[GAMEMODE] Operation: Battleground - UPDATE: v1b!

[King Dumb]

Operation: Battleground

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Download - v1b: http://static.best-ever.org/wads/operat ... nd-v1b.pk3

Changelog

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v1b:
--Fixed flag duplication bug.
--Fixed board drain halting bug.
--Fixed scoreboard.
--Terminator Sphere base damage nerfed to 20%.
+-Added distance checker to Circuit Board; drain will be lowest when you're closest to your own base, medium when you're closest to the center, and highest when you're closest to the enemy base.
+-Added distance checker to Terminator Sphere; damage will be lower when you're nearest to one of the bases and higher when you're nearest the center.

NOTE: PLEASE READ EVERYTHING BELOW BEFORE YOU START PLAYING.

Operation: Battleground is a new team mode played on CTF maps. It attempts to emphasize teamwork and strategy, while also allowing even inexperienced players to contribute to the overall goal.

The hallmark of Operation: Battleground is the presence of multiple key items in every game! The Terminator Sphere, Circuit Board, White Flag, and Blue/Red Flags are all here!

Operation: Battleground is played in Team Game mode. It is currently playable on 7 vanilla CTF maps. These maps were made compatible with the mode and they are reached by appending an X to the end of their names (that is, these should be the only maps in rotation in servers):
MMCTF05X
MMCTF08X
MMCTF09X
MMCTF10X
MMCTF14X
MMCTF15X
MMCTF17X

This mode should be played with a minimum pointlimit of 100, unless it's a very small crowd.

Currently, this mode includes two playable versions, dubbed Traditional Mode and Dynamic Mode. The new server variable sv_obgscore sets which version is active. The default is 0, Traditional Mode, while 1 is Dynamic Mode.

Traditional Mode:
-Capture the enemy Blue/Red Flag to score 20 points.
-Frag an enemy to score 1 point.
-Hold the circuit board to slowly drain the enemy’s points (drain rate increases with more players in game).
-Hold the Terminator Sphere for a 25% increase to damage and speed.
-Capture the White Flag to debuff the enemy team; their frags won’t add points to their total for 30 seconds. Note: You can capture the White Flag even when the enemy’s colored flag is taken.

Dynamic Mode:
Dynamic Mode is the same as Traditional Mode, but with some important changes:
-Holding the circuit board will slowly add to your points rather than subtract from the enemy’s.
If your team is down by 25% or more of the total point limit:
-Capturing the enemy colored flag adds 20 points plus 5% of the point limit.
-Holding the circuit board adds double (2) points every time it would add one.
-Holding the Terminator Sphere grants a 40% damage buff and a 25% speed buff.
If your team is down by 50% or more of the total point limit:
-Fragging an enemy player earns 3 points.

Important Mechanics:
-You can’t carry more than one key item at a time!
-Bind the new command ‘dropgoalitem’ to a key (or use the controls menu). This command will drop whatever key item you are carrying at the time.
-The Terminator Sphere and Circuit Board both spawn at one of four random spots (each) near the center of the arena.
-The Blue/Red/White Flags all autoreset according to sv_flagreturntime; the Terminator Sphere and Circuit Board reset to one of their spawns after 30 seconds.
-You can still manually return the colored flags.
-The White Flag respawns 2 minutes after it is captured each time.
-Spectating, disconnecting, or changing teams while carrying a key item will return that item to its spawn.
-If you're closest to the White Flag spawn than to either of the base flag spawns, the Terminator Sphere will grant you 35% damage rather than 20%.
-The Circuit Board drain rate is lowest when you're in your own base. If you're closer to the center, it'll drain faster. If you're in the enemy base, it will achieve its highest drain rates.

Known Bugs:
--

Other Important Notes:
-Compatibility is currently only guaranteed with vanilla.
-If you want to see the ACS source, you need only PM me asking. Chances are very high I'll send it right to you.

What To Expect in the Future:
-Customizable content! In the future I plan to add different options for what each key item can do... and perhaps add more key items!
-Maps built from the ground up for Operation: Battleground.

