Capture the Flag Discussion Thread

A group kick option can be initiated to prevent idlers/afkers/etc..

I think CTF gets so much attention from all types of players that it would be a detriment to the server by removing it completely.

Randomizing would be a nice and fresh way to do CTF on occasion. You can't do this every time because then the people that play with their friends can no longer do so.

I know I ran a bot healer on an enemy team twice as a challenge thing. I got my pee pee smacked and it never happened again. I really haven't seen any of these complaints happening consistently in CTF and I play 95% of the games.

The other night I got 2 of my guild mates to try CTF for the first time and they were very put off by seeing the teaming. It took me months to get them to try it and that was their first experience. One of them managed to get a Medic Trophy, but pretty much said, "screw it if they're allowed to cheat."

So you went into a CTF with 2 team members, lost, and it's somehow everyones fault but your own? You were teamed, just like the winners were. How in the holy hell does this make any sense?

you need to really revamp the events
its so one sided to those who team up like _____ every game
also think about making it so you can only do like a certain amount of events a week.

Why would the people who spend the time min/maxing at UO have to be punished. This is like saying SL has owned sigils for a year so it's time they sat out of factions for a few months.

I just want to make it clear:

Pax, Cynic, & Perseus is a guild of 3 that came together with one objective and that's to win CTFs. We put together a basic strategy and for the time being a very basic strategy of capping/killing/healing is all that's required.

Sometimes friends will play with us on our team if there is room. Sometimes they are playing on another team because that's how CTF works.

We never collude with another team to dominate the CTF. That makes no sense, only one team can win CTF. @Blaise should be able to attest to this as he's seen first hand that we all meet in the mumble lobby prior to a CTF match and then divvy up into separate channels once our teams are situated.

Here's how you can beat us, it's not that hard:

1. Get a small team.
2. Get in voice.
3. Stop farming mid.
4. Kill the enemy flag carrier.
5. Defense is not an option.
5. Have a strategy.

• Is it against the rules for 3-5 people to organize and join the same team each match, or should this behavior be punished via randomization because it provides an unfair advantage? It is not against the rules for 3-5 people to team up and play together. It is a great feeling to team up with friends and go accomplish something in this game. i.e. Champ Spawn, Guild Hunt, CTF Match, Faction Fight, Treasure Map.

• Is it against the rules for players to turtle or strategically hold the flag of another team?

No it is not against the rules to hold onto an opposing team's flag. This forces them to become offensive and attack your base, giving you the defenders advantage. However it must be taken into consideration that by holding an opposing team's flag vs capturing it can be risky since you are not accumulating those points. Do I feel the flag timer is too long and should be shortened? YES. With a 15-20 minute match length, being able to turtle for 300 seconds is quite a significant amount of time.

• Should a player be banned from events for going afk during a match?

We have all had those matches... An AFK teammate that just brings the team down. You work diligently as he is slaughtered over and over by the enemy team. This is frustrating and should be addressed. I feel a voting option by the team to kick players on their team is in order. If nothing else let the AFK incident stand as a mark on their record and when the maximum number of marks is reached they receive some sort of penalty.

• Is it against the rules for one team to not automatically target another team. Ergo selecting targets based on who they are vs simply attacking every orange player indiscriminately?

This is a hard rule to address. I would say yes it is against the rules because, by purposely avoiding an opposing team so you may work together is cheating. Because there is something to gain (4 plat trophy) this would be considered exploiting? (Taking advantage of an in game mechanic unfairly for gain) Everyone has a fair shot here. Play with a small team of friends and compete to win. (on the same team please)
Are we able to differentiate 100% of the time if people are working together on opposing toons? No, will we ever be able to? No. What could fix this???!?!?!?!??! A kick option by a large majority vote of teammates to get the cheaters out of the game in an expedited process. (vs PM Staff and having them investigate during a match while this cheater griefs your team)

So glad I made 2 characters exclusively for CTF and started a guild. Like most other things I put effort into in UO, it looks like this is more wasted time.

Yes, obviously it is unfair for people to organize and try to win. Also, please remove guilds from the game and change PVP so that, once two players have engaged in combat, no one else can attack you, because otherwise things will be fair. Definitely ban strategy of any kind. In fact, lets get rid of the score and the flags and have a free for all after which everyone gets a 0 plat winner trophy and a pan of cookies. No, people shouldn't be banned from events for repeatedly going afk, but no cookies for you! Sorry if these don't sound like serious answers, but those don't sound like serious questions.

