Team Balancing and the new Rocket Flying

[TVR]

Map design, and by extension gameplay, serves to quickly assert maps as flawed.

An important factor is that the pursuer-pursued relation is reversed, intercepting a flag carrier requires more skill than it is to escape with the flag, simply because pursuit requires more work & effort in Nexuiz. To pursue one that is using a weapon to boost their velocity, one must match the target's velocity by boosting, as well as maintaining a steady aim and satisfactory damage to negate any health related pick-ups while continuing to whittle down their health at a sufficient rate, and optimally, not boosting their velocity far further.

For example, rocket boosting is a symptom of Mentalspace, Capture City and Resevoir CTF, as a consequence of the open layout, coupled with the ineffectiveness of weapons on fast, flying targets, promotes an environment where it is viable strategy.

Greatwall_reloaded is afflicted with easy entrance, easy escape [both due to the proximity of the jump pad to the base, and the effective immunity granted by curving the jump pad velocity to return to the base] for fast flag runs, while a mass or conventional attack is easy to repulse [due to the quick spawns negating the advantage of defeating a defending player, delayed wave spawns solve this problem, however it benefits high velocity flag runs equally]; Hydronex suffers from a less-apparent derivative of the flaw.

On Controlfactor and other expansive maps, the expanse in terms of nooks and escape routes simply increases the difficulty of pursuit.

CB_CTF1, space_fun-nex2, evilspaceCTF, eyecancer_CTF, pushmeCTF, provide a mechanism capable of transporting only one at a time, discouraging basic team support in the form of following, and decreasing the effectiveness of multiple pursuers, as the pursued gains a head start while multiple pursuers wait to use whatever the mechanism.

mIKEctf2 and hal_palindrome simply penalize the pursuer with a technical that allows the pursued to pummel with the pursuer with greater impunity.

It is a sufficient explanation as to why conventional CTF maps do not function as intended in Nexuiz, it has resulted in the creation of the only compatible Nexuiz CTF map, mojoCTF, which properly emphasizes prevention of capture by lack of flag at base as a valid defence.

[[-z-]]

Map design, and by extension gameplay, serves to quickly assert maps as flawed.

Or your strategies are flawed.

An important factor is that the pursuer-pursued relation is reversed, intercepting a flag carrier requires more skill than it is to escape with the flag, simply because pursuit requires more work & effort in Nexuiz. To pursue one that is using a weapon to boost their velocity, one must match the target's velocity by boosting, as well as maintaining a steady aim and satisfactory damage to negate any health related pick-ups while continuing to whittle down their health at a sufficient rate, and optimally, not boosting their velocity far further.

Okay, well ignoring the fact that you don't like chasing flag carriers and apparently think they should just die magically when they take your flag... there are plenty of people that CAN catch up with flag carriers and have affective methods to disable them.

Gaining equal velocity isn't the challenge you make it out to be. If you're on defense, you should have 100 health / 100 armor and a rocket launcher, the proper gear to get your going their speed. Once in pursuit, Utilize weapons that can slow them down, such as a rocket that you blow up in front of them or secondary fire on the mortar and electro. The nex is always a good option as it usually won't take more than 2 shots after they've boosted. If you have trouble aiming at high speed, maybe you should lower your sensitivity.

For example, rocket boosting is a symptom of Mentalspace, Capture City and Resevoir CTF, as a consequence of the open layout, coupled with the ineffectiveness of weapons on fast, flying targets, promotes an environment where it is viable strategy.

The electro is conveniently located a few feet from the flag. Secondary the crap out of the flag, no one will be taking it. If they do managing to get into the air, it's a sniper's dream.

Greatwall_reloaded is afflicted with easy entrance, easy escape [both due to the proximity of the jump pad to the base, and the effective immunity granted by curving the jump pad velocity to return to the base] for fast flag runs, while a mass or conventional attack is easy to repulse [due to the quick spawns negating the advantage of defeating a defending player, delayed wave spawns solve this problem, however it benefits high velocity flag runs equally];

I fail to see your point. You were arguing about rocket boosting and now you're complaining about jumppad placement? Do you want the whole game slowed down?

Hydronex suffers from a less-apparent derivative of the flaw.

This might have something to do with the nex placement

On Controlfactor and other expansive maps, the expanse in terms of nooks and escape routes simply increases the difficulty of pursuit.

Defense and team communication.

CB_CTF1, space_fun-nex2, evilspaceCTF, eyecancer_CTF, pushmeCTF, provide a mechanism capable of transporting only one at a time, discouraging basic team support in the form of following, and decreasing the effectiveness of multiple pursuers, as the pursued gains a head start while multiple pursuers wait to use whatever the mechanism.

