Unvanquished Forum

This is a corollary to How long should matches last?: if matches should not last indefinitely, how should they forcibly end? Is an abrupt timelimit okay? Should there be "sudden death" of some kind, and if so, how should it function? Or should the game naturally force an ending over time ("gradual death"), for example by making build points return at an increasingly slower rate?

I do think sudden-death should stay (where you cannot build) at around the 25-30 minute mark.
After 35-40 minutes I think a good idea would be to have a sort of extreme-sudden-death. This would kill all spawns, and players could no longer regain health (from medi, booster or just over time as aliens usually do).

My own opinion is that "normal" gameplay should not incorporate mechanisms for forcing a match to end, but that there should be a form of sudden death with the express purpose of bringing a quick conclusion to a match that can already be considered a stalemate. Meaning: sudden death is strictly an alternative to a timelimit, and not otherwise considered "part of the game" -- everyone can reasonably consider a match that reaches sudden death to be a tie, and sudden death is not considered when balancing gameplay.

This kind of "sudden death" should truly be sudden: I would have all structures destroyed immediately and every player gets, say, 60 seconds to live. If you kill (or help kill) something your timer extends by an amount that corresponds to the funds you would have gotten (for reference, this is the way Gloom handled it and it was widely accepted there).

Thats the way KoRx esd works.
When ESD is reached all spawns explode and the players get free evos/credits. After 30 seconds all structures explode and everyone lose health.
If you attack a enemy you get a bit health.

the problem: humans camp on a sniper position and tyrants rush the ex h base.

Gireen wrote:

the problem: humans camp on a sniper position and tyrants rush the ex h base.

Their fault for not being an Adv Dragoon >.>

One alternative is to reduce the available build points over time, say after 20-25 minutes and continuing over the next 10 minutes or so. If the overmind or reactor is lost, it can be rebuilt so long as there are still build points available.

Buildings must not become unpowered as a result of loss of build points; only through loss of their power source.

I would remove build points all together and use a new system to determine how structures should be built.

I'd prefer a gradual death. Adding a form of sudden death seems out of place and easily exploitable.

I'm personally a fan of some sort of static progress that ensures as long as one team is playing, they can make permanent progress that will lead to a match end within a reasonable timeframe.

I don't like timelimits or sudden death, as they encourage losing teams to stall in hopes of a tie, rather than encouraging creative and strategic play.

Sudden death too drastically changes the game in too sudden a manner and encourages non-action to try and starve the other team out.
Extreme sudden death like KoR servers did is gimmicky and lazy. All of a sudden, you're no longer playing a strategic RTS/FPS, you're playing an elimination ego-shooter. It completely destroys all sense of progress and accomplishment from the match, and essentially makes anything you've worked towards completely useless.

Whales wrote:

I'm personally a fan of some sort of static progress that ensures as long as one team is playing, they can make permanent progress that will lead to a match end within a reasonable timeframe.

I totally agree.

As a RTS hybrid we can use all the fancy anti-SD measures that this genre has. Controlling scarce resources that generate either evos/credits or buildpoints (or even both) would defeat campers, make a stalemate less likely (by 1] having a slippery slope effect and 2] rewarding aggressive playing styles) and add strategic depth to the game.

If we need to force the end of the game from outside (sudden death) then we have a flawed game that isn't capable of producing a winner.