Fishyshoe

No offence, but I think you completely misunderstood me. I'm saying the EXACT OPPOSITE. I want defending players to have MORE advantage, MORE VP, in order to avoid them having less VP than a player joining at a later time. I don't think it's fair that a given player is defending, gaining this or that amount of VP, and then a new player joins, and immediately outranks him. I also agree with Yosh - of course offensive players should have more VP. Defending is far easier than attacking. That's a bit besides the point I'm trying to make. Of course you're right. And I don't think that should be changed at all. But imagine yourself sitting in your base, shelling the tunnels and being given some VP from time to time when the other team tries to rush them (you are not awarded VP just for shooting the tunnel walls), and then, after some time, a new player joins and immediately outranks you. For what?? just for joining at the "right time", after you have "sacrificed" yourself to base defence (let's face it, shelling tunnels is not nearly as fun as being offensive), and thanks to you the other team thinks twice or thrice before rushing, because they know they will likely fail? After all this, some fresh fish (😁) joins the game and has more VP than you? That's not fair to you. THAT is the point. I hope I made myself clear. P.S. What about the first idea?

Still, this doesn't prevent what I say. Those who join later on can get more VP than players who were already playing for long time, which to me seems unfair. BTW, right after posting my original post, I joined a game which lasted apprx. 30 minutes - and was given about 90 VP (estimated! if my first idea would be implemented, next time I could know just how much 😉). Literally two minutes passed, another player joined, and he was Veteran already, without doing anything, while I had to spend a few minutes to get it. This just proves the problem I'm trying to solve.

Good evening everyone! First time I ever post here (not first time reading posts here, though). I apologize in advance for the long post. 😅 Yesterday, two ideas came to me regarding veterancy which might be worth considering. One of them, in my humble opinion, should be very easy to implement and would change nothing whats-o-ever when it comes to game balance. The second idea is up for debate. First idea: We are all familiar with the veterancy progression bar at the bottom-left part of the screen. We all look at it from time to time, trying to estimate how much more VP we need until we get promoted. I was thinking - why not have an actual VP-counter right under or next to it? For example - assuming you're Veteran, and you'd like to know how much more VP you need for promotion to Elite (which if I'm not mistaken requires 200 VP from the moment you're promoted to Veteran) - the counter should simply show "25/200", meaning you already got 25 VP, and you need 175 more before you are promoted. Of course, once it happens, the counter is reset to "0/350" for the Heroic class, and stays "350/350" once you reach it. I think it could be very nice, and would save us the trouble of trying to estimate how much more kills (or VP) we need till being promoted. *The idea came to me last night when a player - Shpetim (to whom I refer to as "Shpets") - said in-game "I'm like 1 kill away from Heroic". Felt obliged to state this. Second idea: This one is a bit more tricky, and might be irrelevant if I misunderstand some of the VP mechanics. If I'm not wrong, when a new player joins a match, he/she is awarded this-or-that amount of VP (and ranks, accordingly), so that no-one would start as a recruit if a game is being played for a long time. I don't know how the amount of awarded VP is calculated. For the sake of this idea, consider the following scenario: Suppose a player is present in a match from its very beginning, and all he/she does is defending his/her base (patrolling, mining, afk-repairing, or shelling the tunnels with arty/mrls like many of us do in maps like Field, etc.), but not getting too many points for kills/damage/repairs etc. In other words, his/her advancement to the next rank is very slow compared to players fighting/repairing at the front-lines, and the only points he/she gets is due to now-and-then events such as someone stepping on their mines, enemy building destruction, harvester destruction, etc. Now, the match is lasting for quite a long time (say, 45 minutes or more), and a new player joins. This is the part where I might be entirely wrong and this discussion is irrelevant: Is it possible that the new player will now be awarded more VP than the aforementioned defending player? because if this is the case, I feel it is a bit unfair towards the defending player, who is doing quite an important job. I'm not saying not to give VP to newly-joined players, but I do think they should not out-rank players who have been in the match from it's beginning... What do I actually suggest? Well, again, I do not understand how the entire VP mechanism works, but I think that VP should be added to EVERY PLAYER gradually over time, albeit slowly, no matter what he/she is doing in-game, so that even players who don't directly fight or support the front-lines - will have their VP progress slowly just because they are present. That way, say a new player joins the match after 45 minutes game time, they'll get VP equal to the amount all players got by that mechanism alone, not including bonus VP for building/harvester destruction, etc. This will ensure no unfair advantage to new players over "old" ones present from the beginning. the latter players will have the same VP amount as the newly joined player, plus all the bonuses acquired during the match (and obviously their own acquired VP). For example: Say that every 1 minute, 5 VP are awarded to all players present, again regardless of what they actually do. This means that after 45 minutes, all players present from the start will have 225 VP (in addition to team bonuses and personally-gained VP). Now, at the 45 minutes mark, a new player joins the game - he/she immediately gets the very same 225 VP. They do not outrank any other player, because they are not awarded all the VP from team bonuses. That is, in my opinion, much fairer towards those who participated from the start. One more important thing - you may (and should!) limit the amount of VP which can be awarded by this method ("Timed VP") to, say, 300 - so the maximum one can get by simply waiting long enough is 300 VP, or in other words, be promoted to Elite, and not a single VP more than that (I am aware that even today, the highest rank a player can be awarded right when joining a game is Elite). Any present player who reaches Elite before time does it for him/her - will no longer receive VP every minute. Meaning - anyone who wants to be Heroic - MUST earn the required 350 VP by gaining them either personally or by team bonuses. I gave the 5VP/1min as an example only, of course you could decide on different numbers. Though if you think about it - 5VP every minute means the match has to last 60 minutes before everyone is Elite. Make it 3 VP per minute, and you'd have to "wait" 1 hour and 40 minutes (super-later game) before you're Elite for doing nothing or joining the game at this point. Again, the goal of my suggestion is to eliminate possible unfair advantage of newly joined players over those who were there from the start. Sorry again for the long post. 😬 -Tom (A.K.A. Fishyshoe)