A few ideas - Versus Scoring + Bot Upgrade?

i like the smarter bots idea. this helps to minimise the damage taken against a stack team.

as for score, im neutral.

 

I like the strategic element created by the limitation of the game designed for four players and having to protect the mains as a result. Raising the survivor bonus diminishes that strategic element. Good teams make whatever sacrifices necessary to ensure their mains make it as far as possible, really adding to the strategic challenge of the survivor round. Raising the bonus amount would just further reward non-main players that go solo or rush, and give them more reason to justify their lack of teamplay as they point to the "100 points" they just got the team.

 

Having the bots use melee rather than pistols is a good idea.
For one, they would be able to help better rather than shooting their way through 10 commons and a charger... and for another when we do spawn into bots in the middle of the game (thanks to structural rushing most of the times), we'd at least have some kind of melee to defend ourselves with.

About the scoring... I don't see the point in increasing the points gained per survivor at the end of the round. The lower the better, IMHO, so why put 100 ? it's too big a difference compared to the usual points we win throughout the round.

@Bonekeep, I don't believe in the 4 mains argument. Here, we know what it's about, but nobody on the servers care about that, or even know what mains are. People just want to survive, and not sacrifice themselves. Although the mains are the important players to scoring points and leading the game, the whole point is to get everyone safe and sound to the safe room at the end.

Example: when we want to start the countdown on the mercy hospital rooftop, we only need the 4 main players at the radio to start it. Not the whole team.

 

The point of the game (at least in versus) is to outscore the other team. When going up against an effective infected team, you have to make strategic decisions. A good team is communicative and vocal, making sure that everyone on the team knows and understands who the mains are and why they are important. I don't play PR much (plan to this summer tho), but I could see how in those games it would be less of an issue, but for those of that spend our time in VI versus, it's the difference between winning and losing a campaign. Any decent player understands this and will gladly sacrifice himself for the good of the team if it improves the team's chances of outscoring the opposing team.

 

I agree and we share the same vision of the game Bonekeep. However, not everybody does. When I used to play on the other servers than PR, I seldom witnessed a good team as a whole that communicated and made quick strategic and organized decisions. It was usually a group of regulars that coordinated their offense and got the team going. In PR, each player is based on their level and abilities, which makes teamwork all the more important.

The whole goal of Versus is to do better than the other team by scoring more points, but everyone wants to survive and doesn't see how making sure all mains survive at the end of the round can turn the tide.
It's good to have all the mains in the safe room at the end, but it's even better to have everyone, so sacrificing oneself isn't really the first thing that comes to a player's mind. It's a state of mind the WHOLE TEAM needs to adopt and understand, because if only a handful do, it doesn't change much if anything at all. I could go on Versus and tell everyone how important mains are, they still need to know who they are and their importance for the most part, I doubt they'd willingly contribute to the team in dire situations to get a main to safety if it meant them losing as an individual.

One idea for letting everyone know who the mains are and what to do is to make a permanent screen text (on the right side?) like the bounty/points/infected hp one in the middle of the screen but menu sized font saying something like :

Get the main survivors to safety!
Player1
Player2
Player3
Player4

 

I have an alternative suggestion:

Get rid of mains
All players get a distance score
Players in the saferoom get 100 points each

I'm sure players of L4D1 are much more suited to this idea rather than the concept of 'mains'. Valve:wacko:

 

lol...

l4d1 players are a dying breed, we are converting, l4d2 is the new religion; do not be LEFT BEHIND.

"All Save The Mains"

 

I play VI only so my opinion is only from that aspect and I believe that I have logged enough hours to provide some insight. With all due respect, I can not disagree more with the idea of giving a survivor 100 pts for making it to the safe house. To be blunt...it will ruin VI. There will be less team playing and more run as fast and as far as you can. VI is not a rush server. It's a strategy server and all the regulars know it.
I can't tell you the number of times I have joined on the team that is getting crushed and through coaching and teaching been able to turn the team around to where we started winning. Most teams get crushed because they don't understand the team concept. Give 100 pts for individual performance and it'll turn into a free for all.
You want to see noobs get excited...show them how to win. You want to see new people keep coming back to the server...show them how to compete. I do agree that everyone would like to survive but it is not the underlying theme to VI. Having your team win is.
I'm sure that Bonekeep, Vulcan, and Nine to name a few would agree with me on this. We would gladly sacrifice ourselves and routinely do to ensure that the mains go as far as they can. There have been countless times when 4 regulars have been in the back getting all type of SI attention while the 4 mains are moving fast as a group in the front. All the while the regulars in the back are just smiling away at all the time we are taking up with the SI. A few good players in the back can last 10 minutes and that is a really really long time. (which is the same thing I tell my wife)

 

I agree 100 points for each survivor and -100 for a defib is a bad idea, i could see it heavily degrading team work across all servers not just VI and PR already has issues with team play.

The melee things not a bad idea though.

 

LOL

 

True there are many who have no idea what a "main" is and why it is important to protect them and to sacrifice themselves if needed. The object is to win by show of points. The teams with greedy non-main players who insist on rushing always lose because they don't understand teamwork. 100 points will only exacerbate the situation. Nothing wrong with trying to come up with an idea but this will not be good and will actually een widen the points gap because the better team is still better and the stinky team will reek even more. My suggestion is DO NOT MESS WITH VI, IT IS FINE THE WAY IT IS unless you count this teamscramble BS.

This is funny, the other night my buddies and I just jumped in to a game and we were about to the sugar mill. We were losing but we knew we were gonna turn it around. Then this douche jumps in and winds up on our team, he was not in 10 seconds and he called for a team scramble and got a big fat NO, so the idiot jumps to the other side and the instant we start winning he calls for another TS and got a big fat NO, then he jumped to our side and we kicked him, ha ha ha. I am really down on TS, it is the most abused and worthless feature there ever was. As strange as it may seem team switching is actually the best balancer of teams because you always get bad players jumping to the winning team forcing anyone joining to start on the team with a vacancy and that player can potentially be a great player. So the bottom line is that over time the winning side flip flops from one side to the other.

 

This is so true in hongkong server, the players there lack team spirit and when losing, the team switching goes vicious and at times berserker mode.. lol.. but now theres austin as trial admin, so atleast i have back up now. haha

 

I wonder who is better, the Cantonese or the Mandarin, woot...

 

oh, many things said.. aint talking about them all, lol, just about the melee bots.. I like the ideia haha

 

THIS is a good idea.

However, If i remember correctly, there are restrictions in the way that text and menus can be oriented on the screen, so that might not work.

I feel like the screen should keep the message up for about 15 seconds after the survivors leave the saferoom in the hint-box where the "Rescue is coming! Hold out for xx:xx" is visible during finales, or where the /hsay text appears, except visible only to survivors and, like i said, only up for 15 seconds. That would be a reminder for the veteran players who's asses they have to save, and a notification for the newer players who the priority people are in that mission.

 

i wish the bots would just pick up something else other than pistols, even if it means them picking up a police tonfa.. lol..

 

I don't think that is the case because people rush anyway - it's so frequent in the Points Reloaded servers it's unbelievable. But I do agree with the fact that people will just rush and get the bonus and then the multiplier.

Done.

 

I wish punching a bot could make us trade melee.
It always sucks to see a bot with a katana and your last resort on the floor was a frying pan.

Bots are always the survivors that are left to die and that noone wants to help, might as well let them die with a tonfa or a pan rather than a sexy katana or baseball bat.