On that subject...

Calling interested mappers!
If you would like to create a map for Operation: Battleground, please be my guest! Keep in mind any map made for this mode should also work in CTF modes. Maps intended to be good fits for Operation Battleground should follow the following guidelines:
-The map should be pretty big, or at least effectively big. That is to say, either physically large or labyrinthine (or both!) are ideal. No large empty spaces though!
-Pedestals for the Terminator Sphere and Circuit Board, so they don't have to spawn at odd locations.
-And of course, pedestals for the flags.

Additionally, you must do the following to your maps to make them compatible with Operation: Battleground:
-Tag the Blue Flag sector as 76.
-Tag the Red Flag sector as 77.
-Where the Blue Flag should spawn, instead place a MapSpot with tag 76 and an ActorHitsFloor thing with special 226 executing script 102.
-Where the Red Flag should spawn, instead place a MapSpot with tag 77 and an ActorHitsFloor thing with special 226 executing script 101.
-Where the White Flag should spawn, instead place a MapSpot with tag 78.
-The Circuit Board is coded to spawn at a random MapSpot from 79-82. Place these near the center of the map.
-The Terminator Sphere is coded to spawn at a random MapSpot from 83-86. Place these near the center of the map, too!

Please PM me or ask here with any questions.

----------------------------

Credits:
King Dumb - ACS/DECORATE Coding
Orange Juice :l - Original idea/conception
Muzaru - DECORATE coding of the key items
Awbawlisk - Hosting early testing servers
Orange Juice :l, Muzaru, Shade Guy, Mendez, Awbawlisk, Bikdark - Testing, Feedback
Lego, Messatsu, SmashBroPlusB - Answering specific questions I had

[-Daiki-TheOni]

With this mod, even the bots can really play!!! pretty cool!!!

[ZeStopper]

With this mod, even the bots can really play!!! pretty cool!!!

That is very true.
 

[Max]

"this seems like ctf with a bunch of stupid shit thrown in" - Seth Jones, 2013

At the moment I'm not a fan of how the items are handled. I'm guessing this mode was supposed to be a larger, warfare-styled game? It's very difficult to attempt to create this style of gameplay inside MM8BDM because it's fundamentally arena-based as opposed to warfare-based. Enemies have a lot of health, and the general slow travel time of most of MM8BDM's weapons makes chasing players much harder than it would be in other games. This causes the items to be incredibly hard to retrieve, especially when you're looking for one person in a team of about 8.
In addition, the items provide specific benefits that make them hard to lose in general. The Terminator powerup not only makes the player much harder to kill due to damage output, it also makes it much harder to kill as they have the ability to retreat much faster than your weapons. The Circuit board encourages defensive play, as there is little benefit to leaving the base and potentially losing the board. This makes the Circuit board into a simple grab and hide, giving the team with it a practically-permanent advantage unless multiple players on the other team band together specifically to retrieve it. The White flag also suffers from the difficulty of chasing, as it's fairly easy to just slip through people and capture at the enemy's flag (although admittedly you usually die afterwards).
Although I'm not the best at formulating thoughts (this 'wall of text' is barely a paragraph) I was just attempting to convey that this goal of teamwork-orientated large-scale battlefield games isn't really suited to MM8BDM at all and it's difficult to play as a result.
So yeah.

[Linnie]

I greatly enjoy this mode. Yeah, I suppose the "CTF with extra shit" is somewhat accurate, but I don't consider that a bad thing. I do agree with the criticism that the Terminator sphere being too hard to kill, which was the point of Terminator but doesn't work as a support item;  I had a game where the Terminator guarded the flag, and they killed me every time. I couldn't kill them to stop it; I mean, I could kill them, but if I do that it will stay there until they respawn and grab it again. I can't grab it myself because I want the flag, so I'm helpless at them unless I want to abandon the flag altogether.

I do like the general mode outside of the sphere, though!

