What do you think about tournament mod for warzone?

[ikn0wFiRE]

Hey, so if I may say first, im pretty much new here and finaly got around and tried to play warzone abit. Ive knew about this open source ressurection project for years, but never tried to play until recently.

I must say that while on surface, the game itself doesnt look changed much from 10 years ago, it surely becomes apparent when you read through changelogs, you guys have done a great job. And the game itself can still hold its own against other rts as one of the best.

I surely like it alot, but ofcourse its probably not what id want it to be, not in terms of popularity or how the multiplayer gameplay is.I can explain, im not really disliking the game itself, but more the players that play it. Ofcourse dont get me wrong, people playing are nice and arent what the usual community of other rts games is, usually full of flaming, bashing, etc, which is probably related to the fact that warzone is not that known and those who play it are pretty much those who played it 10 years ago and that is good.

But if I go on, like i said, ive just recently started to play abit, been 3 weeks now and played like 50 games online and finished campaign. Multiplayer just hasnt been that fun for me really and it all comes down to the way its played. Now warzone was my first rts game i played and ever since i loved rts games and played them almoast exclusively for the last 10 years. For multiplayer ive played about 10 rts games, over the years, starcraft, warcraft, dawn of war, company of heroes, rise of legends, battle for middle eart, etc, you name it and that was laddering 1v1, because ive really enjoyed the thrill and competitiveness of it. But ofcourse its pretty unrealistic to expect warzone to suddenly be what it never was

What im trying to say is, that every game feels equvivalent of custom games in other rts games, because well, it is. Players host a game with their own rules and possibly their own map and play. But even the nicest of people which warzone folks may be, like to resort to in my opinion lame and not very fun maps or game rules. Basicaly, its like playing no rush money maps in other rts games, with one major diffrence, warzone is possibly the slowest rts made and games can last hours

Combining ridicoulous elements like huge map with narrow passageways, with about 50 oil derricks in the base already prebuilt and naming the game 4v4 no vtol, is a recipe for something highly boring, at least to me. I am used to high speed, intensive, challenging and competitive games and i think warzone certainly has what it takes to make that possible, even without any patching to the game itself. So on one end you have this huge artillery team games that ive described above, but on the other, many people host games with t1 tech and low oil on a pretty normal map, which may seem like a mode a person like me could play, except those games may be even more ridicouolus then those arty spam games, because if u do anything other than quickly make cobra hmg tanks, you lose. keep in mind on a normal map, not some 1 entrance, build 5 mg bunker and tech to arty maps. well anyway, thats the experience i have from 50ish games

So in my opinion, it all comes down to players being reluctant to actually try new things and insistency of playing by their own rules. I know for a fact, warzone has always been like this and maybe someone will say that im trying to force something with what i am about to suggest, a tournament mod, but i think it would bring focus to the game to make it more fun. But well it would be optional anyway so not forced, like NTW is optional.

Ofcourse ideally, a ladder mode in the game itself would be way better, but ofcourse that would require lot of time to make and simply making a mod is much easyer, basicly just simply locking certain game rules and only allowing maps designed for it to be played, but otherwise pretty much identical to the core game.

Well i guess i could make a mod myself, cant be that hard, like i said it doesnt need much things done, but im curious if there is actualy a demand for this? would you like to try to play this? do you think it would be a good idea to do, or just simply to have the option to play, or is it really unnecessary and generally unwanted?

well im curious of your opinions so post away.

[lav_coyote25]

welcome to the forums. how would you go about implementing this? again welcome!!

[Zarel]

What im trying to say is, that every game feels equvivalent of custom games in other rts games, because well, it is. Players host a game with their own rules and possibly their own map and play. But even the nicest of people which warzone folks may be, like to resort to in my opinion lame and not very fun maps or game rules. Basicaly, its like playing no rush money maps in other rts games, with one major diffrence, warzone is possibly the slowest rts made and games can last hours

Warzone is only slow if you let it be slow. Rushing is as effective in Warzone as anywhere else. If someone starts trying to play Tower Defense, well, artillery will take care of that pretty quickly. Warzone is usually slowest in those high-oil all-oil-in-base maps, and seriously, it's not our fault no rush money maps are popular.

[Rman Virgil]

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IMHO, at the heart of this is map design and WZ map making has been pretty much stuck in the same circumcribed set of design parameters for 10 years. Why ? Perhaps a combination of a failure of nerve, of imagination & a general aversion to too much time spent on a given map project. Anyway, that's my theory, soon to be fully stress-tested.

