What makes TTR TTR?

[delerium10101]

Well, this is entirely unofficial, I just want some input from the community. I\'m in the much delayed process of writing some game modes for TTR, but before I get too far in I\'d like to know what the community liked about the original. I lack any way to play it at the moment, so this is really the best way I have to ensure that I write TTR game modes and not just another FPS clone.

Right now I\'m working on a CTF mode (well, CTEM to give it a more WW2 flavor). It\'s not coming along at all, as I keep getting distracted by far less mundane projects. Give me a challenge. Tell me what makes TTR TTR and not just some other FPS, and I\'ll do my best to keep that in TTR:Torque.

Now is also the time to suggest any other game modes you want. Sky\'s the limit here.

And just a random thing I\'d like to note as part of what makes TTR TTR. What other game dev team is going to ask the community what they want, and then actually listen? During the dev process no less, instead of after the first game but before the sequel. So, any ideas, no matter how crazy, if you think they might be fun toss them out. I\'ll evaluate each one, and probably write game modes for 60% of them or so, and then gradually narrow down what game modes stay and which don\'t by how fun they are. Maybe I\'ll keep the game mode scripts to release as a special community edition of game modes. I dunno.

[LivingTarget]

The most memorable:

1.: Enigma and Documents, CTF like games. Please leave the real flags home
2.: Defending and attacking cap-and-hold areas
3.: Stationary MG\'s, 4 defensive gameplay
4.: Explosives -> TNT! Bridge jumping with TNT cannisters

[shift]

Man, del, excellent move there. Thanks

Well, Living\'s list covers pretty much everything I\'d call the \"basic\" TTR key features.

I could add some more, tho:

• Gameplay that heavily encourages teamplay
  Use of tactics, team communication, etc.
• Good balance between fun & realism
  With more emphasis on realism, making TTR stand out: stamina, ironsights, the way nades work, etc
• Intelligent map design
  At least most official maps; you always have more than one way to get to the objective and several options to defense
  

I\'d add also intelligent and effective atmosphere along all the game, meaning that TTR is like real life stuff with a good movie-like subtle message of \"you all can be heroes\". That\'s related to the nice reality&fun mix.

[edit]
Just edited it a bit to look clearer.

[shift]

If you don\'t mind I\'ll do a bit of dirty double posting stuff to add some things I\'d like to see in the new TTR.

• Keep it TTR
  Possibly the most tricky and vague part, because you devs sure want to break some things to add new features, anyway, you all have stated that TTR will basically be TTR, so ok.
• Reduce the steep learning curve for new TTR players
  The original one suffered of this, it\'s never been an easy game and this can scare new ppl; maybe some kind of offline SP bootcamp -as suggested in the old forums- would do
• Add more interaction with the environment
  Not necesarilly the latest game tech about blowing up all things dinamically, but something as simple as carry chairs to block doors, etc; that was used in the old TTR to some extent, and was widely used for defense in some maps
• Don\'t include useless classes
  You know which one I mean, better take it out than having it for no use
  

Now, a feature I want to extend a bit more.

- Make the game to adjust dinamically to the playercount

This one was one of the biggest issues with the old TTR. By definition TTR is a teamplay game. That proved to be a real handicap in the moments where the playerbase was minimal (like now) making difficult even for hardcore TTRers to play 1vs1 or 2vs2 games.
And thinking that you guys are talking about servers with playercounts of around 128 ppl, well, this worries me.

You\'ll have a problem with the game if it can\'t be played with low playercounts. Especially at first, where just the hardcore will be there to play and we\'ll be the ones that\'ll make the core base at servers, attracting possible new players. After all, nobody wants to play on an empty (or almost empty) server. Just take into account a server full of hardcorers; being veeery optimistic that\'d be around (25/128 ) players. Still not enough. Also, having to defend 4 objectives in a 2vs2 match doesn\'t work. Defense in those cases gets rather difficult, so everyone wants to go attacker. Also, making TTR able to be fun with low playercounts can make the game survive even in the worst moments (like the post 1.2 disaster, when basically the 80% of players left).

So, what the idea I\'m playing about would be to make the quantity of objectives related to playercount.

Things affected would be:

- Number of objectives
- Global map time count
- Respawning time

It\'s illogical to have a map thought for 128 players, where there would probably be about lots of objectives, when just 4 or 6 players are in. Cutting down the objectives here would make things fairer for both teams. Maybe there could be an \"objective priority list\" and those lower objectives would be the ones cut down in case of need.

