#XP on servers

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

finite gale
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This will be controversial but here me out. Its used in Arma Reforger and its a really good thing. Its bette for people staying in a server to recognize and value the player's devotion to the community.

1st step : Add XP and "ranks" (private, sergent, caporal, ect...)

Depending on what the guys did during a game, they'll gain XP, probably need balancing but for instance :

  • 1 kill 50xp
  • 1 revival 75xp
  • Destroy vehicle : tickets * 20
  • assist (as being pilot during kill/destruction, pilot in the past 10 min, dealing damage but not having the kill) 50% of the xp gained by the "owner"
  • TK : -200xp
  • vehicle TK : -1000xp
  • etc...

Ranks :

  • Private : 0xp
  • Caporal : 1000xp
  • Sergent : 5000xp
  • etc...

Ranks are updated between each games, no rank changes during the game ensure consistency during the game. (and prevent people using XP to know if they have a kill (for instance) )

Add a "tag" in front of every player's name (Pvt, Cpl, Sgt, etc..)
Set this for a couple of months and see how people gain XP. Servers could add rules so people with hier rank will have vehicle priority over lower ranks. (Can ensure people use vehicles when they have a bit knowledge in the game)

The ranks are "easily" avaliable to prevent people being stuck for a bunch of games at a low rank. (20 kills promote you directly to caporal the next game)

2nd step : Add rand restricted features

For instance :

  • MBT access : Caporal
  • Commander : Sergent
  • SL : Private (you'll know why later)
  • Heli access : Caporal
  • etc... (add a lot, even if its "locked" to Private rank)

Set this for a couple of month to balance and see how people react

3rd step : Allow server owners to edit these features

This would allow servers to ensure meeting their community needs. (if they have a big community of people having low XP, they will set every locks to Private ranks)

cobalt slate
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Hell no

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Makes the game even more new player unfriendly

finite gale
# cobalt slate Makes the game even more new player unfriendly

Yes and no..

Technically yes, new player will be restricted of joining an already created squad and using roles for a couple of games (the idea is to restrict them to 2 games or 3 but nothing huge)
I don't see how playing an inf role for 3 games when joining before being able to play vics/cmd is a big deal...

But no, because new player should not use high value assets (MBT, HELI, CMD) and some servers already rectrict these assets to be played by experimented players.

cobalt slate
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Both your points are proving my point

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I get what you mean, I don't think it should be in game

signal steppe
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Adding ranks as a cosmetic is fine but no restrictions on playing roles or anything.

finite gale
finite gale
cobalt slate
finite gale
# cobalt slate New guys joins, wants to tank with a experienced friend, nope first gotta be lev...

No problem with what you said, well i may have badly explain it.

The MBT access (for instance) is to claim it, like if you are part of a squad and the SL have the right amount of XP, then its ok.

So as you said, a new guy, tank his budy's squad, get into a tank (because his friend is experimented) and they play.

For the farming, they will always be some people trying to use exploits. But in any case, they will still have to do it a bunch to access some rank, and as soon as they try to troll, then ban... Its not about preventing exploits but having a progression through a server.

If you want to prevent exploit you could add a way so if you revive somebody that felt from a building or heal from non-enemy damage, the XP is reduced by 50% or more. Its a balance rule and can be "easily" tweaked its not a problem.

And as said before the idea is not to have 200 levels or things like this, but to have player that have a decent experience before going into a specific role. Preventing new player using Commanders, helis or things like this... They should learn a bit the game first

cobalt slate
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yeah that was just an exaggeration. But the thing thats meh about this Squad is one of the few game in which stats dont matter. Its about winning together. If you bring this into it things get to personal stats. This idea could work but I'd suggest making it based on time per server in a live game

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without the restrictions*

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or when you reach this amount of time in any server it will be avialable in all servers

finite gale
cobalt slate
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No I mean that people dont just be afk in seeding and get the xp

finite gale
finite gale
cobalt slate
finite gale
cobalt slate
finite gale
# cobalt slate Yes but than the gameplay will just revolve around this things, kills and revive...

I'm not sure how it would impact the game, and the idea is not to force player behind a XP wall, the idea is more about preventing some innapropriate behavior, and have a persistend stats..

The thing is to have a couple ranks to ensure people have a minimum of knowledge of the server. Like you can see it in a different way :
Private : 0 games
Caporal : Played 2 games in the server
Sergent : Played 5 games
etc...

