The achievement based levelling system in GOIO right now is unique. That's nice. It's also however a huge problem and in my opinion one of the reasons that despite brilliant gameplay Guns has yet to fulfil its potential as a brilliant game.
I know that Adventure mode is slated to have something different, but I think changes are necessary for PvP - and far more important where a quick, accurate indication of a player's ability or at least experience level is really helpful - and I hope for at least some steps to be made in the right direction long before Adventure mode is released.
I would argue that a more conventional system where XP is rewarded based on a crude assessment of a player's contribution to a match would be far more fit for purpose. And yes, in such a complex game as GOIO such an assessment would have be very crude (less crude than the end of match player score.. hopefully). But... well. Does assessing players, to take a few examples, based on how many crews they've subjected to a munker to farm mine kills, how many gunners they've persuaded to bring lochnagar shot and how many times they've flown a hwacha/harpoon galleon to farm disables on harpooned ships seem better to you?
What I perceive as wrong with the current system:
- A core problem: completing achievements, which people are welcome to enjoy but many really don't - a fact recognised in nearly all other games, where achievements exist but are not pushed on you as the only progression system - is forced on all players as the only way to gain general acknowledgement as an experienced player, and is in other ways highly unsatisfying as a progression system.
- The other important problem - that level is generally used as a way of gauging a player's experience at a glance, but is presently has significant inaccuracy due to varying levels of willingness to chase achievements.
- It often encourages captains to fly builds that are not enjoyable for their crew
- Encourages crew to bring inappropriate equipment instead of trying to maximise their contribution to their team
- Often results in a choice, particularly for captains, between flying something fun and flying something that will maximise achievement gain
- A similar choice arises when choosing which map to play on; play on a fun map or grind CP maps for that 200th point cap.
- Some "achievement bottlenecks" can impede progress due to ridiculously difficult requirements (eg. 25 1200m kills), ridiculously grindy requirements (cap 200 points), overdependence on skill of other players (eg. gunner kills achievement, certain pilot achievements involving lochnagar, lumberjacks) or relation to the rarely seen 3v3 and 4v4 CP maps.
- Doesn't act as an incentive to play in the same way as conventional levelling. I predict a clear cut system where you can see progression and an XP bar filling every time you play even if you, say, flew a sensible build, will be a lot better at getting people to keep playing the game obsessively. And people can say what they like but for such a fun game, GOIO has conversion rate issues from "interested newb" to "committed player".
- Achievement levelling is less intuitive than a nice XP bar.
- The achievement tracks don't scale or adjust nicely. For example, when adding a new map, ship or gun it's normal to expect that new achievements will be added alongside that new content or you'll end up with a strange scenario where progression only involves half of the loadout possibilities. However, adding achievements to progression requires either reshuffling a track in a way that breaks the linear progression through the track in a confusing way (or maybe leads to doing an achievement twice, not sure) or sticking the achievements on the end of a category, where they may as well not exist because the vast majority of players will never see them.
And for the sake of balance, what advantages I can see in the current system:
- It is unique
- It encourages players to try new things
I know some of you won't agree but I feel this is something that needs fixing.
So what does a good levelling system actually do?
- Gives a general indication of how experienced a player is
- Encourages players to play the game regularly by giving them a sense of progression towards in-game rewards or respect from other players
Guns does admittedly fulfil those requirements. But in a really, really awkward way. As we all know, achievement-levels aren't a great experience indicator - but because they are simple and prominently displayed they are what a majority of players are going to notice first and base their assumptions on. Matches played is a better indicator: a fixed amount of XP rewarded per match would probably give a more useful level than what we have now. Of course, that solution is less good at fulfilling what is probably the more important priority; using progression to make the game enjoyable, which is of course what progression systems were invented for and why they are so widely used.
Progression systems are compelling because people like rewards and respect. People also like tangible progress - an activity, even an unsuccessful activity, is much more satisfying if you know you still got some progress towards your arbitrary goal out of it. Which is why even in a skill based game it's almost impossible to finish a match with no XP gain - although quite rightly it's normal to gain significantly more XP if your team was successful and you were a major contributor. Yes, such systems do encourage a certain amount of grinding. Just like GOIO encourages an enormous amount of grinding, normally doing things that you don't enjoy while giving your crew a terrible time with a stupid build or by bringing the wrong equipment for the job. An effective progression system consistently gives tangible results, sometimes in a trickle but never will you finish a game without that tiny, motivating trickle of XP there to keep you going. Guns has a much less appealing progression system because you have to go out of your way, do things that often aren't fun, to get the flow of achievement progress. Giving a
consistent feel of progress is important - which means you progress every time you play a match.
Well executed, progression is in itself enjoyable and a strong motivator to play a game. In Guns right now, progression is a chore which drags the game down - fortunately the rest of the game is good enough to compensate. In any other game the progression system is a core, positively contributing element - and they all use the standard XP system.
