BRILLIANT forge idea up for grabs

The concept is unique, that much is given. However, the gameplay will ultimately fall short for those playing as Elites. The first phase will SUCK for those two that are randomly selected to be imprisoned. The second and third phases will SUCK for any Elite that dies. A gametype that revolves around this concept would be excruciatingly difficult to balance that allows it to be fair for the Elites. If it's not balanced I can easily see large amounts of people rage quitting once they become imprisoned. I would suggest only pseudo-imprisoning the Elites. Allow them to still participate in the game. There's nothing more boring that sitting in one spot for an entire game while everyone else is running around enjoying themselves.

 

If I were to spawn trapped in a prison I would quit, and I'm sure many other people would too. Other than that it doesn't sound so visionary, especially since territories is never a good way to end invasion. Territories is the easiest objective in invasion. And ending with an easy objective is bad.

 

You could, perhaps, include a territory that the imprisoned Elites could go after. This would mean a few Spartans would have to remain behind to guard the prisoners. The prison territory could be significantly harder to get to than the outside territory, but it would at least give something for them to do.

I might give this a shot, actually.

 

Maybe for the imprisoned use a blocked teleporter system, until released they are connected with a custom powerup that makes them invincible for 1 second, and spawn next to sniper rifles?

Put them further away from the area and let them give ground support until rescued.

That, or make a golf minigame or something to deal with until they get there.

I would absolutely love that. And put a few cones to kick around?

 

I'm with Ursus, inasmuch as I think that giving the prisoners an objective or to could bring the gameplay back for the Elites. It's not like it wouldn't be realistic--prison riots, anyone?

Just give the elites a way to break out of their cells, give them some mild trouble via the spartan defenses, and give them an objective. Have them respawn in prison cells again (that have since locked down)--but here's the thing. To prevent spawn killing of the prisoners, split up the prison cells across the defending compound. Make sure they have as balanced of a fight as possible getting to the objective from any angle, and you're golden.

In fact, that would actually be pretty cool. The first phase, being maybe a territories phase, would have the attackers trying to get to some spot before assaulting the main compound (yeah, this changes the OP idea a bit, bu it makes it more playable) which should open the main gate, and give the prisoners a control room of sorts to attempt to take over, which would in turn also open the main gate. The defenders would have to focus not only on the attackers, but would also have to keep an eye on the prisoners.

Implemented correctly, this sounds like a fantastic idea for a game, and would actually work perfectly on a map I am setting out to make, especially considering the fact that I haven't come up with a great Invasion premise for it just yet.

 

Edit: Above poster and me on same wave-length apparently..

In halo 3 I thought of something with like this. I was trying to make a "non-honor-system" cops-n-Robbers. What I ended up with was an infection game where people would spawn in a jail cell if killed (simply put). Though I ran into the same problem you face, what would they do while in jail?

There are a few ways you can go about this:

1) make jail escapable.

1a) Complicated puzzle thing: If you give the people in jail at least the illusion of something to do, people wont rage quit, I figured this out in my halo 3 game, I made a really challenging (I think impossible even) obstacle course thing for the people in jail. This was just enough to keep people from quitting.
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1b) Also what might work if you do it correctly make the jail conceptually easy to escape, but have the defending team be able to easily kill the prisoners.. So you create this thing were you have to suppress the attacking team trying to get in while you have to at least pay attention to the prisoners trying to get out.
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2) Give the prisoners an objective: Say they are unable to get out, but It would be interesting if you allowed them to sabotage certain defenses while they were in the jail. Like on phase 1, if you made it possible for the prisoners to destroy all the turrets. Or maybe there is an armory, And the prisoners could block access to that somehow. There is an infinitude of different 'sub-objectives' that you could give the jail-ees.

3) A third idea; There wasn't one...

 

Me and Jupiter are definitely on the same page. Provided that the prisoners canhave an effect on the overall gameplay, there certainly would be no reason that this can't take place in a balanced and fun-for-all way.

