We’ve all mostly come to hate Hutt ball because of all the reasons listed in all the other Hutt Ball threads. So I won’t rehash all those or why we now hate it or some still like it. That’s not what this is about.

 

I did post this the other day in one of those multitude of necro’d HB threads, but I think it was over looked and this idea probably deserves its own thread.

 

Quote for the other thread :

 

Hutt ball has become stale and people are sick of it for many reasons. So hardly anyone tries to play it properly anymore or care about winning by scoring. It’s all about who does the most damage.

 

Sadly, this is the new norm and there is nothing Bioware can do at this late stage to change that mentality.

 

The Bugs in the maps and Dysnc certainly don’t help and neither does the terrible class balance (for Hutt Ball) that gives specific classes a massive advantage in those maps to single handily score (I’m looking at you Operatives )

 

So, New concept : Death Ball (last team or person standing per round wins for their team).

 

* Change Hutt ball maps to 6-10 man (per side) death match and have random balls around the maps you can use to throw at the enemy and make them explode if they don’t pass it in 5 secs.

 

* But if you pick up the ball to use as a weapon, you have a limited time you can hold it till you also explode. You also can’t throw it on the ground, so you need to either pass to team mates so you don’t blow up or you need to throw it on an enemy.

 

* Speed and health boosters are still the same, but can only be used once per round.

 

* Gives a whole new dimension and feel to the maps and traps. Make all traps instant kills or permanently slow you for the round. Balls can’t be thrown over traps

 

* Possibly 3-5 rounds of 3-5 mins each. You get one respawn per round. Once 3 mins is up, you have a similar death field like normal arena that forces the end of the match.

 

What are people’s thoughts on this sort of change and concept? I think it would make the dysnc and even the bugs less of an issue and all classes would be in the same situation as they are now in other combat focused maps.

 

It also accommodates people who only want to only fight and not have to worry about scoring to win.

 

Edit: I had a thought about leaving in scoring goals to still a win a match designed like this.

 

You could still keep the current scoring mechanic as another possible way to win. So even if you found your team was getting demolished on the combat side, you could switch tactics to scoring goals instead with a normal ball (not an exploding one). But you must score at least “x” amount of gaols for it to finish the round early.

 

This “hybrid” system would give you the best of both worlds. The Hutt Ball purists could still try to win by scoring goals and the combat driven players could try to win like its death ball.

Edited December 2, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

I think absence makes the heart grow fonder.

 

With this in mind, the only way to "reinvigorate" Hutt Ball is to stop making WZ maps of it, that would be helpful, and secondly have "No Hutt Ball Months."

 

During these specified *NO HUTBALLZ* months, Hutt Ball will be removed from all WZ queues. I believe by taking Hutt Ball away, such absence will make people miss Hutt Ball and appreciate it more when it's added to the WZ queues periodically.

better idea. combine the poprate of all 3 huttballs into one map percentages. YR, OPG, VS, HG, NC, CW and HB. 14% each.

I still like huttball and along with my buddies always play for the win.

Desync n stuff happens every map so I don’t think that’s a factor, it’s just the shift in pvp mentality, ie dmg farming over objectives or tactical play.

better idea. combine the poprate of all 3 huttballs into one map percentages. YR, OPG, VS, HG, NC, CW and HB. 14% each.

 

Yeah, I’ve suggested that for 9 months now?? It think it’s been that long. Musco even replied to one of our threads to ask what we’d prefer. Since then he’s done his usual “silence on the forums act” as if he never posted it to start with.

 

The thing is I don’t think that will bring Hutt ball back. I played 9 matches today and I was the only person on either team who even bothered with the ball. We ended up winning most matches, but they were stretched right to the end because no one cared to win.

Sadly, after carrying all the wins, I didn’t get one vote because I didn’t do much dps running the ball. That makes me feel like I shouldn’t even bother playing Hutt ball at all when the only reason we won was because I gave a ****,

 

What might help us if they removed the dps scoreboard for certain maps like Hutt ball. If you one can see the damage In those maps, then they’ve nothing to strive for except winning .

 

Any, any feed back on the OP ideas! Do you think it would be fun or lame to have matches like that?

Edited December 2, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

Sweet, I can still post!

 

* Change Hutt ball maps to 6-10 man (per side) death match and have random balls around the maps you can use to throw at the enemy and make them explode if they don’t pass it in 5 secs.

Can you pass to someone who is stunned/mezzed? So would it be a tactic to mezz someone, pick up the ball, and then throw it to them for a kill (unless you have a mara on your team, who of course would leap to them 1 second before they would blow up )?

