Game mode Specifics "Survey" / What makes you play?

Garry's Mod general
#1

Greetings Facepunch Community.

After writing several bullshit game modes and scripts for my own amusement, I’ve decided to try to write my first release game mode. The idea and everything is being withheld until I am closer to an alpha state to protect the idea of my developments, but I had a few questions I wanted to ask everyone to see what seems to be the most popular choices of things to do. The main idea is that I don’t have a whole lot of friends on Garrysmod to get a general consensus, and my preferences are different from everyone else. While I understand that I’m developing the game mode for my own taste, I’d like to see what different opinions everyone has so I can tweak things to the popular choice(s).

When it comes to game type, do you prefer more mystery/investigation games like TTT and Murder, action game modes that require a lot of run and gun, or gimmicks like Prop Hunt? Why do you prefer this game type more? What about the game modes game play do you not get enough of?

When it comes to weapon choices, do you prefer to have all custom weaponry such as CS:S mods, only the basic Half-Life 2 weapons, a mix of them, or is it purely situational? What I mean by situational is role play or theme based - Half Life 2 RP should use HL2 weapons, etc.

What major factor of game modes that you did not stick around for caused you to run away? For example, if you hated Dark RP, was it because of the mingebags, or because of the job setup? What would you have changed that would have made you stay?

What would be the number one factor in you playing a brand new game mode and deciding, “Okay, I’ll waste 30 minutes to try this out” besides unique ideas? Would it be the awesome HUD/GUI, the action packed gunfights, or is it something else?

(Note: I originally posted this in the wrong section, if I get banned I’ll discuss it when I come back)

#2

Don’t bother “protecting” your idea. Anyone can come up with an idea, few can execute it.

  1. For playing with friends I prefer gimmicks like Prop Hunt. Easy to get in to, easy to have fun. I find TTT/Murder a tad frustrating because of the long rounds and having to sit out of the entire round if you die.

  2. Weapon choices are situational. It’s better to have content that’s suited to your gamemode than generic content that every other server/gamemode has.

  3. The major factor that deters me from gamemodes is the new player vs regular/long time player gap. For example, if I join a DarkRP server for the first time my base would always get raided by people who have played longer and have the resources to do what they want. At that point I’d be sitting around with no money because all of my assets were stolen and then I have to resort to being a hobo. Boring.

  4. I’d say the #1 factor to drawing me in to a gamemode (besides originality) is the learning curve/time taken to get in to the gameplay. Huge downloads, complicated gamemodes that aren’t explained well, or forced training (cough Star Wars RP cough) before being allowed to play are turn offs.

#3

Noted, you have a point.

Bingo. The new game mode has a near-instant respawn rate until one side wins, then it restarts. Thank you, that just confirmed one of my suspicions.

While I agree, I think the problem comes in with people having the problem of retaining players in a game mode without some type of progression. Luckily in the sense of the game I’m developing (NPC based Control Point capturing) the progression restarts each round, so newcomers don’t suffer so much.

Thanks for the feedback/answers.

#4

I prefer gimmicks, as you can quickly hop on to a server, play for however long you want (Whether it be 5-10 minutes or an hour), and be able to not stress about fitting in time for another game as they often last quite short (E.G. the longest I usually would have to wait is 5 or 6 minutes if the game had just started)

I think a mix is pretty good. If I’m playing with all custom guns it is definitely more interesting, but some of the default guns make it simple (I don’t need to worry about different attachments and such, just that I have enough bullets and that’s it).

While I play DarkRP, I try to avoid certain servers. Too big of a server often indicates (to me at least) there is usually not enough staff on, resulting in a fairly poor gameplay as it often ends up with so many people doing something they shouldn’t. Often enough I will take a big building, so I can get as far away as possible from everybody screaming outside. This I would say is the biggest reason I don’t like DarkRP, there are so many people who try to be annoying.

I usually like it when GUIs, graphics and everything look sleek and modern. When something looks really old, I often try to avoid it as I associate it with a quick job (even though it might not be, I still for some reason associate it like this). In terms of what specifically would make me not want to play on a server, is how many add-ons/how long it takes me to get into the server. I have fairly good internet (100mb/s) and it can still take upwards of 20 minutes to get into some server. While the custom content is good, there is a tradeoff between speed to join the server and the custom(ness) of it.

#5
  1. Investigation gamemodes, because I like to stay comfortable with solving mysteries, making decision work, problem solving. I think Murder is just what being catchy for me than TTT, because of weaponry and slightly different tactics used there. BTW, I find time to play Trouble in Terrorist Town and it’s kinda annoying when somebody can determine traitor with speed of the light when he just shoots somebody. And at the same time TTT is played on middle size maps, Murder can be wild just with small one. Deathrun and prop hunt may also be investigation gamemodes at some position, that’s the funny part of my GMod gamemodes experience.
  1. I prefer situational weaponry. Such types of weapon which you need to discover and practice. CS:S is just awful pack for cool server, IMO.
  1. Strong binding to weaponry makes it absolute non-sense. It’s like we all came on one trash server to shoot heads off. Such gamemodes miss interesting instruments to complete the objective. There are plenty of them in Workshop.
  1. I think the only GUI that influences me are modal windows. Such as in Murder on round ending you have to waste time to close it, to be able to see anything. I decide to stay in game when it has thoughtful gameplay and doesn’t contain disgusting content (such as drugs in RP on many servers). But THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR for me is performance. No matter what your target audience is, there must be only low-cost operations in the background, so it’s warranty that burning clients’ CPU is not your programmer fault. Truly minimalist gamemode is not forcing you to buy better equipment, it just works!