- Author Fluury
- Creation date
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- Tags
- experimental pass time small
- Featured
This will be quite a spicy one.
This version includes "JACK Scaling". What is JACK Scaling? Well it's the idea of the JACK becoming worth more points the more time passes without any team scoring goals.
PASS Time as a gamemode has a similar problem to Capture The Flag: If one team is playing decently defensive, things become slow paced. If both are aggressive, everything works out round duration wise since you will hit the amount of score required to win the round. Things feel satisfying for players.
However when one team starts focusing on defense a bunch, the aggressors will spent a lot more time trying to break through it. The problem? Once they are finally through it, they only get a single point for their efforts!
That's rather discouraging. It also means that the game is likely going to go to time. Overall: Not a good time. Players clearly correlate time spent struggling with reward gained, and getting hit by the single point out of 5 after pushing through a sentry nest that took you 5 minutes just sucks.
This problem isn't really fixable via map design. If you make the map more favored towards aggressors to the point where playing defensively just isn't an option anymore, the map will be over in a flash if neither team is playing defensive. You have to account for both types of teams - offensive and defensive, playing in any combination be it offensive vs offensive, def vs. off or def vs. def.
This is where JACK Scaling comes in! Every 2 minutes of no goal being scored, the Jack will increase in it's worth. Base goals (Throw/Walk) will reward 2 points now, while the Bonus will reward 4. JACK Scaling caps at 2 extra points - meaning that if you hit 4 minutes with no goal scored, a single bonus goal will be able to win the entire round, while Throw/Walk award 3 points.
This change makes the effort/reward align with the player's expectations after they push through a sentry nest for several minutes and also makes matches more tense the longer they go on without goal, rather than make them feel like a boring slog.
JACK Scaling will also leave the fast paced, no defense matches untouched and still intact, as these have a far higher Goal/min rate which in turn makes JACK Scaling not kick in.
With this implemented, playing to time should be a rarity. This kind of scaling could also be used in Capture The Flag to ensure swift round durations, however I am unsure if you can implement it easily.
CHANGLOG A7:
- Implementation of JACK Scaling to ensure exciting and tense rounds under any circumstances. Lights around each goal will signalize the amount of points gained, custom Voice Lines are planned.
- There are now bright, spinning alarm lights at doors attackers attack from. If the JACK is within one of these buildings, the lights will turn on and spin. This should raise defender awareness tenfold and prevent "sneaky" goals.
- Added a sightline blocker around the crate on that one roof to prevent a strange interaction angle.
- Moved walk-in goal back a little bit.
- Moved throw-in goal forwards a bit
- Changed throw-in goal size from small to big, as players couldn't notice the small one.
- Removed a small ammo pack inside the defender building over the goal.
- Added an arrow looking down on the walk-in.
- Alarm Siren is now louder and triggers faster.
Very excited for the next map test to see if JACK Scaling works as I imagine it to.
The blessed 10~ min avg round time has been restored, but more polish must be done.
CHANGELOG A6:
- Increased attacker respawn time (3.5 -> 4) to allow defenders to push out slightly more easily
- Changed sun pitch to not look directly down anymore
- Decreased rock heights at mid, leaving a bit more space for players
- Raised height of floor in the main path from spawn to goals which should prevent taking fall damage when walking off the high ground
- removed small ammo pack at the "cliff route" from spawn
- reduced size of ammo pack at path to mid from medium to small
- extended wall at mid a bit - should prevent stinky sightlines.
- Fixed inconsistent sniper sightline blockers
- Extended height of sniper sightline blocker
- Added door to the connector from the path at the house on mid. Should allow attackers a more flexible approach without locking themselves to a certain path early on. Should also make dealing with sentries on high ground easier for non explosive classes that previously couldn't access the high ground without revealing themselves to the enemy team.
- There is now a loud alarm sound that plays if the ball is within your base to raise ball awareness.
- Fixed ball being able to get stuck between the crates at mid
- Removed spawns facing the other low ground door, spawns now either face forwards or to the highground door.
- Raised roof of the house at mid and playerclipped it - fighting people on top of it felt very unfair to the ground-dwellers and it generally saw very little use.
- Removed prop jump and ramp - added a more streamlined catwalk inside the house the vertical jump pad leads to. Should allow attackers a - once again - smoother approach without having to deal with prop jumps.
