Game mode Idea: Tower Race

I wanted to design a game mode that used the current mechanics system (maybe a few tweaks) but also helped utilize the two support classes more. What I came up with was tower race.

Objective of tower race: To capture a point extremely high on a map before the other team does.

Essential map design: Map would be very tall (is this possible?) and very narrow and throughout the sky there there would be floating trees. "Floating trees?!" you maybe saying to yourself. The idea is that there is an established area which is essentially the archers domain. This basically makes archers a more essential part of a teams because of their ability to have direct access to the enemies base. Also because building is such an essential part to this game mode there will be lots of resources so maps might have to be deep as well.

How the Game would Start: There are two options I'm playing around with one would be no build time but a short buying time and the the map would have per-fabricated defenses. The other way there be a regular build time but all buildings would have a height restriction. So the first option speeds up the game a bit cause you don't have to worry about making defenses and can begin building/attacking right away. I pretty sure most people will like the second selection because builders are made to build and take pride in that. Overall the game would essentially play like a CTF. You build shops and buy items and have one spawn point (I am Dabbling with a TTH style just because there is no real incentive to attack(maybe a combination)).

Tweaks and potential mechanics:

-The floating trees
So the domain of the archers isn't destroyed from harvesting sky trees once a sky tree is destroyed a seed won't fall like it normally would but would stay growing in the spot it was destroyed. This might not be an issue if there is an abundance of sky trees.

-A limit on the builders personal resource storage
This idea slows the game down a bit because it causes either builders to go back and forth to get more resources or causes more team work having some builders strictly mine and others strictly build.

-Height restriction at the beginning of the game
Have the red barrier above as well as between just so people don't complete there tower at the very beginning of the game

-Archers can't cap
For obvious reasons they get a significant mobility advantage during the beginning and hopefully throughout the game.

-Resource blocks have more resources in them
This is all dependent on how high a map actually is and to reduce how deep the map might have to be.

-Destorying blocks for gold
Its a terrible idea but it is the only one I can think of right now to give incentive to destroy the enemies tower.


Foreseen problems:

Turtling
More so then in other games modes because there really is no incentive to attack. You could just have a team of builders and win. Also if no one attacks no one makes any money, nobody makes any money no cata/kegs. Might have to do a combination TTH and CTF (tunnel transit would be so useful in this game mode).

Worse Stalemates
If both teams are good enough and aggressive no ones tower will ever get finished. This game mode has the potential to actually never end. Not to mention its so resource heavy the bedrock might have to go a lot deeper causing the crater in long games to be more awful than usual.


All critiques welcome its just an idea, I am not married to it.

 

Needs work, but looks interesting. I'm confused- is the objective just to build a giant tower to the top of the world? Because if so can't one builder with a lot of materials win the game? Also, how would knights or builders get to the other base? If there's a huge tower it seems impossible.

 

Yeah you have point if the maps are narrow like I suggested then knights could be purely defensive and there would be no need to claim the middle ground of a map. Maybe it would be better to have both a wide and tall map that way teams would have to claim an area in the middle order to succeed. That would make this game mode a little bit insane. Maybe insanity is a good thing?

Your essentially building a tower tall enough that you can cap a point like a hall in TTH

 

Great concept. Much of this can be done with a custom ctf map where both flags are next to each other. Floating trees are no problem. I don't see any limits for world size either. It's essentially just a high map with some flags at the top and some trees. If I find some time i can create you a map.

 

@Frederikam

That would be great. To be honest I don't know if it will work but we won't know till we try.

 

Already been suggested, three times.

1: https://forum.kag2d.com/resources/tower-of-babel.54/
2: https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/tower-of-babel.17691/#post-255844
3: https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/idea-tower-of-babel.9690/

 

Okay but before I start, how would you like that map to look like?

