Implemented Changing method of gaining heroes

[Cotander]

It is clear that the current method of gaining heroes is too farmy. It currently encourages you to hang back from helping your team to farm kills.

I propose the following changes:

Hero Points Pool
Each player, per-team, will have a "hero points pool". Essentially every action you do that contributes to your team will add to this hero points pool. This is different to the current system, which relies on randomness above a certain threshold (e.g., 10% chance at 10+ killstreak every kill).

In fact, we technically already have a points pool - the current MVP system where your score is calculated. This could have a second calculation to calculate your current hero points.

This will include the following:

• Kills (not killstreaks)
• Deaths (at a pity threshold, see below)
• Assists
• Captures
• Heals
• ...?

Optionally, we can also keep the split between "passive" and "aggressive" heroes, so that there are two point pools. Kills/deaths would contribute to the latter, captures/heals former. Assists would probably contribute to both.

Once the player reaches the maximum points, they can optionally choose to take the hero or pass it to another player. Rejecting will halve your current points but allow you to take another hero in the future instead. Accepting will reset your current points. You will also be unable to gain points whilst being a hero.

1. Do we display the player's current hero points, and how many they need to reach? If so, where/how?
2. Should the required hero points increase in a team when someone on that team accepts a hero?
3. What other statistics, if any, should contribute to hero points?

Deaths pity
If a team is performing poorly, we want to give them a chance with heroes. As part of the solution to this, we can increase points when a player is dying a lot on their team. If the player has a minimum of 15 kills, and their deaths are >= kills + (65% of kills), death pity will start to add points to your hero pool. For example, you have 15 kills, then your required deaths would be 25 (rounded up). Percentage is subject to change/discussion.

1. What should the pity percentage be?

Hero pity
When an opposing team gains a hero, every player in your team should have points added to their hero pool. This increases the chance of hero v hero fights.

1. How much should the hero pity points be?

Keeping a hero
I propose a new mechanic in which when you are a hero you must be helping your team, otherwise you will begin to be debuffed (e.g slowness, weakness). Killing or capturing flags will prevent you from being debuffed.

1. What debuffs should there be?
2. How aggressive should the debuff system be in making the player help their team?

 

[redbommer]

This sounds like a much more nuanced system, and I like it.
Displaying your teams hero points would help people know when a hero is selected, I'd opt for a hero showing up starting 1/2 through a match however many points that would be (I assume it would scale for player ratios).

If a player chooses to reject the hero? giving them a token which they could use to redeem a hero in spawn? for another map. if thats the case limited by gametime left or # of players (not for small player counts) would be ideal.

Gates broken could also contribute to hero points for attackers. supplies donated to enderchests for constructors as well?

For debuffs I think if its like 30 seconds without supporting team, start slowness 1, another 30 seconds apply poison 1/hunger 1. finally applying weakness for the effects final phase. Alerting the player this if they are to select hero upfront is a good idea for it.

 

[Olex]

Hero Points Pool
Each player, per-team, will have a "hero points pool". Essentially every action you do that contributes to your team will add to this hero points pool. This is different to the current system, which relies on randomness above a certain threshold (e.g., 10% chance at 10+ killstreak every kill).

In fact, we technically already have a points pool - the current MVP system where your score is calculated. This could have a second calculation to calculate your current hero points.

This will include the following:

• Kills (not killstreaks)
• Deaths (at a pity threshold, see below)
• Assists
• Captures
• Heals
• ...?

We don't count gate damage right now, correct? Cause that's something I think should contribute.

• Optionally, we can also keep the split between "passive" and "aggressive" heroes, so that there are two point pools. Kills/deaths would contribute to the latter, captures/heals former. Assists would probably contribute to both.

Hmnmn I don't really like the idea of this as it might result in players who are already going on big killstreaks getting a hero made for killing even more.

• Once the player reaches the maximum points, they can optionally choose to take the hero or pass it to another player. Rejecting will halve your current points but allow you to take another hero in the future instead. Accepting will reset your current points. You will also be unable to gain points whilst being a hero.
  
