Capture the Flag Suggestions

Well, capture the flag is going to be an entire game mode. I will start work on it shortly. I am looking for suggestions from YOU guys as to what you would like to see in it. so far I got:

Leveling:
when you capture a flag, everyone on your team gains a level.
When you steal a flag from the spawn you gain a level.
When you return a stolen flag you gain a level.

Gold:
extra gold from killing the flag carrier. Maybe 200X hero level.
Normal hero kills grant 100 gold X hero level.
Capturing a flag gives your entire team the average hero level X200.
Gold will be given out in intervals based on the average hero level.

General Rules:
You cannot capture the flag if your opponent has your flag.
you cannot enter your base if you are the flag holder and the other team has your flag.
Flags will be sent back to their starting spot if left un-touched for 10 seconds.
The hero with the flag will have reduced move speed and will be always visible.
Creep spawns are INSANELY slow.
Exceptional orbs can be purchased in bases.


Uhhhh, I cant think of anything else to do right now. Anyone got ideas to go with from this?

don't know if this is feasible, but maybe an anti camping zone at flag might be necessary, to prevent a heavy dmg dealing hero from camping it.

"1.You cannot capture the flag if your opponent has your flag.
2.you cannot enter your base if you are the flag holder and the other team has your flag"

The first one sounds like if the opponent has the flag, you can't get yours so all you can do is go after flag holder making it impossible for both people to have opposite teams flag. If this is true, then number 2 wouldnt apply. I say eliminate the first rule, keep the second (similar to halo).

Also, if you gain a level when you steal the flag from the spawn, couldnt you just steal the flag, wait ten seconds, and then pic up again (and then repeat) making you get the levels constantly. Even though a person may get there in 10 seconds to return the flag a person could use some moves such as bone wall, turn them to animal, bash, etc.,to prevent the person from recapturing the flag.

soul, you really cant have anti camping towers; it would negate the whole "stealing the flag" thing, if a tower was kicking your ass while you tried.

slvr, that is a great point you bring up at the bottom. I can make it so a player will only gain that level if he makes it past half field with the flag. Does that sound reasonable? That is, only if a player picks the flag up at a flag spawn, and runs it across mid-field, do they get the level.

Those 2 rules do really fall into the second one; since the flag cap will be in the base. That is, a player holding the flag, cannot while holding the flag run into the base and heal. They can trade it to someone else, then heal; or they can drop it on the ground and go heal. But with the flag; they cant enter the base. This is of course; if the other team has your flag.

So, to re-state... you cannot score a point if your opponent has your flag.

Yeah thanks that helped a lot, having to bring flag mid field i think would help or simply making it more then 10 secs before flag goes back this way you can help eliminate people abusing gaining levels.

glorn i don't know where you draw your conclusions from, but not from things i say, this isnt the first time u've done it, u did it in my bugs comment as well haha, if i was talking about anti camping towers wouldn't it of made sense for me to mention them? what i'm talking about is an area that an enemy hero cannot occupy for longer then a certain duration.

One problem i do see now with flag mode is kind of a slipperly slope for the losing team. If one team is stealing alot of flags their level and gold will increase alot faster, making it even easier to get the flag again.

hmmm, it is reallly early; and I cant recall where I got "towers" from... I think I thought I read it? Maybe I was thinking of other arenas I played where the "anti-camping zone" was marked by a big ass tower you dont wanna go near.

In my defense though; you really should describe things a little better; or else I will have to draw my own conclusions. where? when? how long? how far? how big? what consiquences? for what reason?

Hmm... I can see the leveling being a problem though. What if... After every capture, ALL players get bonus gold and EXP and are sent back to their bases? the capturing team would still get the bonus levels however. As I said somewhere else on this forum... it would be a nice little buffer for the underdog.

Hmm, an odd idea I just came up with! What is your opinion on heroes losing .5% HP a second when they cross mid-field? It wouldnt really be a LOT, but it would be a forum of anti-camping, and would give each team a "home field advantage" It might fix both problems at once!