If only we had weapons we could use as tools to shoot ourselves to different areas of the map so we wouldn't have to rely on the mechanisms.

mIKEctf2 and hal_palindrome simply penalize the pursuer with a technical that allows the pursued to pummel with the pursuer with greater impunity.

Big words don't make you correct. This argument is weak.

It is a sufficient explanation as to why conventional CTF maps do not function as intended in Nexuiz, it has resulted in the creation of the only compatible Nexuiz CTF map, mojoCTF, which properly emphasizes prevention of capture by lack of flag at base as a valid defence.

In conclusion, you find one of the most open maps to be the best balanced. I can rocket boost this and score in 4 seconds but apparently you fail to see the connection between this map and a map like mental space.

[Xeno]

For example, rocket boosting is a symptom of Mentalspace, Capture City and Resevoir CTF, as a consequence of the open layout.

wtf?


Although I admittedly hated the respawn wave when it was introduced, having defenders instantly respawn right next to you does ruin many possibly strategic elements. I'm not sure if spawnpoint selection is random or not, but perhaps it would be possible to have weighted frequencies that favor respawning at a point other than where you were killed. As much fun as it may be to come back from the dead right next to the guy who killed you and frag him with full health before he's had a chance to regen, it's highly annoying to be on the other end of it.


Since all of the different factors would require testing to get the winning formula, the ideal would be to have different servers with different set-ups so that people could compare and contrast. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be enough servers around to do this but maybe it would be possible to get a server or two rotating rules on a daily basis, along with some relevant thread/poll/whatever to post thoughts on the different combinations (yeah, I realize that most people won't bother, but the ones that do should have some useful insights).

[TVR]

Map design, and by extension gameplay, serves to quickly assert maps as flawed.

Or your strategies are flawed.

Defective by design, a map that has been defective in principle, shall remain defective in practice.

An important factor is that the pursuer-pursued relation is reversed, intercepting a flag carrier requires more skill than it is to escape with the flag, simply because pursuit requires more work & effort in Nexuiz. To pursue one that is using a weapon to boost their velocity, one must match the target's velocity by boosting, as well as maintaining a steady aim and satisfactory damage to negate any health related pick-ups while continuing to whittle down their health at a sufficient rate, and optimally, not boosting their velocity far further.

Okay, well ignoring the fact that you don't like chasing flag carriers and apparently think they should just die magically when they take your flag... there are plenty of people that CAN catch up with flag carriers and have affective methods to disable them.

Gaining equal velocity isn't the challenge you make it out to be. If you're on defense, you should have 100 health / 100 armor and a rocket launcher, the proper gear to get your going their speed. Once in pursuit, Utilize weapons that can slow them down, such as a rocket that you blow up in front of them or secondary fire on the mortar and electro. The nex is always a good option as it usually won't take more than 2 shots after they've boosted. If you have trouble aiming at high speed, maybe you should lower your sensitivity.

The rebuttal is partially irrelevant, partially ignorant, partially false.

Rocket-jumping is required to only MATCH a rocket jumpers' velocity, however much more must be done by the pursuer when contrasted to the pursued.

The pursuer must deal damage with a weapon at an high velocity, while at the same time, using another weapon to boost velocity to match the escapee.

The pursued receives first preference of pickups, an advantage with weapons [as the attacker will have to run directly through a rocket's impact location, losing health & velocity, or directly through a field of electro balls in order to maintain distance with the pursued], and while pursuer loses velocity when fired upon, the pursued gains additional velocity from directed weapon fire.

For example, rocket boosting is a symptom of Mentalspace, Capture City and Resevoir CTF, as a consequence of the open layout, coupled with the ineffectiveness of weapons on fast, flying targets, promotes an environment where it is viable strategy.

The electro is conveniently located a few feet from the flag. Secondary the crap out of the flag, no one will be taking it. If they do managing to get into the air, it's a sniper's dream.

There exist a few faults in the previous statement that grant the flag runner impeccable advantages.

There is a window of opportunity when the electro balls automatically detonate, in conjunction with/or insufficient ammo is in possession.

The defender in such situation is unable to eradicate the pest, while the pest is certainly able to eradicate the defender [the Attacker surpasses the Defender on the success ratio].

Greatwall_reloaded is afflicted with easy entrance, easy escape [both due to the proximity of the jump pad to the base, and the effective immunity granted by curving the jump pad velocity to return to the base] for fast flag runs, while a mass or conventional attack is easy to repulse [due to the quick spawns negating the advantage of defeating a defending player, delayed wave spawns solve this problem, however it benefits high velocity flag runs equally];

I fail to see your point. You were arguing about rocket boosting and now you're complaining about jumppad placement? Do you want the whole game slowed down?

This an issue of comprehension, the subject of my previous post was to explain why most Nexuiz CTF are inherently flawed by design, including but not limited to unfettered & unfair usage of rocket boosting, and other forms of velocity boosting.

