Adding Morale as a game mechanic

Games Other Halo
1

This is the solution to end games quickly when they become extremely mismatched.
It puts sucky teams out of their misery, awards teams by way of secondary victory conditions and hopefully will solve some other minor issues related to griefers.

100 Maximum Points of Morale per player.

There should be two Morale meters.
TeamMorale = Team Players still present * 100 ;Controls options to Forfeit and presents a Secondary Victory Condition.
PlayerMorale = 100 ;Handles the issue of Betrayal, Suicide and TeamDmg

Ways to Influence TeamMorale:
*AvgLife(+/-}; *See Below
Killing sprees (10/15/20)
Objectives (+Full Restore)
Suicide (-15/-25) ; Obj/Team Slayer.
Betray (-25) ;These usually do more damage than quitters. But you have to account for accidents.
Quit (-100); This only affects Maximum Morale, not Current Morale.

TeamMorale is hidden to everyone. To prevent using that knowledge to abuse it.

Some people think that TeamMorale shouldn’t end game if it reaches 0. I disagree.

Ways to Influence PlayerMorale
Objectives (+50)
Kills (+10)
Assist (+5)
Killing spree (+5/10/15)
Suicide (-25); Accidents happen.
Betrayal (-25); Do they now?
Betrayal of Teammate holding an objective (-75); That’s f’d up.
**TeamDmg (-Variable) ; See Below

PlayerMorale is capable of booting you out of the match or can save you from getting booted.

Capping objectives only restores Team Morale and restores Morale for the player that scored.

PlayerMorale should be hidden from everyone to avoid abuse

1 person could suicide or betray up to 3 times.
They will get booted on the 4th, if they don’t manage to regain morale between infractions. I chose these numbers to avoid kicking someone to early in the case of an accidental Suicide + Betrayal from a single encounter.

You cannot forfiet for any reason due to PlayerMorale. That option is handled by TeamMorale

All betrayals give the defendant the ability to forgive. If the Defendant chooses to punish, the PlayerMorale for the Accused takes a hit. The only instance in which you’ll be instantly kicked is if you suicide/betray combo on the objective carrier. Unless they forgive you.

*AvgLife Equation
Team = Team Size
MorLife = Neutral Morale Lifespan; Par for AvgLife
AvgLife = Average Lifespan of the Team ; Only averages the last 3(MorLife) seconds worth of gameplay.
Morale = Team * 100

If AvgLife < MorLife, ; You suck and you’re losing
Then Morale = Morale - (MorLife - AvgLife); For every 1-5 seconds.

If AvgLife > MorLife, ; Do you always play against noobs?
Then Morale = Morale + (AvgLife - MorLife) / (Team / 2)
;For every 1-5 seconds. Killing and Objectives should be the primary method of regaining morale. Not hiding.

If Morale <= 200 ; 4v4
If Morale <= 400 ; 8v8
ThenForfeit option available
If Morale <=0
Then Game over

Lets assume the value for MorLife is a 15s lifespan.
If the AvgLife drops below that; every 1-5 seconds, you lose a Morale point
So if AvgLife = 10s.
Every 1-5 seconds, your team will lose 5 points of Morale.

It would take 80 seconds to end the game due to the Teams Lifespan if MorLife = 15, AvgLife = 10, and interval = 1 second.; This would be hard to accomplish. Your team would be getting wrecked and you would WANT that match to end.
Keep in mind this did not account for any other variables that might take chunks out of Morale.

Obviously, in order for this to work, the AvgLife should only look at the last 30 or so seconds worth of gameplay to be of any real effect. This is so it can detect spawn traps quickly and recover correctly, if the opposing team manages to break it. Spawn traps are and should be considered major morale hits and these values should be tweaked to reflect that.

**TeamDmg Equation ; Avoid 2x Morale hits for accidental betrayals
PlayerDmg = Damage in HP done to PlayerMaxHP
TeamDmg = Betrayal (PlayerDmg) / PlayerMaxHP ; Should be PlayMaxHP worth of DMG = Betrayal and scale accordingly
If PlayerDmg = PlayerMaxHP ; How many HP’s does a Spartan have?
Then Check for Betrayal in the next 2 seconds
If Betrayal = True
Then Morale = Morale - Betrayal
Else Morale = Morale - TeamDmg

This thing needs alot of work. You’re going to have to fill in some of the blanks.

