Updated scoring system

[[Mao]]

Often while playing CTF I get annoyed with putting in real heavy work for my team only to get no rewards for it. We've all been there. Example:

1) You've single-handedly mowed your way through the map together with your trusted AK47, leaving a trail of blood and enemy bodyparts behind you, captured the flag and brought it back to camp. Just as you are about to score, you look up and see "[[Megakillar!!! looking for clan!!]" camping right beside the home-flag with a Barrett. As he snipes your head off, the flag flies into the hands of the one guy in your camp who has been completely ignoring camper-d00d and so far has contributed nothing whatsoever to the team except jamming the teamspeak channel with obscenities and racial slurs, upon which he moves in and scores.

Improvement suggestion: There should be points involved in managing just to grab the enemy flag. If not immediately upon seizing it, then perhaps after a few seconds, so as to ensure that the flag-stealer can be said to actually have taken control of the flag. Perhaps three seconds? It doesn't have to be much, say perhaps 1 or 2 points? Just enough to acknowledge and reward bravery in combat, so to speak.

2) Same as above, but this time sniper-d00d misses wildly, and you triumphantly bust his ass back into pre-puberty. But alas! The team flag is in the hands of "Master haxx0r", where it will stay for a long, long time, since his fly-cheat enables him to actually hide somewhere beneath the map. There in his evil genius-hideout, he scorns everyone else for being such horrible players. However, you stand fast, defending your loot together with your comrades, against wave upon wave of enemy soldiers, who are trying with all their might to reclaim their honor by piercing your body with metal and take back their flag. This goes on for a good five minutes, during which there are 6 votes held to kick the hacker out. Unfortunately, because of an extremely rare solar flare slash global magnetic polarity reversal, the F12-buttons of all the enemy team's keyboards simultaneously break down and the hacker stays in the game. But try as they might, they still just can't seem to get through to you. Time is running out as you and your bodyguards slaughter them heroically, awaiting the return of the home flag. Suddenly, "Master haxx0r" finally realizes just how utterly pointless it is just sitting beneath the map where no one can behold his greatness. He warps up behind you, plants a grenade at your feet and manages to fly back to his camp and score even before the million pieces of what used to be your body even hit the ground.

Improvement suggestion: a) Bonus points for killing enemy team members while holding the flag. Naturally, while holding the flag, not only are you highly visible and attract a lot of attention, you attract pretty much all the enemy fire too. Staying alive holding the flag is tougher, and combat with flag in hand should be awarded. Perhaps a double score for every killed enemy soldier?

b) If not the above, then at least bonus points for holding the flag for X seconds/minutes. It seems you should be rewarded for being able to stay alive for a long time while holding the enemy flag, taunting the enemy team as you go. Not a lot of points, the main objective should still always be just to score, but just something to even things out. It isn't fair that you get nothing at all for your troubles when you've seized the flag, brought it back to base, defended it against thirty soldiers and killed them all before dying yourself, losing the flag. It should be rewarded somehow beyond the meager points you accumulate by killing people. This is especially the case when both flags are in the custody of each respective enemy team, and everyone on your own team is camping, probably because they are waiting for you to die so that can get a shot at stealing the flag from you, instead of going after the team flag so that you can score. Sometimes you have to venture back on a liberation campaign into the enemy camp yourself, carrying the enemy flag, because no one else will go there. Which brings me to the next point.

3) Scenario as above, sans Haxx0r, although this time the back-stabbing plan of one of your team-members works out just fine for him. A stray bullet hits you in the head, and you drop the flag. Before you have time to regenerate your body out of thin air, respawn and get to it, the flag is in his hands. Suddenly it is you who has to defend him while he proudly brandishes the flag all over camp, waiting for his team to go kill the dude that's holding the friendly flag. You decide that there's no point in hanging around. You go on a run, and get instantly killed. You go on another, and once more, you get killed. This pretty much goes on in the same way for several minutes, and no team can get their flag back, everyone is camping. You go on yet another run, and this time you single-handedly manage to kill the three camping Barretts and the flagholder in a display of utter pwnage. You recover the flag, and the last thing you hear before you get bombarded by ten freshly respawned soldiers is the warm tingling sound of victory as someone back at your camp scores.

Improvement suggestion: There should definitely be points involved in getting the flag back from enemy hands. Most of the time, the flag is picked up at friendly camp by an enemy who gets killed immediately. The flag bounces a bit and has hardly moved from its spot. Getting the flag back here is merely a question of etiquette, and I believe it should be rewarded, even though one point seems a bit much. Seeing that there are no half points in Soldat!, I guess it kinda would have to be one point anyway. In the above scenario, though, it is an altogether different story. What incentive do you have to go across the map and try to defeat a horde of enemies just so that someone else can score, when you get absolutely nothing for your troubles? I think that one should get bonus points for getting the flag back after it has been under enemy control for a while, much in the same way as I state above, and exponentially more points for every 30 seconds or 1 minute or so. There should also be more points involved if you actually kill the person who stole it. This would contribute A LOT to a feeling of loyalty towards the team. You should be rewarded when you sacrifice yourself so that your TEAM can score.