  1. Do we display the player's current hero points, and how many they need to reach? If so, where/how?
  2. Should the required hero points increase in a team when someone on that team accepts a hero?
  3. What other statistics, if any, should contribute to hero points?

XP bar maybe? Would that be dumb?

• 1. 
     Deaths pity
     If a team is performing poorly, we want to give them a chance with heroes. As part of the solution to this, we can increase points when a player is dying a lot on their team. If the player has a minimum of 15 kills, and their deaths are >= kills + (65% of kills), death pity will start to add points to your hero pool. For example, you have 15 kills, then your required deaths would be 25 (rounded up). Percentage is subject to change/discussion.
     1. What should the pity percentage be?

Yeah losing teams should definately get buffs towards heroes, But would there be any way of making this team-wide and based on a teams performance rather than individual players?

Hero pity
When an opposing team gains a hero, every player in your team should have points added to their hero pool. This increases the chance of hero v hero fights.

1. How much should the hero pity points be?

Well how many points are needed for a hero? How much does kills, captures and heals generate?


Additionally, what do you think about utilizing the scoreboard to communicate the whole concept of heroes? Right now it's only displaying troop-counts which isn't always relevant.

We could list the heroes available for both teams, highlight the ones that are active and cross over the ones killed.
There we could also display your hero points?

 

[redbommer]

We don't count gate damage right now, correct? Cause that's something I think should contribute.

Hmnmn I don't really like the idea of this as it might result in players who are already going on big killstreaks getting a hero made for killing even more.

XP bar maybe? Would that be dumb?


Yeah losing teams should definately get buffs towards heroes, But would there be any way of making this team-wide and based on a teams performance rather than individual players?

Well how many points are needed for a hero? How much does kills, captures and heals generate?


Additionally, what do you think about utilizing the scoreboard to communicate the whole concept of heroes? Right now it's only displaying troop-counts which isn't always relevant.

We could list the heroes available for both teams, highlight the ones that are active and cross over the ones killed.
There we could also display your hero points?

adding onto this, we could limit a max # of heros based on those alive/dead. I'm leaning towards more frequent heros, but limiting the total per game. It should feel semi-frequent and based on team importance imo.

 

[Cotander]

I am very against any additions to the scoreboard, as it is massive clutter on the screen.

 

[LimeeFox]

Nice idea. A couple of questions:

In the hero granting calculation where you suggested to look at kills rather than killstreaks, could you elaborate more as to how that would affect the calculation? Because at some point, if a team/player reaches a certain amount of kills, will they just keep getting hero every new kill? So yeah, enlighten me to that a bit more in detail, please.

1. Do we display the player's current hero points, and how many they need to reach? If so, where/how?

I'm not sure, I think it's fine if we don't. Otherwise the gameplay becoems too technical and more mechanical, I feel like, rather than organic RPG-style PvP. It also spares us the pain of coming up with how to display it, because honestly it's easy to say "yeah let's add that indicator" but difficult to explain "how to". But hypothetically we could include like a little NPC or simply a hologram at the team lobby that says your current hero stats and other stats.

The deaths pity looks rather good, to me, in terms of numbers. And I think the point for this feature would be mostly to give a heads up to the worse players of the server, to not make them feel too sad, rather than give the team a gameplay advantage. I think little emotional things like that are important.

propose a new mechanic in which when you are a hero you must be helping your team, otherwise you will begin to be debuffed (e.g slowness, weakness). Killing or capturing flags will prevent you from being debuffed.

In my opinion, it would be better to remove the hero form the player rather than nerfing the player, with several warnings beforehand. I don't like the idea of getting bad effects . But perhaps such a mechanic would be exploitable, and effects would prevent that, as long as you keep them for the rest of the life.
If you still prefer the debuff mechanic, then yeah slowness and weakness, alone or together (if it's incremental) would do the thing. Eventually even mining fatigue.

My only worries with the entire idea of hero pools, is that for the most part, a lot of players will have very similar stats for a big portion of the game... Although that can help randomness of the hero selection, I also fear the opposite, where the server's best players are always the ones to get heroes.

