Introduction
I have spent enough time with Team Fortress 2 to see that it has a formula intended to keep players playing. Every game has this, but some games execute it better than others, and if I can understand and know the formula, and it makes me appreciate it even more, then it’s probably done pretty well. From within this format of team shooters, or really first-person shooters, I think that it is necessary to create a story by indirect means. Some games do have story-modes, but this one doesn’t, but it does have voice-lines and other means of communicating parts of the characters. Not only this, there are comics, animations, taunts, and many other forms of media with and outside of the game which has allowed it to have a story in the most traditional sense. When I say story, I mean a plot diagram, but in context to actually playing the game.
A plot diagram just maps out the highs and lows of a story, the beginning and ending, and the peaks between the start and end. The most traditional and widely used plot diagram, in my experience anyway, has a few main parts. The exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and then finally the resolution. These enable both the writer and the reader to clearly identify parts of the story. For the writer, they can now systematically distinguish when particular parts happen, and then gradually enable each part to flow to the next, if they do a well enough job. For the reader, they read through the text with ease, not feeling abrupt changes when something is “supposed” to happen, if done well. If you know what you’re looking for, you’ll find it, but even if you read a book enough times, or in the case, play a game long enough, you’ll identify the patterns found in a plot diagram. These are things that don’t have to be done intentionally either, this flow of information, an introduction, rising tension, a climax, the parts that make up a story, are all very natural.
For those who don’t know anything about the game, I’ll get there in just a moment, for those who do, listen a little further and then you’ll be able to skip past the rest of the introduction if you’d like. It’s best to keep things pretty specific and directed not as to label the game as the same across the board. Within this context of labelling the flow of the story in a match; what happens, how it happens, and why, I keep this limited to payload. The maps can and will affect this flow, and either will diminish or enunciate particular aspects of that plot diagram, but I have been thinking mostly in reference to Upward and Badwater. These maps are generally noted as the best payload maps in the game which huge amounts of re-playability, and so I’ve played both of them a lot. Additionally, I’ve played them mostly without stopwatch timers; another variable which impacts the flow. I’ve played in various formats, whether it was 12v12, 9v9, or 6v6, but I keep this focused on purely 12v12. Once again, this is what I have the most experience in, and what the game was built around. This does not mean the feelings described and the motions experienced throughout the story do not apply outside of the parameters I’ve set, but the limitations allow me to focus less on all the possible variability within different game modes and more on actually making the plot diagram in this context make sense. Within each part, like let’s say the rising action, I will clearly identify what that is like on both the attacking side and the defending side. With this, there where be things like the climax can be variable, they don’t always statically happen at the same time, every time, and I will make note of this later on. There are also cases where the climax happens earlier than expected or wanted, and this will be mentioned, but for the most part, I’ll be speaking in reference to a full completion of the map. That all being said, we have to actually know what these terms mean, and what the game is about in order to make the connection.
I am aware that there are some individuals who might be watching that don’t know Team Fortress 2 or don’t care for video games in general. For you, I’ll briefly explain the game. Obviously, it’s a video game, one where you fight with big guns against other players with big guns. There are nine classes. These being, in no relevant order, scout, soldier, pyro, demoman, heavy, engineer, medic, sniper, and spy. All of which have individual characters traits, but most importantly, their own types of guns, with some exceptions, like the shotgun. These classes, or characters, are placed on teams, in the most widely played format, this ends up being 12 players against 12 players. This means a unique variety of classes can be played at one time. These players generally connect online to fight each other to achieve a particular goal. One side usually acts a defense, the other as an offense. Red signifies defense, while blue signifies offense. As you might expect, the Blu team actively has to complete a task, or what is known as an objective, while Red has to impair or deny Blu from doing so.
There are many different types of maps and game modes, and within this context of story-telling, I focus most importantly on payload. The name itself is esoteric, but principally, it is pretty easy to understand. The offensive team, Blu, mind you, has to push a cart, which is a bomb, for reasons, to the opposing team’s base. There are capture points that extend the time that Blu has to do this, and Blu increasingly spawns closer to Red team as they continue to capture. Blu wins in this game mode if successfully push the cart, by standing by it, to the enemy base. Red team, no matter where the cart might be, no matter how many points have been captured, will win if they stop Blu team from capturing the final point. There are further nuances within this game mode, but this gives the general idea, and it will be my context from within this plot diagram. Before moving on, I still want to acknowledge at least one other game mode that is relevant, but will be properly focused on after the main ideas have been presented.