- RV

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[ikn0wFiRE]

tnx for welcome, so to answer all 3 of u at the same time,

Zazel yes i agree with you, i feel the same way, warzone is only as slow or fast as users make it to be. example of artillery or low tech with no options but to rush mgs and win maps i gave are examples or how it is. and it is because multiplayer is a custom game lobby, with people hosting games on their own maps with their own rules. i am not saying this is bad by any means, this is cool to play new maps, mods, or simply the way you like it

But, as Rman Virgil said, one half of problem is map design and id add game rules that users like to change. both of these must be there, but for say a competitive enviroment must be choosen carefully. they both must cater to warzone sytle of gameplay and its potential to make the best out of it. which is why i think, if say a decision would be made to simply make warzone soemthign like this, would alienate alot of people. there needs to be ability to host a game with own map and rules and well the current game already has it

so to answer lav_coyote25 , how id go about this, its best to create a mod. ideally, thered be an option in game lobby to choose from custom rules (same multipalyer as now) or tournament, which would lock rules and maps to predetermined ones

its fairly simple really and id say all needs to be done. for the tournament mode itself, there are alot of options on how to make it, what kinda of gameplay should it be locked to.

firstly the maps. map designs all over seem to suffer from flaws that make certain weapons ingame reign above all others. for instance, you make map with chokes, you are asking for artillery spam. you make a wide open map, you only promote tank spam with no tech. also maps with all the oil inside your base promote camping

warzone can be fluid, but only if the map is fluid. but fluidness is also tied to the game rules. there are various setting you can choose before you star the game and arent dependant on map. most important ones are tech level and structure limits.

so to go on, there are many ways to allow this. first maps should force player to expand over the map, so there would be limited starting oils and additional spread across the map in various location, but all equaly accessible for all players. at the same time, resorce points shoudl be harrasable by the enemy and not simply locked down by a couple of towers. also the map itself should not be wide open to provide opportunity to make defences, but not too choked to allow for massive artillery positions with no way of clearing them. also highly important is tech level. warzone is a slow game to tech up, especialy in 1v1. while on the other hand, if you play team game, more people, faster tech because it shared. t1 tech for 1v1 is simply too limited in gameplay options while for a 4v4 game it would be suited because of fast tech. ealisticly in 1v1, it would take more than 1h even if you start at t3 tech to fully tech up.

so to specificaly design this, id go with starting with no bases and couple of trucks, with only enough oil nearby to cap 1 generator, with a right amount of starting resources. since i think for 1v1 T3 would be best, that would be starting tech. T3 is pretty power hungry tho. now the start of the game could be made interesting by providing locations on map with oil drums to collect to increase starting power to be able to build base faster. player would have to dedicate a starting truck in order to go oil drum hunting, and these would not be in random locations, just like expansion oil derricks, to provide even playing field. player would choose early game to go collect more money, but have a base slower, while a rushing player could build factory straight up and attack. but all of map areas would not be accesiable by low tech units and hence not all expand points. the oild drum hunting would look similar to rise of legends early game if anyone played that game

now assuming the starting phase of game is over and base is constructed and playes have expanded around the map abit, now the combat and more expanding possiblitys open up. T3 allows for many options with this. for instance, map expanding could be limited by certain things like destructable buildings, water, cliffs and so on, so players would then choose to what they want to build. because of uncertainty of what opponent may do because he has so many options, scouting would become very important. an very important aspect in rts gameplay. players would have a reason to construct low body, fast scouting units, or low level cyborgs

destructable buildings or other things that block acces to certain areas of the map would require to bring combat units along to destroy. these opened up paths would allow new expand areas, or a new way to enemy base or harrasing oprtunity. cliffs only accesiable by cyborg enginner to construct on via cyborg transport woudl allow for seting up defences uphill or hidden structures to suprise the enemy (hidden vtol recharge base for isntance, or an artillery stronghold or maybe a sensor tower). also clifs around the map could provide vtols and cyborg transports to traverse the map safely, allowing for cyborg drops on expansion points or vtol strikes

water around expand points for instance would allow onyl hover units to have a big role or only passages accesable only by them. this could encourage player to use hover units more, along with scouts. like say u have 4 starting oil in base, and theres water behind the base but a cliff to prevent land access. hover units can come and kill those derricks, so players must be carefull

playing with scavengers enabled could add whole new level, making them protect certain expanding points around the map. player would have to dedicate combat units to clear them in order to expand, provide a similar gameplay mechanic like in warcraft 3 for example, kill neutral units and gain a prize

certain unused but important elemnts could also be done. say i feel nobody uses repair facilitys or commanders. i mean we all construct practicaly all buildings but those are just not used. no while there would be no bases, perhaps there coudl already be repair and command structures. this would encourage player to use retreat function and desire for veterancy without even needing to change anything ingame

well there are lots of other possiblitys. i was just giving some examples of how map and game rules can create a much diffrent warzone. tournament mod or ingame tournament option in game lobby would just lock these down. players who would choose to play this mode would know exactly what possiblitys they have in the game. like i said only thing is determiting how exactly should this be played. for a practic example i will create a map with elements i described and suggested rules to play it on and we will see if it can work. not that soon tho, college is killing me

[Wisler]

-i totally agree with what you are saying about squared, people seem to constantly host it, and turn off vtol. units cant normally bypass such a tight defense that players build in the narrow passage, only way would be artillery or vtol and since vtol is off. The only effective way of offense or defense is art, which is boring as hell all you do is spam artiellry for 10-60 mins. If you want real games come to the IRC channel we host all types of games all day long.