P.S: Also, can you make the hero class selection random? There are certain hero classes which are never selected on certain maps (i.e: gimli) because for some reason when somebody gets hero, it's picking the first one in an ordered set of hero classes

 

[redbommer]

We could also set up a series of hero battles? Where highest stats on a team, and lowest player stat on a team are selected. So heros are selected in duos, for each team from both ends of the skill spectrum (I.e. Gimli/Legolas Vs Sauron/Lurtz). Current system plays by empowering winning team more rather than else. If we want to encourage team play we could have flag cap points/gate damage weigh more heavily than kills as well.

 

[miho47dwa]

Hero Points Pool
This will include the following:

• Kills (not killstreaks)
• Deaths (at a pity threshold, see below)
• Assists
• Captures
• Heals
• ...?

As Olex said, gate damage is a good idea. The only other thing I can think of is killing someone capturing a flag, like 3x for kill/assist.

Optionally, we can also keep the split between "passive" and "aggressive" heroes, so that there are two point pools. Kills/deaths would contribute to the latter, captures/heals former. Assists would probably contribute to both.

I think all the heroes should be "team-based". The idea of getting a hero and going for very high killstreak/constantly killing the backline is beyond tempting for me ;p , but for the overall gameplay and creating fun experience for everyone it may not be the best.

I would suggest that hero perks may be tied to capturing flags, giving enhancements to allies. For example, getting resistance and regen while near the flag, or giving nearby allies regen while bashing the gate.

1. Do we display the player's current hero points, and how many they need to reach? If so, where/how?
2. Should the required hero points increase in a team when someone on that team accepts a hero?
3. What other statistics, if any, should contribute to hero points?

1. Maybe somewhat of a short pop-up, like when flag is captured. "50% hero progress " "75% hero progress"
2. I think it should increase only per-player, for like 20%, to make getting it second time harder.

Deaths pity
If a team is performing poorly, we want to give them a chance with heroes. As part of the solution to this, we can increase points when a player is dying a lot on their team. If the player has a minimum of 15 kills, and their deaths are >= kills + (65% of kills), death pity will start to add points to your hero pool. For example, you have 15 kills, then your required deaths would be 25 (rounded up). Percentage is subject to change/discussion.

1. What should the pity percentage be?

I think its a good idea, not only for losing teams. "Worse" players will have an easier time getting heroes, sound good. Percentage is something that should be looked into and modified after the system is released, 65 as a base sounds good.

Hero pity
When an opposing team gains a hero, every player in your team should have points added to their hero pool. This increases the chance of hero v hero fights.

1. How much should the hero pity points be?

Hmm, I have a problem with this one. I think getting a hero should be special, not something that you would get for doing nothing. Also, it would lead to many players getting a required amount of hero points in the same time (gaussian distribution). If the system has right numbers and ratios, hero-to-hero situations will occur normally, and also it being rarer and more special, isn't a bad thing either.

Keeping a hero
I propose a new mechanic in which when you are a hero you must be helping your team, otherwise you will begin to be debuffed (e.g slowness, weakness). Killing or capturing flags will prevent you from being debuffed.

1. What debuffs should there be?
2. How aggressive should the debuff system be in making the player help their team?

Well, there should be atleast an AFK detection. Regarding debuffs...
The time between fights depends on map and specific flags, it would be hard to detect something like that. Also, that would lead to situations like for example having to rush 1 vs 5, and not waiting for your team. New players could be punished for not knowing what to do.
Thats actually very good point, and it will be also hard to balance. 2 good heroes in 1 team can demolish 2 bad heroes in oposing team. Allowing heroes to help their team instead of making them killing machines would help here.

Last thing is a hero-limit, both at the same time and per-game overall. I would suggest to lean towards less heroes. They can be very nice addition to the game, but I don't like the idea of them being main part of the gameplay.

1 more last thing, hero points should't be added while you are hero.

 

[LimeeFox]

Locking this thread, as this is now fully implemented into Empire War!