Also, with low player counts some map times are excessive. They should be shortened in that case. Same for respawning times. If you are the only defender and you have to wait 40 seconds to respawn, you\'r screwed.


Apart from this, the high playercount you all have mentioned can drive to other problems, like massification at the objectives. This can be good in fact, giving a more real-like feeling of warfare (lots of men running and shooting to take that hill), but it can be a real pain in the ass if you want to do a minimal teamwork. Just thinking about trying to make a coordinate attack with 64 more players makes me trhive.

So, maybe you could adopt a \"squad based\" game style in the new TTR. Players are grouped in squads by default, and each squad has its own objective. This little groups would be easier to manage and coordinate, making them more effective and, finally, fun to play. Once an objective is won or lost that squad is given another objective, basically supporting another squad that is already defending or attacking.


And, finally, watch map times. Apart from all that I\'ve already mentioned there\'s a problem that relates map times with teamplay. If you make maps about 40mins long (as we already have in Merderet) or longer (128 players suggest that) you have the danger of loosing some players in the match process (not everybody will be willing to play the same map for almost an hour, so some ppl will just quit). And, losing half the team in the heat of the battle can kill your tactics, having to reasign orders each time a player leaves or joins. But maybe this isn\'t really a real big issue, not sure here.


Oh, and keep the server bug-free. Server crashes were one of the reasons that killed TTR (even hardcore TTRers left an afternoon of good fun because of it, just imagine the impact it had in newcomers...).

[delerium10101]

Excellent suggestions, keep them coming. Some things I would like to address:

Dynamically interacting with the environment: This is covered. Just, trust me when I say that this is completely covered in every way imaginable. You could come up with the craziest way imaginable for interacting with the environment, we\'ve got it. There are quite a few reasons GG is interested in publishing my bit of tech, that\'s one of them.

Map sizes: This is just part of Torque. The maps extend on infinitely in all directions. While some efforts can be made, it isn\'t reasonable to expect a map that works with 128 players to work with 4, or a map that works with 4 to work with 128. While I can do some magic script-foo, the most I could handle would be to get maps to scale well from, say, 4 to 8 or 8 to 16. Small changes like that.

Respawning time is easy to adjust, and I\'ll take your suggestions into consideration. You\'re absolutely right about this. Having a 5 second spawn delay like Halo is far too short when we\'ve got 128 players, but delaying by a minute when we\'re dealing with 8 is even more insane. We\'ll do some play testing with this to figure out the best way to handle it.

Map time: This is an odd one. What I would like to do is just deviate from the normal \"Do objectives x, y, and z within time T\" and just have \"Do objectives x, y, and z\". However, I\'m not particularly big on multiplayer gaming so what do I know? This will probably be a user set option when the server is started. One possibility for something like area capture is once all the areas are owned by one team, start a count down. Whatever, another thing that will have to be playtested extensively.

Server stabability: When TTR:Torque becomes available to the public, I can guarantee at least one dedicated server running at all times. No guarantees on the ping or performance (it would be the mac that I\'m typing this on). Our master server would be run by GG, which has worked without fail for many games. Also, since we\'re using Torque, don\'t worry about net performance. Really. Torque was built around having the best net performance possible, and it shows. I\'ve performed tests with pings ranging from 2,000-3,000 and a 50% packet loss, and it still managed to chug along. It wasn\'t particularly playable ( the camera is run server side, so a connection like that means the camera lags badly), but nothing went horribly wrong. No walking through walls, no mysterious extreme popping, just a choppy camera. Torque rocks.

Again, thanks for all the suggestions and keep them coming. Come on, suggest a game mode! It might just make it in!

[shift]

delerium10101 Wrote:Dynamically interacting with the environment: This is covered. Just, trust me when I say that this is completely covered in every way imaginable. You could come up with the craziest way imaginable for interacting with the environment, we\'ve got it. There are quite a few reasons GG is interested in publishing my bit of tech, that\'s one of them.

Glad to hear. NOW I\'m really eager to know what you\'r working on

Quote:Map sizes: This is just part of Torque. The maps extend on infinitely in all directions. While some efforts can be made, it isn\'t reasonable to expect a map that works with 128 players to work with 4, or a map that works with 4 to work with 128. While I can do some magic script-foo, the most I could handle would be to get maps to scale well from, say, 4 to 8 or 8 to 16. Small changes like that.

