Any thoughts on rewarding suppression?

[Calumhm]

I don't think you need to give points for suppression, if you're suppressing someone, you're rendering them pinned and combat ineffective. It can be as useful as if you were putting smoke down sometimes.

If you suppress a REALLY dangerous target, you can practicaly turn the battle!

I don't really think you need to get points for suppression, but I suppose if we implemented it, I'd suggest this:

- if you suppress a target that has just been spotted by a teammate for you, you gain a slow trickle of team points. This way, it encourages players to spot threats, so they can be killed or suppressed. - :IS2: :IS2: :IS2:

 

[Cpt-Praxius]

My favorite respawn timer is "never". Single-life games have a lot going for them, but it does demand an entirely different set of design for objectives and victory conditions to work in a large player count setting. Countdown didn't really try very seriously.

Single Life is something that turns me off on a game and one of the reasons why I don't bother with Countdown.

I log into the server, I pick a class, I play for a bit and eventually die.... no more lives, so I'll just log off and go do something else.

Great way to keep players engaged to the game.

It's also a great way to make a battle feel like it's only fought between 16 soldiers per side.

Just last night I was playing on the Aus/NZ server (wasn't my best night playing as I accidentally got a few TK's and TK'd a few times myself) and every time I was shot at, I hit the deck and crawled... I already do what I need to do in the game to stay alive and don't need suppression to do this.... adding more penalties to the game like longer spawn times and further distances from spawn to objective in order to force some players to try and stay alive longer only punishes the other players who are already playing the way they should.

Though I don't mind a longer distance from spawn to objective and as noted, it does allow you to have more time and distance to use different tactics & approaches... but one life matches or even longer spawn times is excessive and makes the game less enjoyable.

Maybe players who have all the time in the world to kill and can play for hours on end would enjoy those things, but others don't have all kinds of free time to spend sitting there, staring at the screen half the time.

 

[PhoenixDragon]

adding more penalties to the game like longer spawn times and further distances from spawn to objective in order to force some players to try and stay alive longer only punishes the other players who are already playing the way they should.

The problem being that if they play "the way they should," then they're being less effective than they could. The current setup encourages and rewards a riskier play-style.

 

[Cpt-Praxius]

I don't think you need to give points for suppression, if you're suppressing someone, you're rendering them pinned and combat ineffective. It can be as useful as if you were putting smoke down sometimes.

If you suppress a REALLY dangerous target, you can practicaly turn the battle!

I don't really think you need to get points for suppression, but I suppose if we implemented it, I'd suggest this:

- if you suppress a target that has just been spotted by a teammate for you, you gain a slow trickle of team points. This way, it encourages players to spot threats, so they can be killed or suppressed. - :IS2: :IS2: :IS2:

Well the reason I think points should be included in suppression is that:

#1 - those who don't see the benefit of suppressing enemies for your team will see the benefit of points instead, while still helping their team, thus more suppression being used in the game.... eventually they will also learn that suppression is an important factor to the game as they start to use it more, besides just points.

#2 - firing bullets at the enemy for suppression rather than direct killing obviously wastes your limited ammo..... so do you waste your ammo for what seems to be very little reward that also leaves you with less ammo later on when you might need it?

Heck at the end of each match, why not have the following:

• Most Effective Player
• Most Kills Points
• Most Team Points
• Best Suppressor
• Most Dishonourable

A little extra incentive for players to use more suppression on top of actually trying to kill the enemy.... would make for those more extended firefights people have been seeking, as well as making people feel that suppression is almost as good as taking the enemy out, thus they might be more inclined to keep their heads down more during suppression, use blind fire more, and not keep their heads out all the time while getting shot at (not just to stay alive more, but also to prevent the other guy getting points for suppressing you)

To me, the above seems a lot more effective as well as more enjoyable to play than having punishments like longer spawns, limited spawn tickets per player, longer distance to travel to the battle, or other forms of deterrents.

 

[Andreson]

I agree about increasing the distance between the spawn points.
It's like ArmA where it can take half an hour to run through the forest to the enemy.
In fact it allows you to strike from the back side of the whole battlefield, flanking and using various tactics that are impossible to do in Danzig for example.

