[319] Incentive & Reward

I read through the thread 'The Problem' and was going to post this there, but I realized that while it's related, it's not really on topic, if that thread can be said to be on topic. Sorry, if this is to similar.


Anyway, first up: This thread is not about how buildings are OP or anything, that's for the aforementioned 'Problem thread. I don't really have a problem with ladders or buildings as they are; one builder can get a knight horde over a tower easily.

This thread is about lack of incentive to advance and the lack rewards for doing so.

Coming from other games where there was incentive to advance/expand in the form of more resources (RUSE, SC2, most RTSs) and FPS games like BF3 and TF2, where holding points gives an advantage, but not an unfair one, the lack of any objective other than the FLAG is pretty bad.

As it stands; there are no rewards for advancing to attack the enemy apart from attrition and eventually when you have worn them down, getting their flag. However, you run the risk of breaking like water on the stone of their defenses.


Gold used to be a reward and incentive, but now gold is near uselessness because the +10 coins for placing a block was removed.
Unless one team is significantly better than the other, it ends up being a war of attrition in my experience. (Especially on limited life servers). I don't want to play a drawn out deathmatch when I play CTF.
I did have experiences of games unlike this though; The Australian Official server when it was premium, and other premium servers where there were the following 3 things:

Kegs, banks and shops. These three shops drastically changed things I found. Suddenly gold was useful, so advancing and holding the middle was actually an advantage, yet you were still far from your base going up against established enemy fortifications so it wasn't a steamroll.

Since gold could be traded for coins at the bank and then those coins traded for resources and kegs, it became possible for an advancing team to take down enemy structures more easily with kegs and catapults (buying up stone). Additionally, trading gold for coins and vice versa allowed the storage and transfer of money to other players, creating more teamwork.


This is what CTF is missing at the moment. Advantage and incentive. It stagnates, even when one team is clearly going to win, it takes far too long to wear them down, especially when one team finds it advantageous to have ¾ of their team sitting back and building their base.

Valuable gold changes that, half to ¾ of the a team moves forward, where they have gold but are also more vulnerable to the enemy.

I'm not saying my solution is the only one that can work, but it's one I've seen work. I'd love to hear others.Oh and I expect gold to become more valuable later, but I'd rather it be sooner.

Lastly, builders destroying gold bricks incurr -2 coins per hit, in spite of gold not giving the +10 on placing now. A builder who tries to move gold bricks around will lose money. Is it intended?

tl;dr:
With Shop + bank + kegs makes gold valuable. gold is in mid, everyone goes to mid, game actually progresses.

That or some other incentive to advance is needed.

 

With your title and progression I posted a thread a while back about progression and incentive, and this is where you can find it... -->HERE!<-- But I like your thinking and really giving a use to gold, but what about the free players, do they just get the mindless CTF, or should they get other incentives.
(Also off my vague memory those shops aren't truly implemented they are basically "Mods" for the game made by people one of whom is Blueluigi)

 

Well, i think we could also give free players these things.
(at the time of posting i havent bought yet, will do soon).
I find this a good idea tough, especially since stone can become very, very sparse at moments, especially when youre operating a catapult.

 

Well ideally free players should also have a use for gold. It is King Arthur's GOLD.

If only premium players have a use for gold ingame, then it's severely limiting to the free player's experience.

I'd say that both would have the same incentive; bank + shop, but with premium players having those shops from zombie mode (Knight armory, etc). So both have the same basic gameplay, but with premium having things that provide more options. (Building a knight armory at a forward base is incredibly useful.)

Anyway if this was implemented, outposts would be pretty easy to get, should they cost more to compensate?

 

Legend you forgot to mention the nukes! Gold = Nukes = Enemy dead! Alternatively it means noobs blow huge holes in the middle of the map and the game lasts for 5hours.

Maybe Banks will be given to free players too... and the sell-gold spam glitch will be fixed. That would be nice.
Another option is to have 0 build time, so that defenses are far less formidable to overcome, giving you an actual chance of getting the flag.

 

Nukes were fun, but nothing more than a silly novelty. I wouldn't really want to see them standardized because they were a far too powerful thing to give to one player, even with their cost.
Considering that the same kind of devastation could be achieved with kegs, possibly for cheaper, there would be much more difficulty transporting it, whereas a nuke can have one carrier and 10 escorts.

I don't think 0 build time is a good idea, it would really reduce the game to whoever rushes the hardest first wins instantly, no chance for recovery.

I'm not saying that 3 minute long build times were great, I think it's too much. 30 seconds to a minute should be all a team needs to put up anti-rush defenses.

 

With what you said about 30 second build time, I remember you (Foxodi) using that length of build time and giving all of the players 250 of stone and wood, so you had just enough time to build some shops and a couple of small towers, and it worked really well with some great towers being built later in the game, with one team usually capturing the flag, usually never because you ran out of units.