I would actually like to see a victory condition based on attacking the opposing teams morale.
Which is why I’d like the possibility of ending the game if a team reaches 0 Team Morale. Some of you think otherwise… oh well. That’s what custom options are for.

In a 4v4, it is possible to forfeit if circumstances are dire enough
In a 3v4, it is possible to keep someone else from forfeiting if you score objectives.
In a 2v4, it is possible to forfeit at any time, depending on the threshold you set for the forfeit option to appear.

BTW 343. What I just gave you is the theory of the solution Bungie was trying to come up with to make games end quicker when the situation calls for it. So pay attention

Now I know what you’re thinking, but DON"T DO IT! Morale boosts go down the same path as kills streaks. For all the complaining the competitive players do, do not spoon feed them wins with a silver spoon.

One last Request.
For Social, Customs, or Dedicated Servers… You may consider, letting us customize this thing. All the variables.

This thing could be customized to be noob friendly or the complete opposite simply based on the MorLife variable. Some servers could use this to help keep things competitive or open to public. If they’re just willing to accept Join-In-Progress into their lives.

THINK ABOUT IT!

If Bear Grylls was on the other team, I’d tell him to drink some of his own piss.

…7500 Characters

2

But what if the other team has Bear Grylls?

3

Hmm, nice in theory.

I’d rather the option to quit/forfeit a game when at least half of your teammates have already quit come without penalty.

I don’t think it’s fair when a team is pwning another squad and some of them quit out. The rest left behind have no chance, but fear quitting less they get banned.

If an AI was added to replace the lost teammate that might help, but it’s not practical having people fighting AIs all the time in Matchmaking. That is what Firefight is for, if you want to fight AIs.

There really should be is a “FORFEIT” feature. Something that would quit the game immediately without a game quitting penalty or ban. It only comes up when at least half of the team quits. Each remaining team member gets the option. There isn’t a vote. It’s up to each person if they want to forfeit. If any stay, then they have to play the game out. So it would be their choice.

4

I think the best solution I’ve heard to quitters so far is just to allow the option to join back into the game. Almost every single time I’ve quit in a Halo game was because I lagged out at some point. For others, they might have rage quit but after sitting in the menus for 5 minutes, they could have calmed down and want a second chance in that same game.

5

Sounds like great idea just worry it might get complicated in the scoring of the game. would morale have impact on a teams score?
but dont see why 343 couldn’t at least try something like that out?
It would prob keep the games lot tougher
I like it

6

Now don’t cry about what I’m about to mention.

But notice how MW2 had two ways to win a match?

You could either go for the objective, or camp out 25 kills for the nuke.

The morale system would work in much the same way. In Tandem with the objective…

So you can either win the match by scoring, or by completely dominating the other team and reducing their morale to 0.

7

Too complicated…

8

How about they drop one rank for every time they do it? It’s harsh but fair.

9

Not.

What’s complicated?

Neutral Lifespan = X
Avg Lifespan = Y
Morale = Z

If Y < X,
Z = Z - (X - Y) ; for each second.

If Z <= 0
Game Over

Plus a few other stuff to account for suicides and betrayals.

Totally, not complicated.

Edit: I just made it complicated.

10

> How about they drop one rank for every time they do it? It’s harsh but fair.

Maybe not lose a rank, but lose a chunk of credits or whatever they do towards the next rank, and repeat quits ups the penalty.

11

The biggest problem i see with this is it removes the chance for players to learn from their mistakes. Sure, it fixes it 10 minutes of being spawn-killed that can happen in CTF games, but if there is a poor player, and you have players booted when their morale falls, some players will find themselves constantly booted. these players will never get the chance to improve, and will likely quit playing all together. I think, if anything, a forfeit option should appear as a vote (majority rule) when either a team has 50% of their players quit, or a team falls behind by a certain number of points (2/0 in CTF, or 20 kills behind in team slayer, for example). Ties count as forfeit.