 

[Colt .45 killer]

Yep, the death penalty is the proper place to solve this problem. It doesn't matter what kind of artificial suppression mechanics you try to bolt onto the game: you will never get people playing conservatively unless there is a tangible gameplay reason to do so. If reckless play has a reasonable probability of yielding greater payoff than penalty, then reckless play is effectively encouraged by the game, and conservative play is suboptimal. For example, if you're ending the map with half your team's reinforcements left, then you're wasting a useful resource.

Personally, I'd remove all suppression mechanics entirely and focus on harsh death penalties. Spawn timers and placements are easy knobs to tweak, but I also think they dropped the ball when they made a progression system that completely ignores failure. That can potentially be an effective meta-game incentive.

I remember leaping through some impossible hoops to try and stay alive on maps like FestungKurland, KurlandKessel, Kryukovo, Leningrad, Rakowice, Smolensk Stalemate, and especially BEREZINA back during the Ostfront days. Why? Because if you got shot dashing from cover to cover, you were looking at a fifteen second respawn... and a 90-second to five-minute (Berezina) run back to the frontline.

Apartments is where you see the most outlandish, impractical gameplay--repeated suicidal charges with grenades, MG hipfiring rambo behavior, players dashing up and down hallways with only the slightest sense of self-preservation... why? Because a death just means that you have to wait ten seconds to spawn, and six to eight seconds before you're within grenade range of the enemy again. IMO, they should have added a whole rear area for both sides, just to increase the distance from spawn to the capzones.

If the penalty of death is too light, there's no point to hiding in a shellhole for a minute or more waiting for an opportunity to dash to the next bit of cover.

Unless TWI is willing to add a stats system where you lose honor points for reckless behavior (something which might be difficult to design, come to think of it), map design and balance will be the primary method of setting a harsh penalty for deaths. So, if there are any mappers out there, or if any devs are reading this--set spawn times and distances wisely!

I think I have to say I agree with both of you here on the time to get back in the action being a major factor in making people not want to die. However counter to what you said mek, if a mechanic in the game ( ie extra sway when suppressed ) decreases your chances of being able to pop out and kill the guy suppressing you ( and you know it does ) then that is a successful suppression mechanic. It increases your chances of trying to move to a different position, or getting down into cover which is what people should be doing when they get suppressed. I wouldn't be so quick to throw out the baby with the bath water here, just because some of the current suppression mechanics don't achieve the desired results doesn't mean that successful ones can't be made.

And as was also pointed out, the stats system often has players ( myself included ) playing in a meta context. When I want to level a handgun up I tend to just spawn and drop the main weapon I had then running around with only the sidearm.

edit:
I wonder if it would be possible for a TWI staffer to pull up a compilation of all of the accuracy of every player with each weapon?.. I remember it being mentioned on this forum that somewhere around 98% of bullets fired in ww2 were misses, which should give you an idea of both how hard it can be to hit someone when you are ****ting bricks yourself, and how many bullets were fired in an attempt to suppress, or simply because thats where they enemies are...


edit 2:
@ Praxius: Well consider it this way, CD is pretty much all the way at one end of the spectrum of respawn penalties. It is the ultimate penalty, you get one chance and that is it. This might appeal to some people, but I admit it's even a bit too much for me on most days. I think that the right playstyle can be evoked of players without giving them only one chance.
Actually on that note, how about a respawn penalty timer that is based upon how long, or short, your last life was?
Make it map based and configurable by the server so that it fits different map sizes.

Basically the way I envision this is that there is a timer countdown that starts when you spawn, suppose the time is 30 seconds on danzig. When you spawn it starts at 30 seconds and starts counting down, if you die to enemy fire ( saves you from tk's and suicide while re selecting class ) at say 24 seconds remaining then you wait out that penalty time before being re entered into the spawn queue. The timer for the attackers team would be fixed at ~80-90% of the defenders team timer to allow for a higher pace of attackers. Server admins can tweak this timer to their hearts desires so that they can effectively slow down the pace of the game if wanted.

The reason I suggest this is that we have all these maps already that are quite small, and unless you find a way to add to the players respawn time, they die and are right back at it. This tweak works with all sizes of maps and achieves that same "long time till I get back in the fray" effect as increasing map size and bumping back the spawn locations.

edit 3: If you wanted to make that above suggested addon even more deadly you could have certain actions add time to that timer, ie being suppressed adds time to your re spawn penalty timer. So if an MG'er gets to pissing rounds into your position and you decide to try and get the lucky snipe and fail, even if your timer had previously counted to zero you could still be sitting there for 20-40 penalty seconds. That in a way provides incentive to both sides to suppress and when suppressed to move if possible. The chance to take one of your enemies out of action provides the whole incentive thing without resulting to handing out points or other such fiat game currencies...
( of course this would need some tweaking and fanangaling as it could easily turn the game into a spectator mode for all but a few people... )

as an aside to this, I find that games with longer life times tend to be a LOT more immersive. It breaks the immersion in a game to die and respawn and die again in under a minute. I find I become more determined to live and survive the longer a life goes on ( even in Hoes )..

