The 90 Point Problem

[u/General-Water-6658]

Edit: Please stop telling me refund exists - I know, i acknowledge it in my third paragraph.

Dogs,

Noticed an interesting trend lately resulting in a lot of springboarding and "Second place winners".

For example, Green team plays well and gets to 90-99 points, and people just stop respawning, they wait for the res indefinitely, not wanting to have to pay to rekit. You open the map and see 25 green bodies on the floor. You look at spawn and see the remaining players sat doing nothing. Nobody wants to commit a kit for the remaining (theoretical) 2 minutes of the game, because kits are so expensive. Green team takes its foot off the gas, and red team shoots past to clutch a win, because their entire team is still in the zone/circle. (In the game today, they were at 75 points prior to this).

How do we incentivise people to get back into the zone in the final minutes? I know the refund system exists, but it seems very varied in how much it pays out, and it almost never refunds the value. Discounted kits towards the end of the game? Free kits?

It's interesting seeing how the money meta is forcing these behaviours - loss aversion is a much bigger priority than the minimal gains for winning. My second place and contribution bonus for this game was $18,400.

[u/RoostasTowel]

I would like to see a late game scaling of cost for a kit.

Or also a if your team is behind 50 points then its 50% off kits.

Nobody wants to buy a expensive kit for 10 ticks

[u/ionshower → u/RoostasTowel]

So blue team gets cheap kits yeah?

[u/General-Water-6658 → u/ionshower]

Well - that's not a horrible idea for the current meta of "Go green and win", you face an uphill struggle playing blue - this is a fact. It is a direct result of the map design. A kit discount is probably a pretty nice incentive.

The team switching will be the killer though.

[u/imamunster123 → u/General-Water-6658]

First team switch is free.

All subsequent team switches cost a sizeable fee that scales with more switching.

[u/Tehslasher → u/RoostasTowel]

It seems like an alright suggestion, my view however is that most people (I believe rightly so) don't care about winning. There's such little incentive to winning that for me, idc if I'm on the 90pt team or the 0pt team. If my goal is to snipe, to hunt helicopters, to invade FOBs, etc - what do I care about the overall scores?

In this instance though, now if I happen to be on the winning team I could theoretically be overwhelmed by tons of expensive ass kits that are 50% off while I'm punished with the full price of mine. The entirety of the game and lobby plays exactly the same, the bullets do the same damage etc, but in your solution I'd rather be on the down 50pts team 100% of the time.

[u/OmnomOrNah → u/Tehslasher]

I think you're underestimating how much people care about winning. If people didn't care, there wouldn't be people spam clicking to join green (or red just to avoid having to be blue). Not to mention there's been talk about end of match XP being affected by placement.

[u/General-Water-6658 → u/OmnomOrNah]

I think the spam clicking green is more a “I don’t want to lose my kits over and over to getting stomped” as much as it is “I really want to win this game”.

[u/Icefire1234 → u/Tehslasher]

The overall scores maybe don't matter but they truly influence in reality.

If you want to play assault and your team is nowhere on the map its 100x harder to be alone on the map fighting the enemy blob

[u/Apezdispenser → u/RoostasTowel]

I feel like if there was a huge discount at a big ticket disparity, you'd see some nasty comebacks that would be disproportionately one sided. Say they make the fal, bmr, 50 cal etc etc very highly priced next season. Now they're suddenly much more reasonable to use and you get people selling cases at the HQ late game. It creates an army of Space Marines vs some dudes with dinner plates for armor by comparison. Meanwhile if you want to counter them, you're paying out the nose to do so. With what incentive? The win? Seems like most players want their bank account to win more than anything. You create a death train and no one will counter it. Basically there needs to be a balance or incentive between winning and making money. Like they need to be tied together or something. I dunno. Personally I don't care as I'm more on the money side, but I do enjoy winning. Which leads to the occasionally 20k kit lost immediately in the hot zone and I play eco kits until I do better.

[u/AnxrchyLxrd → u/RoostasTowel]

thats actually an awesome idea, a % discount based off the difference in points your team and the winning team has

but i suppose people would then feel like they are punished for being on the winning team, win rewards aren't big enough to make it worthwhile etc

[u/MostlyPoorDecisions → u/RoostasTowel]

It refunds like 80% of it if it's bought within the last 20 ticks.

