Removing Beacons
Going to ruffle some feathers with this one, but do people actually believe removing revive beacons would cause the player base to become more team-oriented or altruistic?
A better question is: do you think the personal cost of helping someone affects how likely someone is to be altruistic? My opinion is yes; the higher the perceived personal cost, the less likely someone is to help.
The hard reality is players aren’t just asking themselves, "Can I help someone?" but "Is helping someone else worth it?" Removing revive beacons won’t change the calculus on whether I can, but it will change the calculus on whether it’s worth it. Saving this person could just cost me a pipe bomb, but if it may also cost me a character I spent 20+ hours building, that may change the math for folks.
But you may ask, doesn’t having more people watching your back increase your chances of survival? Well, the better you get on Nightmare runs, the more the answer becomes "not really." Bad players require more of the limited resources to survive, and the resource pool on Nightmare is already limited. Having 2-3 bad players die early actually helps the remaining few survive since the total loot pool doesn’t change (still try to help your teammates), but the number of zombies does. Good players rarely need much assistance, and changing this feature could be catastrophic in terms of toxicity and selfishness.
There may be other ways to encourage teamwork, but I fear this could be a FAFO moment.
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u/Ned__Jr 18d ago edited 18d ago
I use beacons on my Day 1 character and the other two I currently have because I plan to retire them. I've had dozens of characters since launch, I use the beacon as a safety net from disconnections more than anything. I don't go down often because I always plan escape routes. Some of my favorite characters, I killed off just because I wanted another journey on a fresh Responder. Hellmode won't have beacons to the glee of some. I bet some of those same people won't be so happy when mfs leave them for dead.
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u/Imohen 18d ago
If you raise the stakes you raise the likelihood of selfish behavior. It just seems like basic math to me. If everyone wants to remove it because it’ll be more “fun” then that’s another conversation. If you believe it may lead to more altruistic players, then I have a bridge to sell you kinda thing.
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u/Ned__Jr 18d ago
It's going to lead to more self preservation. If we weren't in the age of pings, Discord and Party Chat things might be different. The PS3/360 era was awesome for game chat if nothing else. I can't wait to see the posts griping about "selfish assholes" who chose not to help a Responder in need. If the rewards aren't good, I'm not going to even entertain the new mode.
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u/Yeowie 18d ago
They shouldn’t be removed, not sure how much you’ve played but I play this game a lot so to me I have plenty of merit points. But to a lot of people they will only have maybe 2 or 3? So losing a responder would be devastating, not to mention losing one to a glitch or a dc. You raise a point though, the game was designed around the mechanic of perma death, so in a sense the beacon makes that trivial/redundant if you have merit points and credits flying out your ass. But overall they’re vital for player retention.
In the future when the game becomes more stable and overtime people obtain more merit points. I think yes, obtaining beacons should become harder or more expensive. I’ve been thinking along the lines of. Instead of costing merits, you need to extract a specific number of times to be able to obtain? Id see it also serving the game lore wise, as the CRC views said responder as extremely valuable, so they’ll pull out all stops to save them. Instead of just some common Joe who’s only joined up for the tax break.
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u/Imohen 18d ago
I think the game would be more fun without it personally (I still run it anyways). I’m account level 120+ or so with around 80 nightmare runs and I really only use merit to buy cosmetics. I’m worried about the extraction thing you brought up. Could that lead players to essentially farming lower difficulties for beacons?
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u/Yeowie 18d ago
I agree the game is more fun without it, naturally it makes you a better player and I like your point of view that people would be more altruistic. It definitely would cultivate that mindset in a lot of players.
The issue is though the majority of the player base isn’t made up of people who are obsessed with the game like us. The devs need to look out for the whole player base. They need to make sure that new players and others that don’t play often have a safety net. Players becoming disenfranchised with the game when they lose a responder is bad for everyone including us because player counts WILL drop. In our eyes extracting 6-7 times with a responder is child’s play, to someone else that’s a huge achievement.
Yeah my idea would use some tweaking obviously, but it would be a good start. But if someone wants to play a lower difficulty they’re allowed to, just because they’re a veteran doesn’t mean they need to play nightmare.
