A Formal Letter of Complaint from a Humble Flag Thief

[parasti]

What makes it impossible to give more points for a successful chain of events? An FC kill with no return is worthless, but it is 1/3 of the job when followed by a return and a cap. A system that makes one absolutely more valuable than the other is ultimately just stupid.

[Silica Gel: Do Not Eat]

An FC kill with no return is worthless, but it is 1/3 of the job when followed by a return and a cap. A system that makes one absolutely more valuable than the other is ultimately just stupid.

What about FC kills on spacemaps where the flag falls into the void?

[soze]

It's based on difficulty it doesn't take skill to pick up a flag that's sitting on the ground, it takes skill (sometimes more, sometimes less) to kill an fc. It might be complicated but really out of the two the kill is the most important but only if it is followed by a return. If the return is reward higher I could theoretically be in the right place each time my flag is dropped and end up say with 7 flag returns and do pretty well for myself having never attempted to cap or frag. This is a game about shooting, movement and teamwork, none of which are necessary to return a flag.

[PinkRobot]

I thought CTF was about flags, more than frags? I'd say returning the flag before an opponent can pick it up again is absolutely essential, isn't it?

[RoKenn]

An FC kill with no return is worthless

No, it isn't.

A return is actually only required if either the flag already has been moved a noticable distance towards the enemy base or my team has the enemy flag and wants to capture. With a caps-only scoring system there is no benefit in returning the flag otherwise.

On the other hand it can even be better not to return it in some situations, because most players of the other team might not know where it is (bindings are not used that much...) and for those who know, the flag might auto-return just before the attacker reaches it.

[ai]

On the other hand it can even be better not to return it in some situations, because most players of the other team might not know where it is

True, and also, I sometimes do not return the flag if I know there are enemies in my base waiting for the flag to return. So a return in that case could cause the other team to get a free cap.
While an enemy has your flag, that's a certainty bad thing no matter what.

[fronten]

An FC kill with no return is worthless

No, it isn't.

A return is actually only required if either the flag already has been moved a noticable distance towards the enemy base

is this done in game, - i mean the 'noticable distance'.
i really think that 'returns' of a flag only pixels away from base is no return at all and thus should not be rewarded.


anyway, i dont care much for points ,-)
it is fun or it is not.

cheers,
nosound / noteven

[Oblivion]

Nobody said an FC return is worthless or vice versa.

I just assumed that it did not give you points in the current system at all. I mean, I never even notice it bulking my score up so much, it's still returns that give the big points. And even if for example, I did the highest amount of fckills in the game, the guy who was closest to the enemy fc still has the higher points.

imo, they should be given equal importance. An fckill is definitely harder to do than a return. Hence why when alone with another teammate who did the kill, even if I'm closer I will let him return his own fckill because he deserves the points.

Back to the scoring system however (which is still not changed in the public servers, I see...)

It feels like us midlevel and the more inexperienced players are FORCED not to actually play and have fun but to attend to the whims of the best player in the team. And I resent that. What can be more boring than waiting for the best capper to return yet again for the 8th time, already racking up scores in the 200ths while you and your teammates on 'D' have measly 20's or something, and too scared to risk it for bad pickups.

In games where midlevel players are fighting against very good players ('stacked teams' which is happening more and more these days -_- and not involving noobs too, but experienced players who should know better than to play for scores against people they perfectly know will lose if they band up together all the time), it's quite common for groups of midlevel players to assault en masse until someone finally manages to get the enemy flag out of the flagroom. Some will then defend him all the way back to the base. The first FC usually dies even with his teammates defending him on the way back, and it's up to his teammate to pick it up and cap it. A relay system. The only thing wrong with this picture is this: There is always one who gets the negative scores, and it's the one who did all the hard work.

I am a low-level to midlevel player (ping dependent), and there's nothing I hate more than being told by the guy with the most caps in the team to 'Stay and defend!' even if the other team is actually no match for him alone anyway. They are also usually the guys who will never ever hit the 'Dropped Flag Here' button when they get killed on the way back, or switch teams when teams are stacked, or the ones who quit as soon as they feel like they are going to lose. Preferring to hog all the scores bigtime. Like anyone actually cares if you have 200 individual points, and a perfect 10-0 ctf score.

There is a big difference between being a teamplayer and being told to be the handservant of the bigscorers. -_- I don't play Nexuiz to become an automated defense system simply because my tactics are a bit more haphazard when flag-getting. Sure the highlevel players may be having fun, but his team aren't. But who cares right? Noobs are just cannon-fodder apparently, and the scoring system reflects this opinion of the new players.

I often cringe in sympathy at seeing new players get scores of -40, -60, etc. And believe it or not, This is getting VERY VERY COMMON. And you guys are wondering why there are far fewer new players nowadays. When you see your score get to the negatives THAT easily, you have no motivation to actually continue playing it. Noobs play an average of only 2 matches then quit in what I can tell as frustration. Timid players who don't even know how to laserjump yet, who never even speak one word because I'm sure they're too afraid to be laughed at for a -40 score.

Now compare this with the old scoring system. Where even as a noob I could score up to 20 easily enough. And -15 back then was a rare sight, even for a noob. I had the confidence to actually talk to other players and get more into nexuiz. Here's how I see it:

A noob then: "A score of 5? No problem, at least I'm not that guy over there with a -1, haha!. So how do you bunnyhop again?" (scores, highest: 60, lowest: -1)

A noob now: "...(damn i suck. i hate this game)..." (scores, highest: 250, lowest: -60)

I dunno bout you. But if I started playing a game where I get negatives THIS easily for attempting to actually play by the rules. I'd drop it and go play something more satisfying.

But then again... who cares about new players apparently -_- Nexuiz is getting so cliquish nowadays anyway. I'm getting sick of it.

[ai]

Back to the scoring system however (which is still not changed in the public servers, I see...)

Don't worry, I can say with pretty much confidence that the next version (2.5.3) will have a normal system. I think with a bit more tweaking of my system it will be implemented.

[lda17h]

Back to the scoring system however (which is still not changed in the public servers, I see...)

Don't worry, I can say with pretty much confidence that the next version (2.5.3) will have a normal system. I think with a bit more tweaking of my system it will be implemented.

I actually tell people to ignore the scoring system and just have fun.. I would do the following:

Do away with individual scores completely.. Just show the performed actions in the scoreboard like now [caps, pickups, frags, fckills, returns].. Maybe also secondary pickups..

For every player it is a very individual thing what he puts emphasis on. Sometimes i like to defend and all i give a shit about is how many fckills and returns i have. Sometimes i'm in mad attack mode and all i care for is caps..

The point is that whatever weights or scores you assign to the individual actions it will be wrong for the majority of players..