Normal Round - Alliance CTF

[Kal]

Dingo came to me with an idea to have a form of CTF in normal rounds in order to add some more objectives to the game and to try and combat blocking (multiple objectives means alliances having the same goal is less lilkely).

Each alliance could have say 5 flags (they would not start with them) The objective would be for the alliance to capture and hold their flags, and of course thoose of their enemies. Scoring should probably be a continupous thing with points being given for each tick a flag is held.

[Makhil]

i believe the future of PA lies in the development of multidimensional gameplay : Quests, CTF.... So i think it would be great to have what you describe asap

[themast]

i doubt alliances would bother getting there own flags especially since theres more hatred since last round between alliances and would consentrate on that

[Makhil]

if the alliance ranking is based on the CTF (or a mix of score/CTF points) the alliances WILL bother.

[Kal]

i'd prefer to add a vicotry route rather than replace a victory route. Have multiple ways of winning the game like in alpha centauri

[themast]

do we really want CTF in every game of PA now?

[MAdnRisKy]

Suppose you have (thus far) two very seperate scoring systems, with two seperate scores.

The first is generated in the current traditional way, the second is generated based on the CTF principles.
The highest score from either route wins. (ie alliance A could score 2000 in the traditional sense, with everyone else scoring 1800 or less, however alliance B scored 2100 under the CTF scoring system and as such wins the round). So the scores are not added together but kept seperate.

For CTF scoring you could employ a n tick held = x scoreand this could be an additive system, or certain roids could also provide a multiplier value to this. For instance there are 500 flag roids in the universe. 10 of which are from your alliance. For each roid you hold you multiply x by 1. So if you held all 10 roids you would have ten times your x value.


(this is a post in two halves, please comment - if anyone cares to - on them as seperate ideas)

[furball]

I don't think this is a good idea. CTF has been a nice diversion for the 'side-games' that Planetarion runs - Havoc, Speedrounds, etc - but it can never replace 'real PA' - where you roid to victory, and that's it.

Just because a load of people have enjoyed it doesn't mean that it should suddenly replace the game that we know and love. Alliances are free to set their own objectives, but the one that should always count is score, and score alone.

As for combating blocking, I think this is now something up to the alliances. Pre-round blocks are personally my biggest fear, a la rounds 5-9.

[Appocomaster]

I feel I have to agree. CTF was only ever an interesting speedgame situation, and I know a lot of people aren't happy with it (and wouldn't even be with private galaxies and other modifications). I think that the occasional speedgame would be nice, say 1 speedgame in 3 (hopefully with private galaxies in future), but I don't agree it should move into the actual round at the moment, or at least not with as much weight as suggested above.
You could have it so that they are galaxy roids*, and holding your own galaxy roid gives you 1 XP per tick per planet in your galaxy (not a lot, but something**), and that holding your own gives your galaxy an extra 5% score, and holding another galaxy's roid gives an extra 1% score.

*by galaxy roids I mean they are roids that help the whole galaxy, and so not really capture the flag roids

** if you actually work it out, it's 60 score / tick, so that's around 100k score over a whole round per planet, or 2 million for a whole galaxy.

[wakey]

In principle this is a great idea and one I want to post that I love BUT no matter what changes I consider to make the idea feasable and fair, the list of problems with the idea never get any shorter. Without major changes to the game I just cant see how it would work outside a speedgame with private galaxies pitting alliance vs alliance

[Kargool]

I dont think CTF in a normal round is a good idea. Infact its a bad idea. As wakey said, we would need to have private galaxies for this. If we dont we would get galaxies with ALOT of internal problems and quarrels

[ChubbyChecker]

I would suggest the following:

Start the round with 10 flags, all situated in 1:1 (Those guys don't get enough incoming as it is )
These flags incur no benefit to the planet holding the flag except for giving them victory points.
These flags can be stolen as per usual. Any planet that holds a flag is no longer subject to the bashing limits, so anybody can attack them.
Each flag held gives the planet's alliance 1 victory point per 10 full ticks that the flag is held for. Any planet that holds a flag at the end of the round gives their alliance 10 points. If the planet is allianceless then the points are wasted.
The location of the flags can be seen on the Universe.
The victory points for each alliance are kept secret until the end of the round when the victory point rankings are released. This will stop people being able to figure out who is in what alliance simply by looking at how the victory points are growing in each alliance.
The alliance with the most victory points at the end of the round gets 5 credits, as does the alliance with the highest score. If you think this is too generous then reduce the number of credits given to the winning galaxy, 22 free credits is ridiculous anyway

Implementing this will make new goals as mentioned already and should make things more interesting. And hey, anything that tries to emulate Alpha Centauri is good in my book

[ReligFree]

In response to the first post of this thread and the only one i read: No

[h3ll]

ctf stinks its boring after a day or 2 tbh so i also say NO

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I dont think CTF in a normal round is a good idea. Infact its a bad idea. As wakey said, we would need to have private galaxies for this. If we dont we would get galaxies with ALOT of internal problems and quarrels

this idea is alliance CTF, not galaxy CTF, it has nothing to do with galaxies

[furball]

My basic problem remains: I don't want to play CTF. I want to play Planetarion, the game I love and have dedicated so much of my time to.

We introduced Special Roids this round as an amusing diversion to spice things up a little bit. It was never supposed to cause Planetarion to move to a whole different format.

You talk of removing the bash cap on planets who end up with these flag roids, whether they meant to get them or not. This would make planets even more of a target than before. Oh goody. Just look at the poor newbies this round who had to ask for the special roid to be taken from their planet, just so they didn't have so much incoming. You're really helping PA here...

If you want to create a CTF/normal hybrid, you're welcome to. But please, save it for one in three of the speedgames that people opt to play (credit to Appocomaster for this), not for a real round or even for every speedgame. I'd still like to play a speedgame some day, as long as I'm back at uni to do it.

