Hello people!

I'm starting this topic to collect your opinions/suggestions on the "real" race mode (sorry for using "real", it's to avoid confusion with what most race servers have become)
"Real" race consists of a short qualifying phase, where players complete laps to determine who will spawn first on the main racing phase, where player interaction is possible. This is what the race mode was intended to be, before more challenging "puzzly" maps came, and kind of took over the game mode.

Remember, this topic is not about CTS.

I sincerely count on positive contributions, and I hope you'll make an effort to avoid turning this into a flaming argument

As a separate game mode, sure. Then at least the maps will be separated.

Perhaps Team Race should be default, then there could be dedicated fraggers and runners on each team.

Problem is that this would require quite many players on a server to work. Plus, it gets unbalanced if one team has more players than the other.

As for that part, maybe adjusting the scoring could help, just, how? Maybe it should not count 1 point, but as many points as the enemy team has players, for completing a lap? Still would make the lap limit weird, as it would be reached fast with many players and never with few players. Fractional points? Please not

So currently, Team Race only works for pre-set up races, where you know the player count in advance and thus ensure it is equal.

divVerent wrote:Problem is that this would require quite many players on a server to work. Plus, it gets unbalanced if one team has more players than the other.

isnt auto-team a solution for this ? there it could be really useful

We all know that forced autobalance is sometimes wrong... Though here it is true that player counts do matter...

divVerent wrote:... as it would be reached fast with many players and never with few players.

Not really, as difficulty and time to complete a lap increases with playercount, so its proportional reward.

I think we should remove the qualifying phase and player's starting weapons. Then they just have to pick up weapons as they go, just like every other race game with weapons out there just about. And if mappers want, they can place lasers close by the starting line or half way through the course.

A race mode bot ai would also help.

I feel that those two things would all be enough to fix this problem. Because CTS is just the result of not enough competitive gameplay in this mode's current implementation, I'm thinking; it only becomes a competition when you are fighting other humans online after the qualifying period (assuming you qualify in the first place).

You've got to get the competition started simply and immediately and then these player versus the map maps should start to become less popular.

If you remove start weapons and only give pickups, there is a risk that the first player to reach the first weapon will be the one who wins, for they then are most likely to reach the other weapons first as well. Some options to counter that:

1. Make it impossible to pick up more than one weapon.
2. Slow the player down by 10% with every extra weapon they pick up. Yes, this is an idea I have coined a lot of times before but I think it might actually be of use in this case

Pink, I think the base idea would be to have weapons not disappear on pickup... There is a cvar for this...

Now I think it could work for every pickup, including ammo, if it can be picked up once every 20 seconds for each player, for example... Players won't wait there, it's a racing mode after all.
Or they could be picked up once per lap, to avoid campers who would try to turn the race into a deathmatch

MrBougo wrote:... Or they could be picked up once per lap, to avoid campers who would try to turn the race into a deathmatch ...

However, fragging is an integral aspect of team race, which should play similarly to ctf_subseatrack.

Shotgun and laser are the default spawning weapons, and the laser is required for movement in a manner reminiscent of Nexuiz.

Right, but having campers in a race team who would stay static would not help a lot for completing laps... I believe some people will not understand that their contribution in laps is critical, and will camp instead, making their team lose.

But you are right, the slight DM-ish aspect of race is essential imho.

If 3 play vs 2, the 3 will sure always win, as they can make 50% more laps in the same time than the team with 2... this needs solving, e.g. by making the scoring system take this into account.

However, FULLY compensating for this will ALSO be bad, as a team with 4 players will in reality be not twice as productive in laps as one with 2 players, but less than that.

Basically, I say that team race probably should not use a lap limit unless in 2v2 or maybe 3v3 games, and should only be played in clan or pickup games until this issue is solved.