A Formal Letter of Complaint from a Humble Flag Thief

[Oblivion]

Rawr!

The purpose of this thread is to question the apparently pro-camping scoring system of the current version's CTF. As I understand it was implemented to encourage actual CTF and teamplay rather than focusing on individual scores like in the older versions. Here is why it fails:

1) It rewards flag caps generously. A bit too generously, but don't really have a problem with that.

2) It rewards flag returns but not fc kills. <- Does not promote defense but rather camping, since camping the flag itself is the only way you can ensure to pick up your flag immediately after killing the enemy fc. (i.e. 'oooh, enemy incoming!' *waits until he pounces on the flag, shoots him with a nex, happily returns the flag from the remains of the unfortunate flag grabber which has only actually moved a few inches from the flag base).

3) The most paradoxical of all. It punishes failed attempts at getting the enemy flag SEVERELY. I mean... what's the reasoning behind this? If anything else, attempting to get the enemy flag should be ENCOURAGED not punished by inflicting a score deduction IN ADDITION to the reward given to the happy camper for returning the fallen flag.

I know I know, I'm contradicting myself since I'm actually referring to individual scores even if I've already stated that they shouldn't really matter, and it should be teamplay first. But this is not the way to tell noobs that. To them, scores do matter. How are they supposed to think when the few times they attempt to actually play CTF and get the enemy flag they end up with negative scores? It gets also rather annoying when you've been the single most active player in the team, attempting to get the enemy flag by yourself because the rest of your team don't want their scores dirtied up by failed tries only to be blamed of the defeat because you have the lowest score. (think: Me, 15 pickups, -25 score; Random noob: 0 pickups, 60 score (all by camping the flag): "My team sucks! Especially Oblivion, look at his score! Newb!"). It's gotten so bad that nobody actually defends an incoming friendly FC or even pick up a dropped flag. Preferring to stay by our own flag and fragging enemy would-be FC's for individual points.

There are also quite a lot of instances when the only players who actually have caps and pickups have the lowest scores, while those who have 0 and 0 in pickup and caps boast high scores from camping.

I am by profession and by the tyranny of ping, a flag thief. I avoid confrontation basically since I suck at close quarters combat and go directly to getting the flag (although I do prioritize killing fc's too). I try and try again to get the enemy flag, regardless of wether I die trying and in the old system, even if I do fail A LOT I recover it when I do cap, and it keeps the game active instead of being campfest TDM's. Not to mention instances where I deliberately pick up the enemy flag even when I know I will die just so I can stall an enemy cap and give time for my other teammates to kill him and return our flag. Why am I punished for that noble act of self-sacrifice!

I know what the scoring was meant to achieve and I've seen the past semi-flamewars about this. But to put it simply, when implemented: it doesn't work.

Perhaps it does in all-pro private servers, but do try and see the scores on public servers. The reasoning is this: It's infinitely easier to kill an enemy fc and return the flag than it is to get an enemy flag and cap it.

[ai]

3) The most paradoxical of all. It punishes failed attempts at getting the enemy flag SEVERELY. I mean... what's the reasoning behind this? If anything else, attempting to get the enemy flag should be ENCOURAGED not punished by inflicting a score deduction IN ADDITION to the reward given to the happy camper for returning the fallen flag.

Good luck trying to change that. I was radically against this before it was implemented, but no one listened. Somehow, people think it's a good thing to be punished for trying to capture the flag.

There are several ctf.cfg files, one with the name 'ai' in it I believe. That's the scoring system that everyone are familiar with and makes the most sense. However, having this crazy punish scoring system as default is what's the problem, as people are lazy to change the settings from default, are too lazy to read what's the difference between the scoring systems or just wanna go with the default as that's 'how the game is meant to be'.

There has been tons and tons of complaints from actual players that they disliked the scoring system, but as said, no one seems to listen to them.
Oh and as an add-on to this. This system has been in place for some time now, and I haven't seen teamplay become any better than before. So it won't hurt going back to a sane scoring system.

Posting this for those who don't know:
Basically this was Z's idea. He wanted to stop the senseless waves after waves on the flag, and with nothing to deter people from trying to cap this wouldn't stop. So introducing a negative score for these senseless attacks could potentially reduce the enemy waves on the flag. However, this isn't a good idea as even the good players (who aren't attacking senselessly all the time) would be punished for a select few bad players.
It's like introducing a tax increase on every tax, just because a few doesn't pay taxes. Everyone else suffers, not the actual bad people.