There are two things I'd like to try out in the future:
1. Once 15.ai is back on track, I'd like to try my hand at a PASS Time announcer pack with voice lines such as "Defend the Goal!" or "Bonus goal open!". Would enhance the mode a lot, probably.
2. I am interested in an anti-stalemate mechanic for this map. Essentially, if the ball is within a base for N seconds, attackers get an advantage. This could be a door opening for a really strong flank, a new goal opening that is easier to access and a variety of other advantages.
I'm still unsure on that though. Gotta see how much the new changes help attackers.
Smell ya on the next imp. And remember: Don't throw into the walk-in goal.
After reviewing the most recent playtest a bit it has become apparent that with the addition of the throw-in goal, it has become too easy to score. While I want the map to focus on aggression over all else, steamrolls were too easy and the round duration was an average of 8~ minutes instead of the 11~ I am aiming for.
It was too easy for players to throw into the goal without giving the enemy team a chance to strike.
This version changes things up by a little bit while keeping the layout mostly as it seems to work pretty well.
CHANGELOG:
- Widened the map by 48~ Hu to the left side (from BLU). That's roughly the width of an entire heavy. This should prevent certain areas feeling a bit cramped and give combat a teeny bit more space.
- Extended distance between mid and goals by 126~ Hu. That's roughly the width of 3 heavies holding hands. Very noticeable if you take a look at the length of the building with the jump pad in this before and after:
- Changed size of the throw-in goal from the large version to a small one.
- Moved the throw-in goal higher.
- Fixed BLU being able to stand inside RED's bonus goal once it was open.
- Moved some healthpacks and changed the size of some healthpacks.
- Replaced the "small room" under the horizontal jumpad with a cubby including its pickups. This cubby helps defenders more than attackers.
- Changed curvature of the ground leading up to mid - the goal area is now higher compared to the path leading to mid, which gives the area a more dynamic feeling and helps defenders a little bit. It also deals with some horrible sightlines.
- Extended the upper cover leading up to mid a bit lower to prevent sightlines.
- Increased delay between Goal and Ball spawn from 20 seconds to 30 seconds to give the losing team more time to collect themselves again.
- Various smaller misc changes.
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The new Throw-in has lost a lot of it's power for Scouts now since it's so high up. There are a few angles from the rooves which a scout could jump on and then to the goal to land one, but due to the extended length of the map the Scout will have to expose himself for far longer, allowing defenders to attack them more reliably.
The smaller Throw-in also requires steady aim as it's easy to miss/hit the lips, so even if you tank a mini-sentry the aim-wobble it causes will make you miss unless you take it into account.
These changes should hopefully bring a bit more balance. I still intend aggressors to have the advantage, but the defense in A3 was simply too poor.
I went back on one of the things I mentioned in the OP:
The Walk-in.
In retroperspective, making it only Walk-in for the purpose of simplification was kinda missing the mark. If anything, you'd want the throw-in to be the only goal!
Players naturally yeet their shit into anything that looks like a goal in this gamemode. The Walk-In only also caused some balancing issues, because unlike throw ranges and strengths that balances the throw-in, walk-ins are just a pure "whoever has the most movement speed" test.
As a result of this, I have decided to add a Throw-in goal over the Walk-in.
This has a bunch of consequences, one of them being that scoring goals is even easier now and you can score goals outside of sentry ranges. Scouts should no longer be the supreme super force, since they have baby throw power.
CHANGELOG A3:
- Added Throw-in goal over the current walk-in goal.
- Added new small path under the horizontal launch pad which should act as both a way to defend and attack the goal. It also has some pickups in it.
- Moved Supply cabinets to the back of the spawn room as part of the slowing down engineer effort.
- Increased Setup time
- Increased the amount of time needed for a new ball to spawn after a goal
- Large review as far as ammo pack and health pack locations and content goes. Engineers will now have to leave their nest and expose themselves a bit if they want anything better than a small ammo pack to chew on.
- Changed propjump spot on that one roof
- Added new propjump from the inside of the large building that leads you up to the roof
- Replaced vertical jump pads with Yrrzy's Jump Pad prefab, making them smaller and more obvious that they are jump pads.
I think the most interesting feedback I get is "It's too easy to score/goal is too close". Due to the massive size of the official pass time maps where you get 1 goal every 15 minutes, players really don't know how to defend a goal or even the concept of being a goalie yourself. I'll watch with excitement until people find out just how insane pyro is as a goalie with his airblast, or people playing back line similar to IRL soccer.
Smell ya on the next imp.