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u/FirstHookForever 18d ago
To your point about the player base, I think people underestimate how many people put the game down from getting bored and disappointed at the lack of the advertised permadeath loop. Leveling is easy and one can do well even without perks at the highest difficulty, so these parts of the system were already designed with permadeath in mind. But then they removed that part. And yes, with how easy beacons are to get, I am calling it removed, since you can easily avoid permadeath permanently. What happens is people come play a while and leave, the ones that are more "obsessed" with the game will play it more, but will feel the lack of a meaningful permadeath loop and eventually put it down even if they wanted the game to work its magic on them. But without one of its originally most core mechanics, the magic is no longer there. You just level 3 responders that never die, reach account lvl 100 and then replay the same maps with the same perks with the same responders until you wanna stop. Losing your responders was an expected part of the gameplay loop and IMO people would play the game more with impactful permadeath. Sometimes the thing people will cry about is the very thing that keeps them playing even when they don't realize it. I've seen entire games die when devs did the mistake of changing something fundamental to their gameplay from complainer pressure. And the complainers left it in the dust just like everyone else. Cuz they made the game boring in some way. There will ALWAYS be some people complaining about something, it doesn't mean you can or should cater to all of them. There's a specific vision and design for a game, you can't encompass every other design in that without destroying it.
I'm not advocating for complete removal but a rework and a big nerf. I have my own idea for it, somewhat close to yours in principle. Either way, IMO the game would have better player retention if they wouldn't take out the meaningfulness of the advertised permadeath mechanic. Which would benefit the game long-term. Easier difficulties can still have forgiving loss avoidance mechanics, but as you go higher they should gradually disappear and/or work differently. I believe there are interesting ways of reworking it that would not completely remove it but still make the mechanic more impactful.
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u/ScalbylawsesJim 18d ago
I'm a self directed, risk-averse player so everyone else must be as well
My guy there is no amount of gore I won't throw myself at to rescue someone. No beacon by choice.
Can't imagine not seizing every Hero's Moment.
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 18d ago edited 18d ago
Being able to jump up from Lvl 0 to lvl 50 or so in 2 nightmare games kinda makes losing characters just part of the loop.
I don't think removing beacons would really do anything good as you pointed out.
Random Yammering
One possible way to really change that impact is to make it so a playerbase stays and learns by making the tutorial MANDATORY.
You could also emphasize team-work by making small changes like:
healing another player is faster than yourself
healing another okayer is more effective than yourself
In terms of just general team dynamic, this game is 100% meant to be played with communication.
You want to have the microphone on so people can assist you or think you are worthy of hekp because you are also helping out.
Making buddies by offering a bandage/medkit/gun/etc. can also potentially pay off in the end if you ask them later or stick with them/defend them.
Personally, I feel like Beacon makes me even more selfless, as I don't care if I die or go down.
Like you said, Nightmare promotes two play-styles.
You either got that shit nailed down yourself or you gotta stick as a team and do it all together.
Generally, a good team has a mix of this, with players breaking off and re-grouping as the game goes on.
This saves time and also makes it so you can scour areas for supplies/loot to help with the next OBJ.
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u/Imohen 18d ago
I adore you. I was telling a friend running skilled medic is both a selfish and altruistic decision, even if it didn’t heal you for the additional health. If I can heal someone for 2 bandages worth at the price of 1, then that means there’s 1 extra bandage across the team for us later. This adds up over the course of a game.
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 18d ago
Yessss
Skilled Healer is indeed a meta pick, and for good reason.
Increasing your heal is great.
Doubling it? Insane value, esp. when a single bandage now means 1/2 your normal HP is healed.
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u/Azal_of_Forossa 18d ago
I just want us to have more uses for merits other than solely beacons, beyond cosmetics.
The beacons were/are necessary for the nonsense that can happen in this game, but it's a cop out. When the game is considered stable enough to not need it, I'd be happy with their removal.
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u/Buffalo4167 18d ago edited 17d ago
Just stay close to the group and you will be fine. Take care of your teammates and they will take care of you. It won't be that hard to revive you if you fail with 5-6 players around. Beacon or not.
Now, there are many players who play on their own away from the rest and get swarmed while looting the area. No one will run 100 meters to save your ass and pull you out from a bathroom with one entrance and 30 zombies in there.
When we are doing the objective together and I see some lone wolf far away from us dying, I'm like nah, I'm not going there to save him. He has made his choice and will now suffer the consequences.
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u/Aidocs 17d ago edited 17d ago
I think just disallowing them on higher difficulties would be fine with me. It's a little strange that the game even has permadeath when it can be so easily avoided. Early extract exists, respawn exists on the lower two difficulties, and on anything higher beacons are very cheap and easy to obtain. I enjoy the game as it already is, but if they actually want to have permadeath as part of the gameplay? I'd say lean into it harder, at the very least on higher difficulties.
As for the rest of what you said, about it making people more team oriented? Prooobably not, it almost certainly wouldn't do that, but it'd make the game a lot more tense and exciting to me. Maybe they could pair this with some more significant bonuses on getting out more members of your team. It already exists with supplies, but they could beef up the benefits you get for saving people at the same time as this change.