I don’t want to immediately invalidate my perception of the video game in this particular way, so I’ll just briefly describe the mode that will have to be described later. This game mode is control points, which comes in more than one flavor, but the two significant ones are 5 CP and 3 CP. This means both sides start with two points or one point, respectively. Instead of having a clear team defined as the defender and the other as the offender, both teams are required to take on the roles of defending and attacking. In the format that this video revolves around, 12v12, and Casual matches, without any plugins, these game modes can alter how the story goes, the format and parts of a story are present, but how they work changes. Once again, this is after all is said and done. Until then, I think it’s time to dig deeper into how Team Fortress 2 can be broken down into the parts of a story, and how this plot diagram applies to both the attacking and defending teams in payload.
Exposition (Both)
Loading up the game and clicking on what maps or game modes you want to play is not part of the exposition. Picking out what you want to play is like picking out a book based on its cover, you’re in a library of choices and you can choose whichever story you want. You could avoid choices, like by selecting all the maps and letting the game automatically throw you into any of those possibilities, but it is only until you are in the match does the exposition begin. On both sides, the map screen will load, and you will eventually be in the match. You will click some buttons to progress, then select a class you want to play. Depending on whether you are Blu or Red, your choice of class may be impacted, although most players do not care for this, but what is undeniable is how the class will be used in reference to what team you’re on. In Casual, there’s a small time period before the match begins, and this means you can run around, chat with people, taunt, or do whatever. Nothing has begun quite yet, but you are now in a state of slight-preparedness for when it does. When the start of the game seriously begins, how both teams act in this period of time massively differs. Once again, this is in the context of payload, and so based on different modes, things can vastly change.
Both sides have to think about their team’s class composition and what the skill levels are of the players on their team, and those who they’re up against. Depending on the disposition of the player, the state of the team might be alarming or relaxing, depending on if they have four spies, four snipers and not a single medic. Players can actively view what classes their teammates have selected, and they can chat with them; telling them to change class, begging them, asking politely, and so-on.
I would also say that during this time period, based on what information the player notices about their team’s class composition, what they’re playing, and what map is being played, the player might want to change weapons. I’d put this in the exposition part, although you can change weapons at any time. Some might be against this, but the adaptability in changing your weapons to fit new situations goes to show many weapons that otherwise would be considered useless actually do have uses, if you’re willing to try them.
Exposition (Attacking)
The attacking side has to wait in spawn for a small time period. There is usually a timer of a minute or so, give or take, and within this time period Blu team, just like Red, has to analyze their team composition, environment, and how they are going to handle it. On this team, there is a focus on attacking, rather than defending, so while both teams have to care about what classes are being used, on Blu, a player has to hope that they aren’t clogged up with engineers. Beyond focus on what classes are being used and why, a player also takes in their new environment. The extent of this is limited while on the attacking side. They can’t exit their spawn area until the timer is done counting down so they don’t have the opportunity to explore what the map has to offer quite yet.
Instead, they can explore the inside of their spawn area. There might be a calendar, some pinned notes or papers on a board, a bench, lockers; anything to give the player something to look at while they wait. There might be structural choices that give the player the opportunity to take a look around too, like windows or holes in the walls. Sometimes this can be used to let the player see places on the map they can’t advance to, however, it helps acclimate them to their new environment. One place of intention is allowing the attacking players to look towards where the gates will open so that they know what’s coming. A lot of the windows and gates can be used to look outside their spawn area, they’ll be able to see the cart, and near the end of the timer in the exposition, they’ll probably see defending players, where they are, and what classes they are. This will also allow the player to continually get a feel for the map before even playing it. Seeing what’s around them, what rocks they can hide behind, what rocks the enemy might be hiding behind, where snipers might be, and it gives the player the ability to predict what might happen before it happens.
