CTF

[Xeno]

My initial reaction to the idea of reducing the flag carrier's speed was pretty much the same as z's, except that it was on a server, unformulated, and pissed esteel off

I've thought about it a bit more and I just don't know what would be best. You can easily argue that the massive flag is what slows the carrier down (as I was quite hostile to the idea of some magical force suddenly appearing in order to impose teamwork) and it MIGHT have a positive impact on teamplay. It's not uncommon for other games to limit the flag carrier's movement (teleporters, etc) or weapon usage, so it's not that strange an idea.

The following really should be considered though:
a) The people who are actually capable of playing as a team already do when in a team with others of the same capability.

b) CTF teams often lose by wide margins due to a lack of defence... a clear example that the need for teamwork does not lead to it. Altering game physics (characteristic ones... speed is one of the main traits of Nexuiz imo) in order to try to force teamwork will not work and will lead to even greater frustration for those who are already annoyed at the utter strategic incompetence of many people on the ctf servers. People have no problem running past a flag carrier who is clearly close to dying with several enemies behind him.

If you want to go down the path of making Nexuiz a strategic fps game, you may as well just fork it because you will end up with a considerably different product if you want something that everyone can just pick up and play that way. That doesn't mean "fuck trying to improve ctf", just that trying to improve ctf shouldn't alter the fundamental characteristics of the game itself. There is no way to please everyone, and I agree that CTF is a bit shit, but that's because of the people playing it more than anything else.



Also, to the devs: I truly appreciate your efforts to improve the game and thank you for them. I apologize if my initial reactions to some of your decisions and suggestions is more heated or negative than it should be. At the same time, even with the acknowledgement that dealing with criticism of certain changes over and over again can be tiresome, I would hope that it could be taken for what it is and not as a criticism of your efforts.

[kozak6]

I like frags counting.

I'm conflicted as to reduced speed.

[Sepelio]

I basically agree with Xeno.

Nerfing the ability of flag runners just to make up for the general incompetence of defenders is not the way to solve things.

[divVerent]

I think that Flags should count but points should be shown. In the event of a tie, it should be broken by points.

I'd like the following attributes in the scoreboard:

flags caps, flag drops, flag carrier kills, flag returns, kills, deaths

I don't mind the slower flag carrier but I think it's a stupid way to force teamwork. The problem lies within the mentality of the players. I don't believe there is enough incentive for defense, especially when you only show flag caps and points.

For public servers, I simply find this frustrating. Not everyone is a flag carrier and this scoring system makes them believe they have to be. Look at professional sports. Not everyone is a forward but they are rewarded based on the position they play. I believe good team work in Nexuiz is built off the 3 field positions of defense, midfield and offense combined with communication.


Again, I think Nexuiz should have three config "flavors" with settings tweaked for beginners, intermediate players and pros. Trying to make everyone happy with the same default settings makes it harder for new players and less interesting for hardcore ones.

What about setting max speed limit for a fc? So that rocket boosting wouldn't help to achieve supersonic speeds.

Example right here, I should be punished for thinking fast enough to rocket a wall to evade an enemy? I think that's bullshit. My whole attraction to this game was based on the ability to continually surpass my understanding of the physics. People should not be punished for their understand and challenge the physics of the game, this discourages creativity.

"This game is too hard, make it easier for me."

It's only hard because it's easy. Linking all these things together is based on a player's ability to see the bigger picture. Rather than focusing on hand to hand combat, set item based goals for yourself. I think green put it best when he said, "Don't fight every battle".

Except for flag drops, everything already is in the scoreboard. I'll add flag drops, though.

Your comparison to sports is bad. In soccer, only goals count too. Yet still people try to play as a team sometimes

As for adding a max player speed - IMHO a bad idea, it breaks gameplay much more than the FC speed reduction.

[divVerent]

So basically, the options all have disadvantages. Let me name them:

Frags count:
How to abuse it is easy: campers get points for just fragging everyone. A game can be decided by that alone. Is camping a strategy we want to reward? I doubt it.
This mode IMHO works best with full carrier speed, as failed capture attempts are already punished by the scoring. There needs to be no extra nerfing there.

Frags do not count, other stuff still counts as points:
Still means you can win a match by just defending and never capturing. The strategy to "abuse" this is to block all escape routes, and wait till an enemy gets your flag, and only THEN kill him and return the flag (which gains 5 points). However, the strategy of a clever enemy is then to only take the flag if some team mate secured an escape route, which IMHO fixes this issue.
This mode IMHO works best with full carrier speed, as failed capture attempts are already punished by the scoring. There needs to be no extra nerfing there.

Captures only count:
Common abuse of this scoring is capturing by brute force: attackers run into the enemy base alone 100 times, until they finally manage to capture. There is nothing their team loses if they fail, so there is no reason to NOT take the enemy flag. And with 100 attempts, you are likely to succeed 2 or 3 times, which can decide the match.
The flag carrier speed reduction is meant to fix the issues with this scoring mode, by making these non-teamplay capture attempts less likely to succeed.

My server now runs with full flag carrier speed, but "Frags do not count, other stuff still counts as points" scoring. I suppose that's the mode where teamplay-harming strategies are rewarded least.

[divVerent]

I just noticed a drops column is a waste of space. The equation "drops = pickups - caps" always holds

[Ed]

Somehow slowing down the flag carrier would help I think. Running along with a flag generally would slow you down. What about stopping laser jumping with the flag? That would put it somewhere in line with UT where you're not able to use the teleporter whilst carrying the flag or else you drop the flag.

[Mirio]

without laserjumping its impossible to get the flag and get out of the base if they have 2 defenders .. for example greatwall reloaded , tell me how to get out it was hard with full speed but now you can not even cross the wall most of the time. and facing worlds turned into a camping game now , you get out of the base and *splash* you are dead new players will give up fast if they are not able to capture the flag imo. on greens server everybody except 1 person ( that was Own Age) said its bad ! just play there and try it our yourself. i will look out for a good example that you are too slow.

short version : Do NOT change anything with speed.

[fronten]

i agree with ALIEN. Limiting the Flag carriers top speed would be nice. Limiting the overall push of the FC as opposed will disable you reaching spots that were 1 jump without flag but unreachable with flag.. and the problem is NOT the single jumps, but the cumulative speed of some good players.

who talked defense?
there is really not much time for defense when completed flag capture times can be as low as 3-9 SECONDS.

i would prefer limited top speed over reduced push for the flag carrier, but i go with whatever slows down the flag carrier.

(btw: with that low numbers the Vote is far from being statistically significant.
how long ddid this have been active? i dont even remember spotting it before..)

[divVerent]

Yes, completing stopping laserjumping is probably bad. Impossible to get out then... that's why it is just reduced to 70%.