Most people here know that I don't tend to start new threads myself (some of the convos I might've started would likely be more rebellious than conducive!); I'm content to take part in others' and, if need be, derail conversations for my own evil purposes there :p. Still, I believe this is a subject worth talking about here.

Crusha made a post here linking to a thread where he proposed the Titans consider trying new mods on for variety. This resonated very much with what I've had in mind lately as well, and it has to do with the impression I've been getting, both myself and from others, that things have started becoming a bit stagnant and samey recently. The saaame 20-30 maps seem to be voted all the time as soon as they become available with the saaame ppl rushing to grab the saaaame vehicles and use in the saaaame ways to reach the saaaame kinda scores... just like it seems it's always been. If there's one thing that drives players away from online games, it's them getting bored of the routine and losing all hope that anything new might come along. That's what I'm aiming to fight here by trying to get you all to start thinking of ways to refresh our day to day ONS experience on TechCom and with a new month right around the corner, I figured it's as good a time as any to start now.

In a nutshell, I propose that we use October as an opportunity to take a different direction from our usual maps, vehicles and even weapons gameplay "policy" and practices. Let's try something that challenges our established way of playing, thinking and winning, new maps or a new weapons set, a new concept, or a whole new theme! We got the server, it's big and it's reliable(-ish) and it's got a big number of regulars, many of which I'm sure would welcome a change. Why simply watch others try silly stuff like MinoMeUp versions and always stay the same ourselves? And if a whole month sounds like too long a period, we could try just testing something new over the weekends and see if we want more of it afterwards.

Crusha's suggestion - and I'm sure he'll elaborate here if he wants - is, we try to find a good, big mod (or a total conversion even), see if the requirements for the server and the necessary files distribution are within reasonable limits and try playing that. So, this is one idea that can be discussed parallel to others here. Me, I'm cool with it as long as the mod's something novel and interesting; I'm all ears for cool suggestions. In the next post I'll present my own idea for shaking things up (won't fit here), but anyone else that might have a good suggestion, step up and pitch it in; the more, the better.

TechCom-ToneMeDown (a.k.a. "October is weapons downgrade month")

I outlined the problem briefly above, but lemme elaborate a bit. Whether the custom vecs are overpowered or not, that's an endless debate, but what's undeniable is that we've been relying more and more on them to make PPHs and scores get bigger and, let's be honest, do the same for our egos. Everyone seems to be voting MinusTMU these days with the dream of the perfect mino run that gets them 100+ frags and with 2-3 linkers always behind them, or getting their ion in the lower corridors in Tanks-a-lot to spam the enemy primary for a healthy 200+ score before the defending team's core dies. I could go on, but I'm sure you catch my drift here.

The best recipe to a gg is balance and equal opportunity and not just between teams. At any given time in ONS, you can be either on foot, a driver or a pilot and right there's another triangle of "roles" that was well balanced in the original game... but not anymore. Normal UT2k4 vecs have clear pros/cons in place and a way for anyone to take out anyone else; for example, raptors can kill tanks, benders can kill raptors and tanks can kill benders. However, later editors seem to've made their maps with exclusive tank/flyer domination in mind; maps like the Nightwolf edits, Tanks-a-lot, MagicIsle, Basement, StripClub or Alpine (to name a few) become a one act show, dooming ppl who try the other approaches to certain failure. And the same kind of balance issues affect the normal weapons when you introduce the SSR, which was designed for a different gametype and is an absolute trump card against them. How's anyone expected to do well against any of the above if they don't follow the same way and just hope for the best? How is gameplay variety served by maps where there's no up or down option away from the tanks, no other way to approach a destination than through SSR lines of sight, no way to survive around the map when there's super flyers all above? What chance does a ped stand against a mino, a PPC, or a hurricane if they're not badly damaged? What chance does a sniper, a flak monkey or a regular shock whore have against an SSR camper whose ammo never runs out, whose rate of fire surpasses many of the above and, most importantly, whose one lucky shot kills instantly? Matching skills has always been what UT's about, but IMO, this weapons stockpiling trend the past years has been shifting the playing field from that to who can camp the best. If we're looking for ggs, that's just no good.

I think we've been eased into these extremes without realizing it just by loving the power abuse as it became available. Let's try for a month to redesign maps in the opposite ideology to the "TankMeUp" mantra. Let's start a weapons disarmament theme that replaces, say, minos with ions, ions and PPCs with ballistas and so on (also, finally replaces the half-baked hammerheads and minitanks with cicadas and badgers), that provides flyers to counter heavy tanks, catwalks and roof access to support guerilla fighting styles and reinforce the other sides of the triangle and see whether the freedom we gain would prove as refreshing now as those custom vecs did when we first used them. Let's ditch SSRs and see whether those maps still remain popular, cause if they don't, then we might need to consider why we kept them around and whom that served best in the fist place. Few high PPH rollers would appreciate any of this, but if there's a right/fair way to do things and an easy way to do things, I find the former to always be the better road to take and most ppl would probably agree with that too. Finally, we could use this as a chance to reexamine old maps and see whether they can be added to the roster again (Pandemonium!), along with the usual spammy stuff.

So, how's about it, anyone care to give this a try?

What I was talking about for the Titans is to get just some funny weekends to try new stuff besides the other servers. They should not drop down the other servers for that but run the mods on a separate server, like their second Freon-server, that is never in use.

And when it comes to mods, then most mods I know require more teamwork than ONS and I am not sure if it wouldn't decrease the true fun of the mod when it's played on a public server with some… let's say… selfish people.