 

[Proud_God]

I think I have to say I agree with both of you here on the time to get back in the action being a major factor in making people not want to die. However counter to what you said mek, if a mechanic in the game ( ie extra sway when suppressed ) decreases your chances of being able to pop out and kill the guy suppressing you ( and you know it does ) then that is a successful suppression mechanic. It increases your chances of trying to move to a different position, or getting down into cover which is what people should be doing when they get suppressed. I wouldn't be so quick to throw out the baby with the bath water here, just because some of the current suppression mechanics don't achieve the desired results doesn't mean that successful ones can't be made.

Well, what you said does raise a point. If you have fear of death (eg by long time to get back to front), but no (effective) suppression effects, players will in general be more careful, but it will not be related in a strong way to being fired upon (ie: sticking your head out is 'scary', whether you are being fired upon or not). In that regard suppression effects have their merit.

 

[Mormegil]

One problem with fear of death is it also makes players not want to play. I suspect that may be a reason Count Down isn't so popular. People want to shoot, they don't want to be dead spectators or running to the battle.

Note most people sprint way too much in this game. It's considered the default speed.

I guess the question would be, does suppression mechanics or greater death penalties (longer respawn times / further spawn points) have a greater negative effect on fun. It has to be a compromise.

 

[LugNut]

I like the idea of variable respawn times based on your time alive as long as it's clearly evident why you now have to wait an extra amount of time. I've played other games that had similar and you could never figure out the why. And that was frustrating.

Also, keep in mind that longer respawn times can have drastic affects on gameplay in less obvious ways. It can enable the surviving players to dig in deeper, spawn camp more effectively or make quick progression across the battlefield. The steamroller effect can be pronounced.

I like the idea of a simple suppression reward, whether it's just a "best at it" at the end or if you get an additional assist point when someone you're suppressing is killed by a teammate.

 

[Colt .45 killer]

I like the idea of variable respawn times based on your time alive as long as it's clearly evident why you now have to wait an extra amount of time. I've played other games that had similar and you could never figure out the why. And that was frustrating.

Also, keep in mind that longer respawn times can have drastic affects on gameplay in less obvious ways. It can enable the surviving players to dig in deeper, spawn camp more effectively or make quick progression across the battlefield. The steamroller effect can be pronounced.

I like the idea of a simple suppression reward, whether it's just a "best at it" at the end or if you get an additional assist point when someone you're suppressing is killed by a teammate.

yeah like i said it would take some tweaking to make sure that it didn't throw the balance too far either way. it would also give a huge benefit to the commanders forced respawn option.

 

[Cpt-Praxius]

edit 2:
@ Praxius: Well consider it this way, CD is pretty much all the way at one end of the spectrum of respawn penalties. It is the ultimate penalty, you get one chance and that is it. This might appeal to some people, but I admit it's even a bit too much for me on most days.

Agreed and is also why I don't play Countdown, or Counter-Strike.... it's a game and I want to play it... not watch it.

I try and be as careful as possible in every match I play, yet sometimes all my best efforts and attempts to play the game as it was intended simply isn't enough and someone who had a better edge on me took me out... now I have to sit there doing nothing for however long it takes for the round to end.

Might as well log off and go do something else.

..... as an aside to this, I find that games with longer life times tend to be a LOT more immersive. It breaks the immersion in a game to die and respawn and die again in under a minute. I find I become more determined to live and survive the longer a life goes on ( even in Hoes )..

Well for me, games like BFBC2 that seemed to pop you back into the action in 5 seconds or less most times was a bit too quick and I experienced what you described above.... a big mish mash of disorganization.

But at the same time, 30 seconds or more of waiting around to play again annoys the crap out of me..... in ROCA, the Map Warsaw had a spawn timer of like 45 seconds.... I just avoided that map.

15 seconds for me is a balanced middle ground... 20-25 seconds is borderline and anything 30 seconds or longer I avoid.