For veteran players won't need to worry about XP (maybe if they change servers) its just for new players

cobalt slate
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Yeah I guess so, but than another thing, level discrimination. people will just kick people that have no experience if they feel like it. Dick move sure but already know there will be squads named "level 30 minimum mic eng inf"

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I dont know, Im just not in fovour of it

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I see where you are coming from

finite gale
cobalt slate
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yeah this would just be in the worst kind scenario, but you have to take these things into account

austere robin
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Could either be really useful in not joining sl's who are new/squadbaiting, or incredibly toxic. Either way Ive always thought some sort of personal progression that isnt shared w others would be cool, like a stats page

shy field
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Server admins are already free to implement that if they want to

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So you can go tell your favorite server's discord and see what they think of that

finite gale
finite gale
shy field
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But I can tell you that some servers have a number-of-hours requirement, and they're fucking ass to play in because sometimes there just won't be any decent open squads and experienced players who just haven't played there so often are prevented from leading their own

reef hamlet
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Honestly giving players more objectives can make the game for everyone better because currently it dose not matter if you win or lose. These Objectives should be tasks with a reward system and not directly XP related with Levels because as mentioned people with certain ranks might get kicked from squads or won't be able to join servers. Ranks should not restrict guns or vehicles to certain levels.

Daily, Weekly or maybe general objectives (Like Steam rewards) will give players the possibility for challenges for a reward like a ribbon. This will help players learn the game by playing vehicles or different classes and help them play an Objective to Win the game while still having fun and not being a grind.

humble ocean
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I don't think there should be any restrictions on using parts of the game depending on your rank.

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You learn by doing the thing you are trying to use, not by doing something that is completely unrelated. It makes no sense.

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If you want there to be more discrimination based on rank, more vehicles unused at spawn and more people as unassigned - this is the best way to do it.

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This would make sense in another game, but I feel servers in Squad have a strong sense of community. I don't need a rank to recognise good people, I am able to remember the cool shit they did.

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This is just superfluous and if this needs to be done, it could probably be done like the squad stats bot.

grave fossil
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I'm just against adding any sort of XP and rank system in Squad in general, its always gonna be a pain to implement and ends up being incredibly gatekeepy.

If Squad can survive an entire decade without these mechanics I'm sure it could survive another without them

inner lodge
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these guys have no idea what theyre talking about. Youre 100% correct on this. I tried to go into detail but i got hit with the "no spamming" bot message. Ive been playing for 6 years and this would fix 40% of squads issues. The other 60% is content. Mod dev teams are out pacing the squad devs in content on a ratio of nearly 12:1 in terms of frequency of fixes as well features and assets. Literally every respectable youtuber that has posted a review for squad as a game has said the 4 major cons to squad are (im summarizing) too chaotic and overwhelming for new players, Lack of content, no progression, slow dev response. What youve suggested fixes 2 of these by simplifying new player onboarding and it provides something to stick around for.

grave fossil
# inner lodge these guys have no idea what theyre talking about. Youre 100% correct on this. I...

absolutely disagree, the only aspect i would agree on is the new player experience being confusing, however this has more to do with the lack of a proper tutorial system in-game rather than the lack of some form of progression, and the barebones tutorial currently in game doesnt help this at all

and cmon, if no progression was an issue wouldnt it have been addressed back in early access? a game like Squad doesnt need progression to keep the playerbase hooked or act as some sort of noob deterence in servers

inner lodge
# grave fossil absolutely disagree, the only aspect i would agree on is the new player experien...

the game devs are not trying to stay stagnant at 10k players, change is required if the game wants to actually grow and retain players. The modding community is carrying OWI on their backs right now. GE alone is responsible for the average concurrent players doubling. If you go back and look at the steam player charts, when GE returned the concurrent player base shot up from 12k to 26k. A tutorial system is not going to help anyone unless its mandatory. 99% of players will skip the tutorials and play anyways. The system op is talking about implements a mandatory tutorial system disguised as progression and rewards players with more assets at their disposal. Nobody ever quit playing battlefield or COD because they didnt have acces to every weapon unlock for vehicles or guns

humble ocean
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Like I understand the issues, because I see it all too often. But my current PoV is that an XP system is a weird solution for it.

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Oh I see, it's a metaphor of 'slowly opening doors'

inner lodge
# humble ocean XP would achieve the four outlined issues.... how? I'm struggling link the first...

2 of the 4. The chaotic over whelming portion for new players is fixed by op's xp system because it restricts the amount of options available to new players forcing them to play inf with a SL thats guranteed by the xp system to know what hes doing. The second one is simply player retention through progression as well as providing a more stable player experience for established regular squad players by not having to fight new players for access to important assets that have long cooldown timers that heavily impact the flow of the game.

