A Final Effort

[ramdrop]

Hopefully this is the right post to put this idea.

As people can see, the iCTF 5 season hasn't blossomed the way that admins thought it would, an ideal 20 captains for this season is possible, but highly unrealistic due to the low player base that has signed up.

I feel that most players are reluctant to sign due to past shenanigans, I'll mention a couple for example:

iCTF.III - YUMED vs Sezco's Orgy
Sezco's Orgy opted for a 2 man attack and a 3 man defence all game.

iCTF.IV - 2PACO vs -carpe.noctem-
2PACO opted for a 3 man defence on 1 map.

Now the two examples above are purely games that I have been a part of. I'm excluding the saCTF season here as well.

Of course, people can argue that its the captains decision to do what they feel is necessary for the team and I can totally agree with everybody who argue's this point.

I propose the following, something to maybe decrease the back shooting, mid laming, mass defending and hopefully encourage more people to sign up (I know signups are close to ending) - I think this is why there are a lack of low dev players that otherwise would have signed up.

The idea is simple, we award clans for capturing flags as well as awarding points for Development wins and Regular wins, the limit doesn't have to be large, perhaps 0.25 points/flag or even lower.

Some people can argue the point that if one team wins everything with a low cap rate, i.e. 1-0, 2-0 etc and another team that places second caps out every other team in the group (unlikely, but definitely possible), they would overtake the other team on overall points despite losing to them.
I can argue back and say that the season is "Capture the Flag" and so points for getting flags back to your base should be included, I feel that if this was introduced it would encourage teams to try and get as many flags as possible to try and increase their overall points, it would also open up a world of opportunities for new team tactics and potential map picks, rather then the standard maps where 1-0 is all you're really gonna get.

I also think some 1 or 2 of the new maps should be added as that may be holding some people back from signing up.

I'd appreciate some feedback and would like to hear what others have to say.

[CLANKILLER]

For me personally it's a case of what's the point. I normally make an effort to be available to play a development game on a Sunday but like last sactf season I was not an option so much so that the captain protect dropped a $300 to trade for temp $330 player.. So anyways that's my issue with the development games now meaning "too" much that players like me are just filler for the salary cap..

CK..

[InfamousRaider]

[kud]

i really don't care what scoring system is used, I'm just here to play ut.

that being said, I don't understand all the doom and gloom. so we didn't get 20 captains or 200 sign ups? so what. it takes 10 players to have a competitive game of ut, not 200. people who are worried about the number of signups are missing the forest for the trees. why turn a successful season into a negative thing by comparing every successive season to it? I mean, who are we trying to impress? I'm not directing this at you ramdrop, it's just an accompanying opinion. I commend you for wanting to improve the league, but don't get caught up in the numbers. people need to lighten up. if you're reading this, you probably enjoy playing ut. sign up and play some organized games once a week with people you may or may not have played with before. don't want to play a certain map? veto it. don't feel like playing ut right now? whatever, that's fine. you'll probably want to eventually, because you're reading a message board for an old as fuck fps, so sign up then.

[csnafk]

[MP/5]

those kinds of ideas were brought up before and i cant say i support them, even though i appreciate your thoughts ramdrop.
i think it may lead to bigger problems where 1/2 teams gets blown out (missing a starter or just a bad map for that team)
so 1 team gets more points out of it and on the other hand when they will meet the strong team that competing with them for group leaders they will turtle it and pick a low cap map.
also if 1 team gets the lead they might switch to lame tactic cause they know every cap counts or even if they are losing by 1 cap since they dont want to get blown out and give the other team more points.
atm a lot of the players missing from last season are actually starters (around 30+ and even a few others that are dev but can play reg games by their lvl ) so i don't think laming,dming is the main reason for the low dev players attendance. i think the system where only 3 dev players get to play, even though the dev pool is basically bigger than the reg one, is the reason why a lot of them don't bother signing since they know they most likely wont play. i already suggested different steps to implement after the sactf season to get more players active and playing so they will feel motivated to add again.
some people are waiting for the finalized map list, some wait to see who else will sign up and some are just dumbasses that will wait for the last second to sign up just cause they can...
BTW last season was great for the most of it (from a laming, dming point of view) so i don't think thats the reason why so many people inclined to sign up.
we saw less boring overtimes and 0-0 matches and the heavy fallback with 3D once you had the lead was gone on most maps just cause its a risky move to pull if there is so much time left on the clock.