Sometimes people have a bad day no matter how carefully they try and play.... punishing players with longer spawn waits won't fix this and only frustrates them.

Spawn waiting was brought in to make people play more carefully in the first place.... based on some claims in here, it's not working.... so why would one think that making the spawn time even longer do any better??

This idea is walking a thin line between forcing people to play more carefully..... and making people just turn off the game to play something else.

While some of you in here may approve of a longer spawn timer for players, others wouldn't..... how many players would be lost if it's made too long? Would it be worth it?

If anything, I can agree on spawns being further away from objectives as opposed to longer spawn timers..... at least then players are doing something other than staring at a screen and eating some pretzels, even if it is just walking across a field.

By the time people get to the battlefield, they'd be out of stamina and their weapon effectiveness would be hindered..... thus more of that immersion people are looking for.

I like the idea of variable respawn times based on your time alive as long as it's clearly evident why you now have to wait an extra amount of time. I've played other games that had similar and you could never figure out the why. And that was frustrating.

Also, keep in mind that longer respawn times can have drastic affects on gameplay in less obvious ways. It can enable the surviving players to dig in deeper, spawn camp more effectively or make quick progression across the battlefield. The steamroller effect can be pronounced.

Agreed on all those points... and if a Commander just nuked most of the other team with rockets, even when they were under cover.... they're all punished by an extended spawn time, especially those who just spawned and just arrived to the objective.

I like the idea of a simple suppression reward, whether it's just a "best at it" at the end or if you get an additional assist point when someone you're suppressing is killed by a teammate.

Agreed.... I think it's at least the safest starting point with the least amount of draw backs to the game.... if it doesn't work, take it back out.

Besides.... the thread is titled "Any thoughts on rewarding suppression?" .... not "Any thoughts on punishing players who don't play right?"

Longer spawn timers and further away spawn points are a punishment, not a reward.... and would not solve any problems with people not using suppression as much as they "should." It would only mean (at best) that players would ensure they have their target killed (rather than suppressed)..... or they'll just camp more.

 

[Nikita]

Maybe a couple of achievements would do the trick:

Suppress 100 human enemies fully in multiplayer
Suppress 500 human enemies fully in multiplayer
Suppress 1000 human enemies fully in multiplayer
Suppress 5000 human enemies fully in multiplayer

Not sure if the functionality is there for this, but achievements are a pretty good way of motivating people without tossing out reward points so generously,

 

[Colt .45 killer]

Well for me, games like BFBC2 that seemed to pop you back into the action in 5 seconds or less most times was a bit too quick and I experienced what you described above.... a big mish mash of disorganization.

But at the same time, 30 seconds or more of waiting around to play again annoys the crap out of me..... in ROCA, the Map Warsaw had a spawn timer of like 45 seconds.... I just avoided that map.

15 seconds for me is a balanced middle ground... 20-25 seconds is borderline and anything 30 seconds or longer I avoid.

Sometimes people have a bad day no matter how carefully they try and play.... punishing players with longer spawn waits won't fix this and only frustrates them.

Spawn waiting was brought in to make people play more carefully in the first place.... based on some claims in here, it's not working.... so why would one think that making the spawn time even longer do any better??

This idea is walking a thin line between forcing people to play more carefully..... and making people just turn off the game to play something else.

While some of you in here may approve of a longer spawn timer for players, others wouldn't..... how many players would be lost if it's made too long? Would it be worth it?

If anything, I can agree on spawns being further away from objectives as opposed to longer spawn timers..... at least then players are doing something other than staring at a screen and eating some pretzels, even if it is just walking across a field.

By the time people get to the battlefield, they'd be out of stamina and their weapon effectiveness would be hindered..... thus more of that immersion people are looking for.



Agreed on all those points... and if a Commander just nuked most of the other team with rockets, even when they were under cover.... they're all punished by an extended spawn time, especially those who just spawned and just arrived to the objective.



Agreed.... I think it's at least the safest starting point with the least amount of draw backs to the game.... if it doesn't work, take it back out.

Besides.... the thread is titled "Any thoughts on rewarding suppression?" .... not "Any thoughts on punishing players who don't play right?"

Longer spawn timers and further away spawn points are a punishment, not a reward.... and would not solve any problems with people not using suppression as much as they "should." It would only mean (at best) that players would ensure they have their target killed (rather than suppressed)..... or they'll just camp more.

As I said there are a few different ways to make something like this work.