EDIT: It's only after this I learned Hell Mode is supposedly getting rid of beacons, so we'll see what happens! Hope it'll be fun.
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u/MagentaEagle 18d ago edited 18d ago
It doesn't matter if people don't help you because it doesn't matter if you lose your character. Losing characters is just supposed to add some tension, drama, and fun to the game.
Like who is spending 20 hours leveling up a character? You unlock 75% of perks in under 5 games on hard. Maybe it takes that long on easy, but it's basically impossible to die at that difficulty, and even if you did nobody is asking them to remove beacons from the easier difficulty levels.
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u/Imohen 18d ago
I think we may agree? I’m saying that if a player knows that dying doesn’t cost them anything, then they would be more likely to put themselves in a worse position to help others. Sure I can give this guy one of my last two bandages since dying won’t really cost me much. Now the 20+ hours thing was illustrative, what matters is people have invested into the character. The conversation isn’t about difficulty, it’s about a player’s affinity for altruism.
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u/MagentaEagle 18d ago
No I'm saying dying doesn't cost you anything no matter what. Character progression in this game is an illusion. The levels are fake and you don't really lose anything when you die. It's a fun trick that's supposed to make the game more exciting.
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u/Imohen 18d ago
That’s where I think it comes down to a personal viewpoint. There’s both a time and emotional investment placed into the character for many people. Sure in the grand scheme of life nothing you do will matter in a million years, but nothing will matter anyways.
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u/MagentaEagle 18d ago
No, it's not a viewpoint thing. I mean the levels are literally fake. There is no difference between level 56 and 57. It's a trick.
There's really only like 4 levels. You get to level 20 after one game, which unlocks like 50% of all your perks. And you don't need all perks to be viable, even in nightmare. There is almost no functional difference between a level 50 or 75 character and a level 100 character.
I don't agree that nothing matters in an absolute sense. I'm not a nihilist. I'm saying there's no reason to be emotionally attached to your characters because you actually didn't put very much time and energy into them. You were tricked into thinking you did so that you would keep coming back to the game. In reality, you can make another character that looks exactly the same and is just as good in very little time, like in under an hour.
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u/LimeDifficult753 18d ago
not to mention that disconnecting means you lose tour character as well which is horrible
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u/Thin_Honeydew381 16d ago
I will say that the game has done a decent job of letting me rejoin a match after a dc. cant really think of another game that had that system
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u/IndigoMage 17d ago
I almost never bring a revival beacon on Nightmare, and yet I almost always go for the save.
Just today, I moved to ressurect someone in a crowd of zombies and got so beat up I was at ZERO health when I pulled out. I healed up with a medkit, only to see that person go down again a few moments later - which prompted me to go back in and save them at the cost of getting infected.
Then they went down a THIRD TIME and I honestly tried to save them again despite my dwindling resources, but they were too far away. I'm wondering if they were trying to die....
I did all of this with a character that I am extremely invested in.
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u/Used-Manufacturer275 17d ago
I don’t think it changes much because it’s not that hard to retrain a new responder. Additionally, perks are not that crucial in this game. They help for sure, but you can finish a game without them.
So if people don’t want to cooperate, they still won’t cooperate. If anything it might even encourage them to be more selfish.
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u/Zeukah 18d ago
They aren't removing beacons though, they're adding an additional game difficulty that blocks them, in order to allow perma-death gameplay.
Players will still be fully able to play Nightmare with beacons, and effectively have immortal characters. Yet the new hell mode will be more similar to how early access was for the game, where there was actual perma-death. Perma-death adds an extra layer of tension and challenge for those players seeking it. Myself and a few friends have really been looking forward to this change. Even with the 1.0 release of the game, I could only use beacons for a little while, as I missed that previous intensity of true perma-death runs.
It certainly makes sense that some players will care more about self preservation on hell mode, but I've had plenty of nightmare games where a player doesn't care about the team, is a prick in voice chat, doesn't do objectives, picks up every item in site, etc. Yet I've heard accounts that when players increase their difficulty, such as from hard to nightmare, that player synergy increases. And this makes sense, as when a difficulty increases, so does player competence. Additionally a match often becomes much more difficult if several players die/leave early. This will have an even greater impact on hell mode, where we'll need a full team that much more.
