Achievements System. Helps Retain players.
BeerTent
Join Date: 2012-11-11 Member: 169639Members
Join Date: 2012-11-11 Member: 169639Members
With the addition of Hive and Skill tracking, we're probably inevitably see NS2 gain it's own Stats tracking separate of NS2stats.
So, why don't we add Achievs?
There are numerous different methods of implementation, from DoD:S's method of having a slew of "weapon mastery" Achievs, or we could look toward Dystopia's grouping of "try everything once." Minecraft's Tutorial based grouping of Achievements can also help curious players. "Oh, I should build POWER before the Extractor?" Not to mention, nothing like the feeling of having the fact you punched an Onos to death in a Exo being immortalized on your profile.
Achievements aren't entirely bad. They're just bad if they need to fill in a quota. (20 gamerscore for joining a server, yay!) For a large number of people, having Steam pop up in the corner saying you did something amazing, brings about a good feeling. If anyone else has seen a NS2 Developer command, we know that UWE wants that good feeling. Should NS2 contain a stats tracking option, these could be implemented in such a way so that if Tracking is disabled, so are the achieves. Furthermore, Workshop integration says to me that the Steam API is in there somewhere, so including it, provided the engine can support it, shouldn't be a major hassle. Just a timesink.
What do you think? Nothing wrong with that feelgood we're all playing for, right?
So, why don't we add Achievs?
Achievements are included within games to extend the title's longevity and provide players with the impetus to more than simply complete the game but find all of its secrets. They are effectively arbitrary challenges laid out by the developer to be met by the player. These achievements may coincide with the inherent goals of the game itself, such as completing a level, with secondary goals such as finding secret power-ups or levels, or may also be independent of the game's primary or secondary goals, such as playing a certain number of times, viewing a video, beating a certain number of online opponents or completing a level in a certain amount of time.
There are numerous different methods of implementation, from DoD:S's method of having a slew of "weapon mastery" Achievs, or we could look toward Dystopia's grouping of "try everything once." Minecraft's Tutorial based grouping of Achievements can also help curious players. "Oh, I should build POWER before the Extractor?" Not to mention, nothing like the feeling of having the fact you punched an Onos to death in a Exo being immortalized on your profile.
Achievements aren't entirely bad. They're just bad if they need to fill in a quota. (20 gamerscore for joining a server, yay!) For a large number of people, having Steam pop up in the corner saying you did something amazing, brings about a good feeling. If anyone else has seen a NS2 Developer command, we know that UWE wants that good feeling. Should NS2 contain a stats tracking option, these could be implemented in such a way so that if Tracking is disabled, so are the achieves. Furthermore, Workshop integration says to me that the Steam API is in there somewhere, so including it, provided the engine can support it, shouldn't be a major hassle. Just a timesink.
What do you think? Nothing wrong with that feelgood we're all playing for, right?
Comments
I like the idea, but not any "kill this many X with Y". NS2 needs fun ideas!
-Hello? - Join an empty server.
-Try decaff - drop 5 items on different marines in 7 seconds / use 6 abilities in 4 seconds as Karm.
-Sharing is caring - pass a weapon around 5 different marines.
-Tank - Fully upgraded onos (and biomass), or duel exo with A3 and nanoshield.
-Commanders pet - Receive medkit, cat pack, nanoshield and 2 dropped weapons in a game.
-New jetta - Hope in an exo with a jetpack on.
Also inset obligatory beacon to power out room, sell an under attack building (not an extractor) or weld a power node rather than build it back up.
Depends on the achivements implemented and on the people, whether they try to go farm them or not. They can be supplemental to teamplay, such as "weld x points of marine armor as marine".
Though technically everything stats/achievement like could lead to farming. But anyway, achievements or challanges are thing for some people I don't think it would hurt unless they are really stupid (like the welder kills :P)
I agree with this, which is why we need to pick and choose our achievements a little more carefully. Avoid achievements that some players may defer to helping out, instead, offer more tutorial style achievements, or achievements that Dragonmith suggested. Things we can likely get through normal gameplay, such as his commander's pet suggestion. Other ones might include...
"Separated" - As an alien commander, deploy a Bone Wall next an exosuit, and have your teammates kill it within 15 seconds.