Unlike Red, Blu is stuck in their spawn until the timer finishes and they’re free to fight. This means Blu has to occupy themselves with looking around, absorbing their environment only by seeing, and occupying the boredom within their minds in whatever way possible. While a lot of the aforementioned methods to occupying the player, like showing them a little bit of the map before they can play, or props and objects scattered around the spawn, there are other ways for the player to occupy themselves. New players might want to take in everything they can, but many of these maps have a lot of re-playability, some players playing the same maps for hundreds of hours, and because of this, they won’t feel the need to search or look around; they already know it. What might these players do?
They probably will be absorbed in taunts or doing something repetitive in the spawn. They can taunt and watch their class, their character, themselves, do something, or they can do taunts with others, like the high-five taunt. It’s a stretch to call these taunts in the first place, they aren’t really like taunts, they are, despite what some might say, really emotes. A player can do this for the entirety of the exposition if they please. If a player wants to watch their pyro play in a pool of gasoline, they can! Beyond taunts, a player can continually rocket jump, sticky jump, flare jump; anything they enables some feeling of movement beyond pressing the “w” key. On some maps, there are props the player can jump on to take fall damage, building up acceleration. I don’t really know why this happens, but I know of it at least on Badwater.
After enough time being occupied with all of these mental tasks, the player will eventually hear a countdown. When they hear this, they know it’s time to stop whatever they’re doing and focus on the task at hand: pushing the cart. The moment the gates open, the exposition ends, and the player transitions into the rising action.
Exposition (Defending)
The Red team, the defenders, choose a class and are allowed out of spawn. Unlike the attackers, Red has to run to the beginning of the map, and they either follow their teammates or look for the arrows to point them in the correct direction. There are crossovers between the two sides, as on the defending side, players will similarly care about class composition, just not in the same way. On this side, it would be ideal to have classes like engineer; who would be better at setting up in a static area in order to limit enemy progression with things like sentry guns. The defending team also has the ability to explore the map, if they so choose, before things officially begin.
This enables this side to get a better feel of where to defend and why, they can see where they might want to stand or not stand, looking for places where it would be strong or ideal for them to defend. Some players are silly, and they will actively run backwards, and I’ve anecdotally noticed this especially with engineers, they end up setting up a nest at the last point of the map, before the game has even begun. Although admittedly, this showcases the mobility and access that players have, they don’t have to run to the start of the map if they don’t want to. However, most do, because most want to play the game and win.
Assuming they follow the arrows, or other players and make it to the beginning of the map, they will see not only the structure of the map, where the cart is, and where the enemy will come from, but also what their own team is doing. Perhaps where the medic is, if there is one, where the snipers are, and maybe where a sentry or dispenser is hanging around. Based on all of these variables, the player will decide where to be and stand in reference to what their team is doing. Through the gates, the player might be able to see what classes are on the enemy team, where they might come from when the gates open, and then working with and around that information.
The defending team has the strength of knowing the map first. Even if both sides have played the map numerous times, this still is the case. The defending team can make choices of how the map will be used, and they don’t have to use it the same way, every single time. The attacking team has to adapt to whatever the defending team is doing, not the other way around.
Further shared similarities arise when the defending team is well-adjusted. They know the map, they can play the game, and are comfortable with the class they are playing. In these cases, the player will quickly arrive the beginning of the map, and then taunt, or like I’ve said already, emote, until the gates open and they have to fight. While new players on the offending side are stuck looking at whatever details have been placed in their spawn area, and maybe looking through windows or gates, new players on the defending side are given much more choice. The spawn areas on defending teams have a tendency to be a little more boring, but that’s because they have the map. New players can look around and absorb all the little details held within the map itself. Not only this, they can also mimic and replicate what their team is doing, because if they are new, they might not have any idea of what to do, where to go, and why.
Assuming experience and a willingness to work together is present, some players might opt to help their team build up sentries, teleporters, and dispensers. At the very least, some players upgrade the teleporter, if one is present, at the spawn door, so the engineer can go off and work on building their other buildings. One would like to imagine new players can watch this happen and wish to replicate it, but that does not happen often. Further, with more experienced players, they also do other forms of preparation before the match begins. Along with buildings, medics can work with demomen to place critical stickies on the ground assuming the medic has equipped the kritzkrieg. There are other forms of preparation, but these two are the most notable. With this, these are not all, but many, of the contingences and actions that can and will occur during the exposition for Red.
