Revamping Winning/Losing & Making Line Incentives About Spawning instead

[Poorlaggedman]

I don't think this is just a Confederate team problem or a matter of tweaking the team morale to get the desired balance. I really feel like individual fights should have more transparent dynamics than what we have. The players should feel the success of driving the enemy back or bleeding them out. That just isn't happening now.

The basic concept right now is about forcing players to fight in close formations and even standing over crouching. If they don't, they hurt the team. I'm not saying that's a bad thing to try and force players to do that but making the entire win / loss calculation about that just doesn't result in what feels like a natural conclusion to the round. It isn't the best way to accomplish that.


Each round should revolve around capturing a location or a series of locations. There should be varying levels of winning/losing and even a 'stalemate' conclusion. Teams should literally have a solid number of reinforcements they can put in the field like there was before - it doesn't have to be shown to anyone either. So there's that dynamic - every enemy whose killed is one less to deal with. A team can be bled out by hard numbers of losses or it can affect their victory and turn it into a "pyrrhic victory."


The effort to keep players in close formations (and even standing) should be refocused to solely effect when and how the individual player can spawn. A formation should be judged by its strength and integrity and the second you are killed in that formation you are judged based on that. If it had twenty guys, better than ten. If it was 40 guys but split in the middle then maybe consider the half the player was killed in only. Based on that you are either allowed to spawn behind the line (flag bearer spawn system) in short order (with a minimum of 10-15 seconds and a queue to wait in) for an excellent formation possessing a flag bearer or at the rear with the gear after a longer time (with a maximum of two-minutes) for being isolated 'out of line.' You can be creative with these. IMO a flag bearer should not be essential to spawning on a line. A five person line should yield a much longer spawn time than a 20-40 person one. Players can select where they spawn but options are limited depending on the quality of your death. The wild contrast between the results of your spawn will encourage players to 'behave' and will also give these players more time on the field while making.


I really feel like it adds a bad flavor to punish the team for the actions of the individual. It also results in last second round decisions that don't always make sense. Spawning at the line is an enormous advantage that should be used. Maybe even make it so the very best line can spawn people already loaded.

[Bivoj]

I was just about to resurrect my old post regarding team morale system. The current system is just awkward and it is far from representing anything like morale in 19th century combat and it does not feel like morale.
It is just very strange, that out of the sudden, the game ends and one side wins, leave barely no clue to actual combatant why (unless you constantly press T and observe the current so-called-morale status). It even results in ridiculous situation, where "breaking" unit is committing mighty assault with elan, without any traces or sign of poor morale status and in the middle of mighty melee, the game suddenly ends... That does not feel proper. And it is very very far from recreating realistic "morale" or anything close to this phenomena. Current system is just black&white: fearless heroes & instant surrender/rout, nothing in between

There should be something in the game, which would make every player feel the morale status. The game should tell to players, that their morale is becoming poorer in some appealing and realistic manner.

Some suggestions:
1) If nothing else, at least noticeably increased suppression and some kind of heavy breath/heartbeat during the "breaking" status, so you know, that loss is close.

2) Increased sway when morale drops to "taking casualties" and "breaking"

3) When lonewolfing at "taking casualties" and "breaking", make the suppression and sway even more severe

4) increased respawn times for "out of the line casualties" (to punish the players causing the loss and make them less relevant) for lower morale statuses (the lower the morale status, the higher the respawn time)

5) Switching ON auto-surrender when morale drops to "taking casualties" and "breaking"

5) Reward voluntary retreat somehow (maybe by increase of ticket numbers?)


Just do not be afraid to punish the losing side - it won't break the fun and the gameplay, the opposite is true. Unbalanced sessions are not fun even now and in any game and this will not make it worse.

[McMuffin]

(The main idea of this is not mine, some of it I did add-on, but it is of my CO, Stockton, but it's an excellent idea, so I wanted to post it)

The line system could be used to fix to charge again. When a unit is formed up, they would have to make a proper 'charge' (so now that 'charging' when sprinting is a proper charge, and regular sprinting can just be sprinting) which would be the equivalent of 'In Formation', the trick is they have to maintain that while sprinting towards their enemy. If they can maintain that, the bayonets become a one hit kill, so charges have a real effect.

To determine if the charge breaks, the system would auto-scale up with the pattern of every five men, add two to the previous value of required men for breaking
10 (minimum), three needed to be out of formation for buff disabling
15 with five needed to be out of formation for buff disabling
20 with seven needed to be out of formation for buff disabling
And so on...

If they break the formation, it reverts to a two or three hit kill. This should prevent the annoyance of one or three guys just clearing out so many people that everyone hates, but, still rewards people who organize a proper charge and use it effectively.

[Bivoj]

@McMuffin
It could be even more simple (your suggestion is too complex to understand and execute ingame):
When In Formation, the bayonet is lethal, when in Skirmish or out of formation, the bayonet is as-is now. So, if you maintain proper formation during the charge, it will be lethal; also defensive formation will be strong. When the formation breaks (due to casualties or due to spreading out during the melee), the strength of the melee deteriorates.

