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

[divVerent]

Against, as has been discussed to death. Should probably close the topic and ban everyone who opens a new one on this.

Nexuiz IS NOT "all the other games".

Nexuiz is much faster than UT.
Nexuiz is played with more players on smaller maps.

These two factors mean:

In 8vs8 CTF, an unproductive player hurts the team much less than in the usual 3vs3 in e.g. UT. Therefore, there should be scores that punish unproductive team members, like, those who enter the enemy base, take the flag and get killed every single time because they always do it alone. That is what flag return points are for.

Also: a kamikaze capture run has much higher chances to succeed in Nexuiz than in UT. In UT, players are much slower, so it is easy to catch up with the enemy flag carrier. He can't use the translocator, while everyone else can. In Nexuiz, there is just a single chance for the defenders to stop the flag carrier. One Nex shot. If you hit, he's dead. If you miss, he's out of your view in the 1.5 seconds reload time.

So if ONLY captures count, this would favor single kamikaze runs in Nexuiz. Out of 20 attempts, one is bould to succeed as your defenders simply CANNOT have a >95% success rate.

Caps-only scoring ONLY works on maps that work against one or two of these factors.

E.g. hydronex, which has a VERY strong defense as defenders spawn in a good spot for getting runaway flag carriers.

Or tznex03, which has many angled hallways working against the high player speed of Nexuiz.

[ai]

That's what the talk about handicapping the flag carrier is for. There was a talk about that before, dunno what happened to it. There was something like making sure the FC wouldn't be able to gain that much speed as he can now. Cause that's just ridiculously big speed.

[[-z-]]

In Nexuiz, there is just a single chance for the defenders to stop the flag carrier. One Nex shot. If you hit, he's dead. If you miss, he's out of your view in the 1.5 seconds reload time.

Properly laid out teams (defense, midfield, offense) with proper communication can thwart this. Isn't that why police do with runaway cars? Radio to their buddies and tell them to lay out the spike strips?

If you want everything to be handed to you and prefer "shooting fish in a barrel" as opposed to creative thinking combined with communication, sure, there is only one way. Personally, I enjoy trying to set traps for the flag carrier? It's quite rewarding feeling when you drop the flag, especially when it's inches from capping.

Or tznex03, which has many angled hallways working against the high player speed of Nexuiz.

You mean make it totally awesome like mikectf2? I love swooshing around in Nexuiz Physics at high speed.

[Alien]

This will be a long response, both to z and to div.

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)

Now if i played 3 mins from 20, my score is multiplied by 0,15 but if i played 20/20 by 1? Why? If I managed to achieve same thing in less time why my score should be lower?

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 oversimplify everything. It seems like your opponents are bots but not living players. There isn't general winning strategy. Otherwise anyone would use it. Personally in fw you can easily be vaporized by roof campers while you will be going to take shield. Nex defenders not necessarily should stay in the bunker and better ones do not stay there at all.

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.

Remember it's 8vs8 not 3vs3. I generally hate people who grab all the weapons they can. Does not matter that they will respawn in 15 secs. 15 secs is almost always enough to capture flag (from my nose).

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.

I'll stay at my opinion. It's bad I don't see those more experienced players a lot. I already stated my opinion about sg lots of times.

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.

Good knowledge of physics increase your chance to survive but does not make you invincible.

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."

I would agree talking about dm or 3vs3 ctf but not 8vs8 cause you don't/can't know where all the enemies are.

sev wrote:
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.

Agree 100% with visual feedback. q3 had assist, defense, etc with visual icons displayed for some of your skills.

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.
Captures should be the only thing that decides a winning team. I have been saying this for years now.

I agree with ai and morfar. Oldschool ctf . Now you lose because your teammates are fragged > 100 times by camping and spamming team of your opponents. There is no incentive to attack while you can WIN defending. If you go to minus with unsuccessful attacks, that's even worse. It's better lose trying to attack then win without trying.

In 8vs8 CTF, an unproductive player hurts the team much less than in the usual 3vs3 in e.g. UT. Therefore, there should be scores that punish unproductive team members, like, those who enter the enemy base, take the flag and get killed every single time because they always do it alone. That is what flag return points are for.

Firstly, they should punish the players not teams.

Also: a kamikaze capture run has much higher chances to succeed in Nexuiz than in UT. In UT, players are much slower, so it is easy to catch up with the enemy flag carrier. He can't use the translocator, while everyone else can. In Nexuiz, there is just a single chance for the defenders to stop the flag carrier. One Nex shot. If you hit, he's dead. If you miss, he's out of your view in the 1.5 seconds reload time.

Kamikaze attack is 99,9999% useless if team has at least 4 dedicated and good defenders.

So if ONLY captures count, this would favor single kamikaze runs in Nexuiz. Out of 20 attempts, one is bould to succeed as your defenders simply CANNOT have a >95% success rate.

You can have 100% success rate (seen that a lot of (and I mean TOO MANY)) times.



It seems you don't pay attention to that with increasing player count it's getting easier and easier to defend and much much harder to attack. Trying to make it fit both 3vs3 and 8vs8 is imho illogical.