[C.Brutail]

Well, imho in CTF individual scores don't mean anything. It's a teamgame afterall. I'm not even sure why this was implemented in the first place.
Anyway, it's good you've come up with this. I'll look for the configs, and I'll change DCC CTF to the most sane settings.

[pain_fedora6]

That's nice C. Brutail !

I don't feel like reviving this discussion, but actually teams with good defence/defenders are the teams that are actually winning most of the time lets say in a balanced match now. That;s not necessarily bad : ) . Some ppl have grown themselves 2 be this way really strong defenders (which btw does require willpower and concentration ) .

However i feel funny 2 be honest to c ppl with 25 flag attempts / 3 caps being happy with themselves trying suicidal lemming-style attacks waiting 4 the flag room 2 be empty and complaining about campdom when its heavily guarded. Even in the good old day's of uberpwning clink in say e.x greatwall , capture was still possible with a well organized 3-4 ppl attack (...and possibly having grisu/xeno/mis(r)io on the team helped).

[Oblivion]

That's nice C. Brutail !

I don't feel like reviving this discussion, but actually teams with good defence/defenders are the teams that are actually winning most of the time lets say in a balanced match now. That;s not necessarily bad : ) . Some ppl have grown themselves 2 be this way really strong defenders (which btw does require willpower and concentration ) .

However i feel funny 2 be honest to c ppl with 25 flag attempts / 3 caps being happy with themselves trying suicidal lemming-style attacks waiting 4 the flag room 2 be empty and complaining about campdom when its heavily guarded. Even in the good old day's of uberpwning clink in say e.x greatwall , capture was still possible with a well organized 3-4 ppl attack (...and possibly having grisu/xeno/mis(r)io on the team helped).

Thing is, scoring system is heavily skewed towards defending. I tried it out today. First few maps I tried my best to get the enemy flag. Results are either I remained in the mids of the scores or I end up way down at the bottom. The caps I did which helped our team further didn't even matter. Then I tried camping, refusing to touch the enemy flag and just camp our flag room with a nex. Guess what? Not only did I not get a negative score, I also was among the top two highest scorers for several games.

What message does that say?

Greatwall was a camping map, thing was, when we were playing that map, the old scoring system ensured that the campers ALWAYS get lower scores than those who actually attacked in teams and whatnot.

Agree that a good team usually has most of the members defending with only one or two flag-getters. But even then, the flag getters usually end up at the bottom of the pile.

Not saying revert to the old system, but it should be modified to be somewhere in between. With flag-getters getting lower penalties and higher rewards than campers (which is easy). In comparison to the current system which has -5 for losing a flag, and +8 (I think) for killing an fc and returning the flag.

[Dokujisan]

the whole point of the individual scoring is to show who did the most to help win the match. I remember the loooong discussions about this scoring system. The main theory behind the current scoring system is that it does NOT reward people who dive at the flag 40 times in a match and only cap 3 times.

The truth is that, in most public CTF matches, teamwork is not needed to be successful. This is because of the fast laser movement in Nexuiz. Most players ignore their FC and there is usually only 1-2 people on the whole team who cap the flag. Teamwork is only needed when everyone in the match is of a high skill level (like in good clan matches). So the scoring system aims at countering this problem. I think it fails with this goal.

When scoring was being discussed last year, I was trying to suggest ideas that encouraged assisting the flag carrier. Some of us tried to think of a way to score points when you are within a radius of your FC. That idea doesn't work because how big would that radius be? and it would not include snipers who also protect the FC. It would have to be defined as "anyone attacking an enemy that is aiming at their FC". I have no idea if Nexuiz could detect such a thing.

Also, whether a match is played mostly offense or mostly defense depends largely on the map.

Some examples...

EvilspaceCTF : mostly offense. It's very difficult to protect the flag area on this map. The flag area is too exposed and there aren't many weapons right next to the flag. Due to the jumppads, it's easy to traverse the map quickly.

FacingWorlds: mostly defense. Too many nexes, but also the base is very small and has lots of holes in it. Once someone grabs the flag, they can get back to their base quickly. So this makes players want to camp outside base with the nex even more.

Hydronex: mostly defense. Very limited entry into the base. The map is setup for nex battles with the bunker. The water is a big pain in the ass and people get caught in it a lot. But also, the pathways are setup practically like a speed run map. This makes people want to camp even more. Once someone grabs the flag, they can get back to base in a few seconds.

