Currently a game of Ace of Spades is not very competitive. You log in, and either join the legions of people purposelessly crushing mountain ranges, the people aimlessly wandering around shooting enemies, or the the two or three players who are interested in actually capturing intel. The point of this thread is to expand motivation to join the third group.

A few of the ideas I've had so far:

1. Low Capture limits. Because this game is played on a large map with many players, capturing the intel takes a fairly long time. You can log into any server, even one with a cap limit of 10 and play for an entire hour without seeing the end of a game. This makes playing to win feel fairly purposeless since you will likely never see any result from your actions.

2. Map rotation. At the end of a game, swap out for a new map. This adds a visible change after a victory or defeat, and lowers the motivation to build pointless things because they'll just disappear after the next map change anyway. It also adds variety to play, so you're not just hiking over the same hills for hours on end.

3. TAB player display sorting players by value of player in the current match as a sort of short-term leaderboard. Add to their value for enemy kills, picking up enemy intel, and capturing enemy intel. Reset at the end of each match. This can create competition within a team for position of most valuable player. And add to a feeling of one's actions actually mattering in the game. Of course it could be abused, so care will be required in setup.

4. More dramatic reactions to the capture of Intel and other important game situations. When a team scores a point there should at least be something more significant than a single line of text in the chat console. It deserves big bold text in the middle of the screen and/or a trumpet blast. Also, having your intel being carried by an enemy player should set off warning sirens, and possibly a report of what sector the intel was picked up in. It's so easy to forget that your intel was lost at all when you only have a tiny chat console message to tell you which immediately goes away.

I support all, but I think more has to be done to foster teamwork, as well. Without teamwork, we all might as well play Quake or Black Ops.

E.G: People being given the ability to see foes (MINIMAP) if they're within the range of their teammate whose holding the intel (A medium range, so people will feel compelled to stick near the guy, making battles for intel longer and more intense as a byproduct).

i dont agree with 1., i today captured 3 intels with full server in 5 minutes

For the first week or so I would capture because it was genuinely challenging to walk right into the enemy base by myself and kill everyone. Now it isn't. Capturing is a joke now because the quality of players has fallen and none of them can shoot for shit. So I roam around just killing people for an hour and a half usually racking up 250+ kills then quit out of boredom and play again the next day.

I agree with everything except capture limits (leave them to the server op). However, I think what you really want is to demotivate Bob the Builders, terraformers, and snipers who think the gameplay is a FFA.

Reduce the number of handheld blocks, add durability limits to tools, and reduce the total amount of rounds for the rifle. 50 blocks is more than enough for a simple wall, bridge, or even a small fort. I won't even talk about terraforming.

Lastly, a total of 50 rounds is more than enough to make it through enemy lines. This is based on assumption: an average player may miss around 1/3 or 4 shots (between 12 and 17 rounds, leaves ~35 left), and may go for the headshot 1/4 or 5 times (leaves ~30 rounds left). 3 rounds for every non-headshot leaves 10 enemies dead, in addition to the 4 or 5 headshots.

That's a total of ~15 enemies dead, nearly the maximum amount of players on a team (not counting respawns).

tl;dr Demotivation is also key.

Ben is trying to so map load/reset but he said that it is harder then he thought.

Yeah, map reset will fix the over-building and mountain-levelling problems, and Ben is working on it, so not much more to be said until we see how that plays.

Of course you can still level a mountain in an hour I suppose, so some people may take it as a challenge to see if they can level a mountain before the reset, but since they don't get to see the fruits of their labor once it's reset, I think it'll be a lot better in practice.

@Lynthrynyx

I agree with demotivating these people, but durability limits to tools and brick limits would do nothing to stop them. All you have to do is kill yourself and you get a fresh supply of everything -- reducing the total amount of ammo per spawn is good in theory, but all players would be forced to retreat faster (especially if they suck) to a tent *all the way back at the spawn*.

Just to emphasize an earlier point, people need incentives for working together. It's not enough to demotivate fruitless tendencies.

Nothing will absolutely stop them, but how much time is lost when suiciding if you're trying to build the Starship Enterprise? Or collapse Mount Everest? It requires not just one fresh supply of everything, but multiple (if durability/block limits are introduced).

As for ammo, players wouldn't have to retreat if they work together. The incentive comes from being forced to work as a team.

Then soloing would be damaged, and with the epidemic of teamless teams currently in the game, everyone would get shafted.

I dont agree with any of this bullshit. The game is awesome and we love it for the way it is. If you want a real CTF sort of thing go play UT or if you want a leaderboard go play CS. Don't try to change a game that doesn't need changing. You got you new ironsights and easy-walk, be happy with that.

Uh it absolutely needs changing

It doesn't need to be made into a game where people are competing for high KD ratios, or trying to get the most kills (CTF mode, for god's sake).

@Synesthesia The fault of the game is the non-competitiveness between the teams, not the collection of players' skill.

@VEEDD The real bs is between unintended and intended gameplay.

I love playing this game for a number of reasons. Sometimes I play to get a high K/D, sometimes I play to capture intel, and sometimes I just prefer to let off steam and build a nice fort or room for myself. Why does this game have to suit one type of gamer more than the other? The beauty of this game is that it combines fps shooters with a sandbox game. By minimizing available blocks and putting emphasis on the intel, you lose the entire minecraft community that came to build and shoot, and you lose the feeling of creativity and originality. Keep it open for everyone dudes.

@lythrynyx

But overall player skill also plays a role in any buffs and nerfs added to any existing mechanics. Kicking ammo to the curb and limiting block/tool usage would crap all over the lowest common denominator, who would still miss and still build without other people.

A single player can build many structures with many blocks. However, a single player can rarely solo an Intel run-and-capture. There needs to be a balance between sandbox and FPS.

The intended gameplay is to work as a team (until FFA is introduced). Players may almost always want to work alone than as a team, and may do so when the option (building) is available. It's inevitable to remove that option and force players to build or go for the Intel as a team, not one or the other.

How about being able to spot for your teammates? Sit on a cliff or something and just look down the sights, right click and it will place a upside down red triangle above their heads that your teammates can see for a certain amount of time depending on how close/how far they are.

derp forgot right click was looking down the sights