Why 1 point for 1 capture is good (in my opinion). It was justified in plenty of other fps. Q3 had much more speed than UT and yet it used 1 point 1 capture. 1 point 1 capture will make Nexuiz more dynamic game where whole team (even noobs) will TRY to attack. It will make them learn laser jumping, bunnyhopping and corner cutting instead of rushing to the nearest nex/crylink. If enemy kills your defenders/grabs your flag , hunting down enemy fc, protecting your own becomes main priorities. Hunting and protecting yourself across whole map with insane speeds means more action than trying to grab the flag 10th time in a row alone.

About deaths and team play. Good defenders should get some appreciation like you now get rage, massacre, berserker, etc... eg., assist (call it differently), body defense/sacrifice, something for pickup, etc...

This is why sometimes deaths mean good thing. It's better to die while defending your fc with your own body then trying to stay alive all the time (cause CTF is not TDMNWF )

[[-z-]]

This will be a long response, both to z and to div.

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)

Now if i played 3 mins from 20, my score is multiplied by 0,15 but if i played 20/20 by 1? Why? If I managed to achieve same thing in less time why my score should be lower?

Hmmm we then I guess it _is_ divided by

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 oversimplify everything. It seems like your opponents are bots but not living players. There isn't general winning strategy. Otherwise anyone would use it. Personally in fw you can easily be vaporized by roof campers while you will be going to take shield. Nex defenders not necessarily should stay in the bunker and better ones do not stay there at all.

Maybe you make things out to be much more difficult than they really are. I know my opponents and I state these facts based on this knowledge and my experience. If you're getting vaped by nexers in fw, apply the long distance rocket technique with a dash of mg or crylink, it'll be enough for them to backup for a few seconds, giving you a window to rocket yourself.

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.

Remember it's 8vs8 not 3vs3. I generally hate people who grab all the weapons they can. Does not matter that they will respawn in 15 secs. 15 secs is almost always enough to capture flag (from my nose).

Well if you recall me saying earlier that I usually steal the enemy's items, you can leave that hatorade on the bench.

Besides, that's not an argument against carrying more than 2 weapons.

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.

I'll stay at my opinion. It's bad I don't see those more experienced players a lot. I already stated my opinion about sg lots of times.

Well, continue playing with this mentality and you'll die more often. Not learning how to utilize a default weapon puts you at a disadvantage.

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.

Good knowledge of physics increase your chance to survive but does not make you invincible.

Didn't say it makes me invincible but it sure keeps me out of a lot of trouble.

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."

I would agree talking about dm or 3vs3 ctf but not 8vs8 cause you don't/can't know where all the enemies are.

I don't need to know where ALL of the enemies are. I need to know which ones pose a potential threat. The potential threat is a dynamic measurement based on match events, combat situations, personal status and teammate positions.

[Alien]

If it is divided, then if i've played 5 secs and killed 1 person, my score would be 720.
If I killed 100 persons and died 0 times (:D), but played all game time, my score would be 102.

I hope I'll see you sometime on (European) public CTF. Maybe the gameplay is very different between European and American players. At least, I'm starting to make this opinion.

[divVerent]

In Nexuiz, there is just a single chance for the defenders to stop the flag carrier. One Nex shot. If you hit, he's dead. If you miss, he's out of your view in the 1.5 seconds reload time.

Properly laid out teams (defense, midfield, offense) with proper communication can thwart this. Isn't that why police do with runaway cars? Radio to their buddies and tell them to lay out the spike strips?

You often have only 3 seconds time from flag to flag. How to COMMUNICATE in that little amount of time?

Or tznex03, which has many angled hallways working against the high player speed of Nexuiz.

You mean make it totally awesome like mikectf2? I love swooshing around in Nexuiz Physics at high speed.

mikectf2 also works well. It limits player speed by its many corners and curves, but does not make it unenjoyable like terrain maps do. Also, on that map you actually have chances to communicate.

There now IS a change in place to give flag carriers just 70% force from self damage (e.g. laser jumping). Let's see if that slows down flag carriers enough. Slowing them down TOTALLY (like forbidding them to use the laser) is too much, one would not have a chance to capture AT ALL without really good team mates - it would make defending far too easy. This 70% reduction however may be the edge a pursuer needs to catch up.

[Alien]

No!!! Wait. Will be it by default?

That's wrong, totally wrong. I disagree with it with all my heart. Really. That's practically almost ruins CTF. It's not enough that crylinkers stops you with negative force, almost anyone can shot you with nex, now you limit the speed of flag carrier. Why???

If this will be as bad as I think, CTF popularity will go down soon. And CTF is the most popular part of Nexuiz.

[[-z-]]

You often have only 3 seconds time from flag to flag. How to COMMUNICATE in that little amount of time?

3 seconds is a bit mellow dramatic. But a good offender would know when he hears 'flag taken' or sees the indicator, to run towards the enemy flag, try to pick off the flag carrier or worst case, if he cannot find the enemy fc, grab the enemy flag to stop him from scoring.

A simple keybind that says, "I need help" or "chasing enemy fc" with a waypoint would give the offensive line a better idea of where to help.

[TVR [Public Terminal]]

No!!! Wait. Will be it by default?

That's wrong, totally wrong. I disagree with it with all my heart. Really. That's practically almost ruins CTF. It's not enough that crylinkers stops you with negative force, almost anyone can shot you with nex, now you limit the speed of flag carrier. Why???

If this will be as bad as I think, CTF popularity will go down soon. And CTF is the most popular part of Nexuiz.

Perhaps it will chide more players into carrying keys in Keyhunt, a flag-running experience with genuine, viable strategies for everyone else.