I've been watching a fair amount of the competitive matches in GoIO and one thing I've noticed is the large amount of snipers. Sniping isn't a bad tactic to use in GoIO, but it is one of the most boring things to watch, so I have a proposal that I'd love all of your input on, a time limit and points based system.
My inspiration for this was the UFC, in the UFC matches are judged by a fair number of factors, a few of those that translate into GoIO are octagon control, aggression and effective strikes landed. This would translate to battlefield control, aggression and damage done. This system would definitely require added code, so it's something that the Muse team would also have to agree on, but I believe it would create more enjoyable competitive matches.
The damage done would be based on a three point system, the team with the highest damage done would get three points while the other team would get one or two points. So as an example, if you were in a 2v2 match and red did a total of 1000 damage to blue and blue did 499 damage to red then at the end of the match red would be rewarded with three points and blue would get one, but if blue did 500+ damage then they'd get two points. (my initial formula is based on 50% of the highest damage which could be changed if you guys have a better idea)
Aggression is purely based on a stat that calculates how much distance a team traveled towards an enemy, so it wouldn't count any distance traveled away from an enemy. The team with the highest aggression would gain one point while the other team would get zero.
Battlefield control is a little more complicated, it's a stat based on holding ground, so it ends up being the exact opposite of aggression, the team who traveled the least distance away from the enemy team would be rewarded with one point while the other team would get zero.
My idea was to have these points added to the final score at the end of the match if time ran out, so potentially you could have a situation where a match ends up ending with a 3-1 score in favour of red, but if blue ended up doing more damage, was more aggressive and retreated less the red, blue could potentially win the match.
I haven't thought this system through entirely, I've put about 3-4 hours in total into the idea so I haven't thought of every little thing, but I did notice that damage done would play a huge factor. This means that having members who repaired very well and a pilot who retreated at the best time would end up being a detriment based on the points system. I did not overlook this fact and it was actually an intended feature. The reason why is it ends up promoting more exchanges and less running away which in the end makes for much more interesting matches for the viewer.
Also, as with the UFC, the time limit on specific matches would be different. In the UFC most fights are three five minute rounds while belt matches are five five minute rounds, this would translate into GoIO very well with regular matches being 15 or 20 minutes long while the championship matches end up being 30-40 minutes.
Let's take another hypothetical, match ends with a score of 1-0 in favour of red, blue had more damage but not by much, red won aggression and lost on battlefield control, this ends with a final score of 1 (score) + 2 (damage) + 1 (aggression) + 0 (control) = 4 for red and 0 (score) + 3 (damage) + 0 (aggression) + 1 (control) = 4, so we end up having a draw because even though red did some nice burst damage and got a kill, blue ended up focusing on trying to rip out reds heart while reds engies repaired the damage instead of sitting on guns. Maybe blue took out reds guns quickly so red literally couldn't respond very well in most exchanges. All red would have had to do was retreat less and they would have easily taken that match with a score of 5-3 but their pilot decided to run away more then blue did because he/she probably though that with that one kill their victory was secured.
I'd appreciate input on this and would absolutely love some dev responses on if the idea is viable enough to implement a way to track damage done, control and aggression so that a system like this could be accurately implemented.
Thanks for your time.