Trackball is a new minigame, the first one I have released. Conceptually it is not that different from Smashball by Graybes - in fact I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for discovering and sharing the scoring mechanism that makes both Smashball and Trackball work. But both games are about putting a ball in a goal to score. Where Trackball is different is in a few major details: 1. The ball used to score is confined to an oval-shaped track. Players can operate outside the track and move freely in and out of it, but the ball cannot. 2. It's an offense/defense game played in rounds. There are 8 rounds (max 2 minutes each, unless a score cuts the round short). Each team therefore has four chances to score. 3. It's as much about killing as about moving the ball. Both teams can kill each other and this is highly important to advancing the ball (on offense) or stopping the ball (on defense). Video and screenshots YouTube - Halo: Reach minigame preview - Trackball Weapons and equipment - 1 grav hammer - 2 concussion rifles - 1 grenade launcher - 1 rocket launcher - 1 spartan laser - 2 sniper rifles - 2 focus rifles - 4 needle rifles - 4 DMRs - various grenades - a ghost - The "Golden God Ball": a custom power-up that gives you complete invincibility and faster movement... for 10 seconds only Minigame particulars - 8 rounds, up to 2 minutes per round (no sudden death) - Starting weapons: DMR and AR - Loadouts: sprint only - Custom power-up: invincibility and faster movement/higher jumping for 10 seconds - Spawn time 3 seconds (no suicide or betrayal penalties) - Weapon pickup enabled - Friendly fire on, betrayal booting off - Suggested team size is at least 3 per side. Really the bigger, the better. The game is more fun when you pile on the players and the chaos. You could also play team slayer in the Trackball Arena, but it would probably be pretty irritating. Features - Carefully chosen weapon locations to give the offense just enough of an advantage (but not allow them to score every time) - Offense-only mancannons for launching into the field of play after respawn - Twin sniper towers for offense/defense, and offsetting focus rifle locations on the sides - An automatic scoring system using Stockpile (thanks again to Graybes and Smashball!) Special thanks to everyone who tested this map over the last week, which was a lot of people. They found the places where the ball could get out of the track, and helped me figure out a couple of issues with my scoring mechanism as well; they also amazed me by scoring almost exactly as often as I had hoped (roughly 40-50% of the time), so I hope the game is as balanced as my play tests suggest.
so wait, what happens when the team scores the ball? does the round end and they get a point? how does the ball get the team a point for that matter?
It works like this, and apologies to Graybes since part of what I'm going to explain is all his idea from Smashball. - Offense spawns by the ball (you can see that at least once in the video). Defense spawns by the goal at the other end of the track. - Rounds last 2 minutes. If you get the ball in the goal the round ends shortly after that, and the next one starts. If you don't score, time just runs out and the next round starts. A score is worth one point, so the highest possible final score would be a 4-4 tie (but most games I've played end up like 3-2 or 2-1). - The scoring system is based on stockpile. How it works is this: you push the golf ball into the goal, which is protected by a one-way shield - the ball can enter but players can't. A couple of grav lifts (hidden) and a slight downward floor push the ball toward a tin cup, where it should settle. Just on the lip of the tin cup, a soccer ball is sitting; this ball is set as the stockpile goal for the offense. When the golf ball settles into the cup, it pushes the soccer ball off its perch, down another sloped floor, into a small room in the very back of the goal - and that's where the only flag on the map is planted. Every 15 seconds the game checks to see if a flag is in the goal (the radius of the ball) and if it is, you score and the rounds ends. I know the system sounds somewhat tricky, but with guidance from Smashball and a couple minor tweaks of my own I think I have a system that works reliably 100% (or 99.9%) of the time. -- On an unrelated note, I notice that more people have downloaded the map than the gametype. Please make sure to download both and use them together. The map is a mediocre slayer map, it's the custom game that turns it into a sport!
i'm almost certain i saw this exact thing on halo 3. anyway if it was on halo 3, great remake. if not, good concept.
Wow, mega necro-bump. I'm glad people are still finding this though. If I was going to make it now it would probably be a simpler game - obviously I'd use the insane gametype to make scoring simpler, but I'd also tone down the weapon set and map design a bit. Sgt Surchin - this isn't a remake and I don't remember ever seeing anything like it before. I also don't know how you'd even pull this off in Halo 3 since there were no working scoring systems that I can recall for ball-based minigames. My chief inspiration was Smashball by Graybes - as mentioned in the first post, I basically stole his scoring mechanism. The track idea was purely my own.