An Effort to Improve Teamwork (Individual Score Removal)

[hr284]

Hey guys, I'm a long time player, first time poster. Let me just get straight to the point, as I've been sitting on this for a while, and I couldn't find it suggested anywhere else.

Through many updates, I and others have noticed an extreme drop in teamwork. When I first started noticing this problem, it was easy to point to the influx of non-English speaking players as a reason for this. Communication was cut to a large amount of the player base. It slowly became commonplace to see a map speckled with players in every grid square, rather than the fairly concentrated groups we once saw. Soon, however, I realized the true problem was ego. Gone were the Green vs. Blue propaganda messages in the chat. The gut-wrenching terror one felt behind enemy lines or under fire vanished as well. Instead, people on the losing team paraded their number of kills. The "Rambo" or "Lone Wolf" style of play began to dominate. Matches, then and now, last for hours, as no one is concerned with capping the intel.

My proposed solution is to remove individual scores from Ace of Spades. The scores could still be counted, for airstrike purposes, but would not be displayed to the players. The only things lost in this transition would be the pyspades Free For All script, run sparingly by servers and ego, an obstacle in the way of achieving selflessness and enlightenment, in the eyes of Zen Buddhists.

Many other FPS games, like developer-neglected Resistance and Liberation mod for Half-Life 2, use this lack of individual scores to create a tense and bonding atmosphere. If the long-time community here is so vehemently opposed to becoming Call of Duty with blocks, then why not take this admittedly drastic step to distance itself, as a somewhat mature and tactical shooter? Thank you for reading.

[SIMOX]

I don't think that removing individual scores alone would make the people more concentrated on teamwork. There also has to be some kinda reward for helping team mates. And communication has to be improved (like quick text commands, visual commands displayed on the minimap, etc.).

[hr284]

Oh, definitely, this would be part of a long term set of improvements. Resistance and Liberation (Sorry to go back to that game, it has some good ideas, just bad implementation) uses a loose squad system where a set of four or five players are grouped together on the scoreboard and can see their squad leader on the map. It'd probably work better than the "spawn inside of blocks and have a seizure" type pyspades squad script.

I'm not sure what "helping teammates" means, though. Do you mean, like, if someone is shooting at a teammate and you kill the attacker, you're rewarded? Anyways, it starts to get into fairly complex changes, and that's sort of the antithesis of AoS, at least, for me. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, soon to be left behind by the tide of change. I hope not.

[scarfacemperor]

Deleting individual score would change nothing

The best thing I see to improve team work is team work reward : count the number of team actions such as kill-assist or suppressive fires, and this score awards you some bonus such as the bazooka, heavy machinegun, healings... (which will be included in future updates).

You want to play lone wolf ? Fine, but keep your basic stuff.

[FaZe]

I don't think it would make sense, because people would be really confused as to how well they're doing. Instead, why don't we reward teamwork?

[hr284]

I disagree, I think the dynamic would shift back to that tense action players found so exhilarating in earlier betas. We could still have that feeling with the addition of stuff like the RPG or medkits. My suggestion is simply to drive home the point that Ace of Spades should have more of a focus on intelligent tactics rather than racking up kills, especially when the two are as disconnected as they are now.

I understood that this would be hard for most to swallow and would absolutely never get put in-game. This is honestly more of a suggestion for that AoS remake (demake?) that guy on /vg/ was planning. My point is that it doesn't matter how well a single person is doing. The number of intels or tents capture is the only number that matters.

[FaZe]

A lot of servers run TDM, so scores should at least be shown there.

[hr284]

I don't exactly see the TDM need for it, as the kills are counted collectively, but I guess, in the off-chance it gets used, it should be a server by server thing.

[Paratrooper]

It depends on the objective of the game.

In TDM or FFA, racking up kills faster are the way to win the game. A leaderboard of kills won't affect who or who doesn't lone wolf.

In CTF or TC/ToW, capping intel and strategical points determine who wins the game. The leaderboard is, for the most part, used to show of bragging rights in these game modes.

[TheSifodias]

I don't like it. It would utterly destroy the casual style of gameplay 90% of the servers rely on. For someone who can play for hours at a time, it would be a great improvement, but for people who can only come on once in a while everyday, it would be a downright disaster.
Along with this there is no motivation to keep the players playing. There is no way to determine skill, no way to actually keep a player from rage quitting other than the idea that he would let his teamates down(who would frankly not give a s***).
Also, it would force AOS server times to be a lot shorter. A new player joining the war effort can ruin plans, strategies, etc... because he is not part of the original team.

[Paratrooper]

... No way to show that you're better than the others?

[TheSifodias]

That too...

[hr284]

Alright, I see your points, it would work better as a server-side option. It doesn't appeal to the majority, I get that. I went a bit too "guns akimbo" on that one.

I don't understand bragging rights in a team-based game, though. What does it matter if you're better than someone? If your team is losing, your skill is null and void. Within a team, ego like that only gets in the way of real leadership.

I have also never thought of Ace of Spades as the casual game that some treat it like. For tons of players from the early days, an AoS match was tense and long, an event which hours could be sunk into. That kind of gameplay is unbelievably immersive, not to mention fun.

In CTF or TC/ToW, capping intel and strategical points determine who wins the game. The leaderboard is, for the most part, used to show of bragging rights in these game modes.

Bragging? There's no need to brag for yourself if your team wins! I also wouldn't exactly mourn the loss of third party modes, except maybe Babel, which is the mode that would benefit most from this, in my opinion.

Once more, I'd like to say that, if implemented, this would be a server-side option. There's certainly the audience for it, /vg/ had a 1,000+ post thread reminiscing about the days of yore. This idea was responded to positively as a way to bring back those days. I don't mean to seem like some sort of an elitist, PC Master Race, filthy casual-hating, hardcore gamer, though some might find that subtext in my posts.

Along with this there is no motivation to keep the players playing. There is no way to determine skill, no way to actually keep a player from rage quitting other than the idea that he would let his teamates down(who would frankly not give a s***).

What! No, in those types of matches, seeing your teammates disconnect as you lose is the worst feeling in the world! This does all depend on the helpfulness of the community towards Deuces, which might be unreliable. The removal of ego would probably drive out most undesirables from our ranks, though.

[Paratrooper]

Exactly why leaderboard in CTF and ToW should be removed ^^.

Because people use it as a bragging tool.

[hr284]

I wasn't really concerned with FFA or TDM in my original post, honestly.