Hey all, I posted this on the main Reach forum and I thought some of you also might be interested in helping me with this. While playing a little bit of [insert popular multi-player zombie FPS here] a few nights ago I thought of a new idea for how to play infection in Reach. The concept centers around 4v4 (or more i guess) tactical classed-based play that revolves around sticking together and working as a team rather than individual survival skills. Here is a short summary of my idea. Game type name Outbreak Basic idea The game is split into two teams of four - one of survivors, and one of infected. The survivors must make it to the other side of the map (forge world) and capture a territory/VIP point/infection safe zone (whatever I have to use to make it work) within the set amount of time (20 minutes). So to clarify, the survivors start at the rock formation on the far side beyond the rock and have to make it all the way to the beach on the other end of the canyon (pic included below). Survivors get one life. Infected get unlimited lives. Survivors are Red. Zombies are Blue. The problem The basic concept relies on a few rumored additions to infection that have not been confirmed yet. The first is what exactly we can do with "safe zones". The properties of these safe zones, such as if they are capturable or have a time limit that needs to be run down to trigger a victory, is unknown. If the safe zones don't have the options I need to create a "last stand" type of moment at the end of the level then I may have to use territories or VIP. I've got my fingers crossed. The second unconfirmed addition is the ability to have full team vs team play in infection (as in people not automatically switching teams when killed). If that is not included...I'm not sure how this will work. The third rumor is the ability to set life counts for one team or another. I'm hoping and praying that these rumors are true, but if they aren't...does anyone have any suggestions on how to make this work? I'm kind of stumped. What I do have worked out so far I'm thinking for zombie traits they will have no shields and standard damage resistance so that 3 body shots with the DMR or around 50-75% of an AR magazine will kill them. Zombie movement speed will probably be around 150% so that runners aren't too overpowered (I think that sprinting increases movement speed even higher than the speculated limit of 300% - not confirmed). I'll have to play around with damage resistance and movement speed to get a good balance of mobility and durability so it's fair for both teams. For survivors, they also will have no shields and will have normal movement speed with 900-1000% damage resistance in order to be able to take 3 sword lunges/hammer swings before dying (yes, it is possible to do). The reason for not having shields is because I want survivors to get gradually beaten down over time and have to use medics/health packs to be able to survive rather than just waiting for a shield recharge. Regular sword swings and melees will take even longer to kill survivors, but at least they can't be blocked. Also, if it is possible, I want to be able to set the survivors AA recharge to be extremely slow (or only one use), while the infected get an extremely fast recharge rate. That way the medics don't spam by healing their entire team every 5 seconds. Load outs are a godsend for die hard infection players. With load outs, we can create customizable classes for zombies and survivors alike, which is exactly what I plan to do. Here are some examples I've come up with. INFECTED: Infected name: Runner Armor ability: sprint Weapon: energy sword Infected name: Cloaker Armor ability: camo Weapon: energy sword Infected name: Holo Armor ability: hologram Weapon: energy sword Infected name: Breaker Armor ability: Jetpack Weapon: Gravity hammer Infected name: Hunter (I couldn't resist ) Armor ability: evade Weapon: energy sword SURVIVOR: Survivor class: Medic Armor ability: drop shield Primary weapon: Assault rifle Secondary weapon: Magnum Survivor class: Scout Armor ability: Sprint Primary weapon: assault rifle Secondary weapon: magnum Survivor class: Soldier Armor ability: Evade Primary weapon: Assault rifle Secondary weapon: magnum As you can see, survivors get significantly less variety in their class options than zombies, but both teams abilities are geared towards their objectives. Zombies have load outs meant for offense and quick take downs, while survivors are more set for...well...surviving. I'm still working out the kinks in my head, but it seems do-able. What do you think? Any suggestions on balance/concept/anything? Now, for the map. I'm thinking of putting "safe houses" around the map as the survivors make their way to their destination. Seeing as how I plan to open up all of forge world and let them choose their own route there (from the rock to the far beach of the canyon) I will put the safe houses of the same tier in several locations along the way. The safe houses will contain gradually increasingly effective weapons depending on their tier. The higher the tier, the farther along the journey these safe houses will be. Here is a breakdown of what's inside all of the tiers. TIER 1 SAFEHOUSE Weapons: 4 full AR's, 4 full DMR's, 4 full magnums Power ups: none Health refills: 0 TIER 2 SAFEHOUSE Weapons: 2 full AR's, 2 full DMR's, 2 full shotguns, 2 full magnums Power ups: Double radar range for remainder of game (force changes survivor's color to Yellow) Health refills: 4 TIER 3 SAFEHOUSE Weapons: 1 full AR, 1 full DMR, 1 full shotgun, 1 full magnum, 1 chain