0.7 CTF Thread

I share your opinion jal. However, slowing down is not the only option imo. My argument for scaling the maps up (something that's easier to say than do, well atleast) stems from the fact that speed is relative. With this approach you can keep the movement that everyone loves whilst removing or atleast significantly reducing the impact of the negatives.

I don't wanna write a lot of words, just FU jal and thelawenforcer;)
(updated 2012-07-26 17:04:39)

Persuasive argument you got there crusty ;)

I think the reason they've been suggesting small corridors is to keep the speed down.

Honestly though, I can imagine this game going the UT direction: making all the weapons REALLY powerful. It'd counter the fast speeds, but at the cost of competition. It'd be more fun for beginners, at least. You could even do this in a gametype script; when a player gets hit by a certain weapon, make it deal a certain amount more damage. Then you could have beginner gametypes without affecting the game itself in any way.

I do truly believe that the weaponset can be made good for the speed. Or rather that nerfing speed heavily isn't the only way to make the game better.

Though I was thinking a bit, and my favorite ctf map really is Jerms_vast, which uses jumppads and gaps to limit your speed. Yeah, it's EB heavy; but think about how popular facing worlds was before you label that an issue.

In the end, I'm not certain balance always leads to a game being enjoyable.

jal wrote:
No, it confirms there's something majorly flawed with the movement. It has always been, and it can't be changed cause the players who are playing Warsow want this movement. All gameplay flaws in Warsow come always from the very same place: the stupidly overpowered movement, and every attempt I made to nerf the movement was trashed badly.

CTF will not work well in Warsow unless you slow down the runner a lot. Live with it.

Which was first, the egg or the chicken? Maybe the movement was always fine, but the weaponset was never balanced properly to suit the movement? Imo just buffing the certain weapons enough could actually fix the problem so there wouldn't be a need for living with it. At least it would be better than doing nothing and just accepting the fact that non-hitscan weapons are useless in situations where all of the players actually know how to move, specially if its bigger map being played (read: any non-duel map).

MagusZero wrote:
I think the reason they've been suggesting small corridors is to keep the speed down.

Honestly though, I can imagine this game going the UT direction: making all the weapons REALLY powerful. It'd counter the fast speeds, but at the cost of competition. It'd be more fun for beginners, at least. You could even do this in a gametype script; when a player gets hit by a certain weapon, make it deal a certain amount more damage. Then you could have beginner gametypes without affecting the game itself in any way.

I do truly believe that the weaponset can be made good for the speed. Or rather that nerfing speed heavily isn't the only way to make the game better.

You are pretty much on point, except the UT weapons didn't do THAT much damage, and the weaponset favored hitscan weapons quite heavily. But going for more brutal weapons is the way to go imo too. Here's something with similar balance as QW is. Highest tier weapons (RL/LG/GL) are buffed considerably, some have slight buff (RG/PG), and EB is nerfed for a good measure. And the knockback feels really weird and random, but i haven't figured yet how to change it back like it was before 0.7. Instead, i lowered player mass to 150, but while it helped abit, kockback still feels completely random so that was prolly a mistake. So there's that, and the fact that its first version since i pasted the weapondefs from the mod i made for 0.6 so nothing is perfect, but it should present the idea behind it well enough. Yeah, you need to compile it to try, i wont be releasing the mod, at least not for now, knowing how the things have gone in the past in that department...

Damage wasn't exactly what I meant about UT; the main thing was that all the weapons were equally useful. You could say that in warsow as well, but the feeling is totally different.

Without wanting to start a discussion about UT, saying that the guns there are equally useful is completely false - its pretty well known that UT is largely dominated by the shock rifle - a high rof hitscan weapon (ut maps are generally quite big scale, with movement that isn't particularly fast) that can also be used as a high damage AoE weapon.

With respect to the very powerful weapons idea, whilst I know battletwat (wizardo before he was banned ;p) would like to emulate QW, it might turn things into stand and spam rather than move and shoot. My wish would be to make the weapons more usable and with less overlap when it comes to effectiveness. The most obvious example is close range where several weapons are pretty effective (pg, rl, rg) and the lower than expected effectiveness of LG in midrange due to overlap from the rl with its pretty high projectile speed and because you can go from mid to close range pretty damn easily in warsow.