4) You go on a one-man grenadier spree with a M79, four grenades and a LAW. Just as you jump over a hill, you spot three enemy combatants moving towards you. Not doubting they have bad intentions in mind, pillaging, plundering flags and such, and quite probably killing and raping the many citizens of Spawn Valley where you grew up many, many times yourself in the course of your many lives, you don't think twice but respond quickly and forcefully to the threat. You simultaneously fire your M79 in mid-air, which splits the first enemy into eight pieces of corpse, while throwing your whole stack of grenades, which land right at the feet of the second dude, sending him flying somewhere beyond the rectangular, two-dimensional space that you inhabit. Instantly you receive words of praise from God: DOUBLE! The remaining soldier fires his Barrett in shock, but you are more than seven inches away, and he misses completely. By the time he has reloaded, you have already switched to secondary, landed, aimed and fired, and as chance has it, his friend's head peeks up from behind a cliff in the exact moment that the projectile hits, and they both explode in a beautiful duet in a crimson fountain of blood. You ecstatically receive yet more colorful tidings from God: MULTI! Oh joy! Oh happiness! You quickly press T to inform the world of your achievement and mock the sons and/or clones of the deceased soldiers.

Improvement suggestion: Stuff like this just has to be rewarded beyond the standard rate of one point. Now, I'm not completely sure about this, it might be that you do get awarded more points for double/+ kills, but I don't think so. If you don't, this should definitely be implemented. Killing a lot of enemies in rapid succession is hard, and is already being rewarded by means of Big Red Words of Honor, so it seems only natural that you should get more points for it as well. My morbid streak would say an exponential score- 2 extra points for DOUBLE! (excluding the 2 regular points for the kill), 4 points for TRIPLE!, 8 points for MULTI! and so on.

The main point behind all above suggested improvements to the scoring system is that you often feel unrewarded for performing acts of heroism, courage or display of superior skills, which should be rewarded so as to encourage more lively gameplay, more genuine team loyalty, more self sacrifice, and more humoristic situations in Soldat!, this wonderful and brilliant little gem of a game.

[mxyzptlk]

Wow, you thought this all out well.
I can't find anything in here that I don't agree with!

I hope this all gets implemented.

[Avarax]

hm, i think i could script all of your suggestions... and i think i'll even try something like it when i finished my RPG script with 2.6.0

btw:
you have an awesome writing style, it was a joy to read

[[Mao]]

Thanks guys. I just wanted to give my two cents worth.. There's a lot of other stuff I've been thinking about which I would be happy to share, will try and post later.

[Riax]

Wow, you thought this all out well.
I can't find anything in here that I don't agree with!

I hope this all gets implemented.

I second that motion.

[TDL]

One point per everything is fine enough for me, since I hate losing count of my kills. When it is feasible to do so I even throw my flag to someone else, just to keep my kills easily countable.

[[Mao]]

Right. Some more thoughts on the topic.

The amount of points awarded for scoring with the flag should be split between the flag catcher and whoever actually scores. We've all experienced, all to often, being the one doing all the dirty work just to get shot an inch away from our homeflag and get all our points stolen by an opportunistic teammember who snatches our hard-earned flag and scores. Points for scoring with the flag should be divided between the person who stole the flag and whoever scored. This could be done on a 'distance covered' basis or on a 'holding-time' basis. Sometimes when a friendly flagcarrier dies and we are lucky enough to get to the flag before the enemy does, we just might feel a little bit bad about scoring since it was someone else who did all the work (at least the morally inclined of us do). However, it also happens that the home flag is located elsewhere, most likely in the hands of the enemy. If we pick up the flag that our teammate dropped and valiantly protect it during the time it takes for our team to reclaim the friendly flag, in my opinion we have then earned the right to score, and should get points for it. But since it was a team effort, everyone directly involved in getting the flag to home base and scoring should be rewarded somehow. Proportionally to the amount of work they put in, of course. That said, the first system would be based on the distance any EFC (or FFC, I never got around to figure out whether Enemy Flag Carrier means Enemyflag Carrier or Enemy Flagcarrier) has managed to carry the flag from enemy camp. If you carry it halfway across the map, get your limbs severed by a chainsaw hiding in the mid-map high grass fields, and a teammember carries it the remaining half and scores, the score should be divided something along the lines of a ratio of 1 to 2 between the two players, with two thirds of the points going to the scorer. This added bonus to the second player comes from the fact that it should always pay a little more for doing the actual score. If the first EFC carries it all the way to the base and gets killed et c, the score should be divided something like 9 to 2 between carrier and scorer. If the second player dies too, and the flag gets reclaimed by yet another teammember, then the points should be divided between the three players, also in due proportion to the work they have put in, and of course still with the additional bonus to whoever finally gets the flag home.