I read the tower comment too... either it was edited or deleted..

Is there a time limit in which you can hold on to the flag? The reason I ask is because using the same thought as Soul if one team gets ahead they can basically just grab your flag keep you out of your base and continously pawn you over and over.

Also is this mode a nothing but ctf or will there be duels too? If there is duels in CTF mode is it a free ride home to the team who wins and have the flag or will the flag auto drop each duel.

How many captures or kills to win?

you raise many valid points, a few of which I have been pondering.

Should I make it so X amount of kills=1 point? And maybe, for every 5 kills 1 team gets, the other team gains a level? Every 10 kills a team gets, they get a point.

I dont want a time limit on how long a flag can be held; because what if you are near the limit and the other team grabbed the flag 5 seconds after you did? It would turn into a game of just trying to grab a flag right after the other team, then waiting till it is auto dropped. What I could, and should do though. After X duration, I could make the move speed reduction enhanced, and lower the flag carriers armor byyy.. say.... their level X2.5? Also; should I make flags undropable by the flag carriers? It would make these triggers easier.; and have many other benifits. Like a flag carrier wouldnt be leveling as much as the other people on the teams, scoring kills. This would make taking flags back easier.

With the flag trapping people outta the base; only the flag carrier cannot enter the base (if the other team has your flag). Which is why I kinda wanna bind the flag to whoever picks it up; so they cant trade it off and heal. This would again, make it so some massive tank cant hold the flag forever. They would be killable.

I dont think I will have duels in CTF mode; it would ruin a lot of things, including furthering the spread of the two teams. Also, it would lengthen games, by making everyone start over. If i did do duels; it would be after every flag cap. I dont plan to thing. I want CTF games to take like, 30 min or so.

For the Anti Camp Area there is and issue if you put a zone down as searching for heros every X amounts of seconds it becomes a lag problem I had this problem with Tank wars evolution and healing zones unless you can figure a diffrent way to trigger it.

Mhm, periodic events are really rugged. Sucks that 99% of multiboards have to use periodic events.

I could do it the same way I did the give gold in the mini arena. Do a manual check; running a series of if/the/else statements. after unit enters area,if unit is in area the wait 10 seconds, else skip remaining actions, and just make a long list of them. Or I could just set the check to every 2 seconds; that wouldnt be too bad.

However, a simple time limit or camping zone I am not fond of, because a time limit would hinder gameplay; and an anti camp zone would ruin the concept of CTF. Anyone ever play CTF in real life? you always need a camper!

Back to Xjohns comment though... I will be needing to use quite a few periodic timers; and will need to figure out a way to limit their use. I will most likely have them triggered to only run when they need to be run. With my automatic leak catcher, pre-loading, and other lag-reduction techniques, the periodic timers may not lag it.

I think the current set up for capture the flag is a little biased again int hero's. They lose all the mana which is every thing to them, however the str and agi dont lose anything other then mana which they rarly use, what I would sugest is balancing it out a bit, make it disable the ability to cast spells, and give it a negative endurance aura with a custom buff so it slows the hero down as well.

If the mana is going to reduced to nearly nothing then the health should be as well.

The way it is now it gives a clear advantage to str and agi over int.

you gotta start reading more into posts... This isnt for the 3.0 capture the flag.. I am making a whole new capture the flag; with new rules and options. It is a while game mode. Nothing about mana was even mentioned in the new mode; where I listed what would happen to the flag carrier; and other rules.

If you really wanna get into it; attack speed reduction goes against fast attacking heroes; move speed reduction goes against fast moving heroes. Life reduction goes against heroes with lower life, armor reduction goes against low-armor builds; damage reduction hurts both low AND high damage builds.

^^see what happens here? There is ALWAYS something to complain about.. representing the fact that life isnt fair. As a note though... I really only go flag capping with an int hero. Why? I spam spells on my way up, then WW the second I grab the flag. Also, with my higher mana regen; after early game; I get my mana back fast enough to run down and nuke some guys while returning the flag.

