So I'm currently working on this map based off a specific level in the game Demon Souls, and if you have ever played demon souls you would know that it's extremely difficult. Well one day I decided to create an invasion map after playing a few hours on DS. Thus Demon Souls Castle was born. Now for the gameplay. It revolves around sword play and later on in the game the use of the different class systems. The only problem is by default Elites spawn with higher base health than spartans and are usually the winners of all their sword clashes. I wanted it to be hard for the attackers but almost every game with,players of equal skill level, the humans are usually stuck at spawn trying to drive back the elites. Normally in a gametype like infection you can change a sides damage resistance to fit a nice balance but invasion rules dictate that elites and spartans will share the same traits. That was problem number one. Problem number two is that if the humans actually somehow manage to battle their way all the way to the castle they still have one last hurdle to overcome before tasting sweet victory. A boss battle in the form of a wraith to represent the demon and the demons soul. (the core) So that sounds pretty awesome right? Wrong. Along with fighting the wraith the spartans also have to deal with all his team mates that spawn right behind him. Is there anyway to make it where only one or two elites can spawn into the castle without letting the whole team clusterf***k the humans?
With sword based gameplay it is difficult to balance this without simply implementing new elements. All I can think of is perhaps changing radar functions or giving humans a cloak so that they can more tactically take out the aliens. It would possibly make things more interesting than sword clashing gameplay- which I find rather dull. My best thought is to have only 2 spawn points in the castle, while having the rest rather far away so it takes a while to get there and defend, but still, this may be dull for the defenders having to walk so far. Another last solution may be to not let them defend directly but rather be forced to stand on some balconies and support by shooting or throwing grenades while the wraith is the only thing on the floor. I'm not exactly sure about any of this but if that helps then I'm glad.
Well, the gameplay sort of evolves over the course of the match by unlocking new classes such as the mage, who uses the grenade launcher and evade, which seems to contrast really nicely with the elite's sword and sprint creating sort of a cat and mouse situation. The only real issue is towards the first phase where the humans only have the option of sword and armor lock (sheild). The elites always end up overpowering them and If I can just implement something that could fix this one sidedness at the beginning then the rest of the gameplay would run smoothly. Well I'm not sure on all the labeling I would have to do to get the spawns working properly like that, although I do like the balcony idea.
With the first phase problem, you could maybe have a couple Spartans on a custom powerups that get blocked off after the phase so nobody can use them. As for the wraith part, I like the ledge idea or if you want you could just spawn a pair of elites in a cage or something where they cant do anything, though this might be boring for them.
What would be the characteristics of the powerup, and how long should it stay in play before getting blocked off?
The characteristics should be whatever balances it out for the spartan side, which could be figured out with a bit of testing. And I was thinking that some invasion gate type object would spawn after the phase was over just so they couldn't reach the powerup after it wasn't necessary anymore(the sword part or whatever is over)
That actually might work out if I can get it out of the reach of the elites.....which means I' m gonna have to look to get more money so I can reconstruct the humans first spawn