Assault [BP]

[cafe]

While coming home from the event I was thinking about assault and how it fits in/what would constitute its overall appeal. I hear a lot of people talk about launching as if it completely breaks the game. I pointed out how terrible and linear assault is without launching and that's when conx5 chimed in to say that assault at high levels is essentially competitive map breaking/exploiting.

Now a negative person might assume that's a bad thing, but I started to think about how massive the speed run community is and how interesting people find it to watch people exploit the **** out of games in crazy ways they never would have found on their own. Nothing out there right now captures that kind of gameplay experience in an online competitive game. Maybe billing assault as that would shine a new and exciting light on the gametype.

[MacD11]

I like the progress thats being made with this, though may I ask if vehicle support, when they are added into UT4, could be added in the future? Even if some of the assault maps in 2k4 werent that great (I still believe Convoy and Glacier were great fun though), I always felt that there was alot of potential with vehicles in assault depending on the maps they are used on. I think it would be cool to explore potentially adding them into the gamemode in the future, disregarding maps like junkyard. I think it would be alot of fun to experiment with.

EDIT:

I'm aware this is likely an unpopular opinion.

[Urgamanix]

Hi MacD, I'm fully aligning to Epic's game philosophy and direction - if they add vehicles, all it takes is a map maker to create an Assault map with vehicles and done . There's certainly room for maps with both vehicles and no vehicles. Our current map makers are more familiar with UT99 maps but we are planning on including a few of the better 2k4 maps in the future (if any map makers want to step up on this, find me at #ut.assault!)

[smant]

While coming home from the event I was thinking about assault and how it fits in/what would constitute its overall appeal. I hear a lot of people talk about launching as if it completely breaks the game. I pointed out how terrible and linear assault is without launching and that's when conx5 chimed in to say that assault at high levels is essentially competitive map breaking/exploiting.

Now a negative person might assume that's a bad thing, but I started to think about how massive the speed run community is and how interesting people find it to watch people exploit the **** out of games in crazy ways they never would have found on their own. Nothing out there right now captures that kind of gameplay experience in an online competitive game. Maybe billing assault as that would shine a new and exciting light on the gametype.

Hi friendo, congrats again on being a true champion.

You've been playing a lot of Assault lately and are one of a dozen CTF players transitioning to Assault, and are beginning to grasp a lot of the fun. I'm not sure I agree with conx5. You use map elements to your advantage, just as with CTF, but launching has nothing to do with exploiting (it was included in the original UT intentionally), not with map breaking. It is about using teamwork to navigate the map most efficiently. Defenders are responsible for making the other team's speedrun as inefficient as possible. I do like your analogy of Assault as a team speedrun with moving gun-wielding obstacles. It makes people start thinking on another level and being creative.

It's tough to win without a bag full of tricks

[smant]

I'm aware this is likely an unpopular opinion.

Your honesty is appreciated

If you feel this way you should get involved. We can get some maps going with vehicles in them which experiment. We have a great opportunity to experiment and really do things right, and if we create a vehicle assault map that wins over a large portion of the community let's make it happen. Even if a map is popular only within a single small portion that's worth it too and gives those folks an option to play and have fun.

[e1vp]

What about map Siege and first Golgotha?

[Thiago_dFB]

Hello, sorry for the sloppy comment from yesterday, I was acting kinda stupid because I didn't want to start a discussion, but seeing how nice you guys are, I'll be happy to share my thoughts from now on.

As I told Smant yesterday, when I see this Assault project and everything in UT4, I try to bring forth the PoV of an outside player, that plays mostly modern competitive games, and the most basic thing I know of them is that it's way too easy for them to complain that something in the game is "broken" or "unbalanced", and the Launching mechanic gave me these first impressions. I suggested him that we could make such mechanic sound more like it was canon, promote the Good Bad Bug to an Ascended Glitch.

I believe I'm not the only one who thought Epic was brave/insane enough to bring back UT last year when there's a ton of factors against it. I'll repeat what I told Smant: it's the age of Dota 2, Lol, CSGO, Halo. Arena-FPS is already considered old and busted by today's standards. That's why I defended Epic for "playing safe" with the mechanics to be included, if they want this new game to survive, they have to make those kind of decisions/sacrifices to appeal to a larger public and prevail or least survive among the Colossi of today.