If anything, it is biased TOWARDS int heroes IMO.

Sorry didn't read any of the posts before I posted, just the topic name.

As for 4.0, you could actualy throw in every thing you listed, life reduction, mana reduction, move speed reduction, armor reduction and damage reduction. You can do all this with item abilitys except for the mana and health redution. I think those would have to be done by triggers.

Maybe 50% reduction on all those and create a dummy unit that casts silenced on the unit that grabs the flag. If you want I can make a demo and post it with the basic set up for this.

have you read any of the above posts yet?

I read the first post and your post lol I am so lazy, I went ahead and read a few other posts, the losing .5% hp is a real bad idea if your going to do it how I think you are.

Using a negative unholy aura will drain the hp, however it has a slight side effect most people wont like, mainly it cant kill, and it can make you immortal.

There is a glitch to where if it drains you down to 1 hp, then you become impossible to kill untill you gain hp again, so if a person was to camp in that area and use the aura to keep him at 1 hp, he would be unstopable.

I am going to go ahead and read the rest of the psots.

Ps as long as they are triggered right, periodic timers wont cause any lag.

ok so my opinions...

camping is a part of CTF, offense and defense, its not a race so if people want to camp they arent going to be out getting hero kills and creep kills to level up it balances out

if you make the flag runner a little slower and a the flag has truesight on it or something (without blocking all spells) i think this fairly hinders all hero trypes. You could still cast WW or whatever to run faster but u wouldnt be invis, etc.

as far as how long the flag should be able to sit without returning, my opinion is that you want it to be there long enough so the capturing team has enough time to get to it assuming they dont have to go the full length of the map, but not enough time for the person respawning to get to it. Also if you are going ot make it where the defending team can touch the flag to return it, or even carry it back to the base, then I think you should allow more time for it to go untouched, and vice versa.

as far as leveling goes...If the creep spawn is insanely slow and im assuming full house games, then the majority of your XP will be coming from killing the other team. Regardless of how you reward a flag score its going to cause an increase in seperation. The only real solution i see to this is to not reward flag captures in anyway other than a point, and the reward is being closer to winning. As far as rewarding successful pickups and returns (if there is such a thing) really the same logic applies but if the reward wasnt very big I dont think it would ruin the game by any means, assuming you can make it where the person doesnt get rewarded unless they are the one who picked it up AND crossed the halfway line, otherwise a smart team would pass the flag around on the way back to the base. The downside to this is that a team could very legitimately steal the flag with person A who dies 20% of way to base, but person B grabs flag and takes it all the way. A very legitimate and likely scenario but any reward other than the previously discussed one (to get rewarded you must both capture and carry across halfway line) would most definitely be abused.

Also, I am thinking this game type would really be difficult to play as melee unless you just went hardcore tank and hoped ur team could defend you. an idea, and dont kill me on this, is maybe to give a ranged hero carrying the flag a bigger slow than a melee hero just to balance it some...idk if thats even possible though.

Dameon, I was actually gonna run a trigger to lower the life. Couldnt I do a periodic for players with flags to set life to current life-.5% of units max life? If not, it can easily be done with a constant value based on players level. I wanna stay away from using in-game auras with negative values; due to the fact that auras overlap each other; sometimes cancel each other; and other times multiply off each other. I dont want conflicting auras.

Verti;
With the heroes; I am making them always visible when they have the flag. So yeah; exactly as you said. You could WW for the move speed; but would still be visible. With flag saves, I feel 10 seconds is a pretty long time. I mean, in 10 seconds you can cover half of the map. I dont want it to be too long though; because flag saves give you a level. I want someone to like, kill a player, then save the flag. Not have someone run all the way across the map to save it. We will have to work with the timer a lot once we actually start playing; but changing a second on a variable is realllly easy -so easily testable.

