How to mitigate llamaing?

[MJ1284]

Anybody got creative solution on how to encourage people to learn capping the flag instead of camping next to enemy flag stand?

So far I've come up with one idea, mentioned in thread "weapons you would like to see", for those who don't feel like digging it up on Suggestions -section I'll repeat myself here:

Incendiary mines.

Yes, simple and effective solution. Needs moar explaning? Fine:
- Each mine would last for reasonably long period, there would be a cooldown period when your team can plant another mine (ie. no "Eternal Flaming Zone" because that would be considered OPed), this would make mines more of an tactical tools to hold off "choke points" rather than some mindless spam weapon á la Grenade Clusters, to prevent spamming there would also be an upper cap on how many mines you can have active same time.

- Fire will cause DoT (Damage over Time), longer you stand on flames more damage you take. DoT ends right after you exit the flame zone (sacrifices bit of realism, but atleast it won't be too OPed).

- Damage also depends on the speed you pass through the flames. Walking through the flames is pretty certain death while cruising through with 150+ you'll simply "fly through" the flames (which will cause very little to no damage at all). I think it's rather realistic, if a solid object flies through flames with high speed the air waves will temporarily push flames out of it's way, thus it won't catch on fire.

This would also amp up Flag D (which, if I remember correctly, many people complained it's too hard). What I had in mind was that these mines would make llamaing considerably harder while posing little to no hindrance to a person who knows how to ski and grab properly.

But surely you folks have better ideas how to make llama capping less appealing? Tribes -games had turrets which eliminated llama tactics rather effectively, but we're not getting turret in Legions (atleast anytime soon) so let's not turn this topic into yet another "Me wants turrets!" argument.

 

[WildFire]

Hmm, I like, but the visual effects have to be kickass.

 

[UtadaHikaru]

Maybe, rather than mines, something could be made revolving around the flag itself while in the flag stand.

This would force players to use routes and grab the flag WITH speed, adding in the idea of the flame traps with the slower you go, the higher damage you will take, however, it would be if you grab the flag, you would take damage if you were going any speed lower then 88km/s [or Overdrive speed].

BUT, this would have to be made so that it only takes effect while it is in teh flag stand, so as passing the flag to a stationary person wouldn't insta kill your teammate.

 

[WildFire]

Also, this idea would mean the death to emergency grabbing by the Light Offence. Not sure if that is good or bad :/

 

[NightHawk043]

Remembering that your team wouldn't be safe from it either (I suppose you could make them, but that wouldn't exactly be realistic), what's going to happen when your capper comes home at low health/low speed and tries to cap the flag?

Also, would these mines be destructible by shooting them like the clusters are?
If so, all you'd need is a semi-competent llama, who can shoot the flag in front of them.

Again also, if your own team can take damage from this, would this not make matters a little hard for the hof and LD, in that they'd be burning themselves every time they passed over the flagstand?

 

[A2]

My 2 cents:

A shield of some sort around the flag. It lets the legionnaire through only when at a certain speed (say >30 or >40?) and less than that gets pushed away. I don't think killing them is of that great use, just push them away will get them going. Llama's cannot really get the flag and cappers can do their routes. It's pretty simple and effective but then the problem is no easy chances for E-Grabs.

 

[Mhi200]

^Or caps. After a stand off, it wouldn't be easy to walk over to the stand and cap the flag, unless your own team shot you into it/iOD.

Edit: K.

 

[A2]

^Or caps. After a stand off, it wouldn't be easy to walk over to the stand and cap the flag, unless your own team shot you into it/iOD.

Sorry I forgot to mention - it doesn't apply for the team i.e. the team can cap the flag at whatever speed, but the other team cannot walk in on your flag.

 

[MJ1284]

Remembering that your team wouldn't be safe from it either (I suppose you could make them, but that wouldn't exactly be realistic), what's going to happen when your capper comes home at low health/low speed and tries to cap the flag?

