Wirehead Studios

Pasting this from my FurAffinity journal so I don't have to feel like I'm repeating myself...

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I don't know how many of you play CTF in first-person shooters, but from what I've experienced defense is a crucial part of the game. And from what I've witnessed everyone om my team usually goes all-out while I'm stuck alone in the base. Do you know why I stay behind? Because I know that if I don't, the team has a higher probability of losing.

Yet, a server I went to seemed to not get that through the admin's thick skull. I was doing MY role, and what am I rewarded with? A kick. That's right, a KICK from the server.

I don't care what everyone thinks, but CTF isn't just about getting the flag. If involves defending your own too. If you fail to look after your base, you're risking your chance to win the game. And if people keep failing to get pass me, then they should at the least take some time to ORGANIZE their little assault group so I as little chance of being successful as possible, not bitch and whine.

Another annoyance I have is people whining about camping in CTF. This isn't deathmatch, you freaking newbies! CTF involves strategy, and camping is a defensive one. There is always a way around every tactic, it's just that people never bother to think of how to counter it. As a result, they bitch about it.

CTF is about working together as a team, both offensively and defensively, and if said team fail to cooperate in each other, they most likely aren't going to win.

As a last note, I really suck at offense, so I don't see the point of me going into the other base unless the enemy has our flag; in that case, I WILL go offensive until I die and respawn in the base. Everyone has their own roles, and I happen to be the 'base supervisor', no matter what anyone says. If people complain about me being defensive, fine, but me trying to accompany my comrades into the base and making us lose because no one's defending the flag...well, let's just say that they're eating their own words.

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I would also like to add that I sometimes go capture the enemy's flag when it's a small game. When it's a medium to large one though, I stick to the base.

This topic can also be used to either have a cool discussion about CTF/TDM tactics or post your own annoyances regarding these team-oriented play modes. I just placed this in "Rants and Randomness" because I was venting. Yes, I really do get pretty annoyed with what I stated above.

This topic should also explain why I tend to stay away from large fights while in one of the GenArena servers. ;)

You understand CTF strategy, your so-called team mates do not.  Basic rule of CTF:  Offense scores points, but DEFENSE WINS THE GAME.  Any idiot can grab a flag and run home if the base defender kicks the bucket.  If the defender kicks ass sooner or later that team will win by attrition.  Every game of CTF I've lost has been because the other team's defense has been better than ours.  Every game I've won has been because the other team's defense was not as good as ours.  CTF strategy can be summed up as this:

1)  Defend your flag.
2)  Kill the other team's defense.
3)  Snatch their flag when their defense is down and run like a mothersporker and hope you don't get fragged on the way out.
4)  Do not EVER let them recover their flag once you have it, especially if yours has left the base.

I too tend to get stuck being the base defender quite often.  I am not a great defender though, nor am I the best offense either.  I do best in an all-around role where my primary concern is fragging the other team to keep them out of the base, or to nail their flag carrier if he happens to get by and snatch the flag from ours, or to escort and cover our flag carrier on the way back.  I do not like playing defense if I can play an all-around role.  If nobody else plays defense, I'll step in and do what I have to.  If we have a good defender and I don't have to worry about growing roots in our base, I can wreak absolute havoc on the other team.  I don't think I need to explain why. ;)

Now, for CTF ettiquete rules, you are expected to defend your base.  It is NOT FFA, base defense is NOT "lame camping" in CTF and any idiot that says so is a complete and utter CTF noob.  The rules are entirely different from FFA.  In CTF, I expect to get spawnkilled, chatkilled, and any number of things I consider lame in FFA.  It's the nature of CTF, and I won't complain about it.  If you chat in CTF and it's not a very, very informal game, I will frag your ass at every turn because for all I know you'll pop our flag runner when I'm not looking and that's going to make me very, very angry.  If you're in our base, I guarantee you're toast.  If I'm flag running and you're near my objective, you're toast.  If you're really, really out of the way I'll probably leave you alone, but your ass better be tucked in the corner facing stone and I better not see a railgun or BFG out and ready.  You are not expected to be nice to the other team in CTF.  The only area I will make concessions for niceness on is team balancing if it's a non-competitive situation.  If it's a CTF game for fun, and not a clan match, I'll try to team balance, but I hate switching sides, so I'll usually bounce between playing filler or spectating.  I want everyone to have fun, but I also want whatever team I'm on to win.  I feel more pressure to play well in CTF than FFA since it's a team scenario, so I tend to be a bit nastier in temperment than in an FFA game.