Rising Action (Attacking)
The moment the gates open, the rising action begins. A new timer begins, and this timer goes on for a few minutes. Within this time period, the attackers have to, at the bare minimum, push the cart to the first cart-capture-point. If they fail to do this, then they lose. The start is one the roughest periods of time for the attackers, they lack momentum and somehow have to build it. If wise enough, during the exposition, they would have one or two medics with ubercharges, which they could use to build space and begin pushing the cart. Maybe they looked out the window and saw where certain players were standing, and are going to use that information to kill specific targets while avoid other ones. This, while initially rough, eventually begins to flow into pushing the cart and moving things forward.
During this time, the attackers access more of the map and are able to do more with extended freedom. Some players, like spies, and others with the rocket jumper or sticky jumper, will jump around and avoid the enemy completely to flank them, and then they can have full access to the map. Whatever the player is doing, the rising action will go on until a climax is reached, and in this scenario, the climax will go on until the last point, and so the rising action encompasses all that takes place up until that last point.
The fundamental principle that all other aspects of the rising action are reliant on is that you have to push the cart. If you don’t push the cart, you will run out of time, and if you don’t capture points, you don’t receive extended time, and so you lose. The means to push the cart is pretty simple, you just need to stand next to it, and it will move forward, with a maximum speed received by three players, or a scout and another player. There is only one big problem; the enemy killing you. The means to survive and push the cart? Kill them first. While you might have an objective and that is the means to win or lose, the game is about killing, and during the rising action, on both sides, there is a lot of killing. How each side will go about killing the other side is something to make note of.
While you don’t have to specifically choose any particular class on either side, you probably will, and this will impact how players will go about killing each other. For the attackers, they probably will have scouts, soldiers, demomen, and other classes capable of dishing out a lot of damage without specializing in defense at the cost of mobility. These classes will be on both sides, but in this case, where the enemy might have an extra heavy or engineer, this side will have another generalist class, which is better at damage dealing or killing to fill up the space. Beyond class choices, there also requires intelligent playing. At least in the beginning, the attackers can always sink back into their spawn for health and ammo replenishment, while the defenders lack this, and it gives Blu a unique advantage in order to move forward.
The cart that they have to push as the objective also will replenish health and ammo at the rate of a level one dispenser. This gives it a benefit, even if a player completely ignores the objective, they can’t ignore the benefit that comes as a result of standing close to the cart, the benefit which will help the player survive longer and kill the enemy faster. Certain players love this benefit. Some players opt to switch to specifically heavy, and stick to the cart like glue, constantly firing their minigun without any downside other than their vulnerability as a slow and large target.
As the attackers continually capture points with the cart, after enough points have been captured, they obtain a respawn that is closer to where the cart is. This means they traverse more and more of the map as they continually do well, because if they fail, they won’t get to play the whole map, unless like the aforementioned flanking players. As the clock ticks, the rising action inches closer to a climax. Within the rising action, there is enough contrast to notice highs and lows on its own. There are many points to capture, and some players would argue that some points bring more satisfaction to capture than others. This is something that is to be noted later, however, for now, we should be under the assumption that after each subsequent point is captured, more satisfaction is received, because it took all the previous story, and then some, in order to get farther.
What should be noted is that how the attacking players experience the rising action is not linear. This is very map dependent, but in the context of a map that that has a particular point that is very hard to push into, the attackers will take on defensive roles in order to more quickly push and contest that point in order to clear out space and capture with the cart. To be more specific, engineers will setup little stations in areas that are safe enough to have a stronghold, but not so distant it is useless for them to be there. Attacking players will fall back to that area for safety in order to survive, both being healed by the dispenser and protected by the sentry. The teleporter brings players to the front lines at an expedited rate in order to recover quickly from deaths. Some view this as a high period while others view it as a low, I view it as neither. Progress is stunted, but this is overcome by teamwork and skill, just like any other time the team faced difficulty.
The rising action will ebb and flow, depending on the lows and highs of the team and their ability to push the cart and capture further points. Even with this fluctuation, there is, at the bigger picture, a clear linear path to which the attackers are heading: the climax. The climax is the point, the peak, in which the players will quickly fall from. However, in this case, the climax is specifically noted as the last point the team has to capture, and it will be their ability to capture it that decides whether they are allowed to experience it or not.