Not saying the shock rifle isn't OP; I'm saying all the weapons feel good. It's the whole "Our shotgun doesn't just spread, it BOUNCES" philosophy.

thelawenforcer wrote:
Persuasive argument you got there crusty ;)

Not less persuasive than yours.

@wizardo
sorry, but i really laughed at 1650 proj RL speed.. That's probably the most weird thing i ever seen.

Btw it could work like an "Excessive" mode :DDD

thelawenforcer wrote:
With respect to the very powerful weapons idea, whilst I know battletwat (wizardo before he was banned ;p) would like to emulate QW, it might turn things into stand and spam rather than move and shoot.

That's the reason why there's the ammos like they are. Obviously the stand and spam becomes by far more effective thing to do, since with balls-to-the-walls weapons, its actually possible close paths with nade/roxspam. That's not something i found bad though.

Koochi wrote:
@wizardo
sorry, but i really laughed at 1650 proj RL speed.. That's probably the most weird thing i ever seen.

Btw it could work like an "Excessive" mode :DDD

Maybe you should try QW some day? Hilarity will ensue, if fast projectiles is something you like to laugh at.

Nobody seems to understand that tweaking the weapons or making the maps larger won't make any difference regarding the fastcaps or flag steals. You can make the maps as large as you want but that still won't solve the issue, as rocket boosting is even more effective on large than it is on smaller maps.

What warsow ctf needs is a new gameplay element that would replace timers, yet do a similar job, give players some time to hunt down the flagcarrier.

UT never had the 'speed' problem, everybody had the same speed limit. Also (at least in in UT99) the flag was always deep in the enemy base, and to get out, the flagcarrier had to pass almost all spawnpoints where killed all defense and offense would respawn. Flagcarriers could - once in a fight also not just run, they had to rely on their teammates or they would be picked out in their back with - they had no speed advantage. This whole setup balanced out the not being able to gain field on the flagcarrier, and gave you spectacular action. For me - that CTF gameplay still is top of the hill, both for instagib and NW - and it's setup is way more complex than would seem at first sight, copying it would be a lot harder than you think.

Anyway - the difference between 800 and 950 would be nothing. Even dropping that to 700 would have minimal effect. Remember - the flagcarrier comes in flying at a speed, grabbing the flag, having momentum in this scenario. The defense has to start again from 0, accelerate up to at least a faster pace? This could *maybe* work if you had maps of at least twice the size, otherwise it's useless.

But also take this little thingy into account: offensive players in warsow will mostly be the players who can go fast and navigate with ease, their movement skill will be top-notch. These are the players that can grab a flag and get out as fast as possible.
I'm now strictly speaking for myself now - but I doubt I would be alone here. I am absolutely no speed-king, and I'm not exactly new at this game. I don't consider myself to be a really good WsW player, I never was, never will be - but I do manage to defend myself (and the flag if necessary). There have been way better players than me which were also considered to be "slow" - they just heavily relied on tactics, aim and prediction. So "slower" player doesn't mean "bad" player.
What I've seen in pretty much every CTF game I've ever played in wsw (and I used to be a regular at pickups) - is that the slower players go defense, faster players go offense. That's the sole reason I played def mostly, and I wouldn't even dream of catching a 700ups flagcarrier. I'd hit him a few times - sure, but catching up AND killing him? no way :)

So thelawenforcer - yes I said speed was "the problem", I was actually one of the first to acknowledge that speed was the issue, and the one that came up with the timer idea to give defense and offense an equal starting grounds once the flag has been taken in the first place. This didn't quite work out as well as expected, wsw ctf pretty much died after the introduction of these timers, probably because all fastcappers left.

If you remove these timers, speed again will become a problem. That however doesn't mean that slowing the flagcarrier down a bit is going to solve it. It is way more complex than that. That's why I said that for starters - you would need something to counter that speed, not prevent it, just remove it's advantage. Give a 'slow' flagcarrier the same problems and chances as a faster-one, and let him choose the less-optimal but safer route. You could say that if the flagcarrier is slower than X ups - the flag won't drop, or that he could take more damage, whatever. Just remove the advantage of 'speed', make it more of a risk and have a way to force the carrier to stop and bring fighting back to the game. Without the current timers, the only fighting you saw was in-base. Mid-field was dead, nothing ever happened there except the occasional return when defense managed to snipe a killed carrier. Dropped flags were almost never picked up again by the enemy team, because when the flag dropped, it was always in-base or in mid, where hardly anyone else was, which is - when you think of it - pretty strange.

