A Formal Letter of Complaint from a Humble Flag Thief

[ai]

Why is a failed capture attempt +1 point in your system? Why is pickup_late +1 (probably by mistake, should be equal to pickup_early)?

My reasoning was this, that if you pickup a flag that's a good thing, thus you get 1 point.
However, the pickup late and early aren't mistakes. Pickup late rewards 1 point cause that means people are actually trying to get the flag as opposed to run by it or just run straight to the enemys' base and wait for the flag to respawn, this should be rewarded.

Not giving points for pickup early is to balance things out with flag drop. Sure, one could argue that you get 1 point for pickup early so if someone drops the flag and picks it up his score would stay the same. But this gives the wrong impression with ### number of flag pickups and the score hasn't changed. That's why you get negative score if you drop the flag (drop key).
Also, in certain situations people might not even know they are carrying the flag cause they picked it up too fast, it was shot towards them or them towards the flag. This happens when there's a crowd and chaos.

PS. For people who don't know, you don't get a negative point when having a flag and being killed, only if you use the drop function.

Other than a failed capture actually INCREASING score, I like your system. To fix the score increasing problem, I suggest these changes:

g_ctf_flagpenalty_returned 1

Then, if you lose the flag and the enemy returns it, you again lose the point you got for picking up the flag.

I like that, didn't know this was possible but if it is, I gladly accept this.

[Silica Gel: Do Not Eat]

Furthermore, if you drop the flag (with the drop key) you get -1 point. I don't see this to be a big problem as I rarely see anyone using this feature

I use feature on occasion
If I'm the flag carrier and and the enemy has my flag
I'll drop the flag in hopes the eemy FC will come out of hiding and prepare to cap
My teammates then have an easier time of finding and killing him. Its a bit sneaky but sometimes it works

[ai]

I never thought of such a strategy. Do you foresee the -1 point being a problem? In the long run I don't think think it will be. If people more often start to use this feature then maybe it should change.

[Flying Steel]

I agree that flag drop is fairly useful in a good and organized team.

For instance, if you are an injured flag carrier, you can pass the flag to a fresh teammate with better armor/health who has a much better chance of making it home alive with the flag or surviving until your flag is returned.

[Silica Gel: Do Not Eat]

It would be kinda cool if your could throw the flag. If your health was low you could toss it to a teammate.

I never thought of such a strategy. Do you foresee the -1 point being a problem? In the long run I don't think think it will be. If people more often start to use this feature then maybe it should change.

It's only a point and I don't use it that often

[ai]

In theory yes, this flag drop bind is very useful, but practically almost no one uses it. And lets face it, no one will be able to capture that many flags that their overall score will be affected negatively. Keep in mind you get 1 point if you take the flag, however, lose it if you are killed (as suggested by div0). So, killed or throw away it's just that single point you lose when dropping the flag, no real loss there.

[soze]

Doku implement on hoctf please! PLEASE!

I've had serious issue with the negative for flag pickup. To me it's like gambling. If I'm very successful there is high reward and if I fail I look like I should find another game to play. Generally speaking I play very well. Swallow this scenario though. I've played matches recently where neither team could cap. We went 10 minutes without a single cap. Of course you can't win without a cap so I'm getting obliterated everytime I step in the opponents base. But eventually I prevail, 1 cap. Win in hand! and yet I'm 3rd from last on my teams scoring. THE CAP WON THE GAME! You can't win without caps and yet the scoring purposefully discourages you from attempting to win...

An analogy is in order. Ctf in all it's forms is 100% about capturing and returning the flag. So in that way CTF is like baseball basically you win thru the efforts of the individual though he may not be the actual person that scores but he isn't penalized for his efforts accept thru his batting average. A camper(defender) if you prefer is the pitcher he is reward not by scoring points but by specifically preventing them with the help of the team behind him. He is rewarded with a good era. Now ctf is different in that each player should play both sides offense and defense. Not saying people can't specialize but they should be able to contribute in both areas. So could an algorithm be created that could provide a score like a batting average, era, or maybe a quarterback rating and eliminate the "scoring system"... so the scoring would look like...

red 10 caps
blue 8 caps

soze 25 frag 5 caps 10 failed 3 fc kills 2 returns score = .735

this of course is random... but the score should be reflective of game impact. Bascially how big a difference did you make in the game. With heavy favor given to succesfull captures and I think fc kills. frags in general with minor reward, failed caps no impact, returns minor reward...

[Flying Steel]

In theory yes, this flag drop bind is very useful, but practically almost no one uses it. And lets face it, no one will be able to capture that many flags that their overall score will be affected negatively. Keep in mind you get 1 point if you take the flag, however, lose it if you are killed (as suggested by div0). So, killed or throw away it's just that single point you lose when dropping the flag, no real loss there.

Good enough for me. I hope this ends up as default at some point.

Enough with punishing what you're supposed to be doing in this gametype I say.

[divVerent]

One thing which I still don't get: why do you consider a flag carrier kill worth more than a flag return? The kill is nothing without the return, as that FC could have a supporter right close to him who picks up the flag after him.

Also, intuitively I'd say picking up a dropped flag should be worth something noticable, but as this could be abused by getting killed, respawning and taking the flag again, this cannot be done.

[ai]

One thing which I still don't get: why do you consider a flag carrier kill worth more than a flag return? The kill is nothing without the return, as that FC could have a supporter right close to him who picks up the flag after him.

Actually, this was a dilemma for me. I think both are worth equally really. As both are really important, stopping an enemy to take the flag from scoring, returning the flag to base ... it says itself.

Whatever you think is good will do fine, as I really have a hard time deciding what's more important, if any is. But yeah, I think you are right that a return is technically more important, so maybe switch those points with each other?