Hydronex suffers from a less-apparent derivative of the flaw.

This might have something to do with the nex placement

This cause of such derivative flaw is due to the relative ease of escape by the teleporter, and conservation of linear momentum.

On Controlfactor and other expansive maps, the expanse in terms of nooks and escape routes simply increases the difficulty of pursuit.

Defense and team communication.

Defense is easily thwarted in an exposed flag area.

Relative to game, a two people force both teams to scour an extremely expansive map, with parts only reachable with a knowledge of the .map source, akin to a needle in a haystack.

Communication is only capable up to a point when dealing with a knowledgeable moving target mistakable for a regular enemy, or even teammate; a requisite for complete knowledge of a map is a demonstration of a map flaw [intuition].

CB_CTF1, space_fun-nex2, evilspaceCTF, eyecancer_CTF, pushmeCTF, provide a mechanism capable of transporting only one at a time, discouraging basic team support in the form of following, and decreasing the effectiveness of multiple pursuers, as the pursued gains a head start while multiple pursuers wait to use whatever the mechanism.

If only we had weapons we could use as tools to shoot ourselves to different areas of the map so we wouldn't have to rely on the mechanisms.

Or were it to be easier to terminate the flag runner before or possibly after such mechanism is reached, rather than it to be easier to escape pursuers with such mechanism, conferring a head start.

mIKEctf2 and hal_palindrome simply penalize the pursuer with a technical that allows the pursued to pummel with the pursuer with greater impunity.

Big words don't make you correct. This argument is weak.

The pursued has a innate weapon advantage, as the path of the pursuer is predetermined as traversing the same path as the pursued [was].

It is a sufficient explanation as to why conventional CTF maps do not function as intended in Nexuiz, it has resulted in the creation of the only compatible Nexuiz CTF map, mojoCTF, which properly emphasizes prevention of capture by lack of flag at base as a valid defence.

In conclusion, you find one of the most open maps to be the best balanced. I can rocket boost this and score in 4 seconds but apparently you fail to see the connection between this map and a map like mental space.[/b]

Logically, rocket-flying to cross the divide between flags on Mental Space requires pickups, while the divide on mojoCTF is crossable with the laser, a spawn weapon.

For example, rocket boosting is a symptom of Mentalspace, Capture City and Resevoir CTF, as a consequence of the open layout.

wtf?

Rocket boosting, by definition, is velocity boosting with rockets, rocket-flying is derivative involving mid-air detonation[s].

Although I admittedly hated the respawn wave when it was introduced, having defenders instantly respawn right next to you does ruin many possibly strategic elements. I'm not sure if spawnpoint selection is random or not, but perhaps it would be possible to have weighted frequencies that favor respawning at a point other than where you were killed. As much fun as it may be to come back from the dead right next to the guy who killed you and frag him with full health before he's had a chance to regen, it's highly annoying to be on the other end of it.

Respawn wave delays respawns primarily for the respawns to be synchronized, thus overwhelming spawn campers, and conceding an incentive to prioritize attempts to remove defenders before a capture attempt ['Proper attack'].

Spawn point selection is 50% as distanced as possible from an enemy, and 50% random, the significance of the distanced percentage is reduced if there are multiple spawns clustered together, thus increasing the probability of a spawn in the area.

[divVerent]

One point has been missed.

At high speeds, the projectile physics avoid too low absolute rocket speeds, as these would look like bugs to about anyone (like, if you move as fast as a rocket, the rocket would STAND STILL in air, which most people would consider a bug - or even worse, if you are FASTER than the rocket, the rocket would point away from you, but move TO you).

However, this feature to partially mess with Newton has one disadvantage: a rocket the pursued fires to shoot at his pursuer reaches him FASTER than a rocket the pursuer fires at the flag carrier he's pursuing! In other words, when rocket flying, the pursued has a weapon advantage: he already holds a weapon he can use to fire at his enemy, while the pursuer would have to temporarily switch to, e.g., the Nex, and then switch back again for the next rocket boost.

This effect may be weakened a bit due to the changed refire time system, though - you now don't need to wait for the RL refire to switch to the Nex, fire a well aimed shot at your target, switch back to the RL, and do the next boost in time.

[[-z-]]

TVR, if only you played as hard as you retort maybe you could have a higher understanding of the game.

I'd like to get a group of us together some time in the next 2 weeks so we can settle our differences and better understand each other's strategies or lack thereof.

[AceOfThumbs]

It's fun to go fast! It's fun to fly! I made a rocket-boost tutorial because I thought it was great and thought everyone should know about it.

The only problem is that it makes flag runs a one-man show on open maps. There aren't enough armors and RL to go around, so most players are excluded from the fun. I like the idea of including more of the team in team games.

