(POLL) TDM Colaboaration

[Tom_Anger 0]

I understand and accept that ARMA is a simulation style game and blah blah blah, so accepting the fact that there are those who enjoy TDM gameplay I wanted to throw this poll out there. Going on my opinion there are many failed attempts at making TDM missions. I have failed as well in various areas :-)

I swear there was a post on this somewhere, but maybe I saw it in a dream or something, lol.

I did this in a POLL Like fassion so that individuals could rate their feelings toward various categories. Hopefully mission designers who see this can possibly work together at simple mission sets for the community.

Please answer the poll and feel free to comment. Communication is the key.

[Taxman 10]

Failed attempts ? we still play your missions buddy and enjoy them...

[Tom_Anger 0]

Tx. We got much of the polled items in my missions with the great help of [sbs]mac. I may continue to perfect them a bit with sizes and soldier loadouts. The winning team announcement and player award would be a cool thought. I think much failure I've experienced when trying to hop onto someone hosting their own TDMs is due to mission size, soldier setup, lack of a scoring system, and persistent scoring for starters.

Many are mainly thrown together with soldiers, weapon box, a respawn base, and that's it. The features and parameters for gameplay really pay off in the fun factor. :-)

[nkenny 1057]

Economy of death.

This is an aspect of the scoring system for sure, but I feel that dying has to mean something. There are a number of ways to make dying have an impact onthe gameplay.

- Round based (1 life per round)

- Death limit (team looses once X deaths have occured)

- none (random spawn/frag fest)

Size.

Arma2 offers a unique opportunity of scale. Forested areas, urban locales, or a combination of both. I think the ideal TDM 'combat scale for Arma2 would be Squad vs Squad (6,8,or12 vs 6,8,or12) in a reasonable large area. Make squad tactics and firefight drills be the focus of the gameplay.

DTAS-- Dynamic Take and Hold

One of my favorite gameplay modes of all times came from the Infiltration mod from UT.

- Round based gameplay (1 life per round)

:: Weapon/class selection during 'downtime' between rounds (or when dead)

:: Round timelimit (5-7 minutes)

- Choose a interesting locale. Two teams spawn at random locations within this area.

:: One team is the defender, the other the attacker. A randomly selected member on the Defending team carries a flag that is automatically dropped after 5-15 seconds. This is the target location.

:: Leaving the locale should result in some sort of penalty.

- The objective of the attacking team is to Seize and hold the target location.

:: A location is seized once all defenders are removed from within 10m of the flag AND the attacking team is present for 5-10 seconds.

:: Once all defenders or attackers are eliminated, the time runs out, or the target is captured the round ends. +1 point to winning team.

- Next round -- Attacking and Defending team change roles.

:: Play until one team has accumilated 5 points.

Bingo. Instant dynamic and exciting action with LOTS of tactical finesse and communication required.

-k

[Taxman 10]

DTAS sounds Very Similar to Tom's Siege maps... which we play on the APL ladder, You should try it....

[nkenny 1057]

Thanks for the tip. I checked them out.

DTAS differs by alternating attacker/defender roles AND by placing the target location at a different place each time. (player placement and random combined)

-k

[Tom_Anger 0]

Good stuff K.

In adding to the discussion I'd like to say that ArmA really doesn't fail with MP game modes. Most arma players don't want to be bored in entering a DM/TDM style server with only 2 or 3 players. Players then conform to Coops or similar styles of games and that keeps the MP servers at a low which slowly diminishes.

I think failure partially comes from the designers ability, or lack thereof, in colaborating efforts to establish a standard for these various types of games. ArmA 2's demo had a nice TDM gamemode and in the Full version there is Close Quarters. Where are those editable missions to be found? No-where and yet those seem to be a standard that we should see given to the community. Maybe I just don't know how to get those pbo's, but it would be nice to have them.

I'm not saying it has to be your way, my way, etc., but there really should be some standard to go with and then with that standard have parameters for servers to customize their mission for various features to be used or disabled. I believe most would agree with me that we have the Standard Model for AAS (thanks to special boat service and others), we have Warfare (and let's not forget Benny's warfare which seems to be the dominant model), we have Domination, etc.

Without a standard to go off of for

• Deathmatch
  
• Team Deathmatch
  
• Attack & Defend
  
• Search & Destroy
  
• Rescue
  
• V.I.P
  

we may be fooling ourselves into thinking we will ever get these off the ground to stay. And when I say standard, I mean a shell template where a person can take the mission and move stuff around to have the gametype in a different environment. The gameplay and parameters would all be there so to the player the gameplay is the same, just with different surroundings.

I think many folks who really want to see these gamemodes in ARMA and at a fun level of playability would agree. 8-16 man servers aren't all that expensive and I've seen some host right from their home. If there were standards set for some of the gametypes I just mentioned it may help the community a bit. I am not a great scripter by any means, but do know how to help get the word out there, lol. I think the only way you will see mission scripters put the time into setting any type of standard is to get the word out to others.

Having said that, lets continue on the TDM discussions and see if anything comes out of it. Looks like we have a few polled answers moving in the right direction.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Tom_Anger

[Taxman 10]

Template ? could Macs script be used ? Im not a mapmaker :) but it does have an option to save templates, can you upload them also, as you can with the missions themselves....

Yes Nkenny I realise they are slightly diff buddy, just wanted to mention that its a similar concept, do you have a link for the DTAS ? might be interested in looking at that myself..