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"Different types" of territory maps in RO2?

Snuffeldjuret

Grizzled Veteran
Jul 6, 2010
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Goteborg, Sweden
In ROOST I would say there are two types on territory maps, one type (danzig style with is very common) where the winning condition for one team is to capture all obejctive (or draining the enemy reinf of course) and one type (fallen heroes style which is uncommon) when that is the condition for both teams.

I was wondering if anyone knows how it will be in RO2. Will there be "one side pushes" exclusively as in 100% danzig style, or will there be a mix of danzig style and fallen heroes style? If so, should they both really be called the same as in "Territory mode"? (and not perhaps something like "Push mode" and "Territory mode")
 
Remember that in maps you can often have multiple combinations at the same time. Categorizing those maps would force one to pick one or the other, rather than leave the option for combinations open. In the end it would be fun to see single attack and double attack maps of the same map, but that requires more than just changing the order of cap zones due to balancing.

Meaning that a change in cap order or progression of a map requires a large overhaul. So it would perhaps be better suited to change the progression style when you have a winter and summer version of a map or a day and a night version. So then with some changes you get a map that feels different but can reuse a lot of assets, saving time over a fully new map.

In my opionion a perfect map offers these features:

  • It allows a player to progress through the map, so you have a clear beginning of a map mid game and endgame.
  • It allows for variation in intensity of combat, some bits where epic clashes happen and some bits where you have loads of room to manoeuvre. (if you have too much action all the time it will just wear you out, without a good bit of relaxed game play you cannot enjoy it once chaos happens).
  • It offers places ideal for long range weaponry and places ideal for short range weaponry, rather than trying to make every bit of a map work really well with all weaponry. Needing to rely on your team mates adds another Fun factor in the game.
  • A variation in pace and feeling throughout the map, if a map feels the same in the beginning as it does in the end. It can get somewhat boring to play the same map a few times in a row, while if a map feels different in the beginning than in the end you get less fatigued. (for instance starting to play outside some complex and ending the map by fighting inside the actual complex).
  • Allowing teams to go for multiple cap zones (at least 2) from multiple routes, give the opportunity to surprise the enemy, and make way for the possibility of having a map play slightly different every time. If you have say 2 cap zones free at the beginning rather than one, you can already have diversity in how the team is split up over those cap zones.
  • For variation it can be nice if a team like can select where to spawn out of a few selectable spawn locations (logically set by the mapper depending on what cap zones are active, so the mapper can steer the pacing slightly and keep things balanced)
  • A perfect map should logically be balanced and bug free as well.
 
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Well, either a team can win by capping all objectives or not. That is what divides the ROOST maps by a very simple definition into two different types of maps ^^. No matter if they are called two different things or not, the map maker will have to decide on one of the two types =).

yeah but you can have blends as well, such as first caps both teams can attack then after those first caps 1 team needs to defend.

You can have objectives you need to cap or destroy as well, or objectives you can recap and cannot recap. You have close quarters maps and long range maps. You have linear push maps where one cap is open at the same type and dynamic progression maps with multiple cap zones open. Infantry only maps, Infantry with vehicles, and vehicle only maps.

They are all choices that a mapper has to made, perhaps TWI could add properties so they can be filtered in the server browser. But if mappers are restricted to make maps bound to every speciality by its own gametype then exactly the blended maps that offer more variety won't become a possibility. As 100 possible game types would defeat the purpose of a game type.

One of the key things of Red Orchestra's gametypes is that it allows for loads of different gameplay possibilities. For me personally for instance whether a map is a double attack map or not matters much less than whether a map offers multiple open capzones rather than being a lineair funnel map.
 
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... perhaps TWI could add properties so they can be filtered in the server browser. But if mappers are restricted to make maps bound to every speciality by its own gametype then exactly the blended maps that offer more variety won't become a possibility. As 100 possible game types would defeat the purpose of a game type. ...
A server browser with ablility to filter is really nice to have. One option that could be nice is custom maps/official maps/all maps for instance. But I am not talking about 100 possible game-types here, only the ones that you would like to filter pretty much. Tank maps/combined maps/inf maps. Countdown/territory/firefight. Relaxied realism / realism / specific custom one. Filter server size, and player amount of servers.

Mappers still have to make the one single choice. Shall a team be able to win by anything else but draining all enemy reinf or defending until time runs out. Has the team an offensive way to win or not. No need to write an essay that one could come up with 100 differences between maps :p. Gaming is about winning, so the winnign condition is the important difference between maps.
 
