[Server] Capture the Flag Server (Guns!) - Multiple maps!

[Xudo]

Here is the example of good base. It is hard to get in and it is easy to get out.

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I can't agree that death get you out of the game. Anyone can make stone sword with bare hands. It is worse than steel, but still good enough.

Anyway, I think you should not make a lot of significant changes at once. Moving spawn point is simplest option.

About apples. You can just reduce stack size to 10. It is not possible to use inventory while you fight someone.

[Xudo]

Those people really know how to build good base.

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I made 50 swords. Just for fun. Someone took them all.

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Today I have seen two new strategies:
1. Sneak to enemy base, build 1x1 column and jump on jungle tree. Then escape running on the leaves of the trees.

2. Take flag, run right and die. In the same time, your mate should get to base and pick flag then you die. Usually teammate can get far enough. Sometimes he wins.

There is also a phenomenon of "first attack" with more or less equal teams. It is "first" because everyone has apples. Attack lasts until some team run out of apples.

It is also a good tactic to attack with stone sword and defend with steel one. If you die near you own base, it is more likely that your teammate will pick your gear. When you die near enemy base, it is opposite.

It should also be noted, that there are too much stone in the game. I have built thick walls all over my base and I still had 3 stacks.

[omikekimo]

I would like it if the spawn point were moved away from the flag as a matter of priority, you see something happened today that bothered me.

I decided to tunnel underneath the enemy base, excavate the area and then build pitfall traps for the enemy team to fall into where they would meet me, armed and ready. It took significant work to do and usually when I try it I am stopped but today was my lucky day. the setup process was uninterrupted and I was able to completely remove the stone underneath the base and dig around the permanent floor ready for the enemy to fall in. I remained down there, and some fell in, others jumped down to try to defeat me, but I fought adequately well to make a fair number of kills.

For my efforts another player (who I won't name, and for whom I do have respect , though I disagree with them on this issue) accused me of spawn killing. We had a brief argument and though I do see where he is coming from, my view is that undermining an enemy's base is a legitimate tactic for overcoming defenses. I would also contend that spawn killing has been removed from the game by virtue of the 10 second delay that gives anyone who has just died the opportunity to either flee, or get a weapon out of the team chest unmolested. Also the permanent floor inside the base means they will always spawn in a safe place. Beyond that the skill of the players involved determines the outcome of any conflict. Aside from that I often remove the stone from underneath my own teams fort as a defense against such undermining.

With that said, moving the spawn away from the flag would lay to rest any chance of such accusations as well as stopping inactive players from blocking the flag from those seeking to take it, which is a problem that I have come up against and has been pointed out in an earlier post on this forum. The flag area is the ultimate target in the game so to have it be the spawn point also inevitably increases the chance that *any* attackers may be accused of of spawn killing. There are clearly two ways of looking at it as it stands and to my mind separating the flag and the spawn would evaporate any dischord between opinions. My suggestion would be to spawn players 10 nodes away from the flag in a random direction so they are not too far away to keep defending it even if they die trying.

[Stix]

i agree with you entirely, many flag capture events have failed because the enemy spawn was on the flag and i wasnt able to punch it as their hitboxes were in the way, also i hate the fact that if you die your essentially taken out of the fight as you only have wood tools.

[omikekimo]

My major concern is more the sportsmanship issue, I don't want to be a spawn-killer, or be perceived as one. I'm all about fair play and it got to me that someone I respect as a player thought that what I was doing was somehow wrong. I don't mind being ejected from the fight if my efforts fail in combat (I have a background in kyokushin karate, it teaches a rather merciless outlook in that regard, could be why, I dunno) but that said the wooden sword is greatly under powered. I often quickly craft a stone sword if nothing has been put in the team chest before going back into the fray, but during an assault by the enemy that is often not possible. Perhaps that is fair because they did initially win. I'm not sure, it is a balancing issue and I kinda like having the odds stacked against me, so my opinion on that may be too far on the harsh side for a game. For me the moral disrepute that was generated by the scenario struck a nerve.

