Rawr!

The purpose of this thread is to question the apparently pro-camping scoring system of the current version's CTF. As I understand it was implemented to encourage actual CTF and teamplay rather than focusing on individual scores like in the older versions. Here is why it fails:

1) It rewards flag caps generously. A bit too generously, but don't really have a problem with that.

2) It rewards flag returns but not fc kills. <- Does not promote defense but rather camping, since camping the flag itself is the only way you can ensure to pick up your flag immediately after killing the enemy fc. (i.e. 'oooh, enemy incoming!' *waits until he pounces on the flag, shoots him with a nex, happily returns the flag from the remains of the unfortunate flag grabber which has only actually moved a few inches from the flag base).

3) The most paradoxical of all. It punishes failed attempts at getting the enemy flag SEVERELY. I mean... what's the reasoning behind this? If anything else, attempting to get the enemy flag should be ENCOURAGED not punished by inflicting a score deduction IN ADDITION to the reward given to the happy camper for returning the fallen flag.

I know I know, I'm contradicting myself since I'm actually referring to individual scores even if I've already stated that they shouldn't really matter, and it should be teamplay first. But this is not the way to tell noobs that. To them, scores do matter. How are they supposed to think when the few times they attempt to actually play CTF and get the enemy flag they end up with negative scores? It gets also rather annoying when you've been the single most active player in the team, attempting to get the enemy flag by yourself because the rest of your team don't want their scores dirtied up by failed tries only to be blamed of the defeat because you have the lowest score. (think: Me, 15 pickups, -25 score; Random noob: 0 pickups, 60 score (all by camping the flag): "My team sucks! Especially Oblivion, look at his score! Newb!"). It's gotten so bad that nobody actually defends an incoming friendly FC or even pick up a dropped flag. Preferring to stay by our own flag and fragging enemy would-be FC's for individual points.

There are also quite a lot of instances when the only players who actually have caps and pickups have the lowest scores, while those who have 0 and 0 in pickup and caps boast high scores from camping.

I am by profession and by the tyranny of ping, a flag thief. I avoid confrontation basically since I suck at close quarters combat and go directly to getting the flag (although I do prioritize killing fc's too). I try and try again to get the enemy flag, regardless of wether I die trying and in the old system, even if I do fail A LOT I recover it when I do cap, and it keeps the game active instead of being campfest TDM's. Not to mention instances where I deliberately pick up the enemy flag even when I know I will die just so I can stall an enemy cap and give time for my other teammates to kill him and return our flag. Why am I punished for that noble act of self-sacrifice!

I know what the scoring was meant to achieve and I've seen the past semi-flamewars about this. But to put it simply, when implemented: it doesn't work.

Perhaps it does in all-pro private servers, but do try and see the scores on public servers. The reasoning is this: It's infinitely easier to kill an enemy fc and return the flag than it is to get an enemy flag and cap it.

Oblivion wrote:3) The most paradoxical of all. It punishes failed attempts at getting the enemy flag SEVERELY. I mean... what's the reasoning behind this? If anything else, attempting to get the enemy flag should be ENCOURAGED not punished by inflicting a score deduction IN ADDITION to the reward given to the happy camper for returning the fallen flag.

Good luck trying to change that. I was radically against this before it was implemented, but no one listened. Somehow, people think it's a good thing to be punished for trying to capture the flag.

There are several ctf.cfg files, one with the name 'ai' in it I believe. That's the scoring system that everyone are familiar with and makes the most sense. However, having this crazy punish scoring system as default is what's the problem, as people are lazy to change the settings from default, are too lazy to read what's the difference between the scoring systems or just wanna go with the default as that's 'how the game is meant to be'.

There has been tons and tons of complaints from actual players that they disliked the scoring system, but as said, no one seems to listen to them.
Oh and as an add-on to this. This system has been in place for some time now, and I haven't seen teamplay become any better than before. So it won't hurt going back to a sane scoring system.

Posting this for those who don't know:
Basically this was Z's idea. He wanted to stop the senseless waves after waves on the flag, and with nothing to deter people from trying to cap this wouldn't stop. So introducing a negative score for these senseless attacks could potentially reduce the enemy waves on the flag. However, this isn't a good idea as even the good players (who aren't attacking senselessly all the time) would be punished for a select few bad players.
It's like introducing a tax increase on every tax, just because a few doesn't pay taxes. Everyone else suffers, not the actual bad people.

