| Part 10 & 11 - Weird versions of Oddball, King etc |
| Posted By: RC Master | Date: 4/10/12 1:51 p.m. |
In Response To: Why Halo's Objective Gametypes Suck - Part 1 (RC Master)
Game over. Article complete. You can now download the entire thing as a PDF if you prefer that and it is all available in web form from this landing page. The main text of the article is nearly 14k words excluding notes and the gametype reference appendix. :)
Variations around the style of Oddball, King of the Hill & VIP that are designed to keep everyone wanting the scoring object, and the score to always be progressing. I also discuss a couple of fixes to Headhunter that I think would make it play much better.
Highlights
- When you kill a player in headhunter, you should pick up their skull instantly
- Only show waypoint over skull-carriers when they have more than 1
- This would allow it to work at range, and gives incentive to get rid of skulls regularly
- “Golden Gun” - make Oddball object a weapon that is desirable in itself - like a Focus Rifle
- Earn points for time held, get infinite ammo but no other weapons and turn gold
- When carrier dies, have 5 seconds to pick it up, or the killer becomes carrier automatically
- Have possession of this Focus Rifle be more like a Juggernaut trait - infinite ammo, no other weapons
- Add a condition to Oddball-type gametypes to end it early if losing teams don’t have enough time to come back
- Alternatively for an Oddball gametype, use a weapon like a Heavy Machine Gun
- Tie scoring to expended bullets from the weapon
- When gun is empty, no reason to hold it any more, spawn new one - like Hot Potato iea
- Dynamic between firing fast to score quickly vs. saving ammo, biding time
- Gun would automatically deplete - add score while held, reset quickly when not
- Finally, Power King - hill locations tied to power weapon spawn locations
- Lock the hill like a territory when entered, the power weapon spawns,
- If the hill is entered by an opponent, the power weapon is taken away and respawned at the hill
- This would naturally teach power weapon locations for use in other gametypes.
This covers FFA gametypes briefly, I summarise the overal structure and the basic overriding points and ideas, and then make some comments on where these might have come from.
Highlights
- I don’t really have ideas for FFA so that’s why I haven’t talked about it
- The Headhunter fixes, Power King, Jugger Gun and Golden Gun might work
- Though with so many players it still gets highly chaotic
- Potential in gametypes like Infection and Juggernaut where dynamic ‘team’ goals are aligned with personal success
- But players might still vie to screw up particular people for their relative placement than strictly going for as many points as possible - problematic
- A brief summary of the main points explored such as the non-capture problem which basically equates to griefing
- Epilogue discussing general points
- MM is a technical and artistic marvel, but feel the gametype design leaves a lot to be desired
- Still core gameplay is still so strong that this often doesn’t matter
- Would love a chance to get to implement these - sadly, would need Megalo access.
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