What I can't believe is that someone kicked you for playing the game right and guarding your flag.  That's just wrong.  I guarantee you that will not happen in a Generations CTF game.

I'm not too experienced in basic CTF.. but I am a huge (QW)TF fan. All I ever played was Defense.. and I all I ever did was stay at the home base. If our flag moved, I let the others move with the flag.. I stayed back to make sure no one was waiting for our flag to return and catch it when it was undefended.

It would have been hilarious in TF if the term 'camper' existed... in a team of 8, four of them would be 'campers'. Defense is not camping, regardless of the CTF style being played.

In fun games, I have no problems switching sides.. in clan matches.. well, that would be kinda stupid. :)

Ahem

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060826 (http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060826)

:P

Aye, that last line is pretty appropriate for teamplay situations.

There's a philosophy behind objective-oriented situations.  It may be considered honorable to die in battle, but it is more honorable to accomplish your mission.  Using stealth to avoid minor battles that would impede your accomplishing your mission is not dishonorable.  Sneaking into someone's base the long way and grabbing their flag out from under their nose is a wiser course of action than running in guns blazing and getting mowed down repeatedly.  Of course, if you CAN gun down the entire enemy team, that's some real glory right there.  Either way, it is their dishonor and fault for lacking enough wisdom to protect their flag.  If someone throws up a chat bubble in your base, and you run past them, and they run in and grab your flag, guess what?  The other person behaved in a dishonorable fashion, but you still failed to protect your flag.  You should have fragged them on the spot to avoid this possibility.  I see this as no different than fragging someone chatting next to the Quad spawn - it's chat camping at its worst.  They should expect to get fragged with extreme prejudice if in your base, under any circumstances.  If they can't deal with that, and they're going to whine over it, then they need to play something else.  Letting your team mates down by not defending your base is dishonorable.  Let the other team worry about winning on their own.  Like the comic said, it's not your job to make the enemy's job easier.  Your job is to blow them off the map.

Now as for honorable play in an FFA, if I lose in an FFA because someone plays more skillfully it is my fault for failing to play as skillfully as the other player.  I am responsible for winning my own game.  Note that I emphasize skill here, not just kills.  There is no skill involved in shooting a chatting player, or pitching tent on an important item to keep someone from ever getting it, or blasting people off their spawn pads repeatedly.  That is like swording an unarmed opponent and claiming you won a duel.  Sure there are factors that affect a game - ping, whether you're sick or well, any number of things that can make you lose that are not directly a consequence of skill.  Those are up to the individual to factor in.  If I play with a handicap of some kind, like a higher ping, or a class I'm not familiar with, or I'm very rusty, I'm not as hard on myself if someone I know is very skillful defeats me.  If, on the other hand, I'm in top form, and someone who is usually cannon fodder bests me, I'm going to probably feel a bit put out over it, but I will congratulate them on their besting me since that is the honorable thing to do, rather than whining, so long as they are playing honorably themselves.

On the other hand, if I normally behave honorably in not shooting newly spawned players or chatting players, and someone decides to take advantage of this, they behave dishonorably.  An example is if you spawn near me and charge me with the chainsaw.  I WILL kill you on sight the next time I see you even twitch in my direction with a chainsaw out and ready, newspawn or not.  It is not considered spawnkilling if the newly spawned player attacks you immediately.  If you turn and run off or hold your fire, I'll leave you alone.  Attack me and I'll grind you into the map.  Make a habit of attacking me at spawn and you're cannon fodder every time I see you.  Same goes with chatting.  If you purposely chatkill repeatedly you're banned, and if I don't have rcon you will become my only target until you leave - and I'll make sure everyone else knows you're an ass too.  If you chat camp you're also cannon fodder.  I do warn people verbally if I think they're behaving dishonorably, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt most of the time.  Pretty much all the people who frequent Central and Euro behave well, though sometimes some people do tend to be a bit trigger happy when it comes to spawning.

