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Intermediate game type adoption for territory

Zetsumei

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Nov 22, 2005
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The idea is simple and makes use of some properties available in countdown and territory.

- In countdown after obtaining a key objective the commander gets the option to let the entire team respawn. Together with that limited life game play adds a lot of tension which makes it exciting.

- Unlike in countdown, territory offers the ability to have multiple cap zones that can be attacked simultaneously, and management of friendly and enemy reinforcement inflows. And when you transfer from one cap zone to the next, the living people stay alive.

Combining the two can give a nice game type that offers various forms of game play.

So basically you end up with a territory map, where the attacking team got for instance 15 team re-spawns and the defending team 10 team re-spawns. And in both sides you let the commander decide when to utilize those spawns. (1 team respawn, brings back every dead player in a team).

While there is a difficulty with public play, as the commander could be a bastard and never let people respawn (although TWI said to have a good selection system). It could add a nice amount of fun and depth to the game especially in competitive play.


- You never know when you will respawn, spawns could be limited giving the tension of countdown.
- You need to decide how to split your team over multiple cap zones like in territory.
- Due to the squad leader being able to respawn his team, it gives the need to manage friendly and opponent reinforcement flows.
- It gives the power to the commander, to manage how many reinforcements are used in what section of the map, giving tighter control over the battlefield. And makes sure that with low reinf the team wont run out in the first 5 minutes.
- Unlike countdown you do not respawn if you're still alive after capping something and going to the next objective.
- It allows the mapper to give the attacking team different reinforcements over the defensive team, making balancing easier.
- In the campaign mode commander got a bigger influence on the outcome of a battle, actually adding a bigger active layer of macro management to the game.
- You will probably always spawn together with a group of people, where as it is not uncommon in competitive matches to spawn alone.


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I don't know if something like this would be a lot of work to create, but it could end up being a lot of fun. Combining somewhat the strengths of both game modes.
 
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I like this idea.

It may also work if there were a number of destroyable objectives around the map and the aim was to destroy as many as possible before the time / respawn waves ran out. Each objective would get progressively harder to attack as each one would have more defenders per objective protecting it. Kinda like an enhanced search and destroy as discussed in the modding area.

Would certainly be worth trying it out with a mod to see how it played in reality.
 
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Reise and Tank can you explain to me what you guys are talking about exactly :eek:, Ill put my assumed comment below.

@ Reise. In countdown the entire team spawns together, heck in countdown the entire team gets automatically killed and re-spawned after you cap something. This suggestion is for combining some advantages of countdown and territory while removing some of the disadvantages of the individual game types. In a way its a variation of territory but with slightly more limited respawns.

@ Tiger where did anyone say something about not allowing people to re-spawn? This was about an optional game mode where a team can re-spawn a total of X times, where the commander chooses when that moment is. As if you would simply reduce the total reinforcement pool in territory the entire team would run out of reinforcements in 5 minutes.
 
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Well I wouldn't exactly say they're "killed" and then respawn, but yeah.

I was in the process of writing why I think this is too confusing, but I ended up realizing I still don't quite understand.

Will there still be a reinforcement timer? If not:

Why wouldn't the defenders want constant reinforcements? It makes sense for them to wait in Countdown for the sake of map flow, but here there's the potential for much of the map to be open at once for attack.

If the defenders start to take losses, they're going to want to step their efforts and keep a steady flow of people moving in to stop whatever is pushing through. In a map with multiple objectives this is absolutely necessary or else they will be taken as soon as there's a slight shift in power.
 
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Well I wouldn't exactly say they're "killed" and then respawn, but yeah.

I was in the process of writing why I think this is too confusing, but I ended up realizing I still don't quite understand.

Will there still be a reinforcement timer? If not:

Why wouldn't the defenders want constant reinforcements? It makes sense for them to wait in Countdown for the sake of map flow, but here there's the potential for much of the map to be open at once for attack.

If the defenders start to take losses, they're going to want to step their efforts and keep a steady flow of people moving in to stop whatever is pushing through. In a map with multiple objectives this is absolutely necessary or else they will be taken as soon as there's a slight shift in power.

Of course the defenders want constant reinforcements, the attackers do as well. The key here is that the total reinforcements are limited, meaning that if you continuously respawn you run out of reinforcements. It's a trade off, do you use reinforcements now to be more certain of holding the defensive position now, or do you save so you have more later on (for instance it can be better to fight heavier on capzone A than capzone B).

Some times falling back can be more advantages than holding a certain position if holding that position chews through your reinforcements. If you think that 3 guys can defend for a while, then you save on team respawns that you can use later.

Will there be a reinforcement timer? Well personally I don't see why it would be necessarily. The key is here that the commander got input on when the team spawns. So if he just hammers his respawn command, the team will run out of their reinforcements (even if nobody would be spawned).

