My requests
Posted: 28 Sep 2005, 17:51
Since everybody else is throwing out ideas, I'll add my requests:
Some good FFA gametypes. Normal TA FFA is unplayable - the player who porcs best wins while the others beat each other up, then porc player sweeps in and wins. Attacking becomes a loser's game.
King of the crater would be a good solution. That could be expanded to support the idea of multiple craters.
A similar approach is one where there N goal-locations to control (say, 15) and controlling some smaller n (say, 5) is the victory condition of the game. So if a player starts winning (like they have 3 or 4 control locations) then the other players quickly gang up to oust him lest they lose the game.
Alternately, you could change "King of the Crater" such that the points are only counted if your Commander is currently in the crater. This would mean that scoring points is risky. That could work.
Both "king of the crater" and "control" would encourage a deathmatch-style respawning commander, so there's no "sit out and wait" problem when you die. Of course, when you respawn you only have your commander - no army - so it would be tricky to balance it right.
You could do the same thing for teamplay - each team has one "gate" and the objective is to get a commander from your team to the enemy gate to score a point. Commanders respawn, and the gate is immortal.
The only problem with respawning commanders is that commanders may be used as commandos. They'd have to be rebalanced to make that less useful, but still maintaining anti-rush defense. Maybe each player spawns with some heavy defense turrets around the commander's spawn point to prevent rushing? Then you could weaken the d-gun and death-explosion, discouraging commando commanders.
Or, how abou one that requires no special maps - a Hunt mode? That is "Kill the King". The first player to kill a Commander (unless by self-destruct) becomes King. At that point, he starts collecting one point per second, and 100 points for killing an enemy Commander. When he's killed, another player becomes King. If the king's commander is killed by it's own team (self-destruct or otherwise) then he loses 100 points and respawns - and a lone commander without his army with every player gunning for him will die really quickly.
First player with 1000 points wins.
Or, if you want a shorter game, start the counting with the first player who destroys any enemy unit (not just an enemy commander).
Tons of games with special goals could be figured out to make FFA more playable - some of them might even allow for respawning commanders.
Oh, and here's an odd idea - how about units and buildings that you can build other units and buildings on top of? Like towers, flying platforms, barges, etc?
Some good FFA gametypes. Normal TA FFA is unplayable - the player who porcs best wins while the others beat each other up, then porc player sweeps in and wins. Attacking becomes a loser's game.
King of the crater would be a good solution. That could be expanded to support the idea of multiple craters.
A similar approach is one where there N goal-locations to control (say, 15) and controlling some smaller n (say, 5) is the victory condition of the game. So if a player starts winning (like they have 3 or 4 control locations) then the other players quickly gang up to oust him lest they lose the game.
Alternately, you could change "King of the Crater" such that the points are only counted if your Commander is currently in the crater. This would mean that scoring points is risky. That could work.
Both "king of the crater" and "control" would encourage a deathmatch-style respawning commander, so there's no "sit out and wait" problem when you die. Of course, when you respawn you only have your commander - no army - so it would be tricky to balance it right.
You could do the same thing for teamplay - each team has one "gate" and the objective is to get a commander from your team to the enemy gate to score a point. Commanders respawn, and the gate is immortal.
The only problem with respawning commanders is that commanders may be used as commandos. They'd have to be rebalanced to make that less useful, but still maintaining anti-rush defense. Maybe each player spawns with some heavy defense turrets around the commander's spawn point to prevent rushing? Then you could weaken the d-gun and death-explosion, discouraging commando commanders.
Or, how abou one that requires no special maps - a Hunt mode? That is "Kill the King". The first player to kill a Commander (unless by self-destruct) becomes King. At that point, he starts collecting one point per second, and 100 points for killing an enemy Commander. When he's killed, another player becomes King. If the king's commander is killed by it's own team (self-destruct or otherwise) then he loses 100 points and respawns - and a lone commander without his army with every player gunning for him will die really quickly.
First player with 1000 points wins.
Or, if you want a shorter game, start the counting with the first player who destroys any enemy unit (not just an enemy commander).
Tons of games with special goals could be figured out to make FFA more playable - some of them might even allow for respawning commanders.
Oh, and here's an odd idea - how about units and buildings that you can build other units and buildings on top of? Like towers, flying platforms, barges, etc?