IE you could keep the overall spawn timer down by having a maximum penalty of 10-30 seconds that counts down at a rate of 1s/3-10 seconds.

Also I realize, and agree with you, that it is often better to find a positive method to do something instead of punishing people. That said dying when you are shot in a game is a form of punishment to one of the players, but it is also a form of positive reinforcement to the other. Similarly I think this would take off not because of the punishing effect on some players, but because players on both sides are positively reinforced to do so. And as you said the thread was originally about finding ways to encourage suppression...


i guess another thing you could do, considering how points matter about as much as forum rep is just give away points to players for suppressing enemies.. There would be atleast a few stats whores who would start suppressing then

 

[Mormegil]

So the 3 ideas for *rewarding* suppression (as oppose to making people feel more suppressed) are:

• Team Points for Suppression
• End of round "Best Suppressor"
• Suppression Achievements

I wonder if either of the first 2 can be done via mutator.

 

[Cpt-Praxius]

So the 3 ideas for *rewarding* suppression (as oppose to making people feel more suppressed) are:

• Team Points for Suppression
• End of round "Best Suppressor"
• Suppression Achievements

I wonder if either of the first 2 can be done via mutator.

I'd be for all those three... Even though I never check my scores during play, I do check them out at the end of a match... and with such a system in place, I would be more inclined to waste my ammo & suppress as much as I try and kill, as there would be some sort of payoff.

Yes, I know suppressing someone and helping your team in this way should be all the payoff one needs, but there is no indication on your end on whether or not you're suppressing someone in the first place and just wasting your ammo due to them being in good cover.

Even if you see nothing on screen during game play showing that you successfully suppressed someone, knowing that it's being recorded and tallied at the end for you to review is good enough for me. I could judge based on the points at the end of the round and when I decided to suppress (over time) when I was effective with my suppression.

Which would also lead to educating players in regards to knowing when and where they are effective at suppressing the enemy (as well as giving them incentive to use suppression more)

Example:

Some new guy just aimlessly fires off towards the enemy's position even if they don't see anybody... based on a lack of suppression points, they could determine that they either fired at nothing and suppressed nothing.... or they fired at the enemy, but not effective enough as to produce full suppression on many (or any at all)

As it stands right now, you can fire away at nothing, or at one guy, or a bunch of guys.... but you really don't know if you had any real impact on their ability to fire back.

Some may keep their heads down and thus, they were effective.... or maybe they just relocated and you just continued to shoot at nothing.

Who knows?

(The guy that was fired at would)

 

[AtheistIII]

based on a lack of suppression points, they could determine that they either fired at nothing and suppressed nothing.... or they fired at the enemy, but not effective enough as to produce full suppression on many (or any at all)

Well, this could as well lead to a system of unrealistic detection, shooting at a supposed enemy location, and if you start to get points you know that someone is there without seeing any enemy at all

 

[Cpt-Praxius]

Well, this could as well lead to a system of unrealistic detection, shooting at a supposed enemy location, and if you start to get points you know that someone is there without seeing any enemy at all

No what I mean is not to show anything at all during game play (like you see with kills and assists)... but at the end of the round, or when you look at the score board during a match.... you'd have to use your own judgement as to when and where you were effective to obtain those points.

Say I got a dozen or so points.... I could assume it might have been that time when I shot my MG at a bunch of enemies who tried to advance... while the rest of the game, it was slow going or something.

Though I did just think of one problem:

Many times when you're firing at someone and end up killing them, that guy usually gets suppressed in the process (I would if I had bullets crawling into my body)..... so when you kill someone, do you also get suppression points for that as well, or would (can) they be cancelled out by the kill/assist?

How would you program such a thing?

 

[LugNut]

Well, this could as well lead to a system of unrealistic detection

We already get notification via the hateful auto chat thingy, which I'd be happy if it went away. "He's suppressed brother!"

 

[AtheistIII]

Can you program the killscroll so it knows the difference in what points it should display and which not?
Don't know anything about programming, but if its impossible I'd rather not have points for suppression.

But maybe the points can be given delayed at the moment the suppressed soldier has recovered from the suppression to a certain degree, or only when he's killed (regardless when, similary to the kill assists).
This would rule out the problem with shooting someone and suppressing him at the same time too.

 

[Nylle]

The reward of your squad effectively flanking a enemy position under your supression is good enough for me. When real life tactics work, its the best reward.