[dR3]

This idea has been discussed and somebody said it wouldn´t work, people will continue to play "lame" to prevent others from capping even. I only see 1 viable solution: diluding the player talent pool on each team. More teams / amount of signups means a larger salary spread in starters. 5 > $1k players will result in less grabbing/capping simply because those guys hit more and make less mistakes.

[ph34r]

kuds post is on point as usual, and it's also worth noting that quite a few players wait til the last minute to sign up every season for whatever reason. Sniper season had a lot fewer players than an instagib season but was a resounding success; same goes for sDOM. quality players > quantity. instagib may be boring as fuck to me anymore but for the players that still enjoy it dont be demoralized just because its not hitting record breaking numbers.

Also the people that bitch about 3 defense need to learn to adapt, there are countless ways to counter 3D especially given the new maplist. Step 1: draft real attackers, not scrubs that play for frags.

[TimTim]

[ramdrop]

It's nice to see a mixed amount of feedback from the community, I wasn't sure if it had been discussed, but hey.

ph34r brings a good point about drafting proper CTF players, but also the point that kud makes is valid that they should lighten up and just play.

It's the captain that decides the tactic which is why I brought it up, it was only a suggestion anyway.

If the idea was implemented, I think the caps should be really low value.

But as I said, only an idea that might get more people to sign up thats all.

[MP/5]

the way it is looking now with the signup numbers, i think its perfect for 12 teams - 2 groups of 6 - 5 rounds - 4 teams advance to playoff from each group.
playoff will be : quarters - semi - final.
season of 8 weeks, just like ICTF4, should work nice imo.

[RickJames]

1. ph34r/kud are right, see their posts

2. "laming" etc are not the reasons we aren't getting signups, that's ridiculous. Last ictf and sa seasons were pretty much universally well-received.
(See: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us)

3. It's still best to do as much promotional work as possible. This means: contacting players who haven't signed up, contributing to discussions about the season (giving your feedback on maps, rules, etc without being a dick), etc.

[Bas]

personally i feel ipug is alot better to play at these days the pugs are more enjoyable and the games more fun, we have a while untill the draft and the esl cup has only just finished. So still time to find more people, i would love to see lots of numbers playing but you cant please everyone all of the time..!. I know i feel along with some others that maybe the dev matches should mean a bit more or count towards an overall score otherwise they seem a bit pointless prehaps then picks would be a bit more interesting?

[Carras]

@ram

I had a similar idea a couple seasons ago to "incentivise" flag caps thinking that it would promote offense.
Although it hasn't been tested, I am sure that this system (with this community) would actually create more 3d/laming in matches so the teams couldn't get those extra capture points.

[Hinata]

[Morpheus]

Some americanos kinda accused me of introducing those lame tactics to this american scene. I like to think that they were already there, but i just did them better.

However, i don't like 3d and think its boring. Or excessive laming. Sometimes is just an easy excuse for you to lose (used to exhaustion on CB) but it just becomes boring. I thought the same as you ramdrop and i can cut the middle man and tell you it won't work. Competitive gaming = everything go. As i've learned over my extensive CS:GO career (<1 week), tea-bagging your opponent before defusing the bomb is allowed. Same with laming, part of the game.

Even if this was the best thing for the game (like newnet) it wouldn't mean much in player statistics. Newnet brought the communities closer together, however they were already very scarce. This in 2007 or even 2009 (excluding any previous years because of obvious reasons) it would have much more impact and maybe we would have 1000+ active players.

I have swam against the UT corrent all my jibcareer and enough is enough.



Oh and another thing. The main problem here is the hardware evolution...CS creators contradict it by making CS:GO harder to hit than its predecessors....UT needed that kind of leadership....Valve = ferrari and epic = epic fail

[Sonic|^]

[Hinata]

[Sonic|^]

Not to mention that getting a head shot is harder in both 2k4 and ut3. You literally couldn't be more wrong with that statement.

[Morpheus]

[Hinata]

http://s.sk-gaming.com/image/image/db91 ... c23ael.jpg
http://s.sk-gaming.com/image/image/2772 ... 923adl.jpg

[Morpheus]

[TimTim]

[Morpheus]

[RickJames]

While I agree with you morph, I doubt the maps that make it into the league will be bad. Bear in mind that it's not the contest winners that get put in the league, it's probably going to be mostly based on what the admins think.

I'm confident that rain isn't going to allow any bad new maps into the league list.

PS. Morph man, I can't blame you for loving the competitive opportunities in cs, but I hope you'll stick around like always. The way that you've always contributed to discussions and showed your passion for competition is a very positive thing for this community. You used to go overboard sometimes maybe, and I often disagreed with you, but still I think you've been a great influence in some ways