Capture The Flag

Updated 1-31-05
Updated class skills.

Hi all,

This forum doesn't get a lot of action, but I thought I'd post up my latest idea anyway. I'm just getting started with it, but it's a fairly small project so it will probably be done fairly soon anyway.

It's a Capture the Flag map, and that's all it is. There's no Hero Arena on the side, no base to micromanage - you and a team work together to protect your flag and try to capture the enemy flag.

I want the game to be fast-paced and fun, and I want there to be a variety of players that enjoy it. One of the driving factors in the game is I want very little time when you are not "playing" -- I don't want long death penalties, and I also want a very simple way to restructure your team if necessary. So, here's how things work. You pick a unit to control. This unit has a variety of abilities (I'll post some details on Units later). Everyone on the team picks a unit, and the game starts. You don't gain any levels and can't purchase any items...so if you die, there is no loss. You simply go back to the starting base, pick a new unit to control (or the same unit), and head back out to the playing field.

I'm starting out with 5 different choices for units. They are:

Scout
A vulnerable unit that specializes in keeping tabs on the enemy. Also a fairly good flag runner, if you can get in and out without dying.
Abilities:
Keen Eyes: This unit has a very large sight radius.
Wind Walk: The unit gains the ability to move extremely quickly (while invisible).
Cleanse: Remove any tracking devices placed by enemy scouts.
Camouflage: Same thing as hide from the Night Elves
Sharp Eyes: Can see any nearby camouflaged units
Sentry Wards: Yeah, uh, Sentry Wards
Track: Provides vision of an enemy unit.

Runner
Basic flag capturing unit. Quick and mobile with moderate survivability.
Abilities:
Sneak: Grants you temporary invisibility but greatly slows your movement speed.
Swap: Switch places with target friendly unit.
Doppelganger: Creates a clone of yourself which deals 10% damage and takes almost no damage.
Blink: Blink
Perfect Dodge: Activate to gain 100% evasion

Defender
This unit is very vulnerable if caught undefended, but his primary use is to defend in the base, setting traps and guarding entrances.
Abilities:
Place Mines: Mines that do a moderate amount of damage. Only 10 (or so) can be out at a time.
Place Walls: Place barriers in an area.
Stun Trap: Place a trap that will temporarily stun a unit that comes in the area.
Slowing Ooze: Any units that walk in this area have greatly reduced movement speed.

This hero indefinitely on hold
Illusionist
A master of trickery that specializes in confusion.
Abilities:
Spawn Illusion: Create a copy of target friendly unit.
Confusion: Heh this ability is great. Any time a unit is issued an order to move, it offsets the angle of that move by a set number of degrees.
Imagined Burden: Slow a unit for a short duration.
Blackout: Removes all vision except that provided by units in an area for a short duration.
Sleep: Turns you into a yellow unicorn, or maybe puts the target to sleep.

Warrior
A high HP unit that is difficult to kill, but slow moving.
Abilities:
Raging Charge: The warrior charges in a direction, knocking back any units and destroying any trees in his path (causes the flag to be dropped).
Thwomp: Hit an enemy unit. Hard.
Shield Ally: Target Ally shares damage with you.
Get Over Here: Drag an enemy unit to your location.
Bash: Every attack from the Warrior stuns the unit for a short duration.
Rejuvenate: Restore Hit Points to self.

Sniper
A slow moving unit that can take out enemy runners. Has two sets of abilities.
Abilities Set A (Standard Form):
Take Aim: High casting time, but puts sniper into sniping position allowing him to take long range shots at enemy. Makes him invisible, and transforms him to Form B.
Binoculars: Far Sight (reveal a spot on the map)
Quick Snipe: A low accuracy, high damage shot at an enemy unit.
Rapid Fire: You shoot fast.
Railgun: Fire a shot across the map that travels in a straight line. Deals 450 damage to anything it hits.
Abilities Set B (Sniping Form):
Standard Form: Puts you back into your standard, more mobile, visible form.
Prepare Shot: Channeling ability that increases the accuracy for Snipe shot. Accuracy is displayed in the lumber box, and ticks up ever. 05 seconds until it reaches 100, then returns to zeo.
Snipe Shot: Uses the accuracy value from prepare shot to fire an instant kill shot at an enemy unit. After you take this shot your location is revealed.
Binoculars: Same as above
Railgun: Same as above


Well, that's the end of all the heroes for now. They will of course need balancing, some don't even have the full assortment of abilities yet. This isn't the team gathering forum, but if I've greatly perked anyone's interest, I think it would be nice to have someone to work with. I'm a fairly experienced map-maker, but very logically, um, brained. That is to say, I can make any trigger, but I probably won't be able to make the map look good.

If anyone has any thoughts or comments (anyone being the 2 or 3 people that read this thread) feel free to let me know. Here's a screenshot of the current terrain.

