TC, but with ARENA play

T

The Asylum

So I'm sure we've all played Hydro, and have almost never seen an ending other than stalemate. Killing other players, sure, that's the easy part. Actually capping the other point is another story.

That gave me a brilliant idea. A TC map, but with ARENA style gameplay. I'm relatively sure a single-point round can work in theory for a regular TC map, but my question is, would different team_round entites and tf_logic_arena work together in conjuction with TC, and would killing the other team automatically award the surviving team the active point for that round?

This is all just conjecture for me, would someone know if this is at all possible?
 

Vincent

&#128296 Grandmaster Lizard Wizard Jedi &#128296
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Sep 5, 2009
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Maybe. I'd definiately play it since I rather enjoy Arena and TC. Doubtful it'll be a very popular map though among the majority of TF2s general play base though.

I don't see why the game logic wouldn't work, someone managed to get a half decently working tcplr_
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
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Nov 2, 2007
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Possible. I've done the entities years back. Nothing too special to do that I recall, just set it up like you would think (one cp tc and add a TLA) and it should work.
 

Seba

DR. BIG FUCKER, PHD
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Jun 9, 2009
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This has been discussed multiple times in chat, don't think you're amazingly original :p If it was just TC with no respawning/health I'd go for it, but I don't think that single-point matches will work.
 

Vincent

&#128296 Grandmaster Lizard Wizard Jedi &#128296
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Sep 5, 2009
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But I don't think that single-point matches will work.

Why wouldn't they? Arena is more about around the point than on it. If it came down to capping it'd just be whoever capped it first like in normal Arena.

I'm really starting to like this idea.
 

The_Ulf

L6: Sharp Member
May 26, 2009
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That... actually sounds great! D:

It'd certainly make rounds faster - dunno about single control points (simply in terms of challenge of layout design, not illegitimacy of gameplay).

Personally, I was a fan of arena, so I'm likely biased, but I think this could work quite well. Essentially, I think it would be like every round played as a single respawn wave of the larger, complete map and the battle as a whole.

KOTH might also accomplish this, but I feel it would make individual rounds last too long unless the koth timers were quite short and that might make it hard for the koth-y-ness of KOTH to really show (in that the point can change hands back and forth repeatedly) or feel meaningless.
 

LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
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Aug 8, 2010
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Single control points for me dont work for TC because part of the fun of TC is how the point changes drastically depending on what direction you approach from- look at how the Dam point is different between attacking through the tunnels from the bridge, and how it's different when that platform is no longer an attacking position but a bastardly place to put a sentry.

You lose that wth single points.

The trouble with two points is that you end up with two engineers and two sentries. And nothing happens.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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So I'm sure we've all played Hydro, and have almost never seen an ending other than stalemate. Killing other players, sure, that's the easy part. Actually capping the other point is another story.

I put to you tc_strata.

Would you like to continue your analysis with TC or just hydro?
 

Terwonick

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 25, 2010
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I'm intrested in redoing TC also, with different gamemodes than the two points, because it's terrible on Hydro. I think that Arena mode would be brilliant on TC, I'd play a map with it.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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What you also need to ask yourself is what the type of player that plays arena and the type that plays TC are after. Different experiences; and what you basically have are 6 potential arena maps thrown into one.

Kind of redundant don't you think?

Besides KoTH would work better because not being able to counter attack would suck balls. TC rounds shouldn't be decided by the first wave of attacks. I'm pretty sure people would still play defencibly anyway because of that fact.
 
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Vincent

&#128296 Grandmaster Lizard Wizard Jedi &#128296
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Sep 5, 2009
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What you also need to ask yourself is what the type of player that plays arena and the type that plays TC are after. Different experiences; and what you basically have are 6 potential arena maps thrown into one.

Kind of redundant don't you think?

Wasn't the whole point of TC to offer a different experience every play through? I know it's still just one map, but it was for offering a new angle at which to attack the other team a different way. Arena is no different, what's negative about 6 potentially different arena maps thrown into one? TC anything is just "CP/KotH/CTF that has 6 potential maps thrown into one".
 

Boylee

pew pew pew
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Apr 29, 2008
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I'm sure this has been discussed before, I think I have a proof of concept map buried somewhere on my hardrive to test the entity setup. If I recall correctly I couldn't get it to work properly. Then again I'm not an entity wizard so I may have done something wrong.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
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Some servers have Sudden Death at the end of hydro time. Which is basically arena mode, 2 points.

The problem with that (as fun as it is imo) is that most players don't like Arena for 1 reason. Waiting.

You die, it's not 25 second spawn that gets people wound up, it's 3 minutes. Doing that 5 or 6 times in a row, you might get 15 minutes of playtime, you might have 15 minutes of sitting it out.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Wasn't the whole point of TC to offer a different experience every play through? I know it's still just one map, but it was for offering a new angle at which to attack the other team a different way. Arena is no different, what's negative about 6 potentially different arena maps thrown into one? TC anything is just "CP/KotH/CTF that has 6 potential maps thrown into one".

The point of TC was to prevent players from anticipating the gameplay tactics they need immediately upon joining the map by providing random rounds; and to offer a map that would not "get old" as quickly as other maps... But:

When you change the objective setup you also change how close you are to achieving the original goals for TC. CTF (IE Shmitz's TC map) was about as close to the original goal criteria TC conceptualists had whilst also addressing stalemate issues of classic TC. When you take another mode you lean towards another style of play and criteria that less resemble TC and resemble those other individual game modes. I'm not saying it wouldn't work on some level, just that you'd be more productive leaning your project in other directions when/if you're gonna lean that far from the original TC setup. Because Arena is such a different mode from existing ones and attracts a particular crowd of players.

It's my belief that arena-TC would not make the most of the environments on offer to players with rounds so short and as an arena mode it wouldn't feel like TC only being allowed to spawn once a round. CTF or KoTH would provide a more close to the original game experience for TC; whether arena is functional or not. Though i'm usually one to advise people not to get stuck in old concepts that don't work 100% (and evolve those concepts), it works a little differently when you're combining 2 different official game modes with different gameplay and gameplay criteria.

What i'm saying is, if i'm saying anything conclusive at all, is that the community would probably be better off with 6 arena maps that could also be later converted to KoTH, than a single TC map that feels like a bunch of arena's thrown together and questionably address the "TC issue". Just because arena never stalemates does not make it a default replacement for the existing TC setup.

This is why some of the more experienced level designers (Shmitz, YM) have opted for A) the CTF style TC and B) A modified version of the original CP-TC. It's not just about making the mode functional, especially when choosing certain aspects to increase functionality sacrifice other core aspects of the game mode.
 
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