I like the idea!

[Poorlaggedman]

Not a bad idea actually. I'm usually opposed to nerfing weapon damages but bayonets in formation should be much more potent to face than bayonets in ones and twos

[McMuffin]

@McMuffin
It could be even more simple (your suggestion is too complex to understand and execute ingame):
When In Formation, the bayonet is lethal, when in Skirmish or out of formation, the bayonet is as-is now. So, if you maintain proper formation during the charge, it will be lethal; also defensive formation will be strong. When the formation breaks (due to casualties or due to spreading out during the melee), the strength of the melee deteriorates.

I like the idea!

That's basically what I said, lol.

[Poorlaggedman]

I feel like going in the direction of making 'in line' be a matter of winning vs losing, how and where you spawn is excessive and misguided. Your formation status deciding how and where you spawn is entirely sufficient. A major, undesirable part of shooters is the trek back to the 'front lines' and mobile spawns are an enormous advantage in any game that players know and love.

As I've said in the past I'd like a game where there is advantage to formation but not absolute necessity or the game is broken. Because there will never be absolute compliance so why should the entire round revolve around the guys who are dying 'out of line.' Which it absolutely does when a lone wolf counts as six times the kill as someone in formation. The battle is not decided today by the guys dying 'in line' its being decided by the guys dying 'out of line.' A well-functioning formation that puts its best foot forward when taking casualties will be more able to remain on the field than a disheveled one if the reward is just about spawns. It'll give purpose to those formalities that everyone fawns over. Better-drilled players will perform better by having a more continuous presence on the field. But the entire match will not be lost or won solely on whether your guys are shot while kneeling vs standing up. Your spawn times could be affected by that but to have the very outcome depend on the matter of standing vs kneeling and what player Uncle Kilroy is getting himself killed 16 times with 6 times the morale loss... having that decide the round is entirely another story. That's absurd...

[Maximus Decimus Meridius]

I agree with Poor that a round is decided by the men who dying out of formation and not by the one in formation.

Maybe a higher the reload time when out of formation could help. I will bring the players together because it affect the rambo and not the team which is affected by the high loss of the morale due to the rambo.

The rambo has no interest in teamplay so disadvantages for the team are no disadvantages for him thats why give him a higher reload time or if he is a officer forbid him to shoot.

But back to topic:

I like the idea of a moral system instead of a fix ticket system because i see some advatanges and understand the reasons why campfire decided to do so but i see it like bivoj. We call it morale but we dont get a feeling of morale.

Things like more swinging around while aiming at low morale is one of the smallest points.


If there would be a way to make clear who is in a formation or want to play as a formation you could start with a formation morale system but for this you need a system like in Squad. so the moral of each formation together form the faction morale.

- A formation at low morale could have a slightly higher reload time
- or a worse aiming by more swinging
- morale drops by dying (the system which identify if a player is in formation/skirmish is here still needed because it affects now the formation morale)
- higher "basic morale" by having a officer and/or color bearer in formation/squad
- morale increases slightly if nobody died in last X minutes
- formation "breaks" if the moral is low and the guys are forced to fall back. (defenders should be possible to stay at cap point. Not sure. Just an idea)

I think it would be bring the morale to the player and give them feedback from their actions. It brings also more depth to the game because it would be possible to better organise the team and in my mind it's a nice compromise for companies and "random/free players".

These are no final points thats just ideas which would need edits and tweaks. I don't claim to have a final solution.;)

credit:
Some points are ideas from others like bivoj which i have still in mind from another discussion

[Poorlaggedman]

I find a strong disconnect between engagement to this discussion board and what I see on the servers. Almost nobody I speak to (especially on the Confederate side) enjoy rounds just 'ending' all the sudden via team morale with a loose relation to what's actually happening on the battlefield. There's no real flow that tells you how it's gonna go other than pressing T to check the team status. I think many people are just happy with the fact that anything is working remotely 'right' right now. Keep in mind... the people playing are hopefully less than 5% of the total players who will become regular players in later stages of development and release. I keep saying you have to prepare for that. You have to prepare for the players who aren't content to just be virtual reenacters. Best to do it in a way that won't make eyes roll, that actually compels the player to for his own enjoyment. Team score is a major, major miss as an incentive to stay in line.

Most players even now care more about the experience of the round before it ends rather than the result. Hence the crickets here. Spawn times as a mere punishment will just get players to do the minimum to avoid that. Best to offer rewards for each progressing phase of perfecting your playmanship.

[Profender]

First thing that should make the game more enjoyable is to remove/(hide) the timer.
All that running forward like crazy does not help.

Winning should then be a calculation between how long one side held the capture point & casualties(moral).
Makes sense that if your losses are to much you would fall back thus loosing the battle. Just my humble opinion