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As usually I guess it comes down to what peopel think and not just you and me Zets :p. In insurgency and RnL people have extremely different opinion on the "attack/defend" maps and "double attack" maps, many loved one and hated the other and vice versa. I would not be surprised if it would be a good idea to be able to filter between those maps as people would logically feel the same for the RO2 maps. I wasn't here early enough to say anything about RO though of course, and the ones we would be most interested in hearing their opinion quit playing long ago =(.

The question is if you can filter between something that is not really visual? Will the maps have tank/comb/inf tags on them so you can filter them? If you want to be able to filter between the "attack/defend" maps and "double attack" maps they would need to have (slightly) different game mode names?

I am talking about this as in my experience people care about this stuff. Even if your experience is different, mine is still true (as well as your's) =).
 
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you can generally filter in the unreal series on map prefixes. Different game modes can simply split the community, which is why I would rather have things as filters.

For instance for maps I've always wanted that you can see if a server runs infantry focussed or tank focussed maps. And it would be nice to see if a server runs long range maps or cqc maps. It would be nice to see if a server runs double attack or defence maps. It would be nice to see if a map got objectives to blow up or objectives to cap. It would be nice to see if maps got a lineair or dynamic cap load out.

Filters are nice to have especially as if you like a certain style that you could find a server that runs that style 24/7. But making something a game type forces people to pick one over the other and really separates maps.

Maps can be divided in loads of categories, but I do not want to pick between 20 different game types and then remember whether it was a countdown, territory or fire fight basis.

I think with filters giving maps within countdown subclasses you can sort them on would make a lot more sense.
 
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I am talking about categorize them on how you win them. DE maps in CS you win by blowing up the bomb. CS maps you win by capturing the hostages. Lol I dont remember the one for bringing home the VIP. Dont you get what I mean zets? It is about the winning condition that separates the maps, and that choice the mapper has to do anyway, so your argument is invalid.
 
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I am talking about categorize them on how you win them. DE maps in CS you win by blowing up the bomb. CS maps you win by capturing the hostages. Lol I dont remember the one for bringing home the VIP. Dont you get what I mean zets? It is about the winning condition that separates the maps, and that choice the mapper has to do anyway, so your argument is invalid.

Its the game type that separates the maps and is generally used as prefix. Different winning conditions and game play could be made separate game types but as I've said Red Orchestra got many things that differentiate maps and with that automatically how a map is won.
 
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Different winning conditions is usually what puts maps into different game-types in other games. In other games maps are different too, even if they are of the same type.

One key thing in having some info in the map name is that people will have it easier to learn which map is which, becuase all players in RO2 will not have 8000+ posts in the forum and know every corner of every map and what their names are.
 
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Well the thing is I would like to see things similar to in killing floor small icons, next to a servers name. Showcasing what sort of server it is. Which could include a specific map type icon. Allowing people to filter for certain maps.

The key point for me is simply there are too many distinctions between maps that affect the winning conditions. I've named a lot of them, and they directly affect how a map is played.

The distinction between Infantry or Vehicle focussed for me is far more important than a single or double attack map. The same with capping objectives out of a free pool or forcefully capping in a specified order.

Game-types generally describe how things are grouped together. Territory is capturing objectives with re-spawns, countdown is capturing objectives without respawn. You can go a lot more specified than that, and that could be nice for filters, but there is no reason to make a single game type become 10 game types.

Generally people never look at map names and still don't know what a map is. The best way to let people familiarize with a map is show information when you highlight a certain map, when you load a map, and when you look on your overhead map. Allow maps to be filtered and grouped on certain specifications but every specification shouldn't end up being its own game type.
 
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It's hard to agree with you when you write a few wierd things :p.

A winning conditions are like "kill all enemies", and there are not many of them.

WC for attackers in RO:
Kill alla enemies + their reinf pool
Cap what you need to cap to win

WC for defenders
Kill alla enemies + their reinf pool
Stop attackers from a "cap victory" until time runs out

WC for both teams in double-attack style
Kill alla enemies + their reinf pool
Cap what you need to cap to win
Have most objectives captured when time runs out

Nothing effects the winning conditions, it is the winning conditions that effect stuff. You could not name a single thing that effect them... (maybe this is an issue of knowledge in English and not different opinion? lol dunno why I have called it winning conditions when it should be victory conditions.)

