10-second wave is a compromise — long enough to allow a flag runner to get away (the average skill level is going to be lower than in competitive play, so the players are slower, lack coordination and tactics, and most likely can’t catch someone equal who has a head start), short enough that casual players (including me:-P) won’t have to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit the respawn. And yes, I changed it from 5 after just a round or two — even in 1vs1 on Abbey, the poor sod playing against me didn’t have a chance to get away, even if he managed to give me a “long” spawn. BTW, AimMe, it’s entirely possible to wait for the whole period — I timed one of my ’splosions slightly wrong yesterday and could enjoy it to the fullest:-P
Looking at the
European 4.1(.1) CTF servers out there, we find that out of 36 other public servers (obviously ignoring jump servers), there are:
- 18 servers with 15-second wave
- 5 servers with 10-second wave
- 1 server with 9-second wave
- 1 server with 8-second wave
- 1 server with 6-second wave
- 1 server with 2-second wave
- 3 servers with 8-second non-wave
- 1 server with 7-second non-wave
- 2 servers with 6-second non-wave
- 1 server with 4-second non-wave
- 1 server with 3-second non-wave
- 1 server with 2-second non-wave
Draw your own conclusions, if any.
About teamkilling: there’s a slight problem in that by default, the servers are configured with g_maxTeamKills — you can be forgiven, but at some point the server itself is going to kick you. Either g_maxTeamKills has to be 0, or g_friendlyFire 2 — this leaves keeping TKers at bay to B3 only. Yes, you’ll have to !fp every TK, but that’s the nature of public servers, I really don’t think B3 could be taught to distinguish TK types.
As for figuring out who can be TKed and who you can expect a well-timed TK from, I’m going to spam messages explaining the opt-in mechanism — those who can’t understand or don’t want to would be left alone (med them if you want…). The main problem here is what the opt-in tag would be — it has to be short and clear.
TKme looks too provocative — maybe
medTK?
"Want to be killed not healed? Use the ^2medTK- ^3tag"
"^1Never ^3TK someone without the ^2medTK- ^3tag"
"Say ^2!fp ^3to forgive a teamkill, unless made in bad faith" (needs a good short and unambiguous wording:-S)
(Would be nice to have B3 spam them, plus some basic CTF tactics — when low, drop the flag for a mate to pick up; drop the kevlar to escape with the flag; what hot potato is and where you can see the timer; explaining timer awareness and how to exploit the different parts of the wave; etc.)