Now speaking of teamplay situations, I remember playing Team Fortress Classic in Half-Life.  Being a newbie I had no idea the "spy" class could disguise as one of my team.  I saw someone come in the water entrance on 2 Fort, shot first, and saw he was the same color.  I thought friendly fire was on from the blood splats.  I apoligized, and promptly got knifed in the back and wondered wtf happened and why the guy's model changed, and why a team mate up and killed me.  I decided to RTFM and found out about the class and how it worked.  The next game I played I decided to make use of this class.  The level I played on was on the prison level.  I disguised myself as a heavy weapon guy for the other team, and stood guard near the key room, where another heavy weapon guy of the opposing team was stationed.  I waited for some of my team members to come into view.  The HW guy opened up on them, and I grenaded the guarding turret in the key room while he was distracted, then knifed the HW guy in the back, grabbed the key and ran like hell to the gas chamber with my newfound escort.  Cheap and sneaky?  Yes, but it worked and I got two captures through the course of the level this way.  The other team adapted and started shooting at their guards to make sure they weren't spies.  I then began disguising myself as a medic - another dirty thing to do - and made sure I was within easy reach of the snipers.  Amazing how quick your team can advance when they're not being sniped, and when you're a nice diversion to the other defenders that are pissed off at a spy being in their base.  Another dirty trick I pulled was disguising myself as a spy on the opposite team, so they thought I was their spy just roaming their base.  I took out their engineer this way about 3 times.

Now I bet a lot of you didn't expect me to play a sneaky class like this since I'm such an "in your face" FFA player.  I can be very sneaky when it's not a dishonorable thing to do as part of the game.  Being clever tactically in a teamplay scenario is part of the game.  What I did playing TFC might be considered lame by some players - and I was called a lot of foul names by the other team - but it's something designed in and expected in the game play.  In a situation that requires base defense, you expect the enemy base to be defended.  If I were playing a single player game where my mission was to assault some stronghold, I would expect to meet resistence.

Here's what I think.  I think deathmatch is an interesting and unique form of gameplay.  Most games involve you vs lots of bad guys, or your squad or wing vs lots of bad guys.  You kill the other side while they try to kill you.  You might have to protect something from the bad guys on a particular mission.  CTF is very much like this.  FFA deathmatch has no single-player equivalent outside of games that sprung up as a result from FFA deathmatch in the first place.  So, if CTF or TeamDM functions similar to a single player game in that respect, lacking savegame capacity of course, why the hell do people complain when the players behave no differently than you'd expect enemies to behave in a single-player environment?  FFA is the oddball scenario, and has the oddball rules because it's so entirely individualistic.  I see it more as an extension of single combat.  It's like single combat with everybody at once, between everybody at once, and that's how I treat it.

Ah yes, like some kind of Free For All? (sorry couldn't resist)

The spy is a fun class to play on pub servers. They are tricky in clan matches. A lot of clans require their defense to take a shot at the wall/floor when running past another teammate to signal they are not a spy. It was also common in QWTF on pubs.. the defender in question would shoot a shot first, telling the would-be spy to also take a shot. If he didn't shoot as well, he'd get fragged. Granted, sometimes it was actually a teammate.. but, he learned the hard way of learning to 'spy check'. :)

I always played HWGuy (granted, I disliked the TFC incarnation).. hence why I was always a defensive nerd who never left his base regardless of how boring it was (some pubs, the other team had 0 offense). Then again.. I was always a dedicated defender who took pride in how well he performed defensively. Granted, my FPS skill has been a sliver above nill for the past two or three years now.. but, if I ever played a CTF style game again.. rest assured that I would be the same.

That being said.. it always annoyed me in games like UT where my bot teammates sucked major ass. I'd send them all on offense and leave myself as the lone defender (Dedication, baby. Dedication).. would take forever for them to get a cap.

Ahh, the joys of bot play.  That is one thing I'll give to Q3 and Team Arena bots.  They can actually present something of a challenge in teamplay scenarios.  To this day I still hate the Scornforge map in Team Arena.