Well, imho in CTF individual scores don't mean anything. It's a teamgame afterall. I'm not even sure why this was implemented in the first place.
Anyway, it's good you've come up with this. I'll look for the configs, and I'll change DCC CTF to the most sane settings.

That's nice C. Brutail !

I don't feel like reviving this discussion, but actually teams with good defence/defenders are the teams that are actually winning most of the time lets say in a balanced match now. That;s not necessarily bad : ) . Some ppl have grown themselves 2 be this way really strong defenders (which btw does require willpower and concentration ) .

However i feel funny 2 be honest to c ppl with 25 flag attempts / 3 caps being happy with themselves trying suicidal lemming-style attacks waiting 4 the flag room 2 be empty and complaining about campdom when its heavily guarded. Even in the good old day's of uberpwning clink in say e.x greatwall , capture was still possible with a well organized 3-4 ppl attack (...and possibly having grisu/xeno/mis(r)io on the team helped).

pain_fedora6 wrote:That's nice C. Brutail !

I don't feel like reviving this discussion, but actually teams with good defence/defenders are the teams that are actually winning most of the time lets say in a balanced match now. That;s not necessarily bad : ) . Some ppl have grown themselves 2 be this way really strong defenders (which btw does require willpower and concentration ) .

However i feel funny 2 be honest to c ppl with 25 flag attempts / 3 caps being happy with themselves trying suicidal lemming-style attacks waiting 4 the flag room 2 be empty and complaining about campdom when its heavily guarded. Even in the good old day's of uberpwning clink in say e.x greatwall , capture was still possible with a well organized 3-4 ppl attack (...and possibly having grisu/xeno/mis(r)io on the team helped).

Thing is, scoring system is heavily skewed towards defending. I tried it out today. First few maps I tried my best to get the enemy flag. Results are either I remained in the mids of the scores or I end up way down at the bottom. The caps I did which helped our team further didn't even matter. Then I tried camping, refusing to touch the enemy flag and just camp our flag room with a nex. Guess what? Not only did I not get a negative score, I also was among the top two highest scorers for several games.

What message does that say?

Greatwall was a camping map, thing was, when we were playing that map, the old scoring system ensured that the campers ALWAYS get lower scores than those who actually attacked in teams and whatnot.

Agree that a good team usually has most of the members defending with only one or two flag-getters. But even then, the flag getters usually end up at the bottom of the pile.

Not saying revert to the old system, but it should be modified to be somewhere in between. With flag-getters getting lower penalties and higher rewards than campers (which is easy). In comparison to the current system which has -5 for losing a flag, and +8 (I think) for killing an fc and returning the flag.

the whole point of the individual scoring is to show who did the most to help win the match. I remember the loooong discussions about this scoring system. The main theory behind the current scoring system is that it does NOT reward people who dive at the flag 40 times in a match and only cap 3 times.

The truth is that, in most public CTF matches, teamwork is not needed to be successful. This is because of the fast laser movement in Nexuiz. Most players ignore their FC and there is usually only 1-2 people on the whole team who cap the flag. Teamwork is only needed when everyone in the match is of a high skill level (like in good clan matches). So the scoring system aims at countering this problem. I think it fails with this goal.

When scoring was being discussed last year, I was trying to suggest ideas that encouraged assisting the flag carrier. Some of us tried to think of a way to score points when you are within a radius of your FC. That idea doesn't work because how big would that radius be? and it would not include snipers who also protect the FC. It would have to be defined as "anyone attacking an enemy that is aiming at their FC". I have no idea if Nexuiz could detect such a thing.

Also, whether a match is played mostly offense or mostly defense depends largely on the map.

Some examples...

EvilspaceCTF : mostly offense. It's very difficult to protect the flag area on this map. The flag area is too exposed and there aren't many weapons right next to the flag. Due to the jumppads, it's easy to traverse the map quickly.

FacingWorlds: mostly defense. Too many nexes, but also the base is very small and has lots of holes in it. Once someone grabs the flag, they can get back to their base quickly. So this makes players want to camp outside base with the nex even more.

