In Response To: Re: Fear of Death: Punishment & Reward... (DogFish)
> How about stressing a combined-arms approach to missions? To
> make a hypothetical example of the Halo movie, the job is to get
> into the installation and do something with the computer. The
> Marine with the pistol is the only one who can operate the
> computer, but he needs the jeep to move fast enough to get
> through the Cov hover patrols. And he can't operate the machine
> gun on the jeep while he's driving, nor can he cover the
> entrance, so he needs others to help out.
> There are all sorts of ways to require folks to work together.
> Anti-vehicular land mines can only be removed by marines, but
> marines can't damage armored targets very well, so they need
> armor/artillery support. Shades of Command & Conquer.
> Running off by yourself, whether as a Marine or in a BAT will
> get you offed eventually because no unit can handle everything
> by itself.
> And no, you don't come back. Only so many Marines, only so many
> tanks for them to hop into, and a specific objective that can be
> achieved with that force if they are utilized properly. Maybe
> bungie.net can keep track of how member play Halo (erm kinda
> fuzzy about how this could work, sorry) so those who play like
> Quakers will be obvious.
Your ideas are pretty good but need some refinement, IMHO. I think (but I'm not sure) your post condenses into this (I think):
1. Team orientated Goal
2. Diversity of team Needed
3. Limited Resources
4. Limited Lives
I think these are good ideas but I'm not sure if your suggestions on how to implement them would work. My nitpicks:
1. This assumes everyone wants to accomplish the goal. But a utilitarian and selfish player might simply wish to kill Covs. Even worse is when no one on the team wants to be the driver (or EVERYONE wants to be the driver)...
2. Another good idea, except I can see teams degenerating into two roles... Info Guys or Big Guys... so you have a huge team of info guys all kamakaze running for the info or just a huge team of Death-dealing marines that simply destroy all resistance. Going again to point 1, even if diversity is needed, players might not want it (if it's not fun for them)... how do you make the player go into a role that he/she may not want but would be good for the team?
3. Again, going against point 1, this assumes the players will use their resources wisely. But if I'm looking out for my own interests then I'd load myself out with every weapon I could lay my hands on, then hop into a BAT... and lay waste to as many Covs as possible! (If I was fragging hungry player- which many public players will be) What's to stop me? The unhappiness of my teammates? Death? Hell, I wouldn't mind dying if I took 20 Covs with me! (not really, but speaking from a Quaker's perspective ^_^)...
4. If you mean limited team lives then, that wouldn't help stop the selfish who would simply absorb that resource. If you mean limited personal lives then I still think players would selflishly grab tanks, rocket launchers, and all the goodies they could to do maximum damage rather than futher team goals...
Anyways, this was just a nitpick presenting worst-case scenarios... usually team online games are really about the people you play with, but this is a hypothetical exercise to see if there are any measures a developer can take to make team goals more appealing even to the selfish player...
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