I propose a change to rewards and MMR systems that will help them achieve their goals.
We have a few problems to solve:
1. Mission difficulty has very small impact on the score and rewards, although the idea is that higher difficulties give more rewards.
2. The hardest matches are the most fun. But you are discouraged from pushing yourself to the limit, having this exciting near-failure games. Because the score and rewards will be low.
3. People try to have MMR that is lower than their skill, and it screws up the balance in PvP. Low MMR Antag can win missions AFK. Or there can be purple squad with MMR so low, there are almost no grunts on the map.
4. All in all, it's not an intuitive system, and you learn the hard way to play against the systems design.
People play this game for fun, and most people don't manipulate MMR because it's fun to have difficulty that suits you. But the rewards system should encourage having fun. Good rewards for high difficulty is what Spacelords needs to keep people at MMR that matches their skill and strength.
My idea is to implement one change: after calculating mission score, multiply rewards by Mission Difficulty. Make it simple +40% for 40% MMR, or some different coefficient, maybe you can make it a curve, so it won't get crazy. And you would probably have to rebalance base rewards, leveling XP and all that stuff.
I think it would solve or in part solve the problem with current system. Not only that, it would make people play in a different exciting way. Here are a few examples:
1. People will gather teams, plan their strategy, characters and builds for specific missions to finish them on extreme difficulties, to get epic rewards.
2. High levels will carry their new player friends through hell, giving him memories and nightmares, so that new player could buy a character he liked earler.
3. Surrender squads, the least exciting way to play, will be gone!
