TheVille Haunted Server

[THE Flying chihuahua]

Interesting. We get to fight a Beholder wannabe.

Btw, new comic is up.

More like Eye Of Cthulhu wannabe or Mr. I wannabe.

[trilobite]

May I please get some guidance on acceptable etiquette on these event maps?
The reason I ask is that I have heard chatter about when attacking the other team is appropriate and when it is not. There also seems to be disagreement about whether the attacking team (BLU at Mann Manor) should actually try to win the round.

By default, my approach is to exploit every opportunity to advance my team's interests and hurt the opposing team. For example, in Eyeaduct, the Monoculus appears. Both teams join the battle to kill him/it. But meanwhile, sentry guns and scouts continue to frag me. In my view, the battle has escalated and become more complex, but there is no formal alliance declared between RED and BLU. In addition, the little portals that Monoculus leaves behind while he/it shuttles around the map lead to the little island path, ending in a doorway back to Eyeaduct map. But on return, the player is ubered, kritzed and speedy.

Questions:

1. Should I not attack opposing players at all while Monoculus is present?
2. What should I do if sentry guns continue to do damage to me and my team during the fight against Monoculus? (It seems that sentry guns ignore the big eyeball monster)
3. Should I not attack opposing players while seeking the doorway portal on the island path?
4. Should I not use the uber fast kritzed condition on return to Eyeaduct to wipe out as many opposing players and sentry guns as possible, during and after Monoculus' appearance?
5. Should the BLU team not try to win the round at Mann Manor?

I don't want to be seen as playing unfairly. Don't want to be uncouth. That is why I am soliciting opinions from the community as to what is acceptable behavior and what is not on these maps.

[Boss Llama]

What you're asking is a completely reasonable, yet completely unanswerable, question.

The etiquette of the maps varies widely, and is almost entirely based on a general agreement by the people who happen to be present. Barring an agreement, chaos reigns, and questions like these are asked.


Basically, I'm aware of three "modes" of play, if you will, for the viaduct map.

1) Cooperative/Farming mode. In this version, you don't fight each other. You wait around for Monoculus/Horsemann, and communaly gank it when it shows up. You race for gifts as they appear, and don't fight in the underworld. SGs are verbotten.

2) Semi-cooperative mode. You fight as usual, but stop when Monoculus/Horsemann shows up, in order to jointly defeat it. Gifts are free for all. You generally don't fight in the underworld (especially on loot island), and SGs are likely to be frowned upon.

3) Normal mode. What event? There's killing to be done!

On our server, Coop/Farming mode may be possible, but people usually get stir-crazy after a bit, and the constant turnover in players means a constant influx of people who don't play nice. The best time to catch it this is way is to seed the server from scratch and get people on board as they join. Usually though we float between semi-coop and full combat. It's too hard to control with pubbers coming and going, though during fights against the bosses you may be able to have an uneasy truce of sorts by not shooting at somebody unless they're shooting at you. Enough people doing that tends to result in focus-fire on the boss.

On Mann Manor, that's pretty much played like a full on normal map. People who need the stuff from it are in the minority, and can easily obtain things from farming servers or in cheap trades. If somebody desperately wants to be in on the HHHH kill with their melee weapon, I'm sure they'll ask.

[Peahats]

while playing on Eyeduct we kinda designed and played by some rules:

1. While Monoculus is NOT present, it becomes a free for all, capping the point and killing other players is acceptable and encouraged.
2. When Monocules spawns, everyone should switch to fighting him instead of each other (of course some may be caught in the crossfire)
3. When players enter the Underworld or Loot Island, they should not kill each other, and instead focus on getting to the end or achievement, respectively.
4. The Critboost/Uber should be only used to kill other players when Monocules is not present.
5. Regular Sentries were frowned upon, but mini-sentries were normally fine.
6. You can kill others in defense of yourself or others

Gifts never really came up, so we just kinda let people do what they want with them.

Of course these aren't the Ville's set rules, but it seemed to work fine when we played and everybody seemed to be having fun.

[Guardian]

I remember the first time the Headless horsemen came up on Manor last year everyone cooperated to defeat him but soon after most people got the achievement everything became total chaos with everyone scrambling around to find gifts when they appeared.

