[CTF] - My Views on the Game and the Current Scoring System

[nifrek]

This was discussed on irc but here's my take.

These suggestions are for public servers, not for competitive matches.

Basically a match would be won ONLY by caps/returns. So Kills/Deaths = not part of who wins or who loses, but they could still be shown on the scoreboard for statistics.

(those are not real numbers I would suggest but only to give an idea, point ratio between caps/returns could be worked on but would require testing)
Cap = 25 points
Return = 5 points
Team losing enemy flag that gets returned = -5

On the scoreboard, cap and return points goes to team score, not to players. The Caps/Returns/Kills/Deaths per player become only statistics about who did what.

ie: If you cap, you get 1 added to your "Caps" points and your teamscore gets 25 points. If you return flag, you get 1 added to your "Returns" and your teamscore gets 5 points, opposing teamscore gets -5. The points given to players are not counted in team score, they're only statistics to show who did what.

Defending becomes important and attacking requires good teamplay to not hurt your team. It's definitely possible that a team ends up in the negatives if their players do kamikaze attacks without teamplay and don't ever defend. I think the -5 to your team when you die as a FC would make a huge difference on how players perceive attacking. In that perspective, you could even add a "flag pickups" column or something with a better name, along with caps/returns/kills/deaths to show players success ratio as flag runners. That way, if you play like idiot, people will know. They'll see if you have 10 flag pickups but 0 caps that you're hurting your team pretty bad.

But the only real way to make this work would be to have a way to give "award" points of some sort. ie: Killing enemies that are running after your fc (determined by a radius around fc) or enemies who did damage to fc in the last few seconds before you killed them could award you with a point for protecting fc. Obviously this feature is not possible with nexuiz yet, but that way players would feel useful even if they're not doing caps and encourage them to help other players because there would be something visual that everyone can see. So imho this would be good for teamplay.

[Alien]

To nifrek:

The second most scored activity is flag returns. The latter is supposed to prevent people from diving at the flag at every opportunity, even when they don't have proper team backup, because it gives a negative consequence if you lose the flag. Instead of acting to prevent the flag-diving behavior, people still dive at the flag anyway and it often causes one team to focus heavily on defense and rack up flag capture points. This is not the intended effect of flag return points (I don't think). That strategy of sitting in base and racking up flag return points, to me, is a version of "playing the system", even though I've done it plenty of times before.

I agree -5 will increase camping and spamming even more than it is now.

You forget that in 3vs3 it's much harder to defend the flag then in 8vs8.

[sev]

I think what would be really important is some obvious and direct feedback, no matter what point system is used. Something like a big number at the top (+20 in green, or -5 in red) with an explanation underneath it (Complete Flag Capture, or Lost Flag).

With this, servers could more easily use different point systems, without confusing the player too much, as they can immediately see why points are given or taken, and play accordingly.

I'm in favour of the "1 capture = 1 team point" system (as this is the purpose of CTF), with 1 additional column for the summarised points of the individual player (not contributing to the end result, but displaying the individual contribution). These individual points should be defined by the server, and stated clearly in a direct feedback as described. This could go as far as "-2 , For not changing position during last 30 seconds" (If this is possible to monitor )

[[-z-]]

Code: Select all

(Pk-Pd)+2*(1+Fs*(Fk+Fr-Fd))
----------------------------------
(Tp/Tt)


Such a formula for scores in the game is NOT AN OPTION. It simply is too complex.

Too complex in respect to processing speed or what? It comes down to simple algebra that requires no new information than what's already available.

First problem: if you never have returned a flag, captures HARM your score. What is with that?

If you only dropped the flag and didn't kill the flag carrier or return it, yes you'll get a negative mutator because dropping the flag multiple times is not contributing to the team.

Second problem: If you have returned a flag 5 times, but died with a flag 10 times, capturing HARMS your score. What is with that?

This is where the sub mutators would come into play, giving Fs a 4x value and a drop a 1x for example. Then it would be 20-10 and be positive, depending on how the admin likes CTF to be played.

Third problem: You join 5 seconds before the end of a 20 minutes game, and kill someone. That means 240 points for you. What is with that?

Sorry for the confusing, my examples are dated, using the older formula. The new formula divides the players played time by the total time, so 5 seconds over 20 minutes = 0.00416 or 0.04% of the game. However, testing my theory, over the percentage is wrong, it should be multiplied by it >_<.

Code: Select all

((Pk-Pd)+2*(1+Fs*(Fk+Fr-Fd))) * (Tp/Tt)


And the final problem: such a formula is simply too complex to base scoring on. Although nonlinear scoring (where the same action does not always give the same score) sounds interesting and will help balance, it simply is not transparent to the players - which is why no sport does that. People would not understand any more WHY some team has won.

Yes, I'm not saying use it as the way to score. I want flag caps to be the decider, I want this system as a secondary system to provide an incentive for teamwork.

So even if the formula did not have the aforementioned bugs - it is not an option to decide team scores on.

I agree, minus a tie. I think it would be cool to be able to award the team with better team play the win in the event of a tie.

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Map example: facing worlds, hydronex, basically any map with direct nex vs nex combat involved. Enemies will kill you if you jump around in the map stocking up.

Does not matter how fast players move cause they can still be shot with nex. Item strings are available only then when you're playing with and vs team, which does not care about them.

In Facing Worlds, it's as simple as getting a rocket launcher, the mega shield outside your base and rocketing yourself to the health in the center, then rocketing yourself to the enemy's mega shield. You may at this point want to grab one of the 3 nexes available at the enemy base if you haven't grabbed one from yours.

