Capture the Flag Discussion Thread

Rapid discovery of mechanical exploits to obtain unintended results? lol

/facepalms


There's nothing you can code, that someone won't pick their way through to abuse to their advantage. The same will likely go with CTF and as bartimus said but I think everyone ignored, with random teams you end up in lobbies where players are constantly quitting/joining to TRY and get on their friend's teams. When they can't, they leave. This isn't speculation, it is citation of evidence witnessed on other RunUO shards.


Agree there Bogugh, it's way more fun to fuck with your friends than to collude with them to fuck with some random/whocares or even an enemy.

You keep reverting back to regular field PvP. This is a "controlled" event. Fight nights, dungeon crawls, factions, O/C; those are all open season to "destroy" new players.

CTF, in my opinion, was created with 0 risk (no looting) for EVERYONE to have fun which is why I think it is important to tailor and adjust the system to accommodate everyone.

There's no looting in fight nights and it's a "controlled" event too.

CTF's already accommodate everyone from the veteran down to the new player. There is nothing stopping a new player from forming a team, being social and asking to join a team, or just maybe, just maybe try having fun even though the chance they lose is high.

Just because they're new doesn't mean that CTF needs to change so it's a level playing field for new comers. Even if it's a randomized team the new player is still going to get steamrolled because they are NEW. When I was playing my dexxer and competing with Bart for kills I would purposefully seek out to kill the weaker opponents.

Cynic, would you be ok with taking away rewards? No more statues, are you ok with that?

If EVERYONE isn't having fun learning how to CTF and growing their skillset and social circle, then they just lost touch with what gaming is all about.
If you're getting stomped out, within the rules, why are you not doing your very best to learn and adapt?

Air, we've almost all been playing these events since pre-reward mode.

May I suggest we just give a try with random teams here and there ?

That way if it's that bad, it will quickly be eliminated from the solutions list.

Unfortunately it's not just a switch to flip, it's code to write. Lots of time was put into the team selection system and Telamon has already said he would put in randoms when he can but for the time being this was it.

There's room for both here, with fully random CTFs regularly forcing GM items only, etc (best forced balance you will get) and scheduled league games with team size min/max thresholds and limited item restriction.

I've been playing CTF pre-rewards too.

However, if you take the rewards away then I don't see me playing as much, no.

There is no reward for getting an organized game of CTF without the statues. I know Bart and I go through a keg of explosions every CTF, there's no incentive to go all out if at the end of the game it's just a number on paper.

Just like with every other aspect in this game, controlled or uncontrolled, the more organized and efficient you are in doing whatever it is you are doing then the bigger reward/chance of reward there is.

Some of these guys go all out in CTF just for the trophy as a decoration piece. Personally, I turn mine into plat.

Every once in a while our group plays CTF, but usually there's only myself or 1-2 others that play. I have even played on the Orc's team on pupose (which are mainly SL alts), and had blast. I am trained to adapt and overcome, of course, but not everyone is.

I ask about the rewards only because if those of you who oppose change also oppose the elimination of plat statues, then it is obviously an ulterior motive to participate in CTF. Not to have fun with friends, but to dominate and collect the platinum statues. I am a capitalist and I believe in the American Dream. I real life, I would not be standing on this side of the fence. But in this game, I feel it is very important to accommodate everyone when possible, with stuff like CTF, without significantly altering the game itself.

That would be a well invested time though. I can see many other uses for a random signup book system.

Could use it for future holiday events and add a PvP touch to them !

I just don't understand why people can't just do what we did? Is it really that hard to create a CTF team with a strategy and organization??

Is it REALLY that hard? Find 2 friends and join CTF? Get in voice? Dish our roles?

Are we really serious guys?

I understand that there are people that may not be able to do this because they might be casual but don't punish those who chose to come together to win.

I really wanted to win the XMas event, Descartes and I spent hours constructing a plan of attack. It came to a point that we both realized that our competition was just, bluntly, better than us. We knew we didn't really have a chance. See either one of us bitching on forums because we got beaten at an event where our opponents just did it waaay better than us? Hell no. I congratulated both of them for blowing everyone out of the water.

I am arguing to make improvements to INCREASE participation. I am not concerned with statues, scores, etc. Randomizing teams would make it fun when you get put on my team Cynic, and we are forced to work together.

I think we already found common ground though, implement a random team and a select team event every other night or so. I put money on a huge turnout for random games and sluggish for selected teams

The rewards are great, not deal breakers, but great. I just wouldn't play as hard or as much without a reward. That's how this game works, you do things for a reward.

You think I would be out there fishing on 3 accounts just for fun? LOL.. I'm doing it and I'm doing it as best as I can because I want to win.

I'm not arguing that random teams won't be fun but you need to realize that in a gaggle of chaos the smart players are going to switch gears and farm for a trophy versus trying to actually win the game. The CTF is inundated with people like this as it is, they would rather join solo and do whatever they can to win a trophy versus trying to win the game. Pax and I had 3 on our team during a recent CTF who didn't help us cap/defend/kill enemy flag carriers. They farmed the middle and tried to win a trophy.. THIS is what random CTFs will be like.

Air, as cynic said, no one is getting rich off this thing either before or after the cost of items that aren't free use. As far as this being no risk, what do you think the people in question make per hour on average overland? and how much in the event (though only cynic turns in his statues, that I know of)? There is both actual and opportunity cost to playing the event. Increasing this cost / removing the reward will not increase participation, imo.

"I put money on a huge turnout for random games and sluggish for selected teams."

If you lose, will you then say we played selectively so we could win the bet? The whole reason I play with voice people is because of the coordination and my frustration with the lack of it. If ctf was randomized, then I'd probably get banned for AFKing because, if my whole team is farming the middle, I'd be clicking the red x.

I won't quit out, unless RL takes over, no matter how bad I'm losing or how terrible/poorsport my teammates are. I will die 30 deaths and never land a kill because I just don't give a crap about trying to kill people that don't have my team's flag or one that I need to score with if all others are held.
I will vent frustrations by yelling at them in all caps mid-match to KILL THE CARRIER AND COVER THE FLAG. lol I think it's worked in the past with truly new players totally lost in there.

That said, the rewards are entirely negligible. If it's not obvious that even a newbie on Occlo can make more than 6-18k per hour just doing basic shit, actually easier than CTF, I don't know what to say. The players in CTFs dumping thousands of gold into explo/nox/str/agi potions and/or better weapons aren't doing it for profit but the tip is nice.

I'd like explain something here about some situations that are perhaps contributing to the perceived collusion.

Let's say I'm green and I run into orange base and a blue guy grabs their flag. You had better believe I'm going to help orange kill blue so that I can grab the flag myself instead of running across the entire map to another base.

Similarly, if I'm in a base where the flag is clearly about to be returned and another team has someon there, I'm going to kill them so I can get the flag when it comes back.

Adding to this perception is that the teams tend to fight for the weakest flags.

This isn't collusion, it is strategy. Removing this kind of stuff and randomization turn this into the aforementioned free-for-all and free cookies.

Like this? Also, this is what happens with unorganized teams:

Ok there have been some very good arguments here. I secede and vote that rewards remain. They are menial, but it seems there would be less people playing if they weren't here.

I also have thought about those holiday events and will admit that the rewards were a large part of me running them as hardcore as I did. They were a ton of fun, but it was the rewards that brought me to the table.