Objective based game modes.

[Echoez]

Okay so far the game's only objective game mode is a King of the Hill one with some variations of it.

I'm not a long time player, but I'd like to give some feedback regarding my personal experience with them at least.

DM is fine I guess, pretty classic. KotH on the other hand felt a bit weird and clunky to me.

1) Why do we have to be under the balloon for the capture timer to start? that's a realy allianating feature compared to other games where being close was enough. Unless I'm crazy and didn't notice it and it's not like that after all.

2) Anyone else thinks it's realy hard to make a comeback on that game mode? At least on the static one, capturing the point is realy awkward and as long as an enemy is close, you are a sitting duck for them to destroy easily, let alone you can't get capture time on it as long as they are close.

3) Personaly, I believe it would be better to make the point a defence objective, so once captured the other team has to destroy it while the team that owns it needs to defend it. Makes capturing it a bit less akward and makes the mode more engaging than just sitting there and capping points.

4) Progressive Attack/Defence game mode anyone?

5) An other thing I had in mind was a 'Single Flag Capture' game mode of sorts, you have a rescourse balloon in the middle of the map, somewhere high. Both teams will have a 'Base' to which they will have to return that balloon to score a point

6) Onslaught-like game mode from UT2004? I could see that work in this game at least somehow.

All in all, I just don't find the objective based game modes appealing enough as is and constant DM is bound to get boring eventually even if blowing up ships is hell fun. Being new I don't realy know what's the development process here nor what the devs are capable off yet so don't jump on me please > ~<

I mean no offence to anyone, just posting some thoughs c:

Cheers~

[Shinkurex]

lol why would we jump on you these are definitely good ideas, and I would love to see some more gameplay variants... but I would like to say that it has been my belief that the CP timer starting when you are below it is to get you or your pilot to maneuver more. In most cases, the CP has clear skies above it, so it would be even harder to root the enemy out (as they wouldn't have any debris to run into)... as for it being tough to take the point back... yes absolutely... In my experience, it takes a well coordinated attack to weed them out... They have the advantage, as they know where you want to go (below the balloon) so they can setup traps and whatnot. this level of coordination is not normal in pub matches, but that goes the same for the enemy team as well (unless you are unfortunate to go up against a clan)... Usually, if you see a ship pulling away from the pack, thats when you want to pounce on them with the full force of your team... once he is dead, ride that momentum to kill the other enemies (easier said than done I know, but when done right, that will probably be your best CP match you've ever played (until the next time))

TL;DR I like the ideas

[Echoez]

lol why would we jump on you these are definitely good ideas, and I would love to see some more gameplay variants... but I would like to say that it has been my belief that the CP timer starting when you are below it is to get you or your pilot to maneuver more. In most cases, the CP has clear skies above it, so it would be even harder to root the enemy out (as they wouldn't have any debris to run into)... as for it being tough to take the point back... yes absolutely... In my experience, it takes a well coordinated attack to weed them out... They have the advantage, as they know where you want to go (below the balloon) so they can setup traps and whatnot. this level of coordination is not normal in pub matches, but that goes the same for the enemy team as well (unless you are unfortunate to go up against a clan)... Usually, if you see a ship pulling away from the pack, thats when you want to pounce on them with the full force of your team... once he is dead, ride that momentum to kill the other enemies (easier said than done I know, but when done right, that will probably be your best CP match you've ever played (until the next time))

TL;DR I like the ideas

Just taking precautions, I know no one here or how people react to stuff, good to see it's a welcoming place c:

Now that you say it, I do understand the bit about the capturing being done from below being good, but even against a not realy coordinated team, they (defenders) still get a massive advantage over the lack of coordination on the enemy team due to them just needing to wait for the others go on the balloon, makes the game mode realy one sided in pubs and kinda kills it, which is why I thought I should adress it here. At least making the objective attackable makes capturing it come naturaly since it's an other target to destroy and makes the defenders think a bit more than just 'Sit here and wait till they walk into the trap' mentality that it currently promotes. It's just too easy to defend compared to attacking it.

And yes more game modes! :3

I'd love to see other suggest more of these here as well other than the KotH being weird thing.

