Seperate Area for Recording Flag Captures on HUD

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slime
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Seperate Area for Recording Flag Captures on HUD

Post by slime »

I think I wrote about this a long time ago in someone elses thread, but I want it brought back up in case other people think this is a good idea.

Too often while browsing through forums, you see threads and posts about CTF servers. People post how capturing the flag is hardly rewarding, and most people just focus on killing as many people on the opposite team as they can. It totally demeans the point of Capture the Flag.

So, I have a simple idea of how to make Capturing the Flag a little bit more rewarding.

Why not have a little recording of how many flags each individual tanker has captured. This is kind of like the team kill feature, that records how many tk's each individual tanker has. It could go right before or after a players name (it really doesn't matter where, just so long as it's not right next to the tk feature, as then they would get confused).

This would give people a new goal to reach for...having the highest flag capture score. It's a perfect opportunity to introduce new players into the game. New players are often discouraged by getting low scores, and many don't bother logging in to play the next day. They have the mindset, "what's the point...I will have a low score anyways.." Well, this new feature can give them something that they can actually do good at.

This new feature would bring about capture the flag servers that people actually want to capture the flag!

This is just an idea I had, so feel free to post about it...

Slime

Edit: Here's a screen shot of what I'm proposing.
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Post by Triumph of the Soul »

What's the point? The reason for having a CTF game is to employ a team effort. Rewarding individuals for team accomplishments doesn't make sense. Also, in a roundabout way, you could conceivably be providing an added incentive for team killing. If a player who isn't good enough to kill those on the opposite team sees their team mate with the enemy flag, they might team kill (something that is much more easily done) in order to get a chance at capturing the flag.
Last edited by Triumph of the Soul on Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by ducatiwannabe »

Awesome idea, and I think it's really great you're emphasizing the real point of capture the flag. I'd definitely want it if possible.
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Post by slime »

A Distraction wrote:What's the point? The reason for having a CTF game is to employ a team effort. Rewarding individuals for team accomplishments doesn't make sense. In a roundabout way, you could conceivably be providing an added incentive for team killing. If a player who isn't good enough to kill those on the opposite team sees their team mate with the enemy flag, they might team kill (something that is much more easily done)
in order to get a chance at capturing the flag.
I think I posted a few points...

Also, the reason for having a CTF game is to actually capture the flag, which doesn't happen as often as it should.

Yet, I do heartily agree that CTF servers are a team effort. I'm not saying to get rid of the team scores on the right side of the HUD, just another feature to show both teams who is actually doing the capturing. A good player can have a super high score, but not do any capturing themselves, which is something this would show.

As for tking, that is the players choice. If someone is a tker, they are a tker.
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Post by Triumph of the Soul »

slime wrote:
A Distraction wrote:What's the point? The reason for having a CTF game is to employ a team effort. Rewarding individuals for team accomplishments doesn't make sense. In a roundabout way, you could conceivably be providing an added incentive for team killing. If a player who isn't good enough to kill those on the opposite team sees their team mate with the enemy flag, they might team kill (something that is much more easily done)
in order to get a chance at capturing the flag.
I think I posted a few points...

Also, the reason for having a CTF game is to actually capture the flag, which doesn't happen as often as it should.

Yet, I do heartily agree that CTF servers are a team effort. I'm not saying to get rid of the team scores on the right side of the HUD, just another feature to show both teams who is actually doing the capturing. A good player can have a super high score, but not do any capturing themselves, which is something this would show.

As for tking, that is the players choice. If someone is a tker, they are a tker.
If capturing the flag doesn't happen as often as it should, rewarding individuals will not make any difference. You can't make people want to work as a team. That being said, if you do have individual scores displayed, why should a single player get a point if the whole team helped. That doesn't seem fair to me. There are multiple conceivable reasons why a player would not have as high of a certain score as another player, but I think I can safely say that just displaying a persons cap record will not improve it. Most likely, the best players* will continue to cap, with or without help (they don't care because they're so good). However, a player of less skill will not be able to capture without help, and herein lies the problem, because even if they do capture (which is unlikely) it would have been a team effort.