I imagine that happening this year.

[TheCarpe]

I know what you're saying. "But Carpe, isn't there some way you can show me how Eyeaduct matches should be played while simultaneously offending my sense of sight?"

My answer to this is yes. Yes there is.

VIEW CONTENT:

[Cpt._Keyes]

YOU USED THE JOKE ALREADY IN THE SHOUTBOX

[TheCarpe]

Irrelevant. Shoutbox is temporary. Forum is permanent.

[trilobite]

Alizee Fan and PeaHats, thanks for your detailed replies. Things are much clearer to me now.
And Carpe, your drawing communicates the recommended action very concisely... go scout and kill all spies, or anything that rhymes with "spies."

[l3eeron]

or anything that rhymes with "spies."

rofl

[TheCarpe]

Finally someone gets it. Make sure only the RED Scouts are attacking the BLU Spies though. The other way around won't work.

[Peahats]

and your bullets have to magically towards the eye no matter where your gun is pointed

[The Domer]

Too many people are just running around and attacking the players who are actually working together to take down the evil eye. And nothing is more frustrating than being attacked in the underworld. We take enough passive damage as it is!

[Stevo]

Boo!

[Boss Llama]

Woot woot

My observations thusfar for Ghost Fort/Merasmus:

1) Merasmus is far harder to kill than previous mobs. He doesn't go up in levels with each appearance (a la Monoculous), nor cause stuns (a la HHH), but his basic level is enough that he's quite tough to kill. Also, he sprays high explosives in all directions.

2) Both teams MUST work together constantly in order to deal with him. Everybody on both teams needs to be ready, with full health and ammo (and hopefully some Kritz or Buff Banners charged) the moment he spawns. Even with this, he is still liable to escape, because he has the ability to teleport anywhere on the map, and can turn himself in to props (like prophunt) multiple times per spawn. He usually becomes around 5 different props each time he hides. Find them and destroy them to bring him back.

3) If you want to be successful at beating the boss, there cannot be fighting between boss spawns. Anything that results in people being injured, low on ammo, or not present at the point the moment he pops in means you aren't going to beat him. If you are deliberately attacking other people, you are causing the server to fail.

4) Sometimes you will be "gifted" with a giant bomb for a head while fighting Merasmus. If this happens, charge in to him. The blast will make you invulnerable, and will stun him, which causes him to take automatic crits from all sources. If you don't reach him in time however, you will explode and die.

4) The most effective classes seem to be Huntsman Sniper, Brass Beast Heavy, and Direct Hit Soldier. Some folks have been using Engy with wrangled L3 SG, but that's very dangerous because if the Engy dies, there's a level 3 SG that wipes out half the server, and that's an instant failure for everyone. Pyro, sadly, is not effective (and causes lots of damage to allies who are on the boss). Demo is exceedingly dangerous to allies as well, as are non-DH soldiers, because of the blast radius of their weapons. Medics can do a bit of damage with their needles after deploying a kritz or something, but survivability is low. Scout scattergun, and all shotguns, do great damage, but the super slow reload means their DPS is too low for long term effectiveness. They're great during the prophunt portion, however. There is no reason to play Spy.

5) Gifts spawn at random intervals, and are personalized - only you can see your gifts. They tend to spawn in the first courtyard area to each side of center - usually in the lower portion, though I've seen one or two in the upper. I don't believe I've yet seen one in the back courtyards or the catwalks.

6) When Merasmus is defeated, he'll fall to the ground and a portal will open. Jump in to the portal and you'll be on loot island, almost exactly like last year. You'll get Merasmus' skull hat as a prize for exiting back to the overworld via the exit portal. Be careful about standing too close to him as he collapses. Some folks have had trouble getting stuck inside his model, which then keeps them from going through the portal.

7) Other than the gifts, there are random drops of random "voodoo cursed" stuff. This works like the burned Pyromania items. Craft any 7 voodoo cursed items together to get a "Pile of Curses." Place this item in your action slot, and then use it. It will give you a random halloween event class headpiece (the Cursed <Class> Soul items). Other halloween items drop at random or come from gifts. Most gifts sadly seem to give the temporary potions and spells, though they can also give the other permanent halloween event items.