I’ve been grinding my face off in GRB for a few weeks now, and there’s also been some discussions and videos around lack of teamwork etc. present in GRB. I don’t think these things can ever truly be solved, but in a game where grind/rewards are the #1 driving force behind player behavior why not use it for good to try and shape behavior in a positive manner?
The #1 problem IMO is matches place no expectation on players in terms of how many times they spawn, or stick around in match (1 death leavers etc.), and the MM makes no distinctions between players so a lot of matches are just RNG dependent on if you team has players with mulitple spawns, or even willing to spawn mulitple times because secndary spawns into a losing match aren’t that attractive when you can just reque and go again. I’d wager the majority of matches are decided by this alone.
Why not have an underdog bonus multiplier to RP/SL based on the number of players on each team that updates every so often? For instance Team 1 has 10 players and team 2 has 6, 5 minutes into a match, why not give team 2 an increased reward multipler that scales based on big the number difference is? Doesn’t have to be crazy, just enough to make it more attractive to stick around in these types of matches.
Secondly a small bonus, for being in the match for the entire duration, something like 10% would be enough.
Another problem is capping points is not a very good risk most times, which is why you see people constantly complaining about team mates not playing objectives and just playing TDM. Why not give increased rewards for capping based on how many caps the other team has? Better rewards for capping a point when the other team has 3 or 2 caps. Give people that don’t want to risk becoming a sitting duck on a cap in these situations as well by giving some score/reward just for touching a point and having it fully decap when the other team has 2/3 caps.
For team work related things why not give players an assist for taking a shot(s) from someone who dies within X amount of seconds from another player on your team even if you didn’t touch them? Taking a shot from someone and creating an opportunity or distraction so they can easily get a kill on them while they are reloading etc. is just as much as an assist as anything else, and you might see people more willing to be aggressive and setup other players instead of just standing around hoping someone else does it.
At this point I’ve found myself just not caring about wins/losses at all, I’m not gonna sweat my nuts off for a 1.4 vs 1.2 multiplier on rewards. Im not gonna stick around in hopeless matches, and I treat my teammates like bots and use them as meat shields at best to setup opportunities for myself. I don’t think that’s healthy for the game and I’m not the only one that thinks this way, you play enough you end up jaded and in this reality.
Grind is terrible in ground compared to air, but why not try to use it for some good too? These are just some ideas I have, I’m sure there is a ton of stuff they could do to try and shape player behavior for better matches using rewards, but right now there really is nothing.
As sort of a final note, I don’t think performance or win based rewards are good for the game in the current state and will only be problematic as it will cause a lot of toxicity on losing teams. Rewards need to be in place to help losing teams stick around and at least try so matches aren’t a lopsided mess like they are now that are almost always dictated by numbers advantage. It’s not an uncommon occurrence to see a team dominate the first few minutes of a match only to seemingly lose out of nowhere until you open the scoreboard and see half their team evaporated because they had a ton of 1 death leavers that eventually died, and people don’t want to stick it out in matches where there is a clear deficit in player count and the problems compound and teams that could have won or gave a good effort just fall apart.