how to fix murderball and waterpolo!

[WiFiDi]

from the recent increase in players ive seen these maps played alot more and it seems there is some desire to play these maps however its hard to get everyone on the same page because there are no rules 4 teams and a ball in the middle. (or in waterpolo's case no rules 2 teams and a ball in the middle.) this is not only not helpful in a any kind of pub game but just in general makes it harder to play the game because its basically death-match with a ball.

okay well i have ideas that will in my opinion make these games better. (more fun to play and better organized.) now when playing any sport you have to have organization so on that note i will split my post into another paragraph one for each game. (at the rate im going maybe 2 per game. )

oh i almost forgot this is very important (my lawyer says so so it must be .) the following is a warning for anyone reading this, that if you are prone to hysteria, panic, extreme anger and/or suicidal thoughts or feelings after proposed changes. please stop reading immediately and find your best friend (if you don't know/have a best friend, his name is jack ... well good are you back cozy up and get to know your new best friend because your gonna be here for awhile.

disclaimer: jack may actually not end up being your best friend and as such we are not responsible in anyway for injuries, damages, headaches, and any activities that occur while under the influence of Jack.

WaterPolo

1. the goalie : this is probably one of the larger changes im making to the game. the civilian has been benched and taking his rightful place as head coach. (ill get to that later.) now in his place is the younger tougher Hwg. now hwg can do a lot of things like shoot that huge mini gun down range, use his incredible farts to deny incoming players/the ball. he can also handle and kick the ball. (as well as at any time in his zone send it back to the middle.) but cannot like the civilian go into enemy territory. there is only 1 goalie per team in most sports so that's the obviously the rule here.

2. quick small changes to the settings of the game it self: the ball no longer is unaffected by explosions, projectiles, heavy farts etc... unless on the starting mound. this will add alot of variable to the game and how its played.

3. the goalies restriction: the goalie cannot kill anyone in the oposing teams zone from his own zone this is to keep him from sitting way back and killing people while he is invincible. (this i hope will make the game move faster because the goalie isn't mowing everyone down.)

4. Controversy: now this is going to be the most controversial but i think will help the game the most adding a team element to it. now when the heavy is in his zone no regular player can kill him (when he is in the neutral zone however he can be killed.) now i did say regular player because the opposing team goalie can kill him. (this brings the effectiveness of moving up the goalie to provide support but also making him vulnerable to enemy fire.

5. boundries: when out of bounds no killing if you are out of bounds you cannot kill anyone interfere with the game in anyway. if you wanna play stay in bounds. (going out of bounds will server as getting ammo.)

6. optional safe guards now i don't know if this rule is needed but ti could make the game even harder and more fun. if the game proves to plugged up and the heavy dominates the game and makes it far to low scoring i mean if the game isn't just a defensive battle but a bore, then add this rule, the goalie when in the neutral zone can no longer shoot into his own zone from the neutral zone. allowing players to get buy the goalie making the goalie moving out of his zone even more risky. but necessary at teh same time. if even that does not do it add a short re spawn time for goalie.


summary
you may have noticed that most of these rules revolve around the goalie that's because i feel that is what sports also revolve around, if the goalie doesn't do his part the game isn't gonna last long. the map needs a more streamlined approach as well bags just out of bounds instead of in locker like room. also the restrictions on the goalie are there to make the game more organized. i could also start adding more rules to players but i feel that if the goalie is restricted everyone will conform to his restrictions and you will not need rules to get people to play as a team.

Murderball.

now murder ball is another long list of rules and im not even sure its possible but would be a nice welcome as there could actually be a competitive match of murderball that could happen in a pub.

the biggest problem with murderball is you can't (even more so than waterpolo) get people to play the game (its just tdm). so im adding rules to make that happen.

there are still 4 teams so how to make sure there balanced as the new rules that i would add if the game ain't balanced its game over and not fun.

1. (player count and teams.) at 2 players 2 teams are unlocked (1 per team) at 3 3 teams are unlocked (1 per team) at 4 players or more there is minimum of 2 players per team. meaning only 2 teams are unlocked, at 6 players on the server 3 teams are unlocked, and at 8 all four are finally in use. yea (still following the rule after 4 players 2 people minimum per team.)

2. FFA: when no one has the ball its FFA meaning all the teams go after one another. but the moment a team picks up the ball everything changes. all the teams without the ball effectively become teammates meaning they cannot damage each other, and go after target team or team with the ball. the moment the ball is on the ground FFA mode kicks in again and whoever can come up the the ball and bring back to base the most will win the game.

3 a new ball: secondly when you have the ball its no longer a soccer ball its a murder ball (a big skull you hold in your hands or a big steel ball.) so that means when you have the ball you cannot use your weapons only swing your deadly one hit kill ball (that's right its instant kill.). meaning you have to rely on your teammates to defend you (unless your opponents are stupid and everyone charges you.) from the onslaught of players coming after you trying to get the ball.

4. no snipers many of you will be glad to hear this but i feel that in sport games (waterpolo, murderball, anymore that are invented in the future.) that snipers are counter in both of this game mode making them less fun for both the sniper and the other players just not set right for this kind of thing. ctf, avd the sniper is fair game but for sport games i feel it just doesn't work. unless further changes happen to sniper happen as of now i don't think he needs to be in sport games.

these changes i feel will make murder ball very competitive even in pubs and even more competitive in competitive matches.