And I'm really sorry for the "UT99 Assault forced into UT4", forget I said that. Instead I'm gonna say I think this Assault isn't "UT4 enough". My mind was blown away when they decided to change CTF, that was set in stone since 1999. It's a revolution of paradigms, and I think it's something all gametypes should follow. I'd go as far as say the iteration of Assault to become the official Assault for UT4 hasn't even been idealized yet.

[Urgamanix]

Hello, sorry for the sloppy comment from yesterday, I was acting kinda stupid because I didn't want to start a discussion, but seeing how nice you guys are, I'll be happy to share my thoughts from now on.


As I told Smant yesterday, when I see this Assault project and everything in UT4, I try to bring forth the PoV of an outside player, that plays mostly modern competitive games, and the most basic thing I know of them is that it's way too easy for them to complain that something in the game is "broken" or "unbalanced", and the Launching mechanic gave me these first impressions. I suggested him that we could make such mechanic sound more like it was canon, promote the Good Bad Bug to an Ascended Glitch.


I believe I'm not the only one who thought Epic was brave/insane enough to bring back UT last year when there's a ton of factors against it. I'll repeat what I told Smant: it's the age of Dota 2, Lol, CSGO, Halo. Arena-FPS is already considered old and busted by today's standards. That's why I defended Epic for "playing safe" with the mechanics to be included, if they want this new game to survive, they have to make those kind of decisions/sacrifices to appeal to a larger public and prevail or least survive among the Colossi of today.


And I'm really sorry for the "UT99 Assault forced into UT4", forget I said that. Instead I'm gonna say I think this Assault isn't "UT4 enough". My mind was blown away when they decided to change CTF, that was set in stone since 1999. It's a revolution of paradigms, and I think it's something all gametypes should follow. I'd go as far as say the iteration of Assault to become the official Assault for UT4 hasn't even been idealized yet.

Hi Prime, appreciate the comments. Could it be that perhaps you're focusing too much on purely the fact that the gameplay hasn't changed a lot from ut99 to ut4, rather than whether something needed to change? You mention that Epic have changed up CTF but they haven't really changed it up at all (unless I'm mistaken) - the core gameplay has never changed. Neither has DM or TDM. There's little point comparing it to other objective-based shooters (of which there are many) because simply it doesn't compare - all other games are more "advanced" in this type of gameplay.


But that's the point. For me in developing AS, I had one main goal in mind - that this is still an arena shooter. The objectives are actually almost secondary to the actual gameplay - constant in-your-face action, a continuous tug-of-war between two lines of players. I wanted to make sure that with little downtime you were back into the action, and trust me - people from inside and outside the community have been playing pugs every two days and the action is intense (you should have seen the last AS-Riverbed we played). It was fun and enjoyable.


Anyone that is still banging on about launching being "overpowered" or "an exploit" or "a glitch" is talking about a game 15 years ago, and only in certain contexts. The conversation goes like this:


You say: Hey, launching wasn't intended! It allows you to skip past players and cover large heights or distances with ease.
I say: The translocator allows you to do exactly the same thing.
You say: but the translocator is a core mechanic of CTF!
I say: and launching is a core mechanic of AS


I hope you've had a chance to play on a pug or FFA because right now even the craziest boosting doesn't get players far. Here's why I believe launching is fine:
1. The AS maps are designed to provide launching as a strategy;
2. The currently way I've implemented launching isn't very strong (slightly further than a solo hammer);
3. Epic have nerfed the hammer charge time to something like 3-4 seconds which makes the launcher extremely vunerable and launching a greater risk vs. reward;
4. The launcher has to stand perfectly still while setting up a launch;
5. It removes a player completely out of the attacking push;
6. There are only certain places launches can be effective that anyone who has played a map a few times quickly realises and can defend against.


I've had a few people tell me that "ooh, launching, not good. It was a glitch back then" - to which point I ask them if they have played UT4 Assault and they admitted they hadn't. I think its time for people to stop repeating what others may say and play it. We've already had a lot of CTF players playing with us and enjoying it.