gun Powerups: none Health refills: 0 TIER 4 SAFEHOUSE Weapons: 2 full AR's, 2 full DMR's, 1 full shotgun, 1 full sniper rifle, 1 full concussion rifle, 4 full magnums Power ups: 1X over shield Health refills: 4 RANDOM PICKUPS AROUND THE MAP - 1 rocket launcher with 4 shots - 1 full plasma launcher - frag grenades - plasma grenades - Health packs - various weapon refills - 1X overshield - Increase radar range (force change survivor's color to yellow) These pickups will be scattered around the map in offbeat paths that will requite some exploration and deviation to find. It is up to the survivors to determine if the risk is worth the reward of having these pickups on their team or not. The greater the risk in acquiring these pickups, the greater the reward. So as you can see, the survivors get better and better equipped as time goes on. However, the map will (hopefully) be designed in such away that there are more and more approach and attack points for the infected to make use of. I have an image in my head of how the cover available to the infected will get better as the map goes on, but it would take way to long to illustrate in sketchup for me to show you all (sorry ) There was one concern I had with safehouses, and that is that they kind of seem to be death traps at the moment. Tight quarters, limited escape routes, etc. After a team of survivors runs in to patch themselves up and re-arm, what is stopping zombies from just rushing the safe house? well, I'm thinking of putting mines around the safehouse to ward off zombies, or even maybe try to play around with soft kill boxes (can you assign a kill box to only kill one team?). I guess I'll toy with that part when the game comes out. So that's basically my concept. You can see I was pretty much exclusively inspired by [insert popular multi-player zombie FPS here], but in my heart of hearts I think it could work for halo if all of the options are available in the yet-to-be-unveiled Reach infection (still have my fingers crossed). Now, I'm pretty sure I didn't think of everything, and I likely botched a couple of ideas too, so feel free to give any tips, pointers, or general insights on my idea. The more minds put together the better my gametype will be Also, if you read this entire thing, I owe you a cookie. Thanks guys and girls -Neo
I like your idea of an epic, campaign like journey. The problems you listed are pretty.... problamatic, probably only time will answer your questions. I think it would be really cool and help alot of people if humans could respawn but zombies couldnt. the samehouses sound cool too, as long as they arent campable, encouraging the survivors to continue on. Overall, good idea. If you can pull it off it should be pretty good and i can see there being many maps like this
If I have to resort to that, then I'll spawn them on top of the forerunner tower on mount forge and give them empty sniper rifles to observe with. I don't want to bore anyone to death
Oh. My. God. This sounds soo epic!! If this works, I can see this becoming one of the best Reach maps/gametypes in the game. I can't wait to find out if this is possible or not You sir, are a genius.
i read through that i what i thought was L4D, hands down. the whole getting to the end resembles getting the the finale, there i would have it you fight for survival just like L4D, or you could have a lot off scenarios such as, at the end you have to walk all the way back. i heard that you can win the game by collecting all the safe zones. so you could have Tier 1-SZ T2-SZ T3-SZ-T4-SZ Finale-SZ reversed then tier one is the finale/win point. but good luck with this!
First and foremost: you owe me a cookie. Moving right along, I'm guessing you aim to make it so that no matter how many of the survivors get killed, there will always be four zombies. If I were making the gametype, I'd allow the survivors to turn into zombies when killed. I think that would reinforce the teamwork aspect. --- Something you can do with the safe zones: I guess with normal infection, they'll make you invulnerable for a short time. (Kind of like when Pacman eats a large dot and the ghosts get to run away instead of hunt). My guess is that in the custom game settings, you can change what the safe zones do to you. Perhaps make it so you're invincible indefinitely, make you extremely fast, crank up the damage settings. It might give the survivors waypoints above the heads of their enemies. And I think you can also make it so that the safe zone doesn't move. (Or even if you can't, you can just put one safe zone). The problem with this is it still doesn't end the game, even if the remaining survivors are invincible. The only thing to do at that point is accept that you can't be killed and wait for the round to end. --- One thing you can do, is instead of making it a game of infection, make it a game of invasion, (with either race as the zombies, works either way). That way, at the very end you can put the power core (or the flag, in case you're unfamiliar) right next to the drop off spot. I understand that this would still only work if you could give the elites unlimited lives and the spartans one, or vice versa. I'm guessing you can make it so that there is only one tier in Invasion, but in case you can't do that, you can simply place unavoidable goals that the zombies would have to run through in order to advance the tiers and unlock the power core. I'm not 100% sure, but I doubt you can make soft kill zones specialized to different teams. Sorry. My dissection aside, it sounds fun! Good luck with your gametype, bro.