• How high up should the flags be?
• How wide?
• How far between should the stone/gold be?
• Would you like to have the stone be most dense in the center?
• How would you like the layout to be?
  • Flat?
  • A center hill? To tempt builders to build on that spot, which is closest to the floating island at the top of the level.
  • Two hills next to each other, where the attacker gets a height penalty (As the defender can stomp the approaching enemy)?
  • A big hill with a big chasm on the center? It'll be interesting to see people build bridges. Anyone that falls will die. Will make kegs harder to use.
    • We could even make two chasms with an attractive island with lots of stone.
• Would you like any lakes? Where?
• Any bison or sharks?
• Would you like to have gold on the map at all? Gold = siege weapons.
• Anything else? Be as descriptive as possible.

Of course I'll be able to make more maps in the future, if I get the time.

 

@Frederikam
For this first map lets just keep it simple. I don't want you having to make something epic and have this game mode idea be a total failure.

For height I want to say triple the height of a regular CTF map. It might need to be more or less this is all dependent on how high a triple bomb jump can actually go with no height restriction.

For width I think like a regular small CTF map.

The majority of the stone and gold should be in the middle this give the perfect incentive for people to fight and control the center of the map.

The general layout I will leave to you, personally I'll just say flat, but if you feel inspired to do something else by all means go ahead.

I want almost no water just a little pond in each base.

no animals in this map

yes Gold please

Have the air Island with the flags at the top of the map to be very central. The island itself quite large widthwise so it is about as half as large as the middle area between bases(maybe a little bigger use your discretion) . I wish I could give you specific tile sizes but sadly I am unfamiliar with the map making in this game. Leave the flags uncovered. Have the thickness of the island about 3-5ish tile range

For the floating trees lets try to put them every where but near the flag island just because we don't have the ability to make flags uncappable by archers right now. I am thinking of line of trees that are X tiles away from each tree beside them and Y tiles away from trees above them or below them. Unfortunately I don't know the ideal distance from tree to tree grappling is so there will have to be some experimentation. Also if you have a better idea for the layout of the trees i am open to any suggestions.

You sound like you have more experience in making maps then I do so treat this as a general outline. So you know what works and what doesn't work if any of these ideas don't work feel free to change them or make them better.

For this first map lets try to keep it simple if it works then in the next maps we can start playing around with stuff.

 

im happy to help test this map if you manage to get it on a server

 

@JoshTG

Thanks for this it was very interesting read. I always do a search on the forums before I post anything but its hard to know what to look for.

I more like the Idea, I wasn't really suggesting that this should be apart of the game. Also my idea has a few different quirks then the ones you showed me I'm just curious if it has potential to actually work.

 

Hi,
While I really intended to get things done faster I suddenly had a lot of work to do. Today I finally got the time to finish the map. Well it could use some testing and feedback but it should work.

• The symmetrical map is divided into two by a 20 pixel wide chasm.
• The map is 250x192 pixels. We may want to decrease/increase the height.
• Each team got three small walls.
• Each team got a resourceful cave (gold included).
• Each team got a pond.
• On the top of the map there's the island with the two flags. The island is made so that archers can't really enter (Use a keg or a builder).

I can also provide hosting for this map. I currently run an empty VPS server named "Fred's TTH Server". We may also want to consider a very low spawn timer, since that the goal of the game is to reach the top, not the essentially the enemy base.

 

I assume the point which you cannot pass (red bouncy thing in middle) would also have a height limit to stop people from building very high towers early?

 

@Frederikam

Sweet. I like the chasm in the middle.
Alright I have an extra computer lying around I see if I can turn it into a server this weekend. Don't know how long this will take but I'll keep you informed.

 

refer to my second post on this topic

 

Aaand my server is up. It only took me 4 hours of commandline crazyness to configure.

 

ill get on that now- what is it called?

 

Well we managed to get 12 people online at the same time.

Unfortunately we're experiencing a bug where sometimes the game won't restart without me having to force it as an admin. That pretty much cleared the server a few mins ago.

The server of course will continue to run.

 

Amazing Idea!

 

Okay there's a few server bugs, but this is really amazing. I really have to do some modifications later.

Spoiler

Look at the bandwidth of this thing:

Top of the list:

With no respawn time this is really amazing.

 

I think I played this today and people were just laddering up