* But if you pick up the ball to use as a weapon, you have a limited time you can hold it till you also explode. You also can’t throw it on the ground, so you need to either pass to team mates so you don’t blow up or you need to throw it on an enemy.

 

Not sure how it would work that you can't ground it. Turn off the AOE passing? So you can only use the "double tap to pass to target" type of passing? Can you miss if you pass to target and they are moving? I never used pass-to-target so I don't know.

 

Anyway, I think if you pick up the ball to use it as a weapon then you have the same 5 seconds to pass it? So it's always a danger that someone could stun/mezz YOU before you got that pass off.

 

* Speed and health boosters are still the same, but can only be used once per round.

Once per round per person? Or once per round as in they don't respawn? I like the 2nd way myself. Although, someone would probably run around and just grab them all at the start of the match to make sure no one else got them.

 

* Gives a whole new dimension and feel to the maps and traps. Make all traps instant kills or permanently slow you for the round. Balls can’t be thrown over traps

 

I think the traps should be insta-kills now anyway, so that would be great. I would not trust bioware to properly implement "can't throw over traps", so in the interest of having the game mode actually work, I'd drop that.

 

* Possibly 3-5 rounds of 3-5 mins each. You get one respawn per round. Once 3 mins is up, you have a similar death field like normal arena that forces the end of the match.

If it's death match, where it's counting kills, and not "last man standing", then I don't think the death field would be necessary. Just end it on the timer. Also, why not have infinite respawns?

 

What are people’s thoughts on this sort of change and concept? I think it would make the dysnc and even the bugs less of an issue and all classes would be in the same situation as they are now in other combat focused maps.

 

It also accommodates people who only want to only fight and not have to worry about scoring to win.

 

Well, I still like the original huttball best when people play it. To change it to "Death Ball" is just making it not huttball anymore, so I don't think it fixes the thing where people don't play huttball. However, as just a different kind of map, I like the idea.

 

Also, I think "pure deathmatchers" would still complain and hate this map, because "people are just killing me with trap-pulls. That's not REAL SKILZ!!!!"

 

Edit: I had a thought about leaving in scoring goals to still a win a match designed like this.

 

You could still keep the current scoring mechanic as another possible way to win. So even if you found your team was getting demolished on the combat side, you could switch tactics to scoring goals instead with a normal ball (not an exploding one). But you must score at least “x” amount of gaols for it to finish the round early.

 

This “hybrid” system would give you the best of both worlds. The Hutt Ball purists could still try to win by scoring goals and the combat driven players could try to win like its death ball.

 

I think then what happens if you have one type of ball, and someone throws you the other one? Do you then have both? And then how to decide which one to pass?

 

Also, I think this is getting too complicated... although, it is "bioware complicated" , so if they ever did an idea like this, they would probably add in this extra "win either way" idea. Just like they did for hypergates and adding in the pylons instead of just making it a deathmatch.

You make lots of good points Bandel and have some great questions. (Glad you can still post)

 

Definitely can’t pass to someone on your own team who is stunned, the same as now. But can definitely pass to someone stunned on the other team. Ie stun than pick up the ball and blow them up .

But, remember there are only so many balls and they only spawn once per match. Plus some maps are bigger than others, so you wouldn’t get to use that tactic often against smart players.

 

I would turn off AOE passing. I only target pass myself, so it wouldn’t be a huge adjustment for most players.

 

I’d make the hold timer for the original ball carrier (attacker) 10-12 seconds and make it 6-8 seconds after that for passes within that team.

 

Once per round, per person on the respawn. As you know, in arena you don’t get a respawn at all if you die. Seeing as this is a hybrid of the two types of play styles and with short rounds like an arena, I think one respawn per player is reasonable in this type of design.

 

Yeah, I can see a problem with it bugging out trying to set up a system that doesn’t allow the ball to go over traps.

Instant trap kills is definitely something I would have and I also think having a slow buff added to you for going through some non instant death traps would be interesting. The slow buff would work for the entire round, unless you die, then it resets,

 

Kills still count for the end game scoreboard heroes, but this is a hybrid Arena / 8 man map, so it comes down to who wins the round and the last man standing. That means you need a death timer at the end.

 

The different balls can be easily fixed by having colour beams on them like the node buffs you pick up in odessen proving grounds. Maybe even have two option buttons like they do. One for throwing to a team mate and one on an enemy??

Edited December 2, 2019 by TrixxieTriss