Summary: (TL;DR)

basically these proposed changes make these to game modes more fun and better games to play as the lack of rules kinda make it really hard to play as a team when you haven't practiced or played played before. i would be happy to give more info so feel free to ask, criticize, etc... but please do keep it clean for the moderators sake.

[chilledsanity]

when are people playing muderball / waterpolo? I'm in a different timezone now, but I haven't been able to find a game since 2.42 was released.

[KubeDawg]

murderball is available on my server now, but waterpolo lags too much. kinda wish it was an indoor stadium.

[Hammock]

I personally think the problem with waterpolo is not the goalie, he's easy enough to deal with. Infact a HW is the perfect hard counter to the weak civ goalie.

My issue with the map is, it always seems to degenerate into one side pipe boosting the ball carrier from their goal to the enemy goal.

When the other team isn't doing this, I won't to do it, and it's a very fun game of back and forth, the entire field is played and everyone can interact with eachother.

But as soon as 2 people gay it up, it becomes an extremely boring round because the only valid way of fighting back is doing it yourself. So then you have the majority of the players hugging their own goals, just bouncing the ball back and forth until someone gets lucky and scores.

My suggestion to fix that was to not let teammates boost other teammates across the entire field. They have to be in the enemy's half to even attempt a boost.

As for murderball, (even though I haven't played it in ages), I do like the idea of once one team gets the ball, they're the only killable team, would force everyone to attack the team with the ball. The only down side to that, is that FF murderball is practically impossible to defend your base, not like TFC murderball where it would actually take 12 people storming you to break in and kill the ball carrier. In FF if there was 12 people attacking your base you'd only have the ball for a few seconds before dying. The survivability just doesn't seem to be there like in TFC.

I can see where you're going with only enabling teams after a certain number of people, as I'm still hoping someone will build a map that is dynamic in the sense that different routes open/close up at certain numbers of people.

Problem with locking and unlocking teams is that what happens once 8 people join all 4 teams are unlocked, and then it's a 2v2v2v2 for 5 minutes, then one person leaves? What team gets locked out? and where does the extra person then land? It would be frustrating to be kicked off your team after you've accumulated points for it, just because you lost a player, there would be less incentive to do anything on the team that you know would be the first to get locked out.

As for snipers, yes they're annoying in that map as they're the number 1 class that doesn't care about playing the game, they just shoot anyone in the yard. But that would be negated if it were changed to make it so only the ball carrier team is killable (your 3v1 scenario), the only time they could kill everyone would be when the ball is neutral in the yard.

[WiFiDi]

Originally Posted by Hammock

My suggestion to fix that was to not let teammates boost other teammates across the entire field. They have to be in the enemy's half to even attempt a boost.

here is an idea how to remedy this supposed problem i agree while its a valid tactic it does make the game boring.

in a sports game anyone familiar with he offside penalty in hockey. (i believe that what it is called. you could make it so that if you went directly from your zone to the enemy zone. you get called for penalty and die. (you could even go as far as creating a turnover.)

or you could make it so that you cannot go backwards into a previous zone with the ball now you can still kick it back to a previous zone because that would limit strategy. but you can't just run back there that would deter it from it becoming source catapult.

these are just 2 rules you could add to fix that problem. (if one or both were added to the game as optional rules that the server could enable.) i believe that these 2 rules alone would make water polo better.

also now that i think about it i could turn my waterpolo idea into a whole new gamemode. though i still think the heavy weapons guy should be goalie hes much more suited. (even if you take away his mini gun.)

[angrypyro]

How about just adding a roof to stop the demo problem?

[Hammock]

I think one of the devs commented on how he likes to be able to fly sky high in that map, it's part of the fun. Which I agree with, it is fun to be blasted into oblivion, so a roof would take away that part of the fun.

[KubeDawg]

waterpolo_r then?

[angrypyro]

Originally Posted by Hammock

I think one of the devs commented on how he likes to be able to fly sky high in that map, it's part of the fun. Which I agree with, it is fun to be blasted into oblivion, so a roof would take away that part of the fun.

well any fix to to the demo's pipe jumping (such as Hammock's idea above)would already stop that anyway.

[chilledsanity]

One option might be to have the ball fly out of your hand if you hit Mach 1 from the pipe blast.

[WiFiDi]

Originally Posted by Hammock

I think one of the devs commented on how he likes to be able to fly sky high in that map, it's part of the fun. Which I agree with, it is fun to be blasted into oblivion, so a roof would take away that part of the fun.

thats why i don't want to get rid of it jumping 10,000 feet in the air its part of the game but a few rules or a lengthening of the map could help to keep them from becoming the entire game.

[Hammock]

Originally Posted by WiFiDi

thats why i don't want to get rid of it jumping 10,000 feet in the air its part of the game but a few rules or a lengthening of the map could help to keep them from becoming the entire game.

I actually think lengthening the map would have the opposite effect. It would become impossible to run/push the flag, so everyone would resort to pipe jumping.