Curse

Splitisoda · Mar 27, 2008, 12:57 AM // 00:57

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Originally Posted by Isil`Zha

I've played hundreds of AB games - I've never seen a game lost due to excessive shrine capping. I've especially never seen a game totally bombed by a team due to excessive shrine capping.

I do, however, constantly see games that are totally bombed because the rest of the team doesn't cap anything because they treat it as nothing more than a kill-fest. After finally getting their shit together once the score is 200 to 350 after they just sat in a mob kill-fest and start capping again, then we lose the game because we don't cap fast enough.

Excessive "kill-festing" and mobbing are a major problem that result in horrible losses.

Excessive shrine capping never causes this problem.

Because of this, though, I've already expressed how I feel AB should be scored - which would better equalize the importance of shrine capping and killing in the sense that mobbing and killing once you have the shrine advantage will go much further to complete the objective.

I've seen people take it so literally, they run through an angry mob of 2 mms, without even fighting trying to go for the next shrine.

Also, I'm sure most comebacks are because of kills.

Isil`Zha · Mar 27, 2008, 12:58 AM // 00:58

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Originally Posted by moriz

the +points per kill on how many shrines you have was how it was set up before. that got changed some time ago in favour of what we have now.

the old system often made comebacks impossible. having points per kill based on the number of shrines held often started huge snowball effects iwhere entire games were decided on who happened to win the first encounter.

I don't think it was. The only update I remember ever seeing for AB were the factions rewards. (I'll see if I can find anything in the update history that showed a change in AB scoring.) The snowball effects were due to other problems, that weren't related to ABs themselves but rather aforementioned problems such as the team being one large 12 person party so party heals and party enchants like Aegis became overpowered.

The most overpowered thing I remember from early AB days were MMs with unlimited minions. They'd have armies of 50+ minons that could totally obliterate the entire opposing team.... a 1 person build that can easily beat 12 players is rather imbalanced. That would of course be a massive snowball, by providing the MM with more and more corpses to expand their army.

moriz · Mar 27, 2008, 01:02 AM // 01:02

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I've played hundreds of AB games - I've never seen a game lost due to excessive shrine capping.

i've also played hundreds of ABs, and i often seen matches lost due to excessive capping.

take your example for instance:

once you've realized you're down 200 to 350, the answer is not go on a mass capping spree. your opponents are already ahead on points, and playing a cap race simply won't allow you to make up ground.

the correct response is this: get 4 people to spread out and cap, while the other 8 zerg rush the nearest team of 4 you can find. you'll have the numerical advantage, so you should win and get the easy +12 points. if that unfortunate team of 4 was standing on a shrine, cap it and move on. keep repeating until you've killed enough people to gain a lead, THEN start the cap race.

i'll repeat myself in case i wasn't clear about it before: capping will NEVER win you a game (or more importantly, never allow you to catch up if you are down in points), unless the other side forgot to cap anything, or all rolled over and died.

capping is important. killing is just as important. the trick is to know when's the time to cap, and when's the time to kill.

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i'm quite sure there was a change to the scoring system at one point. i distinctively remember that killing was given more importance...

Bobby2 · Mar 27, 2008, 01:02 AM // 01:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splitisoda

I've seen people take it so literally, they run through an angry mob of 2 mms, without even fighting trying to go for the next shrine.

I usually get away with stuff like this, alive. I consider it the right thing to do. Ignoring MMs and stuff.

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Originally Posted by Splitisoda

Also, I'm sure most comebacks are because of kills.

I'm sure they're not.

Isil`Zha · Mar 27, 2008, 01:05 AM // 01:05

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Originally Posted by Splitisoda

I've seen people take it so literally, they run through an angry mob of 2 mms, without even fighting trying to go for the next shrine.

That is idiotic. What you're describing is more like "run through an angry mob of 2 MMs... and die horribly, without capturing anything."

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Also, I'm sure most comebacks are because of kills.

Err, no - any major comeback, if you look at the map, it'll be because your team holds most of the shrines.

Of course, capping shrines requires killing. Killing is important, the problem is people kill just to kill, with no other objective. When you should be killing to reach your objective - capturing shrines.

How long does a typical 4 v 4 fight last in AB anyway? Say something like 1 minute... that's 12 points for 1 minute of fighting. If you held 5 shrines for 1 minute, you just earned 40 points. Even if you hold just two shrines you'd earn 16 points for one minute - still more than getting kills. This is assuming a flawless victory over another party and they don't earn points for killing a few of your teammates in return.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

i've also played hundreds of ABs, and i often seen matches lost due to excessive capping.

take your example for instance:

once you've realized you're down 200 to 350, the answer is not go on a mass capping spree. your opponents are already ahead on points, and playing a cap race simply won't allow you to make up ground.

That's not excessive capping - if you're behind on shrines, then you're not capping well.

Again, having 5 shrines for 1 minute nets you 40 points, compared to a one minute fight where you may kill 4 people for 12 points. If you killed the entire opposing team - with no losses, in one minute you'd still only get 36 points. Taking losses effectively changes that - if you have 4 losses you've only gained on the opposing team by 24 points. Similarly, with 5 shrines and 4 player losses you get 28... but of course you'll need to be doing some killing as well to get those shrines, making up for the losses.

