Gametype within a gametype or hybrid matches

[HenrikRyosa]

This thread is meant to be a discussion of ways to play, within a single "match" on a specific map, not just one gametype, but two or more.

It has evolved a bit in my mind since I first posted, so here is the way I envision it now:

-Marathon matches (See post #5)

Originally I thought of it more like this:

DM is for example a component of CTF, ONS and so on, or it might be more accurate to say TDM is, but we don't really get rewarded for which team has the higher number of frags when playing CTF or ONS.

So one possibility is that a team could be required to have most flag caps AND most DM points, for a "total victory" and otherwise both teams come away with points. This also gives newer players some sort of positive takeaway which keeps them motivated to play. They will never get fully rewarded for just randomly going around and fragging, so it's hard to argue that it encourages that sort of behavior unless they have no hope of a total victory anyway... which sometimes certainly ends up being the case. It keeps them in it to the end, rather than the winning team winning against 2 players and a bunch of ragequitters long gone. We all know how boring that is.

Other possibilities:

-Something like a game of domination within a game of ONS, with the same result. Draining enemy core, counts as win but enemy team holds control point for more resources longest. Still somehow manages to lose game but comes away with a point, half win, tie, whatever you want to call it.

[GhostPepper]

I do not think this has been posted before. Personally I probably would'nt play this much if it did exist. That's not to say it does'nt have crazy potential. What you are talking about is a ranking system to implement teams when an actual physical crossover would be... more interesting. If you had a series of launch pads at your base that sent you to your opponents' in CTF BUT had a very long stretch of land in between you for invasion. That would be fun. You would have to try to manage your own horde while having to place the right amount of people in the right places while fighting off/invading your opponent and potentially helping the horde that is attacking them.

[GhostPepper]

Sorry misread that a bit. Sounds good, fun and original. REALLY like the DOM X ONS idea

[Sir_Brizz]

What would be the point of hybridizing gametypes instead of just creating a new gametype with different scoring/rules? At first blush, one of the big problems with this idea is making sure that the hybrid gametype was balanced properly and that win conditions were easy to understand and know. A separate gametype would make it easier/possible to set the details of the gametype just so to highlight the goals.

That being said, ONS/WAR is already essentially a DOM gametype with additional rules.

[HenrikRyosa]

What would be the point of hybridizing gametypes instead of just creating a new gametype with different scoring/rules? At first blush, one of the big problems with this idea is making sure that the hybrid gametype was balanced properly and that win conditions were easy to understand and know. A separate gametype would make it easier/possible to set the details of the gametype just so to highlight the goals.

That being said, ONS/WAR is already essentially a DOM gametype with additional rules.

It depends on what the gametypes being balanced are, and yes you are correct about ONS-DOM ( Onsdom? :P ) but that is also potentially what makes it work hybridized, to find some way to potentially reward the losing team to keep them in it at least, when the gametypes already fit together, which is the case with both my CTF-TDM example as well as ONS-DOM.

To me, that actually has enough potential to incorporate into default CTF and default ONS when that eventually comes and not go to the extent of actually calling them hybrid gametypes, which changes my original thought process in posting this thread somewhat.

But that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't other ways of doing hybrid that could be fun. Perhaps gametypes could be played marathon style within a single map, for example. And maybe the outcome of the preceding game can influence what is played next. First the teams battle to cap the flags, if team A wins it goes to their gametype vote, if team B wins it goes to their gametype vote. Or it simply proceeds CTF>DM>GREED (BEST OF 3) and then whoever won most of those is declared grand winner.

In fact that is even more of a tournament than UT already is, if you think about it.

[MonsOlympus]

Didnt Warfare try to do this by incorporating the orb? I certainly understand where youre going with this to try and allow more varied gameplay but a large issue is that the game largely revolves around frags and captures, if there were other objectives it might take from either of those as with the deployables in UT3 which didnt work out so well.

I think the idea of a series of matches is more interesting than trying to hybridize types together unless ofcoarse its a natural evolution and one gametype consumes another one to become better. I must say though that I like the idea that doing other things to help your team might reward not only you but your team points in some manner, I think UT does suffer abit from being too centered around small Ints and not larger numbers, if you had to get to 600 points for instance, caps were worth 150 each but it depends if it was a clean cap, if the enemy team had your flag it could be worth 100 instead especially if carry the flag rules were adopted or in BR which could have its field goals vs touch down type system in place still.

[HenrikRyosa]

In warfare controlling the orb was purely to win a match (which it didn't really do anyway half the time), it didn't offer any secondary incentive per se like getting a half point out of the game or something like that.

But I also think the series variation of the idea may be the best and it goes along with my general desire to see maps become more versatile for different gametypes, so long as they fit.

[Wail]

Didnt Warfare try to do this by incorporating the orb?

Basically this. Warfare was Onslaught with pieces of other gametypes incorporated in. The orb is a carry-objective element, and there were also what might be considered other AS-like bits sprinkled in with some of the map-specific objectives.

I love this kind of stuff but my experience interacting with other players is that this is often extremely confusing to them. I think that if you get people hooked enough you might be able to get them to stick around long enough to begin to understand subobjectives, but the reality is this flopped hard in UT3 and it makes me wary of ideas in that same vein.

[HenrikRyosa]

the reality is this flopped hard in UT3 and it makes me wary of ideas in that same vein.

Ok, look at the series variant then, as that is vastly different. Same map played 3 times in a row but in different gametypes. Goal is clear each round, the announcer can say it with a message on the screen:

Round 1: Capture the enemy flag! In 3... 2... 1...

Blue team wins Round 1!

Round 2: First team to collect 50 points in skulls wins. In 3... 2... 1...

Red team wins Round 2!

Round 3: Team which controls the base longest out of 10 minutes wins! In 3... 2... 1...

Blue team wins Round 3!

Blue team are the champions!

[MonsOlympus]

When you consider that a short match in a game like Battlefield can take 20 mins and people will play 4 maps or more quite often its worth exploring making an experience that lasts longer for UT. One of my personal dislikes for Warfare is that it didnt fix the rush mentality of Onslaught any, it was still rush rush, cap this, rush rush, blow this up, which is great if youre in the mood for that type of thing but when you compare Onslaught/Warfare to Conquest mode in BF it really becomes apparent what UT is lacking and its not slowing the player down its just making each control point more heavily contested and harder to lock out enemy comebacks. Domination is superior to Onslaught in that respect and Siege is also superior in the fact it lets you build similar to TF2, so I do believe there is room for Onslaught to improve and head along a more RTS route.

You could have Assault maps with varying objectives, side objectives and the like, if the map wernt played out the same way each time. If you look at TF2's Hydro map it had quite a big campaign which teams battled back and forward opening new routes. I think the biggest issue with Onslaught was the lack of dual linked nodes, it was all 1:1 and linear so it didnt allow for any real smart flanking plays without going out into the middle of no where away from your spawn routes. Thats not really something a newer player would even attempt.

In Onslaught in particular you could award points based on the amount of core health you have remaining so its possible after a set of 3 matches to see who the real winner is. Say the core health is 1000, team 1 wins the first round with 499 points, the second round they win with 480 but the third round they lose and team 2 has all 1000 points still, so a flawless victory for that one round. In total that gives team 1 979 points vs team 2's 1000 points and overall victory.