Consider limiting AvD massive jumps (one-jump-to-cap-point)

[mikeparker]

Apparently it's a big bugbear on pub servers who would rather play with players making gradual progress towards the cap point.

hlstriker:take palermo for example
the map is totally ruined by boosting with pipes
1 good player just skips every single part of the enemies defense
it doesnt even feel rewarding if you are that demo man either
youre just like yeah.. that was easy
AfterShock:I wonder if everyone hates jumping tho
hlstriker:go into motos and find out lol
hlstriker:That server is like a discussion board for pub play FF
hlstriker:I think rookie was going to try it out, we were all talking about it for a few days

A suggested option was to simply limit the overall velocity of any player carrying the flag. I suggested another option of dropping the flag when you go over a certain velocity but that didnt seem as nice - probably a bit confusing.

We might also be able to lift the slowdown a little on normal flag carrying if we nerf the jumps?

[squeek502]

This seems really backwards. FF's whole thing is movement.

Why shouldn't this be solved by map design (a la napoli)?

[hlstriker]

If capping a players velocity were implemented it wouldn't affect anyone but the flag carrier. Sure you can say map design will help fix it but that's really not the case. Even in napoli flags are still capped at light speed by a few decent players. Quite honestly to me map design seems by far the worst option because you're forcing maps to be more enclosed limiting movement of every player, not just the flag carrier. Not to mention who is remaking all said maps?

Sure movement is awesome and all.. really I would prefer flying around even faster than the classes currently go. The problem is I'm almost certain all this focus on movement + pickups is what helped contribute to much of the games failure. New players are up against more experienced players and they lose the round in about a minute and I'm sure they are thinking "WTF is going on! I couldn't even defend against that!" Why should an entire round be lost because of one good player that knows how to boost themselves?

[squeek502]

But I'm not sure the problem is that new players care about the objectives but are unable to contribute. Rather, it seems like the problem has always been that almost no one cares about the objectives, so it's always easy for those that do to dominate.

It's the same thing with CTF and, really, any gametype. Capping flags is not satisfying not because it's easy, but because no one cares. That's the underlying problem, and it's something we've never been able to solve. How do we get people to care about the objective?

[hlstriker]

I think you're wrong about saying players in public servers don't care to cap the flag in AVD maps. You usually always see players trying to advance the flag to the next capture point, especially the newer players (if they can navigate the map). If however players aren't capturing the flag it's usually the more experienced players who just DM. The reason for this DM is due to the fact it's such a bore to capture the flag. Why? Because it's too easy and doesn't feel rewarding at all, so might as well DM to make it more fun.

Public server CTF is entirely different. You need quite a few more players to make capturing the flag enjoyable, otherwise you will see that lone scout running back and forth between flag and capture point with all the other players DMing in the yard. Why do these other players DM in the yard at low player count? It's because they are bored out of their mind easily taking out the 1 offensive player if they were to play defense in their base.

Now you can say for CTF why not just make it OvD in a public server! It just doesn't work. New players don't have the slightest clue OvD is even going on, so they try to setup a defense in their offensive base, or try to capture the flag on defense. The players playing offense on the defense team are easily capturing the flag and the players playing defense on the offense team are wondering where the hell everyone is. Meanwhile the players that know how to play OvD are yelling at said players for not playing OvD correctly. If new players finally figure out how to work OvD they will get absolutely murdered by the players that have played QTF/TFC/FF for 500 years. All in all trying to get organized play in a public server (with new players) isn't going to work.

[mikeparker]

Ideally yes, this would be solved by map design. Mushy and I put a load of work into trying new (but similar) gametypes which avoid this problem. I basically came to the conclusion we want something similar to payload from TF2. That’s AvD plus:

• Doesn't prevent players from jumping with the flag
• No arbitrary movement restrictions if you are touching the flag
• You could even reinstate concing if you wanted
• Players couldn’t “take the flag the wrong way”
• You can't get the flag stuck anywhere
• There would be a steady incremental progression towards the objective.

I don’t know how difficult it would be to convert maps like dustbowl + ksour into a basic payload version, though. Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard. You wouldn’t necessarily need a big train and massive tracks everywhere - you could just put a single monorail type thing and move a floating flag along it maybe?

[mikeparker]

Reminder for myself to look at ff_tiger_pl http://forums.fortress-forever.com/showthread.php?t=23405

[mikeparker]

Looks like the tiger payload stuff is actually really good. The map itself isn't very good but the concept is there.

[alaswell]

I really really like the idea of converting these...are those same issues still happening that carl referenced in that thread?

[mikeparker]

Carl's comments were still accurate but to be honest the only major one is the tank speed and that's easily tweakable in the Lua (I changed the speed locally anyway). I think its basically fine.

[R00Ki3]

Although it would be cool to have some payload maps, I'd hate to see these AvD maps replaced by an entirely different game mode. I think the problem could be easily improved by altering the map design slightly. Just so you can't one jump home run the capture points. Here are some examples for Ksour:

Capture Point One:

To Capture Point Three:

[aleXtric]

This is a ridiculous suggestion. "people don't want to practice how to play, therefore we should just make it easier." A lot of the AvD maps are large and require like a minimum of 6 defenders in order to defend caps well, if theres any less its a cap fest. Map design, player counts, and spawn points are what matter, not jumping the flag.