I've seen groups of people purposely picking a different team from their friends, so as to not directly compete for the best on team trophy, and then sync on a third team in order to maximize their trophies...all while never attacking each other's teams. It defeats the purpose of balancing teams or having 4 teams if you allow that kind of teaming. As to how to fix that, well, I guess that relies on the integrity of the players in these matches...which is clearly lacking.

I've personally watched Player A attacking Player B next to Player B's Flag where Player B naturally calls in his team mates for help. The issue was a third team's worth of teamates also coming in to help out Player B at the exact same time as Player B's Teamates with an across the board sync drop. Then both teams went their separate ways without ever attacking each other.

Having seen that one time would be one thing, but I watched it happen 3x in one match.

I know the majority of the players are going out there day in and day out and just having some good old fashioned fun, but there's some players exploiting the mechanics of the system and just taking the fun out of it.

It is simply pathetic.

• Remove all rewards for winning/losing
  • I think this would be a step in the right direction. Chris stated : "These events were intended to be for fun and be a nice break for people to learn combat, and bring out their best equipment." I think all of these hold true whether or not rewards are offered. The rewards are menial anyway and only add un-needed drama.
  • The arguments in this thread have changed my mind concerning rewards. They encourage people to participate and ADD fun to the mix by making winning worth something.
• Disallow players who live together and play ctf together from both being able to join a match (IP limiter)
  • I would hate to punish players who simply have roommates from all participating. If there are no rewards, I would imagine we would see a lot less people abusing the system by adding their alts onto opposing teams.
• Force randomize CTF teams so people cannot choose to play together.
  • I think this would be a good idea. Firstly, I disagree with the notion that randomization makes it so people "cannot choose to play together". Randomization makes it so people cannot choose to play on the same team, but regardless of how the random roll turns out, we are all playing together here as there is only 1 ctf instance open at a time. Second, randomization will in my opinion lead to a lot more close matches, which I think are generally found to be more enjoyable to everyone. After very lopsided matches all you hear in IRC for the next hour is whining. After close matches all you hear in IRC for the next hour is people talking about how damn close and fun the match was.
• Remove all 4 team matches and return to just 2 team matches.
  • I think the 4 team maps and matches are just too darn fun to consider abandoning.
• Is it against the rules for players to turtle or strategically hold the flag of another team?
  • In no way is this against the rules. The time you are allowed to hold the flag before blowing up could be lowered in my opinion.
• Should a player be banned from events for going afk during a match?
  • Permenantly banned? Absolutely not. We are all busy and stuff comes up. That said, I am all for implementing a system very similar to our resource gathering afk checks, in which habitually going afk would net you more time temporarily banned from joining CTF events. To clarify, I do not think there should be an afk check gump that pops up while playing, just that if a player does not move from the ressurection room into play in a timely fashion, they get a
• Is it against the rules for one team to not automatically target another team. Ergo selecting targets based on who they are vs simply attacking every orange player indiscriminately?
  • In no way is this against the rules.

I would have to ask you to point out exactly who you are accusing of this. Here's the thing. Sometimes there will be 5-6 of us in voice and we all hope to get on the same team, but sometimes the matches just aren't attracting as many players to make a 6 person team a possibility. With team balancing sometimes the last guy will volunteer himself to another team, in the last few CTF's this has been amfekk. After the match starts he jumps into another channel by himself.

I've never seen anyone purposefully join another team to try for a 1 plat trophy. That seems absurd. The logical thing to do is to form a small group in order to accomplish two goals: 1) Win 2) Win each trophy category.

I've seen people idle, afk, and just stop trying. I've never seen selective targeting. This is not to say that it's never happened but I think there is a big difference between one guy not wanting to kill his friends and a group of people purposefully gimping another team in order to ensure their friends team can win. (The latter I've never seen nor heard of anyone doing and even if they did it's very silly)

Would you farm if the monsters didn't drop gold? Would you spawn if the champ didn't drop plat? Would you faction if the kills didn't earn you points/silver?

I understand there is no risk to CTFs and thus how some may argue that there shouldn't be a reward.

There was no risk with the UOR events and the rewards there were insane... insane... Would you have bothered to farm the xmas events if there was no reward?

