Next Game Idea: The Public Battlefield

I have mentioned before that my idea for the next game has a private/invite/friend area much like the Backyard Battleground from GW2 known as the Personal Neighborhood and the open public area similar to Giddy Park known as the Public Battlefield. In this post I’ll lay out my ideas for that Public Battleground.

The Public Battleground is designed so that at least 24 players (12 per side), and perhaps more depending on how well these can handle players for hit registration, timing, and of course crossplay considerations, can play in a public arena whenever they want. This map will change every so often from a selection of maps designed for this purpose or adjusted from existing maps from other modes. This selection can and should grow over time to add more variety to this mode as well. How often it will change is unknown, it could change with the quarterly battle pass idea, every month, every week, or whatever works out. When the map is to change, the battlefields will have to be temporarily shut down so we don’t want it to change too often and the changeover should be as rapid as possible since players should be able to play this mode whenever they like.

Players can jump in at any time, and if you’re in a match queue you’ll have the option to join the public battlefield instead of just waiting in ‘portal space’ for a match to join so you’ll never be in a situation where you aren’t really playing. You can also just hang out here and participate whenever you like. There will be AIs that spawn, bosses, turrets/potted plants, brown coats/weeds, and so on and players can also spawn these at fixed points just like in certain regular matches, while you fight over various objectives on the map as well as each other and those AI to score XP and coins, and perhaps some achievements (ex: capture 10 objectives in the public battlefield, vanquish 100 players in the public battlefield, etc.). Perhaps some unique customizations will be unlocked via this mode as well. The objectives ideas I have will be listed later in this post.

The bases players spawn in will be heavily protected to prevent spawn camping which plagues Giddy Park, which was a big problem with the idea in BfN. Beyond the fact that AI of various strengths will be spawning constantly, ranging from simple weeds and browncoats to bosses, if enemy players do get too close alarms will sounds just like the bases in the Backyard Battleground from GW2, and the spawns for that base will increase dramatically, increasing bosses champion AI, and other possible ways to prevent this. The battle is supposed to be over the actual battlefield, not the enemy base!

You would be able to use your normal consumables here, like bots/pots, browncoats/weeds from the normal spots for doing so. As a reminder, since it’s been awhile; consumables in my vision for the next game will not be random, everything will be either always available for purchase with coins; either always available or once you’ve unlocked them via free roam zones, events, or other methods. There’s also the idea of being able to buy consumable spawn points from Rux to only be used in this mode or in your Personal Neighborhood. Like spend 5000 coins and place a one-shot pot spot that you can place anywhere and then spawn a potted plant at that location for a tactical edge with a cost! This may be too good for those that have a ton of coins as opposed to not, but as it’s a one-shot spawn point, once it’s used it’s gone so I don’t think it’ll be a major issue.

The main idea here is to make sure players can jump in and just play, even if they can’t for very long, still earn rewards, feel like they’re playing for some goals but can just mess about and still enjoy the experience, and to keep people from getting stuck in queues for matches. AI spawning and events like new objectives appearing, as well as the maps changing every so often, will keep this mode engaging and interesting.

Objectives will spawn every so often after the previous one is complete. I’m thinking 5 or 10 minutes at most and it will have an obvious timer so players are informed.

Objective ideas:

• Capture a specific landmark: Essentially, imagine a TT objective where both sides are trying to capture it, and the team with more of their team present will push the capture bar in their direction, this means if the teams and their AI are fairly equal, these could be some really interesting fights! The capture bars will return to how they were in GW1 and 2 so the progress doesn’t slide to certain spots like BfN which I didn’t hate but wasn’t a fan of either. Once one side fills that bar up, they capture it and all players present from both sides get a bonus of XP and coins (winners get a larger bonus of course, but the losing side getting a bonus encourages more direct participation). This landmark will be based on the map but will be for specific buildings, statues, boats by a dock, and so on. Of course, participating in capturing/defending such a point also gives coins and XP as well, and you’ll get that objective vanquish bonus when you vanquish enemies on the point too. More AI will spawn the longer the point is uncaptured, so it will eventually fall.
• Defeat a specific boss: Both sides will have a boss that spawns on ‘their side’ of the map but not directly on the base to avoid the spawn camping and base protection problems. They will have indicators that can be seen by both sides anywhere on the battlefield. When one boss is defeated, every player that damaged that boss gets an XP and Coin bonus. The other boss will remain till defeated but the team that opposes that surviving boss will have an accelerated AI spawn rate that will hunt it down till defeated. When that boss is defeated, players that damage that boss also get a bonus in XP and coins but smaller than the team that defeated the first boss. Bosses can be healed, so I also would add more and more AI the longer it goes on till the bosses go down to avoid a prolonged stalemate.
• Destroy 3 tombstones/scarecrows: Both sides will have these spawn in random places on the map (but not too close to each other), one of each for both sides. When 1 is destroyed, another one spawns, and so on until 3 are destroyed from that team. They spawn AI just like in GW and GW2 and each one spawns more powerful AI than the last one. The team that destroys all 3 opposing ones first again gets a bonus, while the other team will get more AI spawning once theirs are all gone and get a smaller bonus when they destroy the last opposing one. These can’t be healed of course, so eventually they’ll go down!
• Return 5 Pop-Smarts/Purple Chickens to your base: Across the map, and again not too close to each other or the opposing items, 5 of each of these spawn and like Ops, players will go out and pick these up, trying to take them back to their base and/or prevent the enemy from doing the same! A player can only carry 1 at a time and they will drop where the carrier is vanquished. Players cannot move the opposing team’s objectives. AI cannot carry these and this mode will likely not need to accelerate the AI spawn rate unlike the other objectives, as these items will slowly move towards their respective bases unless a player intentionally griefs by carrying it further away; which I’m not 100% sure how to adjust for, but it could be an issue. You get a bonus for picking it up and a bonus if you turn it in, but of course you’ll have indicators the other team can see and will be a big target! Vanquishing an opposing player carrying these items also scores a bonus!
• Others: I’m sure more objectives could be made. I’m avoiding vanquishing other players and such as that will be ongoing anyway. Maybe seasonal objectives could be added, gnomes can cause problems that have to be dealt with, and so on!

Balancing and team choice:  Obviously players will want to play certain characters and not want to be in one of those notorious 6 vs. 2 situations. We won’t use AI heroes to fill slots as they’ll already be a part of the normal AI spawn as it is. In their options, players will be able to select a preference for zombies or plants, only zombie/only plants, or no preference at all, and you can change this at any time. When you jump into the public battlefield, it will check your team preference and which battlefields have room and where your choices won’t unbalance the lobby. If this can’t be met, which should be very rare, you will spawn in a new lobby. When a lobby has only 1 player, it will pause the objective timer but you can still mess about with the AI or finish the current objective if it had already started.

The idea is that the lobbies for the public battlefields will only let someone join who will balance it, or only increase that by 1. For example; in a 9v8 game, the new player will join the 8 to make it 9v9, if it was 9v9, that player can make it 10v9 or 9v10, but you will not join a 6v5 game and make it 7v5. If a bunch of people leave and the balance gets out of whack, say 9v3 from a mass log off, all new players will be added to that smaller team until balance is regained. The AI will spawn more aggressively for the smaller team automatically to help balance things as well as it can until things are more balanced again. Note that something similar can help balance regular PvP lobbies as well, barring the AI spawn. We never again want to see completely unbalanced matches like we’ve seen in the current games as it really turns off people, and especially new players.

Other stuff: Seasonal events not tied to objectives could be added, mini-games for coins, XP, and possibly other rewards could pop up, maybe add bounties for players that are doing well to encourage the other team to go after them, there are a lot of possibilities with this idea!

My objective here is to recreate the social aspect of Giddy Park, avoid the spawn camping, keep things interesting by changing objectives, and to allow you to play here at any time, barring the occasional, and hopefully quick, map changes. Giddy Park was one of those parts of BfN I felt had massively potential, but never lived up to it, I’d love to change that here.