Capture the Flag Discussion Thread

In the current system even the "losers" can be winners. If you're losing a game so badly you can always switch gears and try winning a trophy.

Like I said, I've been on many a losing team, I've never complained:

Exactly. CTF is not about profit. You and I could care less about these trophies, yet the complaints listed by the OP all seem to stem from these rewards being offered. So from my point of view, nix the rewards on all the randimized matches, get less complaints. No skin off my back.

Now for those twice weekly organized team ctf matches, sure. Make that the CTF end game and give it some better rewards. Compromise.

P.S I did like 40 scrolls not >100 !!! And I only farmed 1, the rest I spent ALL of my gold to get, even selling all the platinum I had been hoarding by the end of it.

Also IF random teams is the way we are headed... and catering to new players is on the agenda... Make CTF a template based event where players are striped of everything and given select items based on their template chosen. That keeps everything 100% even. Everyone will get pots/regs and armor, depending on the skills you choose you will also get a GM Sword, Axe, Spear, War Hammer, poison potions, etc. This will allow our new players a real opportunity to fight on even ground.

I hadn't previously played with the people I CTF with and, mostly, I still don't play with them outside CTF. Yet, even with my almost nonexistent social skills, I was able to go and find them. Imagine that.

I would miss the flexibility of being able to play exactly what I wanted (or not, depending on how it was implemented). I think this would be unfair to people who bought runics for ctf (not me). My ctf characters would still be wasted time. Still, if this made people happy, I don't think it would ruin it for me as much as all matches being randomized.

FWIW, I've been on the winning team the last few I was in and I've gotten nothing because I was I was in the middle for all the categories. I've gotten more trophies on losing teams. If that is why they are complaining, maybe they don't understand how the trophies are handed out. Edit: Point here being that they are LESS likely to get a trophy if they are on a stacked team.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea that we can group up with friends and CTF together. I think Pax said maybe we should have 2 CTF's every night. One with team selection and the other totally random. Rewards should only be given to the random match though to promote team building and comradery among otherwise foes and such.

Randomized teams solves a lot of problems that I think people see within CTF.

I also think that there should be a 30-second period when teams are pulled into their starting area before they can enter the battlefield. Having a moment to try to set up strategy can really help a team perform well and close the gap against a team that always plays together, and help each individual member feel like they're contributing effectively.

I can't think of a programmatic way to enforce lack of activity, but deduping IPs and randomizing teams should help with that.

For trophies, maybe change it to surfers instead of ladies? And maybe keep the same hue differences for winning and losing teams. I dislike the idea of removing them altogether, they are fun to get on a winning or losing team.

I think reducing the flag hold time would be good. Last I knew, it was 5 minutes, but I'd suggest dropping it down to 3 minutes. That's a reasonable amount of time to notify your team that you have the flag and launch a coordinated effort to get yours back so you can score.

What a bunch of bullshit. Let's be bluntly honest here.. People are always going to bitch about something, so the only logical conclusion is to cater to them and remove the one sliver of PvP oriented action this server has? Sweet. We were promised nearly a year ago there would be tournaments. I was told numerous times "they're coming in a week" and to this day nothing has panned out. Now we have a group of people whining about more "omg unfairness" so everyone else has to pay the price for it. Just open trammel already, Chris. Seriously.

Personally, I think more variety within the CTF rules would help alleviate some of the problems. Adding in randomized matches and non-magic matches in equal numbers to the current style of matches might be an interesting thing to try. I know Chris has been working hard on making an Automation System for CTF's and i'm sure he'll really appreciate having that part of his life back when he doesn't have to manually initiate CTF's anymore.

I don't really think the rewards are a major issue needing a drastic change. Personally, i'd like to see an All-Around Trophy category dreamed up for that helper character, but its certainly not a major sticking point for me in any way. In addition, eventually i'd like to see leaderboards tracking the CTF's more. It'd simply be cool to see that Player X healed 30,000 points in the month of January in CTF's...or that Player X died 30,000 times in the month of January in CTF's. Monthly leaders in categories would be neat to see....someday. Perhaps even a monthly trophy for the one that's the top of his category. Again, certainly not pressing concerns in this category.