* Usually these people who are most able to cap have the most skill when it comes to killing the enemy in general.
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Post by Sparky1 »

To emphasize a team effort, wouldn't it be better to get rid of individual scores all together in capture the flag mode, and just leave team scores?
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Post by slime »

If capturing the flag doesn't happen as often as it should, rewarding individuals will not make any difference.
Beg your pardon, but I think it would.
You can't make people want to work as a team.
How is my idea 'making' people work as a team?
That being said, if you do have individual scores displayed, why should a single player get a point if the whole team helped.
The whole team would get a point too. As I have already said, I am not requesting removing the team scores. My idea is simply to add another initiative for people to want to capture the flag.
There are multiple conceivable reasons why a player would not have as high of a certain score as another player, but I think I can safely say that just displaying a persons cap record will not improve it.
I don't think I understand the point you are trying to get across. I'm not saying to just display a persons cap record. Just add it on the HUD with everything else that's there.
Most likely, the best players* will continue to cap, with or without help (they don't care because they're so good).
This is the main reason I made this thread. The best players* aren't the ones who are capping. They go around trying to get the highest score they can with usually no regard for the other team's flag. This new feature would give them new initiative to try and capture the flag.
However, a player of less skill will not be able to capture without help, and herein lies the problem, because even if they do capture (which is unlikely) it would have been a team effort.
Which is why, like I have said numerous times already, am NOT requesting to get rid of the team scores. The team will still get rewarded for capturing the flag. My proposal only adds an initiative for more people to help capture the flag. Also, on some servers, I have noticed that it is ONLY the players of less skill who capture the flag. They are the only ones who seem to care about it, while the better players are focused on kills. This does not hold true on ALL servers, but on some it does.
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Post by joevano »

How would someone like me benefit from this? I play misslewars and pass the flag all the time. It is my teammates that usually cap, although I get some coast-to-coasters from time to time. Where is my counter for passing? I think it is even more critical to the cap than the actual landing on the base with the flag. I have to agree, and say I think it would end up making team killing more of an issue.
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Post by slime »

donny_baker wrote:How would someone like me benefit from this? I play misslewars and pass the flag all the time. It is my teammates that usually cap, although I get some coast-to-coasters from time to time. Where is my counter for passing? I think it is even more critical to the cap than the actual landing on the base with the flag. I have to agree, and say I think it would end up making team killing more of an issue.
If that is all you did, you would not benefit from this at all. But, what if I was someone who NEVER got any team kills. I did everything in my power to make sure I never killed anyone on my team. Then the tk listings wouldn't count for me?

My idea doesn't HAVE to apply to everyone. In fact, on Missle Wars, I'm sure MOST people would have a '0' listing on their cap counter. Maybe it would be nice to be able to recognize those people who actually did manage to do the capturing.

But let me give you an example of another server; pillbox. The best players go around killing as many tanks as they can, perhaps hiding behind blocks or camping. On the other hand, there is a new player who sees that the type of game he/she is playing is Capture the Flag. He finds the flag wherever it is and manages to capture it. That's all fine and dandy, but then this new player realizes that capturing the opponents flag has no benefit to himself. In 2 minutes, no one would have a clue that he/she captured the flag. The game goes on as normal, as if it never happened.

Again, this new feature would serve as an initiative to make people want to capture the flag on capture the flag servers, and as a personal reward for a job well done.
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Post by macsforme »

Team killing to get credit for a capture is not an issue on most public servers, where team-killing players are killed. Both tanks die, both respawn randomly, and in all likelihood the opposing team will recover their flag.
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Post by ducatiwannabe »

If somebody doesn't have issues with killing a teammate to get their way, they'll do it over a team flag, a position, a superflag, anything. I don't think this will encourage teamkilling any more than what we already have problems with. Teamkillers are going to teamkill because they don't have respect for the other players, for one reason, or another (in most serious tk cases).

I just thought of this, but what about (if possible) a plug-in to do the same thing as this feature? Kind of like an HTF plug-in, or something along those lines, listing every time a flag is captured how many capture points a player has. I'm not opposed to the original idea... just wonder what y'all think of this possibility.
To emphasize a team effort, wouldn't it be better to get rid of individual scores all together in capture the flag mode, and just leave team scores?
That actually isn't a bad idea, lol.
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Post by Triumph of the Soul »

slime wrote:If that is all you did, you would not benefit from this at all. But, what if I was someone who NEVER got any team kills. I did everything in my power to make sure I never killed anyone on my team. Then the tk listings wouldn't count for me?
The analogy is not quite kosher because the reason for people not to TK is not because there is some indication of their wrongdoings on the scoreboard. They don't TK because it's required as a rule or custom. There is no rule forcing people to capture the flag, and likewise, a scoreboard indication will have no such effect either.