Hitboxes covering the flag is surely a bug though. Agreed.

[Xudo]

Playing CTF. Evening #3.
This time I often see situation like this

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People get trapped in their own base. Wooden pick sometimes actually help them to get out, make stone sword and fight back.

I usually suffer lags once someone uses crossbow. Lags are rare for me, so it is unusual.

Crossbow itself is very useless. I never use it, even it has replenishable ammo. Swords deal much more damage and don't need ammo. I never have seen anyone (succesfully) killing with ranged weapon at all. Though, people use SMG a lot while staying on enemy base and fighting enemies with wood weapons.
If you need to fight someone 1 by 1, you'll surely choose sword instead of any gun. Swordman can just run around gunner and spam attack. Gunner just can't keep up. It is hard to hit anyone with a gun and they need ammo, so they greatly underpowered now.

I think if you greatly increase damage of ranged weapons, then you also increase value of fortifications. If one shot take off half of your health, you'll never just rush with a sword.

One more thing. "pro" kill/death coefficient of 2 should be changed too. I need to camp on enemy base and kill powerless enemies just to reach good KD. I don't like it, but it is your rules.

Natural obstacle, created when Wall disappears. It can be destroyed if someone starts block update nearby.

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I am tired of struggling near the spawn with noobs making holes, so I started to build fortifications near the Wall. It looks like this.

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[Stix]

smg's are actually very useful, but what make guns underpowered is that the bullets travel so slow its pathetic. its also annoying that, as you said, it takes slaughtering noobs at their base to get a decent K/D ratio.

i think spawnkilling could be solved by simply adding a hunger system, that way players cant heal too quickly by spamming apples.

i think mese swords should be removed as their OP, and it would be nice if players started with 5 cobble also, which could be used to build fortifications, craft stone swords and picks, and with help escaping. also maybe the first team with 3 flag captures win? that way rounds could last longer.

[Xudo]

I haven't seen mese swords yet. Is it possible to craft one (in possible time)?

[ThomasMonroe]

i agree with you entirely, many flag capture events have failed because the enemy spawn was on the flag and i wasnt able to punch it as their hitboxes were in the way, also i hate the fact that if you die your essentially taken out of the fight as you only have wood tools.

I have an idea how to make them a little more successful, how about if you get within 3 blocks of the flag then you get scored with an infiltration, or maybe even capture attempt.

[Xudo]

i agree with you entirely, many flag capture events have failed because the enemy spawn was on the flag and i wasnt able to punch it as their hitboxes were in the way, also i hate the fact that if you die your essentially taken out of the fight as you only have wood tools.

I have an idea how to make them a little more successful, how about if you get within 3 blocks of the flag then you get scored with an infiltration, or maybe even capture attempt.

I think it is easier to increase flag size to 3 blocks

[Gael de Sailly]

Spawn should obviously be at some distance from the flag, and cobble nodes below, unbreakable. This would solve the issues that omikekimo pointed out.

[Xudo]

I cloned this game, tried to tinker with it and unable to find how to define max stack size for item.
So "decrease stack size of apples" is somewhat impossible (without changing MT itself).

Because of this, I propose to use "energy" system. It is similar to food, with differences. Apples restore energy, health regenerates over time and drains energy on tick, sprint drains energy when used. Unlike hunger, energy regenerates over time and zero energy should not deal damage (you just don't regenerate and can't sprint). Players should respawn with full energy bar.

It is very hard to recover after initial defeat, if enemy camp your base with steel sword and stack of apples.
In the same time it is very easy to recover, if all apples in game were eaten. You can team up with someone, kill steel sword with 2 stone swords on your base and keep collecting steel swords after this.

[ThomasMonroe]

in order to decrease the stack size, jsut add to the definition of apples this line:
stack_max=somerandomnumber,

[Gael de Sailly]

Another problem: when a player leaves and rejoins the same round, it can switch from red to blue or vice versa. I think it shouldn't be this way, it's not coherent for the player that rejoins and it's annoying for the other players, that could make mistakes. (In the night, colors are not well visible so I try to remember who's red and who's blue).