[Phores]

In that case why not lower the balloon? Also very much for game type variants.
Escort a ship and Defend the captain (ship not person) come to mind for current scale. Also "Blind" whilst not an "objective" would be a nice mode, make people unable to view other teams equipment until match start.

FFA would be nice and even opens up other possibilities such as:
Inverse tag: score by spending time as "it", become "it" by killing current one.
Highlander: FFA but gain a buff/full heal on each kill.

Would also love to see some bigger matches (5v5?) which could put in some "capitol" ships which could possibly take more men to crew and give you a chance to implement those large guns that were in design rather than the current small/medium.
Would open up some interesting matches with things like 1 or 2 capitols vs a fleet of regulars or match to get a slow moving capitol across a long map before enemy destroys it etc.

Game modes don't all need to be equal, just fun. A separate ladder matching system for competitive and even games is fine but some that are interesting and fun would be nice.

[GrimWinter]

Good post, I do think the capture point game mode could use some changes.

Though I must say, when you mentioned that capture the flag... I can't help but imagine having designated flag carriers where you use the harpoon to grab the flag/balloon/objective and drag it back to the destination that way.

[Ofiach]

Sky Whale hunts.

[Echoez]

Good post, I do think the capture point game mode could use some changes.

Though I must say, when you mentioned that capture the flag... I can't help but imagine having designated flag carriers where you use the harpoon to grab the flag/balloon/objective and drag it back to the destination that way.

Didn't think of that actually, pretty good idea! Using the harpoon to grab the balloon would be awesome c:

[Ofiach]

Moving capture points, it would turn the game into a Semi escort mission. And would be a blast IMO. Just have a capture point floating between set points randomly.

[Audie Murphy]

You talked about how making control points move around could be like an escort mode...

But how about an actual escort mode? Where each team has a ship that they must protect from the enemy team. You could vary it by making the VIP ship be either a player-crewed combat ship or an AI controlled defenseless civilian ship.

[Ofiach]

I was talking to some people in game about making another ship but we decided with all the slowdown that already occurs in 3 v 3 and 4 v 4 adding an actual ship might be a bad idea. At least with a moving CP it's just a balloon and a light. And apparently it's not that hard to program it to move in a straight line from one "beacon" to another. or to even put a random chance as to what beacon it goes to next.

I really think the only way it could work now is if there was a VIP deathmatch mode, where the only kills that counted were on the VIP. So there are no extra ships and neither team loses a ship because its combat ineffective. A VIP deathmatch mode would also be a fun gametype to play though!

[naufrago]

I had an idea for a new game mode and this seemed like as good a place to put it as any. Don't know if it's been suggested before, but here it is anyway-

So, both teams start with a pool of resources. When you die and respawn, it comes at the cost of those resources. Different ships could cost different amounts of resources to respawn. If you really want to get complicated, you could also make each weapon type have a different resource cost as well.

The goal is to deplete the enemy's resources by killing them til they can no longer respawn. In the case where the resource cost to respawn is greater than the number of resources left, the ship does respawn, but the resource count is moved to zero and their team can no longer respawn. It's to avoid the awkward situation where your team still has resources, but you lose anyway. One team wins when the enemy has no ships on the field and they can't spawn another.

This could be combined with capture points that slowly provide additional resources when captured. You'll still need to kill the enemy til they can't respawn, but that would be pretty awkward with the respawn rule above. So alternatively, you could make it so that you simply can't respawn unless your team has enough resources. It's not awkward when the number is gradually increasing. One team wins when the enemy has no ships on the field and they can't spawn another.

The point of resource costs is to give the devs additional tools for balance. Right now, the Squid isn't very useful in a death match, but what if it were cheap and had cheap weapons? You could afford to make a particular hull or weapon outright better than others if you give it a higher resource cost.

If it's at all possible, you could also allow the captains to choose a new ship and loadout every time they die. Could make more strategic use of resources that way.

EDIT: Just rearranged 4th and 5th paragraphs. Also, if you think this is too off-topic, you can separate it into its own topic.

EDIT 2: You could also choose to make better/worse tiers of engines, hull, armor, or balloons if you give them higher/lower resource costs. Obviously that would require a lot more extra work, but the gamemode makes it a possibility for future updates. Could come with unwanted extra complexity, so up to you to decide what to do with this idea.