"Field leveling" variants of CTF - idea

KRR · Post by **KRR** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:10 pm

In CTF right now, each team has their own flag which they try to avoid having captured, while capturing the other teams flag.

Because of the nature of multi-player open games, teams are often uneven and unbalanced, and when a flag is captured, the team whose flag is captured is immediately put at a *huge* disadvantage. Seconds pass for the now-disadvantaged "dead" team until respawn while the "alive" team repositions themselves and their flag as favorably as possible, the "dead" team respawns all in one small area facing many unpredictable directions, this area is known by the "alive" team, and is also where the flag is due to reappear. If the "dead" team is at all weaker than the "alive" team, being killed en-masse sets them back even further into an no-win position.

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"Tug-of-War" CTF

What if there was not team flags, but instead 1 *score flag*, which, upon capture by either team, would "kill" both teams, and reappear in the exact center of the field? The game then becomes a race to field center for the flag, with the object to return it to your own base. Perhaps, as a reward for capturing, the team who captures it gets a 1 second quicker respawn at their base, and each teammate of the capturing team gets a point or two added to their own "kill" score.

This is like a cross between CTF and Tug-of-War, with each team trying to "pull" the flag back to their own base, with teams being put in a more or less equal position for winning when the objective is accomplished and the game starts over.

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"No ambush" CTF

Another possible "leveling" idea: During a normal CTF game, when a flag is captured, winning team immediately respawns but only *on their half of the field*, causing less of a disadvantage for the losing team, who will still have a couple seconds before they respawn and can get organized for defense. This would lessen the impact of capturing while playing with uneven teams.

Grumbler · Post by **Grumbler** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:38 pm

add "golden flag".....every flag returned to the home base is a point and one tank from the opposing team dies at random.......

Legolas · Post by **Legolas** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:54 pm

Hey,I like the tug-of-war one KR. Good idea!

ski · Post by **ski** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 1:52 pm

The tug of war variant would be a pretty cool idea...Definitely a fast paced, stressfull version..heh

KRR · Post by **KRR** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:40 pm

Was discussing the Tug variant on IRC yesterday in respect to how much code would need to be written should anyone want to undertake the idea (if I could write code, I'd do it myself - but you'll be waiting a year or two if that has to happen, I don't know how (yet)

).

IIRC, the things that would be needed for the "Tug of War" concept as stated so far would be:
1) Team bases with no flag.
2) Color-neutral "killall" superflag that would award a point to the *team* (ie: 1 point to each teammember of the capturing team) which took it to their base, then, after being used, would reappear in center field.

BUT...

After more thought, it might be easier to just write the "killall" superflag code, and leave the team flag and bases part alone. The colored team flags could be used just as they are now in CTF, without being a detriment to the "Tug of War" concept.

The "killall" flag could then be inserted onto a regular CTF field or not, depending on the whim of the server owner or admins.

CTF league teams could play this game either under a time-limit imposed deadline (like matches are now), or to an agreed upon number of "killall" captures, either per-team (ie: first team to 7 "killall"s), or total number of "killall"s for the match (which would need to be an odd number so that one team would be the victor overall).

The "killall" flag point value could also be made to be variable, adding more than 1 point, or even subtracting a point from the non-capturing team.

Just more thoughts. Feel free to comment...

ski · Post by **ski** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:04 pm

I agree that using the same code for the present CTF and adding the 'killall' flag would be the easiest way to code this BUT I imagine that some teams wouldnt be as focused on the main goal. It wouldnt be a true tug of war because some players would go for the team flags and not the 'killall' flag. Of coarse I guess thats the team captains problem too....heh

Id be happy to work on the coding however im still a newbie at coding in C/C++, which I believe is used.