Hydronex: mostly defense. Very limited entry into the base. The map is setup for nex battles with the bunker. The water is a big pain in the ass and people get caught in it a lot. But also, the pathways are setup practically like a speed run map. This makes people want to camp even more. Once someone grabs the flag, they can get back to base in a few seconds.

There are some maps that encourage a balance of offense/defense, like mIKEctf2 and RunningmanCTF

So, in conclusion, the scoring does need adjustment in more fundamental way. It needs more methods for analysis than just frags, deaths, pickups, flag drops and flag caps.

But also, maps need to really put emphasis on balance between encouraging offense/defense.

Dokujisan wrote:Hydronex: mostly defense. [...] The water is a big pain in the ass and people get caught in it a lot.

I think that's the point of the water. It's to be an obstacle so that people shouldn't be able to even more easily cap the flag. Besides, the water is underrated, it's a great way to get into the enemys' part of the base, hardly anyone checks the water and I use that a lot. While the armor being there gives even a bigger reason why to enter it. In fact, the first thing I do when this map is chosen is to get into the water and pick up both of those armors (our and the enemys).

Dokujisan wrote:EvilspaceCTF : mostly offense. It's very difficult to protect the flag area on this map. The flag area is too exposed and there aren't many weapons right next to the flag. Due to the jumppads, it's easy to traverse the map quickly.

TBH I prefer these kinds of open maps. I like roofless maps I can not lie. The reason is that they are much more dynamic than balanced or camping maps. With people jumping all over the place.

In this case, defense does not mean camping the flag room, defense takes on a more active role which actually necessitates getting the enemy flag as soon as possible. They are hunting maps, which requires the fc's to run and hide with his teammates defending him, leaving him HP etc. Much more teamwork than say... Hydronex, where everyone mostly plays for himself. With the 'flag rooms' becoming more mobile, so to say, as 'defense' itself consists primarily of eliminating the enemy fc and have your own fc cap before the enemy can take the flag again.

Again the problem with that is that even getting the enemy flag just to prevent an enemy fc from capping effortlessly is punished. You aren't actually doing nothing by getting the enemy flag and then running as far away as possible until you die then get it again quickly. You ARE actually helping the team by ensuring that the enemy can not cap. Not to mention of course that you will be able to cap if given enough time window.

That is team play to me. And I still don't get why the focus of the nerfs is on the flag-getters while the campers are actually rewarded. Sure, lemming flag-getting strategies are noobish but AFAIK no one has actually complained about them, they aren't the problem in CTF. In fact, they help, even if you don't get to actually cap it. How many times have someone else grabbed the flag from right under my nose just when I was about to cap with his teammates hot on my trail, kill me, and then get himself killed too from our defenders. The result is zero caps for both teams and damn good teamwork and quick thinking. And yet... and yet... we both get -5. How twisted is that?

To me, the current system smells more like something tailor-fit to a playing style of a few select players, not the majority. I hazard to say, the ones who camp 90% of the time, and spend 10% getting the flag from a demoralized enemy team when they're most vulnerable.

Each player has his own style. There are campers (who distasteful as they may be are certianly useful), defenders, speedrunners, snipers, relayers, weapon thieves (who denude an enemy camp of weapons and ammo), tanked flag getters, strength users, fc hunters, and even meatshields who jump in front of enemy pursuing friendly fc's. Why does it focus on one group (speedrunners/flag thieves) that have never annoyed anyone as much as campers do and penalize them?

Dear Flag Thieves

The current scoring system in a conspiracy against you by us defenders. It is payback for all the times we had to hear how awesome you are because you got a bunch of caps. While us defenders defend the base , the flag, and the flag carrier. We are rocketing opponents away from the flag, keeping the base clear and sniping the FC's pursuers. What do we get for our trouble? We get called CAMPERS. When we are on your team you don't seam to mind too much because lo and behold your flag is still at the base when you go to cap. But when we are on the opposing team We're goddamn campers. WTF So in retaliation for repeatedly being called campers we convinced the powers that be to penalize you severely for flag pickups. We almost had it so you would be slower when you had the flag. So keep calling us campers and see what happens

Yours Truly
Defender "Flag Security Officer"



Defender - person who defends your flag
Camper - person who defends enemy flag

I agree that the scoring system is broken. It should only reward scoring and frags and maybe count flag frags as double frags.

