Okay, lets get this out of the way first:
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Forward: Was the Duck Journal a lazy cash grab?
1. Yes. Of course it was. Duh.
2. McVee confirmed that the majority of the purchase cost for EotL keys go to the community EotL team, and implied the Duck Journals are the same, so if it was a cash grab, at least it was mostly for the benefit of the community creators, and not for Valve.
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All right, now that that's cleared up, let's get to the fun part: tinfoiling. I warn you, I like my tinfoiling long-winded, so here comes the wall-o-text. I mean, I haven't seen anybody bring this up yet, but the significance of the Duck Journal may be more than it initially appears. |
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Evidence:
1. The duck journal is an action item.
2. Though not the first Action Item that also appears on the mercenaries like a cosmetic (canteen/spell book/fireproof diary), it IS the first action item that is prominently visible in the badge area of the mercs, like a medal.
3. Though not the first action item to track any type of comparable statistics (first was Fancy Spellbook with Spellbook Pages) it is the first to track actual gameplay statistics (kills and objectives).
4. Disregarding methods of farming ducks, a persons duck level is leveled through playing well: getting kills, covering teammates, and capturing objectives all spawn ducks.
5. Though the Duck Journal itself was poorly received, the infrastructure created to support it successfully acts as a comparable stat-tracking service.
6. This means that the Duck Level of a player roughly represents the skill of the player holding it.
7. Players are not required to participate, even if they purchase the Duck Journal. They can easily just take off the duck journal and ignore any duck-related gameplay enhancements.
8. Duck Level has no gameplay effect otherwise.
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Extrapolations (Tinfoil):
1. With the Duck Journal, Valve is testing out more intensive player-centric stat-tracking services.
2. Right now the Duck Journal is only comparable to friends Duck Journals, but it's not too big of a logical leap to assume that this statistic will be able to be compared globally in a future iteration.
3. The one-time payment for the Duck Journal is Valve's new attempt to monetize TF2, rather than through cosmetics or buying tickets for tours.
4. Like with Mann Up and Training Mode in Mann Versus Machine, quickplay may soon be split into 'Casual' and 'Mann Up' servers. The servers are basically identical, the only difference being the players within them, and the inclusion of more competitive restrictions being placed in the 'Mann Up' servers.
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Valve's Endgame (SUPER TINFOIL):
1. The Mann vs Mann Update: Competitive Matchmaking Introduced
2. Quickplay is now separated into two groups: 'For Honor' and 'My Amusement' modes.
3. Players can choose either option, but 'For Honor' requires a one-time purchase of a "Mann Journal" to participate in.
4. When a player is killed or an objective is captured in either mode, "Mann Points" are dropped (like the ducks). Any player can collect these, but players wearing the Mann Journal adds those MP to their "Mann Level."
5. Players choosing 'For Honor' Quickplay mode are placed into specialty 'For Honor' servers. The server is chosen based on the player's Mann Level compared to the average Mann Level of the other players on the server.
6. The 'For Honor' mode includes many more options up for vote, such as 'Toggle Random Crits,' 'Toggle Random Spread,' 'Toggle Class Limits (2),' and more (as determined by competitive community).
7. Players choosing 'My Amusement' Quickplay mode are placed in 'My Amusement' servers, which are the equivalent of current Valve Quick-Play servers.
8. Quickplay now has the MvM party system, where groups can search for a server together. In 'My Amusement' mode, it just finds a server that has that many slots open. In 'For Honor' mode, it takes the average Mann Level of the group and finds an appropriate server.
9. The inclusion of a dedicated competitive mode that is as easy to use as a casual mode encourages the average player to experience the game how they want. The small one-time payment acts as a small barrier to discourage hackers, but isn't too much that the dedicated pubber isn't giving up too much to give 'For Honor' mode a shot.
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As you can see, everything doesn't have to be doom and gloom. The Duck Journal may seem like a harmless minigame, but it is about a few small tweaks away from becoming A Full-Fledged Competitive Matchmaking Tool. Combining that with other systems Valve already has in place, we could be mere months away from getting the competitive matchmaking we've all dreamed of. Now, going under the assumption I posted above, here are some changes I would suggest to the current duck minigame.
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Changes Suggested:
1. More sources of Ducks: Duck spawns are really only beneficial for direct combat classes, considering that they must be collected by walking over them. Since this isn't always encouraging good behavior (over-extending, or in the worst case, medics running in front of their teammates to collect ducks), show some love for support classes by adding other methods to spawn ducks. Here's a few suggestions:
2. Medic Ducks: How about making ducks continually spawn from medics themselves by healing hurt allies or by building a full ubercharge.
3. Engineer Ducks: Spawn a pile of ducks when an engineer builds or upgrades a building. Also, spawn ducks around the sentry itself when it gets a kill, rather than near the victim, so as not to encourage engies to leave their buildings to collect ducks.
4. Sniper Ducks: Also, give sniper the red-money thing from MvM, so he can get some duck love even though he's too far away to collect them himself.
5. Spy Ducks: Also, let spies automatically collect ducks spawned from backstabs, and not have to run around collecting scattered ducks. Because seriously, an explosion of ducks is literally the opposite of stealthy.
6. Make Ducks only Promote Good Play: This is a basic conglomeration of all of the above suggestions. I might even suggest getting rid of the ducks altogether in favor of just passive number-tracking, but I see the appeal of adding a visible, physical element to rewarding players for good gameplay. Just make sure you aren't encouraging any bad habits.
7. Make Ducks Less Farmable: Make sure ducks only spawn on Valve or Valve-approved servers, like the Halloween presents. Farming experience levels is harmless, but should still be put a stop to. This is also because...
8. Let us see Global Duck Stats: Expand your database query to encompass all players. People want the glory of seeing how they stack up against the planet, so let us check it out! This shouldn't be completed until the Level-Farming Exploits are taken care of, otherwise the numbers are pointless.