I personally think that would be cool. All the current CTF maps are hero based where the hero has a million HP and the attacks dont do nothing so you end up taking little dammage while u run to ur base. The terrain is to simmetrical though. you did say you wern't the best at it though, to bad im not any better. just make your map different from everyones else. When i try to make maps i tend to keep it as real as possible and like have your health be maybe 100, like most other FPS but make the scouts 70. you should play some like team fortress classic and then you can get an idea on other classes 2.

Actually Team Fortress Classic (For Quake 1? lol) was my original inspiration for this. I thought that was really fun, and I wanted to do something similar. I'm a little concerned I have too many classes right now, rather than too few. As it is, almost every unit has an ability you really want on your team, and there are 6 units to spread among six players. Things are progressing extrememly quickly (the map is fully playable with three heroes, though there are a lot of helpful features missing) probably due to my prior experience. I've also raised the number of abilities every unit has to make playing more challenging and fun.

As far as realism, it's not super realistic. Scouts have 200 hp and deal about 75 damage, Warriors have 1000 hp about 125 (slowly)...everyone else is somewhere in between as far as HP goes. I didn't want units that died extremely quickly or it would make flag capturing too difficult.

Thanks for the input! Here's the no longer completely symmetrical terrain (yes, it's still pretty close to symmetric).

Ok, i got an idea make custom spells based on evasion. so like the scouts will have higher evasion because they move faster and are harder to hit. then the big beefy guy will move slower and easyer to hit (lower evasion). BTW your terraining skillz arnt that good. I tried making a forest and what people told me was.
1 use fog
2 add doodads in odd numbered groups
3 space out the trees. in real life trees are not really close to eachother then a big space then another group of tight trees.
4 use tile variation

Im not any better at terraining then you so dont think im critisizing you.
A unit suggestions would be a medic unit. Medium in armor health and weapon power. but give it like heal. I think you should try to incooperate lots of skill and good use of communication

I like this idea, sounds neat. On the terrain, it lacks tile variation, possible add some dirt or something else. The paths inbetween the tree's most likely have been traveled many times and there really shouldn't be any grass there, perhapes use a mixture or dirt and rough dirt, I think rough dirt is in the sunken ruins tileset.

The terrain also lacks a lot of enviromental doodads, while too many doodads can be a bad thing some shrubs or a few rocks here and there can do wonders. The little flag areas for each side look very poor with a lot of one tile, maybe add a few cracks in the tile where grass or dirt is showing through.

Fog isn't that necessary in a map intended for battle.net as it will most likely lag people's computers and that is never good, also since it seems to be in a fairly open area with very little water the adding of fog would be unrealistic.

Then of course this isn't real life and in a capture the flag map trees or other large objects are helpful for making lots of paths for units to travel across. In this case making the trees spread apart would ruin this and make it so units would have a very simple time getting to the flag, remember this game is supposed to be fun as well as practical.

6 heroes is a fine number of heroes, as you said early there won't be much of a penilty for dying so if someone dies you can always pick another class. Despite all your efforts very good classes will be ignored by most players, by this I mean the sniper. The sniper seems like a very good class but from looking at his abilities he would require some skill to be used correctly, this would require patience something that most people on battle.net don't have.

The problem is there is most likely no solution to this, just try to make sure all the classes won't be to confusing for a first-timer. This looks like a very cool idea and I would like to help out, I already have some some expeirance with capture the flag maps as I have made one myself. So if you need some help with terrain just contact me on Icq, aim, or msnm, all my screen names are in my profile.

you can always use light fog to get a nice effect if you are going to make a marsh or something. It may cause a bit of lag on lower end computers, that i agree upon. As for the trees. it may be cool to have some areas with trees spread out. It can help the weaker classes like runners loose the enemy because the trees are like LoS blockers so the slower heavyer classes will have a harder time killing them. A mix of spaced trees and compact trees will add to the effect. I think you should combine both the scout and runner ( i think thats what they are called) they are both bascially the same thing. quick units that are decent at capturing. I would like to see some more screen shots of the actualy game (not overview)

Thanks for all the helpful comments!

I especially appreciate the ideas for terrain improvement - the current terrain is of course a huge work in progress, but nevertheless it's great to have ideas of where to go with it. JetPack is right: though it lacks realism, I prefer having the trees grouped so that there are paths to run through and possibly cut people off at, rather than a semi-open field with trees. I may do what you suggested though stupids, and add an area like that.

Current doodad count: almost 0. I have some little flags hanging up around that base and near the middle of the map. I'm not going to add 5,000 more, but I will add some where appropriate to improve the general appearance.

I'll take some time, possibly tomorrow, and update my first post and give more information. The Scout and the Runner are actually very different -- I'm going to give the game a few tries on battle.net before I nix any classes. I won't be hosting this on battle.net for a while though - I like to have a fairly stable game before playing with people I don't know.

What i may suggest is before you get to in depth with the terrain is trying to get the core system to work. Since its CTF make sure that the captureing and flag returning work flawlessly. then work on like 1 unit to test it out with and then you can do all the fancy stuff. the map will suck if it doesnt work right even if it has cool eeffects ^_^ well good luck with the map.