That said, I think there just needs to be a better incentive to stick out the game, rather than find a way to put loosing teams out of their misery.

Perhaps have a penalty for quitters (loose credits, if there is a credit system, for example) as well as incentive for players who stick it out (bonus credits for players who finish a game after players on their team quit, for example).

This would make many players think twice about quitting. Of course, the incentives could be different, depending on the system halo 4 uses for character development and ranking.

12

You don’t seem to realize that Morale already plays a large role in this game.

Why do you think people rage quit?
Because their morale is broken. They feel as if there is no hope.

I just want to turn it into an actual game mechanic. So you people will realize that QUITTING is a part of battle, always has been, always will be. Get used to it.

“Run away, live to fight another day.”

You won’t stop them from quitting, but you can build the game around it.

And what Bungie came up with as a solution to quitters, is basically the same things the Russians were doing in ‘Enemy at the Gates’. Shooting your own soldiers in the back. Well I have a problem with that see. Not only are you killing a soldier who might be useful in the future. You are also wasting ammo.

13

Yes, but FORCING players to quit when they are playing poorly doesn’t solve the problem either. Sure, you could have a hidden morale system that ALLOWS players to quit should their TEAM fall behind by a certain amount, as long as the decision is made by the team, and not by the individual. You should NEVER force someone to quit, and it is also unfair to the team that their teammates are allowed to leave when they still want to/have to play it through.

If anything, it should be a team vote, majority rules, only when certain conditions are met (Full-team death streak, significant gap in score, etc.).

14

I see what your saying…so how about this then.

We’ll combine the morale system with your forfeit option.

When morale gets low enough… The option to forfeit will become available.
But morale alone will not kick a player out of the room.

Works for me.

But what happens if only one person decides to forfeit? Can they leave without being penalized?

I like it, it removes the option to forfeit if your team has recently capped the objective.

15

> Yes, <mark>but FORCING players to quit when they are playing poorly doesn’t solve the problem either</mark>. Sure, you could have a hidden morale system that ALLOWS players to quit should their TEAM fall behind by a certain amount, as long as the decision is made by the team, and not by the individual. You should NEVER force someone to quit, and it is also unfair to the team that their teammates are allowed to leave when they still want to/have to play it through.
>
> If anything, it should be a team vote, majority rules, only when certain conditions are met (Full-team death streak, significant gap in score, etc.).

It only makes it worse

16

The solution to spawn killing is for bad players to improve their gameplay. If someone is getting spawn killed, it’s no one’s fault but their own. And maybe the game’s fault too for putting them in such a mismatched game, as is what happened with Reach. But that won’t happen in the future because 1-50 will be back in H4, right 343? Glad to hear it.

17

> Too complicated…

Wayyy too complicated. I think that people would abuse this feature if it was implemented.

18

If you don’t advocate forcing people to quit for playing poorly, then surely you must be against banning people for playing poorly as well? Cause Reach attempts to ban people for playing poorly, in case you hadn’t noticed. Or rather, it bans them for taking it upon themselves to quit out of a match they didnt’ belong in. Not to mention the ban that hits you for getting 0 kills in a match.

19

Which is why Halo 4 needs ranked playlists instead of having 90% social ones. Social playlists are a social players worst enemy because it gives them the chance to be put in mismatched games instead of playing against people of their skill level.

20

I agree, that people would abuse this if implemented.

But their abuse of the system would directly contribute to the ruination of that match.
In which, I want that match to end quicker.

If I have people on my team suiciding. They are ruining the game.
I want that game to end quicker because of it.

If I’m on a team that can’t break out of a spawn trap within a set period of time. That game is pretty much ruined. It needs to end.

And this holds true for all other forms of abuse to this morale system.

I also think that it would be best, to have 2 seperate Morale meters, a team meter, and a personal meter.

The personal meter is to deal specificaly with suiciders, betrayers, etc.
This way, you can make an accident now and then, and remove any negative morale influences by getting killing sprees, etc.

The team meter is there to present the option to forfeit.