If the defenders think that at a certain point its better to respawn their team like when nearly at the loss of a cap zone then they can decide to do so. However in the process they might loose a lot of lives depleting the teams spawn amount.


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Let me write down the suggestion again.

You take a territory map - so take in your mind for instance any of Roost maps as those are territory map.

Now you take away the default spawn timer and spawning, and instead give a certain player the ability, to choose when all dead players respawn. (aka he can do it once 1 person is dead or wait till the entire team is dead etc).

Finally give every team a maximal amount of re-spawns the squad leader can utilize during the length of the entire round. So someone needs to think wisely when to respawn the team, to not run out of reinforcements, while not allowing the enemy to push up too easily.

(a team could go aggressive from the get go, or try to save up reinforcements and in the end of the game do a big push).

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The weak link in this suggestion is obviously that one person controls the ability for a team to spawn or to not spawn. Which is why it might not be a good game mode for public play (unless somehow something is in place that ensures that the commander is someone capable).

But for competitive play, it allows to bring more of a focus on reinforcements in territory. and brings forth another tactical element to the game. Which is why it could be a nice optional mode for territory.


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So once again.

You take regular territory maps.

Every team got a total of X re-spawns, and rather than re-spawning people every 20 seconds, they only respawn when a commander or squad leader presses the respawn button.
 
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Only "real" problem I can think of is the tactically right thing to do might be ramboing. It might be a good idea for the remaining guys alive to go on dangerous missions right before commander calls for reinf. If they die, not that much harm done as they instantly respawn. If they suceed, well then that is just splendid!

Right before commander clicks the team spawn button, will be a similar situation as in the default territory situation, as there you can respawn every ~20 seconds by default.

If people know they can respawn in a short while, they might be a little less careful and try a shot at a mg or something, but you should remember that dying is still disadvantageous.

If you die you need to get back to the battlefield from wherever you spawn. And wherever you were at the moment when you died is no free for the enemy to advance in. If an entire team is wiped out for a split second that generally means that the opponent just gained a free cap zone.

If you Rambo as attacker and fail, or Rambo as Defender and fail it is likely the opponent will push up putting you in a worse situation. If the opponent sees the enemy is temporarily going Rambo, they know they will respawn soon, and that now would be a good time to counter ;).

In regular Roost the only reason that caused people to really go out and get themselves killed by playing like Rambo was when dying was actually advantageous, when for instance walking to the cap from your current position took longer than dying and walking form the spawn.

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There are a lot of tactical options that people can try out. With this suggestion, and that includes various levels of aggression or rambo ness. The fun thing is that the tactics of the game can go a lot deeper.
 
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I know zets, you are not the only one in the world who have engaged in competitive gaming in a continues reinforcement based game ;).

The point is simple, there are times it is better to die and some times that is worse. It is not that hard to put yourself in a position where it is a good choice to risk your life as respawn is instant if you die.
 
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I know zets, you are not the only one in the world who have engaged in competitive gaming in a continues reinforcement based game ;).

Nor am I implying such. I used my comparison exactly so people in here can relate to it. If my understanding was that nobody was experienced with continues reinforcements, then I wouldn't use it as a comparison in the first place. If anything I assumed that pretty much any person that read my text would be experienced with the concept due to having played Roost.

Your post seemed to imply to me that due to re-spawning within a short time frame there would not be any big disadvantage due to dying (as you stated "not that much harm done"). Which led me to post my response, explaining why I think it would be reasonable to assume that you won't be seeing more "ramboing" at those moments than the behaviour you currently see in the regular territory mode.

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The point is simple, there are times it is better to die and some times that is worse. It is not that hard to put yourself in a position where it is a good choice to risk your life as respawn is instant if you die.

Sure there are times when its less troublesome to die, and there are various moments even in regular territory when that is the case as well (irrelevant to the timer). The key question is does that make it likely that "ramboing" will be the tactically right thing to do at that point? To which I said that Ramboing at that moment isn't more tactically right, than it is during a regular round in the default Territory/ Roost game type.
 
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I understand the suggestion, just not the justification for it.

In a competitive sense, these are all things that can be taken care of with written or unwritten rules in whatever league or ladder you're playing in.

In a public play sense, all this gametype would be is a giant headache.

Of course the defenders want constant reinforcements, the attackers do as well. The key here is that the total reinforcements are limited, meaning that if you continuously respawn you run out of reinforcements. It's a trade off, do you use reinforcements now to be more certain of holding the defensive position now, or do you save so you have more later on (for instance it can be better to fight heavier on capzone A than capzone B).

Some times falling back can be more advantages than holding a certain position if holding that position chews through your reinforcements. If you think that 3 guys can defend for a while, then you save on team respawns that you can use later.

If in the end you are deciding whether to devote resources to one specific final objective, why bother having multiple ones available for capture/defense in the first place?