For hydronex, fire 3 or so rockets at the bunker while you're running towards the enemy base and they'll scatter or at the least back off. Assuming you have now directed them towards the back of the bunker, have a mortar ready for it's fast refire and ability to screw up a nexer's aim and start bouncing secondaries to give you a set of "landmines" that tip you off if the enemy is looking for you.

You shouldn't have more than 2 other wpns in addition to 2 starting ones.

lol wut? A player can hold 10 weapons. Seeing as how they respawn every 15, it's asinine to limit yourself. That's your own personal shit causing you problems.

I know morfar weapon stats, but I can also see how it is not used almost by anyone and general people opinion. That high damage is achieved only when you're basically touching your oponent.

Shotgun is used by every one of the more experienced players. It's a very powerful weapon that just takes practice. Having that attitude is going to hurt your abilities as a Nexuiz player because as I said earlier, you can kill someone in 3 shots.

And there is no and probably will never be any communication in public ctf.

I communicate on CTF all the time and I play with a few others that do as well. Dokujisan just setup a mumble server to help this issue even more.

Btw, I know I'm not fast. I've seen jLue playing (or teaching me) and I know that I lack a lot speed and skill in speed movement, but even it won't help in certain situations.

Again, I think you'd be surprised just how limitless the possibilities can be when you begin to wrap your mind around the physics in the game.

Unconsciously, my mind says, "I need this force to push me at this angle at this velocity while only taking away this much health with only these weapons available while I'm posed this much of a threat by the enemy."

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(those are not real numbers I would suggest but only to give an idea, point ratio between caps/returns could be worked on but would require testing)
Cap = 25 points
Return = 5 points
Team losing enemy flag that gets returned = -5

This is how I weight them on the Nexuiz Ninjaz servers.

Code: Select all

timelimit_override 12            // global timelimit for all maps and gametypes
fraglimit_override 150           // global frag/point limit for all maps and gametypes

g_ctf_capture_limit 150          // frag/capture limit for CTF
g_ctf_flagscore_capture_team 2   // each player gets this many points on a flag capture
g_ctf_flagscore_capture 15       // The player that caps the flag gets this many points
g_ctf_flagscore_pickup -5        // 5 point deposit on pickup
g_ctf_flagscore_return 5         // 5 points for returning the flag


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I think what would be really important is some obvious and direct feedback, no matter what point system is used. Something like a big number at the top (+20 in green, or -5 in red) with an explanation underneath it (Complete Flag Capture, or Lost Flag).

Awesome idea! Visual cues would DEFINITELY help. Preferably not using centerprint though ;o) (unless it was higher and more stylized like in OpenArena.

[Dokujisan]

I think what would be really important is some obvious and direct feedback, no matter what point system is used. Something like a big number at the top (+20 in green, or -5 in red) with an explanation underneath it (Complete Flag Capture, or Lost Flag).

Yes, I mentioned this briefly earlier, but it's a very important aspect of making a more complex scoring system work. People will be able to follow the scoring if they can SEE that they have a "modifier" on their screen and it's made very obvious. I've seen this type of concept in a lot of games, especially RPGs, and it doesn't confuse anyone. You attack with a modifier and it does more (or less) damage. People can grasp that concept. They just need to see it on their screen.

Imagine playing a CTF match where you are protecting the FC and when you kill someone, it shows "+5 defending flag carrier", or something like that.

[[-z-]]

Imagine playing a CTF match where you are protecting the FC and when you kill someone, it shows "+5 defending flag carrier", or something like that.

With a sprite above their head? Like a smiley face for good job and a sad face for losing points (dropping flag)?

[GreEn`mArine]

From what I could extract from this thread using my messed up brain this evening, I think -z-'s ideas are good. I mean, we all agree that scoring should still primarily be based on the flag-captures, but the idea to give a score for all the actions you do in a game (considered by this formula) would really help to "rank" people, so that the server knows their ability/skill in the game and could use that for team balacing in the next rounds (on the next map).

I hope I got that intention right.

[[-z-]]

From what I could extract from this thread using my messed up brain this evening...I hope I got that intention right.

Your brain is fine, you hit the nail on the head

[ai]

I am one of those who like the old school, or 'vanilla' CTF as some call it. Meaning, 1 cap = 1 score for the team.
Of course there should be individual scoring system like frags, deaths, jumps, hits taken, hits made, religion, gender, hair color, breed, blood type, favorite color, favorite food, etc. etc. etc. Well at least the first two.
I know many people think that 1 cap = 1 team score is a bad thing and would hurt gameplay. But look at all the other games out there who have this system. I know for a fact that UT works pretty well. Of course they have that adrenaline reward thing but still. I also think it all boils down to time. Of course some people will hate it and other will need time to get over with because they are used to what it is now. But this current state ISN'T CTF, no matter how much you tell yourself that. It actually IS TDM with just a different set of rules.

Now I would consider having some other system in place than 1 cap = 1 team score, but the bottom line is this. A CTF game should ONLY be decided by flag captures, and possibly flag returns. Not by individual frags or whatever else my be going on.

If people like the current system with this TDM/CTF, create a new mode which is called Team Deathmatch, Now With Flags, i.e. TDMNWF or whatever. I really wish for a real CTF though.

[morfar]

I really wish for a real CTF though.

In svn you can have this by changing a simple cvar. I have no idea why this isn't default yet. Since almost everybody wants that.
Captures should be the only thing that decides a winning team. I have been saying this for years now.

I have no opinions at all about this advanced math scoring system. I trust it's fine for individual scores but I don't really care about that. It's the team effort that counts.