CTF was good in Havoc because galaxies knew each other, had channels set up and were ready to defend each other. But extending this further is just a bad idea.

PATeam found something that worked, and which was balanced first time. Please don't change it further.

[ChubbyChecker]

What's all this negative attitude about implementing CTF to the main round? If you don't want to participate in that part of the game then don't, just concentrate on increasing your score as you've always done and stay away from attacking planets with flags. Simple really.

As for removing the bash limit for planets with flags (just flags, not golden roids. Although I think the golden roids should be got rid of if we do this), I don't see it as too much of a problem since every time that planet gets roided there's a 25% chance that he'll lose his flag. If you don't want to be a target then don't attack a planet that has a flag. Perhaps free planets should not be able to capture flags? That way the truly noobish won't be bothered with all the incoming. And perhaps as an even more drastic solution there could be an option that says that the next planet who roids you steals any flags and/or golden roids that you may have.

[furball]

Originally Posted by ChubbyChecker

What's all this negative attitude about implementing CTF to the main round? If you don't want to participate in that part of the game then don't, just concentrate on increasing your score as you've always done and stay away from attacking planets with flags. Simple really.

Ok. For starters, I didn't enjoy CTF. But that didn't bother me, there were plenty of people who did. My problem is that it changes the gameplay of the main round. Special roids were a diversion - there were only 6 of them, and most people ignored them. By having alliance flags, you make those individual members more important to an alliance (what if they leave?), as well as changing the nature of the wars.

By changing the overall alliance scoring via introducing score for alliances for holding onto flags, you decrease the importance of the war game that Planetarion has always been. Instead, defence becomes more important, which frankly sucks. This round was excellent since it was so biased towards attacking. Why go back and make defence more critical, especially on certain planets?


Oh, and I think you underestimate the effort it takes to get a galaxy to the number 1 spot. Not that I've ever been there.

[ChubbyChecker]

Originally Posted by MAdnRisKy

Suppose you have (thus far) two very seperate scoring systems, with two seperate scores.

The first is generated in the current traditional way, the second is generated based on the CTF principles.
The highest score from either route wins. (ie alliance A could score 2000 in the traditional sense, with everyone else scoring 1800 or less, however alliance B scored 2100 under the CTF scoring system and as such wins the round). So the scores are not added together but kept seperate.

For CTF scoring you could employ a n tick held = x scoreand this could be an additive system, or certain roids could also provide a multiplier value to this. For instance there are 500 flag roids in the universe. 10 of which are from your alliance. For each roid you hold you multiply x by 1. So if you held all 10 roids you would have ten times your x value.


(this is a post in two halves, please comment - if anyone cares to - on them as seperate ideas)

I disagree.
As you can see from this thread alone a lot of people are not overly thrilled by the idea of CTF being added to the game. If it is added then the rankings for score and the rankings for CTF points should be kept separate, as I mention in my post earlier. This way alliances can choose to ignore the CTF part of the game and still do well in the score ranking. Also credits should be given to the alliance with the highest score and the alliance with the most CTF points (not either/or).

Originally Posted by furball

Ok. For starters, I didn't enjoy CTF. But that didn't bother me, there were plenty of people who did. My problem is that it changes the gameplay of the main round. Special roids were a diversion - there were only 6 of them, and most people ignored them. By having alliance flags, you make those individual members more important to an alliance (what if they leave?), as well as changing the nature of the wars.

Having 5 flags per alliance as mentioned in the original post would alter the game to the detriment of the people who do not want to play CTF but my idea of 10 flags in the Universe wouldn't be such a problem since there would be a maximum of 10 planets in the Universe with flags. Or it could be 20, just make sure it's low enough to not have an impact on the people playing purely for score.
As for defending people with flags, you do have me there I'm afraid. The flag carriers will get a lot more incoming than other people in your alliance/cluster/galaxy, doesn't mean you have to defend more than you usually would though. As for what happens if they leave, you roid them to the ground until you get the flag off them You have 72 hours before their new alliance can effectively defend them after all.

Originally Posted by furball

By changing the overall alliance scoring via introducing score for alliances for holding onto flags, you decrease the importance of the war game that Planetarion has always been. Instead, defence becomes more important, which frankly sucks. This round was excellent since it was so biased towards attacking. Why go back and make defence more critical, especially on certain planets?

Just have one ranking for score, one for CTF points, problem solved.

Originally Posted by furball

Oh, and I think you underestimate the effort it takes to get a galaxy to the number 1 spot. Not that I've ever been there.

Perhaps. I just think giving a credit to each of the 10 highest scoring planets is sufficient reward, the others probably weren't very active anyway. But hey, if Jolt want to throw credits around then they can go ahead, I won't stop them I was just suggesting a way to give out CTF credits without increasing the overall number of credits given.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Kal

this idea is alliance CTF, not galaxy CTF, it has nothing to do with galaxies

Ehh, what game is you playing? ofcourse it will have to do something with galaxies. If you have a alliance flag, and is in a galaxy with a galmate from a hostile alliance he will surely inform his alliance about your online times etc.

[teknik]

i think PA and CTF should be kept seperate..seems ok for the occaisional speed game but it has no place in a round. why not give a credit for the planet with the most roids in a normal round, make it "CTF" with normal roids each being a flag...

[wakey]

Originally Posted by teknik

i think PA and CTF should be kept seperate..seems ok for the occaisional speed game but it has no place in a round. why not give a credit for the planet with the most roids in a normal round, make it "CTF" with normal roids each being a flag...

I dont think we should discard it completly, it would add another dimension to the game it just needs some time and thought so as to find a good way of implementing it rather than trying to rush it in