Also - of all the timers mentioned in in what I described, ONE is important - when the flag returns, one you can simply speed up a lot by standing on it. I'm thinking ballpark 10 seconds return timer without any interference, sped up x5 or x4 when def touches it - which would take a 2 or 2,5sec to return it from a "full". That is 1 single timer visible to the player, and I assume a 'return' timer is already present currently? Every CTF game has it afaik to solve unreachable dropped flags etc. Now instead of returning the flag immediately when touching, you would just speed up this timer. The 'damage' timer would also be 'invisible'. To the damaging it would just be "I hit him hard enough", this is to solve the problem that you don't want to let the flag drop for 1 accidental MG or RG hit.

I rly fail to see the complexity, the current ctf gametype is more complex imho.

Maybe some kind of player detection region, which makes your team's part of the map have flashing lights go off; not precise at all and before they get the flag.

Maybe remove walljump for the flag carrier, or reduce the carrier's speed by 50, and make picking up the flag require a delay just long enough that you have to come to a full stop.

Remember, with the way gametype scripts work, you could easily give any defenders within a certain range of their flag when its captured a speed or damage boost, you could make carriers take more damage like KoFFiE said. Plenty of things worth trying.
(updated 2012-07-27 01:37:40)

I still stand by my suggestion. Flags are not recovered by touching them but are required to be brought back to their respective bases. Requires no timers, weapon tweeks or the like.

Pros:

- more involvement from all players in mid and enemy bases (returning the flag)
- no more 3 def situations like it's the case in ictf
- limits fastcaps (depending on the teams formed)
- more time to hunt and recover the flag (assuming both teams have the enemy flag)
- no more situations as: recover the flag->suicide->go back do defence

Cons:

- abusing the system by hiding with own flag while in the lead (present in current state)
- flag gets dropped in places from which it can't be recovered (more of a map problem if you ask me)


This is just my opinion, so there.

i have an idea: make mids more open, if difficult tricks dont stop the efc, it may as well be an open shooting range unlike the wctf1 mid. i think, when you talk about pre stealtimer ctf, you mean wctf1. so, i dont know if your comparisons is maybe a bit unfair.
also stretch the maps.

stoped arguing, but gotta say sth to koffie:
it's not the fault of movement skilled players that u and others are not fast. every1 got same chances, why don't u learn and master it urself? punishing players who spent tons of hours doing that and learning routes, i also request a dmg handicap for more aimed players then. it's a skill to master, either learn it or deal with ur disadvantage.
(and just like i pointed out before, yeah ofc u won't stop flagcarriers with instant steal system, at least not without further tweaks. so make them have to stop by with flagtimer, just decrease that awkward length of unlock time and the sys will be fine)

Make moa maps, kthx.

stoped arguing, but gotta say sth to koffie:
it's not the fault of movement skilled players that u and others are not fast. every1 got same chances, why don't u learn and master it urself? punishing players who spent tons of hours doing that and learning routes, i also request a dmg handicap for more aimed players then. it's a skill to master, either learn it or deal with ur disadvantage.
(and just like i pointed out before, yeah ofc u won't stop flagcarriers with instant steal system, at least not without further tweaks. so make them have to stop by with flagtimer, just decrease that awkward length of unlock time and the sys will be fine)

Entirely agreed, that's what I wanted to say to jal with a little bit another words.:)
(updated 2012-07-27 14:18:46)

Farm, the issue with these timers is that they create these horrible spam and rush fights when stealing and capping that very few people enjoy but constitute a big part of how ctf plays , thus the frequent threads discussing ways to reform ctf.

Noone disputes that movement is a skill, but rather whether the outcomes of games should be determined so disproportionately by it over everything else. There's no teamplay in movement nor are the weapons particularly effective at stopping someone determined to move past or avoid you. As an attack specialised player this may suit you, but your fun is largely at the expense of everyone else's.