Abusable leveling... Yeah; that is a problem I find. A flag capture is a full map run with the flag though. You will be very slow and very weak. A flag capture gives your whole team 1 level; but is really, the hardest way to level. If you play a defensive game, and camp your flag well; you can get a lot of levels. This way; both offensive and defensive teams can take a good lead. In fact; if the other team takes a decent lead; you can camp your flag; and fight against weakened opponents; allowing you to level up more. Again; we will have to balance out the offense vs. defense sides of this once we actually start playing.

As far as abusing flag stealing leveling; I am making it so flags are undropable. This seems like the best way to ensure a lot of things arent abused. A flag thief will only gain a level if they make it past mid field. If you die 1 step from mid field, and an ally grabs it; then your ally can get the level. either way; it is only 1 level gained for every flag steal from its original position.

A trigger will be able to do it with no problim, real simple to do as well, you could probily get one made up in less then a minute.

As for the aura's, if you realy dont want aura's conflicting you can change there buffs, say with endurance aura, you create 4 buffs, 1 for item abilitys, 1 for hero abilitys, 1 for summon abilitys and 1 for the flag. That way all the aura's have an effect on the hero with out being canceled out by the others.

I do not think that the flag runner should be slowed to much because you have slow word stun orb effects and 4 or 5 other abuitys.
You use in order to slow the runner this isent an arena anymore when you turn it in to a CTF mode.

I beleave that a hero should grab a slow abiulty in order to play CTF.

plus there are perfect conter items.

perhaps even lowering a heros MS by 20 would be enough so you can gain but not to much.

well; when you take into account all of the skills and items that increase speed; 200 slower move speed isnt bad at all. 200 is a set amount; percents are a lot more powerful! On timmy, a 50% endurance aura gives him more than 200 move speed. Speed set is 60% move speed; which on most heroes would make up the 200 move speed. Grab boots; and you are 50 ms faster. With WW, your movespeed is maxed.

If a player is too fast to catch; there is nothing to stop them from capping the flag. Not only is the 200 slower speed from the flag important; but on top of that, players should have slows to further slow the flag carrier.

I think the flag carriers should be vulnerable; so there is a real team requirement to make it work.

i agree to most of this, but here's another suggestion. how about the carrier of the flag takes damage over time? like maybe 2% of hp per second? i don't expect this to actually be a good idea, just maybe a suggestion that can be added to. but i do agree with your idea.

*NOTE*
i wouldn't play this mode. maybe others would, i don't know.

*EDIT*
i just read that someone submitted this idea. oh well. but maybe not like a negative unholy aura, like a shadow strike?

hm.... if u make this a mode i dont think u should have the place u return it in the bace put it right next to where there own flag is and just dont let it trigger if there flag isnt there
that way u can hang out near the opening near your bace die to the charge then rez in time to stop them on the way back

if this does become a mode i think rez times should become a set # instead of baced on lvl (since being alive is so critical in ctf)

might want to keep the whole cant enter your bace thing though sounds like a good idea

what about a clock on it say 1/2 an hour when time is up if the set number of points isnt scored it slowly gives both teams a point every few min until one team does have the # needed so games dont just go on for hours /w no one really makeing any progress (or even just takeing away the negitive effects of the flag)

what about makeing a port to middle near the flag that the flag carrior cant use? like that rag thing but both teams can use it (unless they have the flag)
or even something is your bace that ports u to middle if your opponent has your flag (wouldnt want to put this in as just any time because it would cut down the distance between your bace and there flag if your trying to take theres)

just some random thoughts

btw i dont like the idea of putting towers near the flag... really dont like the idea

feel free to point out any flaws in my ideas (i know there has to be at least a few ^^)

What I am noticing is that peoples suggestions seem to probably fit what their strategy in CTF would be. Some people want the flag guy to not have negative effects on him, and other stuff to make it easier for the flag to be scored, so games would be more race like and the scores high. Others, and I would include myself in this, want the game to be more strategic and defensive and basically difficult for the flag guy to score and the game would have a low score most likely. I think Yiff is probably in that group as well, if not even more extreme as I think his suggestions are very much in favor of the defensive team, not that i don't like the ideas, but probably adding all of them would make it impossible to score.