Things ramp up pretty significantly before reaching that peak. Especially on the last point of many of the vanilla payload maps. Players set up close the point, throwing their bodies at it, all working together to destroy the enemy at once. This changes from the other points in a significant way: the defenders can’t run away anymore. Now, they have to stick together, for they can’t really separate aside from those who flank, so the attackers will want to kill them all, if possible. Previously, they could run away, let the attackers capture the point, and then promptly regather themselves. In this case, there won’t be any regathering unless they kill enough of the attackers to stop their attack. This leads to a lot of back and forth, assuming that both teams are relatively balanced.
This motion leads to the greatest points in the rising action. Players are fighting the most during this period of time. This is usually when players start to work together more, but that’s also because they are forced to. Up until the last point, players had opportunities to scatter around, and they still can, to a limited extent, but in order to win, they have to limit this. Eventually after enough of this motion, assuming the players get it together, they reach into the climax. This comes in different flavors depending on the team and their ability to work together and win.
Rising Action (Defending)
When the gates open for the defending team, they promptly will spam. This what a lot of the game is about, but how players spam is also dictated by what team they are on and what position they are in. Red team, in this case anyway, presumably has better positioning than the attackers, so they can spam relatively easily without pressure, until of course, the attackers do apply pressure. When applying enough pressure, the defenders have to fall back to what has been created during the exposition, and what has been built upon during the first parts of the rising action. This generally means falling back onto nests that have been built behind the frontlines. With this, there creates a movement for the defending team. Attack, be pressured, fall back, and then attack again. They don’t want to give the attackers too much space, nor do they want to die, which would allow the attackers to take all of the space until their respawn.
For now, we’re going to stick with the assumption that the defending team will fail to defend all points all besides the last one. Unlike the attackers, how they feel the ebb and flow of the rising action will be different. Instead of capturing a point, having specific points more difficult to capture, and moving in a specific path, the defenders just back up after losing a point. They usually respawn farther back, and then rinse and repeat their defensive mechanisms to apply to the new point they must be defended. Really, the only high moments for the defending team are when they are able to do a lot of killing. When they are able to murder as many players as possible, that is when they have succeeded.
With all this murder, that means players are more focused on killing than anything. The heads-up-display will notify players when the enemy is on the cart, attempting to capture the point, and so they should shoot at that, to kill those players, in order to keep killing within the space of time they’re in. The defenders need to stop progression, and to do this, they kill, unlike the opposing team, which kills in order to create progression. How players kill, beyond just spam, is also important, because it is usually representative of where they are within the rising action. Some things aren’t all that important, like weapon choice, a medic using the kritzkrieg will probably use it from beginning to end, for the entirety of the rising action, however, there are cases where players will opt to use items like the quick-fix because of their ability to keep their team alive, which is most important near the end of the rising action. Personally, I use the quick-fix when my team is incompetent.
Engineers, medics, and heavy’s, are the most important classes to note here. These are the classes that players will fall back on the majority of the time. Due to their health, or their ability to heal, or their ability to deny space to the enemy; they all are important to the safety and livelihood of the defensive team. In the movement of the rising action, when the defensive team is having a relatively low point, that is associated with their need to hold back behind these players. Huddling together with a medic or two, with a heavy in front, and hopefully a sentry protecting them all. They have to come together, otherwise, they’ll die. These moments occur when the enemy has applied enough pressure so that it would be a death wish to continue fighting. This is a form of regrouping, despite a lack of communication.
The higher points are when the defensive team wipes out or denies the attacker’s space or a capture point. This can come in the form of a complete and utter domination, by killing all the players, or even most of them, all at once. It gives the defender an opportunity to gain back some space, recover, and then get ready for the next attack, in which they’ll hopefully wipe out the enemy completely again. In other cases, it’s when the defenders are able to keep the enemy from pushing the cart onto the point. The enemy could be right on it, but somehow, they’re able to defend again, stopping the attack again, and it usually feels best when they were barely able to hold off.