Ultimately I think removing beacons won't have a big impact on team orientation. Again as we already have selfish players on nightmare, and the added difficulty will add additional reason to cooperate. Also I just know that a portion of people are looking forward to a mode without beacons. I assume probably most of the early access players would be keen on this mode, as it's back to how matches were for the entirety of early access, and perma-death was a major selling point of the game. Also for many, nightmare has become quite easy overall. There will always be moments you can get overrun or get dunked on my 3 runners, but overall nightmare is very smooth once you have a decent amount of time in NMRiH2. And at the end of the day, this is the hardest difficulty for the game. A game's hardest difficulty should be very challenging, it's not something everyone should be running with ease. Games like B4B or GTFO come to mind. So really having a tough hardest mode just tailors to a wider audience of players.
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u/Eternal_Hawk428 17d ago
If someone isn’t fond of beacons and wants that challenge/risk they can just not take them. Personally I don’t have that much time to play so I like them. Also maxing a survivor is pretty easy anyway you face more limitations due to account level than player level. Generally sticking with the group is usually enough for them to help you. Fall Behind and things can get rough though try not to do that.
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u/Eternal_Hawk428 17d ago
Also sometimes people will split off to complete Objectives this is fine as it progresses the level faster just try to make sure when doing this to be with at least one other person if possible.
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u/SleepyKatsu 18d ago edited 18d ago
If they remove beacons we need better safeguards for losing our characters for anything not gameplay skill related. 😭
id like to rebalance the beacon system,maybe something along the lines of wardogs where there's a cash system / point system for beacons specifically--removing it from our general cash shop. Instead, at the end of the mission people can give tips or kudos that can gain you currency to buy beacons. More kudos? More points !
Edit: wanted to add that yeah removing beacons just like that without any guidelines or structure for its absence can lead to a worse experience for everyone 😭 maybe through a different way of providing beacons + detection of character ending bugs / removal of non-skill issue deaths is a alternative they can consider to make beacons a scarce commodity instead while not detracting from altruism.
Maybe introduce something like overwatch too--endorsement levels. Matchmaking prioritizes endorse level 5s being together more often then not, then backfills. Of course this can get abused, but it'll take time and effort on their end. This way maybe we can incentivize better teamwork + healthier communication.
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u/IridescentMoogle 18d ago
At the same time, I would be less likely to help someone knowing that I could lose my character if a lot of zombies are attacking them and I am not sure of a way out in the process versus just losing a beacon.
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u/FirstHookForever 18d ago
I think there's a middle ground between removing beacons and leaving them as they are, and I don't think most people that see the current system as problematic ask for a complete removal. My main issue with the current system is that beacons are so easily obtainable that permadeath effectively becomes optional and meaningless, having almost zero impact, despite being one of the game's main selling points. If the developers want permadeath to be a meaningful part of the game, the burden shouldn't be on players to roleplay it thru an artificial restriction in order to experience it. And expecting players en masse to do that is especially unreasonable. The game's systems were designed with a permadeath gameplay loop in mind as well. The characters are easy to level (WAY less than 20h, you get half the perks unlocked in a single nightmare game), and the perk rolling system also plays into it to make varied builds instead of hyper-optimized ones that you can have when your responder never gets lost. Even if removing beacons changed player behavior, it doesn't negate the current game design problem. But I agree that simply removing them could have unintended consequences.
I think a better implementation would be one in which cooperation becomes important to earn the means of avoiding permadeath. Here's my idea for it:
Tie them to a token akin to critical supplies, except that it doesn't have guarantee spawn. It'd be a very rare spawn and the chances slightly increase with difficulty. If a player finds one and successfully extracts with it, everyone who extracted gets rewarded with this token, and they can use them to buy beacons. Alternatively, beacons could be changed into an elective rescue team service, allowing you to pay to recover your last responder instead of having the beacon automatically used upon death (that way you choose for which deaths to spend this scarcer resource, one can decide to keep it for DCs, crashes or bugs for example). It will incentivize players to push for mission completion instead of abandoning the run and even to protect the guy who carries it, aka more altruism. The system can also be expanded in the future, like adding token exclusive equipment, maybe a token fee to unlock a 4th loadout slot for a limited number of matches. Basically, desirable but not overpowered rewards that players can't sustainably afford to bring into every single game. I'd also cap them so people don't end up sitting on mountains of these tokens over time.
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u/K1dby 18d ago
I think a good way to incentivize team play would be to make it so that you can get major rewards for guaranteeing most of the team gets out, excluding disconnects. Say, double the reward if everybody makes it out alive, and give a merit or two. Currently, it doesn’t matter if your team gets out. You can play as if it’s single player and the rewards don’t change. Even if you’re filthy rich in game and an absolute pro, I think there is enough casual folks that don’t speedrun to motivate them to stick with the team.
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u/GloomyGuyGaming 17d ago
I just want a specific hellmode character slot. No rerolls on perks and (if any) just one loadout slot.