[Xudo]

Played this evening CTF. Good thing that you hide players names. It is easier to get to flag and suddenly capture it.

[rubenwardy]

Multiple Maps!

After months of work, I'm proud to present multiple maps! The map changes at the end of each match. There are currently 3 different maps - the old map and two new maps. The next map is chosen randomly, however the same map won't be chosen twice in a row.

I'd very much appreciate any help creating new maps. You can use a standalone mod to make a map from any world, see the following guide: https://github.com/rubenwardy/captureth ... /README.md

Thank you to Shara, red-001, and xerox123 for their help testing this feature.

The Bridge

Very little cover and no apple trees. A river runs between the two teams.



Caverns

Each team has a cavern and must mine to reach the other team.



Two Hills and a Lake

The classic CTF map. Photo by Shara.

Other Changes

• Furnaces have been added!
• Player nametags are now hidden, you can only see someone's name if they're in sight.
• Increased immunity time.
• Reduced pro-section K/D requirement from 2 to 1.5.
• The normal section of the team chest now requires at least 10 score.
• Add /reset_rankings, to allow players to reset their stats and rankings.
• Various optimisations.

[GreenDimond]

Woah. I need to hurry my butt onto the server and try these out! And maybe help make some maps (I'm good at that) :D

[rubenwardy]

Woah. I need to hurry my butt onto the server and try these out! And maybe help make some maps (I'm good at that) :D

That would be good!

Also, added misc changes list to the above release post

[Chem871]

Would you make the server bigger? I checked, and it literally had 31 out of 30 people logged in.

[rubenwardy]

Would you make the server bigger? I checked, and it literally had 31 out of 30 people logged in.

Unfortunately the server gets performance issues when too many players are online due to large amount of actions in a single area.

Players with more than 10,000 score can join the server even when the limit is reached, however this doesn't help good players without much gameplay time. I'm considering reducing this number as it rarely goes above 30, but it's unlikely to go below 1000 score.

I'm going to add a feature which auto-kicks unproductive players (ie: don't leave spawn, just punch random blocks).

You could hover in ##minetest-ctf on irc.freenode.net and wait for a player to leave. Or if you ping me on IRC, I can let you manually.

[Stix]

it would be nice if there was a higher chance of apples spawning in chests, also could you make it so chests get refilled and have a timer for that?

[Gael de Sailly]

Multiple Maps!

Wow wow wow!!! I'll test it immediately! I've already suggested it some weeks ago, and didn't know at all you were already working on it! You're fullfilling my dreams, rubenwardy :D

btw I'd be volunteer to look for more maps.

[Xudo]

It would be great to see lava-filled map and sky platform map.

Cave map is already filled with lava. Great!

[Xudo]

New maps, old bases. They work great, no reason to change significally.

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In the Bridge map there is a hole near reds base. If someone with flag jump there, he can get out or lead players from defense. So I decided to block it completely.

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Cave map is very rich on resources. You lost your steel sword? Nvm, you can craft yourself a bronze one.
You can even supply all team with bronze swords in preparation period.
Cave between bases is getting sprinkled with stuff.

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Another cool picture

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Can you add recipe to turn your wooden sword to stick? You can stuck with lot of ore, but without stick you are unable to craft a sword.

I also found a clay on The Bridge map. It might be cool, if bricks could be indestructible. Crafting process is too complex for noobs, so it can't be misused.

[ANAND]

Another problem: when a player leaves and rejoins the same round, it can switch from red to blue or vice versa. I think it shouldn't be this way, it's not coherent for the player that rejoins and it's annoying for the other players, that could make mistakes. (In the night, colors are not well visible so I try to remember who's red and who's blue).

A lot of players do this on purpose - players from similar IPs are generally assigned to the same team on joining, but if they're persistent enough, they can switch to the other team successfully.