Making A Payload Variant

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Gaisle

L1: Registered
Feb 27, 2009
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I'm working on a new Payload Variant which is based on the old Hunted Gamemode.

Basically the Payload Cart is destroyable, and when it's destroyed, it goes back to the last captured point.
The Cart would push it self, but it wouldn't be able to capture points with out players nearby.

But the Cart would have a level 3 dispenser instead of the old level 1.

The cart would also have a slightly larger "capture radius" and move faster than the regular cart.

The Cart can be repaired by engineers on BLU.

It could be repaired by engineers as well.
 
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lana

Currently On: ?????
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Sep 28, 2009
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Prevent friendly fire on the cart as well.
 

Bermuda Cake

L9: Fashionable Member
Feb 20, 2009
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I'm thinking this might be a bit of a problem. Remember in say, every payload map, when the blue team have NEARLY got the cart to the control point, and it's just a matter of inch, inch, inch to the cap point? At points like this the cart will be right by the reds and they'll just be able to spam it. It'll be in the same place as the blues as well.

This might actually mean people don't want to push the cart as much.
 

lana

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Sep 28, 2009
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Perhaps the Kart should roll on its own, about the speed of 2 players pushing a normal one. The team will still need to escort it each time, but it'll be a little easier to make those tiny last pushes if the team can just push back against RED instead of having to cluster around the Kart and pray. Additionally, perhaps the Kart could regain ground that it's already reached a little faster so that losing it will only delay progress slightly.
 

Gaisle

L1: Registered
Feb 27, 2009
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Perhaps the Kart should roll on its own, about the speed of 2 players pushing a normal one. The team will still need to escort it each time, but it'll be a little easier to make those tiny last pushes if the team can just push back against RED instead of having to cluster around the Kart and pray. Additionally, perhaps the Kart could regain ground that it's already reached a little faster so that losing it will only delay progress slightly.

This might just work.
But maybe it wouldn't be able to capture points with out players nearby.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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I like Nerd's suggestion, this promotes RED to physically defend the cart. Rather than just spam explosives at its vicinity and rack up easy kills. Which is kinda good. But i don't like the idea of the cart losing its progress by being destroyed. Roll back is a well balanced game mode feature. In hunted the civilian could duck and dodge and take multiple paths. A payload doesn't have that luxury.

It also means choke points become significant obstacles for both teams, rather than just BLU.

The one problem i forsee is how this map would be balanced for low player counts. It would be nearly impossible to fill a server on a map mode like this as BLU has a significant advantage if they can just intercept and harass RED players.

It would probably be better not to put a dispenser on the cart at all to balance it out for RED more since they'd spend more time at the objective rather than BLU.
 

Blue552

L3: Member
Sep 16, 2009
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You could make that cart move faster as well maybe, for balancing.

I guess you would just spawn the cart at the last activated checkpoint after the current one is killed.
 

Tapp

L10: Glamorous Member
Jan 26, 2009
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A self-pushing cart that can only be stopped by shooting it. Make 3 or 4 tracks and suddenly the game turns into last stand - cart style. DO IT NOW and remember to make the carts targetable by sentries, and replace destroying it with pushing it back. The blu team's job would be to throw a spanner into RED's defences, but most importantly it would be EPIC. Also, I'm stealing that idea.

EDIT: On a serious note, as a deconstruction of the ideas in this thread, damaging objectives is notoriously unstable in tf2, encourages spam and causes frustration since progress is reset. Now a cart that can move by itself, that would turn the game into BLU players trying to dislodge RED players from the cart, rather than the other way around. That might be more interesting...
 
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UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
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Sep 8, 2008
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Sadly i dont realy see this working in the way it should. Red would only use spam classes which include the demoman. The demoman already is the class that blocks the whole game progress. With this gamemode this means red will simply allways win unless they are complete idiots.

That red can counter is something that is nice but it should be in such a way that its balanced and fun. It definitely shouldnt support spamming. So i think it should be a cp based counter capture style.

An example: Blue pushes the cart and blue has a cp in their own base (probably at the middle). Red has to defend the cp. When red isnt defending blue can push the cart. However, red cant block the cart by standing next to it. All they can do is block the CP.

This would force blue to move up. But they only can when they have their CP secured. That means they have 2 targets to focus on. This will often result in a harder gameplay but then again. Red has to move up to the cp also. If the map would be sort of circle shaped where both teams have to decide which route they take then it might be interesting.