I agree with Div, I think the records of cap gives (more competitive) people a mentality to try to cap as fast as possible without thinking of their teammates.
Sure, you should cap as fast as possible, no one wants to take the flag and stay in the enemies base. But the speed cap record works in a way counter teamplay way. If it worked in a teamplay way they might have said: "Will you help me cap the flag and break the record? Can you hold off the enemy."
In a way that's good, but it's the wrong reason those other guys hold off the enemy. This mentality is wrong to CTF.
As Div said, now that there is 'Race' that's where people can get their sport on and try to beat the records. CTF is not some kind of race trying to beat records.

I'm not saying it should be removed completely (personally I'm for it), but at least try and see how people react. Maybe disabling the feature while saving the statistics so that no one gets mad if all the records are gone.
This is just my personal opinion.

Or maybe disable the records when there is more than 1 (human) player on the server.

Which actually makes the records more fair, as runs where you were "assisted" by a team mate or an enemy won't get recorded.

Look at your_errors thread somewhere around. There are categories for each type of cap.

I know that. The different categories don't change the fact that the capture timer DID worsen the general CTF experience, in favor of this speedrunning. That timer probably should never have been introduced, as it served no good and only harmed the game.

However, removing it now would be too late anyway, I suppose.

@Div:
That's a very good idea actually. I really like that.

@Alien:
I will later on. But also keep in mind (I'm gonna say it before I've looked up on that thread so please take this loosely) trying to break the record for flag caps is the wrong attitude to CTF. One should cap the flag to score, help the team and hopefully win, not to break a record.

Ok, I think I know what will happen if people get negative personal score.
There was this one guy in public CTF who complained about the scoring system. He had -28 points yet he didn't suicide once he said. Then he left.

Even if cap only counts, if people get negative score by doing nothing wrong, they will not think it's fun and leave. I am strongly against negative score in any kind whatsoever. This just cannot happen in the next release, it will drive people away I think.

Forgot to add. There were 5-6 players on the server. I saw two people on the enemy team having negative score. That started to make me think, that this is how it can be even with more people. So I have to stress the fact, how fun is it to play when half the team has negative score? Even for me, who was on the winning team and had positive score it was boring and totally weird. I didn't want to discourage them from taking the flag but I couldn't let them get away with it either. That's a dilemma right there, negative scoring discourage players and then they will stop playing the mode and possibly even the entire game.

I don't think it's fair to make a statisical analysis based off one experience. I've played with players who ask "why do I have negative?" and I explain and they improve their game as such.

I think a message stating they lose points when picking up the flag would be better than dropping the idea all together because of one bad experience. After all, they would probably be losing the game anyway if they were able to reach -28. Clearly their strategies aren't working out so well.

But they also didn't know what they were doing wrong.
But still, trying to improve the public servers with this system is not good. If this system only applied to more competitive play maaaaybe I would think about considering this. But let's face it, public games will _always_ have people jumping for the flag not doing anything else. You can't improve everyone.

Plus, one bad experience is more than no experience at all. This was the first and only time I played with this system and on this occasion people already told this system 'sucks', his words. I too didn't like it as it felt I had to be more 'generous' to the enemy and let them capture the flag in order to make them stay in the game and play.

People get irritated and annoyed easily. Even if they are doing something "wrong" which actually isn't wrong, and they get punished for it this way they will be irritated and give up.
I'll play some more and see the reactions of the people, but if the majority doesn't like it (which seems that way already based on the comments on these forums) then this will be a moot point. No use in arguing as this would then never be implemented.

ai wrote:But they also didn't know what they were doing wrong.

Which is why I suggested a message be shown on pickup in my previous reply.


I'm not wasting energy on this argument anymore. It's met with too much FUD. If anyone would like to help me develop this system further, feel free to contact me. I will continue to evolve it privately.

[-z-] wrote:After all, they would probably be losing the game anyway if they were able to reach -28. Clearly their strategies aren't working out so well.

I agree with the ideas behind the scoring, but THAT statement is plain wrong.

-28 = 25 + (-53)

To this, we agree, right?

-28 = 25 + 5 * (-10) + (-3)

That's:

1 succeeded attempt to capture (pickup capture), 25 each
5 failed capture attempts (pickup drop), 20 each
1 time getting killed by a sniper while holding the flag, respawning, and picking up the flag (drop pickup), -3 each; that capture attempt be one of the 5 failed ones
= -28 points

The enemy has got for the same actions:

5 times prevented someone from capping (kill return), 8 each
1 time killing the flag carrier, but not returning (kill), 5 each
= 45 points

Sure, that capper just has a 1:5 success ratio. That's nothing to be proud of. Still, he DID help his team. So why is he that much negative? He may still be the best capper in his team after all, or the only one who wants to cap (while the others defend). And a 1:0 victory is a victory too, after all.