From the looks of your last post, I'd say what you really want is for the players with the highest scores to start capturing the flag. Fine. You're still not encouraging a team effort. In this case, you're not changing anything: The player capturing will just be spending time acquiring one type of score instead of another.

When talking about scoreboards adding incentives for players to perform better, look at it this way: We have scoreboards showing individual scores for the number of kills and deaths. The incentive to do well, however, does not come from the scoreboard: It comes from the fact that if you do not shoot the enemy, they will cause you to die. If one TKs another player, they will die then as well. However, there is no direct relationship between not capturing the flag and dieing, and therefore, there is no incentive to capture. The closest thing you can do to add incentive for people to cap, is to cause them to die if they don't. This concept already exists as a plugin called "Timed CTF".
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Post by L4m3r »

I think that instead of adding a field to the scoreboard for CTF, the scoring rules for players could just be altered for CTF games in such a way that a player's score is mostly dependent on their contribution to the team... i.e. flag defense, grabbing opponents' flags, and capping. Kills and deaths could have little or no effect on a player's score. Plug-ins for 3.0 should be able to do this, so I'm sure we will see a variety of new scoring modes. :)

As for the teamkilling issue... I don't think it will be a problem. For one, a player typically dies after teamkilling, so it won't help much in getting the flag. Even then, if someone persists, they will be TK-kicked... one potential issue I can see, though, is use of the thief flag against teammates. This can already be prevented with a plug-in, however.
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Post by slime »

A Distraction wrote:From the looks of your last post, I'd say what you really want is for the players with the highest scores to start capturing the flag. Fine. You're still not encouraging a team effort. In this case, you're not changing anything: The player capturing will just be spending time acquiring one type of score instead of another.
Not really..that is just one aspect of my idea; for the better players to start focusing on capturing the flag. The main aspect is for EVERYONE to focus more on capturing the flag, being it a good player or not.
L4m3r wrote:I think that instead of adding a field to the scoreboard for CTF, the scoring rules for players could just be altered for CTF games in such a way that a player's score is mostly dependent on their contribution to the team... i.e. flag defense, grabbing opponents' flags, and capping. Kills and deaths could have little or no effect on a player's score. Plug-ins for 3.0 should be able to do this, so I'm sure we will see a variety of new scoring modes.
That sounds great! That is exactly what I was trying to have done, but more complex. My solution is just a simple one that people could easily get used to. However, I like the idea of these new plug-ins you are speaking of. It sounds like they will emphasize the capturing the flag part of capture the flag, which is what I was hoping for. This also solves the problem of people who focus only on helping capture the flag, but who don't actually do the capturing.

I look forward to seeing these plug-ins implemented in 3.0, but I will advise to continue to allow kills and deaths to affect a player's score, just not as much.
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Post by Triumph of the Soul »

...

But I digress. Just to clarify, I'm not trying to say an implementation like this wouldn't be harmless. What I am saying is that the benefits would not be significant enough to make it worthwhile, especially since anyone can just turn the scoreboard off.
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L4m3r wrote:I think that instead of adding a field to the scoreboard for CTF, the scoring rules for players could just be altered for CTF games in such a way that a player's score is mostly dependent on their contribution to the team... i.e. flag defense, grabbing opponents' flags, and capping. Kills and deaths could have little or no effect on a player's score. Plug-ins for 3.0 should be able to do this, so I'm sure we will see a variety of new scoring modes.
However, the plugins L4m3r outlines seem like a good idea: As opposed to Timed CTF in which not capturing kills a team, these plugins would be implementing the converse, by not making regular kills as important.
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Post by slime »

Why I made this post, and what I'm hoping to accomplish can be two different things :) I made the thread because I see too many times the best players aren't focusing on capturing the flag. What I hope to accomplish is for EVERYONE to focus more on capturing the flag. Kind of confusing, sorry. Either way, I would support these new added plug-ins L4m3r is talking about.
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