The other system would be based on time, which is what I would prefer, since distance could potentially be misleading as a measure of effort. This goes pretty much the same way I suggested in the first post- you get awarded points depending on how long you've had the enemy flag in your hands. It seems to me that this would be much easier to measure and implement than the distance system, but I wanted to mention that one too as an option. Here, obviously, you just need to count the number of seconds EFC has carried the flag, and split the points in proportion to whoever held it the longest. One problem with this approach is that our opportunistic teammate might get more funny ideas as he pries the flag away from the cold, dead fingers of the original flagstealer. He might try to maximize his personal score by not scoring immediately but linger about for a while so as to get more points when he finally decides to score. Since this behaviour is pretty risky, though, as EFC attracts a lot of enemy fire, and you don't want to hold it for too long or you will eventually be killed, it might not be a huge problem. Also, that's just yet another reason for there being a bonus for doing the actual score. If you get a set amount of points for scoring, most would probably feel inclined to take them and score as soon as possible rather than taking chances.

I would also like to add to scenario #3 in my first post, regarding getting the enemy flag back. You should score extra points for killing FFC (Or EFC, depending on your school of thought), you should get extra points for returning the flag, you should get even more points for killing EFC and returning the flag at the same time, and you should get a massive bonus if you do all this while the enemy flag is under friendly control. Why? Because of the same reasons that I stated before, it encourages team cooperation and it is fair. The way things are right now, there is really no good reason for trying your best to get the flag back so that one of your teammates can score. I've seen innumerable situations where both teams just entrench themselves with the enemy flags and camp because noone really cares whether their EFC scores or not. Why risk losing points on getting killed by going on a suicide mission into a heavily fortified enemy camp when you might as well just sit and camp together with the others and snipe yourself an odd suicide attack every now and then? Getting the flag back from enemy hands in this situation is not only as tough, but also as important for the team score, as snatching the enemy flag in the first place. Undoubtedly, such a feat should be rewarded with at least as much points as actually getting the flag and scoring.

As I said in my first post, all of this is intended to ensure fairness and also encourage team loyalty. I often see weird behaviour such as people from my own team staying behind and wait in the enemy camp when I've got the flag and am running for my life, since they know that this gives them a certain probability of instantly catching the enemy flag as soon as I score, instead of providing me with much-needed cover. Though I see no way of remedying this kind of behaviour, it shows the kind of mentality many people have. Everyone tries to get as much points for themselves as they can, and pretty much ignore the team aspect of the game, though it should clearly be the other way around.

The improvements above still don't solve many important fairness issues, such as with the brave wingman who takes bullets for his team assisting FFC in getting home safe and sound, covering his back all the way, even though he doesn't get anything extra for the effort (unless if above suggesstions were implemented and he, as the previous flagholder, defends EFC to make sure he gets points for his initial effort, which is a good point in case here). However that may be, I believe that all of these improvements would contribute to drastically increase the overall sense of loyalty towards one's own team, and therefore increase willingness to assist teammembers across many situations, who will then feel more inclined to reciprocate in return- thereby improving gameplay. It's a matter of simple psychology.

Date Posted: March 11, 2007, 10:57:42 AM

One point per everything is fine enough for me, since I hate losing count of my kills. When it is feasible to do so I even throw my flag to someone else, just to keep my kills easily countable.

As for that, it could be easily remedied by a more elaborate statistics screen, which I have been thinking about too for some time. Will check back later.

[Riax]

As mxyzptlk said, you have indeed thought this out to quite an extent. Though I have doubts about how well your system of point-distribution would work, my hat is off to you for thinking it up.

respect["[Mao]"]++

[lappakinderi]

Mao, I agree with you completely..

btw:
you have an awesome writing style, it was a joy to read

Seconded!

[[Mao]]

As mxyzptlk said, you have indeed thought this out to quite an extent. Though I have doubts about how well your system of point-distribution would work, my hat is off to you for thinking it up.

respect["[Mao]"]++

Thanks!

As for exactly how the purely mathematical distribution would look I leave to someone better suited for the task to figure out, I just wanted to outline my thoughts on how the scoring system could be improved in general.

(Oh, and by the way, this haven't been keeping me up at night so to speak. The modifications just seemed logical to me at one time or other when I felt unjustly rewarded while playing Soldat! myself. )

[{depth}shaman]

I've thought about this before. It gets a definite two thumbs up from me. It couldn't be that hard to code either, but hell. Im not going to do it. Go averax though!

[boer]

...the F12-buttons of all the enemy team's keyboards simultaneously break down...

Actually, my f12 (the whole top row of keyboard) and all the #pad keys is broken...I have to press f12 and bash the keyboard against the wall, and if im very lucky my vote will go through, as if it helps. Nevertheless, a new keyboard costs like a few bucks, but thats not the point.

[edak]

I think that your suggestions are valid and should be implemented.  I appreciate that you spent so much time typing it out for all of us to read and that you haven't just said 'zomg i should get pointz for returning!'

Good Job, keep it up mate.