Well, a simple way to fix this is to shift the bias, so he gets not THAT many negative points.

But the points system is one thing. Taking the points too serious and insulting the players for negative points like you just did is certainly wrong. The points in the scoreboard do give a rough indication, but without the captures column, their raw number is worthless.

I'm ok with you developing it privately and use if for your servers, if you have any or if you plan on getting some. But don't try to implement this with the original, official Nexuiz please.

Yes but divVerent, we agreed a while ago that my numbers weren't perfect :-\. I'll admit your evidence proves my numbers can be a bit askewed but I disagree with generalizing the fact that negative scoring is bad. I do believe that something less harsh would be beneficial on public servers. However, I think it's important a message is shown to let them know how they are gaining/losing points.

ai wrote:I'm ok with you developing it privately and use if for your servers, if you have any or if you plan on getting some. But don't try to implement this with the original, official Nexuiz please.

Are you still ignorant to the fact that I've been running servers with this scoing system for over a month?

So, I might have been running something over the year (eg. Alien's bot server) but this does not mean it's good.

EDIT: And I know that your server is running over a month, but most players play at galt's.

[-z-] wrote:Are you still ignorant to the fact that I've been running servers with this scoing system for over a month?

Not ignorant, but my memory sucks. Really, ask morfar he knows If you did say it somewhere I forgot it, if that's the case I apologize.

[-z-] wrote:Yes but divVerent, we agreed a while ago that my numbers weren't perfect :-\. I'll admit your evidence proves my numbers can be a bit askewed but I disagree with generalizing the fact that negative scoring is bad. I do believe that something less harsh would be beneficial on public servers. However, I think it's important a message is shown to let them know how they are gaining/losing points.

I never said negative scores are generally bad. But any scoring system has weird scenarios where it leads to wrong impressions. Do not generalize "negative score = bad player", as no scoring system can ever be good enough to fulfill that in any scenario.

The goal is to make a system with as few bad scenarios as possible.

Well by numbers I meant ratios. I'm all for the negatives as this thread made somewhat painfully clear. I'm open to ideas as you (divVerent) sometimes know. I'm trying to look at this from a scientific/pyschological standpoint but people get too caught up in their emotions, neglect to read my posts in full and reply to me based on their assumptions that fit with their emotions. To me, it's really not worth putting this much effort out publically because of all the negative energy caused by what I've described above.

Even changes you made in the past I was skeptical of (the rocket launcher change) I soon agreed and found you had made the right decision in bringing the balance back into the game. I trust you'll make the right decision here because you, divVerent see more about this game than anyone else I know.

So, good luck with this. I've said my piece if you'd like to theorize with me some more, you know where to find me. I'm done with people calling me disrespectful for copping an attitude when my attitude stems from their disrespect of not reading my posts. We waste time and energy arguing about stupid points a little reading would have solved.

Basically, I was just saying scores would, in an ideal world, be read by humans, and should not have any gameplay impact. The -91 player can still be a valuable member of the team, but you'd see that in the scores table easily (if he also has, like, 10 captures, then he's just very persistent and does have success).

That persistence won't gain him good scores, and he should instead learn to stack up before taking the enemy flag and running home. Nonetheless he still can be a valuable member of the team, and the scores don't say it. A single score can't indicate everything...

And as for disrespect - you do show disrespect too, by "shitting on" the 1on1 community like you did some days ago by disregarding one of the most basic rules of competitive playing. I don't like these "rules" either (like, not leaving a match, not going easy as that is taken as an insult by the losing player, etc.) - but then I simply don't play competitive games, and it's all good. Please learn to show respect even towards people you disagree with, and better ignore a post than to reply arrogantly to it. Or, maybe it would be better to postpone replying for some hours until you get a clear mind again. If you do that, people will accept if you sometimes act disrespectfully too, be it because of not knowing a rule, or because of getting angry. But currently, your behaviour appears hypocritical, which may also be the cause of ai not really being interested in your scoring system (after all, he has his own), and focusing on its shortcomings.

yes... but in the time that his persistance is failing him, a teammate with a better ratio could be capping. Thus it is my belief he is hurting the team.

Only IF there is a team mate who would get a better ratio.