 

I find the problem is not that there is no incentive to advance but that the team that advances often sustains heavy casualties and ends up with a higher chance of running out of spawns first.

In my experience CTF is most online games is a drawn out deathmatch. KAG is typical in this respect.

The prevalence of Minecrafters has little to do with incentive to push forward, in my opinion. People will push forward regardless of how much advantage it gives them because for most classes that is where the game is most fun, Minecrafters notwithstanding. And yet I agree with the other part of your post which relates to "The Problem" - there is not enough advantage afforded to people willing to push forwards, and so many games become wars of attrition.

I wonder if the best solution would be to create a new game type in which there are several checkpoints to capture before one reaches the final one and wins the game, a la Control Point from Team Fortress 2. You'd have to make the team spawn somewhat behind the final spawn, but I think it could be a very fun game type for KAG.

 

This.
Mayby you could have builders not beining able to dig in the farthest back area, so they cant easily tunnel/spacebridge to the very back of enemy territory, that could very well be completely deserted.

 

no... nothing beats the thrill of popping up behind enemy lines and stealing the flag without them even knowing until it is too late.

 

You could still do that, but you not just entirely at the back, but a bit farther at the front.
Ofcourse, maps would have to be far, far larger for this.

 

So, your solution is to make mining behind the flag impossible? The problem is that most of the miner who mine behind the flag are not tunneling, they are just... mining for gold or stone, since on most of the map, the ressources are behind the flag.

 

That's what I meant with 'breaking like water on the enemy defences.'
That's why there needs to be a reward for advancing, something that offsets the disadvantage of being the attacker. If gold had value then it would do this by providing a resource & equipment advantage.

Well technically outposts are supposed to do that I think.

Gold + an outpost should be enough. Maybe if outposts were deployable buildings that were tougher than normal shops and still capture-able; If it were more profitable/faster to capture one than to destroy it I think we could get someone.


When i say deployable I mean that you still make an outpost at a siege place, but it's unusable until it is deployed, which would consist of dropping it, pressing E then selecting 'deploy'.

 

So basically, correctly me if i'm wrong, you're saying that you should buff offense instead of nerfing defense, as was the premise of "the problem"? Because if so I'll stand behind you on that. I think about in terms of what I already posted somewhere the other thread, which was in terms of nerfs and buffs, offense breaking like water on their defense as in always fighting a losing battle; there's none or little incentive to push forward because you are never at the advantage when pushing forward, you are naturally inclined to lose more lives than the defenders and there are only kegs and bombs and catapults to strengthen you, and it isn't enough. On that line of thought, maybe that's because a required part of offense is sheltered off as a luxury item you need to build with gold, which requires some luck to find at times.

 

Gold is always going to be a powerful item no matter what. It doesn't matter if its coinage or stacked blocks it's allure is captivating. Finding gold on maps is the difference between having an outpost or not having one at all. Finding the gold blocks in the earth is like going on a treasure hunt. A very neat way to get players involved with the building process. The Catapult is also a major advantage to have on you're team. Smashing enemy walls to crush them with their own blocks is always fun. Sending allies over high walls to destroy beds, arrow workshops and bomb workshops. I put a high price on teamwork and i get upset at my team if they don't work well together. I agree though there is something missing to get people focused. Prehaps griefing is what steals the attention from you're team. The morale of a team is important also. When a team has the necessary workshops at the front line morale increases. However, it seems like the first real fight and that idea is crushed. Prehaps what is truly missing is a "Morale bar" building the right structures for you're team increases total morale. This way you can build more progressive structures for a purpose. People now see morale on the top next to lives and it seems more serious. Negative actions lower total morale depending upon what structures are destroyed. If you lose an OP morale decreases by more points than if a bed was destroyed. Since an OP is harder to obtain than the bed its more devastating to morale. Positive actions include building but also heroic deeds. Such as stealing an enemy OP or an enemy catapult. Killing a certain number of players can also increase morale. Personal deeds of heroic actions include a high amount of kills. Kills would be grouped in sets of numbers. In fives or tens so there is a clear system of achievement. Killing more than one player with a bomb is a heroic deed. Killing a few knights in a row as archer could also be a heroic deed. Killing certain targets as a builder also could work. Sorry for not editing this post into paragraphs. I'm eager to see some feedback about these ideas also addtional ideas on the topic.

 

I dont think that morale bar would work.
MY moral goes down when my team is beining crushed at the front line and loses always, but if im spamming beds all over our tent-zone, that shouldnt increase my moral.
I dont think it would work in this game, but gold should get a bit more of a function.
Like in Beo's server, where you have shops.
Or bankz!

 

Actually with the gold placing you could make more gold as well. Just have on player place the gold (which will add I think 1 coin everytime, and use those coins to buy more gold at banks)

When you want to retrieve just have a player with no coins mine it and drop it to the player that wants coins from the bank.