Good thing you pointed that out, hadn't really thought of it, but as I mentioned before faster you go through the flames less DoT you take (and once you reach high enough speed you don't even take damage).. in most cases capper hits home stand with rather high speed so it shouldn't be that much of a trouble. Maybe the mines could be tweaked so that air currencies (caused by solid object passing through with high speed) would hinder the flames, this would allow HoF "blow out the candles" simply by ODing around it couple times.

Also, would these mines be destructible by shooting them like the clusters are?
If so, all you'd need is a semi-competent llama, who can shoot the flag in front of them.

Yes, but shooting the mine still detonates it which still forces the llama to wait till flames douse/burn out. Senti grabbing won't change much (if at all), but then again Senti grabbing requires proper skiing to be effective.

Again also, if your own team can take damage from this, would this not make matters a little hard for the hof and LD, in that they'd be burning themselves every time they passed over the flagstand?

We're not talking about *Fireblasto* here, incindiary mines are more of a small concentrated flame walls which can be used EITHER by throwing them on the flagstand OR to blockade access points (for example those gaps and hatches on Nivosus/Moonshine bases).

 

[Disci]

At the moment llama's are not annoying. More annoying are those people who run front OD routes on pretty much any map and dying pretty much right after the grab(Gorge for example is not very good for those). They also think they are good cappers who knows good "routes". You don't need many of them to *dance* up your teams effort to win the map.

 

[Vinzyboy23]

Nah, Speed detected mines would be awesome, since the Velocity Warning message appears when you reach 85 km. And when you are slower, "KABOOM!" goes the mine and the player.

 

[Disci]

Nah, Speed detected mines would be awesome, since the Velocity Warning message appears when you reach 85 km. And when you are slower, "KABOOM!" goes the mine and the player.

Yes, that would be great when e-grab is the only way to prevent a cap.

You don't have to be the sharpest knife in a box but always try not to be the dullest.

 

[Aki]

Or you ran save the devs a lot of work and lrn2smart on defense. Honestly, as a guilty llama I can say that the most vulnerable are those teams whose d all goes after the capper or let themselves be lured away by LO (that's also detrimental to their own cappers who have chasers on their tails). Seriously, if your base is empty, why should I miss the d-grab when i dont have to be distracted by fighting? If your [competent] HoF stays there all game, he will eliminate llamas. Unless the llama is BugsPray, whom I never see lose a duel. Llama grabs are the heart of defensive offense. The counter is to not have an easily distracted defense.

 

[NightHawk043]

I chased down BugsPray once at 300 ping.
Happiest day of my life.

On topic though, would this mine be something that just sits there and when someone goes over it, it sends up a wall of flame? Or is it one where you plant it, wait for someone to get close, then press a key to detonate it? (or would teammates shoot it to activate it too).
In either case, would this mine have a "timeout"? i.e. Would it sit there until it is destroyed or detonated, or have a maximum armed time of 2 mins (or so) before disappearing? Or would it disappear when the placer dies?

 

[BeefThief]

My 2 cents:

A shield of some sort around the flag. It lets the legionnaire through only when at a certain speed (say >30 or >40?) and less than that gets pushed away. I don't think killing them is of that great use, just push them away will get them going. Llama's cannot really get the flag and cappers can do their routes. It's pretty simple and effective but then the problem is no easy chances for E-Grabs.

In my opinion, we only need to mitigate cappers in Pubs, not during a competitive game. So if this option was able to be turned on/off, then I think that this idea would be the best. It could be turned on for Pubs to teach the llamas to cap, but turned off during PUGs/scrims to allow e-grabbing.

 

[MJ1284]

Yes, that would be great when e-grab is the only way to prevent a cap. You don't have to be the sharpest knife in a box but always try not to be the dullest.

If "Like" button would still exist, I'd click it thousand times.

