TvT for 6-10 players?

[mugaben 10]

Do you guys know of any missions that can be played with around 3-5 players on each team? Do you have any ideas of how to make a mission like that?

I'm so lost, and everytime i try make something, the result will allmost certaintly play out in one team camping over an objective or something.. Camping humans is so hard to beat, and so easy to do!

It's really hard making a proper TvT mission, and so hard to tell how it will play out when making it!

My team mainly plays coop against AI every tuesday and thursday's. This is getting a bit old, and sometimes we wanna play against each other without respawn and just like coop with one or multiple objectives and humans on the enemy side.. So much more intense than playing against dumb/super human AI!

So.. Do anyone of you creative mission guru's have any tips or ideas how to make a fun, long-lasting and re-playable tvt with objectives, which can be played down to the number of players we usually are? (6-10)

Seems as all tvt missions out there are for insane 50+ players and all over the map. + they are all with endless respawn. Im not looking for another Battlefield 2, but a "coop TvT" where a bullet to the head means death. Or at least revive.

Might have said yes to something a bit to difficult when i was asked to make this. :j:

[.kju 3245]

Random gamearea/zone placement is a doable approach.

Of course you end up with weird terrain at times.

If you play A&D / switch sides, it is still fair to play.

In general the terrain / game area is the most important

aspect for gameplay in my view.

[galzohar 31]

Yes, one of the reasons I ditched the random assault concept is that 99.9% of the locations you're going to pick are going to be terrible and will greatly favor defenders.

As you've already realized, when making a TvT with no respawns and same number of players on each side, defenders generally win (IRL it's the same and even more extreme). There are some ideas I've been using and some I want to try in the future to help attackers have a decent chance.

Another thing is that you're trying to make a very small match, which makes things more difficult, as in order to keep it interesting you have to make it much shorter and thus in a much smaller zone, which makes things harder. Sticking to the inside of a town is probably a good idea in this case.

Note that for a mission to actually play out and not get "stuck" with both teams camping - defense because it's their job and assault because they can't move up without dying. Of course this again shows you why it's harder for attackers, but a time limit is simply a necessity. It's generally a good idea to implement it in some realistic manner in the mission's briefing: For example you only being able to afford X minutes to spend on attacking this objective or Y will happen when time runs out making the mission irrelevant.

For the attackers:

- Extra equipment (anything from weapons to aircraft). Don't go overboard here though, and if you want good gameplay try to not make the whole team depend on that 1 guy that flies the A-10 or drives the Mk-19 humvee, which will in addition avoid situations for defenders where they die out of nowhere (ex: by mk-19 spam) with no chance of doing anything about it. I'm still waiting for the day where I have the time to implement a smoke mortar script in the A&D missions I'm trying out on the Zeus gaming nights.

- Terrain advantage. Placing the objective in an area that is hard to defend can be of great help to attackers. This can greatly reduce the variety of places in which defenders can effectively camp, and if they choose to spread out too much and camp ineffectively it will be easier to sneak past them.

- Freedom of choice for attackers. Anything that helps attackers come from an unpredictable direction makes it harder for defenders to camp effectively, as they will have to watch out a larger variety of directions. Of course you can't go overboard with this either or you will not be able to implement a reasonable time limit (as some ways to approach simply take too long). An MH-60 helo seems pretty decent at that if the pilot flies properly and doesn't expose his LZ to the enemy.

If anyone has any more ideas, please mention them!

[Tom_Anger 0]

I'd recommend a 5 v 5 TDM or 5 v 5 Attack & Defend.

I am coming out with an updated Siege pack soon (possibly in 2 weeks) which has no respawns and 1 team defends an objective while the other team has to capture it. Eliminating the opposition or reaching the objective earns a win for BLUFOR and Eliminating the opposition or protecting the objective for 20 minutes earns a win for OPFOR. These are 16 to 32 player missions, but will easily satisfy a 5 v 5 game since these Siege missions are based on Ghost Recon's gametype...

There are a couple of items that need fixing then they will be available for download. If you want to check out some beta versions, hit up the Urban Resistance PVP Fun Games server and vote for the missions with A&D in front of the mission name.

And as a hint - read the notes section which explains how to play. I think I have the 32 man versions on the server, but there are 16 player versions as well...

[.kju 3245]

You can make defenders reach the area to defend first too.

Or make it a dynamic A&D, like either side needs to conquer it and hold it.

You may call that C&H, yet in the end thats only the scoring system.

The way you setup the scenario defines the gameplay.

[galzohar 31]

Adding travel time imo is never really a solution to anything. In fact travel time is imo one of the most important things mission designers need to minimize to prevent the mission becoming boring. Especially if you want it to be played more than once - it gets really repetitive then.

The problem with more "equal" matches is that they will most often result in camping (or the camping team having an edge of the non-camping team). For example if you need to have presence in a small area, the team that will never move in there but kill anyone that does will probably win if the other team actually moves in there (and vice versa). This generally results in a camp fest (or suicide fest once people realize that the best strategy to win is boring as hell and start actually attacking even though it makes no sense from a strategical point of view) and that isn't a lot of fun.

[.kju 3245]

galzohar you generalize way too much.

Being inserted by chute, or to drive a minute to the objective or walk, is far more

enjoyable than starting at the objective from the start and just wait and do nothing.

If you have too much time to look for the best positions, attacking will be hard and

the defenders will get bored waiting for the attackers.

[galzohar 31]

While I agree it makes attacking more difficult, if you introduce time-constraints on defenders the mission will result in a race rather than an actual tactical fight.

[.kju 3245]

It is always a thin balance. The core job and talent by the mission designer.

[mugaben 10]

It really is a thin balance yes.

I managed to create something rather enjoyable. We played it this evening, and came out really positive. Short description is:

Mh-60 down, team survives and needs to get safe to extraction zone.

Opfor's got AI on their side, small groups patrolling everywhere. After a short time, some AI light vehicles and Infantry arrives at MH-60 Crashsite. Here, the team should allready be running, as the timelimit of one hour puts them under stress.. If they didnt move yet, they havent read the task - which states that the crash was seen by enemy.

So, the chances of the two teams meeting directly is not so big (might have made a overkill on area size). But the crashed team is so much more aware of their situation than just fighting against AI. This is where my second post comes to meaning: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=90443 .. Anyway, it turned out really nice.. This is an early (really early) map of the mission we played:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1576479/arma2%202009-11-16%2019-18-26-30.jpg

Might just release this one for public.

[galzohar 31]

Thin balance isn't about talent, it's about massive testing with quality players. What mission designers CAN do is make the mission less sensitive to such things, for example by not turning the mission into a race while keeping a decently low time limit.

[.kju 3245]

The talent is to analyze and foresee how it may turn out.

In the end it is up to the mission design you are for.

If you create missions to play them once, there is no testing prior to playing.