There is a cycle being repeated as well, assuming that Red is pushed back until the last point. This is where they defend, kill players, and stay alive as long as possible, before being pushed back far enough so that they can’t defend or murder the enemy, and then the attackers will capture the point. This goes on and on, where the defenders will setup again, prepare for the attackers again, and then defend to the best of their ability, and then if they faulter again, they’ll back up even farther, increasingly falling back further and further into the map. This is until the last point, and the last point should be recognized as the point where the climax will occur. While players might claim their own personalized different moments of defending as their own personal climax, I think that it should be recognized that the last point is the point in which players will feel the most action, and thus the highest point in the story, assuming they are able to defend.
Climax (Attacking)
The climatic point for the attacking team is where they experience the most action, the highest point in the entire story. Generally, this is going to be the last point that they have to capture, and so I’m going to note it as such for now. The specific point, the particular action that would describe the highest point in the story, would be when the cart is pushed into the pit, and the final capture is completed. That action creates the climax. However, I would also argue that other events play around this moment, which help feed into the climax itself.
In order to capture the point in the first place, the attackers would have had to kill enough enemies or distract them from the cart itself. This action could also be considered part of the climax, under the assumption that it would lead to the final capture and then victory. There would be a lot of ubercharges being used, maybe even voice communication, and everyone pushing together in at once, and there is an obvious display of teamwork going on here and an urge to win. How this “push” comes about, and in what forms, depends on the team.
One common method, and mocking remark of a losing defense, is that the push was a “pub push.” All this means is that the enemy, with a few seconds on the clock, threw themselves at the enemy, and towards the cart, as a last-ditch effort. Funnily enough, this actually works out more than one would expect. This is because the team is actually working together, although not in the best way possible, but they are all together trying to complete the same objective, and because of the chaos of the game, with there being so many bodies, so many projectiles, this can work out for the attacking team. Additionally, the defending team will have to wait for respawns longer, so they won’t have any place to retreat to other than their spawn area, giving the enemy time to push the cart, so they might not even want to do that.
If the attackers are good and have some level of competence, they’ll ubercharge in, and work together, before the last second. Basically, they are doing a “pub push” but without it being the last few seconds in the round. Spamming, ubering, maybe an engineer even placing their sentry in to help deny the enemy space to attack the cart, destroying the enemy’s sentries; I think you get the idea.
This is generally known as the peak, where the player goes “aghhh” in response to their victory, because it took them so long to get here. Through many battles and tribulations, they were finally able to defeat the enemy. Of course, the extent of how good that feels depends on how difficult it was to fight the enemy. If it wasn’t all that difficult, it probably wasn’t all that satisfying to win either. The more resistance there is, I would generally say, the more you feel as a result of coming out on top.
Climax (Defending)
For the defending team, this is once again on the last point of the map, where they have failed to defend all prior points. They may have defended them to the last second, or were rolled, but no matter what happened then, what happens here is the peak of the match. This is where it is decided whether they win or lose, those other points don’t decide that.
Assuming the match has been pretty balanced, most defending players will be holding this point with a lot of contention. Once again, assuming a balance is present, usually the attackers should win, but sometimes the defenders are able to pull it off. This means fighting, constant fighting, always being prepared for new attacks, constant beratement by the enemy, and so-on. The defenders have to stay alive at all costs at this point, and every death makes them more vulnerable to an attack, because their respawn times will be so long. Once again, the team will have to fall back on classes like engineer and heavy, and the distance between those area of denial classes won’t be very far anyway. Everyone is working pretty close together at the last point.
Really, the peak, or the spike, that truly defines the climax for the defending team is when the attacking team has run out of time. They have a few seconds left, and they do a “pub push” but the defenders are able to fight them, kill them, and they fail at their push, and they succeed. Maybe the attackers have had many attempts at a push like that, but since this one was their last, and seconds before the timer would run out, it is defined as that climax of the story.
In my personal experience, this tends to feel better than being on the attacking side. It’s anecdotal, however, I have found that I receive more pleasure from defending than attacking, and I don’t know why this is, but I know when in the climax for the defending side, it feels much more rewarding than if I were on the attacking side. I’m sure I’m not alone on this.
Falling Action
The falling action for both sides is similar enough to keep it in one section. Basically, once the team has succeeded in pushing the cart or defending the cart, and they are granted either a victory sound or a failure sound, depending on if they completed their mission or not. The winners in this case get to shoot down the enemy, which are now in third-person mode, slowed down, and are not carrying any weapons. This is same for both the attackers and defenders.