After a while on Techcom I usually leave because I am a bit bored, true, but then I have some other servers to be. Titan Freon, UTAN Invasion-RPG, a Race-server (with mostly bad quality maps).




But however, if you really want to try that out, then let's try it, but keep the ONS as an option to vote for too (would save Foibos some work to reintegrate the ONS back later too, probably).
[PROMO] I recommend the UT2Vote-tool for this, btw! [/PROMO]

You were talking about the file-size. That is surely a big problem here. For the Titan-matches I expect every player to have the knowledge to download the mods by themselves and to install them properly to take strain from the redirect-server. For Techcom and it's public audience that will probably not be that easy and many would prefer the redirect because they are too lazy to download it separately once it becomes available.


But I wouldn't use such a long period of time for that, Techcom is an ONS-server, the best in the ranking. We shouldn't be turning that down now, some people maybe just want to play ONS and won't find so much alternatives then.

i can somewhat sympathize with peg's observation of.. let's say... ROUTINE.

and - thus i use it myself and you all know that and hate that - i vote for removing the SSR from spacejox... not sure about biggerbeerbattle though, simply because you can quickly get the instashock yourself there (and there's the difference... on space u have no chance whatsover when 2 ppl shoot the SSR-spot)

when it comes to masterbath, i'd say to keep the SSR... and YES, keep the ion, because it can be killed quite quickly when some ppl get on top on the lamps or the ion-spawn-point itself and avril and rocket it down.

problem is that once all nodes are lost due to a good ion driver - there is only ONE raptor left that spawns in base as well as ONE manta... not enough imo.


OSR-tanks-a-lot

i always hear ppl complaining about ion-camping... thus i am sure everybody has done that on this map. here's a hint: use the redeemer well. and approach ion from behind. if u wanna play dirty tankcamp on the ion-spawn-spot.
a ballista replacing the ion would be an interesting try - not sure about the popularity then....but that's what a test is for. let's see what the majority's reaction will be.


maelstrom-NV, bridge, crusha's spiffingrad, dreamus...
leave them as they are! never experienced a match that was like a previous one... PLUS ppl have alot freedom with their playing style...

on spiff, some wait for tank over and over, others try to hide and snipe, others just walk around having fun, wasting vehicles, use them right... whatever... it's always different.

maelstrom-NV, on of my fave maps... no need to change anything... except that i'd like another Udamage like at the middle node or the top of the hill. maybe even having 2-3 walls about primary nodes.
a minigun-turret or spidermines would also be quite interesting.

same goes for dreamus.

leave bridge as it is. best. map. ever.
and a good proof that u CAN transfer CTF-maps to ONS...


nevermore-TMU
having played the non-TMU version a coupla of times i am sure you also recognized the differences... without ion or mino matches can go either way and regaining nodes is alot easier... but was it as fun as TMU-version?
NO imo! cuz there ppl camp with goliath or hellbender and u literally have nothing against that duo.
i'd like raptors and/or mantas on TMU though.

minus-TMU / biggorz

sure ppl take mino over and over again, no matter if they waste it in 10 secs or have a 100+ score-ride...but let's face it, mino is down if only 2 badgers would attack it at the same time in a suicide mission. unfortunately i rarely see that.
downgrading mino to ion - neither for nor against that... maybe we could keep the ions on left and right node, replacing base mino with ion. or changing mino to ballista. idk... it might change the whole gameplay (imagine one team having 3 ions camping at one place! u won't stand a chance)


magicisle
add more flyers to base.

valarna-badwolf: remove kraken and wasps. they are imba. both ways. shooting down enemy kraken without being hit gives u 50points under a minute with a wasp, 3 shots with kraken... if both would be removed gameplay would be alot different.
my idea: replace kraken/levy with ballista. not sure about it though, cuz ballista with 2 ppl in it can shoot down all flyers and missiles and does well against any ground vehicles but the mino.

can't come up with another popular map right now...

point is, removing all the powerfull vehicles would maybe end up in a good way, but maybe removing the server's status as "the best ons-server out there" resulting in ppl vanishing. forever.

so let's just try out little differences. time by time... not major ones all together, that will be counter-productive imo!




when it comes to the MOD thing... add new weapons, maybe new vehicles... test it first on one map, let's see the reaction.
no huge changes that will force ppl with a slower bandwidth to abort the download of all the MBs and join another server. i like the variety of players, their skills... their nations...their agressiveness... would be a pitty if we lose this variety and would end up with let's say 30-50 regulars.


less is more.

I need more speeches ^^

thomasito wrote:

valarna-badwolf: remove kraken and wasps. they are imba. both ways. shooting down enemy kraken without being hit gives u 50points under a minute with a wasp, 3 shots with kraken... if both would be removed gameplay would be alot different.
my idea: replace kraken/levy with ballista. not sure about it though, cuz ballista with 2 ppl in it can shoot down all flyers and missiles and does well against any ground vehicles but the mino.

can't come up with another popular map right now...

point is, removing all the powerfull vehicles would maybe end up in a good way, but maybe removing the server's status as "the best ons-server out there" resulting in ppl vanishing. forever.

so let's just try out little differences. time by time... not major ones all together, that will be counter-productive imo!




when it comes to the MOD thing... add new weapons, maybe new vehicles... test it first on one map, let's see the reaction.
no huge changes that will force ppl with a slower bandwidth to abort the download of all the MBs and join another server. i like the variety of players, their skills... their nations...their agressiveness... would be a pitty if we lose this variety and would end up with let's say 30-50 regulars.

less is more.

I agree with thom at lest for wasp : it's the only map where mufo can get a score over 250 ...
but kraken is a good idea - at least levi for me