(http://www.cad-comic.com/comics/20060826.jpg)

:huh:

One thing i find really annoying in team based games is communication, wether it's ctf and people don't say enough or tdm and someone spams the teamchat with really annoying "i am here follow me" type comments, both are a bit annoying, that and when everyone just decides "eh i'll just wander around the map with no strategy or cooridnation with other teammates" in ctf.

Communication is a good thing, but I don't think always the most important thing.  Situational awareness (knowing wtf is going on) and having a basic game plan to fall back on I think matters even more.  Here's how I categorize a very basic CTF strategy, and if I'm leading a team, this is how I'd want it played by my team:

Defender
Flag Runner
Midground

The Defender's job is to plant roots on the flag and smack anyone coming near it.  The Defender should NEVER leave the base.  The only exception is if someone manages to get ahold of the flag, they can pursue a VERY short distance to try to recover, but should not get so far away from the flag stand that if they off the flag taker and recover the flag, another opposing player can snag it while it's unguarded.  If for any reason the Defender needs to leave their position, they must signal someone else to defend momentarily while they go.  They must wait until the covering person is there, do their thing, get back, and order their assistent out to resume their previous duty.  If the Defender calls for help, EVERYONE is to help unless the Flag Runner is very near the enemy flag.  If the Defender gets killed, the Midground player or whoever else is in the base at the time is to immediately take over Defense until the Defender can recover.  If I'm commanding a team I'll usually play defense because you don't have to worry about getting caught typing as much.  Usually I like the Team Leader to be the Defender.

Flag Runner is just that - run in, get the flag, get their ass home.  They don't stay and fight.  They just run like hell and do their thing.  If they get killed - which is often - they can assist in defense until the base is clear, then off to do their thing they go.  They are not to stick around midground and fight.  If possible, they are to ignore passing enemy flag runners on the way to the base.  The other job they get is flag retrieval.  If the enemy gets our flag, they are to peg the Flag Runner before he can capture.  Midground obviously is to assist on this, but the Flag Runner has the last shot of nailing the enemy Flag Runner.  It's obvious where the enemy Flag Runner will go, so the enemy Flag Runner will be somewhat predictable.  There are exceptions, but recovering your own flag takes precedent over trying to steal the other guy's.  Now if they have the flag, and the enemy has the flag, they'll have to decide if they can try to intercept or not.  If they're low on health, beat it home and avoid every member of the other team.  If they are healthy, armed, and well armored, yeah, try to swat the guy on the way back, but bail if they start taking a beating.

Midground is the all-around position.  A Midground player gets to assist the Flag Runner on escorts, and as long as the Defender is alright, they should do this as much as possible.  When escorting a Flag Runner, their job is to take the hits, and take out the opposition.  The Flag Runner has priority on health and armor.  The Midground player also gets to distract the enemy Defender or try to kill them outright while the Flag Runner does their thing.  If the Flag Runner gets creamed, it's the Midground player's call as to try to take over offense temporarily.  If the Flag Runner had the flag and dropped it, Midground is to grab it and beat it home.  At that point the Flag Runner and Midground temporarily reverse roles.  If Defense calls for help, the Midground is to drop what they're doing and head back to base.  If the flag is taken, the midground player's actions will depend on where they are at.  If at base assisting, they are to pursue until the flag taker is toast.  If somewhere inbetween, they are to find a good spot to intercept the flag taker.  If there is a single choke point, that's a good place to go.  If the map has multiple routes, they may have to head into the enemy base and catch the flag taker there before they can capture.

Now in games with more than three people per team, additional roles can be assigned.  If it's 4 vs 4, you may have more than one base defender.  You may have more than one midground.  You may have flag defense, interrim defense, or you may have a dedicated Flag Escort.  You may have a "spork up the other team" guy.  A lot of this depends on the map and what works best.

In a 5 vs 5, that's where it gets interesting, and tough because you can have situations where 4 people are attacking you at once, or 4 people are defending the enemy flag.  Your team HAS to be flexible and intuitive.  If your people don't know what to do without getting orders, you're going to be outflanked by the other team.

