Editing and Customization > Community Content
[GAMEMODE] Thunderball
VC:
VC in the house. Watch as problems disappear. Arbitrary constants subject to beta testing.
Thunderball is a Unique Weapon (like Golden Gun in MWtGG) and spawns accordingly.
Thunderball timer is set according to the weapon respawn function times a randomised scaling value. (The weapon-respawn function already compensates for player count, so Thunderball will have a longer fuse with fewer players, ensuring you can find someone to pass it to.)
Weapon behavior is hit-scan, unlimited range. If the trace is successful, the server will switch posession, and draw a phony animation of the ball jumping to the next player. Because of latency compensation, it may jump through walls occasionally, but it doesn't care because it's the god damn thunderball. If the trace is unsuccessful, the Thunderball will not change hands.
Thunderball has a momentum counter that increments on successful passes, beginning at 1, and a last-passer field indicating who threw it last, initialized on the player who takes it from the spawnpoint. Thunderball also gains a momentum count whenever the holder kills a player with a normal weapon.
Thunderball has a cool-down time of one second.
Re. Entropy: You just had a derp moment despite noticing it when you were writing your post. If you increase fuse on passing, then two griefers can stand next to each other, pass back and forth, and it never goes off because it's pegged at $MAX_FUSE.
The watch will chirp when the Thunderball timer is five seconds from detonating. This is the ONLY WARNING. (Otherwise, people will just hold the ball until they know it's about to pop and sling it for points. The thunderball must be dangerous to hold by not letting you know if you need to get rid of it until it's almost too late.)
If a player dies by normal damage while carrying the Thunderball, the dropped Thunderball retains its momentum count, its last-passer field is reset to World (to be changed to whoever picks it from the ground), and its timer is reset to the normal spawn time. (This allows a player to kill the thunderball carrier and steal the accumulated momentum without getting so short a fuse that it would be suicidal.)
Deathmatch scoring rules apply at all times, including Thunderball-related incidents.
When the thunderball detonates, frags are awarded thus:
floor(sqrt(active_players * momentum_counter * players_killed_by_thunderball_explosion)) + Normal DM credit for fragged players
This function ensures that the Thunderball gains in value in full servers where frags are easy to find, makes heavily-used Thunderballs gain value, and rewards multi-kills.
In case of suicide by getting the Thunderball but never successfully passing it off, the same function applies, however, the Thunderball credit is subtracted instead of added, and the players_killed parameter is 1, even if other players died in the blast.
Players killed normally while holding the Thunderball may be penalised. (Beta testing will determine this.)
Related Achievements:
Blunderball: Pick up the Thunderball, try and fail to pass it, and be destroyed by it, while killing no other players after getting the Thunderball.
Thunderclap: Kill the Thunderball carrier with slappers.
Nice Catch: Be destroyed by a Thunderball that had less than one second on its fuse when you received it.
Alley Oop: Receive the Thunderball while in the air and immediately pass it off to a third player.
From Downtown: Pass the Thunderball to a player over 50 metres away. (Analogous to SharpSh00ta achievement)
Comments:
This might be workable, but it will need to be played out with griefy people to ensure there are no gamebreaking holes in the rules-set that makes the game about exploiting one rule, or turns it into a "the only way to win is to not play" situation.
Entropy-Soldier:
--- Quote from: Viashino Cutthroat on November 12, 2010, 05:27:51 pm ---Re. Entropy: You just had a derp moment despite noticing it when you were writing your post. If you increase fuse on passing, then two griefers can stand next to each other, pass back and forth, and it never goes off because it's pegged at $MAX_FUSE.
--- End quote ---
Because, you know, doing that makes you invincible and no-one else in the server can come and kill you. Of course, you could say that if they're the last two people in the match then they could pull it off, but by then i figure that the match time would be almost up anyway(on a full server) so you might be able to prolong the match by 2 minutes and get yelled at by everyone. Great Job. And that's if the elimination mechanic is kept. If we decide to go with another gimmick, then that's irrelevant as the two greifers will be quickly owned with a single magnum headshot because they're just making out with the Thunderball in a corner.
