Player Destruction

Not to be confused with Robot Destruction.

“

Click to listen

— The Engineer to drunk UFO pilots

”

Player Destruction is a community-created game mode added in the Invasion Community Update with the October 6, 2015 Patch.

Gameplay

The goal of each team is to collect scoring pickups dropped by killed players and deposit them into a contested delivery point to score points.

When killed, a player drops 1 scoring pickup in addition to all of the other pickups they were carrying (shown over their head and on their HUD), which can then be picked up by players on either team. The non-Spy player on each team carrying the most scoring pickups also becomes the "team leader", making them dispense health and ammo to themselves and nearby teammates at the rate of a Level 1 Dispenser, but also giving them an outline visible through walls that can be seen by both teams. The team leader's Dispenser has a modified range of 450 Hammer units (default range is 32 units).

Collected scoring pickups are dropped on the ground if a player tries to carry them into a resupply area, and can also be dropped manually by pressing the drop-item button (Default key: L). Dropped pickups that are not picked up disappear after 2 minutes.

Once enough points have been scored, a countdown begins that typically leads to a map-specific event, such as the mothership being destroyed on Watergate or the large laser firing on Monster Bash, followed by the team that deposited the necessary amount of pickups winning.

Scoring

Unlike other game modes in the game, Player Destruction maps, while mechanically similar to each other, pose some differences gameplay-wise:

Cursed Cove

To score, players must enter Davy Jones' Locker via contact with the Flying Dutchman's ghost ship, which cycles through the center of the map and phases through all that it touches. Upon entering Davy Jones' Locker, players must stand within the designated zone on top of the central wooden deck to deposit their collected souls. When the time to deposit runs out, the Locker starts to fill with water; those on the deck are pulled toward the portal back to the main portion of the map, while those caught by the water start to quickly drown.

Farmageddon

To score, players must bring their collected weed killer into the mutated pumpkin during the periods of time where its mouth is open, navigating to the heart at the center of the pumpkin to deposit them. When the time to deposit runs out, the pumpkin's mouth closes and its inside slowly fills with acid that quickly kills players who stay.

Monster Bash

To score, players must deposit their collected buckets of gibs at the monster's body in the central capture zone when the shield surrounding it has gone down. When the time to deposit runs out, players are repelled from the center point as the shield reactivates.

Pit of Death

To score, players must carry their collected souls to an island in the Underworld. Players can get to the Underworld through a portal near the center of the map, which opens for 30 seconds every 75 seconds. Once in the Underworld, players must jump to the island to deliver the souls they carry. Once on the island, souls are deposited at a rate of 3 per second.

The number of souls deposited required to win the match is based on the number of players in the server within the first 30 seconds of the round. After 30 seconds, the number is locked for the rest of the round. The number of souls required can never go below 10.

SnowVille

To score, players must take presents from other players to a sleigh pulled by flying Pyro Robots that periodically lands at different points on the map. When the time to deposit runs out, the Pyro Robots fly away with the sleigh.

Watergate

To score, players must deposit their collected beers into a UFO at the center of the map, which arrives every 52 seconds and flies slowly across the area creating a tractor beam, before getting to the edge of the map and leaving after 34 seconds. While in the UFO beam, players can move around as if they were swimming in water, and their collected beers are gradually deposited into the UFO and added to their team's score. Players can also contest beer deposits by jumping into the beam and blocking the enemy team from scoring.

The amount of beers a team needs to deposit is based on the number of players in the first 30 seconds of a round. After 30 seconds the number is locked for the rest of the round. The deposit speed is also dynamic through the round depending on the number of currently connected players. The base deposit speed is 1 beer every 1.1 seconds, but the time decreases by 0.025 for every player in the round.^[1]

Player count	Seconds
0	1.10
2	1.05
4	1.00
6	0.95
8	0.90
10	0.85
12	0.80
14	0.75
16	0.70
18	0.65
20	0.60
22	0.55
24	0.50
26	0.45
28	0.40
30	0.35
32	0.30

Maps

Development

The current iteration of the Player Destruction game mode was heavily altered from the version featured in early versions of Watergate.

Instead of dropping beers that had to be delivered to the UFO, dead players dropped team-specific cash pickups (reskinned from Robot Destruction cores) that instantly added to a team's score when picked up. As players killed more enemies, however, their bounty (shown on their HUD) would increase, causing them to drop more cash on death and making them a more valuable target for the enemy team.

As players did not have to deliver their pickups to score, the UFO instead dropped a large "care package" of cash for both teams in the center of the map. The UFO's tractor beam was used to pull players towards a neutral control point at the highest point of the map, which slowly generated extra cash pickups for the team that owned it. Once one team scored $150, a barrel would launch from the control point building and land on the mothership in the skybox, destroying it.

This version of the game mode was eventually scrapped in favor of the current version, as players with high bounties would simply hide in spawn to avoid being killed, and without the UFO deposit or team leader mechanics, the game lacked a focused objective for players to fight over.

The control point.
The UFO and a care package.

Update history

October 6, 2015 Patch (Invasion Community Update)

Added map: Watergate.

February 29, 2016 Patch

Community request: Added SetPlayerPointsOnDeath input to tf_player_destruction_logic and a PointsValue key field to the item_teamflag entity when used in Player Destruction mode.

April 25, 2016 Patch

Added a new Quickplay category for Alternative game modes.
- Moved Territorial Control, Special Delivery, and Player Destruction maps to this new category.

October 21, 2016 Patch (Scream Fortress 2016)