ARENA ascent a2

[zahndah]

ascent - Arena with limited respawns

Collab map with MrHyperion. Will be iterated on for the mayann community project.

Currently, it is arena however each team has a set ammount of respawns as a team (8 total per team). Im planning to get some visual representation of this but not sure how best to go about it.

Screenshots:

Spoiler: They are rather big

 

[The Siphon]

Can you post screenshots for now as a place holder, before you figure out a better representation.

 

[Hyperion]

Can you post screenshots for now as a place holder, before you figure out a better representation.

Can't yet, he's away from pc

 

[zahndah]

I updated the OP and overview with screenshots.

Also, when i was talking about the visual representation i was talking about in game, the gamemode (currently other than counting there is no way to tell how many respawns you have left, and the gamemode isnt explained much)

 

[Hipster_Duck]

I don't know how that limited spawns idea will work in pubs, its sounds quite interesting and might work in a competitive game, but from what I can remember from arena_byre in the invasion update, the no respawn kept people from just bombing in at round start (and punished them with no respawn if they did it). And I can see it being unfairly balanced towards good players, if they last longer than the rest of their team and then die, there may be no respawns left as the worse players on their teams will have used them. But then again, that's just my first impression without playing it.

 

[Hyperion]

@Hipster_Duck The idea behind limited respawns is to make players take risks at the beginning of the round. For example going for suicide medic pick mission and still being able to respawn and not just watch when your team celebrates without you

 

[Jekyllson]

That's an interesting concept. I have to say, though, the thing I hate about Arena in Valve pub servers (other than sitting out even when I wasn't my team's problem) is that it makes the difference between skill levels for players much more obvious, and it gets me frustrated at lower-skill teammates. I can see this accentuated those differences further, as having lower-skilled players who are more likely to get themselves killed are even more of a hindrance than they would be in normal Arena.

Also, I don't know about it encouraging players to take risks at the beginning of the round. It doesn't actually matter if you get a kill at the beginning of the round or in the middle of the round, since it's all about one team killing all the other team. Honestly, players who took risks at the beginning of the round would annoy people if they failed.

 

[zahndah]

I understand your concerns and thanks for the feedback.

it makes the difference between skill levels for players much more obvious

One of the reasons i liked the concept was that I figured that it would even out the contribution to the teams, as players who did less at the start get a chance to contribute more, therefore getting their contributions more equal to those who didnt die early / take risks. However I do understand that instead this could just be frustrating for those could are contributing more, as with those respawns they could contribute more than those who are getting the second chance.

I think the taking risks will be a much more viable strategy in a2, as in that we have made it actually arena mode, so there are first kill crits. So if someone was to take a risk and succeed, they could use the crits to eliminate alot of the enemies respawns, whereas if they fail they have wasted some of the time of the enemies crits (however the enemy would not have crits anyways if they hadn't of failed but i guess its about accepting fate and that). This system, while making the risks at the start more important, will make the whole round focus alot on the start of it, which may or may not be a good thing, we will have to see i suppose.

 

[Jekyllson]

[QUOTE="zahndah, post: 368363, member: 20897"

I think the taking risks will be a much more viable strategy in a2, as in that we have made it actually arena mode, so there are first kill crits. So if someone was to take a risk and succeed, they could use the crits to eliminate alot of the enemies respawns, whereas if they fail they have wasted some of the time of the enemies crits (however the enemy would not have crits anyways if they hadn't of failed but i guess its about accepting fate and that). This system, while making the risks at the start more important, will make the whole round focus alot on the start of it, which may or may not be a good thing, we will have to see i suppose.[/QUOTE]

But what's the difference between that and the normal Arena system, other than increasing the number of "lives" that each team has? If anything, wouldn't those early kills mean even less, because even though you wiped out half their team at the start, they'll be back? In normal arena, if you took a big risk, you got a massive reward of being able to potentially wipe out half the enemy team for the entire rest of the round, and limited respawns would diminish the reward for said risks (while diminishing the risk in general, since you'd have a security blanket of spare respawns to fall back on when you died). In other words, lower risk for yourself as a solo player (though not for your team) and significantly lower reward for going for a bombing at the beginning of a round?

 

[Muddy]

I once experimented with using the KOTH timers as kill counters - every time an enemy was killed, your team's timer would tick down. Perhaps you could do something similar where every time a team member dies, your team timer ticks down by one. It'd be a clear indication of how many respawns your team has, and how many the enemy has.

Well, clear-ish.

 

[zahndah]

But what's the difference between that and the normal Arena system, other than increasing the number of "lives" that each team has? If anything, wouldn't those early kills mean even less, because even though you wiped out half their team at the start, they'll be back? In normal arena, if you took a big risk, you got a massive reward of being able to potentially wipe out half the enemy team for the entire rest of the round, and limited respawns would diminish the reward for said risks (while diminishing the risk in general, since you'd have a security blanket of spare respawns to fall back on when you died). In other words, lower risk for yourself as a solo player (though not for your team) and significantly lower reward for going for a bombing at the beginning of a round?

Very possibly true. I feel this adaptation to arena though, is alot about conserving your respawns while removing the enemies - the exact same goal as arena but with extra lives. The only thing that should change is that players dont get shitted on at the start of the round then sit out, the majority of players get to fight in alot of the fighting, then people actually start dying later on. However probably this is not how it works. The idea of respawns is essentially to dampen the annoyance of doing nothing for a round, while still retaining alot of arena in it but again it will need alot of tinkering to get working right.

 

[zahndah]

hyper did the update, did buncha stuff!

screenshots not updated to the map looking more or less the same to the eye.

Read the rest of this update entry...