[King Dumb]

At the moment I'm not a fan of how the items are handled. I'm guessing this mode was supposed to be a larger, warfare-styled game? It's very difficult to attempt to create this style of gameplay inside MM8BDM because it's fundamentally arena-based as opposed to warfare-based. Enemies have a lot of health, and the general slow travel time of most of MM8BDM's weapons makes chasing players much harder than it would be in other games. This causes the items to be incredibly hard to retrieve, especially when you're looking for one person in a team of about 8.
In addition, the items provide specific benefits that make them hard to lose in general. The Terminator powerup not only makes the player much harder to kill due to damage output, it also makes it much harder to kill as they have the ability to retreat much faster than your weapons. The Circuit board encourages defensive play, as there is little benefit to leaving the base and potentially losing the board. This makes the Circuit board into a simple grab and hide, giving the team with it a practically-permanent advantage unless multiple players on the other team band together specifically to retrieve it. The White flag also suffers from the difficulty of chasing, as it's fairly easy to just slip through people and capture at the enemy's flag (although admittedly you usually die afterwards).
Although I'm not the best at formulating thoughts (this 'wall of text' is barely a paragraph) I was just attempting to convey that this goal of teamwork-orientated large-scale battlefield games isn't really suited to MM8BDM at all and it's difficult to play as a result.
So yeah.

Thanks for the feedback. The decision was specifically made in development not to make this mode an all-out war[fare] type mod. Instead, the focus was on getting teams to coordinate their efforts in regards to each goal item.

Many players have already identified the Terminator Sphere as rather dominating. I am looking into options that will make this less severe.
As for the Circuit Board, based on what I observed in the server (even though the draining bugged out at times), the current drain rates are mathematically close to negligible based on point increase rates, in small and large matches (drain rate increases with player count). However, the idea that players should deliberately hunt down the Board holder was intentional. Currently I/we are exploring other/additional functionality for the Board.
From my experience playing even in large matches, it was just as difficult to capture the White Flag/pick up the enemy flag as it is in normal CTF games, even when the enemy did not have a coordinated defense in their base.

I am also considering measures that will make hunting down certain item carriers more feasible; currently it is about as necessary as I would like, but not quite as feasible as I would like.

Expect an update with bug fixes and some of these smaller additions to arrive later today or tomorrow.

[Superjustinbros]

I'll probably download this when it gets further along in development. From what it's looking to be thus far it seems promising.

[King Dumb]

Update! v1b released!

Changelog:
--Fixed flag duplication bug.
--Fixed board drain halting bug.
--Fixed scoreboard.
+-Added distance checker to Circuit Board; drain will be lowest when you're closest to your own base, medium when you're closest to the center, and highest when you're closest to the enemy base.
+-Added distance checker to Terminator Sphere; damage will be lower when you're nearest to one of the bases and higher when you're nearest the center.

And there's a server up.

[Knux]

KD, do you think this would work with my CTF maps? Though I'm yet to post those updates.

[Mendez]

The way Battleground maps work is that KD rips out maps that are already in the core and retrofits them with the new items and jazz. If you sent KD the KCTF maps, he could retrofit some of them for battleground. Of course, it depends on whether you're willing to let KD modify the maps and whether KD wants to modify them in the first place.

[Knux]

whether KD wants to modify them in the first place.

That's the reason I'm asking. If I mentioned my maps, it should be obvious that I'm willing to let him use them. Although I would still keep my pack running separately as usual, of course.

[Linnie]

Hey, I got a sudden urge to be productive, so during the past four hours I made Battleground maps for all the CTF maps not already included in this mode.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5ythm3

MMCTF01X
MMCTF02X
MMCTF03X
MMCTF04X
MMCTF06X
MMCTF07X
MMCTF11X
MMCTF12X
MMCTF13X
MMCTF16X
MMCTF18X
MMCTF19X
MMCTF20X


Not all of the maps have perfect item placement, so feel free to move some of the circuit board and terminator sphere spawns. I tried my best to keep them towards the center and in reasonable spots, but I'm sure there are one or two poor placements.