Mann vs Machines Door Opening Between Waves

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Layl

L1: Registered
Jun 15, 2013
30
38
Edit: What would be a great way to start my first post? Why, making a typo in a major TF2 game mode in the title of course!
While working on my first map in hammer (to get my hands dirty on the tools before making a real planned out map) I played around with changing the mechanics a bit for Mann vs Machine without alienating players.
The idea that so far held up (and worked overall fairly well) is a door that opens only between waves. This way there would be a distinct difference between 'robot walkways' and 'safe ground' compared to vanilla maps which mostly have small platforms with one or two ways to get on them.
With robot flanking routes taking a reasonable amount of time while moving around between waves not being too annoying and slow, the doors being closed at the first wave to get the player used to this concept and the occasional mob of working class scouts beating the bourgeoisie Engie into submission followed by a sentry buster taking out the sentry nest still being a common sight, it seemed a reasonable idea to keep in the map.
Below are screenshots of the door in the map currently and the difference between open and closed. Not shown is a tunnel that gives access to the top floor for robots and unlucky heavies swarmed by more robots.
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5oteLsU.jpg

Has anyone before played around with this idea, and how did it work out in playtesting? Is it too different from regular MvM to be a useful feature of a map? I would love to hear opinions on this idea while I continue work on the next section of this map.
 
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Ælement

Comfortably mediocre
aa
Dec 21, 2010
1,481
1,616
Almost everybody here who has made an mvm map has done this. We've grown rather fond of forwarded upgrade stores, which are only accesible between rounds you see.

Doors like that may work, but i've never seen it used like that. Maybe you can do ike us and make a forwarded shop to spare the players of walking back? It's up to you.

I'm uncertain whether or not you already know how to get it working. Look at the spoiler if in doubt:
The way it works is that the pop-file has to send signals out to the map entities that control the door.
Let me find an example...

Here we go:
Code:
// This controls the mechanism that closes the door when the round starts
		StartWaveOutput
		{
			Target wave_start_relay
			Action Trigger
		}
		
// This one opens the door again once the wave is over. Place both in the beginning of the .pop file.
		DoneOutput					
		{
			Target wave_finished_relay
			Action trigger
		}
The entities used are logic_relay's with names as specified in the "target" spot.
 
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Layl

L1: Registered
Jun 15, 2013
30
38
Thanks for the response! I didn't consider making a forward player shop but I think I'm gonna make the map wrap around a bit instead and keep it at one player shop in a room in the center instead with between waves those convenient paths.

It's not only that I'm only using these doors in my map for easy access to the player store, but also for improving general mobility when mobility isn't a win-or-die situation. I already got the door working, I got the idea while looking at the round end logic relay.

Currently I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to kind of make the robot advancements block off certain areas and wait for doors, with a group of robots gathering up in rooms waiting for doors to open and such (if the AI were to co-operate with such a thing), just to delay the horde a bit when one area is deemed a "lost cause", and to allow a brief timeframe where engies can set up, heavies can get into position and beggars bazooka soldiers can grab some ammo.
I am wonder how that kind of thing would be added to a map and how it would function with the robot AI.
 
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