Explosive Diarrhea wrote:Defender - person who defends your flag
Camper - person who defends enemy flag

That's not a camper that's a midfielder (or trailblazer or saboteur). Don't provoke us midfielders into writing a letter to you defenders now. :p

Flying Steel wrote:I agree that the scoring system is broken. It should only reward scoring and frags and maybe count flag frags as double frags.

Explosive Diarrhea wrote:Defender - person who defends your flag
Camper - person who defends enemy flag

That's not a camper that's a midfielder (or trailblazer or saboteur). Don't provoke us midfielders into writing a letter to you defenders now. :p

Sorry what i meant was
Camper - Opponent who defends his flag

In other words, if a good defender is on your team he's a defender
But if he is on the opposite team he is a CAMPER

Explosive Diarrhea wrote:In other words, if a good defender is on your team he's a defender
But if he is on the opposite team he is a CAMPER

That's quite correct. This is one of the reasons why I NEVER complain about campers and never even call them campers. Cause I know they are defending their base/flag.
What should they do? Run around like crazy chickens? I would actually like a definition from someone who calls defenders campers, and what they think a defender is.

Sure, I know a camper is someone who sits in the same spot over and over and over and over again. But that's what makes them such an easy target, you always know where they are. Defenders are a little bit more flexible, who are in the vicinity of their flag, yet, they are called campers cause they don't get out of the base and help the enemy score.

Those who call people campers, ANY PEOPLE, are delusional and frankly, retarded.

As all this scoring stuff has been analyzed fully before...

http://www.forums.alientrap.local/viewtopi ... tf+scoring

here is just some scoring numbers:

in z's system:
- successful capture = 25 points
- failed capture = -10 points (enemy gets
- failed capture and shot in void = -2 points (enemy gets 5)
- dying with the flag, picking it up again: -1 to -4 points (enemy gets 5)
- suicide with the flag, then pick it up again: -1 to -4 points

So: to get an increasing score, you need a success rate of at least 28%. To get more points than the enemy, you need a success rate of at least 42%.

http://www.forums.alientrap.local/viewtopi ... tf+scoring

If needed, I can make a new analysis of CTF scoring for separate views of attacker and defender (i.e. for personal scoring). It's not that hard.

If so many people hate the new scoring system why insisting on having negative points? As said, not all flag pickups are made to score, as Oblivion said, some are made to stall an enemy FC from scoring.
Also as said, the scoring system was meant to dealt with a select few bad people, shall everyone suffer for a few stupid players? This is not right.

Disband this scoring system and implement a sane one PLEASE!

divVerent wrote:So: to get an increasing score, you need a success rate of at least 28%. To get more points than the enemy, you need a success rate of at least 42%.

You simply can't solve this with mathematics. Games are so different that any attempt will fail.

If, for example, your opponent team has a good defense your cappers will naturally have a lot of failed attempts. I've seen games in which the strongest player did the capturing alone, while all others defended, roamed or were useless and the capper made his team win - needing a lot of attempts due to strong defense of the other team. At the end he was the only one who had a negative score in his team. What an [CENSORED_BY_MYSELF.]


I for one solved the problem of this fscked up scoring system for myself by playing only on a server which doesn't use it. And the only thing that I miss from that old scoring system is that fc kills are rewarded a bit stronger, flag returns maybe a bit weaker.

Thanks, Oblivion.

well, the question (to me) is how to get the game to detect different scenarios. Like how can it tell that it was a "good" flag grab as opposed to a "bad" one. How can Nexuiz tell whether you are hurting your team or helping your team?

I know one thing it could look for is whether the player grabbing the flag has low health or not. If someone grabs the flag with 10hp, that's usually a bad thing. But that is the only example I can think of right now that nexuiz could actually detect.

Another example is if you yourself are a slower flag carrier and a faster one is standing 4ft from you and you decide to grab the flag instead of them. That is a selfish move. But I seriously doubt that nexuiz could detect a scenario like this. There are probably a lot of other examples similar to this where getting Nexuiz to recognize the scenario would be very difficult.

Without that type of "scenario detection", nexuiz isn't going to be able to have excellent scoring, imo. That is, scoring that reflects how player's actions truly affected the match.

