I had an idea for improving babel by reducing the chance of someone holding intel in a specific instance.
Here’s how it would work:
If a player grabs intel and brings it past the red line (halfway between intel and the opposite edge, ie: 3/4 of the platform) and holds it past that point for more than 20 seconds, intel will reset back to its default location. No need for killing the intel holder, just force them to drop it and put it back where it goes. This should weed out people who want to spawn camp vs people who want to cap intel as well as giving spawn campers a chance to grab intel on their way off the platform.
There’s a couple of problems with this:
As annoying as it is for teammates to hold intel like this, it gives the other team a chance to strike back.
It can cause problems on certain maps. Catseyebabel is probably the only map close to having an issue here (I don’t think it actually does though), but future maps might have a problem if players have to descend closer to the enemy team than their own base. It’d be possible to turn it off for certain maps, though I don’t see that being necessary.
Let me know what you think of this idea, it seems pretty solid to me but I’d like to get the community to take another look before we implement a potentially major change in the gamemode.
Please do. I hate when I grab the intel and then the other team destroys our tower by the time I try to get to it and then I’m stuck in the sky sitting there… slowly… painfully… watching my teammates placing block by block trying to get to me. Only for them to get to me and then I get struck dead before I can get to the tent and the other team carries off the intel. ): Implementing this would give us a way to drop the intel without getting killed. I have no clue why there’s no /drop command to begin with though. I assume because it would TP back to the top, but that’s not really a huge issue. The most I could foresee someone abusing it would be standing on the intel spawn and spamming /drop and just picking it up and dropping it a bunch, but that’s not really a big issue.
I think it is a good idea, I would like to see it implemented.
My only concern is how will intel holders know that this change has been added and that this is why they are dying while holding the intel.Losing the intel.
Markings on heaven (such as the red line you have drawn us) may be a good idea to indicate this.
You’re right Shywolf, that slipped my mind when I was posting. My most sincere apologies.
According to Dankes idea they wouldn’t die but would drop the Intel after 20 seconds of crossing into the “drop” zone and the Intel will return the the middle.
As for issues could the zone be contained only for the platform?
Also this might cuase a issue for ferrais challenge/achievement iirc
You can send the player a message if they are on the wrong side saying:
“Get to your side of the platform or the intel will drop and return to the middle in 20 seconds!”
“Get to your side of the platform or the intel will drop and return to the middle in 10 seconds!”
“Get to your side of the platform or the intel will drop and return to the middle in 5 seconds!”
“The intel has dropped and has been returned to the middle of the platform.”
Great idea! Might I add to the idea, I would say that people will void this rule somehow. According to the fact that you stated, people will spawn camp. So if they aren’t going for the Intel they would just camp. So… This allows multiple people, about 4-6 to camp off the edge, while no one gets the intel. This is where Danke’s idea comes in. But what if we use Torch’s idea. They’ll know when to get off. That gives them an advantage which causes them to get off the red area and the opposite side to go to the safe side. (Where it’s safe). Then they immediately go back and spawn kill. If we can come up with an idea to contribute to that problem it would be great. Probably to Have airstrike scripts. If you get 20 (or however many you want to use) consecutive kills you get to call an airstrike on the babel plate, and only the babel plate. But you would get to choose the sector, the opposite side, or even your side. What do you think? I know that sounds like hard work, but how does that sound?
it’s a good idea, we should at least give it a try
#1 could result in noticeably faster rounds, yeah, but teammates standing around hogging the intel isn’t exactly the goal of the game mode…
warning messages shouldn’t be necessary. it’s not like losing the intel is a threat to the player’s life. if he just wants to shoot enemies then it’s unlikely he’ll care about losing the intel and he doesn’t deserve to have it anyway. besides, mystery makes gameplay more interesting!
and those who try to constantly reset the timer will probably bore themselves out or lose track of time in the heat of battle. even if they manage to hold it long enough while spawn camping, God will still kill them after 5 minutes…
I think this is good because it also solves a certain glitch I know of. The glitch is when someone on the edge of heaven dies while holding the intel then the intel falls off heaven, allowing anyone under it to get it. This means that, for example, a Blue player does this glitch so that his Red friend can pick up the Intel and bring it to the red tent. It only works in the regular 0.75 client and not OpenSpades but it has been a long time since I have seen someone do this, maybe it was already patched?
Return intel dropped from platform bug fix by a_girl
As for the idea If possible I would limit the “drop” zone only to the platform since that is usually the only place in babel where a player will “hog” the intel.
The 20 seconds part would make the players feel like they’re in a “Minute to Win it” game and make…
Crazy, but… this idea just popped out of me. We should add “god teleported the intel back to the heavens.” whenever the intel is past that point/line for more than 20 seconds. Because the intel holder wasn’t killed, therefore no punishment.
I am seeing people hod the Intel less now then in the past but some players will still grab the intel and then stay on the platform and kill the enemy.
If this is implemented I also think we should see if the message that is displayed (ie “god has returned the intel”) can be translated somehow for players who do not speak english (if this is really a big issue) (I feel that having important system messages translated would be a good idea in the future)
Yeah, I really want to see this implemented so I could try it out. I think you should implement it and then test it by joining under a different nickname and asking person to person, do you enjoy the new gamemode change? I certainly do! And act as if your a regular player so then they give real advice.
Server has been updated. The ‘intel hog’ time for this situation is 35 seconds now. Seems long, but the way the server counts it will make it somewhat less.
Also, babel will record how long each match takes in the form of (map_name, map_duration, blue score, green score) at the end of each map. After some time we’ll have some stats to show you about what team wins which maps and what maps take the longest to play, and hopefully we can use that info to make informed changes to the map rotation.
Also of note: babel is no longer on random map rotation, so maps will be played in order. A rotation shuffle would be nicer but at least now you won’t end up playing tortuga and frog over and over.
Also if possible might be good to record number of players?
I think going in order right now is good. But we really should try to implement something like a votemap or random shuffle that doesn’t do the same map twice in a row.
Might I add to the idea, I would say that people will void this rule somehow. According to the fact that you stated, people will spawn camp. So if they aren’t going for the Intel they would just camp. So… This allows multiple people, about 4-6 to camp off the edge, while no one gets the intel. This is where Danke’s idea comes in. But what if we use Torch’s idea. They’ll know when to get off. That gives them an advantage which causes them to get off the red area and the opposite side to go to the safe side. (Where it’s safe). Then they immediately go back and spawn kill. If we can come up with an idea to contribute to that problem it would be great. Probably to Have airstrike scripts. If you get 20 (or however many you want to use) consecutive kills you get to call an airstrike on the babel plate, and only the babel plate. But you would get to choose the sector, the opposite side, or even your side. What do you think? I know that sounds like hard work, but how does that sound?