BmeBenji

I just wish we could get some heavy met-Al

Objectively superior? Superior user experience is entirely subjective, but that is the main selling point of almost everything Apple has done in the last 17 years

I imagine their surprise came across kind of like this

“what is this? I bought a xbox card! what is this? i don’t even know what that is!”

Shooting out a window sucks everyone in the vicinity out

Pokemon with guns and more slavery…

“How could someone make money with such a stupid idea?”

“And how could you NOT make money with such a BRILLIANT idea!”

This looks like it would be fun if it’s all about the goofy physics, and the levels are structured to support it. If the squirrel doesn’t have a chance to be launched backwards and fly off of its perch at every trigger pull then it’s a missed opportunity. And couch multiplayer would be extremely fun with this game since it would be so chaotic. Multiple squirrels getting yeeted by recoil while trying to hit each other sounds hilarious

I would love to relay some of my positive experiences with Rainbow 6: Siege's reputation system to him... if he didn't just prompt for input on Xitter...

Gotcha, well there are still weekly challenges accessible through Uplay which reward you with renown (like 250 per challenge, which isn’t a lot and it’s Uplay, but it’s something). I don’t think there’s any tie between the reputation system and renown.

I do know that if you have multiple matches in a row where teammates commend you, you get on a commendation streak for which other players on your team can see an indicator so they know you’ve been a helpful or at least enjoyable teammate, and that streak also grants you a +1.0% bonus to your chances of getting an alpha pack if you win a match while on the streak. Furthermore, there are 5 reputation ranks: Dishonorable, Disruptive, Respectable, Esteemed, and Exemplary. Esteemed and Exemplary players should soon start getting more rewards like regular alpha pack drops and possibly more. Dishonorable players are already locked out of the ranked playlist.

My experience so far has not been that you are punished for trash talk, unless you’re just being an absolute dick and/or bigot, and players are not more “fake friendly” now, but instead are less toxic and less likely to rage over the mic/text chat and are also more likely to try to be helpful with callouts and planning strats for the next round. To me, that’s an all-around great change. I’m not sure if my experience alone is worth much, but I believe I have 300-500 hours in the game from the last few years alone so I would like to think I have at least some sense of the trend in the community.

I’m confused. What “weekly Renown grind” are you talking about? And no, you don’t get Renown for having a good reputation. But yes, rewarding players for being friendly is absolutely a good thing.

The commendation screen is shown for an unskippable amount of time (unless you quit the match) at the end of the match, before the post-match summary which is when you’d see the scoreboard, level progress, and battle pass progress. The commendation screen shows you the player cards of all 4 of your teammates, each with 3 buttons representing the different commendations you can give someone - one for being a good teammate, one for being a leader and helping coordinate your team’s actions, and one for dedication to the match. You can commend each player once per day, and for a given match you can give 2 commendations. Picture 4 columns with 3 rows. When you click a single row for a given column, that column is greyed out so you can’t commend that player again. When you click a second commendation, all of the buttons are greyed out. For the opposing team, you’re given a single button prompt: “was the opposing team fair/well-sporting? Press F5 for yes, F6 for no”

All in all, for commendations the game asks players to click 2 buttons and press 1 key. It’s extremely intuitive and if you’re stuck on the screen for 10 seconds, you might as well engage with it.

Anything that negatively affects a player’s reputation is done ad-hoc. If someone’s teamkilling or destroying their own team’s gadgets or intentionally making it difficult for their own team to win or using slurs or something, it’s up to individual players in the match to pull up the scoreboard at will, select their name and hit the report button. Otherwise, the game also automatically reduces a player’s reputation for actions the devs have deemed disreputable, like friendly fire, teamkilling and destroying team gadgets.

It’s an extremely easy system to engage with, and I’m really looking forward to when they start implementing more rewards for high-reputation players.

Rainbow 6: Siege has been making massive strides in the realm of reducing community toxicity. The player reputation system lets players report toxic players, griefers, and cheaters which lowers their reputation. At the end of each match, players can commend their teammates (and the entire other team) for specific positive characteristics. Players with low reputations get sanctions, and players with high reputations receive bonuses that increase chances for in-game rewards, and occasionally receive thank-you gifts for being positive influences in the community, like alpha packs (loot crates). It’s a solid system and I immediately noticed not just a decrease in toxicity but an increase in positivity when these systems were implemented.

In theory, you could start match people with low reputations together, and people with high reputations together.