Disturbingly Bored
Universal Allies Inc.
149
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Posted - 2013.03.16 02:35:00 -
[1] - Quote
Core Concept:
Drones have overrun an important research facility. The facility will be demolished by orbital bombardment in 15 minutes to contain the drone infestation.
Your team, working for the installation owners, and an opposing team, working for a rival organization, have both been sent to the facility to recover valuable data before the bombardment occurs.
Your job is to get in, crack the mainframe before the rival team can do the same, fight off nightmarish drones and rival team members while doing it, and then extract before cleansing hellfire rains down from the sky.
Gameplay:
Plays out something like a reverse Skirmish mode, except there are a host of beasties you have to watch out for as well as the other team.
1) Each team spawns at a respective red-line drop zone point. Drones, for whatever BS lore-apropriate reason, will not go over the redline to attack you, nor can they take damage from outside of it. I'm imagining a gate or airlock to separate this area.
2) At random points, and at random times, a hack point will appear on the map. Hacking this point fills a meter for your team, or reduces the same meter for the other team if they are ahead of you. Reaching a certain point on the meter causes a bar to "lock in place", so your meter can't be reduced back past that point by the opposing team.
2b) Locking in a bar gives the squad with the most WP on your team the ability to use an OB.
3) At the expiration of 15 minutes, orbital bombardment rains down on every section of the map except the starting areas for 10 seconds. If you are not in your starting area by this time, you are annihilated.
4) The team with the highest successful hack meter at the end of the match is the winner. The winner gets SP, ISK, and loot. The loser gets SP and loot, but only 1/4th the usual ISK. In the result of a tie or a mutual loss (drone victory), NO team gets ISK or loot, only SP.
4a) Should one team clone out, the game time stops and a new OB timer commences. The remaining team has 60 seconds to make it back to their initial spawn point before hell rains down from the sky.
The hack meter:
GÇó The meter has four or more "locks", whatever is determined best for game balance. It is essentially a race with tripwires: the team that stays on the map longest and hacks the most has the best chance of winning, but also runs the risk of getting obliterated by drones or OBs.
GÇó After hacking a terminal, you have to defend it for the same amount of time it takes to flip a point in Skirmish. After this time, the terminal disappears/recesses and another one appears at random elsewhere on the map. 3-4 terminals will be open on the map at any given time.
GÇó While you cannot reduce the opposing team's meter beyond a lock point, drones can. Certain drones will attempt to hack open terminals, and should they succeed, both teams hack meters are reduced by the same amount. Leave too many terminals alone for too long, and drones are guaranteed to erase all your hard work.
Drones have the following behavior:
GÇó Default behavior is to attack the nearest player of either team that it can see/sense/scan, with some complexity to circumvent tank/sniper combos and other cunning player behavior.
GÇó In my dream world, drones would come in a variety of sizes from a small cunning hacker, to a tank sized behemoth that must be taken out with AV/Vehicle weapons. I'll take what I can get.
GÇó If a player begins to hack a terminal, drones cease their hunter behavior and immediately try to gang up on the players hacking the nearest terminal. They make it as hard for you as possible. Once all players are dead, they will attempt to unhack the terminal to prevent your progress.
GÇó Players need to defend their hacking teammate to keep the drones from killing him. The opposing team can capitalize on the drones attention to the hacking team to score kills.
GÇó If a drone does not sense a player, or is a hacker drone, they will attempt to go hack the nearest terminal. They do this at a slower rate than normal players.
GÇó There are initially a large amount of drones on the map, but they respawn slowly at first. As the timer gets closer and closer to the 15 minute mark, the amount of drones on the map becomes unmanageable. By the end, opposing teams should have enough NPC pressure that they're tempted to form spontaneous and unstable truces to deal with the immediate threat.
GÇó Winning a game should be white-knuckle-oh-my-god-we-may-not-make-it hard. And pay well enough to be worth it.
Well men, what say you? |
KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
3179
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Posted - 2013.03.16 03:55:00 -
[2] - Quote
I could have sworn the PVE mode that's coming is already called infestation, I would rename this if I were you.
I haven't fully decided about how I feel about the details of this idea, but I absolutely love the idea of combining PVE with PVP.
I like the idea of unpredictable and constantly shifting objectives.
I don't like the idea of a strike that hits the entire map; would lead to too much retreating back and forth from one's base, and I would prefer if strikes are earned the usual way for the sake of continuity.
Regarding drone types, I have a thread dedicated to drone type proposals, you may wish to have a look in it or contribute: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=64048&find=unread |