Discussion - The Killstreak System

[Azarael]

Izumo - sounds good.
aap - It's rare to go on a death streak of any sufficient length. More details?
General - EVPC removed and replaced with HVPC (primary fire not lolrape)

[aapchen]

I havent worked it out yet . Whether diestreak must be a streak or is more based on efficiency or the amount of frags in minus (-4, -9 etc) is to be thought about.
If you are in a team which is bound to loose 6-0 you would still have some possibilities to come back. And this way the goodies do go to the worser players. Make these weapons stronger then the killstreak weapons.

Also, using this, you dont need to use randomness or something. All weapons go to the players earning them (by dieing or killing alot). Only middle class players are "unaffected" but they would be anyway.

[Azarael]

A system based on net could definitely work.

[enerG]

I like the killstreaks, a deathstreak sounds also nice if it pushes a really underpowered team. Maybe this can deny some quick 6:0 matches.

[Spin]

The better players also want to be able to use goodies once in a while. Implement a diestreak too to equal out things .

How do YOU know? You could only use noobstreak :p

Killstreaks are only in teammatches, right? So better players will just have to provide better weapons for their teammates to get goodies. So random is best.

[Azarael]

Killstreaks work in any gametype where Loadout is enabled.

At the moment, I've set things up as Izumo suggested - when donating a streak, it will be given to the player whose net is closest to 0. This player must have at least three kills. If multiple players share the same absolute net, a random pick is made.

[iRobot]

Killstreaks work in any gametype where Loadout is enabled.

At the moment, I've set things up as Izumo suggested - when donating a streak, it will be given to the player whose net is closest to 0. This player must have at least three kills. If multiple players share the same absolute net, a random pick is made.

Thanks, I'll just get three kills then maintain a net of 0, to get all the goodies!

[iZumo]

Hmm I would disable resupplying ammo for killstreak weapons totally. Also for non-Freon gametypes, where you can pick up weapons / ammo from the map, the ammo resupplying should be disabled completely as well as the killstreaks (think AS game, where sbdy would farm kills for nuke and then pwn them at objective).

[aapchen]

Why thank you Spin, EVIL twin haha .

I don't think the idea to give the player that is closest to a certain net gets the goodies is the solution to go with. All goodies would go in the same direction; mostly the middle skilled players (when team balance is pretty fair at least). When being pretty far (i.e. 4-2) in a game all goodies would go to the same player because nets are pretty much spread already. At the start of the game there will be more spread as nets will be fluctuating more rapidly although there will be less goodies normally anyway. In addition, people might be hunting for a 0 net which might influence the game as how it should be played.

I still believe that the player who earns the goodie gets the goodie. Randomness is not something I favor... it’s just so… uncontrollable… .

IMO the solution can be found in rewarding people who make killSTREAKS, as how it currently is designed (i.e. at +4, +9, +16). Perhaps the weapon choices are not perfect at this moment and should be less strong (lvl 3 that is, lvl 1 and 2 are okay). AND we should also give people goodies who are on negative net (i.e. at -4, -9, -16?? Or -3, -7, -12??). The latter one is not related to a dieSTREAK, but just on the negative net itself. Negative net weapons should only be given ONCE, which means that one cannot go from -4 to -3 to -4 and earn 2 weapons.

The core of the solution lies not within a team itself IMO; thus giving a goodie from a good player to a middle skilled player will not change much. The solution lies in the balance of the game. 6-0 games will be more eliminated as not only the good players will get (killstreak) goodies, but also the losing team will get something to defend themselves with. Whereas in the original setup the winning team becomes better and better (although HP goes down with each round) and the losing team becomes more and more of a shooting target for enhanced weaponry.

(Heck, or maybe we should remove killstreaks and only implement negative net weapons. That would balance best).

[Azarael]

@Izumo: Ammo resupply for killstreaks in Freon has been disabled. I'll prevent ammo packs from resupplying superweapons as well.

@aap and iRobot: I did consider the possibility of gaming the system to get 0 net, but I don't think it's a real risk for the following reasons:

1) There's no point gaming the system to get killstreak weapons if you're not going to use them, and if you do use them you'll produce a higher net
2) If you die in Freon you're sat on your ass anyway

I could use another calculation, looking for kills between 25% and 75% of the second highest player's kill count, or randomly select from players within a range of nets, but thought I'd go with this first.

Death streaks are still possible, but I'm wary about them. To go on a death streak of 4 is already hard enough, and I think death streak-only setups would just result in streak weapons never being seen, or players gaming the system to get them, i.e. one player repeatedly suicides and is thawed to get a cannon.

Regarding team balance: It's important to note that killstreak weapons start becoming a major single-target power around Streak 2. It's likely that only one or perhaps two players at a time on a team will have Streak 2, so I'm not sure it's that disruptive to balance. The EVPC and Nuke however destroy the game balance entirely, and they're what I'm working to bring down.