"Alien Firebase" - As an alien commander, construct a Shade, Shift, Whip, and Craig in a room next to an enemy Tech Point.
"Master Ambush" - As a Skulk, kill a marine that hasn't fired it's weapon once.
"Mobile Wall" - As an Onos, use your Bone-shield to prevent Marines from shooting the hive.
"It's gone!" - As a Fade, use vortex and kill a Marine.
"Don't tread on me!" - While in an exosuit, kill 5 aliens with both your primary weapon and a claw.
"Do the Fire-Dance!" - As a Marine, prevent a Whip from attacking your teammates with a flamethrower.
"Technology behind the TSF" - As a Marine Commander, unlock all technology for your teammates in a single game.
We'll want to aim for things we'd want to achieve through normal gameplay, not things we'd want to work for. So going the Minecraft/Dystopia route of smaller achievements like "Kill two enemies with spider mines." or "Kill a Skeleton from 50 meters away." We'd want to avoid achievements like "kill 50 enemies with your hatchet/welder."
And while this may largely retain players for the smaller term, this may encourage more people to play longer than they would have, get a little better, and continue to enjoy the game for longer. It's not going to save NS2 from a dwindling playerbase, only constant, consistent updates can do that, but it can help increase the impact of those free weekends.
As previously said, it still has to be "normal gameplay" achievement. Don't want to see half of the team suiciding on 2 onos to get that welder kill achievement ^^
But Mobile Wall and Do the Fire-Dance would require some prediction to analyze what would happen if onos was not there or if whip was not on fire. And the game will have to check these things constantly. As we all know, NS2 code runs slooooow.
Or what I was thinking, have tiered achievements- each set unlocks only when the previous set is completed. All the meaningful, srs achievements that require some skill to get would be low-tier, then once you get to the high tier stuff like onos welding becomes important
Achievement : teamplayer - work with your allies
It really depends on the achievements (eg. 100 kills a big nono). Or we could go the Tornbanner route and have said achievements never work :P
Achievements, earnable badges, everything that rewards more time played for some reason actually seems to keep people interested and stick to a game. You see it in different games, but also in total different area's such as scuba diving training. Earnable rewards, getting that next level, it just works.
The problem with "kill 50 aliens with axe" achievements, is that you get that one idiot running around with only his axe and never shooting. This rewards the wrong behaviour. So avoid such achievements. You can put conditions on the achievement to avoid this, or just not go to high amount of kills, but just a single kill.
I am no programmer, so I might be wrong, but if achievements take such an amount of computing power, you can design it that it is totally client-side, optional and configurable. In other words the players run it themselves and if their computer can not handle it, they can deactivate it. And separate achievements into two categories, low computing power and higher computing power required. Put detection of simple achievements, which require little computing power on by default. And higher computing power achievements have to be turned on manually.
A lot of the statistics are already counted by the game, kills, deaths, assists. Using these numbers should not cost a lot of computing power.
Achievements to avoid:
X amount Axe/welder/parasite kills
Basically any achievement which you can earn faster by ignoring the game and not assisting your team.
Achievements to use:
Finish off an alien with your handgun (requirement have done 80% dmg with assault rifle, ammo clip empty)
Finish off an alien with your axe (requirement have done 80% dmg with assault rifle and handgun, must kill alien with 1 axe hit)
Finish him, kill an alien or marine with 1 attack
Kill x amount of skulks, Kill x amount of gorges etc
Master Technician, build the power to 99%, the building to 100% and then finish the power.
Gorge of the day, heal an RT up to 100% that had less than 25% hitpoints left
50 Marine wins
50 Alien wins
50 commander wins
Early base rush win
60 min game win (or loss) (promotes people not conceding games or leaving, when they tide turns slightly against them)
Unkillable, 20 kills no death (counter resets if you do not kill, build or assist for more than 120 seconds)
Recycler, lose your gun on death and get it back 3 times in a row, same gun
Outfitted, buy a welder within 60 seconds of the first armory being build, during the game carry a welder around 90% of the time and use it at least 10 times
Trained Recruit, during a marine game follow all of the commanders waypoints and never go in the opposite direction
Resourced, win a game without having lost a single Resource Tower (minimum of 5 resource towers).