into account. A kill is a kill and for it’s importance in the fight it doesn’t matter which class made that kill.

Be aware though. I’m currently restraining myself not to write entire essays on this. This stuff fascinates me the most in game development. It’s basically the reason why I study what I study now. Incentives, scores, steering groups of people into their actions being of the most benefit of all, it takes psychology, sociology and lots of economics to get that right.

(Nail) #20

point is, there shouldn’t be a kill based class, kills are incidental to completing the objective, teamwork to complete the objective is what we’re talking about, not K/D and “Look I’m the mighty warrior” Take away the incentive to rambo xp whore and maybe medics will start backing up the engi, and heavies get xp for, tok should like this, Area Denial, every one still has to kill all the other guys, but no need for xp for kills, damage yes, kills no