There might be some slight difference, as usually when the attackers win, the bomb blows up and kills whatever defenders that might still be alive, so they don’t get the opportunity to kill the enemy and humiliate them for their loss. However, if the defenders win, they’ll live, and there is a high chance that the attackers will also be alive, so this side usually gets the opportunity to kill a lot more.
Resolution
The resolution is also quite similar for both sides. If the teams will switch, after the falling action, they switch, which will restart the cycle but you’ll be playing on the opposing side. If the match is officially over, a scoreboard will come on screen and show how you did compared to everyone else. This is the closest we have to a resolution. In some community servers, which are basically casual, they just stop your ability to move and then switch to the next map. There isn’t much to the resolution in this case, but in some versions of the game, like Valve’s competitive matchmaking, there’s a longer time period for you to compare yourself to the enemy and your team, in Casual it is pretty short, but you get to choose what map to play next, assuming the map selection aspect isn’t broken.
If players are feeling up to it, they’ll write some comments in the chat during the resolution as well. Depending on if they won or lost, they might write mocking remarks or angry ones. In Casual matchmaking, there is no all-talk present, but some servers that I frequent, like the Furry Pound, they automatically turn on all-talk once the climax has ended and the falling action has begun, so whenever someone has captured the final point, and this is so players can say very nice things to each other over the microphone before the next map loads or teams are swapped.
Extras
There are a lot of parameters set in order for this to make sense, so I’m going to ramble without systematic order to quickly acknowledge these quirks and exceptions. The most important one is that I chose payload as the environment for this story to take place in. We have a lot more than payload in the game, and when we introduce different game modes, things can become confusing and contradictory to what has been said here, however, at the very least, I’m going to focus on capture points for a little bit, both 5cp and 3cp.
Payload is admittedly quite linear, and because it follows a generally straight path, and has two clear sides, one defending and attacking, it makes it easier to decide what side is doing what, why, and how it fits into the plot diagram. While with control points, things aren’t so easy to pinpoint. The reason for this is because 5cp is actually like both sides are actually like the attackers and defenders. The difference being the context in which team is taking on what role, why that is, and then what they choose to do about it. It becomes difficult to map out a story if it isn’t linear, it doesn’t follow a straight path one can follow and makes sense. Sure, one could, but it would very exhausting, and that would only be in the context of one particular match. By choosing payload, what I’ve said can apply across the board to all matches of payload.
In competitive modes, there is a timer in the capture points game mode in order to stop the game from going on forever. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you enjoy it, this does not happen in casual matches, meaning that, if both teams are even enough, the match can go on forever, as long as one team captures any point that isn’t the last point before the timer ends. If both teams fail to capture any points after enough time, a stalemate screen pops-up, and the match restarts. A story has a beginning and ending, a climax, rising action, falling action… you get the idea by now. By being in this state of not moving anywhere, we might be enjoying ourselves, but it’s like being a constant state of rising action, and we don’t move out of that. It might sound weird to say this, but it’s like edging, that’s what it feels like. It’s not like I’m innocent, I like capture point maps that are evenly balanced exactly for this, and I love going back and forth for basically forever, but eventually I will get bored after an hour or two.
This applies to 3cp maps too, and one of my favorite maps, Powerhouse, used to function exactly like this. I loved that map because it would go on forever, but for whatever reason, there was a stopwatch timer added so it couldn’t be played forever like in the past. Now it has a clear, defined end, but that end just means that whatever was happening will be demolished, and you will have to start over again, and it usually doesn’t help, it just ruins the experience you were having. Once again, on the server I frequent, the owners implemented a sudden-death addition to the map. Instead of restarting, we restart into sudden death, meaning whoever dies in that round, dies until the next match, and I think if a feature like the stopwatch is to be implemented, where the match can’t go on forever, this is a good way of going about it.
I think another exception that’s important to note is that the plot diagram can be very personalized. I mean this in the sense that the climax, which is supposed to the last point, the point of most contention and relief, the buildup after everything you’ve gone through, can actually end up being something else. In this particular circumstance, I think of a new player who has never played the game before, and doesn’t have a feel for what is going on yet. This player might not know the point that is either being captured or defending is the last one, nor could they have known what was going on in the rest of the map. For them, the peak of the match might be a random crit that caused two players to die, and that was their peak, that was the event that caused an explosion in their mind, and made them want to play again.
