Time / cap / difference / half-time limit discussion ---------------------------------------- Timelimit - Playing the clock adds a new strategic element to the game. Encourages the winning team to slow down the game or turtle to preserve the current scoreline. Forces the losing team to make plays, even when the odds are stacked against them. Without a reachable timelimit, teams have little incentive to push while terms are even or against them. This encourages a 'hold + suicide' mentality in order to gain an advantage. If it doesn't succeed, you simply repeat the same strategy until your suicidal play gains you an advantage of some sort. It is often too risky for a defending team to push out of their last CP when only a single enemy player is down, because of the backcap threat, and often having to push through a difficult choke point. This means it would actually be dumb for an attacking team that currently holds no advantage, to make a push before obtaining one. In most US league games, this isn't the case as pushing teams either fancy their chances, get bored, or are willing to take the risk. However in high-stakes matches, we have seen that teams are reluctant to push unless they have a clear advantage. This can slow the pace of the game down way down, and lead to boring, repetitive plays with lots of downtime. Timelimits at least force the losing team to do something or lose. Another factor to take into account is match scheduling. The US ruleset means that matches can last anywhere between 5 minutes and just over 1 hour. The EU ruleset (excluding golden caps) means a single map can last a max of 30 minutes, making it easier to schedule for both online and offline tournaments, as well as PCW's/Scrims. For these reasons, I beleive having a set timelimit that frequently comes into play is the best option for the game. Whether this is 30 minutes or not could be debated, although I'd suggest anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes to be the optimal value for scheduling and gameplay reasons. -------------------------------------------------------------- Cap limit - Playing the cap limit adds a new strategic element to the game. Encourages the offensive team to go all in to obtain a final cap instead of letting the enemy team try to make the plays. Places the losing team in a position where they cannot afford to lose the next capture point. Having a capture limit sets a team an achievable goal and can sometimes encourage winning teams to push even harder to end the game sooner (minimising their risk). An example of this used to great affect is on ctf_turbine. In Europe, the map was played first to 3 on each round. Teams would HAVE to defend that last intel or they lose the game. All-or-nothing scenarios are very exciting to spectate. Capture limits can also help shorten one-sided matches in the same way that cap difference can. Which is often a good thing. The downside of having a set capture limit, is that while it _encourages_ winning teams to push for the limit, it does not actually force them to do so. In high-stakes matches, teams will not be any more willing to take risks to get the last cap as they would be the first cap, because there is still a chance they can lose it all. It simply puts more pressure on the losing team to defend a push, which while still exciting to watch, isn't # aiding gameplay. I feel capture limits are great at stopping one-sided matches early and are much more spectator friendly than setting a cap difference, however I feel this is not enough to justify setting a cap limit over a capture difference value, for the reasons mentioned below. --------------------------------------------------------------- Capture difference - Same as above, except the cap limit moves further away as the losing team closes the gap. The advantage to this is that teams can come back into the match. Take an example of a fast passed map, where a team goes 4-0 and the enemy team brings the score to 4-3. Like in the i49 grand final. Now the first team captures one more cap and the map ends 5-3. Cap difference keeps this close match going until the timelimit is reached. At the i49 grand final, this resulted in a 5-5 tie with a golden cap that gave one team the victory. The disadvantage to utilising a set capture difference, is that it can be confusing to spectate. Suddenly a match ends 7-2 with no warning. While anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics can understand how a capture difference of 5 works, it can come as a complete surprise to new viewers and sometimes even experienced viewers and occasionally the actual players themselves! A cap limit is simple. First to 5. I feel that the pros outweight the cons with setting a capture difference over a capture limit and so my opinion is that setting a capture difference is the better option. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Half-time - Changing teams at half time results in a perfectly equal match where slight map differences are equalised. These could be large differences or as small as 'how hard a certain colour is to see'. Half time also gives the game a more professional feel. nearly every sport has breaks, although this could be achieved during the swap between the first and second map. The downside of having a half-time are that it can sometimes be quite pointless. A lot of maps have trivial differences, and players often do not require a rest break mid map. They can be used for strategic talks, but in a large number of games this could just be a waste of time and an additional scheduling nightmare. Another downside is spectator confusion. I think there is a correct way to do it, but most of the time I see teams swapping teams and the scores on the scoreboard are reset to 0-0. This is a spectator nightmare as people in STV are constantly asking what the real score is and requires an overlay or plugin to tell new viewers what is happening. I think half-time is a good thing, if it was implemented correctly. The only reason I think it is a good thing, is for the team changing. This would have to be done via time and not number of caps because I beleive teams should play on a completely even battlefield meaning that both teams should spend an equal amount of time on both red and blue... (15 minutes each with a 30 minute timer). Going by caps does not mean completely even time on each colour, making it virtually pointless to 'even out the game'. ----------------------------------------------------------------- In my dream world. In my dream world, I would like to see a new set of commands added to the game. For the purpose of this post, I will name the commands: mp_allowff 1 (0 to disable) mp_ffclock 1 (0 to disable) mp_ffclock_time 60 mp_ffclock would enable a clock that starts at -60 (negative value of mp_ffclock_time), and increases by the value used in mp_ffclock_time, for every cap that the winning team is ahead by. For example: If the score is 4-0, and mp_ffclock_time is set to 60. The clock will be set to 180 seconds (3 minutes). What then happens, is if the timeleft on the map counts down to the value of the ff clock, then the game will end and the winning team will be awarded the victory. This is an auto forfiet. The point of this? Simply to end games that are impossible to come back on and not waste everybody's time. it can even have a 10 second count down, done by the announcer lady, with some sort of 'clutch' sound if they cap during those 10 seconds (as by design it would extend the timer by 1 minute or end the game in a tie). Real world examples: Game is 0-0, timeleft is 1:22. Game will be awarded to the winner in 1:22. (the FF clock would be at -60s) -60 + (0 x 60) = -60 Game would end at 0s timeleft as the map timeleft would finish before the clock. Game is 1-0, timeleft is 1:37. Game will be awarded to the winner in 1:37. (the FF clock would be at 0s) -60 + (1 x 60) = 0 Game would end at 0s timeleft as the map timeleft would finish before the clock.. Game is 2-0, timeleft is 7:37. Game will be awarded to the winner in 6:37. (the FF clock would be at 60s) -60 + (2 x 60) = 60 Game would end at 60s timeleft. Game is 3-0, timeleft is 4:23. Game will be awarded to the winner in 2:23. (the FF clock would be at 120s) -60 + (3 x 60) = 120 Game would end at 120s timeleft. The game would stop the moment the ff clock's value is reached. If the losing team caps in the last second, the FF clock would be reduced by 1 minute. mp_allowff is very simple. It allows the option for a team to surrender by vote. This can save time when the game is deemed to be lost. maybe with typing /ff. It results in a more 'professional' way to end the game instead of players leaving an letting the time run down. ---------------------------------------------------- My dream set of rules taking into account gameplay, and making the game spectator friendly would be: timelimit 30 mp_allowff 1 mp_ffclock 1 mp_ffclock_time 60 cap difference 5 (to prevent roles, even the ffclock idea could go up to 15-0 otherwise). A new halftime system might also be nice. ---------------------------------------------------- Summary - Is any of this needed? No. Why write it? There's been discussions on uniting the rules and I wanted to highlight my opinion of the values in question. Obviously this doesn't include unlocks, I won't get into that now, but I've come up with what I think to be the best system. The additional commands would just be a luxury but if enough people wanted them (I doubt they would as no one likes my ideas) then we might be able to get Valve to add a couple of basic commands for us.