I sort of posted this before in the “city map cornucopia is overpowered” post, but I thought it was an interesting enough idea to put forward in its own thread… you may disagree of course.
I think the games could really benefit from a restructure of how we look at the relationship between a map’s players and the items available. The core essence of the games is survival and so creating a set up where players have the feeling that they are constantly under threat (from other players or even just food) should be the mantra of the WHOLE setup.
The first thing to understand is that food is essentially time. If you have a lot of food you have a lot of time to do things, if you don’t you have to expend what little time you have left to get it. It may be harder to implement and require experimentation to get “just right” but, I recommend we consider making food the main focus at the game. No one should ever consider themselves to have “enough” time.
If almost all the food spawned at the cornucopia people would have to go there to survive (or kill people who had been there) which would stop camping and encourage interaction. So, if we strip the other chests outside the corn of all their food we add a natural pacing and ebb and flow to the game. Waves of people fluxing in and out of the middle to get the food they need to survive and head out again before they are killed for what they have got.
If you were to do this you would also have to make weapons and equipment the main focus of the areas outside cornucopia (though the corn would also have some basic kit still obviously). Also items in general should be of FAR lower quality to what we normally see in the game and also MUCH more limited across the entire map. The best most people would be expected to find would be a bow, stone sword, iron sword, leather armour. Take all the super awesome gear out of the game (no magic swords ect.)
Why chuck out the good stuff? Well basically it creates a natural “leader runaway” situation which is no fun for anyone. The leader avoids the natural threat of impending death, because they have a vastly superior chance of survival and everyone else is essentially forced to flee or fall to their superior firepower.
As I said before the main focus should be survival, the hunger games are best when you’re under pressure and scared. That should be the mantra of the WHOLE setup. No one should ever walk around feeling like a bad ass as a result.
Armour should also be extremely limited and that which can be found should be of very low quality. Death should never be far away and forever lurks around every corner. You should not be able to camp the cornucopia and feel confident of survival in your tank armour while your damage heals up. No one should feel able to camp anywhere and hold off more than 1 player comfortably at any given time. The focus of the game needs to be on the second to second tension you feel at the beginning.
This would make the game much more of a slug fest and force people to mix up exploration and returning to the cornucopia.
I think the games could really benefit from a restructure of how we look at the relationship between a map’s players and the items available. The core essence of the games is survival and so creating a set up where players have the feeling that they are constantly under threat (from other players or even just food) should be the mantra of the WHOLE setup.
The first thing to understand is that food is essentially time. If you have a lot of food you have a lot of time to do things, if you don’t you have to expend what little time you have left to get it. It may be harder to implement and require experimentation to get “just right” but, I recommend we consider making food the main focus at the game. No one should ever consider themselves to have “enough” time.
If almost all the food spawned at the cornucopia people would have to go there to survive (or kill people who had been there) which would stop camping and encourage interaction. So, if we strip the other chests outside the corn of all their food we add a natural pacing and ebb and flow to the game. Waves of people fluxing in and out of the middle to get the food they need to survive and head out again before they are killed for what they have got.
If you were to do this you would also have to make weapons and equipment the main focus of the areas outside cornucopia (though the corn would also have some basic kit still obviously). Also items in general should be of FAR lower quality to what we normally see in the game and also MUCH more limited across the entire map. The best most people would be expected to find would be a bow, stone sword, iron sword, leather armour. Take all the super awesome gear out of the game (no magic swords ect.)
Why chuck out the good stuff? Well basically it creates a natural “leader runaway” situation which is no fun for anyone. The leader avoids the natural threat of impending death, because they have a vastly superior chance of survival and everyone else is essentially forced to flee or fall to their superior firepower.
As I said before the main focus should be survival, the hunger games are best when you’re under pressure and scared. That should be the mantra of the WHOLE setup. No one should ever walk around feeling like a bad ass as a result.
Armour should also be extremely limited and that which can be found should be of very low quality. Death should never be far away and forever lurks around every corner. You should not be able to camp the cornucopia and feel confident of survival in your tank armour while your damage heals up. No one should feel able to camp anywhere and hold off more than 1 player comfortably at any given time. The focus of the game needs to be on the second to second tension you feel at the beginning.
This would make the game much more of a slug fest and force people to mix up exploration and returning to the cornucopia.