On topic though, would this mine be something that just sits there and when someone goes over it, it sends up a wall of flame? Or is it one where you plant it, wait for someone to get close, then press a key to detonate it? (or would teammates shoot it to activate it too).
In either case, would this mine have a "timeout"? i.e. Would it sit there until it is destroyed or detonated, or have a maximum armed time of 2 mins (or so) before disappearing? Or would it disappear when the placer dies?

Good questions again, what I had in mind was that it'll detonate automatically whenever someone gets close to it (or when somebody shoots at it, allowing manual activation). Hadn't though of "timeout", but putting a max armed time on it should do the trick (along the upper cap for mines, maybe 5 mines at a time per team?), the mines should work more as tactical assets rather than sheer Weapons of Mass Destruction. They'd follow closely the portable turret layout from Tribes 1:

- They weren't allowed to be placed in huge clusters, you had position them carefully to get use out of them and had them not to interfere with other portable turret's build-in motion sensors (which practically limited their number to very few, you couldn't put 10 turrets next to flagstand nor was there any sense in putting it in middle of nowhere)... or did they have pulse sensors? Could have been just the main turrets that operated with motion sensors. *
- While they didn't inflict whole lot of damage per shot and their range wasn't that great either, they shot fast and very accurately which made them very useful in Base Def.
- Even if placed right next to flagstand, fast cappers managed to dodge their fire, usually taking 1-2 shots before getting far beyond their operational range. If you tried to llama these turrets would turn you to toast in couple seconds.

* While you could cluster all the mines in one spot, it would be ineffective (would it make any sense if the flames would "stack"?)

The counter is to not have an easily distracted defense.

Reliable Flag D on Public game? Surely thy jest.

In my opinion, we only need to mitigate cappers in Pubs, not during a competitive game. So if this option was able to be turned on/off, then I think that this idea would be the best. It could be turned on for Pubs to teach the llamas to cap, but turned off during PUGs/scrims to allow e-grabbing.

This would be the ideal solution, question is wheter it's easier to implement mines or a base shield into the game.
Still, in some cases you might need to e-grab on Public games.

 

[A2]

No need a whole base shield IMO. Just some part around the flag. If the llama's gonna enter the base, nothings gonna hurt; he's just gonna die - it's just the part where he takes the flag. Yes the ability too turn ON/OFF would be ideal. But the only thing is E-Grabbing in a PUB. I'm thinking of something about that. Any ideas?

 

[BeefThief]

No need a whole base shield IMO. Just some part around the flag. If the llama's gonna enter the base, nothings gonna hurt; he's just gonna die - it's just the part where he takes the flag. Yes the ability too turn ON/OFF would be ideal. But the only thing is E-Grabbing in a PUB. I'm thinking of something about that. Any ideas?

Perhaps the shield could be destroyed? That might necessitate some more teamwork, but at least the possibility for e-grabs would open up.

 

[A2]

Perhaps the shield could be destroyed? That might necessitate some more teamwork, but at least the possibility for e-grabs would open up.

Or, E-Grabs can be made possible only when the enemy flag is at a particular distance from the home flag.
Lets say the enemy's flag is grabbed; only when he gets somewhere close to his base (maybe crossing 1/2 or 3/4 of the map?), the shield deactivates, enabling e-grabs.

 

[mausgang]

Of the proposed ideas I've seen so far, I'd have to go with the 'bubble around the flag' method, where if you're going fast enough, you can enter it, though for reasonably obvious reasons, anything inside should be able to exit at whatever speed. The bubble, of course would only block members of the enemy team. (The bubble around the team alpha flag only blocks members of team Beta and vice versa). The reasons are, as disci said, you don't need to be really smart to work out how to eGrab as a llama if that's necessary, you just have to be not stupid. However, how bad is Llamagrabs for no purpose in PUGs? I'm guessing that this problem is more prevalent in PUBs (I'll be able to find out in a few days, hopefully.) Anyways, I think an incendiary weapon would have better applications for the LD to use around the base, not a flame wall to keep Llamas out.