So the next question would be...what sort of scenarios can Nexuiz detect, for the sake of scoring?

RoKenn wrote:

divVerent wrote:So: to get an increasing score, you need a success rate of at least 28%. To get more points than the enemy, you need a success rate of at least 42%.

You simply can't solve this with mathematics. Games are so different that any attempt will fail.

If, for example, your opponent team has a good defense your cappers will naturally have a lot of failed attempts.

This is exactly my point. 28% success rate is NOT a good idea to require just for a positive score, as many games show. Which is why I suggest rethinking this "penalty for taking the flag" idea. A perfect scoring awards positive numbers or none, but this cannot be ENTIRELY done for CTF.

There is a new version of ctfscoring_ai.cfg. I took a look at it and morfar committed that to the SVN. Basically, the only way of people to get negative score is to suicide. If you suicide you get -1 point if you have the flag and suicide you get -2 because you had the flag as well.

Furthermore, if you drop the flag (with the drop key) you get -1 point. I don't see this to be a big problem as I rarely see anyone using this feature, and even if people would, they wouldn't use it that often. While 1 point is relatively easy to get back.

Another reason for this -1 point for dropping the flag is that yesterday there was a dude who dropped and captured the flag all the time. In the end of the match he had like 111 flag pickups, now his score stayed the same. But if someone where to do something like that again with the -1 for dropping the flag he would have a very negative score.

Why is a failed capture attempt +1 point in your system? Why is pickup_late +1 (probably by mistake, should be equal to pickup_early)?

Other than a failed capture actually INCREASING score, I like your system. To fix the score increasing problem, I suggest these changes:

g_ctf_flagpenalty_returned 1

Then, if you lose the flag and the enemy returns it, you again lose the point you got for picking up the flag.

Alternatively:

g_ctf_personalscore_pickup_base 0

Just taking the flag doesn't really need to give a point

ai wrote:There is a new version of ctfscoring_ai.cfg. I took a look at it and morfar committed that to the SVN. Basically, the only way of people to get negative score is to suicide. If you suicide you get -1 point if you have the flag and suicide you get -2 because you had the flag as well.

Furthermore, if you drop the flag (with the drop key) you get -1 point. I don't see this to be a big problem as I rarely see anyone using this feature, and even if people would, they wouldn't use it that often. While 1 point is relatively easy to get back.

Well this sounds like an almost perfect system and certainly a major step up from the current system of confusing and sever penalties that are probably counterproductive anyway (like badly punishing people for only getting the enemy flag halfway home- still a benefit for their team).

Explosive Diarrhea wrote:Sorry what i meant was
Camper - Opponent who defends his flag

In other words, if a good defender is on your team he's a defender
But if he is on the opposite team he is a CAMPER

Heh, well I was joking anyway but I see what you meant now. Personally, I see anything you do in game that benefits your team as perfectly okay (which by definition excludes hacking or text spamming).

divVerent wrote:Why is a failed capture attempt +1 point in your system? Why is pickup_late +1 (probably by mistake, should be equal to pickup_early)?

My reasoning was this, that if you pickup a flag that's a good thing, thus you get 1 point.
However, the pickup late and early aren't mistakes. Pickup late rewards 1 point cause that means people are actually trying to get the flag as opposed to run by it or just run straight to the enemys' base and wait for the flag to respawn, this should be rewarded.

Not giving points for pickup early is to balance things out with flag drop. Sure, one could argue that you get 1 point for pickup early so if someone drops the flag and picks it up his score would stay the same. But this gives the wrong impression with ### number of flag pickups and the score hasn't changed. That's why you get negative score if you drop the flag (drop key).
Also, in certain situations people might not even know they are carrying the flag cause they picked it up too fast, it was shot towards them or them towards the flag. This happens when there's a crowd and chaos.

PS. For people who don't know, you don't get a negative point when having a flag and being killed, only if you use the drop function.

divVerent wrote:Other than a failed capture actually INCREASING score, I like your system. To fix the score increasing problem, I suggest these changes:

g_ctf_flagpenalty_returned 1

Then, if you lose the flag and the enemy returns it, you again lose the point you got for picking up the flag.