In the odd situation where you have a 2 vs 2 CTF, you have a harder time because you can't just always defend, and can't just always attack.  If you only leave one defender, the other team might risk sending both guys on offense and overwhelming your defender, then pegging you on the way back when you have their flag, and making a capture that way.  Or, you may end up with a standoff where you each have the other's flag, and have to send your defenders after your flag while your flag runner stays home.  I've seen this happen in 3 vs 3's before, and I got caught in a nasty version of this on Heat once.  I cursed my team up one side and down the other for not being able to recover our flag after I had evaded the other team for over 5 minutes, and wouldn't you know it but one of that team's tougher players, who also had double damage AND Quad, managed to find me and get a lucky shot in.

When you play CTF seriously, binds also are of critical importance.  I used to have a set of chat binds attached to my keybad.  I'm not sure if I still have the file around, but they covered offensive and defensive emergency situations, like defense needs help, offense needs help, and whether or not the enemy had the Quad or some other important powerup.

One very underused function in Q3 CTF is the Team Task window.  In Gen you can see a LOT of important information with it.  There are two commands - nextTeamMember, and prevTeamMember.  I have them bound to [ and ].  If you cycle them you can see stats on every member of your team.  As a bonus, if you cycle far enough you can see a condensed chart form of everyone on your team at once (up to 4 people).  You can see where they are, how healthy, what powerups they have, and who has the flag (if anyone).  If you're a team leader this is an invaluable resource.  For example, if you're a Defender, and you know someone just respawned and left your base, and suddenly see their health declining, you can have a pretty good idea an attacker is close by.  If you know which way your team member left, you have an idea where the attack might be coming from.  You can see your flag runner's health and order someone to assist them.

When you get experienced CTF clans, a lot of things become instinctive and habit.  You just get a feel for the flow of the game, who's going where, and the playing style of your clan mates.  Everyone has a set of binds, and everyone knows what everyone else is doing.  This is different from pubs where it's a lot looser.  Some of the ugliest games I've seen are when a clan goes up in a pub against an unorganized team.  There was even a very, very ugly argument in the #wirehead room as a result of this kind of thing - claims of team stacking, unsportsmanlike gameplay, etc...  without blaming anyone or going into details, this is a situation that in retrospect is best to avoid.  It can lead to some very ugly tempers.

Now in Generations CTF games, you'll find some classes are better suited to certain roles over than others.  How this works out, well, that's up to the player, and I've covered that before in another thread.  Throwing techs and/or a grappling hook in really mixes things up, and makes for a crazy game.  There's various strategy for all of this, which could take a tome to write it all.  The basic strategy I've outlined above is a good, solid strategy to at least keep your team in the game.  There's always room for variation, and sometimes doing something off-plan can catch the other team off guard if they're expecting a certain kind of gameplay.  Anything can happen, but I do know this.  Just running at the other team without any strategy at all is a strategy for disaster.

Anyway, that's a bit of CTF strategy from me.  Take it or leave it as you will. :)

Referring to IceDragon's dicussion on people who whine when people defend the flag by calling them campers.

I thought it was a good contribution.

Yeah, but you posted the same thing Kajet linked to, hence the quoting and   :huh:

In my QWTF days, I had a whole string (F1-F11) of team say binds specificly set for defensive situations to let everyone (mostly the other defenders) know what my situation was, and to give them a heads up. Some of which can probably be used in normal CTF..

Communication was always a vital part of team coordination.. but it got hectic with both the offense and defense trying to communicate with each other at the same time. Nowadays, binds are obsolete and programs like teamspeak are the way to go for clan play.

On pubs.. Clannies usually made fun of them due to the lack of coordination and communication. I was always a pubrat tho.. despite those two details, I found it a good way to make sure my skill never faltered defensively. I also tried to use them to get used to new binds when I had to make them (some maps didn't adhere to my 'all-in-one' set of binds). And hey, that's all one should ever expect from a pub.. since they're just a ragtag group of people with varying sets of skill tossed together onto two teams. A well coordinated pub is likely to rarely, if at all, ever happen.

Ah spork. I guess I over looked that. My mistake.

And the moral of the story: Don't be an asshole.

That pretty much sums up the 20 or so paragraphs enscribed in this topic.

The End