There are some maps that encourage a balance of offense/defense, like mIKEctf2 and RunningmanCTF

So, in conclusion, the scoring does need adjustment in more fundamental way. It needs more methods for analysis than just frags, deaths, pickups, flag drops and flag caps.

But also, maps need to really put emphasis on balance between encouraging offense/defense.

[ai]

Hydronex: mostly defense. [...] The water is a big pain in the ass and people get caught in it a lot.

I think that's the point of the water. It's to be an obstacle so that people shouldn't be able to even more easily cap the flag. Besides, the water is underrated, it's a great way to get into the enemys' part of the base, hardly anyone checks the water and I use that a lot. While the armor being there gives even a bigger reason why to enter it. In fact, the first thing I do when this map is chosen is to get into the water and pick up both of those armors (our and the enemys).

[Oblivion]

EvilspaceCTF : mostly offense. It's very difficult to protect the flag area on this map. The flag area is too exposed and there aren't many weapons right next to the flag. Due to the jumppads, it's easy to traverse the map quickly.

TBH I prefer these kinds of open maps. I like roofless maps I can not lie. The reason is that they are much more dynamic than balanced or camping maps. With people jumping all over the place.

In this case, defense does not mean camping the flag room, defense takes on a more active role which actually necessitates getting the enemy flag as soon as possible. They are hunting maps, which requires the fc's to run and hide with his teammates defending him, leaving him HP etc. Much more teamwork than say... Hydronex, where everyone mostly plays for himself. With the 'flag rooms' becoming more mobile, so to say, as 'defense' itself consists primarily of eliminating the enemy fc and have your own fc cap before the enemy can take the flag again.

Again the problem with that is that even getting the enemy flag just to prevent an enemy fc from capping effortlessly is punished. You aren't actually doing nothing by getting the enemy flag and then running as far away as possible until you die then get it again quickly. You ARE actually helping the team by ensuring that the enemy can not cap. Not to mention of course that you will be able to cap if given enough time window.

That is team play to me. And I still don't get why the focus of the nerfs is on the flag-getters while the campers are actually rewarded. Sure, lemming flag-getting strategies are noobish but AFAIK no one has actually complained about them, they aren't the problem in CTF. In fact, they help, even if you don't get to actually cap it. How many times have someone else grabbed the flag from right under my nose just when I was about to cap with his teammates hot on my trail, kill me, and then get himself killed too from our defenders. The result is zero caps for both teams and damn good teamwork and quick thinking. And yet... and yet... we both get -5. How twisted is that?

To me, the current system smells more like something tailor-fit to a playing style of a few select players, not the majority. I hazard to say, the ones who camp 90% of the time, and spend 10% getting the flag from a demoralized enemy team when they're most vulnerable.

Each player has his own style. There are campers (who distasteful as they may be are certianly useful), defenders, speedrunners, snipers, relayers, weapon thieves (who denude an enemy camp of weapons and ammo), tanked flag getters, strength users, fc hunters, and even meatshields who jump in front of enemy pursuing friendly fc's. Why does it focus on one group (speedrunners/flag thieves) that have never annoyed anyone as much as campers do and penalize them?

[Silica Gel: Do Not Eat]

Dear Flag Thieves

The current scoring system in a conspiracy against you by us defenders. It is payback for all the times we had to hear how awesome you are because you got a bunch of caps. While us defenders defend the base , the flag, and the flag carrier. We are rocketing opponents away from the flag, keeping the base clear and sniping the FC's pursuers. What do we get for our trouble? We get called CAMPERS. When we are on your team you don't seam to mind too much because lo and behold your flag is still at the base when you go to cap. But when we are on the opposing team We're goddamn campers. WTF So in retaliation for repeatedly being called campers we convinced the powers that be to penalize you severely for flag pickups. We almost had it so you would be slower when you had the flag. So keep calling us campers and see what happens

Yours Truly
Defender "Flag Security Officer"



Defender - person who defends your flag
Camper - person who defends enemy flag

[Flying Steel]

I agree that the scoring system is broken. It should only reward scoring and frags and maybe count flag frags as double frags.

Defender - person who defends your flag
Camper - person who defends enemy flag

That's not a camper that's a midfielder (or trailblazer or saboteur). Don't provoke us midfielders into writing a letter to you defenders now. :p