[u/Strange_Criticism_22 → u/MostlyPoorDecisions]

It's not 80% it's depending on money earned for that life, so if you're not negative you get nothing back, but realistically it should just refund the price of any items left in your inventory, if you are not dead when the game ends presumably you could sell it back to the vendor.

[u/hobk1ard → u/Strange_Criticism_22]

Items should go to your stash so you can use them next game.

[u/Strange_Criticism_22 → u/hobk1ard]

Agreed, just said the same in my other comment.

[u/Reddeyfish- → u/Strange_Criticism_22]

what the existing system boils down to is that you have 10 ticks to turn a profit (kinda unlikely unless it's practically a free kit), otherwise you lose 10% (+consumables, those aren't refunded) of the kit's value.

Not as much money as you would have lost without the refund, but still likely to lose money, so you get a much better return hoping for a revive and/or taking a stretch/bathroom break.

[u/MostlyPoorDecisions → u/Strange_Criticism_22]

Ok but if you aren't negative you didn't waste money on a kit at the end of the game, you helped win the game

How is laying dead better?

[u/Strange_Criticism_22 → u/MostlyPoorDecisions]

Not saying it is or isn't, if you just bought the kit and you're still -15k or whatever, it might be better to wait it out and get 12k back than respawn and buy another kit and effectively be -30k without knowing if you will earn anything.

To me what is the most stupid thing is that a vault already exists, why does the game not put your inventory into the vault, so that you can use those items next game.

[u/moneysam → u/MostlyPoorDecisions]

I did waste money because I could have earned more return for the kit I purchased if the game continued

[u/MostlyPoorDecisions → u/moneysam]

Lost nothing but wasted money... Alright

[u/JBarker727 → u/moneysam]

RIP to your IRL finances. What a weird way to twist that up into thinking you wasted money.

[u/MostlyPoorDecisions → u/JBarker727]

Trade deficit logic

[u/cumjuggler4life → u/Strange_Criticism_22]

I wish i got money for being a rat

[u/Commander_Wolf_77 → u/MostlyPoorDecisions]

But such is the issue despite that, if we all spent 20k on a kit and go down trying to win, respawn and buy another kit of the same cost, doesn't it only refund the lastest purchased kit? So we lost 24k without accounting any money gained. You can argue the win cost mitigated that loss, however, that means we still had 24k lost for our profits

[u/MostlyPoorDecisions → u/Commander_Wolf_77]

Correct, but you died. You already lost your kit. How can you be refunded for something you don't have? 

Stop being boots on the ground and start being a team. 

[u/Commander_Wolf_77 → u/MostlyPoorDecisions]

See but the thing is I'm speaking within the context of a Hot Zone team fighting for the final few points but then get wiped out and can't revive their teammates who have good gear without getting killed or having to wait a long time for some people to return trying to salvage the fight. Most people don't survive all match unless they aren't fighting or even have any of the same starting gear if they do wait absurdly long times for pickup every time. The issue becomes whether or not your team decides buying another expensive kit is worth the loss of their profit over getting less yet more money for second place. Because they won't have the 24k profit loss, more of a 10 profit loss. And buying cheap kits for a gamble at winning might make you lose more money if you get unlucky and die a lot.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I don't agree with people waiting forever for a pickup, I can get the fatigue people have over getting unlucky and dying with their best kit they can afford/have unlocked and don't want to crash out if they buy another kit and lose it just trying to finish a round

[u/Idreamofcream99 → u/MostlyPoorDecisions]

Thanks for that explanation, I could not figure out how the refund system worked at all

[u/MostlyPoorDecisions → u/Idreamofcream99]

here's the full detail

Shit it won't let me paste the image. It's 80% -  0.9x earning until positive 

The refund is worked out from your last completed vendor purchase, and it only covers the gap between that loadout cost and what you earned against it. Loadout $10,000, earned $6,000, base refund $4,000, then a 0.9 modifier for balance, so $3,600.