Every time I picture this scenario playing out I always see red flags everywhere. In a multiple cap territory map, you cannot defend everything with only a handful of troops. The only way you can is if you're sure you are getting a constant flow of reinforcements.

This is why once reinforcements stop coming, the game is basically over. Unless it's a rare case where numbers are close.

Squad leaders don't even need the chance to decide whether to "save" reinforcements. Doing so would likely mean a greater chance at losing anyway. Either you spend them now and burn them out at this objective, or save it for later with no other outcome than allowing the attackers to take a different objective basically for free.

Even worse is the fact that the attackers would likely end up with more overall respawns. Defenders would have no choice but to give as much of a fight as they can in the start of a battle, otherwise they would simply lose objectives and ruin the whole purpose of a multiple-objective map.

IMO this is one case where two good things don't necessarily mix together to make an even better thing.
 
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In a league or ladder you do not want any unwritten rules in general, as that leads to various teams getting angry over differences in their moral ideologies. Without a mutator I personally do not see how something like this would be possible.

About your various points.

I doubt anyone would devote all reinforcements to a single objective. Its more likely that one could devote more reinforcements to objective A than objective B. Whether that is saving reinforcements slightly for later cap zones, or when 2 cap zones are active sending more people to one cap zone than the other.

I haven't said anything about the exact reinforcement amount for every map. Ideally the mapper would determine the reinforcement amount but other wise a server Admin could decide on it (if a server Admin decides that means TWI doesn't have to balance test, but instead server admins so the time lost for implementing something like this would be pretty small).

So whether or not there are enough people to defend or attack every zone depends on the available reinforcements on a per map basis.

Both sides won't have continuous reinforcements meaning that both sides have equal chances in that sense. If you can hold a cap with say less people for a little while that allows you to save up on reinforcements. When would be the correct time to respawn would be up to the commander. Pressing the respawn button every X minutes most likely isn't the most ideal method of using it.

Saving reinforcements depends on the commanders preference. There are more than 2 options. Its not only let people respawn or do not let people respawn. It is about letting people respawn when there is only 1 team mate down or letting people respawn when say 3 team mates are down. It depends fully on the situation when you would want to respawn.

Again everything depends on balance if a map favours the defenders geographically. Then the chances are big that the attackers will die much more often (think of Kaukasus for instance). Giving the attackers more reinforcements could make that map balanced.

In territory the defenders have a clock they fight against, a round takes about 20 minutes. This means when defending its about deciding how you will defend certain objectives to defend long enough. Its not always best to keep attacking a zone you are defending if you're making heavy casualties at that location, it can be better to retreat to a better hold out.

Logically if the numbers for reinforcements are picked correctly the map end up unbalanced, if not then perhaps its like a ghost town. The key is finding the right balance. That is both fun but puts a heavier emphasis on staying alive.
 
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While I do like your idea, zet, I am not sure if it works in a good way.

Its not a new idea. I remember playing the HL2 mod Insurgency which had a similar system.
it was called "emergency reinforcments" which the squadleaders can call.

The problem was that if the squadleader died then he could not call these "emergency reinforcments" and the team lost, even if there were reinforcments left. This lead to the tactic that the squadleader played very cowardly and just camped. :rolleyes:

my 2 cents.
 
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Giving too much power to a player is never a good idea for gameplay. Commander would ruin everything.

The commander could indeed ruin everything if he wanted so, which was why I stated in my original post that it wouldn't be a good thing for public play. Unless of course a selection method would exist to always select someone capable enough (systems I personally do not fully believe in), and in case the wrong person was chosen to easily get rid of him.

Which is why this suggestion was more aimed at competitive play/private servers, as there you know who you play with. So that power abuse issues simply will not happen.

While I do like your idea, zet, I am not sure if it works in a good way.

Its not a new idea. I remember playing the HL2 mod Insurgency which had a similar system.
it was called "emergency reinforcments" which the squadleaders can call.

The problem was that if the squadleader died then he could not call these "emergency reinforcments" and the team lost, even if there were reinforcments left. This lead to the tactic that the squadleader played very cowardly and just camped. :rolleyes:

my 2 cents.

I personally Imagined it more as a button someone could utilize at any point even when dead, as otherwise logical issues that you stated can occur (if anything I want the button to be able to be bound to a key so one does not always have to go into the overhead map to press a button).

As if you would force someone to be alive or be at a radio, pretty much one person would as you said be forced to end up waiting at the radio for the duration of the entire match. Which in my opinion is not fun and thus should be evaded like the loader positions in tanks.
 
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Only "real" problem I can think of is the tactically right thing to do might be ramboing. It might be a good idea for the remaining guys alive to go on dangerous missions right before commander calls for reinf. If they die, not that much harm done as they instantly respawn. If they suceed, well then that is just splendid!
I thought I was clear enough Zets so you would't have to write a wall of text :/. Massive walls of text isn't always the best way to get people to understand your thoughts ;).
 
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