How should spawns work in CTF?

[PapaSmurf]

Well, I'm not exactly sure what the current state of the spawning mechanism in ctf right now, but I'm pretty sure it is not ideal.

Initially the spawns worked accordingly: everyone spawns in their own base at beginning, then subsequently when someone dies, you spawn in a predertmined spawnpoint where the spawns can become quite predictable if you know the spawn order.

The problem with this method, is that it is very exploitable. Let's say you know that the first spawn point is inside blue base, and you are on the red team. At beginning of match you can simply kill yourself and voila, you're in blue base and you can take the flag very quickly. Or let's say you know that the first spawn point is in center area near quad, type kill and grab quad.

What are some alternative solutions, the spawns could be random, like it is in DM. I'm not sure if I like this solution, although, I think there should be some randomness to the spawning, but simply making them random and leaving it at that might not be the best.

Another solution is to make that all kills within the first 30 seconds of the match make you spawn inside your base at one of the initial spawn points. And then proceed to either have random or semi-random spawns after that.

Another solution is to make it so there are no spawns in the other team's base, ie Red can never spawn inside blue base, and blue can never spawn inside red base. Or perhaps make it so all spawns occur in the middle or "neutral zone". Or you can only spawn in this neutral zone or your own base.

In any event, I know ctf is pretty much dead, but I think it would be nice to have some discussion concerning this.

[Shadowswift]

The problem with this method, is that it is very exploitable. Let's say you know that the first spawn point is inside blue base, and you are on the red team. At beginning of match you can simply kill yourself and voila, you're in blue base and you can take the flag very quickly. Or let's say you know that the first spawn point is in center area near quad, type kill and grab quad.

the situation you just described is how some of the best CTF players (Frenzy, Rook, Preacher...ect) move and kill as quickly as they do. half of it is their skill with the axe-hook. the other half is their skill in predicting not only what their enemy will do next, but what the map will dish out next. a good player knows where the spawn points are. a great player knows how to use them to their advantage. of course, i dont think that the servers spawn you in an exact pattern, im pretty sure its mostly random. however, its not hard to predict where, or atleast round-about where you will end up next time you spawn when you've played the same maps hundreds upon hundreds of times.

[Canadian*Sniper]

another idea. Keep the spawn points the way they are but have a 5 second countdown before respawn.

What are some alternative solutions, the spawns could be random, like it is in DM.

They're not random unless modded.

[PapaSmurf]

the situation you just described is how some of the best CTF players (Frenzy, Rook, Preacher...ect) move and kill as quickly as they do. half of it is their skill with the axe-hook. the other half is their skill in predicting not only what their enemy will do next, but what the map will dish out next. a good player knows where the spawn points are. a great player knows how to use them to their advantage. of course, i dont think that the servers spawn you in an exact pattern, im pretty sure its mostly random. however, its not hard to predict where, or atleast round-about where you will end up next time you spawn when you've played the same maps hundreds upon hundreds of times.

Right, and I don't think this is a good thing. If on a map the first spawn point is inside one of the bases, let's say the red base, then the red team has a distinct disadvantage. Is this how a fair and equitable game should be?

The first team DM and 1on1 matches did not have random spawns. Good players knew the spawn order and would exploit this to their advantage (as they should). However, this was deemed unfair, and it is not this way anymore--see random spawns. I think some sort of adjustment should be made to CTF spawns as well. Just because that's the way it, doesn't make it right.

[Shadowswift]

in public CTF, thats how it is. but in Threewave CRCTF, i dont think there is any spawning in enemy bases.

[PapaSmurf]

There is definitely spawning in enemy bases in threewave crctf. that's how it was back in the day (i know for a fact), and I am 99% sure that's how it is today.

[R00k]

True, old ctf, (even crctf 2.8k) had sequential spawning. So basically a 1 on 1 on Elder could end up being a spawn frag fest, if you were quick enough. In my crctf, this has be changed to the CR-mod like standard of randomizing spawnpoints, with one catch. Initially when the game started, like you said you could type kill and be respawned at or near the enemy base/weapons/power ups. This is weak- but costs you -2 frags. So, in Crctf3.0 if you DIE you will respawn in your base only IF you havent been killed yet by an opponent,(yes some people fall in lava to die on purpose!). Sometimes, in pub mode after a mapchange red might spawn in blue base (this is because sometimes the spawning succeeds faster than the team association), which I must fix. This doesnt happen in match mode, though.

Spawning in enemy base is a by product of id deathmatch spawns. If id originally placed a deathmatch spawn in a "now ctf base" then you could spawn there. E1M1, for example, the blue base, is the initial dm spawnpoint. Nowhere in the code does it strictly allow a team to spawn in the opposite team's base. This was from 3wave 1.0 until today. So, it's pretty much a mapper's choice.

I understand that the skill of most games is the repetitive structure, like in chess knowing how all the pieces behave, yet the randomness of gameplay makes the game more dynamic. I spent a long time trying to work out a logical spawn system, but ended up using random spawns for simplicity.

[PapaSmurf]

So, is the first spawn still set for a given map, or is it random?

[R00k]

Random. But how quake generates random numbers, it might be the same 1st random number