SUBJECT: Battle Hero Awards System
ISSUE: Battle Hero Awards are a great way to help people level up; however, the system needs to be tweaked so people are receiving awards that are appropriate for the characters they are utilizing in the game.
EXAMPLE: I played a game recently where the number one player received the battle hero award for “Best Engineer.” Surprisingly, they never built a single engineering structure for the entire game. That’s right. Zero structures built. [See below at the end of this post.]
RECOMMENDATION: Obviously, awards are being given to characters (engineers, flame throwers, etc.) based ONLY [or mostly] on the number of kills that that character achieved. I would recommend that this system be changed to reflect the type of effort that is put forth by specific characters and awards given by the end result of those efforts. Examples follow:
Engineers: Battle Hero Awards should be given to engineers based solely on the number of engineering structures built & how often they were used. The number of kills that an engineer achieves should not be part of the calculation for the award. Here’s why: From a tactical standpoint, engineers should be protected from battle after they’ve built the structures needed to help support the team—such as spawn points. They should NOT be sent into battle to achieve kills for an award. Their skills are needed throughout the battle for buildings spawn points, ammunition boxes, barbed wire, etc. For these reasons, engineers should be hidden from view and other characters—such as assaulters—should be sent into battle. Using engineers for attack purposes is wasteful and makes no tactical sense.
The same holds true for other characters in the game:
Medics: Battle Hero Awards should be given to medics based on the number of injured players they’ve healed on the battlefield, along with the number of times their medic crates have been used by other players—and not for any other reason (especially kills). If a medic character spends all of his time killing enemy players and spends no time healing people, why should they get a medic award for killing the most people?
Machinegunners, Flamethrowers, Snipers, etc.: This is one area where someone SHOULD receive an award for most kills; however, with one caveat: Kills should only be counted for the specialty character’s main weapon. In other words, the machinegunner’s kills that will be counted for the award will only come from machinegun kills. Not grenade kills, not pistol kills, not melee kills. If player 1 kills only one person with a machine gun, and player 2 kills 100 people with a machine gun character (but didn’t kill anyone with a machine gun), then the battle hero award would go to player 1. Only machinegun kills would count for the award. The same would hold true for flamethrowers, snipers, etc. (Radiomen would have to make kills with artillery, regardless of their main weapon).
Assaulters: For this class, all kills with any weapon would count toward the battle hero award.
"Best Tactician" Award: I believe this award is given to the person who capped the most points during a game. Thus, there’s only one requirement for receiving this award: Capping points! If somebody capped 5 points during a game with only 2 kills, and another person capped 4 points during the same game with 50 kills… Then the person who capped 5 points would receive the battle hero award for Best Tactician—regardless of the number of kills they made.
Furthermore, since the game is centered on capping points in order to win, this award should be given for every game. Along with engineers, the people who are capping points are the most important players in the game—not necessarily the people who are making the most kills (although their contribution is important, as well, especially if they’re killing people on cap points). The combined efforts of these three players is what wins most games: Engineers building spawn points & other structures, the cappers who push up the line to close cap points, and the players who are good with weapons and can clear those points for the cappers.
As I mentioned above, the people getting the most kills in the game are important for the win; however, under the current battle hero award system, these players will always sweep all of the battle hero awards from all other players—even if they didn’t contribute for the purpose of the award (as I outlined in the engineering example above).
If you agree with the changes that I’m recommending (or can add to them), would you please leave a “like” (the heart symbol below) for this thread or reply with your own message for additional improvements in order to let the developers know that this issue needs to be addressed since XP points are being distributed to the wrong players for the wrong reasons.
Thank you for your time!
BB