Very good idea in general...the core system is mostly complete and functional, I just need to add functionality so that it's easier to find the flag if it's been dropped. I suppose I also need to add more functionality to deal with when a player drops as well...but yeah, point taken. I actually will probably play it a few times early on to make sure the general concept is fun. If it's fun then there's no reason not to finish it :).

I updated the main post for this thread that mentions all the abilities. I'm also posting a new screenshot of the terrain, but sadly I'll be revamping it again. I played a few games on B.net this weekend, and the game just didn't play how I wanted it to. It was a little too slow-paced, and the flag was too easy to get. I'm going to shrink this map a bit, making it less "tall" and moving the platforms closer together. At the same time, I plan to make the flag harder to get to.

Just to please stupids, I zoomed in a bit and took pictures from a little closer. These aren't in game shots, but hopefully that's OK.

that terrain isnt all that bad. as for the speed of the game. think about what all FPS have that make it fast paced (lets use team fortress classic, or deathmatch calssic) those are all really fast games. counterstrike and DoD arnt to fast its more of skill and knowning when to move and not to.

Things FPS have
-Ability to jump around
-Shooting while moving
-When hit by big rockets you fly back.
-walking backwards
-mic use
-explosives
-aiming


As you can see most of these aspects that make FPS really fast paced u cannot create. You can however use teamspeak to solve the mic problem. but you would have to arrange that. Maybe use the phenix fire ability to be able to attack while moving. Through a bunch of triggers im sure u could figure out how to get units fly back when they are hit by rockets or walk on explosives. Also you would be amazed on what sounds can do to your map. if you replace their attacking sound with the sound of a rifle it will sound allot cooler. Fly by bullet sounds would add a nice touch to. i dont think its possible to jump around though or walk backwards. Remeber the map needs to be big enough so you have a chance on getting your flag back

Well, I'm not really looking for that level of excitement/involvement from players. I'm not trying to match a FPS, I'm just trying to have a game where you always feel like there's something going on.

On the note of sounds, I couldn't agree with you more. For the Warrior, I went and got the Mortal Kombat sound for "Get Over Here!" that plays whenever he uses the ability with the same name. The Sniper has sounds for his 1 hit kill shot (a Rifle w/echo) and his Rail Gun (the quake RailGun sound). That's all there is right now.

I do want players to be able to stop people that have the flag, but the real issue is there feels like there's a lot of travel time right now. It's like 30 seconds to get from your base to the enemies flag, and then the same amount of time to get back to your base. I'd like to see that time closer to 15 seconds.

I think it would be a great idea if the Defender had cool explosives that knocked enemies backwards. I'll be using that idea! I don't think Warcraft lends itself well to attacking and moving at the same time (or that kind of gameplay, but warcraft battles can be exciting enough, especially when you add in abilities to the units).

you can attack while moving useing the phenix ability but you dont got any control on when or who it attacks.

Right, that's not exactly the same feeling you get from an FPS where a lot of the difficulty comes from hitting targets while moving.

While I am using Team Fortress as the basis for the ideas of this map, I'm not interested in trying to make a clone of the game -- people could just play the original, and mine will never be as good because it's impossible to make it as good. Instead, I want something that works well in the WC3 environment and shares only basic concepts with games from other genres.

I agree with your thoughts that with 6 players, there's no sense in having too many classes. I myself would limit them to 4 or 5, 6 is an absolute maximum. You can merge some classes, like the scout and runner seem similar enough (one is super specialised in scouting and the other in taking the flag. Perhaps, with as few classes as you have, it would be good if players could also take a bit varying roles with a single class: merging scouting and running would be a nice start). Another reason why having a seperate scout seems superflous is because the sniper is a bit of a recon-unit himself. The defender and illusionist, too, seem like support heroes that could be made into a single supporter role.

Next thing I would consider are the class differences. All the hp and damage in the world won't help the warriors much if the scouts would be just running past them with twice the speed. On the other hand, it would be wierd if an enemy took a warrior and then you had to take one too because with any 3 other units you couldn't take him on as he would lumber away with your flag. And it's also a bit unrealistic for the same human with just different equipment to have so much more hp. The classes can have similar (not same!) physical capabilities (hp, dmg, speed), and their abilities can still make them very specialised.

I don't know if the map is more modern or more medieval themed, so I can't give any suggestions about specific skills. I'm a bigger fan of medieval, but I understand the problem of having melee units in a lot-of-running map. Of course, it would still be possible, if those units (like the warrior) had ensnaring/stunning abilities.

As far as terrain goes, I think you should try to have a balance of open areas and enclosed corridors: the bases should be more enclosed, thus easier to defend. They should still have more entrances, but they should be a bit longer and narrower, like if the base is a castle. Maybe add some gates that need to be sieged and some back corridors where you can sneak in (and maybe also open the gates for your teammates from the inside, if the inner flag sanctum is sneak proof). (ahh, I'm still thinking medievaly, altrough your concept is probably more present-time based)

And if the base to base run time is too long, just make the map smaller.

All in all, it seems like an interesting concept. Ahh, but it's on hold at the moment, I see. Good, you'll have time to consider my ideas. :)