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Video Game Thoughts - Reward VS Penalty - Crossout
9 years ago
This is all related to the currently closed beta game Crossout, Easy enough to look up, made by Gaijin games, the people who make War Thunder, though to keep it simple, think "War Thunder" mixed with a little Robocraft, and post apocalyptic theme.
When I joined, they had this mechanic based around repairing your parts as they took damage whenever they lost, If they hit 0 condition, they would basically be un-usable, because they would do severely reduced damage, and have insanely reduced HP, let alone be hard to repair.
This system was disliked, but it got more dislikes as changes were made to make it harder to repair items.
Eventually, from what I have heard, since I have not played too recently just yet, that this system has now been removed, but it got me thinking just now....
World of Warcraft, Had a system when it first came out, where people got normal experience when they logged on, but after playing for a long ti me, they started to take a de-buff that would reduce experience gain by 25%, and...this was to discourage long grinding sessions. But people hated it....
They didn't remove the system, but instead, renamed it, and changed how it was perceived....
Rather than removing it, they made it so when you are logged out you now "Gain Rest" ...that gives you a "Boosted" 50% experience rate while it is in effect until it wears off, and then it returns to 100%....THis is the exact same feature, except rather then being "Exausted" From long playing time, and therefore being 'penalized' for playing a long period of time, A person is now 'rewarded' for logging on, after being offline a while...... The expereince gains in between those never changed, Just now it is a "Bonus" that wears off to "Normal", rather then "Normal" Experience, becoming "Degraded" Experience...
I was thinking though, It was not a change in the mechanic, so much as a change in the perception....
So why not do something similar for a game like Crossout...True it would be a minor mechanical change though to fit with it...But why not have it, so when you get a weapon, it's in "Poor/salvaged" to "Average" condition...Meaning it would be basically the "Low" or half damaged state...However, rather then making it behave worse, Just leave it normal..and instead, rather then making it so you "MUST' repair, to use a weapon properly, You can ignore that, and instead use it fine without that...but if you -repair- and replace parts....you gain a very, very minor bonus, like, maybe it's slightly more durable, because "Hey, it has better parts in it now." ...or can keep from overheating -slightly- longer then a 'un-repaired/salvaged' one, because "It's been cleaned up and things lubricated." ...So rather then punishing the players, for 'not taking care of things' Instead, You just let the players have no real issue, since it's the apocalypse, parts are -hard to come by- so you just deal with what you deal with...but if you go out of your way, to improve, to fix up this stuff...to make it better...it -rewards- you...
..TLDR in some ways? Basically Just saying...why not change the terms, and maybe very minor mechanics, so rather than having things start normal, and becoming 'punished' Just change it so they 'start' Normal (punished) and improving it, makes it a Bonus (normal) ...A change in terms...can change how something is perceived quite heavily...
TLDR TLDR: Calling something "Bad", compared to "Normal", comes across worse then something being called "Normal" compared to "Good" even if the only change, is the words used to describe them.
When I joined, they had this mechanic based around repairing your parts as they took damage whenever they lost, If they hit 0 condition, they would basically be un-usable, because they would do severely reduced damage, and have insanely reduced HP, let alone be hard to repair.
This system was disliked, but it got more dislikes as changes were made to make it harder to repair items.
Eventually, from what I have heard, since I have not played too recently just yet, that this system has now been removed, but it got me thinking just now....
World of Warcraft, Had a system when it first came out, where people got normal experience when they logged on, but after playing for a long ti me, they started to take a de-buff that would reduce experience gain by 25%, and...this was to discourage long grinding sessions. But people hated it....
They didn't remove the system, but instead, renamed it, and changed how it was perceived....
Rather than removing it, they made it so when you are logged out you now "Gain Rest" ...that gives you a "Boosted" 50% experience rate while it is in effect until it wears off, and then it returns to 100%....THis is the exact same feature, except rather then being "Exausted" From long playing time, and therefore being 'penalized' for playing a long period of time, A person is now 'rewarded' for logging on, after being offline a while...... The expereince gains in between those never changed, Just now it is a "Bonus" that wears off to "Normal", rather then "Normal" Experience, becoming "Degraded" Experience...
I was thinking though, It was not a change in the mechanic, so much as a change in the perception....
So why not do something similar for a game like Crossout...True it would be a minor mechanical change though to fit with it...But why not have it, so when you get a weapon, it's in "Poor/salvaged" to "Average" condition...Meaning it would be basically the "Low" or half damaged state...However, rather then making it behave worse, Just leave it normal..and instead, rather then making it so you "MUST' repair, to use a weapon properly, You can ignore that, and instead use it fine without that...but if you -repair- and replace parts....you gain a very, very minor bonus, like, maybe it's slightly more durable, because "Hey, it has better parts in it now." ...or can keep from overheating -slightly- longer then a 'un-repaired/salvaged' one, because "It's been cleaned up and things lubricated." ...So rather then punishing the players, for 'not taking care of things' Instead, You just let the players have no real issue, since it's the apocalypse, parts are -hard to come by- so you just deal with what you deal with...but if you go out of your way, to improve, to fix up this stuff...to make it better...it -rewards- you...
..TLDR in some ways? Basically Just saying...why not change the terms, and maybe very minor mechanics, so rather than having things start normal, and becoming 'punished' Just change it so they 'start' Normal (punished) and improving it, makes it a Bonus (normal) ...A change in terms...can change how something is perceived quite heavily...
TLDR TLDR: Calling something "Bad", compared to "Normal", comes across worse then something being called "Normal" compared to "Good" even if the only change, is the words used to describe them.
cetas
∞cetas
Personally I stopped playing Crossout here being in the closed beta for a different reason than this. I didn't mind the whole repair of parts mechanics what I had issues with was the acquisition of such to begin with. Once you got to lvl 7 in the game the matchmaker for the battles would put you against players with much more advanced parts and setups. It became a downhill battle of sorts trying to get anything to build something original as if you wanted to survive you had to stack armor upon armor to the point you get little boxes on wheels bristling with weapons, not even the vehicles given to you by the factions were decent to fight with against most of the designs folks came up with. The fact of the matter you had to destroy others or win the match to get xp for a chance to get parts and it was frustrating. The only other options were to either spend real money to buy things off the player marketplace or try to play the marketplace by selling unused parts but as usual you had a few people who would mark up everything and have a monopoly in things that folks undercutted prices and you couldn't really make a profit
Ryusho
~ryusho
OP
Yeah, Though for me it as the repair thing as I as one ho bought into the beta, and became pissed off that the fact that the special things would just wear our and break, but I haven't tried again yet recently.