Getting more shrines than the other team gets you quite a bit more points than just making a lot of kills while the opposing team has 6 shrines and one is neutral. (I just love coming to an empty enemy shrine... as I witness my teammates run right passed it to attack a mob instead of capping the shrine.) I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen a party run up, take out all the NPCs at a shrine... then leave... without capping... to attack an irrelevant enemy mob. Just in the time they waste running to the mob to attack, that team scores another couple points.

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the correct response is this: get 4 people to spread out and cap, while the other 8 zerg rush the nearest team of 4 you can find. you'll have the numerical advantage, so you should win and get the easy +12 points. if that unfortunate team of 4 was standing on a shrine, cap it and move on. keep repeating until you've killed enough people to gain a lead, THEN start the cap race.

i'll repeat myself in case i wasn't clear about it before: capping will NEVER win you a game (or more importantly, never allow you to catch up if you are down in points), unless the other side forgot to cap anything, or all rolled over and died.

capping is important. killing is just as important. the trick is to know when's the time to cap, and when's the time to kill.

Ah see, yes, I agree that killing is important too, but many people put far more importance on killing, and just ignore capping altogether. It's actually really hard to capture and not do any killing - the other team will guard, or be attempting to capture and you'll cross paths, and they'll try to stop you, and you try to stop them.

It's very easy to do nothing but kill and ignore the capturing side. You can simply just ignore the shrines and look for the nearest enemy dots. Also, many gamers are simple minded and want to do what requires the least thought - following enemies around to kill them.

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i'm quite sure there was a change to the scoring system at one point. i distinctively remember that killing was given more importance...

As I recall, killing used to not give any points towards winning, and the more importance was making it give 3 points towards the score.

itsvictor · Mar 27, 2008, 05:13 AM // 05:13

Killing and capping after necessary for winning. You must balance the amount of killing (other players) with a constant capping streak. Does I win the thread cause that's what I have been reading lol... If there's one thing about the people that scream "CAP FFS OMG WTF BBQ WE ARE LOSING Q-Q RAGGEEEQQUQIITTTT", is that most of the time their team is dive bombing the base defender so to speak. Primarily at the end of the game (470-470) it's more important to get kills than wait for the shrine mechanism ton net you points. Always remember, fight skirmishes you can win >_<...and make sure you add a pip to the shrine capping instead of standing right outside wanding mr. wammo...

Brian the Gladiator · Mar 27, 2008, 02:56 PM // 14:56

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Originally Posted by moriz

i'm quite sure there was a change to the scoring system at one point. i distinctively remember that killing was given more importance...

I understand what you are saying and I think I have the answer to why it didn't work. The change, where killing became more important, was not offset with other things becoming less important. It is hard to explain but I will do my best.

This situation is comparable to the nightfall powercreep (I hope you are familiar with this term... if not go QQ more). When nightfall was introduced, the offensive power was drastically increase. The defensive power was increased just as much. This created a "spiky" meta with TONS of passive defense and essentially killed all forms of true pressure play and crippled most forms of balance in GvG.

Increasing the importance of killing in AB to match shrine capping is essentially doing the same thing as the Nightfall powercreep. It caused a downward spiral effect on scoring (where one team could lose a match based on who won the first few skurmishes). This is not because killing gave more points, it's because capping didn't give less points (or no points).

Basically, we need to reduce the effectiveness of capping, not by increasing the effectiveness of something else, but by literaly nerfing the direct influence capping has on scoring. If we bring capping shrines down to the level of killing on the metaphorical scale of importance, we will see a promotion in skillful and balanced play.

NecroticChanter · Mar 27, 2008, 05:34 PM // 17:34

Well to redraw the Canthan border, the Kurzicks and Luxons are at war. But isn't that what war is about? Taking out decisive outposts and securing different checkpoints. That's exactly what capping is. I too was kinda dissapointed by this. I think what most people get is that AB is not PvP. If ur capping(which is the right way), ur fighting NPCs half the time with exceptions of fights in between shrines. This is PvE almost since anything u run here can work. If you want to actually win, that's a whole different story.

moriz · Mar 27, 2008, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian the Gladiator

I understand what you are saying and I think I have the answer to why it didn't work. The change, where killing became more important, was not offset with other things becoming less important. It is hard to explain but I will do my best.

This situation is comparable to the nightfall powercreep (I hope you are familiar with this term... if not go QQ more). When nightfall was introduced, the offensive power was drastically increase. The defensive power was increased just as much. This created a "spiky" meta with TONS of passive defense and essentially killed all forms of true pressure play and crippled most forms of balance in GvG.

Increasing the importance of killing in AB to match shrine capping is essentially doing the same thing as the Nightfall powercreep. It caused a downward spiral effect on scoring (where one team could lose a match based on who won the first few skurmishes). This is not because killing gave more points, it's because capping didn't give less points (or no points).

Basically, we need to reduce the effectiveness of capping, not by increasing the effectiveness of something else, but by literaly nerfing the direct influence capping has on scoring. If we bring capping shrines down to the level of killing on the metaphorical scale of importance, we will see a promotion in skillful and balanced play.

actually you don't understand my point at all. what i'm saying is that capping and killing are of equal importance already. AB is about as balanced as it will ever get, and there's really no point in changing it.

X Ice Man X · Mar 27, 2008, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Your last post says that there were 7 Flaws with what I said.

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