CP Neutralisation Mechanics

[Thomas]

It's a bit of a gray area. The goal of the match is to claim and control the 'hill', and if they can manage to survive and get back to the point without having them both off the point at any time, that's pretty impressive. It's about controlling the zone as opposed to kills.

If there was even 1 second in between the last kill and the next ship arriving, the point would slowly be converting to the Red team. With a shorter time, they could convert it faster, and at the very least get it to neutral. The current timer would take them several waves to even reach neutral.


Although I can support the idea of having more ships on a point at a time will start to convert it towards your team, with each ship contributing a little. So each ship pushes for +1 second to your teams gauge, while the enemies get a +1 to their gauge. This could ideally help out the 3v3 matches too, where it's far more likely that they'll have at least one ship blocking the point.

Most of these suggestions will lead to longer matches, but that can be easily fixed by changing the points needed to win.

[Crafeksterty]

Youve explained it before. Your description of a match does not proove much because you are assuming  R to be really bad.

Im sorry Xyem but your example does not work with actual skill going on. I definetly support the idea of 2 ships being on the point versus 1 ship will still count torwards capturing the point for the 2.

But the timer does make a diffrence. Just a slight, slight no ship blocking the point will result in a loss of the point. (asuming 3 seconds to neutral state). But right now the timer is too long, even for being blocked.

Heck if you assume the timer does no difference if it is 1 sec? Then i really urge you to learn how to do some quick kills. I mean, its 2 v 1 were talking about.

[Zyem]

It's a bit of a gray area. The goal of the match is to claim and control the 'hill', and if they can manage to survive and get back to the point without having them both off the point at any time, that's pretty impressive. It's about controlling the zone as opposed to kills.

Exactly. In my example, is it not R controlling the zone rather than B?

[Zyem]

Youve explained it before. Your description of a match does not proove much because you are assuming  R to be really bad.

You don't have to be bad to struggle to get a kill on a ship totally focused on avoiding dying. B doesn't have to return fire, so everyone is focused on repair...

Im sorry Xyem but your example does not work with actual skill going on.

Then explain why most CP matches end 650-0, even with similar skilled crews on both sides. My example works fine because I've been in matches where what I describe actually happens.

But the timer does make a diffrence. Just a slight, slight no ship blocking the point will result in a loss of the point. (asuming 3 seconds to neutral state). But right now the timer is too long, even for being blocked.

I'm not arguing that a shorter timer wouldn't make for more to-and-fro in most matches, I'm arguing that there is an edge case where the timer is rendered irrelevent and the team that should win, doesn't. My suggestion handles this edge case without disrupting the usual case.

Heck if you assume the timer does no difference if it is 1 sec? Then i really urge you to learn how to do some quick kills. I mean, its 2 v 1 were talking about.

I've been 2v1'd an entire match by level 6+ crews and lasted long enough for my ally to get back to me. And I'm hardly a very good pilot. Find 2 experienced squid crews and 2v1 them while they are completely focused on staying alive. You will find that they can stay alive longer than it takes for their ally to return.

Saying I can't kill fast enough to work around the broken mechanics is blaming the wrong person

[Crafeksterty]

Then explain why most CP matches end 650-0, even with similar skilled crews on both sides. My example works fine because I've been in matches where what I describe actually happens.

Its because todays CP is not rewarding and does not punish leaving the point!!! I didnt assume your example with 300 seconds to capture a point, i assumed with 3 second capture. Where you also said

Feel free to plug any timer value you like in, you will see that it makes no difference.

How do you know that?! With skill and or actual commitment into nabbing the other team away from the point with the concept of a very low timer, how do you know it will still be the same? Even if the timer that i mentioned is as narrow as a spawning ship just wont make it back to blocking...

[Thomas]

It's actually surprisingly hard to focus on staying alive, especially with two ships on your tail. Any fancy maneuver you make to avoid a bucket-load of damage often damages you in the process, and you're still likely to take some scrapes. If all they're doing is repairing, it's time to change strategies. Beat them up a bit, get them close, but don't finish the kill. This obviously takes a lot of teamwork and coordination on your ship and with your ally. Wait for the other ship to make it back, as they should be rushing at the point to prevent the gauge from moving at all. Kill the ship that arrived, then finish off the weakened ally. Suddenly they're both dead and you'll have several seconds to start recapping the point. Then it becomes easier to finish them around the same time when they arrive again.



Another possibility is to redo the system completely, giving each team points for just being on the point. This way it's a better representation of zone control, and the score does a better job of accurately reflecting how  match went down. In your scenario, the sides weren't all that different, but blue won by a landslide. In this system, red would win by a large amount, but blue would still have a decent score.

[Zyem]

How do you know that?! With skill and or actual commitment into nabbing the other team away from the point with the concept of a very low timer, how do you know it will still be the same? Even if the timer that i mentioned is as narrow as a spawning ship just wont make it back to blocking...

How do I know that the timer value doesn't matter? Read the match description again. I said several times that the timer is never started due to B's continuous (but inferior) point presence. You could change the mechanics so that the instant B isn't on the point at all it skips neutral and fully switched to R and B would still win 650-0 because they are never not on the point..

x * y = z

Where x is whatever timer value you want and y is the number of times it is started in my hypothetical (0). When z equals 0, B wins 650-0.

Again, you and Thomas are arguing from a position of R and B having a different experience of the match than the one I described in my hypothetical (changing strategy, getting B off the point). It is irrelevant if a different strategy could get B off the point. It is irrelevant if a crew with better skills could get B off the point. The only thing that is relevant is the match happening as I have described.

It's called a corner case and the current mechanics fail at handling it properly.

