The MGA gamemode

This document contains a description of the "Market Gardening Arena" gamemode. The specifications written here are in no way "official"; they are but a mere subset of what the biased author thinks is necessary for a server to implement in order to offer an experience that he and he alone will call good. The purpose of this document is to have in written form the rules of this gamemode in order to make them easily searchable. Moreover, this should make it easier for anyone to look up the possible pitfalls that should be handled in order to have a fun, fair MGA server.

Introduction

The MGA gamemode revolves around the Market Gardener, a melee weapon for the Soldier which allows this class to inflict critical damage when blast-jumping.

Most MGA servers create rules that make this weapon deal always fatal damage upon hit (which may not be the case by default) and make the Soldier have unlimited rockets and unkillable through means other than with the Market Gardener, such as fall damage or any damage coming from other players.

Since rocket launchers cannot kill in this gamemode, they are mainly used for rocket-jumping and as a source of knockback to control the ennemy's movements, e.g. through airshots or splash damage.

Basic ruleset

The core of the gamemode is about getting kills with a melee weapon while blast-jumping. Friendly fire is off, and any source of damage should come from other blast-jumping players' melee weapons or environmental damage (if the arena has pitfalls and the like). Any and all other damage must be prevented by the server (e.g. through plugins).

Any melee weapon used must kill in one hit when blast-jumping. The Market Gardener is the only weapon which deals critical damage while blast-jumping, but other weapons may be given this condition with plugins. The server must ensure than one kill is sufficient to kill any opponent in one hit.

Players must have infinite ammo both in their weapons' clip and in reserve. (Note that plugins must handle some weapons in unique ways due to working differently than most other weapons, e.g. the Beggar's Bazooka.)

Players should be able to join whatever team they want, no matter the number of people the team already has.

Allowed classes

Most variants of the MGA gamemode restrict the classes to the Soldier only. (While doing this allows for a more balanced and competitive environment, some servers have made experiments with allowing other classes such as the Demoman with success.)

Weapon rules

Some weapons must be banned or reworked to fit into the MGA gamemode. A preference should be given on reworking them, as banning weapons is often a source of frustration. Note that the following rules are merely suggestions and only cover the weapons used by the Soldier. Should other classes be allowed, other weapons not discussed here should be banned or rebalanced.

All weapons

All weapons must have an infinite ammo supply. The easiest method would be to periodically refill the weapons' ammo at a fixed rate.

All melee weapons

The damage output of all melee weapons must be sufficient enough to kill players in one hit when blast-jumping.

The Disciplinary Action

This melee weapon's range is far greater than most other melee weapons, with virtually no penalty to balance it out. It must therefore be banned or reworked so that its range is the same as the Market Gardener.

The Mantreads

This weapon must be banned or reworked so that its effect is nullified. As this weapons diminishes recoil from blast damage and increases air control, any player equipping it is automatically at an advantage over other players, forcing them to also use that weapon. Giving its effects to all players is a possibility but since players often prefer the default air control and use blast damage to protect themselves, this would be rebuked by most.

The Airstrike

This weapon's fire rate increases when the owner is blast-jumping. As this gamemode gives infinite clip ammo, this weapon would allow players to fire virtually all the time more rockets than their opponents. This weapon must therefore be banned or not have its clip made virtually infinite; instead, a longer wait period should be implemented to make the user wait a bit before having its clip refilled. (Not refilling the clip entirely would make the owner waste too much time reloading, making this weapon useless.)

The Direct Hit

This rocket launcher excels at airshotting, which can be seen as an unfair advantage in combat. One may choose to ban or rework it so it fires rockets at the same speed as other rocket launchers.

The Beggar's Bazooka

Due to this weapon working differently than most rocket launchers, its primary clip must not be made infinite like other weapons.

Chat commands

Most MGA servers implement common commands which most players expect to exist. The following list contains the most used commands:

/fov number: The /fov command must allow users to set their own desired field of view, up to at least 130 degrees. It is common to play with an FOV larger than what is normally allowed in regular games of TF2.
/mga: The /mga command must send the player to the main arena. At every death, the player must be immediately respawned into the arena.
/r: The /r command must send the player back to the spawn arena while also disabling the behavior set by /mga.

All commands should be typed in the chat, prepended by an exclamation point or a forward slash (e.g. /fov 90). Some MGA servers use different command prefixes.

Conclusion

Implementing these basic rules should allow one to setup a basic MGA server. Of course, the written rules here can be ignored or expanded upon and others can be added. This here only provides the foundations for a solid, mostly fair MGA experience.