It is not good to take RO as an example for game modes, as I am questioning that style. If I take INS as an example, then there is 3 (or 4) different types but you would call them all territory. You see the problem we have here? People were fond of the different game mode names for the maps in INS, and you would have wanted them to be all "territory" which would have been a problem in INS.

People look at map names a lot, don't say they don't. It is the map name that is displayed everywhere, for instance in map votes. There is never just one way of doing something Zets, just because something else might be better does not say that everything else is useless.
 
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the thing is that there are bigger split offs.

You have countdown 1 life objective gametype.
You have territory respawn objective gametype.
And finally you have a gametype with no objectives.

These are clear definitions and boundaries, if you divide both countdown and territory up in multiple sections then then what gametypes are countdown or territory regarding reinforcements becomes vague. Which is why I say its better to do those things as a sub options within a base gametype as filterable options, rather than making it a whole separate gametype.

And if things get split up in gametypes then I think there are some other differences that have a much bigger effect on the gameplay that should relatively get their own gametype first. In general game types mean splitting up maps, in general a server could easily host all territory gametypes and they all work well together, but countdown is for a completely different crowd. The same in a way is vehicles, infantry or vehicle based combat is vastly different.
 
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I am not suggesting "divide both countdown and territory up in multiple sections", I am suggesting dividing territory up in two. I don't say I know what is best (as you do?), I just say that I could imagine it being a good thing.

The thing is that you have your experience and I have mine. Again, your experience can be true as well as mine so they cannot really exclude eachother. RO2 is a new game and will not work exactly as RO1, so we cannot take everything for granted in RO2 that we think we know for RO1. And I mean more like how the community and players work and think, not the actual game itself. This is an issue of how people feel and react.

Obviously the nr 1 thing to categorize is tank/comb/inf, but I don't think they should make a difference when it comes into game modes. Game modes inform players what the game mode is, is it shoot em all, defend, attack, survive or what is it? Not what the map features are. Game modes depend on victory conditions in other games and it might be a good idea to have it the same in RO, that is all I'm saying.

At least we agree fully on displaying the most important information in the server list, and datailed information about the map while loading it.
 
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I could turn the question around as well.

Why not separate the current game modes up in sub game types, why do they all need to be individual game types that add up to splitting the player base of the basic game type over 2.

I simply see no reason with splitting communities that aren't necessarily split. Currently every game type features every map, and every game type hosts game play to a different community.

And as I said before a map being double attack or not is not something that seemed to be something people liked or hated in the past. People care much more if they play a long range map or cqc map. Or that they play on an infantry focussed server or on a vehicle focussed server.

A game mode should describe and group together certain playing modes that feel similar so players can pick similar experiences and flavours. And the biggest distinctions to make so far are whether its team-based and single life game play or not. Those are massive changes relative to each other. So to play a different game type people generally do not mind if they have to switch server.

With single attack maps or double attack maps generally people want to be able to play both types of maps. And loads of other types of maps. The only way it could work as a separate game type would be if every map would be offered in 2 styles. Otherwise it remains a specific map property on a per map basis. But personally I would then rather see it as a sub game type so for instance the summer version of a map can be single attack and the winter version can be double attack.

Which is why I could in that case only see it work as a form of sub gametype together with other aspects.

As there are Tank only servers, Infantry only servers, CQC only servers, Fun servers, bolt only servers. It makes more sense to have separate game types and server settings focussed specifically towards those groups, than forcefully split up a group that perfectly plays together.

I do not want to play either double attack maps or single attack maps on a server, or having to vote to switch game type.
 
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I didn't turn any question ^^.

Nothing will split any community if in reality there will be no difference, just look different. People are obsessed with the concept of a "split community". If some people want to play 5o5n and some want to play 8on8. The community is not split beucase it is possible to play 5on5 or not, it is already split as that is what people want to do in the first place.

Again, you zets have your experience and I have mine. You cannot prove that my experience is false by arguing why your experience is true. So stop it. I think it is the 3rd time I'm saying it now :p.

But yea, dividing attack/defend and attack/attack makes less sense if these two cannot/wont be played on all maps. Voting will be easier though if one map is either attack/defend or attack/attack.

I know you don't want that Zets, but to be honest I could not care less. I actually don't care what I want either. I only care about what the huge group of other people want.

(P.S you have yet to bring in other games to back up what you are claiming)
 
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