I knew I made a topic on gaf a while back about this, and it looks like I made 2 while looking on google search lol (2015 & 2016).. I will copy some stuff and add on it so we can get a discussion on what can be improved for the MP which last gen for me was the best/most competitive. I'll start with the issues I had and then move on to improvements and other aspects to evolve the online multiplayer. Would love to hear other peoples' thoughts.
Flaws
- Game Modes: The main, noticeable issue with the online. There needs to be more.
- Map Quantity: They should not launch with so few maps as they did last time around. It came out with 7 maps, and had 2 DLCs with 4 maps apiece. Looked at COD Ghosts for ex, came out with 14 and had 4 DLCs with 4 apiece.
- Weapons: Most are fantastic, but a lot of people do think some of the DLC weapons were .. noob friendly guns that were bit stronger than the usual. In such a skill based MP game, it hurts the game IMO.
- People in Factions: The amount of people you gain or lose depending on progression. Seemed very undercooked and not something I cared about. Which is one of the main talkings points under the Settlements segment.
- Matchmaking: This has to be fixed by launch. In the first game, there were too many times we would get kicked out during matchmaking process, or it would take minutes for it to happen. Also the skill system is still broken on the PS4 version, 3-4 years later. You can get 3-4 people in skills of 100-300 and then everyone else in lower levels, and it's not just because they're in clans. At least match up the noobs with the experts evenly if this happens.
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Settlements
Here we go.. Looking at what Kojima has done to Mother Base in MGSV online, I think ND can learn a lot from that and expand it much further. One thing that I can speak for myself and most friends is that we don't generally care if our people, or how many people we get. For those that don't know, you get points every game based on how well you do (and get supplies) which in turn is content for your people in your settlement. In the original game, your menu screen had a bunch of dots (that were people) that increase/decrease based on how you do per game. You have certain weeks to keep your settlement alive and the further you get, the more content, and harder it is to survive. I think a real cool feature would be to have a 3D camp with actual people walking around the camp. ND can just copy and reuse assets of something from their SP campaign. Since you can customize your character, you start online on the camp. Simply click options and the UI menu appears for game mode, options etc while you're in the camp.
example of mother base in MGSV
You have the people walking by you, saying a word here or there. They converse with one another, look like they're busy cutting wood, cooking, etc. You feel like you know these people, especially if you add the facebook names. You can also have adjustable names for some, for the lulz. So if someone you have seen dies, you might care more about their health. They can also get more creative with what happens to your camp. You can have infected attacking, hunters attacking, disease, loss of food, natural disasters (weather, earthquake), etc. And you suck during an infected attack for example, you might see someone shooting a person who is bit get shot in the face by a family member while you're in camp, just to add to the tension. Graveyards being shown at one side of the camp as well. People sick in beds being taken care of, etc etc.. Also more natural disasters such as weather (snow storms, heavy rain, heavy hail, storms etc) continue to happen the further ahead you go through your factions levels. These "events" begin to happen the further you progress throughout the weeks, adding a sense of accomplishment and feeling of progression.
Parts playing a more RPG role then before. Lets first start with upgrading guns/perks in TLOU. You get overall 3,500 parts for example, gun x gets unlocked. I think a better way to go about it is choose what you want to upgrade. You go to your shopkeeper at camp, and you choose what you want with the parts you have. So you can get a burst rifle early into the game rather than wait so long if you wish, but know that the gun costs a lot more than something else for example. So you're in charge of what you want (or spend real money). You can also use parts to improve the visuals of the camp. Spend parts at the mechanic to get better looking houses, walls, etc. Basically, there's a ton of ways so you're always spending parts which you get by playing. It would also be cool if you buy camp improvements, and you have to play several games to see the final built results, with ND basically
This way, there is a constant sense of progression, action to keep the user keep coming back or playing longer. Don't charge for maps/guns/perks. I still think improving the camp should not affect attacks from infected or hunters. But if it does affect it, the difference is not big and the amount of parts for it should be absolutely massive. Also, ND can salivate at the idea of taking more money from you, you can spend real money to buy more parts. That means you can get your guns/perks faster and improve your camp at a much faster rate. There can also be a ton of cosmetics for camp visuals added later on that you can unlock some, buy others. But if ND wants to have a special "event" for a week for example, they can implement the Settlements on what happens. They can make weeks/weekends where you earn 2x parts, the idea is that this gives more freedom and options for ND to continuously change this up and keep it fresh for people to constantly be playing it without affecting the core gameplay.