That being said, a hitscan Thunderball would just be absurd as you could pass off in less time than it would take to kill someone, and they could pass it back just as quick. you wouldn't need two greifers to abuse that mechanic, it would happen practically every time two people got together in a room with the Thunderball. Of course, due to source and it's crappy netcode for projectile weapons, a physical Thunderball would work about as well as throwing knives do except it will be very obvious when it goes through people. With correct compensation, it could play out okay and would be better than two people tagging each other from across runway for the duration of the match.
VC:
In your first paragraph, you are attempting to bandage the problem with circumstantial excuses. We can cure the disease of two-man passing by simply excising the mechanic that makes it a problem. Hell, you didn't even apparently consider a third griefer could cover the Facility bathroom access with the map's power weapon while Thing 1 and Thing 2 toss the old ball around in the vent, and even if someone got through that, the timer is at max, so they just kill whoever gets in and go back to tossing salad.
Elimination needs to go, or all other weapons need to go.
You did not read, apparently, that a cooldown time (part of the normal weapon mechanism) would be used to throttle pass frequency. Did you really expect that I did not consider two people standing still and clicking on each other? Under my schedule, doing so would build a lot of momentum on the Thunderball, making the strongest strategy to throw it to a distracted third party once the alarm goes off so it won't come back and you get a large bounty.
Also, since the Thunderball knows who held it last, the game can detect pass-back behavior and punish it appropriately.
Entropy-Soldier:
--- Quote from: Viashino Cutthroat ---In your first paragraph, you are attempting to bandage the problem with circumstantial excuses. We can cure the disease of two-man passing by simply excising the mechanic that makes it a problem. Hell, you didn't even apparently consider a third griefer could cover the Facility bathroom access with the map's power weapon while Thing 1 and Thing 2 toss the old ball around in the vent, and even if someone got through that, the timer is at max, so they just kill whoever gets in and go back to tossing salad.
--- End quote ---
Any Gamemode with a token or elimination aspect can be greifed like this.
--- Quote from: Viashino Cutthroat ---Elimination needs to go, or all other weapons need to go.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, i agree. Would turn into deathmatch with a ton of people wondering what the beep was and why they suddenly can't respawn. I would say your scoring method works better than elimination for public server play, just other elements of the proposal caused issues for me.
--- Quote from: Viashino Cutthroat ---You did not read, apparently, that a cooldown time (part of the normal weapon mechanism) would be used to throttle pass frequency. Did you really expect that I did not consider two people standing still and clicking on each other? Under my schedule, doing so would build a lot of momentum on the Thunderball, making the strongest strategy to throw it to a distracted third party once the alarm goes off so it won't come back and you get a large bounty.
Also, since the Thunderball knows who held it last, the game can detect pass-back behavior and punish it appropriately.
--- End quote ---
I did notice the cooldown mechanic, and dismissed it as irrelevant to that circumstance considering it's only stopping me from throwing it back to the guy who just gave it to me for about the time it would take me to switch to it. Having said that, it's not something you can really punish as it's more of a reflexive behavior to toss it to the closest person, which in most cases is the guy who just gave it to you. Once everyone catches on to the fact that the Thunderball is being passed back and forth in some corner of the map, everyone will just avoid them until it goes off.
Maybe adding slight damage every pass would fix this in most cases, but you would still end up with the two players passing it off over and over again until one collapses from the continued damage, and the other one is left with 2 bars.
killermonkey:
Listen, I like the discussion but we are over complicating the gameplay before it is even in draft form. Let's stick to the original mechanics and see how it works >>IN GENERAL<< and then we can build the specific rule set.
I don't like the hit-scan passing at all, if anything it should be bounded by some sort of a range. Not including a count down timer is an interesting idea and works well with the point bonus for kills while holding it because you can't easily time your release of the thunderball. Although it would be more interesting if the beep occurred at a random time between 5-10 seconds before detonation such that you get anxious.
Edit: On third read, VC, I noticed you did away with the normal weapon kill bonus while holding thunderball and instead opted for some sort of points based on passing momentum and last person to pass it.
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