NEWB TDM! Join our nightly west coast games!

[EVOL]

T33bagg3d and I started a new clan: tdm-W (TDM WEST). All are invited to join. Just send me a friend req (EVOL) on QL and ask for an add.

Before you reject the idea of TDM outright, read on. To try and attract CA players, I'm noobing up the TDM servers a bit. The results are already really good.

Youtube video from a great game yesterday: http://youtu.be/DZUgEbm7dC4

Copy/paste from the video description:
I'm so tired of Clan Arena. TDM is my favorite mode (even though I'm not very good at it). It's pulling teeth to get CA players to play TDM, because they have to play careful, use real teamwork (as opposed to working their team...), and control items and weapons. There's usually a lot of crying and rage quitting involved. So I'm trying to make TDM less brutal, by noobing it up a bit, in order to draw some CA players to this vastly superior game mode (even noobed, it smashes CA's face). CA requires none of the skill facets of other game types (map control, item control, timing, team work).

NEWB TDM (in this video):
Weapon respawns: 10 seconds (real TDM is 30)
Map time limit: 10 minutes (real TDM is 20)

This way, even if it's a blowout, it's only 10 minutes, and you can still learn something.

Observations:
Pretty much everyone had a GREAT time. I don't think anyone raged. A lot of people played TDM for the first time, and really loved it. Most people said they are excited to play more. TDM games are too often a huge blowout (50+ frag difference is a "close" game). With these newb'd settings, almost all of the games were pretty close (less than 15 frag diff, sometimes less than 5!). It needs a few tweaks though. 10 second weapon respawn is a little too fast. In CA you spawn 200 health, 100 armor, so the damage output of the weapons is mitigated. In TDM, you spawn with 125 health and MG in your hand, and someone with an LG can cut you down pretty fast. Because the hp/armor levels of players on the map is SO much less than in CA, weapons really do need to be a rarer commodity. At the same time, it does need to be newb'd up a *little* bit to get CA players on board.

I'll be running lots of NEWB TDM games in the future (nightly, hopefully), but with some adjustments.
Weapon Respawn: 15 seconds (default 30)
Map Timelimit: 12 minutes (default 20)
Starting Health: 125 (this is the default)
Starting Armor: 25 (default 0)

Tweaks I'm considering:
Players start with SG or PG (if I could make it random between those 2, I'd do it in a second).
Bring MG damage up from 4 to 5 (it's 4 in default TDM, 5 in all other game types).

Standard TDM games are 2v2 or 4v4, but 3v3 is fun too, on a few maps (dm6, almost lost, hidden fortress). I just want to get people playing. Going to get voice comms set up soon too, because it's so important in TDM, and really helps new players learn the ropes (stressing the importance of teamwork, position, timing, etc).

Hope to see you guys joining the games!! Add me on QuakeLive (username EVOL) and ask me for an invite to the tdm-W (TDM WEST) clan. It's not a team for scrims, just a way to get people playing pub/pug tdm games.

Word!

PS: Check out my 10 kill quad run at 9 minutes.


That's it folks! Look for our nightly (newb)TDM games in LA!

[pikaluva13]

"Weapon respawns: 10 seconds (real TDM is 30)"

Already better than normal TDM even though I still have no plans on playing :P (mainly because I'm in Michigan, but also because I'm too busy playing other games :3)

[Lorfa]

LOL at the vid. I was so frustrated from the previous game I was like not even playing that game. Luckily we still managed to win, mostly because of Evol's balanced, pragmatic play.

I picked it up in the subsequent games. TDM sure is difficult though!

[EVOL]

LOL at the vid. I was so frustrated from the previous game I was like not even playing that game. Luckily we still managed to win, mostly because of Evol's balanced, pragmatic play.

I picked it up in the subsequent games. TDM sure is difficult though!

Lol dude the best part of the vid is when you sg me right before the first quad. I had the better stack AND weapons! Still, I switched to lg and ran into your gaunt, so you'd get full ammo for it. Those game's were so fun! A million times better than CA.

[EVOL]

REALLY fun run tonight. Played 11 4v4 TDM games. That effing HAS to be a west coast record for the last couple of years haha. Thanks to herobrine_, pizza, lauche, jinbei, Nawker, SkyGod, petpetpet, velourfog, JBis2S, JJA, Kersha, DireVisitor, psygib, MzHeroine, Swyfty, Hehateme1, Gamblez, and SleepParalysist. KICK ASS games! I'll never play Clan Arena again if we can populate servers like this. I bought a friend a 12month pro subscription today so he can spawn "noob tdm" servers too. Hopefully I can run some simple tourneys and give away a few more pro subs. Let's keep the momentum going. Even wonko showed up for a minute to see if there was room to play. I'll try and spawn a server with the "noob" settings every night if I can. Let's keep the momentum going!

[Lorfa]

Lol dude the best part of the vid is when you sg me right before the first quad. I had the better stack AND weapons! Still, I switched to lg and ran into your gaunt, so you'd get full ammo for it. Those game's were so fun! A million times better than CA.

I accidentally hit the fire button and nearly wasted you. I was like "That's just GREAT, JUST GREAT!!". I should have meditated or something between games, because like I said I was still frustrated from the previous game.

At least one of us got the quad and not the other team :-D

[Dr_Mr_Ed]

Evol -- I just spawned one of these per your settings posted on ESR and had 1 decent 2v2 game this morning. Almost had another, but work called people off :/

{"maps":["bloodrun","almostlost","campgrounds","deepinside","grimdungeons","hiddenfortress","purgatory","realmofsteelrats","retribution"],"cvars":{"g_gametype":3,"sv_warmupReadyPercentage":0.51,"timelimit":12,"g_weaponRespawn":15,"mercylimit":50,"g_startingArmor":25}}

Question -- the MG shows with a * in the game menu, and shows a wrench icon on the browser. But I don't see anything here that modifies the MG. And of course, the game is still ranked too. Do you know why the MG shows like that?

[DocPossible]

Evol -- I just spawned one of these per your settings posted on ESR and had 1 decent 2v2 game this morning. Almost had another, but work called people off :/

{"maps":["bloodrun","almostlost","campgrounds","deepinside","grimdungeons","hiddenfortress","purgatory","realmofsteelrats","retribution"],"cvars":{"g_gametype":3,"sv_warmupReadyPercentage":0.51,"timelimit":12,"g_weaponRespawn":15,"mercylimit":50,"g_startingArmor":25}}

Question -- the MG shows with a * in the game menu, and shows a wrench icon on the browser. But I don't see anything here that modifies the MG. And of course, the game is still ranked too. Do you know why the MG shows like that?

TDM MG damage is only 4. I think all pub TDM servers have a wrench because of this. This statement is based on my highly unreliable memory and may be coloured by all sorts of weird server experiences I've had, so in no way comes with any sort of stamp of authoritry,

[EVOL]

Doc is right. In TDM, the MG damage is reduced from 5 to 4. In my opinion, it shouldn't show up with a wrench or with a "*" in the game menu, since those are the default TDM rules. But yes, the ruleset I've posted is still ranked, because there's nothing that unbalances the game, or really takes away from the "tdm"ness of tdm. Hope to see you guys joining the games, it's a blast

[pikaluva13]

"Weapon respawns: 10 seconds (real TDM is 30)"

Already better than normal TDM even though I still have no plans on playing :P (mainly because I'm in Michigan, but also because I'm too busy playing other games :3)

Last night I checked out my ping on a California server to see what my ping was. I noticed that it was 71, so I might actually show up to some of these TDM games if I notice them