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the other 2 being slow dev response and content cannot be fixed by an xp system and require different actions taken by the dev team

humble ocean
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Ok, I sort of see and partially agree with where you are going. I think I have a few points against that:

  • Progression in CoD or BF only restricted your ability to customise, but not your role. If there are a bunch of low-ranks on a server, who would be restricted against using certain kits, that's causing a void for those team roles. That's an issue. Because if a team wanted to merely reach their base effectiveness, that's forcing anyone who does have access to those roles to use them. I think that's a bit degenerate.
    And again, to become more effective at X, you have to try and fail at doing X, not by doing Y.
  • Progression is good, but progression needs to be meaningful in order to capture a player's attention. We see this in the form of Battlepass, rank up rewards, etc. In Squad, I don't think that's a thing that can be truly explored, outside minor cosmetics. Like compare to HD2, or CoD, the progression gives you massive ways to change how you play the game - I don't think Squad can replicate that without going too far out of it's authenticity comfort zone.
inner lodge
humble ocean
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If the caps to join a role are extremely low barriers to entry - then why have them exist in the first place?

inner lodge
# humble ocean If the caps to join a role are extremely low barriers to entry - then why have t...

itd increase in time required progressively as the role becomes more important or asset becomes more vital. I accidentally pressed enter instead of shift and didnt finish my last statemen but you could do 2 hours of medic required for access to LAT and 12 hours of LAT for access to HAT. Squad has plenty of pre-existing player bases to prevent unused access especially when theres only ever 4 HAT's per 100 people. Vehicles would be the same way. Ive never seen a game where absolutely everyone in a server match had less then 20 hours. I realistically could never see this being an actual issue

humble ocean
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For the progression aspect, I was thinking something similar. It could even be a bit more granular, do X, y times as a challenge and you get access to a kit. Anecdotally, I have seen servers filled with low hour players, because I've flipped on RCON and seen many 'first time on server' stars when a free-weekend and/or sale hits Steam.

inner lodge
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theres also plenty of potential for battle passes in squad as far as minor cosmetics like you weapon charms, skins, auxillary cosmetics like shades, bandannas, knee pads, tac vests, arm tattoos and even weapon reticles. I definitely advocate for micro transactions in squad because i want the game to be financially successful so OWI can affor to hire more staff and push out content like they too. The progression system in op's post as well is inherently meaningful

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as far as new players the most ive ever seen in one server at a time was 78

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theres also one more thing i wanted address

humble ocean
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I disagree with at least half of those cosmetics, microtransactions are fine, they just need to be authentic. It's a conventional army - you don't get to freely pick your optic (reticles) or your vest/rig. The others are fine.

finite gale
humble ocean
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If a player has set their mind on being anti-social and against being with the team, that's an issue of motives of that players and not an onboarding issue.

inner lodge
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i understand the arguement that in order to improve at X you must first have access X but theres a difference between some one who says " i want to play X therefore i will put in effort to work towards the role so i can play it" and "oh hey, big rocket thats cool i wanna play that" this shows the former player is wanting to put in active effort for the important role and is willing to learn to be better at it where as in comparison the former player is simply wanting the role for the face value appeal. Also the devs transitioned the tags for squad from mil-sim to arcade shooter for a reason. im fine with minor reality breaks if it brings in cash flow.

humble ocean
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I get you, I'm just figuring out a responsible way to get there.

inner lodge
humble ocean
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It could be implement as:

  • For roles, for the first 2 minutes of staging, preference is given to players above rank X, then its available for anyone.
  • For vehicles, for the first 2 minutes of their spawn, preference is given to players above rank X, then it is available for anyone.
inner lodge
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that would be the best case implementation

humble ocean
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Meaning that it still gives preference, which I was inspired from what you said earlier, but still avoids a degenerate gamestate.

inner lodge
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yes that combined with the exp system would ensure no assets are left unused, and the people with the high-moderate levels of experience are still able maintain quality gameplay loop

finite gale
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Just to recap :

At the beggining, the idea is not to farm XP for 10 games before making anything. The idea is just to lock some high risk stuff behind the need of playing 2 games in a server. (I put playing in bold because somebody that is afk or just laying around in a game and making no kill, no cap is not a guy that plays)

After playing around 2 games, usually you :

  • kind of know how the server works (basic behaviour around squad names)
  • If you are a new player, you starting to realise that squad is not an easy click and shoot game (so you start to behave a minimum like a "normal" squad player)

The amount of XP for a 2 game equivalent would be like a 15kills each game, or caping/defending 3 points. Not too much but enought to ensure people need to do things in the game. After gaining that amount of XP, its just "cosmetics", like a persistent stat history, it doesn't do much...

