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I made the Assault Bonus Pack because I love Assault. I like Assault so much
because it's close to what I'd have done myself. And "Assault the Base" is a
display of how I'd have done it.
It's the same concept as Assault, but gameplay dynamics have been changed a
lot, especially since victory conditions are different. Instead of being
time-based, the winning team is determined by scores, so the scoring system
has been redesigned to be more meaningful. Teamplay is being stressed more
than luck. With regular Assault, a lone wolf who bypasses the defense can
win an assault all by himself. In ATB, a lone wolf could still conquer the
base, but it's quite likely the other team still wins because of better
teamplay.
The elimination of time as the victory condition means the games won't be
over so fast anymore. Both teams get the same amount of time to assault. No
quickies anymore. A single mistake doesn't cost you the map, and a lucky
start doesn't equal a victory. But make no doubt about it, time still
matters, because it's added to team scores as the final bonus. In regular
Assault the winning player gets 100 bonus points, in ATB the winning team
gets a score bonus based on time, 100 points per remaining minutes plus one
point per remaining second.
As a side note, the difference between 59 seconds remaining and 1 minute is
41 points, although it's a single second difference. One might think there
should be one point per second, counting all seconds, but then players would
have to calculate the bonus points in their heads to decide if they should
destroy the final objective or wait for backup to collect more points first.
Using the current scoring bonus, you can determine the bonus by looking at
the scoreboard, 2:30 time left means 230 points.
There are several ways to score: Fragging an enemy gives you one point as
usual, unless it's a spawnkill (frag near enemy's spawnpoint), then the frag
doesn't count at all. Fragging an enemy near an objective gives you another
point. Destroying an objective gives you ten points, plus any teammate
nearby, so you can get a lot of bonus points for your team by sticking
together. That's how the bots play, too, so they play ATB even better than
regular Assault.
Because all teammates nearby get the objective bonus, there's no competition
among teammates, you don't have to get it to score. Often it's better to
protect your mate who's attacking the objective. If you kill some enemies
before the objective is destroyed, you get bonus points, for yourself and
the team. In regular Assault, people often neglect Deathmatch skills, they
just run and shoot the objectives without fighting the defenders. Now
fighting is rewarded a bit better and it pays off to kill the enemy before
the objective. There's no bonus if you kill a defender after the objective
is gone.
By the way, since scores of all players count towards team score, an abusive
user might try to hurt his team by suiciding all the time. That's why only
positive scores are counted.
ATB encourages playing together as a team, sticking together, fighting side
by side.
There's also a whole lot of strategy involved that was missing from
Assault. When a player reaches an objective that's guarded by enemies, they
have to choose: Do I destroy the objective as fast as possible, before they
kill me, so it's destroyed and we score 10 points. Or do I kill the
defenders first, then we'd get 2 points per kill, but they might kill me as
well. Do I wait for backup so we can kill them easier, and the 10 bonus
points are awared to all of us? If it's the last objective, do I destroy it
to end the round, or do we keep playing a bit longer to get more points?
After one round is over, teams switch sides, as usual. Team scores are kept
during the change so you can keep improving your score next round. That
means a bad attack can be compensated with a good defense. And vice versa.
The assaulting team has the best scoring possibilities, of course, thanks to
the big time bonus. That's why the game is called Assault the Base, not
defend the base. But since you can score during both rounds, the outcome is
not determined until the very end of the match. No longer is a game as
predictable as before, with regular Assault, you know there are some times
you can hardly beat. Now the whole team has to work together during both
rounds to ensure a victory.
ATB basically eliminates all of the gameplay-inherent problems of Assault
that the Assault Bonus Pack doesn't touch. It's not meant to replace regular
Assault, it's supposed to supplement it, as it should appeal to those who
don't like regular Assault despite the bonus pack tweaks. Gone are the short
games which confused newbies all the time, they often don't even have time
to learn the maps, that's why they tend to give up on Assault quickly. The
trick moves remain, but using them isn't as powerful and unbalanced as
before, because if they are not defended against the game is over after a
single round. If one side didn't anticipate jumpers, they lose quickly, and
the other team would defend against it next round. Now such luck and
mistakes can be balanced, if one side wins with tricks, they probably didn't
work together too well as a team. So by improving team play, you can
compensate very well.
If a shortcut saves the enemy a whole minute, by working with two teammates
and destroying two objectives together, you gain a bonus of 10 points per
objective per teammate including yourself so that's 60 points - you made up
a whole minute that way.
I expect Assault newbies to like ATB because it rewards teamplay, what you
have learned in bot play is very useful here, tricks alone don't make a
victory anymore. On the other hand, the advanced decision-making and
strategy should appeal to hardcore players who know all the tricks and get
bored by them. And casual players will enjoy the diversity, the teamwork,
and the chance to recover so good or bad luck don't mean too much anymore.
Assault Bonus Pack Feature
Assault Bonus Pack Website
Eavy's UT Mods Website
Download the Assault Bonus Pack
Download the Assault Bonus Pack Patch
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