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Gameplay elements

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 6:26 am UTC
by danmal

This is a list of gameplay elements that has wide support in the dev team (and generally the community as well). This list will (hopefully) serve as a guide when we begin to make substantial changes to Unvanquished's gameplay. I will be expanding this list as more elements are agreed upon. Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

  • Stages separate from kills - Stages should no longer be reliant on either credits (gpp) or number of enemies killed (1.1.0). What they rely on instead is undecided although most suggestions involve linking map control to stages in some manner.

  • No free build points - BP should no longer be given out for building repeaters instead it must be "earned".

  • Map control should be rewarded - Controlling parts of the map should earn that team more BP, credits, stage points or something similar. How exactly map control should be measured hasn't been decided but suggestions have included percentage of the map covered by creep/power or specific areas where eggs/repeaters can be built that provide a steady income of resources.


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:24 pm UTC
by ViruS

Reminds me of arcade mod [1.1], where you have to capture points and you gain its extra bp and you can build more obviously.
The stages idea sounds interesting.


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 3:15 pm UTC
by Kreative

I love this! :3

About map control, I think builders should be rewarded a lot more than what they are now. Some incentive should be given to people so they would want to build.


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 4:16 pm UTC
by JBiscuitz

Stage control would definitely add a little more RTS to unvanquished gameplay which is 100%a approved by me!


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:46 am UTC
by seana11

What if stage was determined by creep/power extent? (So the idea is to build as many repeaters as spread out as possible). This would be very anti-camp, though it might be hard to achive.


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 4:21 am UTC
by ViruS

Whenever i hear 'creep/power' or something related, it reminds me of nalf's gpp server:
Aim of the game is the same, but can be achieved easier by doing the following:
-Building your enemies in
{You cannot build near a creep/powered zone
-If the overminds goes down, and you're a granger
{Taunt and jump to speed up building process, but it drains your health as well.

There are some other features and bugfixes, you should try it if you already have gpp. But i think everyone who already has it would've already tried it.


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 4:29 am UTC
by danmal
Kreative wrote:

I love this! :3

About map control, I think builders should be rewarded a lot more than what they are now. Some incentive should be given to people so they would want to build.

Yeah, I'm not sure how building can be made more fun/rewarding but it's definitely something we should look into.

seana11 wrote:

What if stage was determined by creep/power extent? (So the idea is to build as many repeaters as spread out as possible). This would be very anti-camp, though it might be hard to achive.

This has been brought up (by Sixthly I believe) but I think some people oppose this idea (not sure why, I wasn't there at the time).


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 7:47 am UTC
by ViruS
danmal wrote:

This has been brought up (by Sixthly I believe) but I think some people oppose this idea (not sure why, I wasn't there at the time).

If somepeople don't agree, why don't we have multiple game modes?
I'm sure its possible, its been done to 1.1 qvms in the past.

I wouldn't personally like this mode permanent, because maps like atcs will be bias. Especially when there's more players on one side.


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 12:06 pm UTC
by seana11
danmal wrote:

Yeah, I'm not sure how building can be made more fun/rewarding but it's definitely something we should look into.

This has been brought up (by Sixthly I believe) but I think some people oppose this idea (not sure why, I wasn't there at the time).

The one problem with this is that Aliens would have fresh backups wherever they built eggs, but humans would not. Maybe a new structure instead of the repeater is in store.


Re: Gameplay elements

Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:29 pm UTC
by UniqPhoeniX

In Trem, even GPP, camping is very common, but it stalls the game and thus makes it boring. Various forms of "Anti-camp" have been tried and AFAIK, they all failed, due to misunderstanding the problem. The problem is not that players camp, it's that camping stalls the game. You can't solve it by annoying campers, but by making camping no longer stall the game. They made defending more difficult or more frustrating, but it was still better to have your entire team at or near your base, than anywhere else, and it was still possible to stall the game.

If you want to eliminate camping, provide a significant enough advantage to the team that controls the map to let them easily beat a completely camping team.
The advantages given for map-control should depend on the map / layout, instead of on the number of structures you can fit in some area, like GPP repeaters (5 reps in several default bases and 19 at karith outside...).
I oppose determining anything based purely on the area covered by creep / power. I think the mapper should define how useful each location is, independent of the size of the area. Otherwise everyone will try to go for the largest rooms, reducing variety, and reducing the effectiveness of domination (which is splitting players up or starving them of res). Aliens would also have a good reason to eggspam everywhere. And the total income would depend on the map size.

So let the mapper add domination points (DPs, preferably 8+ total) to potential base locations which give a certain amount of resources to the team that controls them. The amount of resources should be adjustable by the mapper to balance out different locations (i.e. locations that favour humans give more resources to aliens and less to humans, and vice versa) so players wouldn't avoid the less favourable locations, thus making the games more varied.

A team that controls only 1 location can easily be overwhelmed, and a team that controls more than 1 location will have players spread out to several areas (while the other team can focus their attacks on a single location), and thus will also be unable to stall the game. DPs should be placed so as to force a team to defend at least 3 locations before they control half the map. For example on karith if a DP was placed in the usual base locations, a team could end up controlling the path from A default to H default with 4 DPs, and would have to defend only 2 locations, while the other team would have to defend 3-4 for a similar number of DPs (human front entrance and large stairs room are not easy to defend (and shouldn't be)). Instead, each path should contain 3 DPs, with the res from each adjusted to make each location worth considering for both teams.

There is also the issue of starving the other team, thus the resources gained from DPs should allow a team to both advance (stage up or whatever it will be replaced with) and evolve / buy equipment. I'm not suggesting completely removing funds for kills, however they should be reduced somewhat (by 30% ?) to prevent both teams from ending up full of chainsuits/rants/goons due to the extra funds from domination points. This will also make feeding less of a hindrance to your team, making the game slightly more newbie friendly (reducing funds gained from killing free classes would help too).
BP queue can also be replaced (and max bp limit can probably be removed) with a small income of bps over time from each DP a team controls.