Thanks for your insight guys. It's going to be a pain to sift through all the different game types to see which one fits my idea the best, but I'm sure that out of everything there has to be at least something in the game that can do all of this. Invasion, territories, VIP, infection, anything. I'm hoping that the "new pair of pants" worthy announcement that comes tomorrow reveals something worth while to this idea, otherwise it's going to be a very, very long month of not knowing anything
this would not work. if you spawned them up there, all the zombies would spawn up there as there is no way to make alpha and normal, once human zombies spawn in different places
hm...I'll have to play around with it then in the final game. Ultimately what I really want is for downed survivors to be able to spectate only living survivors.
Have they really talked at all about how Infection safe zones work? Perhaps they work like VIP go-to points. In fact maybe the reason there is no VIP anymore is because the safe zones essentially make Infection and VIP synonymous.
I think I just thought of an idea from your idea, but it's pretty similar. What I'm thinking, is that the humans spawn away from each other, and don't have waypoints over their heads, and there's 4 humans. There's also one 'safe zone', that will, basically, be their rally point. Speckled throughout the map are these little houses, sort of look like the Barracks in Starcraft (Picture). They would be houses with ammo. Then, there would also be little things like the Command Center building in Starcraft (Picture) that have 1 healthpack in the center of it. After the humans rallied at the rally point, they would have some sort of 'last stand' on a bridge to the spire or rock or whatever that place is that they made the Ascension remake on. Sorry about telling my idea and not discussing yours I think yours is a good idea, but you'd have to use Invasion as the base gametype, with all of the phases giving the same thing, and humans spawn on top of something high up (mount forge if it lets you) when they die. Also, if you want them to be able to spectate, and not ruin the zombie's chances of winning ("WTF, the humans are all the way up there?! This sucks, I quit!" *Leaves*), make a 1 way teleporter in the air above the human's respawn points. Then, the zombies can have their lunch!
Wow, the idea of the map sounds soo epic. Its my favorite type of Infection Gametype, "Left 4 Dead" style. For the Safehouse problem I was thinking of doing like a switch kind of thing where once the humans enter they can press this button/switch etc. thing and something might respawn like a Grav-Lift pointing outward soo zombies can't come in, or just have a movable object and force the humans to move it to the position of the door to seal it. But anyways, this map will seem soo epic, I'm trying to make my own Left 4 Dead style map. But this will be awesome, from one point of Forge World the the end, think of the possibilities, it can actually be as long as an online game in Left 4 Dead. But I support this idea to the end. Nice Job.
What you need is like respawn checkpoints for zombies (i don't know how that would work) Because when the humans get say 75% of the way through, the zombies still spawn at the start, meaning after death they have to walk way further, the further the humans get. It would be cool if there was capturable respawn zones.
I guess this is another reason it would have to be invasion. In invasion, the attackers respawn somewhere else every single tier. The other way that doesn't require invasion, involves using teleporters with crates standing in the exit-nodes. The crates would have to be moved out of the way by the zombies to get the checkpoints.
I think for the zombie spawning issue I'll play around with respawn zones and weak respawn zones to direct where zombies will be reincarnated. Then I'll link those respawn zones with teleporters (behind cover and out of view) to allow zombies to quickly move around the map and catch up to humans.
If the spawn at start could be selected as "no" for the new teleporters then this problem would be solved. For every section that is reached by the humans (depending on how long it takes) there could be designated teleporters that spawn in those general areas so zombies could fast travel and not have to walk the entire length after dying. The only problem is that we don't know if this can be achieved and probably won't be known for sure until the game is released. An alternative way to allow zombies to reach locations further along the map's path is to use the idea above with the use of blocked teleports in the areas key for zombies to be. Example - The zombies spawn in the infected spawn area and there are say 3 blocked teleports (the number depending on how many are needed, in this case 3) each with a corresponding blocked teleporter somewhere along the path the humans take. The teleporter could be blocked by a crate or other movable object so that when a grav-lift spawned the object blocking could be pushed away, thus unlocking that teleport. So, the zombies at the start try to go through the teleports and realise they are blocked and must then travel by foot to locate the humans. Once the humans reach "safehouse 1" in say 3 mins a grav lift would spawn and push the crate out of the way unlocking the teleport in that area for zombie use. It would work the sameway for safehouse 2 and 3 and could be used in as many safehouse areas depending on how many teleporters we are allowed to place on the map. This is a pretty solid idea that should work but please comment if you see a problem.
To be honest...if I can avoid using time released teleporters and switches, I'm going to. I've never been a fan of either :-/