Have you played UT4 Assault yet, and if so what would you to make it "more UT4"? This was the comment that concerns me because I've developed it with an extreme in-line to Epic's gameplay and direction (I even had to build that **** scoreboard from scratch!)

[Urgamanix]

What about map Siege and first Golgotha?

Working on it

[Thiago_dFB]

Hi Prime, appreciate the comments. Could it be that perhaps you're focusing too much on purely the fact that the gameplay hasn't changed a lot from ut99 to ut4, rather than whether something needed to change? You mention that Epic have changed up CTF but they haven't really changed it up at all (unless I'm mistaken) - the core gameplay has never changed. Neither has DM or TDM. There's little point comparing it to other objective-based shooters (of which there are many) because simply it doesn't compare - all other games are more "advanced" in this type of gameplay.

What I meant with CTF is that after years without ever changing, now we have half-time and a special focus on asymmetric maps, in addition to an increased incentive to create more interactive maps not only in CTF but in DM/TDM too (Overlord, Cannon)

Anyone that is still banging on about launching being "overpowered" or "an exploit" or "a glitch" is talking about a game 15 years ago, and only in certain contexts. The conversation goes like this:

You say: Hey, launching wasn't intended! It allows you to skip past players and cover large heights or distances with ease.
I say: The translocator allows you to do exactly the same thing.
You say: but the translocator is a core mechanic of CTF!
I say: and launching is a core mechanic of AS

I hope you've had a chance to play on a pug or FFA because right now even the craziest boosting doesn't get players far. Here's why I believe launching is fine:
1. The AS maps are designed to provide launching as a strategy;
2. The currently way I've implemented launching isn't very strong (slightly further than a solo hammer);
3. Epic have nerfed the hammer charge time to something like 3-4 seconds which makes the launcher extremely vunerable and launching a greater risk vs. reward;
4. The launcher has to stand perfectly still while setting up a launch;
5. It removes a player completely out of the attacking push;
6. There are only certain places launches can be effective that anyone who has played a map a few times quickly realises and can defend against.

I've had a few people tell me that "ooh, launching, not good. It was a glitch back then" - to which point I ask them if they have played UT4 Assault and they admitted they hadn't. I think its time for people to stop repeating what others may say and play it. We've already had a lot of CTF players playing with us and enjoying it.

Read again what I said about launching. I'm not saying it's not allowed to exist because it was an exploit back then, I'm saying that in UT4 it still looks like it's broken, a glitch rather than a lore-compatible feature. There's what I suggested when talking to Smant:
-The Hammer has a "Safe Launch Mode", that is activated when the launcher has a teammate in front of him, and the Hammer is fully charged.
-The direction of the launch is easier to be chosen, as it's basically where the launcher is aiming
-The SLM has a limited number of uses, that slowly recharge over time (even though it'll probably just incentive suicide)
-The launched player can use a Ping key that marks their destination, and any teammate closeby with the Hammer in hand that isn't obstructed by a wall can see the player highlighted and linked to their destination
-It could still be a thing in CTF or even TDM

If something like this was added, then it'd be easier for the launching mechanic to count as official.

Have you played UT4 Assault yet, and if so what would you to make it "more UT4"? This was the comment that concerns me because I've developed it with an extreme in-line to Epic's gameplay and direction (I even had to build that **** scoreboard from scratch!)

I want to, but I always find the only servers that host it empty, and I always get 250~300 ping in it.

[iBamzz]

The first tutorial for assault, showing the basic route on the map AS-Ballistic.
Constructive feedback are welcome!

You Tube link for 60fps and 1080p: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JEzcE0KOKQ

[fatJeff]

Ever wondered how the best assault clans play teambased Assault?
Interested in the secrets of the Assault gametype?

Than see the basics of launching and tricks in this "Advanced Assault Video":


updated video:

[Urgamanix]

Hi all,

I'm currently looking for someone who can do video intros, outros etc. - if you are adept at creating these, or know someone who can, please send me a PM, along with any examples you have available. Thanks!

[Urgamanix]

Here's the latest update video!

[FrostbyteGR]

Incredible, congrats mate!