Tofu: A bacon substitue for those who can't

but you said the whole idea is that it would help the lesser team, which it would not.

I expect your comment means that you did not understand.

Allow me to try again.

For both bacon and "tofu" (I don't care if it is called and looks like something else) there is a more or less even chance of any player collecting it. Except very new players who may not recognise it.

They differ there after. If a good player picks up bacon they benefit greatly and good and poor opponents suffer, if a poor player picks up bacon it tends not to last and offers little change to the game.

If a good or a poor player picks up "tofu" the affect is the same, the opponents endorsements are nerfed to some appropriate degree. Lets say for example that for 3 lives the suffer a mild endorsement reduction. It's not major so they can still play okay and jumping off a cliff 3 times in a row (for the the whole team would be even more a of a penalty). Poor players will die quickly, so they will not suffer much. But good players will have to face difficult decisions: carry on weak, or take the time to die 3 times, possibly losing a kill streak.

Statistically the net affect for each team would is the same (when balanced appropriately - which is not necessarily the case in this example), but.... bacon only benefits teams when good players pick it up, i.e. poor players don't get to have any fun. "Tofu" has little impact on poor players, but is irritating for good ones.

Oh alright, that does clarify things.

I'm just thinking if we're exaggerating how good bacon is. Benefiting an entire team? I know one good person may pick it up and support the team very well with his buffed skills but he's just one person. Picking up bacon is pretty random after all so there's no telling who'll pick it up, regardless of implied skill.

This benefiting different skilled teams point feels a little subjective because it's still a random drop.

Or have we already discussed that part?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BTtMe7bPTc

I like this idea, only thing i would change is that if you pick it up then it only effects the enemy that is attacking you. None of their skills are affected until they open fire on you. I think this would be more balanced but maybe harder for designers to implement.

http://myfacewhen.com/99/

Thank you for your pertinent contribution.

Well yes many games can pass with no bacon and it doesn't change games. It does benefit the team by allowing the bacon player to do their pro/bot/moneyball killing more effectively thus getting the team closer to victory.

I agree that each pickup is random but once averaged over many pickups it is not subjective. Bacon makes good players better and does little to help poor ones, widening the gap. "Tofu" makes good players worse and does little to worsen poor ones. "Tofu" therefore reduces the gulf between the performance of the two players.

- All this is a small issue as bacon is rare, however I think MNC is at risk of becoming cliquey. A large player base is of paramount importance for a game to thrive. Existing players (us) don't pay the bills for Uber. It's in everyone's interests for the game to grow, they need new players. New players won't come if there's a crowd of ego-tripping pub stompers waiting for them.

I therefore think there should be more game features that follow the above philosophy.

Hmmmm....im going to say no, wouldnt work, wouldnt even happen.

For an entire team to lose all endorsements = people instantly quit and would make the game less popular for sure.

The winning team will most likely get this item more often than a losing team. Pub stompers are hard to address. You cant offer one item that will completely change a game element. Bacon is nice, one player gets a x3 buff, and BAM they can do damage, but they are no different than a player in OT.

In order to add items to a game they have to have a strong balance. When Churros had been added to the game, they pop up more often than bacon by a lot. So i think adding something extra has already been looked in by the devs and churros came to be. All they do is give a little health boost and help skill recovery.

To add a third item drop would be overdoing it, especially if its a catastrophic game breaker. You may be enjoying your idea to much and are over looking the realistic view. Devs need to add things to the game, but those are game fixes, maps, and hopefully some cool customizable options for the 360 folks. This post would of been better pre-Spunky DLC but since we have Churros and Bacon, I dont see anything new that would even erase endorsements, cause that is not possible

No endorser would stop endorsing their sponser for a few rounds due to a food drop, that is just not good business

I have no problem with people not liking the suggestion, such as the rest of your post, but I have stressed multiple times now that I am not suggesting a major removal of endorsements, I anticipate a mild effect working better for just a few lives - whatever is considered balanced - I suspect the non-attentive would not even realise there endorsements had been reduced.

Well that would depend on the class, cause if im an assassin, i use gold armor. and this make it so if another assassin comes up and front grapples me i wont die. However if i died due to this i would know, and it would throw off my gameplay tremendously for that time im affected.
Now lets change the idea of removal all together. If you want to add another item of food to the game. You have to focus on a non game busting thought. Something that can be added to a character without it being too over the top. I wish i could give a good substitute but at the moment, i really dont see any new buff items needed to be added. Im pushing on customizable options more.

I have no doubt experienced players would always be acutely aware of any reduction in endorsements.

As is discussed throughout this post, the idea of endorsement reducing items rather than buffing items makes the game more accessible to newer players, rather than further increasing the odds against them. My post was not aimed at making available items that directly improve the performance of good players on a team.

On a side note I wondered whether tofu could be substitute for a machine at which you spend money to reduce your opponents endorsements - call it a bribe to the endorsing compaines. For example spend $xx to drop opponent endorsements by 1 level until they die y times. Just a thought.

I think I have trouble digesting this idea because MNC is, for the most part, a skill based game. No offense to new player but you need to put in time and practice to be good at this game.

And I bring this up because this is precisely the reason I haven't touched games like Black Ops in over a month. Asides from (full disclosure) that it's an entirely different game, the killstreaks can be very skill equalizing. I can be on a personally good tear and suddenly the enemy team has UAV up. Suddenly there's an exploding RC car rounding the corner. Suddenly there's a chopper gunner. SUDDENLY, DOGS. Dogs everywhere.

I can handle being killed by a bacon overcharged assault. I'll deal with that. But depending on the frequency or how an idea like this is handled, I'll have moments like, "Enemy tofu is online!"

And I don't want sudden moments like that. On the other hand, nothing helps a bacon player from being ganged up on by two or three players.

Or how about just some "roulette" style mode when each character dies, they respawn with Scrambled endorsements?

Like if say you enter the game with Gold Health Recovery, Silver Rate of Fire and Bronze Armour. Once your character dies, he/she then respawns with Gold Juice, Silver Accuracy and Bronze Health Recovery or anything.

Make it a snow cone, slows everyone on the opposite team for 1 minute.

Now that's a good idea! But maybe 30 seconds is enough.

Anyway, I approve.

Second'd

It seems I'm the only one who thinks debuffing or scrambling your endorsements is really bad game design? Debuffing the other teams would just lead to a lot of people jumping over the edge of the map and scrambling endorsements on death would make custom classes completely useless.

All of you need to back the hell up off of my tofu. :x

I agree 100% here. Going against endorsements period is a game busting idea. You can not risk the balance of the game to knock out people endorsements, its what MAKES the custom classes.

The snow cone idea isnt to bad, but i still think it has some work to it. Now seeing as a gunner can slow people down with shots while deployed, i wouldnt see a problem with giving the attacker slowing effects on their weapon (dagger/sword or gun). It would be more useful to non assassins but could still be worked with.

To focus on new players is to keep a game like this in balance. I think any affects on endorsements will cause New Players to get most likely more angry at the game and quit. They wouldnt understand the point of having customs to have some great player they are fighting smash out the endorsements they picked and make them completely useless.

And besides if any food is to be added

it should be NACHOS!!!!! SPICY, CHEESY, a little stale, NACHOS! HIYOOOOOOOOO