The last part is implementing some sort of clan with actual people. So you have a camp, the people in there and lets say 6 friends that are part of your clan. In my view, the best option is to have 3 characters (or slots) that are your own, and you choose who to play with in terms of how many clans you can join. 1/3 characters is part of settlement "clan x" and another character is part of settlement "clan y", that way you're not forever stuck to only one settlement. The idea is that you can be part of more than 1 clan without creating a new account for this.
Also with this, everyone involved is important because every actual person that plays affects your settlement. So if you have a good team of 5 but your 6th friend is a scrub, he's going to be the one that holds you back. The camp will need certain parts each week so him screwing up keeps ruining a lot of the good work that the other 5 keep doing. This forces you to play together more, since he will have a chance of doing better that way. Because even if your bad friend plays a basic 4v4 with no other clan members, it still accounts on how many parts you win/lose. It's also a way for me to ruin your friendships if you make a tough decision. Cut your friends from the camp and your real life friendship, you're welcome. Also you gotta pick a leader of the camp, so logically speaking the best player from your crew of friends. You can replace them only when they accept to lose their leadership to someone else.
You can also give gifts (parts) to clan mates in the same camp, so giving extra parts to your 6th scrubby member so he stops holding the team back might be something you do as teammates instead of improving the camp. There is a tax to gifting parts % to your friend, so it's more expensive of just buying a gun for a friend then if you normally would do it for yourself. Also, playing together with people in the same camp will give you more parts and special %+ bonuses on parts. This will be a huge incentive to get the crew playing together regularly so your camp stays in good shape. I'm sure there's so much more possibilities that I haven't thought of and expanded, but the general concept of it is as written above.
Flaws
- Game Modes: The main, noticeable issue with the online. There needs to be more.
- Map Quantity: They should not launch with so few maps as they did last time around. It came out with 7 maps, and had 2 DLCs with 4 maps apiece. Looked at COD Ghosts for ex, came out with 14 and had 4 DLCs with 4 apiece.
- Weapons: Most are fantastic, but a lot of people do think some of the DLC weapons were .. noob friendly guns that were bit stronger than the usual. In such a skill based MP game, it hurts the game IMO.
- People in Factions: The amount of people you gain or lose depending on progression. Seemed very undercooked and not something I cared about. Which is one of the main talkings points under the Settlements segment.
- Matchmaking: This has to be fixed by launch. In the first game, there were too many times we would get kicked out during matchmaking process, or it would take minutes for it to happen. Also the skill system is still broken on the PS4 version, 3-4 years later. You can get 3-4 people in skills of 100-300 and then everyone else in lower levels, and it's not just because they're in clans. At least match up the noobs with the experts evenly if this happens.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Settlements
Here we go.. Looking at what Kojima has done to Mother Base in MGSV online, I think ND can learn a lot from that and expand it much further. One thing that I can speak for myself and most friends is that we don't generally care if our people, or how many people we get. For those that don't know, you get points every game based on how well you do (and get supplies) which in turn is content for your people in your settlement. In the original game, your menu screen had a bunch of dots (that were people) that increase/decrease based on how you do per game. You have certain weeks to keep your settlement alive and the further you get, the more content, and harder it is to survive. I think a real cool feature would be to have a 3D camp with actual people walking around the camp. ND can just copy and reuse assets of something from their SP campaign. Since you can customize your character, you start online on the camp. Simply click options and the UI menu appears for game mode, options etc while you're in the camp.
