It's in the very first trailer for the game! Besides the rare fundamentally friendly PMC, there are basically no actual game mechanics in place to encourage players to cooperate. Certainly not enough to overcome the lack of trust (probability of backstabbing) and value from stealing loot.
The thing is, it would be so easy for them to throw in at least a few mechanics to test out (while the game is in ALPHA). I'll list a few ideas just to prove my point (and for discussion):
- Spontaneous party w/ Cooperate feature (applies whatever modifiers they have in place for the groups, they have some kind of handle because you can't kill teammates for quest progress anymore)
- Adding a 2nd VOIP channel for "party" — i.e. radio channels — should be very doable, add radio item for your special slots, different models could have different ranges / #channels / jamming etc
- Trader karma system in parallel to trader rep that just fucks up / improves prices based on rating (rather than gating items fully)
- I.e. PK respects you for the work you have done but is mad at you for USEC on USEC violence
- -PK for USEC on USEC, -Prapor for BEAR on BEAR, at the very least
- big bad juju for killing Cooperatemates
- could affect things like purchase priority for global limits (or limit cap if they ever get rid of that stupid shit). Just use a priorityqueue for purchase requests instead of whatever crappy latency based system they're using now
- Specific trader behavior: +Therapist for sharing meds (healing others / reviving others once implemented Soon™), +Mechanic for sharing guns / parts, +Jaeger for sharing supplies
- Scav encampments / boss groupings that benefit more from coordination rather than competition
- And good AI to make it fun but I know this is too much of an ask :eyeroll:
- Post-raid loot sharing system
- Why can't we swap loot while we're in our extract vehicle on the way home?
- <Ill add other ideas if this turns into a real discussion>
At least some of these would fit within the current systems pretty easily, and so the fact that BSG hasn't done them means that they aren't prioritizing systems like this, not that they're impossible or even just too much effort. Which is very confusing to me