The idea of ranks is to have names on some milestones of XP, its not a ranking system in competitive games. And also it would allow some server to set specific rules about these ranks. Saying a server wants to have "realisitc" ranks or having a lot of selection restriction for roles it can, well it may not work for its community but its his problem.
In the other hand, if a server owner don't give a dam about XP, then he sets all restriction to the rank "Private" which starts at 0 XP and everyone plays like now.

stark pasture
finite gale
stark pasture
finite gale
stark pasture
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you just want progression

finite gale
# stark pasture you just want progression

In short : I just want people to play at least 2 games in a server as INF before wasting tickets by taking tanks (heli/sl/cmd/etc....) and not knowing how the game works...

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The XP and "rank" is just to put names on things and having it a bit prettier than creating a simple "2 game new player lock" system with a lot of "if statement" (saying : "well if the player is afk, if its seeding, if he does this, if he does that....")

stark pasture
finite gale
stark pasture
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start tutorial

finite gale
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The number of new player picking a Heli squad without even attended the basic tutorial ..

finite gale
stark pasture
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squad dont need that king of players

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they will ruin games

finite gale
stark pasture
finite gale
stark pasture
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the same

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squad and reforger

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the same

finite gale
# stark pasture squad dont need that king of players

no need experts, as i said, as soon as you played 2 games, you know the tone of the game, you know that tickets matter and strategy is key, and you know that you don't know the game, so you don't pick a vehicle squad and you continue to learn

stark pasture
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not game

finite gale
# stark pasture squad and reforger

reforger has a XP system, even more restricitive than i've suggested, and in reforger its even better (even with some PS5 guys that don't know anything about arma franchise)

stark pasture
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they do nothing with that xp system

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for what

finite gale
finite gale
stark pasture
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its just your lvl

finite gale
finite gale
# stark pasture its just your lvl

Example, to spawn a humve you need to be caporal, to be caporal its about 1h of gameplay, or caping 2 points.
If you are a "private" you can spawn a basic jeep with no protection

If you want helis, you need to be sergent which is an aditionnal 1h or 2

shy field
# inner lodge the game devs are not trying to stay stagnant at 10k players, change is required...
  1. Not every game needs to grow indefinitely, we already have enough players to find games around the clock in many regions of the world. And the game's lifetime pop is on increasing trend anyway.
  2. What does GE have anything to do with a progression system? It doesn't have one, if anything the reason so many people play those servers is because moderation is shit and you're mostly allowed to grab any vehicle with zero communication, so your ideas would go directly against what attracts people to that mod.
  3. Stop with the Rube Goldberg machine-ass suggestions that you think might solve the problem in some super clever subliminal way. If a mandatory tutorial would be as effective, then why are you even demanding that OWI takes more time away from critical tasks when you yourself have said that modding communities have a bigger impact and work faster.
grave fossil
# inner lodge the game devs are not trying to stay stagnant at 10k players, change is required...

ok so ive been meaning to respond to this eventually since I need to at least get some facts right:

The modding community is carrying OWI on their backs right now.
this is a debatable statement, but in the region I play in (Asia/OCE) most populated servers are vanilla so I dont really think this holds much value unless if the situation isnt the same in other regions
GE alone is responsible for the average concurrent players doubling. If you go back and look at the steam player charts, when GE returned the concurrent player base shot up from 12k to 26k.
now this is cap, GE returned back in early august 2024 iinm and the steamdb chart shows no increase from 12k to 26k, heck the number of players actually fell slightly until the free weekend happened in september
A tutorial system is not going to help anyone unless its mandatory. 99% of players will skip the tutorials and play anyways.
This can be true or false depending on how good the tutorial is implemented, at the moment the tutorial just covers the bare basics and doesnt delve into other important mechanics like capping, fobs, resources, vehicle gameplay etc., if the tutorial was more in-depth I'd imagine more newbies would at least try out the tutorial and will gain a lot more insight into Squad's gameplay, and better yet make it mandatory like you said
The system op is talking about implements a mandatory tutorial system disguised as progression and rewards players with more assets at their disposal.
And a mandatory tutorial system like I mentioned above wont help? Its probably far simpler to implement and would be infinitely more helpful instead of limiting roles and vehicles to players by tying them to an arbitrary progression system, heck whether it will incentivise new players to actually play such roles and vehicles is something I doubt if such a progression system were to be implemented

craggy river
inner lodge
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why am i getting hit with no spamming when i reply to someone?

finite gale