Our members have seen this, and the Aerodrome participants have seen this. Now I'm bringing it to the rest of you as talk about doing a VIP event is rising.
The ideas for Red Skies sprang from the Aerodrome event's scorekeeper system. All of these ideas for a VIP event are early stage and in need of input & refinement. Yes there will be problems, yes there will be reasons to disagree.
I want to be sure it is known that this event is only in concept form. Whether it happens or not, I dunno yet. At the very least I want it to provide a good discussion on new community driven events.
I've already told a few people that if they want to run with the idea, they can do so. One of the original intents of Aerodrome was to encourage more story driven events in the community. To see others attempt what Aerodrome did. Because frankly, our guys want to fly in them. As much fun as it was developing, managing, and seeing the event take place, at the end of the day our guys said next time they wanted to find a way to play too.
That said, I decided to write down the ideas that came to mind during Aerodrome and I laid them out as if we were going to develop it just in case we ended up wanting to. All of it is of course up for editing, debate, refinement, whatever.
Aerodrome:
Red Skies
What is it?:This is a summer special storyline gametype tournament.
Goals:-New Storyline based on Guild/Arashi/Mercenary conflict
-Utilize Scorekeepers to invent a new gametype in GOIO
-2v2 gametype utlized
-Faction control of match card or more involvement by clans in event management?
Basic Backstory:The conflict between Yesha and Anglea has drawn interest from southern factions and mercenary groups who want a piece of the action.
The truth of the profits the Bully Boys made from the Aerodrome conflict is leaked. Wealthy Guild gun merchants are looking to make their own cut by inciting conflicts in other areas of the world.
Arashi tribes catch wind of this and rally their own forces to stop it.
Mercenary bands, seeing the potential money to be made, are rallying to either faction.
Weekly Narratives:The story will not be as core to the gameplay as Aerodrome. Each match will not have narration done but the narration will be for the entire day as a whole. So say Arashi overall scores higher on the day, narration will be made to reflect that Arashi is a thorn in the side of the Guild.
Mercenary teams will be grafted into either faction so they’ll be eligible for the final battle.
How do the matches work?:There will be 2 gametypes in this event.
-VIP
-TDM
Maps:-All 2v2 maps, except CP
Sadly there are no Guild/Arashi based maps in the game to make the event more realistic so you'll just have to pretend you are flying over Guild lands instead of over frozen Fjords.
VIP gametype:This gametype involves a hunter/prey mindset. One side is the hunters, the other side is the prey. But there will be a special prey that is marked the VIP target. Killing this VIP target will give the hunters bonus points.
If the prey are successful in repelling the hunters, the prey steal the points. Points are say...blood money, war profits, etc. Isn't important as long as they go towards helping one faction beat the other.
Scoring system:
1 VIP kill = 10 points
1 non VIP kill = 5 point
Prey team Victory = 50 points
Example:
Arashi: VIP Killed 3x = 30 points
Non VIP Kill 2x = 10 points
Guild: Non VIP kill 3x = 15 points
Total: Arashi = 40 points, Guild = 15
A complete 5-0 VIP kill only = 50 points Hunters.
A 5-0 Prey Win = 75 points Prey
Say it is a 5-4 match, prey win.
Prey team = 75 points
Hunter team = 20-40 points depending on who they killed
So the event favors Hunters actually hunting their targets and maximizing points. Hunters that can’t hunt, risk losing more. Prey that can successfully repel and overcome the hunters, get extra points.
May revise this to balance more. But do want Prey to get a little benefit for fighting at a disadvantage. Also so Hunters learn how to maximize kills and prioritize.
TDM Gametype:TDM will have a similar scoring.
1 kill = 10 points
No bonus points for victory
Time Limit:Both gametypes have a strict 15 min match length. Want battles to be fierce and tense. Hunters sitting around sniping from across the map at a VIP target doesn’t work with the story. A smart VIP would flee while the hunters are sitting around sniping.
If a match goes to 15 mins, the match is called and the winner decided based on current points.
If a tie happens, teams get a two minute overtime to score the final kill. Still no kill? Match just ends a draw and points tabulated.
Also want a fast match setup so we could potentially squeeze in a lot of teams. Moving to 2v2 would promote this and we’d ideally want to be able to get as many matches in during a time slot as we can.
Deciding Who Plays Who:This is a problem that needs to be addressed. Think we should keep it simple as 2v2 draws more players. Do a rotation where teams at least get to face each other 2-3x before finals.
Faction score and individual team scores will be kept but will go on more of a scoreboard and will not influence who plays who. So top teams could face off against weak teams and vice versa.
Guess lets figure this out. Say we have 4 teams and we use a rotating setup…
1
2
3
4
Week 1:
1 vs 2
3 vs 4
Week 2:
1 vs 4
3 vs 2
Matches continue to move in that rotation till the final week.
Final Battle Concept Idea:First ever 4v4 competitive match in tournament play. Possible best of 3.
Top 4 teams from each faction select 1 boat to enter into a 4v4 VIP battle royale. The faction that scores the highest, gains pick of whether to be the hunters or the prey.
The top scoring team for each faction is then the VIP or leader for their group. In a best of 3 series, the teams would swap from hunter to prey each match so the winning faction would only gain the advantage of deciding the opening battle.
This could be accomplished with a 3v3 finale but as 3v3 has been done and 4v4 hasn’t, it would be better to do 4v4.
Faction Members Control:This is an idea brought up at the Community Chat. I’m still thinking about how it could be done.
Problems I can think it would bring in is disagreements between who plays who. Who controls the match cards. Then of getting the next week match list resolved.
Only possible way I can think to rectify this is match cards ran by 3rd parties who aren’t participating. But even then this might be something that just isn’t doable. I need some ideas for this to determine if it is plausible.
Due to the size of the event, this might only be plausible for another 3v3 Aerodrome.
Faction Controls VIP selection:This is an idea that could be possible. What happens is there is an initial TDM day where the first skirmishes take place.
The point totals recorded from that are then submitted to a global scoreboard which gives kills as well as points. The losing faction of one week, would have a limited time to place bounties on opposing teams, hence, make them VIPs.
There would of course be a limit. You can’t have 2 VIPs on the same team. So basically it comes down to the factions trading off between hunting and being prey. The losers get to place the bounties for the coming week.
Now I can see some problems with that but the basic idea is a start to make it possible for clans to actually participate in the event’s organization.
Ideally we want to make a system where both sides can experience being the VIP so refinement on this idea is needed.
Prizes: Faction badges? Note this means Muse has to take time to make them. So there would be a delay. Other ideas?