Rocket Boosting (was: Making A Stand! - For 2.4)

[The mysterious Mr. 4m]

i think a default of -1 would be nice for regular CTF, there will be custom CTF servers anyway. but i also think the whole weapon configuration for CTF should be redesigned.

some would argue that the configurations shouldn't vary too much or it will confuse players, but maybe the modified weapons could have custom models (or model skins).

[Dokujisan]

also doku, remember that one practice match we had where you had dave and we like capped once just cause turner and i hauled ass at the beginning? and no other captures between the two teams in 20 min? that was *with* rocketboost.

We're still relatively new to team play. All of us are used to playing on public servers where people are all rambo about grabbing the flag without the help of teammates. It's kinda burned into our brains at this point and it takes some conditioning to undo that. The reason none of us capped is because we failed at strategy. We shouldn't "fix" the problem by unbalancing the techniques just to make it easier for an individual to cap.

IMO, the way it was in that match is the way CTF should be. It SHOULD be difficult to cap the flag. It SHOULD require good strategy and teamwork.

As an example, I did successfully grab your flag at one point during that match, but I didn't have binds set to ask my team for assistance and set a waypoint, and my team wasn't in position to assist me. We didn't have much team awareness. If we had that, I might have been able to cap the flag. But we as a team still have some work to do.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it

[Dokujisan]

it seems the more practice Doku's clan and mine are having, the more and more defensive we get.

heh. Interesting. That's probably true. I think I noticed that on like the third runningman match we had, that your team was doing a lot less attacking. I think it's good to start with a solid defense and work your way out from there. It's very different from public play where you often don't have solid defense and so people are playing aggressively to compensate.

[ZWERG]

Most of you won't know me as I'm not really active in the community, as you can say by the number of my posts in the forum. But anyway, I started playing this game like 2 years ago - iirc it was v2.0 or 2.1. I don't know anything about DM but Nexuiz CTF has been a lot of fun for me. At that time you didn't see any rocket jumping in CTF.

I don't know when all the rocket jumping in CTF started... But - speaking for myself - Nexuiz CTF is no fun for me at all anymore. Have you ever tried to defend in a public CTF game today, with all those rocket jumpers?! It's close to impossible. Even worse, it's frustrating to the highest degree. When one of the typical speed-cappers joins, I'm leaving. Not because of the score. I'm playing defense, by definition that means I don't care about the score. It's just because it's frustrating. You see one guy out-jump four players on (e.g.) greatwall. That's not teamplay. I call it a one-man-show. It's like this: rocket-jump into the base right to the spot where the flag is, laser-jump, rocket-jump out. Come one. Sure it might not have been the best players here, but even against total noobs this should be impossible. Have you ever tried to hit a rocket jumper on greatwall with a latency of 100ms (or worse)? Try it! The nex is completely useless with this latency.

Actually I think it should be like this: One attacker against one defender of equal skill -> attacker loses with close to 90% probability. He should lose because of the defender's proximity to armor and health. I mean, there's got to be some team effort if you call it a team game.

For me CTF has turned from playing it a couple of hours every day to playing it once every 2 weeks and leaving completely frustrated after one hour of playing. It's not the game I started playing 2 years ago. To sum it up, it's like this: the players' skills have changed dramatically, while the game hasn't. Something needs to be done or CTF turns into a game where the only fun lies in "How fast can I cap a flag compared to the others?".
How often have I heard "good game" when it's just a 2 minutes round with no defense or offense and "bad game, bad game" if it ends 0:0. It seems players on public servers just want to speed-cap without being disturbed. I hear the rocket jumpers saying "camper", "sniper" and "nex whore" but no one cares about how boring the game can be for a defender. And if defending becomes boring, I'm sniping and I'm not completely skill-less as a sniper. I'm usually called one of the above names. But what am I supposed to do if it's boring?! Sniping is at least some fun for me that's left in the game.
I could go to an empty server and practise speed-jumping and rocket-jumping and all the tricks but that's not what I want to. I want a team game. With a defense team and an offense team and if the offense is not team at all then a team game has to end 0:0 caps always.

All of this is - of course - a personal opinion. I'm sure the game developers will follow the wishes of the majority.

A last comment about maps. There is a map called "subseatrack". It's the only map where you can actually see team play on a public server. Rocket jumpers won't like it. Other notable exceptions are dusty and mikectf where there is actually defensive team play. The maps that are guaranteed to be a 0:0 in clan matches might be the best for public games.

[Electrospam]

Almost completely agree with the above statement.

I've played nexuiz for quite some time, and I can perform all the little tricks like hopping and various forms of laser jumping and rocket jumping.

I would personally know how cheap rocket jumping is. The answer is, it's very cheap.

For instance, on the map battlevalentine, one person comes to the flag, rocket jumps, and almost instantly returns to their own base. The only way to stop something like that is to be a crackshot with the nex, which I'm quite certain most people aren't.

Also, it is very possible to cap the flag without rocket boosting on facing. However, it is still pretty difficult with all the nex campers sometimes on the roof.

[divVerent]

Well, it looks like we'll go with the timer solution ("reduce") for now... and possibly turn them off completely later. The trend in this discussion is obvious - the majority wants to get rid of the cheap RBs. That variant will get tested in 2.4, and we'll see what will be decided afterwards.

[ai]

Any server up and running for this to be tested out? Or does it not need to be as the release is close by?

[divVerent]

Mine, {}

[ai]

Awesome, now I just have to surf in to the svn and grab some stuff.

[AceOfThumbs]

I've been away from the boards for a while, but it was great to return and see this important thread! I'm happy to hear that the RL boost will be reduced. I voted for removing, but reducing is good too. As many have already said above, CTF was getting ruined by the overuse of this technique.

I want to thank the developers for their ongoing efforts to maintain excellent gameplay in Nexuiz. When I first started browsing the forums last year, I saw many mentions of balancing, but I didn't understand why it's importance. After playing for a while, though, I came to realize that balancing is what makes it fun. If there were easy and obvious choices of best weapon, technique and strategy, the game would have a limited appeal. Within a short time we'd all be doing the same thing.