I actually don't like the flag hold time limit, personally, as it is actually an easy way for one team to stop another team from capping all the time. It seems like the balance is actually removed in this case by having a timer and only rewards the Offensive playstyle. There's a whole defensive playstyle there that just pretty much gets eliminated with this mindset. Sure, the battles are more defensive struggles then, but that doesn't make it a bad match. So yeah, I am definitely AGAINST decreasing the timer for holding the flag and think it should be done away with altogether. If the other team can't come in and tank you while you're holding it, then they just don't deserve to score. I know that frustrates the heck out of some people, but I consider that a completely viable defensive strategy in a 4 team CTF.


Perhaps an option to look into would be automatically putting CTF members into party groups for the randomized teams...or perhaps in general. I know this would be one way to help new players, and players not used to playing with one another, work together. At the end of the match, have the Party automatically dis-banded.

Blocking multiple entries from the same IP is a good idea. Yes, per case consideration for families can/should be considered as time allows. Some sort of account flag would need to be generated to allow families to play together, but this would most likely be a very low priority. At the very least, 1 trophy per IP should be implemented in the meantime and probably just 1 entry per IP until people start presenting credible cases for a change to that. Having seen players idle healer bots on opposing teams to farm Medic trophies, its clearly an issue that needs to addressed at some point.

I would like to see more randomized team matches. I don't think ALL matches should be randomized picks, but I think maybe an even mix of the types/rules. For the Random Teams, though, they should be completely blind picks in that you have no idea who is on what team until the signups close. Then you should be given 30-60 seconds to coordinate. This would help to avoid the Join/Drop method of stacking teams. Couple this with the Auto-Party idea and playing with randoms should not be a drastic issue.

Another variation of the CTF's that I would like to see is Non-Magic Matches. Simply more variety is all. Certainly not a high priority, but it'd be neat to see as an option.

I 100% disagree with you on this.

I understand quick dumps of the guy low on health and then back to fighting one another. I understand running in and dumping someone holding a flag. There are plenty of completely legitimate ways to work together for a common goal in a CTF.

What is happening on occasion, though, is quite a bit more than that. Its coordinated attacks via Voice Chat using 2 teams worth of players where those 2 teams worth of players never attack one another. That is simply exploiting the system and defeats the purpose of 4-Team CTF's and balancing. There is an absolute reason that teams get auto-balanced and one team is not allowed to have twice as many players as the other team. By allowing 2 teams to so obviously work as one team, you completely circumvent that mechanic. Either we balance the teams numbers-wise or we don't. If we are not going to balance teams, then allow it I guess. If that is allowed, then 4 Team CTF's should be eliminated altogether, though, as its only going to create more anger and resentment as players realize what is going on...

I understand this is something that is hard to police, but perhaps just openly stating that it is NOT allowed would curb the more blatant exploitation of this.

I agree.

Sure, people exploiting things and messing with the fun of others is lame, but removing them altogether only exacerbates that situation by removing the fun that was being had in spite of the exploiters. That certainly does not make anything better. Let's build upon a good idea instead of tearing it down.

I sort of agree with Mandevu. I know CTF has its problems, but it's been very enjoyable to mess around with and to observe.

One other suggestion I will make is to try to wait for even teams. That is, if it's a 4-team match, try to have the system not close signups until there's exactly 8, 12, 16, etc. The difference between a 3-man team and a 4-man team is pretty large. Not insurmountable, but large. And I think there always seems to be 1 or 2 people who show up after books are closed; if they can even up teams, I feel like it's in everyone's best interest to let them in.

Sometimes we can be waiting in the event lobby for 20+ mins. The CTFs are scheduled, the schedule is advertised and it's always running late anyway. If you can't make it then you can't make it, don't penalize me because I was there early/on time by having a resetting timer everytime someone joins a team late.

Lightshade, please, enlighten us all on who is doing this because you seem to be the ONLY person that sees this.

Like I said in a previous post, we've all been in voice together and once a match starts we all change channels to be solely with out team. Everything you must be seeing in there is either chaos or coincidence. There is, to my knowledge (and I'm assuming you are accusing my team of doing this) , no back room colluding with a gaggle of people so that the losers can lose even more. All this is is an insane conspiracy theory. I'm not going to collude with a losing team in order to split a whopping total of 5 plat, get real here, please. There is no benefit, at all, for an enemy team to bend over and just allow PCP to win.

Naming names serves no purpose whatsoever and is irrelevant to the topic. I am not the only person that sees this. I just happen to be the only person speaking up. I could put words to other people's experiences, but its not my place.

Regardless of anything, the issue is: Is it a problem and should it be addressed going forward. If you do not think so, then say so. If you think that allowing players to do this is okay, then say so. If you do not think it is okay to allow players to do this, then say that. If its an issue that others, outside of my circle of friends/players, feel should be addressed and nipped in the butt....then let's address it.

