Apos
Tank
- Joined
- May 14, 2003
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I like TeamDM a whole lot: it just feels more fun. But playing in pubs doesn't seem to make the really fun teamups all that common: just everyone running around aimlessly as usual, only now there are people you don't shoot.
The goal of the gametype is basically to have your team stick together: your team gets points for staying within a certain reasonable proximity of other teamates for a certain period of time, and the bigger the team swarm, the more points your team gets every few seconds.
There are three major additions needed for the gametype to work.
1) Swarm counts: this is an addition to the HUD. The swarm counts show up on the HUD whenever your team or the other team forms a swarm of any size: you can see what your largest swarm is so you can try to find them and join up, and what the enemy's largest swarm is so that you can try to break it up by killing or separating it before the timer clicks down. When you are part of the largest swarm on your team, you get an additional HUD icon (probably like the team following thing from the SP game)
2) Code for recognizing teamate proximity
Basically this is just so the server can keep track of how many points to award the team when the countdown timer hits 0.
3) Hardest part: blocking spawns. Basically, any spawn point near to largest swarm of each team should be disabled. This is so that: a) a forlorn enemy doesn't spawn right in the middle of a huge group and get pitifully wasted by five players b) swarms can't just camp the spawns waiting for easy additions. Only one spawn point per team can be disabled by this effect at a time however.
Basic scoring proposal (based on percentages in order to compensate for uneven teams, and of course may need lots of tweaking): A Swarm of 5% of your team gets you 1 point, Swarm of 10% gets you 2 points, Swarm of 15% gets you 3 points, and so on. Only one of the largest swarm per team counts if there is a tie (say there are two swarms of 20% of the team's total size: you still only get 4 points, not 8) Points are awarded every 10 seconds or so.
This gametype sound encourage a lot of larger battles between the two teams, and encourage players to operate in squads rather than as mavericks. Since you won't have random spawns into the heart of your territory or right behind you if you can swarm up, you can group up more easily and watch each other's backs as you move through the map, or try to hole up somewhere. There is an implicit choice of strategy here too: do you try to more aggressively disrupt the other team's swarms, or you play more defensively by protecting your own swarms and trying to avoid enemies? Given a single pulse rifle core or nade could decimate your group, you have to be careful. And given that camping out in one area could simply result in the other team having a bigger swarm somewhere else (they'd only have to pick off one or two members of your team and then prevent them from reaching your swarm while THEY swarm up), you generally have to keep on the move to some degree.
This gametype should present a fun new goal for TeamDM matches, giving them a bit more focus and encouraging more organization, even on pubs. It doesn't require any radical changes to gameplay: no new models or anything: just a bit of code and maybe some extra HUD code
Ideas? Criticisms? Etc.? Doing something like this, while it should be VERY easy, is beyond my skillz. I'm probably going to suggest it to Valve, since I favor them creating and releasing it officially rather than some random modder putting it out (because it's a minor gametype, not a mod, really). But if someone thinks they can do it, by all means. Ideas are free.
The goal of the gametype is basically to have your team stick together: your team gets points for staying within a certain reasonable proximity of other teamates for a certain period of time, and the bigger the team swarm, the more points your team gets every few seconds.
There are three major additions needed for the gametype to work.
1) Swarm counts: this is an addition to the HUD. The swarm counts show up on the HUD whenever your team or the other team forms a swarm of any size: you can see what your largest swarm is so you can try to find them and join up, and what the enemy's largest swarm is so that you can try to break it up by killing or separating it before the timer clicks down. When you are part of the largest swarm on your team, you get an additional HUD icon (probably like the team following thing from the SP game)
2) Code for recognizing teamate proximity
Basically this is just so the server can keep track of how many points to award the team when the countdown timer hits 0.
3) Hardest part: blocking spawns. Basically, any spawn point near to largest swarm of each team should be disabled. This is so that: a) a forlorn enemy doesn't spawn right in the middle of a huge group and get pitifully wasted by five players b) swarms can't just camp the spawns waiting for easy additions. Only one spawn point per team can be disabled by this effect at a time however.
Basic scoring proposal (based on percentages in order to compensate for uneven teams, and of course may need lots of tweaking): A Swarm of 5% of your team gets you 1 point, Swarm of 10% gets you 2 points, Swarm of 15% gets you 3 points, and so on. Only one of the largest swarm per team counts if there is a tie (say there are two swarms of 20% of the team's total size: you still only get 4 points, not 8) Points are awarded every 10 seconds or so.
This gametype sound encourage a lot of larger battles between the two teams, and encourage players to operate in squads rather than as mavericks. Since you won't have random spawns into the heart of your territory or right behind you if you can swarm up, you can group up more easily and watch each other's backs as you move through the map, or try to hole up somewhere. There is an implicit choice of strategy here too: do you try to more aggressively disrupt the other team's swarms, or you play more defensively by protecting your own swarms and trying to avoid enemies? Given a single pulse rifle core or nade could decimate your group, you have to be careful. And given that camping out in one area could simply result in the other team having a bigger swarm somewhere else (they'd only have to pick off one or two members of your team and then prevent them from reaching your swarm while THEY swarm up), you generally have to keep on the move to some degree.
This gametype should present a fun new goal for TeamDM matches, giving them a bit more focus and encouraging more organization, even on pubs. It doesn't require any radical changes to gameplay: no new models or anything: just a bit of code and maybe some extra HUD code
Ideas? Criticisms? Etc.? Doing something like this, while it should be VERY easy, is beyond my skillz. I'm probably going to suggest it to Valve, since I favor them creating and releasing it officially rather than some random modder putting it out (because it's a minor gametype, not a mod, really). But if someone thinks they can do it, by all means. Ideas are free.