I like that, didn't know this was possible but if it is, I gladly accept this.

ai wrote: Furthermore, if you drop the flag (with the drop key) you get -1 point. I don't see this to be a big problem as I rarely see anyone using this feature

I use feature on occasion
If I'm the flag carrier and and the enemy has my flag
I'll drop the flag in hopes the eemy FC will come out of hiding and prepare to cap
My teammates then have an easier time of finding and killing him. Its a bit sneaky but sometimes it works

I never thought of such a strategy. Do you foresee the -1 point being a problem? In the long run I don't think think it will be. If people more often start to use this feature then maybe it should change.

I agree that flag drop is fairly useful in a good and organized team.

For instance, if you are an injured flag carrier, you can pass the flag to a fresh teammate with better armor/health who has a much better chance of making it home alive with the flag or surviving until your flag is returned.

It would be kinda cool if your could throw the flag. If your health was low you could toss it to a teammate.

ai wrote:I never thought of such a strategy. Do you foresee the -1 point being a problem? In the long run I don't think think it will be. If people more often start to use this feature then maybe it should change.

It's only a point and I don't use it that often

In theory yes, this flag drop bind is very useful, but practically almost no one uses it. And lets face it, no one will be able to capture that many flags that their overall score will be affected negatively. Keep in mind you get 1 point if you take the flag, however, lose it if you are killed (as suggested by div0). So, killed or throw away it's just that single point you lose when dropping the flag, no real loss there.

Doku implement on hoctf please! PLEASE!

I've had serious issue with the negative for flag pickup. To me it's like gambling. If I'm very successful there is high reward and if I fail I look like I should find another game to play. Generally speaking I play very well. Swallow this scenario though. I've played matches recently where neither team could cap. We went 10 minutes without a single cap. Of course you can't win without a cap so I'm getting obliterated everytime I step in the opponents base. But eventually I prevail, 1 cap. Win in hand! and yet I'm 3rd from last on my teams scoring. THE CAP WON THE GAME! You can't win without caps and yet the scoring purposefully discourages you from attempting to win...

An analogy is in order. Ctf in all it's forms is 100% about capturing and returning the flag. So in that way CTF is like baseball basically you win thru the efforts of the individual though he may not be the actual person that scores but he isn't penalized for his efforts accept thru his batting average. A camper(defender) if you prefer is the pitcher he is reward not by scoring points but by specifically preventing them with the help of the team behind him. He is rewarded with a good era. Now ctf is different in that each player should play both sides offense and defense. Not saying people can't specialize but they should be able to contribute in both areas. So could an algorithm be created that could provide a score like a batting average, era, or maybe a quarterback rating and eliminate the "scoring system"... so the scoring would look like...

red 10 caps
blue 8 caps

soze 25 frag 5 caps 10 failed 3 fc kills 2 returns score = .735

this of course is random... but the score should be reflective of game impact. Bascially how big a difference did you make in the game. With heavy favor given to succesfull captures and I think fc kills. frags in general with minor reward, failed caps no impact, returns minor reward...

ai wrote:In theory yes, this flag drop bind is very useful, but practically almost no one uses it. And lets face it, no one will be able to capture that many flags that their overall score will be affected negatively. Keep in mind you get 1 point if you take the flag, however, lose it if you are killed (as suggested by div0). So, killed or throw away it's just that single point you lose when dropping the flag, no real loss there.

Good enough for me. I hope this ends up as default at some point.

Enough with punishing what you're supposed to be doing in this gametype I say.

One thing which I still don't get: why do you consider a flag carrier kill worth more than a flag return? The kill is nothing without the return, as that FC could have a supporter right close to him who picks up the flag after him.

Also, intuitively I'd say picking up a dropped flag should be worth something noticable, but as this could be abused by getting killed, respawning and taking the flag again, this cannot be done.

divVerent wrote:One thing which I still don't get: why do you consider a flag carrier kill worth more than a flag return? The kill is nothing without the return, as that FC could have a supporter right close to him who picks up the flag after him.

Actually, this was a dilemma for me. I think both are worth equally really. As both are really important, stopping an enemy to take the flag from scoring, returning the flag to base ... it says itself.

Whatever you think is good will do fine, as I really have a hard time deciding what's more important, if any is. But yeah, I think you are right that a return is technically more important, so maybe switch those points with each other?