Something I’ve noticed in Proteus games, is that roughly half way through the game it becomes obvious who will win, causing some players to give up. This spoils the game a bit as you get people going AI, or worse, recklessly launching all their ships at someone in order to help their ally win.
Some players always carry on playing, either just for fun, or to try and achieve 2nd place it seems. And, in the games I’ve played at least, 2nd place is much more hotly contested with the several players able to achieve the position depending how they play.
With this in mind I thought it would be good having a 1st and 2nd place badge. Excuse the rush-job, but something like this:
This would reward those who stick it out, incentivise people not to give up, and hopefully keep the game interesting for a bit longer.
What do you think?
Eh, there was never a 2nd place for 64 player games while getting to the end of those is much harder than proteus’s 16 player games. So this is a big criticism of your current suggestion.
I’m not saying there should be a 2nd place for the big games. I’m saying these two are linked and it doesn’t make sense to post a suggestion for only Proteus.
Most of the time it’s just the allies of the winner who come 2nd and 3rd anyway. If there was a 2nd place prize I don’t think it would have the effect you think it would. The winner would just ensure their ally was 2nd place before winning by keeping their star count just below the winning threshold. Going into any alliance I would make sure everyone was going to follow this rule and the leader in the end game, whoever it ended up being, would wait until someone else in the alliance was 2nd place before winning.
I do think the game needs to be more rewarding to players, but this needs to be more than just adding more award badges.
You make good points.
I’ve never played the 64 player games, but I thought I’d read that the winner is less predictable in those game?