example of mother base in MGSV
You have the people walking by you, saying a word here or there. They converse with one another, look like they're busy cutting wood, cooking, etc. You feel like you know these people, especially if you add the facebook names. You can also have adjustable names for some, for the lulz. So if someone you have seen dies, you might care more about their health. They can also get more creative with what happens to your camp. You can have infected attacking, hunters attacking, disease, loss of food, natural disasters (weather, earthquake), etc. And you suck during an infected attack for example, you might see someone shooting a person who is bit get shot in the face by a family member while you're in camp, just to add to the tension. Graveyards being shown at one side of the camp as well. People sick in beds being taken care of, etc etc.. Also more natural disasters such as weather (snow storms, heavy rain, heavy hail, storms etc) continue to happen the further ahead you go through your factions levels. These "events" begin to happen the further you progress throughout the weeks, adding a sense of accomplishment and feeling of progression.
Parts playing a more RPG role then before. Lets first start with upgrading guns/perks in TLOU. You get overall 3,500 parts for example, gun x gets unlocked. I think a better way to go about it is choose what you want to upgrade. You go to your shopkeeper at camp, and you choose what you want with the parts you have. So you can get a burst rifle early into the game rather than wait so long if you wish, but know that the gun costs a lot more than something else for example. So you're in charge of what you want (or spend real money). You can also use parts to improve the visuals of the camp. Spend parts at the mechanic to get better looking houses, walls, etc. Basically, there's a ton of ways so you're always spending parts which you get by playing. It would also be cool if you buy camp improvements, and you have to play several games to see the final built results, with ND basically
This way, there is a constant sense of progression, action to keep the user keep coming back or playing longer. Don't charge for maps/guns/perks. I still think improving the camp should not affect attacks from infected or hunters. But if it does affect it, the difference is not big and the amount of parts for it should be absolutely massive. Also, ND can salivate at the idea of taking more money from you, you can spend real money to buy more parts. That means you can get your guns/perks faster and improve your camp at a much faster rate. There can also be a ton of cosmetics for camp visuals added later on that you can unlock some, buy others. But if ND wants to have a special "event" for a week for example, they can implement the Settlements on what happens. They can make weeks/weekends where you earn 2x parts, the idea is that this gives more freedom and options for ND to continuously change this up and keep it fresh for people to constantly be playing it without affecting the core gameplay.
The last part is implementing some sort of clan with actual people. So you have a camp, the people in there and lets say 6 friends that are part of your clan. In my view, the best option is to have 3 characters (or slots) that are your own, and you choose who to play with in terms of how many clans you can join. 1/3 characters is part of settlement "clan x" and another character is part of settlement "clan y", that way you're not forever stuck to only one settlement. The idea is that you can be part of more than 1 clan without creating a new account for this.
Also with this, everyone involved is important because every actual person that plays affects your settlement. So if you have a good team of 5 but your 6th friend is a scrub, he's going to be the one that holds you back. The camp will need certain parts each week so him screwing up keeps ruining a lot of the good work that the other 5 keep doing. This forces you to play together more, since he will have a chance of doing better that way. Because even if your bad friend plays a basic 4v4 with no other clan members, it still accounts on how many parts you win/lose. It's also a way for me to ruin your friendships if you make a tough decision. Cut your friends from the camp and your real life friendship, you're welcome. Also you gotta pick a leader of the camp, so logically speaking the best player from your crew of friends. You can replace them only when they accept to lose their leadership to someone else.
You can also give gifts (parts) to clan mates in the same camp, so giving extra parts to your 6th scrubby member so he stops holding the team back might be something you do as teammates instead of improving the camp. There is a tax to gifting parts % to your friend, so it's more expensive of just buying a gun for a friend then if you normally would do it for yourself. Also, playing together with people in the same camp will give you more parts and special %+ bonuses on parts. This will be a huge incentive to get the crew playing together regularly so your camp stays in good shape. I'm sure there's so much more possibilities that I haven't thought of and expanded, but the general concept of it is as written above.