Out of curiosity, have either of you done any programming? I may only be seeing this as a problem because I have a very "programmer" mindset and strive to make a system handle any possible result properly, whereas you both seem to approach this with a more "very unlikely, so acceptable outcome" view.

[Zyem]

Just spoken to someone and explained the match playout I've described here and they guesstimate that if B employed something like the hypothetical, but as an actual strategy, it could have a success rate of about 40% in public matches and 15% in competitive.

The significant drop to competitive is owed to 2v1 with a coordinated team would result in a too fast a kill for ally to get back in time, which I believe is what Crafeksterty and Thomas are getting at.

However, most matches are public matches, so this "problem" is more likely to crop up there anyway.

The proof is in the pudding though so.. I am going to test this. I will let you know the results of my experimentation

[Thomas]

In the event you describe, blue deserves the win. Blue managed to reach the point and capture, and Red failed to remove them from the point for any length of time; while blue managed to constantly be blocking it.

I think the issue is that Red does not get properly acknowledged for it's efforts in the score.

In the original idea you posted, killing a ship would move the point towards neutral. In the event you described, this match would never ever end, as both teams are on the point at all times. All the ideas of shortening the timer and having kills move the point towards neutral still rely on having at least one team not present on the point for some period.


Then there has been the idea of more ships being on the point start converting it to their team. In a different scenario, that type of system could play out like this:

Red team has both ships rush to the point and they capture it before Blue arrives.
2 Red - 0 Blue on the point

Blue team arrives and kills R1
1 Red - 2 Blue on the point

R1 kills B1
1R - 1B

B1 arrives as R1 kills B2
1R - 1B

B2 arrives as R1 kills B1
1R - 1B

Keep repeating that for a while, the second red ship could be helping while off the point, or just floating around in a corner.


Under the current system, Red would win.

With changing the timer, Red would win.

Having kills push the timer towards neutral, game wouldn't end

With more ships converting the point, even with one ship trying to block (ie: 2v1 on the point), blue would win.


These would mostly be 650-0 situations. (except the endless game of course). With having more ships convert the point, the score would be something like 10-650


In this situation, Red wouldn't be fairly rewarded for their efforts if the system is changed to reward teams for having more than one ship on the point.
I think that most systems will end up having an issue like this. I did list another possibility of both teams being rewarded per ship on the point. In that situation that score would just about be tied in this event, and would be something around 650-340 in the situation you mentioned.

[Zyem]

In the event you describe, blue deserves the win. Blue managed to reach the point and capture, and Red failed to remove them from the point for any length of time; while blue managed to constantly be blocking it.

I do find it interesting that you think Blue deserves the win. Surely blocking is far easier than destroying two ships at the same time?

That actually reminds me of when I played on Crazy King with someone. They flew their squid under the building surrounding the capture point to perma-block it while being immune to damage (couldn't get arcs on it). Cheap move, in my opinion, and very effective.

I think the issue is that Red does not get properly acknowledged for it's efforts in the score.

It certainly doesn't help the situation

In the event you described, this match would never ever end, as both teams are on the point at all times.

This is why I said it may need to be extended to allow capture via kills.

For example:

You kill an enemy ship who is on the point which they are capturing or have captured. It loses a chunk (goes towards neutral).
You are on the point which is neutral or you are capturing and kill an enemy ship. It adds a chunk to your ownership.

I believe (bearing in mind I haven't slept properly in the last week) that this would have the same effect as shortening the timer, but allow the team who is actually dominating the point to capture it through kills, instead of timer.

Thus my hypothetical match would go like this:

B captures the point via timer and starts accruing points.
R destroys B1, reduces the point to 66% B owned. B2 blocks timer capture.
B1 returns. B blocks timer capture.
R destroys B2, reduces the point to 33% B owned. B1 blocks timer capture.
B2 returns. B blocks timer capture.
R destroys B1, reduces the point to neutral.

Then every time B1 or B2 is destroyed thereafter, the point would become more owned by R (33%, 66%) until they had "kill captured" it and then R would start accruing points. Match ends 650-300 or something (depending how fast the kills were).

I think this would be a better reflection of capturing and doesn't cause other breakage. In fact.. this might make snipers more viable on CP as they can neutralise the point from a distance (but they would still need to be on the point to capture it). I'm not sure if snipers have issues on CP though.

Any slip on either side would play out as CP does now anyway e.g if B didn't get to the point in time, the timer would start and R would capture it that way. Each kill ends up with the timer being shorter, which is what you were suggesting.

Could this be a win-win(-win) solution?

[Thomas]

Ah, I only remember reading that the kills would move it towards neutral, and assumed you'd have to sit on the point to finish moving it to your color.

As for blocking being easier than killing ships, it really depends. Staying alive against two ships is incredibly difficult. Even staying alive against one ship is hard if you're not fighting back, the game was intended that way. Now there are some sneaky spots players can get to, to remain alive, but they generally leave them unable to fight back and open to certain attacks.

Scrap used to have some areas that squids and such could sink down into and remain relatively unseen and difficult to get a shot on them. You could however just slam down on top of them and crush them into dust. If there is a location that one ship can get to, another ship should be able to get in there as well. If it's a squid only sort of zone, it might not be an intentional area that players should be able to get to; and would need to be reported for it to be fixed.


This does feel like it would become a lot more like a DM, but I do like the idea of sniping ships becoming viable in a CP. Currently I feel they have a tougher time, since they can only provide so much ranged support and often have to move in close to try and stay on the point (although they probably play a more effective role in Crazy King). I think a timer reduction along with a kill conversion would be acceptable. Making it easier to take by controlling the zone, but still capable of taking it through kills.