I recognize that experienced players might be tired of the formula that is payload, so they actually alter their focus onto something else. Sure, in the background they pay attention to the objective of the match, and they kill the players on the cart, and maybe while attacking, they’ll shoot players so the team can push the cart, but their focus is mostly on killing. They want to kill the enemy, and because they’re experienced, they might be bored of the ways they normally would play the game, the ways they normally would kill the enemy. Or, if they aren’t, they want to maximize the death of the enemy, playing their best, trying to kill as much as possible, more than anyone else in the match.
For these types of players, often times, the peak doesn’t end up being the end of the match, the last point, or what I’ve described as generally the climax. It could actually be a killstreak, or an impressive kill, or something that piqued their interest, that made them feel impressed with their abilities or capable, and that holds their focus until the match ends. I would generally like to recognize these just as high points within the rising action, rather than points of climax, but the player might genuinely disagree if it really felt like a high and that was the most important thing to come out of the match.
I’ve also noted this as happening through a generally vanilla experience, if you were to choose a casual match. I acknowledge that with plugins, like a stopwatch timer, payload would be drastically changed and much of what has been described wouldn’t exactly hold up the same. Instead of going through the entirety of the map, if the first attackers capture the points faster, then they win, the timer is now based on how fast you can capture versus the previous team’s ability to capture. It is also based on how many points they captured. If they failed to capture the last point, you also won’t need to capture the last point. It doesn’t break out of the plot diagram, the events still occur, they’re just cut short, and it’s boring and not all that enjoyable with the casual experience in mind.
This also plays into the reality that you won’t always capture the last point, nor will you always defend the last point. Once again, I don’t think this invalidates the idea of breaking a payload match into the parts of a story, it’s just that certain parts are cut short and it’s not as enjoyable of a story. If the attackers are incapable of leaving spawn, and they don’t even get to capture one point, and the defenders spawn-camp them, is that really an enjoyable story? Sure, the events are taking place, just not as I’ve defined. The parts of a story can be manipulated and altered to fit the situation. The exposition might be the same, but the rising action and climax are vastly different from being spawn camped versus rolling the enemy team.
The format in that the players choose to play in also matters. Whether it is going to be 12v12, 9v9, or 6v6. The feeling and parts of a story are generally the same, but it’s just a matter of how that feels. I would say, in my inexperienced opinion, that 12v12 feels like it makes the most sense, but that’s also because of my limited experience. By sense, I mean that it maximizes each feature of the story, without cutting short any other part, which I think other formats have a tendency of doing. By being a faster pace and generally quicker to reach a conclusion, in the other two formats, the rising action goes by very quickly, the climax is low, and then you’re on the other side, to do the same thing, and it’ll feel a similar way.
I keep thinking of different ways of wrapping this up. Really, what I want to say, and what I’ve wanted to say throughout this entire thing, has been that I think we can break many more things down into stories like this. I think by doing this, we can recognize why we like the thing we like so much, which parts we liked, and why. By being able to recognize this, we can execute and reapply the same methodology ourselves. With a game like Team Fortress, I’d like for others to copy what it has done. I like what has been done here, I like it a lot, I find it fun and enjoyable, and I think there’s much more to learn about it, if we’re willing.
Beyond TF2, there are many games and medias that can be investigated to find their plot elements. I think it’s inevitable that these things have plot elements, and I say this because someone would have been able to recognize these elements in nature, or something like them, and then manipulate them into telling a story. There has been a first, and there will be last, and I think right now, we have a lot of time to investigate how to best tell our stories. We can tell our stories in so many different ways, and in each fashion, we can make some details more or less noticeable, with our choosing.
With something like Team Fortress, there is a lot of bite into, if I haven’t made it clear already. I know I have only dug at the surface of the plot elements, especially by only acknowledging payload in its rudimentary form. Despite this, I hope this makes you recognize why you like playing payload so much, or maybe why you don’t like the other game modes nearly as much. Most importantly, I hope you begin to investigate the parts within a story in other forms of media, and I hope you use your keen eyes to determine why you like certain things, so you can find more things that you already like! I try to follow things I like, because the things I like make me happy, and I want to be happy, and I want you to be happy too.