Pointing fingers serves no purpose and gets us no where. If we collectively decide that it shouldn't be allowed, which clearly I feel it should not, then let's take steps to address it without calling people out and blaming each other for past perceived wrongs. It serves no constructive purpose whatsoever.

Solutions please.....not a re-hashing the problem.

Take Care,

~ L / S

Our team syncing on Bog who normally plays with us.





Please, tell me more about this colluding thing.

Anyone not having fun losing a CTF match, is a baby. Do you play games only to win? If so, this is the wrong game for you. You should try something like tic-tac-toe with a three year old. I have heard the sadness in my regular team's voices when I opt to CTF with some underdogs because we already have more than enough team to win. For the record, this is something I've done time and time again and been accused of intentionally NOT doing, time and time again. I go because it's fun to try and the best matches have ALWAYS been matches against my friends or capable GROUPS working together. Just like those mentioned earlier, I have sat in mumble channels by myself with three friends stomping me out in another channel. I curse, I yell, I call them all &^%$%&^*%&^( (@%^@ @!#^%@^^....because that's how I roll. I still come away with an increased heart rate and a huge smile on my face yelling GOOD GAME. Because that's what this is.

Flag hold timers should be under 3 minutes before the flag is returned. Killing the carrier when the timer runs out isn't appropriate, in my opinion. Turtling enemy flags is a clear problem and if you're not ready to capture (flag not at base) then you've got a lot more work to do than carrying something in your pack.

I will play with randomized teams but I will be dismayed if actual league play (with teams) is removed. This is an MMO and if I wanted to play with randoms only, I'd hide my online status and go play CoD on XBox. Anyone who has played CoD on XBox should know that even with a FULL TEAM, you will occasionally get steamrolled by another full team....that's better than yours. I've also been on the mic with 5 randoms when I see a full clan hop on and I get vocal and encourage this rag-tag group to step up their game. It doesn't always pan out to a win but when it does, man are we all stoked because David just took down Goliath.

I can't say I have evidence to collusion but I was fairly confident that I watched two teams of SL members synch on me in a match but it could also be coincidence that their spells were perfectly timed while they are all in the same voice channels. That said, I really don't care or think there's anything that can be done about it, truly. If anyone wanted, they could stack an enemy team with WoS/Para drones that ONLY wall/paralyze the chosen "enemy".

I like the high score trophies as a nice trinket. I feel that everyone who participates (and doesn't idle in one spot for more than 60s the whole match) and captures, does damage, cross heals or anything relevant to the game, should get a single platinum piece for playing. 6k value is NOTHING for the time spent, in the grand scheme. Give the named trophies to the high scores so people have something to shoot for instead of the participation trophy. While I don't think participation trophies are good in real life, this is a video game and even the losers in CoD get their game points and unlocks.

I would love to see the lobby wait for X amount of players per team. Especially if we could sort on the fly in the lobby, players might actually coordinate more for healthy teams.

Cynic you are exactly right

"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 think everyone had their shit pushed in by pk's when we started here...that is not my argument though. I would never mess with the mechanics of felucia PvP. We are talking about CTF, a COMMUNITY event, for everyone to enjoy. So why not focus on things that can increase participation rather then argue how its turning in trammel?

Air, the arguments being made are the same as those who say SL should split up because they're too big of a Faction. Should Telamon code out faction groups greater than X% larger than their competition too?

If you want to win, practice and practice with others if winning involves a team. This is a competition event and if you enjoy competition, finding/forming a team and working with them to GET GOOD, is what COMPETITION is about.

All the events in UOR are community events. IMO it's a disservice to newer players to give them the false perception that they are king of the hill because they do great in CTF. Just because it's a community event doesn't mean it needs to be catered away from normal pvp strategy, and the most basic one at that, get a team & get organized.

The PvM events that are held just about monthly here are a prime example that, yes, it's open to new comers and it's friendly to them, however, only the most prepared/organized/consistent player is going to win. Do you need me to show you how the XMas event was dominated by veterans? How about the Halloween event?

How about fight nights which are dominated by the top duelers on the server? Ever see a new player go there and last more than 2 seconds against a veteran?

If anything, I am anticolluding. Meaning: It is fun for me to try to grab their flag or kill them when I am not playing with them even when it not the most game theory optimal thing to do. In reality, I'm hurting both of our chances of winning.