Capture-the-flag ideas

The Purple Panzer · Post by **The Purple Panzer** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 3:50 am

Recently I've been playing CTF a lot, and have a few thoughts.

1 - several times when I've grabbed the enemy's flag and headed home, I've picked a route on the safe side of a line of my teammates, who can defend the homeward path - a good thing I think, finally getting towards some level of useful cooperation. But then an enemy (or 2 or 3) spawns right near me, or near our base, where no enemy could reach through the team defenses without a bit of work. I've frequently died this way, and it doesn't seem like a great way for CTF to operate.

I think the spawn areas ought to respect (in some way) defended/safe territory - maybe you spawn near your home base, or more fairly in some neutral corner (when you're at your own base, you can spawn on top of someone who's struggled to get there to steal your flag - not quite fair that you can defend your base by being killed and having a lucky spawn).

2 - the scoring might be presented differently. I often don't care about being killed (even to the point of using my tank to defend a flag-carrying teammate), but it seems that times you've seized the enemy's flag, or carried it triumphantly to your base, or shot the enemy carrying your flag, etc., ought to be presented somehow. When playing CTF that's what I aim for, and it'd be nice to be able to track whether I'm doing any good or not. And I often wonder about the people with high scores - are they playing well, or just sitting off on the side sniping at opponents for points? I just don't know.

3 - I had more, but am just too exhausted to remember right now. It's all fun, and the more I play the more I notice, but of course the less I sleep. (And I can't find an emoticon that's snoring).

Post by **trepan** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 4:52 am

1. Player and flag Spawn Zones can be designated in
1.11.x. As well, the basic spawn algorithms have been
improved (or so I've been led to believe).

2. Tracking CTF captures and/or awarding points
for them has been discussed several times. There
doesn't seem to be enough interest to generate a
patch. Maybe it's because no-one has been able to
determine a fair mechanism for rewarding assists.

3. zzzzzz =)

oblomov · Post by **oblomov** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:51 pm

I've been thinking about 2. rather frequently. The only thing I could come up with was awarding the flag-carrier with the "deaths" of all the enemies ... this would be like him making a one-time effective use of Genocide. Sure, it doesn't reward assists, but then assists aren't rewarded even in other Team-based efforts (like, somebody protecting a mate with GM to help him keep camp, or something like that). Make it optional?

The Red Baron · Post by **The Red Baron** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 1:16 pm

what server does this usually happen to you on Panzer?

The Purple Panzer · Post by **The Purple Panzer** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 7:37 pm

The hepcat one; it isn't all the time by any means, but it certainly happens. If I play for, say, 20 minutes, I might have somebody pop up in a very advantageous position 2 or 3 times during the game. Seems about like half the time I'm trying to get the enemy's flag back to our base somebody shows up unexpectedly, but I think that's probably an over-estimate, given the emotion of the playing.

toaster · Post by **toaster** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 8:09 pm

This seems to be my luck no matter what CTF map/server I'm playing on.

As Trepan said, the point scoring system has been discussed a lot. I'm sure the devs have had their own discussions. There have also been a couple of threads on this recently, if I remember correctly.

I'd like to see an additional column for flag capture scores. Then you don't have to determine how much "weight" they carry.

Rebel Chik0rita · Post by **Rebel Chik0rita** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 10:03 pm

#1 sometimes with regards to bad or good spawns , it is just luck ;)
but maybe if tanks were in a brief blinky/phantom mode when respawning ? they can't be shot , and they can't shoot either . they can still move . but to be fair their radar does not work until they fully recover from that spawn mode ?

#2 although i'm also partial to seeing a seperate column on the scoreboard for flag captures(preferrably) , until it's developed , how about as a compromise in the meantime , giving a set amount of kill points to an individual tank player for each capture made ? like 3 pts. only ? no matter how many tanks were on the enemy team . i think 3 is a good number .. not too much that it would create greed amongst teammates for the flag , but not too few either ... just enough points to add incentive to actually play the CTF gamestyle . it's better than nothing , which is the way it is now .

#3 -.- zzzzzz

;)