Inno objectives and hostile NPCs?

[takua108]

Hey y'all.

I've been playing TTT for awhile now, and while it's one of the most fun gamemodes Gmod has to offer, there's one thing that just plain sucks about it: there's nothing to do when you're innocent other than prove your innocence and/or run around and wait to die.

So I had this idea for a map: the terrorists are hauling some sort of illicit good (drugs, bombs, anthrax, weapons, money, or what have you), and the innocents are trying to get all of these props that're scattered about the map into a truck or something. I haven't thought about the balance too much, but one possible idea is that the illicit props can be taken out of the goal-container by the traitors, and possibly destroy them. Once a certain portion of the props are destroyed, an easy innocent victory is no longer possible.

So what do you guys think of this idea? I'm not a great mapper by any means, but I have a working prototype of this idea and I'm just fooling around with it at the moment, trying to do stuff like have the props spawn in random locations to keep things varied and less predictable.

My other idea for a possible feature that a map could have to spice things up is hostile NPCs. On this same map that I'm toying around with, I have an NPC spawner that makes metropolice outside of the building that the map takes place in. They are unreachable, but they can be killed and they can kill you. Would this feature automatically be really annoying or do you think it could be used effectively if it's not too overpowering?

[GrayScare0]

Regarding innocence: I actually prefer inno over detective and traitor, chiefly because I like playing aggressively.  I like finding out who the traitors are without telling anyone (unless I feel doomed or that I need more time/backup) and then betraying them.  It works wonders.  Half the time the traitors complain of RDM because I didn't out my reasons, but there's no reason to do so if no backup is needed and you have enough evidence.

Regarding the map: I like the idea a lot and think you should give it a go, but balancing might be hard.  I think that maps with objectives like these can only be successful if there are MANY objects, as players can easily memorize their locations (even if they're random, the possibilities can be memorized) and begin systematically moving them.

The fact that they can be moved or destroyed (which I really think would be ideal here as an option--maybe a pit or contraption that destroys them or removes them from play rather than shooting them up?) is indeed helpful--the balance of power can thus be restored for the traitors.  Just make sure the ratio of objects needed for victor to objects that must be destroyed to prevent victory is fair after extensive testing.  Also, make sure that traitors get some sort of compensation for having the possibility of autowin for innos.  This could be in the form of a traitor objective, traps, dark areas for easier kills, or whatever as long as the map is balanced.  If it's already a traitor map, then don't bother obviously.

NPCs I'm not so sure about and would frankly need to play with in order to form an opinion regarding, but they could certainly spice maps up I think.  Especially if they're deployed as a traitor trap.  I recall a few maps that have had NPCs (a few zm maps have zombies, as does ttt_arctic_complex occasionally), but it really depends on the positioning.  Of course, they should really serve some sort of purpose beyond merely spicing things up though--maybe making a certain section of the map more dangerous to get to, making a trap, or having a shorter route to a location that is also more dangerous.

Overall, I think your idea is really good and you should pursue it.  I think having the traitors and innocents working more as teams definitely makes things interesting as long as you consider the fact that the innocents outnumber the traitors, but are initially unconfirmed.  I'm eager to hear of your progress.

Edit: Oh, and do make sure you take the player count into consideration.  Will this be something balanced for all counts, or perhaps only feasible with more people?  You need to ask yourself these basic questions before the balancing is finalized and, if the case is that it's only effective at certain player counts (not necessarily talking about excluding the insane ones, as really everything needs to be rebalanced for them), disclosing such in your final map description.

[Handy_man]

introducing stories to the gamemode per map is a good idea, this is like the lost temple map lots of people like it, and its an objective winable by both parties at the same instance, thats what makes it great.

I think it would be more balanced if traitors and innocents can benefit from the objective, as it will mean that both will take part in the objective collection without feeling too much pressure (traitors to kill innocents doing it and innocents to watch for traitors only doing it like the thing) it works out best if both parties can take part in my opinion.

There should be additional timers to make sure things can't be done instantly say before traitors and innocents are even decided, but its all down to mappers implementing this play style.