My vote would be:

• Block multiple accounts entering per IP. If people have a legit scenario where they have a roommate/SO that also wants to play, they can take it up with admins to get around this limitation. (I believe this was done at holiday events in the past) This is the #1 way people are going to be able to dick with the system.
• More random team CTFs. People like grouping up with their buds and winning against another team. There are also people that attend these events without an organized team and don't want to get steamrolled every time. Both types of players need to be represented.
• If people are angry about teams cooperating in 4-team CTF, tough cookies. That's what multi-faction PvP is about. Sometimes they ally to defeat a greater enemy.
• Definitely do not do away with CTFs permanently.

Of course it is okay to team up with buddies...BUT, what about all of the new fish (new players) that we have coming and going every month on this server?

Does anyone think that increasing the population on this shard is more important than playing a CTF match with their friends?

In my opinion, I think randomization should be a given. This would create an even playing field and think about it this way:

Scenario A: New player to the shard, finishes his first PvP character and comes to a CTF event. He/she gets randomly put on Pax or Cynics or Bart's team and they win....that new player will probably be happier than a pig in shit and tell his/her friends how fun this server is.

Scenario B: New player to the shard, finshes his first pvp character and comes to a CTF event. He/she get put on a team with the Orc's. The new player dies 30 times, gets no kills, no flag captures....rages and goes back to playing CoD

Which scenario would benefit this shard more?


Incase yall did not know this...MOST new players on the shard do not have "friends" to team up with

You know the same argument about catering to new players can be said for almost all pvp aspects of this server.
PKing
Factions
O/C

A newbie is considered a newbie for a reason. You can't expect to be king of the hill on your first ctf and the first time pvping on this server.

And that is the attitude that continues to strangle the shards population. I enjoy watching new people talk about how much fun CTF was, not how much BS it is with the same teams stacked every time. Randomization is needed so everyone can enjoy CTF. Would it not be fun to smash on your homies once I a while? Or is it the thought of losing once in a while too much to accept?

We can have our cake and eat it too. We just need the right amount of both types to appease everyone.

Maybe the announcement of "random teams" or "not random teams" can be added to the CTF system notifications.

There are some things in this game that are inherently fun, and there are some things that are inherently profitable. Take farming monsters, and champ spawns for instance. Both are in my opinion inherently profitable, yet pretty boring. I don't get bored and say, hey lets go say all kill and click shit for hours, it will be fun! I do those things because they are profitable. On the other hand take PVP, all holiday events, ctf etc. I find these things to be inherently fun and would absolutely do them without reward. Am I arguing that the reward is not a nice little bonus? No. Of course the rewards are great for holiday events in particular, but what draws me to them isn't the reward, but the change in pace. I have been playing UO a long time and new content is WAY more valuable to me then rewards.

So with your philosophy every newb should be given a runic weapon upon leaving Occlo and encouraged to go jump right into pvp without the expectation of ever getting steam rolled? Please, you're acting like my opinion is detrimental to attracting new players. I had my shit pushed in by every notable PK on this server for weeks when I first started here.. I'm still here. This game isn't about having your hand held, there's a reason the young program boots you out after a certain threshold is met.



I've played against Pax many many many times. I've been on losing teams many many many times. This is the reason we all decided to organize a CTF team.

There is much more enjoyment in organized PvP. Disorganized and chaotic pvp is what's not fun.

Cynic's posts have made been in a civil manner. He wants to see this shard grow as much as you do. I feel the point he is trying to make is: Why punish people working together and criticize their actions for playing together in an MMORPG? New players know they are just that... NEW and should not expect to win their first time. I'm sorry losing can be discouraging. I suggest trying to make the most out of the time you have to play the game you love and don't let a CTF loss destroy your day. Better luck next time.

I am not opposed to random teams once in a while IF IF IF rejoining/switching teams can be blocked. After playing CTF else where it became apparent to me people leave and rejoin until they are on their friend's team defeating the purpose of "Random" Teams.

C'Mon man, you farmed the XMas events for hundreds of hours. You must've done at least 100 scrolls. That's doing an event for profit.

Also, please don't confuse CTF awards with profit. A measly 4 plat, which is not guaranteed, is not much of a profit. I can go farm 60k+ in the time it takes to win a CTF match.

CTF is fun the way it is now if/when you have a group to play with. The problem is that most don't have a consistent group for CTFs. This is where I agree with Basoosh that the addition of randomized games would be nice. However, I don't think that the current system should be changed.

Good idea. You are correct that this is not black and white, and the same can be said about the rewards.
What about 2 days a week there is "pick your own team", coupled with better rewards, and the rest of the week is randomized, no reward.