Feasibility of an Assasination Objective

[sonofagun]

Good day,

As some people may know I am the development team lead for National Crisis (http://www.nationalcrisis.net/). We would like the opinions of the community as to a suggestion for an objective in our covert game type. Any visitors to the website will know we are producing both invasion and covert game modes in our mod for a greater scope.

We were looking for objectives in our covert mode which would be origional and fun to play. One suggestion was made for an assasination game mode as described here :

Assasination – One player of the defending team spawns as the target and must reach a location with the help of his team mates. This player has a higher health than usual (unrealistic but necessary). The attacking team must eliminate this player. Maps of this nature MUST have multiple (4+) routes to the objective.

We are after the communitie's thoughts about this objective ; the following are some points which have been raised:

• Realism - We are a realistic modification and this game type could be seen as being highly unrealistic.
• Game Play - Is it just a death match where the attackers only have to target one player instead of the team?
• Idea of players being able to choose to play as 'decoys'. Instead of selecting a class the player could be a decoy!

Thanks very much for reading this and I look forward to your response. It will be very useful in aiding our concepting.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by sonofagun
Good day,

As some people may know I am the development team lead for National Crisis (http://www.nationalcrisis.net/). We would like the opinions of the community as to a suggestion for an objective in our covert game type. Any visitors to the website will know we are producing both invasion and covert game modes in our mod for a greater scope.

We were looking for objectives in our covert mode which would be origional and fun to play. One suggestion was made for an assasination game mode as described here :


We are after the communitie's thoughts about this objective ; the following are some points which have been raised:

• Realism - We are a realistic modification and this game type could be seen as being highly unrealistic.
• Game Play - Is it just a death match where the attackers only have to target one player instead of the team?
• Idea of players being able to choose to play as 'decoys'. Instead of selecting a class the player could be a decoy!

Thanks very much for reading this and I look forward to your response. It will be very useful in aiding our concepting.

sounds a bit like CS, not original but if done well it can be kinda fun

 

[sonofagun]

awww hell. I could have sworn it wasn't on CS but when I think back (and check the manual) it most definetly was.

Origional special forces objectives are difficult to think of!

 

[Uplink]

Personally I think the ultimate assasination mode would have lots of NPCs including many similar looking ones and the idea is to be the first team to kill one particular NPC, escape AI police and get to some sort of escape point. Now, that would rock.

As for your idea, I think it would be... ok. I dont really like real world mods that much (too much of an average thing is a bad, smelly, wet thing) but it seems Ok. The hardcore Counter Strike community will complain about it being unrealistic but, who cares eh?

 

[dawdler]

I would say, skip the killing part and move over to the capture part!

Unaimed (my original HL2 mod) was supposed to have commanders (or officers) on each team (1-2 maybe) that had increased health and positive effects on teammates around them. Now, one of the gameplay possibilities (it only had one mode) was to capture them alive! And actually any player you choose to capture, but the main targets where officers.

The score system (the tricky part) would be done so that both the surrendering officer get score and the capturing team. Thus being good for both teams, but only in set conditions... For example, 4 friendlies and one officer, you cant surrender. Its simply not an option... 2 friendlies and 1 officer against an overwhelming enemy... Youre in trouble. A lone officer against the enemy: surrender or loose officer points if you get killed.

The fun parts come when you have to take the officer back to your base.
If you just kill the surrendered officer, you loose score (and the officer).
So I though of including a simple shout system where the officer HAVE TO listen to you, or loose score big time for both him and his team (ie you could shoot him in the head if he dont listen without penalties, but he still get the penalties for his team). But he could drag out on time, maybe friendlies will come to the rescue before you can get him safe back to your base.


No game or mod I know uses anything like it. This of course calls for some slow down in pace (wouldnt work for something like CS), but it should work, with some fancy score trickery. I'm offering it out to everyone! I want to see non lethal options my games!!!

Edit: And no, I'm not talking about taking 'hostages' alive like in CS. I'm talking players, not ai.

 

[phantomdesign]

That is like CounterStrike101. You know the pathetically boring AS_ maps? No one played them for a few reasons.

 

[Konfuzzyus]

That's the problem with reality: It's just BOOOOOOOOORING

About that assasination thing... Dawdler's suggestion would definitely get new stuff into FPS-gameplay but I definetly do NOT want to be the one coding that stuff... (But I do not see how you will get players to actually behave like you intend to... There'll be hell to balance so players really will stand still instead of running or just blowing the others to bits)

Other than that... I suppose Uplink's got a point: You can add spice to already existing gametypes by adding lots of pedestrians... So some of the players in a team could go "undercover" (no armor, no heavy weapon, but looking the same as everybody else)...

I'd suggest to give the good guys penalties for killing pedestrians and the bad guys automatically get the center of attention if they randomly start killing people...

This would open special gametypes like
- Smuggling (anything, drugs, bombs... in ordinary shopping bags perhaps...)
- Evacuation (bomb in building, try to rescue as much pedestrians as possible...)
- Robbery (bad guys rob the pedestrians, good guys try to stop em...)

well.... Will be a lot of work to get the pedestrians working... but if you want to create something original...

And bout the AS in CS... I think it was a pretty good solution for this type of gameplay... and with a bit of teamplay on the right map it was fun... even though I don't like CS

 

[sonofagun]

Originally posted by Konfuzzyus
This would open special gametypes like
- Smuggling (anything, drugs, bombs... in ordinary shopping bags perhaps...)
- Evacuation (bomb in building, try to rescue as much pedestrians as possible...)
- Robbery (bad guys rob the pedestrians, good guys try to stop em...)
[/B]

This is a war simulation so smuggling, evacuation and robbery wouldn't be the chief concerns of the commander in chief. The ideas of NPC's is interesting but would be diifuclt to implement and best be left for a single player campaign.

Uplink
The idea sounds good but imagine it in game for a second. It's too complicated and any new players wouldn't have a clue what's going on! Not to mention my coder would probably keel over if I mentioned it !

That's the problem we are facing with the mod. Trying to make somthing new and untouched. When you play the mod we know It will feel different but on paper we need to get some details down. The physics system is one, two game types is another/

But we're struglling for covert operations as covert teams are normallu used to destroy or disrupt the enemy. We could have a steal the item objective or we could just have a special forces face off!

It's very difficult to find an origional idea that would work in game.

 

[Konfuzzyus]

Well... problem with war is, that it's just "Destroy the Enemy" no more no less...

All you can do is alter the way you achieve the goal

- blow up this (to weaken the enemy before we destroy him)
- recover this (to find out where the enemy is before we destroy him)
- hold that (so more of us can come and help us destroing the enemy)

and thats pretty much it... concerning objectives...
Spose you have to get new base concepts before being able to add extra game objectives...

A list of things that haven't been covered yet:

- Bribeing: One soldier gets to spawn in the enemy's base...
- Communication ways (Jamming, Intercepting, etc. to ensure the team is able to talk to each other perhaps with automated firing systems, that have to fed with target data from the field before they can fire...)
- NPC Soldiers which obey the players commands
- Weapon detail (Jamming, Modifications, Repairs etc.)
- Resource systems (Limited Ammo reinforcement... New Ticketing system)
- Chemical Warfare... (Gas Masks)

Well... thats all i can think of... Unfortunatly some will not perforrm very well in actual gameplay... but I hope to have given you something to think about...

 

[ComradeBadger]

Originally posted by Uplink
Personally I think the ultimate assasination mode would have lots of NPCs including many similar looking ones and the idea is to be the first team to kill one particular NPC, escape AI police and get to some sort of escape point. Now, that would rock.

:hmph: Have you been reading our team's DesignDoc

grrr