[Cush]

Regarding innocence: I actually prefer inno over detective and traitor, chiefly because I like playing aggressively.  I like finding out who the traitors are without telling anyone (unless I feel doomed or that I need more time/backup) and then betraying them.  It works wonders.  Half the time the traitors complain of RDM because I didn't out my reasons, but there's no reason to do so if no backup is needed and you have enough evidence.

This a hundred times over. People accuse me of RDM so much because I find evidence it was them, then I let them think they are safe until I see them and shoot them, and I call them out at the same time as shooting so if I do die other people know. Sometimes that can be like 1-2 minutes later if I'm chasing them around the map trying to find them.

NPCs - Meh, not really much point, by default they dont do much damage, the AI isnt that good, and the focus should be more on traitors vs innocents and map objectives.

Objectives - They CAN work well, but you need to find a balance with them. If they are too easy/fast for the innocents to complete, it maps it a sucky map for traitors to play on. If the map isnt big enough, all the innocents just swarm together doing objectives and it becomes very hard to win.

zm_countrytrain has a pretty good balance of objectives, it takes a good few minutes for the innocents to do the objectives/collect the suitcases, they can be easily thrown away if nobody is guarding them and the map is big enough so people can be picked off while they go for suitcases without anyone noticing. The zombie traitor traps are pretty useless because the zombies are so easy to kill, and often they just reveal who the traitor is because you can see them looking at the trap button when the zombies appear.

[GrayScare0]

strong>Objectives - They CAN work well, but you need to find a balance with them. If they are too easy/fast for the innocents to complete, it maps it a sucky map for traitors to play on. If the map isnt big enough, all the innocents just swarm together doing objectives and it becomes very hard to win.

I agree with this.  I've played a few maps for TTT where objectives are far too accessible and therefore rounds are way shorter than they should be.

[takua108]

So the way it's set up right now, you spawn in a room where your van just crashed through the wall, leaving (somehow all 6-12 of) you in this building. (Since I'm a terrible and incredibly novice mapper, it's just a "generic industrial building.") There's several (maybe five) "packages" in the van that you have to pull out, but you have to do it kind of quickly because metropolice will start to spawn down the road and move in on you (no more than like three at a time; mainly just to get people to get the packages out of the truck quickly). From there, you have to carry the packages quite a ways through the map to the garage area, where a guy in a truck is waiting for you. There's going to be several ways to get to the garage, so as to leave room for the traitors to pretend like they're carrying the packages but then go and hide them somewhere. There's also other packages scattered throughout the map, some of which may not appear every time. Once the innocents get a certain number (twenty?) of packages into the truck, the garage door opens, and the truck drives away, resulting in a terrorist victory.

I'm still working out how a bunch of the finer points are going to work: will there be a traitor room? Will there be some sort of trigger volume that can destroys packages put into it? Will there be other objectives that must be accomplished to get the getaway vehicle ready, to further spread the terrorists out and expose them to traitors?

I'm working on this pretty much just for fun, hoping for a completed product that looks and works alright, but it won't be anywhere near the greatest-looking map ever.

Thanks for the input, though, guys! Any other suggestions are welcome. Maybe I'll post some screenshots or video of what I have so far later today.

[GrayScare0]

Thanks for the input, though, guys! Any other suggestions are welcome. Maybe I'll post some screenshots or video of what I have so far later today.

That sounds great.  Frankly I've never heard of a TTT objective so dynamic.  I'm thinking that if a mechanism was put in place to destroy the packages, it would obviously be superior to hiding the packages for the traitors, but would incur a greater risk (innos would expect traitors to deposit packages there).  Keeps things interesting and gives traitors a more secure way of ending the objective if the innos are careless enough to not monitor the mechanism--I would be suspicious of anyone walking towards it with a package.  For traitor rooms, keep in mind that traitors probably should not be able to deposit packages there, as innos would not be able to reach them, so maybe it wasn't such a great idea on my part.

We'll have to see how well adding the NPCs goes towards rushing the innos.

Visuals generally aren't that important I think in these games as long as they are compensated with unique features or interesting gameplay.  The main concerns should be size (making it large enough and with enough alternate pathways to spread out the innocents and keep them from quick victory) and general balancing.