"Build Kills": An incentive for builders

[StVald]

This is my first post on the forums all though I have played for nearly a month. Tremulous rocks! Its a great team based game, although I have been finding team members too "quiet" and sometimes not very co operative. Co operation and the occasional "nice work with the turrets" are crucial to keep builders (well at least me when Im one) goin.

Last game I played I kept begging for more builders to spawn so we could maintain teslas (it was SST server... tons of BPs to use). But not many people listened... they were too busy with getting their name up on the "high score list" (in other words, most kills). Im guessing many of them thought "What noob is this telling us what to do, he's not even visible on the list (many don't know how to scroll down)." Of course, my building was a great asset to them, and many other builders keep their teams hides from being mauled. I think builders deserve more credit, so I suggest:

The status menu/list be divided into quarters instead of halves. Each team would have a seperate quarter for their builders, and the kills column would be replaced with a "build kills" column that shows how many enemies were killed by your structures. Seeing the high kill count, other players will show more respect

The builders kill score should be kept seperate from the assult guys because obviously the kills come very differently, and most of the time builders will have highest kill scores. Thanks for an awesome game, I hope you guys at dev consider this.

[Basilisco]

It wouldnt be really precise, nor fair. Becuase the newbie that built 5 turrets outside (the ones that marauders just jump but a lot of dretches get killed by) gets a lot of kills.
But the vet player who got worry about the actual base, and built the only turret that stoped the marauder from getting on top of the reactor just get 1 kill..

[predaeus]

Maybe a neutral counter like "base" would solve that.

Personally I prefer scoring systems like Project Reality's (a Battlefield 2 mod) has it. Since it is BF2 you get points for healing team members, capturing flags, etc. but in PR they also removed all the "x killed y" messages which prevents people from focusing on kills and increases teamwork.

I understand that Tremulous comes from another background and the kill messages sometimes also increase fun, since you can start bitching and laugh if you get killed by the same guy over and over :-D.

But what I've seen on Tremulous so far, teamwork is already good. But with the lack of a "real" communication system people depend on tools like Teamspeak to synchronize attacks or base movements etc..

So I also think it might be a good ideo that support classes be honored more. Even though I personally don't care if I score 0 kills as a builder but the base held.

[rasz_pl]

erm .. base defense structures are meant to DEFEND THE BASE, NOT for killing aliens .... making such a stupid counter will encourage retarded builders to build  outside of the main base leaving armory/telenodes undefended. Its BAD as it is with stupid turret walls half a mile from a reactor, dont encourage it please.

[vcxzet]

i think there should be some kind of score system rather than number of kills
for example you kill a tyrant you get 1 kill
you kill a dretch again you get 1 kill
and as a builder you build teslas that kill lots of aliens and you dont get any points
and same for the aliens builder=1 kill & bs+luci=1 kill
another thing is when you are tyrant killing builders is so easy(85% )
but as a dretch killing a bs is really hard but again you get 1 kill
IMHO this kill count for advancing stages is quite nonsense

[Stof]

Seeing what a crappy builder can do to your chances to win a game, I'm not sure we need incentives for more players to be a builder

[Basilisco]

i think there should be some kind of score system rather than number of kills
for example you kill a tyrant you get 1 kill
you kill a dretch again you get 1 kill
and as a builder you build teslas that kill lots of aliens and you dont get any points
and same for the aliens builder=1 kill & bs+luci=1 kill
another thing is when you are tyrant killing builders is so easy(85% )
but as a dretch killing a bs is really hard but again you get 1 kill
IMHO this kill count for advancing stages is quite nonsense

Kills are kills, no reason to award more than 1 kill for, well.. 1 kill.
That's what credits are for.

[StVald]

It wouldnt be really precise, nor fair. Becuase the newbie that built 5 turrets outside (the ones that marauders just jump but a lot of dretches get killed by) gets a lot of kills.
But the vet player who got worry about the actual base, and built the only turret that stoped the marauder from getting on top of the reactor just get 1 kill..

If you think about it, the current scoring system also displays this unfairness. A guy who shot down a bunch of dretches from behind a wall of turrets gets more points than a guy who outwits and defeats a tyrant out int the open.

Maybe a neutral counter like "base" would solve that.

This seems like a good idea. It prevents jerks from building in the middle of nowhere only to stack up kills. Builders seem to get credits overtime as they build, maybe a similar system can be implimented for a "base" counter.

making such a stupid counter will encourage retarded builders to build outside of the main base leaving armory/telenodes undefended

I have never thought about it, but I guess you are right. Jerks would use this as an incentive to build in the middle of no where. I didn't know about teamspeak being used, im going to check that out. TS has helped oordination alot in other games Ive played.

[Pilo T]

kill hungry players would then go builder, unbuild other people's turrets, and then build their own, and hide in safety so they can get kills without doing anything, or then go back to killing aliens further increasing their kills. It'd just increase the greed problem you're currently facing.