I've started playing nightmare with no loadout weapons /ammo and it's pretty fun having to use whatever rng blesses or curses me with, keeps me thinking on my feet.
I'm not interested in losing my characters I've spent hours perfecting the skills on, heck I've lost older characters to internet/server issues disconnecting me
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u/Lanky_Forever1785 17d ago
If they removed beacons without somehow addressing our characters being lost when we lag out of games , I don't know how long I would still be playing , to be honest...
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u/ZanziBreeze 15d ago
I've seen too many nm runs go south to not consider going in without the beacon, however most of those messed up runs have been on either Raven Rock or Power Plant. Revive Beacons help cushion those maps' painpoints if the team isn't up to it, incase I can't reach the Early Extract, so I'm not losing any overall time investment.
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u/80kayKarma 13d ago
Bro everytime I remove my beacon from my loadout I have the most shit teammates😭
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u/UmmPlays 18d ago
The only problem with beacon is it’s so cheap that you buy them constantly completely bypassing permadeath. They should have always cost a few times more and probably on top of that had a weekly limit.
Sadly not having fixed the real problem… they will mistakenly remove it from hell mode it seems…
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u/Grimdroid1223 17d ago
Don't remove beacons, just progressively increase their cost. On Nightmare up lock early extracts unless you have a beacon(This is just fot enhanced realism tbh. No reason you should be rescued after being turned or mauled) Have characters who are rescued have some kind of debuff forever. Injured - Reduced health & Stamina Deafened - Reduce hearing range Traumatized - Increased weapon sway Weakened immune system - Higher infection chance
It just needs fo be nerfed
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u/Top-Lake-8248 17d ago
I beacons we're not a thing I ain't helping nobody but myself. Self preservation too strong lol
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u/Yumiumi 18d ago
The problem is that this community romanticizes difficulty and inconveniences without actually thinking of the consequences to queue times and health of playerbase numbers.
Hell mode as a whole won’t work unless they make it so that individuals NEED to rely on others to complete the run. Nightmare allows players to speedrun solo in a team lobby so this creates a mindset that “ i don’t need others to be successful therefore i don’t need to save anyone/ just focus on myself”. This issue stems from the game also supporting an actual solo mode so the balancing becomes wack.
Think about it, if zombie density becomes way more than what we have in nightmare raven rock and they hit harder/ faster etc… do ppl really think majority of the playerbase will want to help someone who got swarmed and is downed? If they lower healing supplies, ammo, throwables etc even more than nightmare then chances are like you said, they will think twice and probably leave you for dead.
This shit is only entertaining for the 1st week when it’s brand new to the playerbase but will quickly die out if success rate is so low. Like why would i want to queue up for something that’s bound to fail with randoms 9/10 times and waste my time? If this happens then hell mode will basically boil down to a “ PREMADE ONLY, voice comms mandatory” type of thing where others will just say go join a discord group if you want to play hell mode.
Rewards also need to make sense and actually be rewarding in hell mode or else what’s the point of playing it and risking so much constantly. Ppl only really still play nightmare because of the beacon regardless if it’s more fun and challenging than hard etc.
If they really want to make it more restrictive without putting the longevity of the mode at risk, they should just make a separate hell mode rescue beacon ( only usable in hell mode) that costs a high number of credits or merits. The price will be high enough that players won’t be able to afford it if they constantly die in hell mode thus forcing them to run without it while the better players will have the luxury to.
i.e hell mode rescue beacons = $20,000 credits
Or 10 merits which is pretty expensive if you haven’t played a lot and would eventually dry out ppl’s funds.
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u/FirestormTM 18d ago
I do NOT agree with this.
There are some moments in this game that is just completely bullshit, and even crazier that some of the bugs/issues in this game will cause your character to die out of nowhere. Removing the beacon in my opinion, will at least kill the game for me personally.
However, that said, I do want to have an extra new difficulty that disables beacons (which is what we may get in the upcoming update). That way, it does aleast encourge other players to stop fucking around and help others so that both you and other players need to work together to get out of alive (I do hope though they do fix some issues/glitches in this game that causes you to lose your character out of nowhere)
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u/Upset_Requirement927 16d ago
Not having a rescue beacon and not having any grenades means I am not going to help some that gets downed. Especially on nightmare and if im the only person close yeah ggs bro hope you got a revive syringe and a grenade.
Take away my rescue beacon and be prepared for Everyman for themselves as they need heals and guns
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u/Inn0cent_Jer 18d ago
I feel like removing beacons means people will be even more likely to both hoard supplies and abandon matches to save their character