new idea for CTF team balancing

[AceOfThumbs]

I read some older posts about team balancing. Here is a recap of the problems:
- Automatically switching players from team to team would be difficult to do fairly since the program may act too soon or too late and players loose their points
- New players may join at any time upsetting the delicate balance and causing more auto switches

The new idea is to leave teams as they are, but cap the number of points each player can have. Okay, keep your finger off the trigger for a minute and hear me out.

After running up perhaps 50 points, superior players would be capped and then have the challenge of assisting their weaker team mates to score points. Maybe it should be a 75 or 100 point cap.

If you get two great players on the same team, they can rack up 100-200 points, but then they have to play defense to keep the other team from catching up or better yet, they have to coach or assist the weak players on their team to score.

Think like Magic Johnson and go for the most assists in a game. Nexuiz showtime!
(if you don't get the Lakers reference, just ask)

[Mr.Carlyle]

I read some older posts about team balancing. Here is a recap of the problems:
- Automatically switching players from team to team would be difficult to do fairly since the program may act too soon or too late and players loose their points
- New players may join at any time upsetting the delicate balance and causing more auto switches

The new idea is to leave teams as they are, but cap the number of points each player can have. Okay, keep your finger off the trigger for a minute and hear me out.

After running up perhaps 50 points, superior players would be capped and then have the challenge of assisting their weaker team mates to score points. Maybe it should be a 75 or 100 point cap.

If you get two great players on the same team, they can rack up 100-200 points, but then they have to play defense to keep the other team from catching up or better yet, they have to coach or assist the weak players on their team to score.

Think like Magic Johnson and go for the most assists in a game. Nexuiz showtime!
(if you don't get the Lakers reference, just ask)

So once the cap is reached those players would not receive anymore points? Well if they defend then return the flag who gets those points? Why wouldn't they get the points if they did all the work in returning the flag? CTF is a TEAM game, but unfortunately most only like to go for the flag or just don't want to be a team player. I'm perfectly content with defending, actually I love to defend as long as their is another strong offensive player who can breach the opposing teams defense. I personally can't agree with what you said. Only because there would be no point in stronger more skilled players to play if they're eventually capped. What's the point?

[:)]

Well one can easily get over 50 pts defending. Then what? There would be no more points for that person if they were to return the flag, or finish a partial capture, so they'd wait for another player to do it so the points would be credited, and just watching a flag in the open is dangerous.

[AceOfThumbs]

Good point. I guess there are two reasonable answers:

One would be coaching the newbies to stay in the base more to help defend and to pick up the flag.

Or you could still return the flag yourself without the points crediting. If you had a big skill advantage over the other team the missed points wouldn't be a problem.

[AceOfThumbs]

Mr. Carlyle,

Good point also, but if you are going for a team victory personal points wouldn't be the primary goal. If you can get the team to score you still win. If the points are shared across the team, it is more fun for everyone and it would offer a greater challenge to skilled players.

I guess the idea I'm shooting for is to make the game more accessible to newbies, create an environment that encourages the skilled players to coach, and to provide a new challenge to skilled players.

The only drawback I see so far is that the skilled players wouldn't get scoreboard credit for all of their work. If you want to spurt power it wouldn't be as satisfying, but could be much more fun if you want an extra challenge.

[Mr.Carlyle]

Mr. Carlyle,

Good point also, but if you are going for a team victory personal points wouldn't be the primary goal. If you can get the team to score you still win. If the points are shared across the team, it is more fun for everyone and it would offer a greater challenge to skilled players.

I guess the idea I'm shooting for is to make the game more accessible to newbies, create an environment that encourages the skilled players to coach, and to provide a new challenge to skilled players.

The only drawback I see so far is that the skilled players wouldn't get scoreboard credit for all of their work. If you want to spurt power it wouldn't be as satisfying, but could be much more fun if you want an extra challenge.

Then Nexuiz needs to change to a Team Score not a singles score, which would be fine. So there would only be 1 score for red and 1 for blue. Easy enough.

Although I see your attempting to do good by creating an atmosphere for those who are new, you shouldn't go about changing an entire gamemode just for them. I never signed on any dotted line saying I was going to coach/help/instruct anyone. In all my time with Nexuiz, only one or two people ever really taught me. I just picked everything else up by myself. So anyway, I think you're basing this on a point issue where if the more skilled players don't have such a high score then they won't want to go for the flag or attack more. Honestly I just can't see the rational here. I'm good at attacking. I'm good at defending. I'll do either one depending on how I feel on that day regardless of whether or not I have a personal score or a team score.

Also, I play Nexuiz to relax and have fun. While I will help people 1on1 I DO NOT want to sit through an entire match of CTF helping someone. That's just not me. If they would like to have some help I'm more than welcome to do that. I just did another 1on1 session with someone tonight actually.

[AceOfThumbs]

If this idea ever goes anywhere, I think it would be best as a sever option. Then the admin can choose to enable score capping or not.