 

Hey, if Protofury and Jupiter are on the same page, and Protofury is "with" me, (OBS) does that make it a hivemind?

I mean, the one problem I could see with modifying maddflash's idea like that is what happens when the elites die? You could either give them the choice of where to respawn, or force them to respawn in the prison. Depending on the prison dynamic, either could be acceptable. You could also make it random, scrapping respawn zones and instead using respawn points, which decide (more or less) randomly where to put a recent death. That method also has the added advantage of getting the prisoners out if the guards spawnkill them too much.

 

I'm definitely in agreement with the whole giving the prisoners something to do. If you place 2 people in a box and force them to sit there and do nothing, people will not have fun. But how about you make it possible (yet, hard) for the prisoners to escape the prison.

 

Well I was thinking about this and I came up with a few things:

First off, spawning:
It took me abnormally long to think about it but invasion there happens to be that little thing called squad-spawn. And with this squad-spawning I believe you can make different portions of a team spawn in different locations (I THINK). So if that is how it works, then we just solved the spawning problem; We have one squad of people spawn in jail, and everyone else spawn outside.

Second off, spawning.... again:
For a master forgeist (sorry if that word means something else), spawn killing is trivial. If you really can't think of a way of solving this here is what i came up with: Assuming we are all agreeing upon the prisoners being able to escape, at least, from their cells, We can have a the prisoners spawn in an "un-shootable-from-outside" cell(s) In the ceiling of the cell is a hole that leads to a "ventilation system" using a cube the prisoners can simply jump into this "ventilation system" and go.. where-ever. Now, the secret to this ideas success is that members from the defending team can not enter this "ventilation system". And there you have it, no spawn killing..

The objective of the game is to brake the elites out of jail. The outside attacking team has the regular invasion duty of assaulting the humans/reds, while the inside attacking team/squad, has to do everything in their power to sabotage the reds and make the assault easier. The red team has, then, two defensive duties; defending their main base, and managing the prisoners.

The map - which would probable only work on forge world but might be possible elsewhere - would be split up into 3 sections; 1) A small base/tower which would be set up as a outside watch tower. 2) A Wall, with lots of turrets, and a large fancy gate. 3) The main base/jail.




Phase 1)

Territories:
Attacking team must capture the watch tower. This watch towers significant is that it become an armory and a hanger/garage in phase 2. In the beginning of the game The defending team will spawn on "the wall", or in the image above, the Red X, while the blue team will spawn a little further away on the Blue X. This tower should be fairly easy to capture. Inside the jail is the one squad of elites. Their objective is to find a way out of their cell and begin the sabotage process. This process should take sometime - long enough to last the entire first round.

-The humans shouldn't even have access to the jail at this point.

-No one at this point should have any vehicles or power-weapons.

-The prisoners should have very limited access to the vents. Only able to open doors and stuff.

Phase 2)

Assault:
Attacking team must break through the wall by planting a bomb at the gate. The watch tower has now been captured and should serve as the central hub for the elite during the rest of the game. At the beginning of this phase, weapons, and ammo should appear in the tower, also ghosts should appear in the hanger area. For the humans, weapons ammo -and turrets- should appear along the wall, and power-weapons should appear in the jail, along with a gauss-hog. This is where the prisonners come in, they must figure-out how to sabotage access to these objects.

-Elites/blues spawn at watch tower

-Reds spawn at wall

-Reds have some access to main-base

-prisoners should have partial access to the ventilation system. (Able to sabotage, garage, and armory)

Phase 3)

?
The reds/humans must defend the base while managing the prisoners. Red team spawns at main base. Main base has multiple "armories" (weapon/ammo/power-weapons), garage (tank/warthogs), and turrets/shades spawn. Blue team spawns at the wall or the watch tower with some weapons, some power-weapons, and ghosts.
This is where the Prisoners are the most important; They must sabotage, all these defenses before the attacking team can win, so things like the tank MUST be destroyed before a red gets into it, and armories must be close off, and turrets destroyed. These things are all done from the ventilation/sewage systems.

