Confessions of a typefragger

[Flying Steel]

The more I think about it now, the more it seems like in CTF at least, you need to shoot typists. And when you type, you need to be able to shoot at any time without it being considered backstabbing. There just is no other way that won't imbalance the game.

Because typing is important for team communication, but it is not more important than eliminating a dangerous local threat. So both the typist and other player need to be able to go to blows immediately. The typist should just slam his 'enter' key mid sentence and start shooting.

An enemy in your base could steal your flag, an enemy in his own base will interfere with your flag carrier and an enemy in no man's land can be a threat to either.

The only exception is someone in the distant periphery, assuming he has no sniper weapon or the map isn't too open and assuming there is an out of the way spot on that map in the first place. And then he is imbalancing the game against his own team by taking himself so far out of action just to chat (unless his team has an extra player).

And finally CTF isn't scored based on frags anyway, so this isn't really a "free kill".

[Yoda almighty]

how about a pause type button? if an enemy is in front of you, and you are typing, you can temporarily save it, and defend yourself, and when you are done, you can start typing where you left off.

[Flying Steel]

That's not a bad idea.

Another is that if you try to start shooting with a left or right mouse click, it cancels the message or pauses it, instantly restoring your movement and firing controls to you.


So basically, the idea is if there is any technical solution to this problem, it is by making typists less vulnerable and thus fair game and incapable of backstabbing (since you are already shooting at them without remorse and expecting the same in return).

[Mirio]

write with console then

[halogene]

This is not a bad idea indeed. That would eliminate the backstabbing problem, I think. Though I'd most probably still like to be polite and not to frag typos. But that's my fault then and I can deal with it

A solution like this would make chatting more convenient and easier in general. You'd of course have to be able to disable such function via cvar client-side.

Edit: Oh, and left-clicking should not immediately shoot, of course, but restore movement and fire controls.

But what if you use team chat and fire and want to use global chat after that? What about preconfigured chat binds used while half-typed message is still in cache? I think in those cases the cached content should be either discarded or stored until the next time the respective chat command is placed. Like this:

Player starts to type into team-chat, then fires before pressing return, does some fighting, then says globally "woha, how did you do that?" via global chat, informs the team that he/she is going to defend via bind, and then starts to team-chat again, where his half-typed message is being displayed to him again.

That way we would need most probably a cache for team chat as well as for global chat, since you could be interrupted while saying "woha, how did you do that?" as well. I could imagine that hitting "esc" while chatting would be a good way to instantly delete the whole message, which might be also quite useful then if the half-typed contents is already outdated.

Another edit (I get quite enthusiastic about this idea...): The most simple solution would most probably be to implement extra chat commands (global, team and maybe even "tell") that provide this functionality, in order not to interfere with the existing chat commands. That way we could leave everything as it is and add the functionality without problems. Every player may choose to use the extended command or the standard command for his chat binds.

[fronten]

i concur with Flying Steel

In CTF any reason for Chat is a reason to be fragged.

i mean, any idlers for more than, say, 10 seconds should be kicked to spectate mode.
anything else is imbalancing.
people who can't get their message across that window should be banished, er, punished.

btw:
oh well, and picking the flag should light a message 'You have the Flag', just in case.
or any other sign to show you what you are carrying.
(eliminating all those 'wtf- i had the flag?'- posts, - 'hey xyz, you have the flag, now cap!')
[few are playing in 3rd person mode, where you can that you actually carry)

[Mirio]

[quote="fronten"btw:
oh well, and picking the flag should light a message 'You have the Flag', just in case.
or any other sign to show you what you are carrying.
(eliminating all those 'wtf- i had the flag?'- posts, - 'hey xyz, you have the flag, now cap!')
[few are playing in 3rd person mode, where you can that you actually carry)[/quote]

big enough imo:
(click)

[parasti]

There are multiple patches on dev.alientrap.org adding a centerprint for picked up flags.

[Komier]

To eliminate the frustration of being typefragged while holding many weapons and having much health and armour, I simply kill myself. I bound "g" as suicide, and use it often. The 5 second delay is my most hated enemy, since if I fall off the edge while doing a trickjump or whatever, I cannot kill myself to speed the process. As long as you don't autospawn after death, killing yourself is good.

[ai]

i mean, any idlers for more than, say, 10 seconds should be kicked to spectate mode.
anything else is imbalancing.

You can't seriously believe that? People have to go to bathrooms, check on kids, check the kitchen etc. There will always be people doing something else when playing, 10 second window is too small.
Some people bring down the console when they go afk, that would bring up the chat symbol. This 'feature' would be the most annoying feature in history. Besides, sometimes it does take very long to type something, not everyone are skilled or fast enough to say what they want to.
I sometimes write very long lines and not all of the time do I type fast, especially if I did many typos I had to correct.

PS. I vote for a better icon when you are carrying the flag. The current 'pickuped' flag symbol is the same as a 'fallen on the ground' symbol. At first I had a very hard time knowing where the hell the symbol for a picked up flag was and was wondering if I had it.
IMO, the old version was much better visual representative in this matter. I vote for 3 different symbols, one 'fallen', one when you have the flag and one when a teammate has the flag.
Maybe even adding a centerprint that lasts a second or two when you pick up the flag or a print somewhere near the flag symbols saying you have the flag.