So the debate rages on: speed vs teamplay. Can't we have both? Both sides of the argument should be recognized as valid and maybe we can work together on a good solution.

Here are a few ideas off the top of my head:

Alter the open maps to make it a little more difficult to get away. For example, put the flag in a room or in a hole or on a ledge so the attacker can go fast to get there and fast to get away, but has to slow down and fight to get the flag. This is the way facing worlds is designed and it worked pretty well with boosting.

Put the flag behind a door with the switch far enough away that it requires assistance to open it. Then you need at least a couple of attackers involved in a capture and coordinated attacks would be more important.

Spawn everyone with a RL and armor so all have the potential to go fast without having to collect the limited items first.

Put more RLs and armors in the map. Similar to the idea above.

Take away or reduce self damage with the RL so everyone can boost like crazy! That could be really fun actually. I could see lots of high speed chases happening.

Put a barrier in the middle of open maps, so you can only get half way with a boost, then you'd have to slow and fight. Team support would be needed at the halfway point.

There are probably many more and better approaches. Ultimately a multiplayer game is best if everyone is enjoying themselves. I don't want it to be just my way or your way. Let's find a solution that we all like.

[Red Dragon]

Team balancing will never work, Bundy can only be on one team
Also Red Dragon and now Bundy also have found out how to beat the rocket flying fix.
Balance that.
...
At least it is very hard to do and inaccurate, but they're doing it.
How long did that take, a week?

Ok, i try to explain a bit about that new "rocket flying". And those who hated rocketboosting don't have to worry much about that new technique. Boosting won't come back like it was in 2.3.

This technique is my invention. After the 2.4 release i wanted to know if there is still a way to go fast. To answer your question, Rad Ished, it took me 1-2 days to learn that technique. It isn't very hard if you have good aircontrol and/or movement. If you don't have those 2 skills then,... yes... it will be "very hard to do and inaccurate". After I showed my techniques (there are 2 kinds of boosting actually) to a few people, they wanted to call them "Dragon Jump" or "Dragon Boost". No, please don't do that. They are my invention but this sounds sh*t and arrogant. It's better to use a name which is saying what that technique does. Here is a short explanation of the 2 new boosts:

Single Boost:
1. Walk back a few steps
2. Fire a Rocket, WHILE moving backwards. Nexuiz has "Semi-Newtonian" physics iirc (whatever that really means, but) it will cause the rocket to move slower
3. Walk forward a few steps
4. Do a normal Rocketjump on the ground, while moving forward (no detonation)
5. if you get to your rocket which should be now somewhere in the air a few meters above the ground, detonate it.

If you do ALL of these steps right, then this should boost you like in 2.3. The bad side of this technique:
- good movement, aircontrol, jumpskills
- you need about 3-5 seconds to perform
- there should be no single enemy around or its completly impossible
- like the name says: only one single boost
- you must prepare this boost (Step 1. and 2.)
- needs about 160 hp

You can easily see its very hard and not much use in a real ctf match. I see only one use of this technique. Speedcaps. Breaking records and such stuff and you usually do that on an empty server. But if you really want to do speedcaps then my improved technique is much better there.

Double Boost:
1.-4. are equal to Single Boost.
5. If you reach your own rocket, fire a second one.
6. Immediatly detonate it

Be sure you do 5. before 6. Its nearly like pressing both buttons of your mouse but If you detonate your first rocket too early it will be just a single boost and the second rocket usually won't boost you since the detonate delay will prevent that. The trick is, your first rocket which is existing longer than 0.2 seconds (detonate delay) should blast your second rocket immediatly after it has spawned. This way you get boosted by 2 rockets at the SAME TIME, which gives an insane boost. Three rockets are used here (1 ground RLjump and the double boost), which means 240-250 hp. It would be very risky doing that in a ctf match. You rarly get that much health and if you dont succed its wasted hp and time.

I can do these boosts to 80% (without enemies) haven't tried it in a battle untill now. I would prefer just attacking my enemies, with 250 hp you won't die quickly.

Imo, the devs made a wise decision reducing nex's dps and boosts. As I said in another post ctf was often nex camper vs rocketboosting whore. Making these 2 weapons weaker is like making all others a little stronger, relativly. Maybe ctf gameplay will change in a positive way. I really hope so. Atm i think it will be just different not better or worse.

[:)]

Thanks for explaining the Dragonboost!

[Blµb]

Umm, it's not supposed to be a "fix" for rocket flying...
it just makes it a bit harder and less accurate, that's all that's needed.
If you can still use it, then you're just good, so what?

And about the railbitching on facing worlds...
Some simple strafejumping gets rid of allt he hits You just have to be fast enough, and not just move in a straight line...