-Prisoners have full access to vents

-Reds have full access to base

-Blues spawn at wall/watch towers, while reds spawn at Main base.

-"Outsiders" of the attacking team can open a door to let the prisoners out



Maybe, the prisoners, upon exiting, obtain a custom powerup that allows them to jump really high for a sort time. In that room there should be a platform that has a core on it, and a prisoner needs to jump up to it and grab it, then the game becomes a quick core capture game or something for the last phase...

PS: Im not spell checking that...

PPS: Hivemind lolz

 

Man, I am right now in the middle of trying to forge this, and I was going to follow most of the suggestions you outlined above. Now I can't, because it would look like I stole your idea.

The squad spawning thing, though, how does it work? I haven't played custom invasion with more than two people on each team.

 

That's what I was thinking.



Anyway, me and another guy were discussing building a central invasion complex hanging inside the cove near the waterfall the other day. We each had different ideas of what to do after that, so we just decided to build the structure and create our scenarios and the rest of the maps separately, which should be interesting.

For mine, there will be an attacking ship (like actual ship, not spaceship) that will be the attacker's main base. In the first phase, it will just allow th attackers to drive out on Mongeese, and bombard the complex from afar with Scorpion-turrets. In later phases, Falcons will spawn there as well. The defenders will have numerous turrets an such for defensive purposes. My only problem was a lack of a central theme, but now:

Phase 1: Attackers must secure the docks, reaching them via small watercraft (ghosts, probably). Defenders defend the docks, obviously. Prisoners have their own objective, mostly to cause significant distraction for their teammates, also to riot and take over... some objective. I'll be able to be more descriptive once the main complex has actually been completed in-game.

Phase 2: Attackers must gain access to the main complex by destroying a gate, prisoners may try to raise the gate by taking over a control tower. Defenders... defend. Shocking.

Phase 3: Attackers and prisoners, now reunited, now must work together to steal a power core and return to the ship with it. Or work together to take a bomb and destroy the headquarters with it. Or something. Again, I'll be able to be more descriptive once the complex is built. Defenders get to defend, again.

Should be fun, once everything is worked out.


HOWEVER:

I think I spotted a problem with the prisoner aspect. How would we make sure that the same few people are always prisoners--namely, that non-prisoners ALWAYS respawn as attackers, and prisoner ONLY respawn as prisoners? That's the one worry I have.

 

Hiveminds think together, so its not stealing an idea, its just that the idea came from a different part of the mind! So forge away!

From my understanding: Hillmaker on spawn sequence 1, and res_1 (or whatever) makes squad 1 respawn on that hill marker in phase 1

 

I'm pretty sure if you set the respawns to a specific numbered group(i.e. 1) Then that same group will be squad 1 next phase. Im pretty sure, don't hold me to this.

 

I think you're right. I also noticed that people adjacent to each other in the player list once teams are assigned seem to end up being fireteams. As the player list rarely rearranges itself, I think fireteams are set.

And Jupiter, thanks. I just had to go brush up on the Required Forge Objects Guide, too.

 

This whole idea sounds awesome! but since you 3 have taken it on board I guess I won't bother. For the elites however, what are you going to add to provide entertainment? This riot idea or something else? I myself was thinking of a small puzzle or two which leads to the elites being able to escape from the prison.

 

The puzzle is an interesting alternative, but seasoned players would probably be able to solve it in seconds after their first playthough.

Personally, the elites will stay locked up until phase three, when the doors bust open and they can slip out of the ventilation shaft. In phases one and two, they can attempt to scope out and sabotage the Spartan defenses, through ordinance destruction and perhaps, communication with the rest of the team. For phase three, if they feel like going sneaky, they can slip into an access tunnel and get a workaround towards the core while their brothers are knocking down the front door. Though this will avoid the danger of Spartan vehicles, they will be in a tight enclosed space, so it will be a bit of a gamble if someone happens to be waiting for them.