Ok, changing map sizes sounds like a titanic task, idd. Anyway I was thinking more in another approach. Map size stays, it\'s just the objectives in that map the thing that changes. So, if a map has, say, 4 objectives (defend the barn, defend the bridge, the church and the warehouse) in low playercounts there would be just the 2 first objectives. The other locations stay, but if a team goes there there\'s nothing to capture/defend. I hope I put it clearer this time.

Quote:Respawning time is easy to adjust, [...]

Ok, glad to hear that.

Quote:Map time: This is an odd one. What I would like to do is just deviate from the normal \"Do objectives x, y, and z within time T\" and just have \"Do objectives x, y, and z\". However, I\'m not particularly big on multiplayer gaming so what do I know? This will probably be a user set option when the server is started. One possibility for something like area capture is once all the areas are owned by one team, start a count down. Whatever, another thing that will have to be playtested extensively.

Interesting approach. It may work.
Anyway that could lead to unbeatable or extremely long matches. And that wouldn\'t be good.

Quote:Server stabability:

I already expected that from what I heared about Torque. Anyway I thought it was important to mention it, because of the damage it did to the original TTR.


As a final note I underline again the importance of the new huge playercounts expected for the new TTR. I hope you all take it in serious consideration; I really think it\'ll affect the game dramatically, so better anticipate to it and solve possible future issues caused by it. Don\'t make all the maps just for the 128 holy grial. Even the most succesful games out there barely reach that kind of playercounts in a regular basis, so try to imagine it talking about an indie game. So, don\'t forget about the more than possible 10/128 servers

[Delirium_]

Id say the same thing I said, yelled and hollered out when I still was a team-member but they didn\'t listen back then so I don\'t know.

Just make TTR into something more then RO, cause let\'s face it, RO is what TTR would have been if that shit didn\'t happens with all the assholes.

[w00p]

I\'ve thought of a co-op style gametype. (FYI I know I\'m not the first to think of it in human history) All players are on the same team, nation decided by the mapper.
Spawn patrolling a base or stronghold or whatever and then an alarm goes off, everybody has about 30-60 seconds to man a gun or set himself strategically, and then loads and then bots come storming in.

This could mean like a beach landing massacre, a long-range field raid, an air raid (a wave of small planes dropping a few bombs and riddling the ground with machine gunnery and you can take them down with AA turrets or so and after that paracommando\'s dropping in by \'chute) or even a plain city/warehouse CQB, where a spawning machine is placed right behind the warehouse main gates or at the town entrance or so...

The AI may be a problem there. Programming them to want to get the an ultimate objective via bot waypoints. (Like getting inside a control tower with atleast 5 men and the mission is lost)

The goal for the players would be to stand ground and defend the facility until there aren\'t gonna come any more bots... (out of stock lol )
This also makes for an easy addition to make the gameplay scalable to the playercount. For every player 30 bots or something.

Oh, and, try not to make them TOO high-poly.

[MaSwIcK]

Im on w00p on this one, that sounded like fun!

Also like having some kind of \"Hold the Base\" gameplay, were the axis or the allies should defend a base until the last man, Like the Alamo =P

[delerium10101]

w00p Wrote:I\'ve thought of a co-op style gametype. (FYI I know I\'m not the first to think of it in human history) All players are on the same team, nation decided by the mapper.
Spawn patrolling a base or stronghold or whatever and then an alarm goes off, everybody has about 30-60 seconds to man a gun or set himself strategically, and then loads and then bots come storming in.

This could mean like a beach landing massacre, a long-range field raid, an air raid (a wave of small planes dropping a few bombs and riddling the ground with machine gunnery and you can take them down with AA turrets or so and after that paracommando\'s dropping in by \'chute) or even a plain city/warehouse CQB, where a spawning machine is placed right behind the warehouse main gates or at the town entrance or so...

The AI may be a problem there. Programming them to want to get the an ultimate objective via bot waypoints. (Like getting inside a control tower with atleast 5 men and the mission is lost)

The goal for the players would be to stand ground and defend the facility until there aren\'t gonna come any more bots... (out of stock lol )
This also makes for an easy addition to make the gameplay scalable to the playercount. For every player 30 bots or something.

Oh, and, try not to make them TOO high-poly.

That does sound interesting. Probably not suitable for 128 players, but around 8-12 I could see that being fun. As for AI... umm.. don\'t worry, I\'ve got that pretty well covered too, though not exactly for TTR.

Don\'t be afraid to toss out crazy ideas. Don\'t worry about technical feasability. You\'re talking to a couple of coders who took some of the most complex problems in game development today and absolutely owned them, while still learning their way around the engine and in my case the language.