Overtime

[watusimoto]

I've been working on implementing a simple overtime feature that will extend the game if it ends in a tie.

For "rapid scoring" games, such as Bitmatch, Rabbit, and HTF, the game time is extended in increments of 20 seconds until there is a winner.

For "event scoring" games such as CTF and ZC, the game goes into an indefinite period of sudden death, where the game ends when someone scores.

For Nexus, the Nexus is opened (and will remain open for the rest of the game), and time is extended in 20 second increments as in Bitmatch games.

For Core, I'm thinking the game will enter a sudden death period, and cores will slowly degrade. First team to get ahead wins immediately.

This all kind of makes sense, but I am running into issues that do not currently exist in the game.

1) What if there is only 1 player, or players on only 1 team. Should the game be extended? If not, who wins?

1a) If there are two teams when the normal game ends, each with 0 points, and only the first team has a player, what happens?

2) What if all the players quit such that situation 1 happens in the middle of sudden death? Should the game just be ended? Who would win?

3) What if there are three teams, A, B, and C; A & B are tied for first, C is losing, but only A and C have players? What should happen then?

... and so on...

I've been working on implementing a simple overtime feature that will extend the game if it ends in a tie.

For "rapid scoring" games, such as Bitmatch, Rabbit, and HTF, the game time is extended in increments of 20 seconds until there is a winner.

For "event scoring" games such as CTF and ZC, the game goes into an indefinite period of sudden death, where the game ends when someone scores.

For Nexus, the Nexus is opened (and will remain open for the rest of the game), and time is extended in 20 second increments as in Bitmatch games.

For Core, I'm thinking the game will enter a sudden death period, and cores will slowly degrade. First team to get ahead wins immediately.

I think some sudden deaths should be enabled by the server host, because some people just want the game to end and some people want things to be more interesting if there's a tie.

Honestly the only elephant in the room I'm looking at is Nexus mode, ever since I joined and played that mode, it was the only thing that confused the hell outta me. "The Nexus will be closed during the end of the round", people should be scrambling to the Nexus to grab as many points they can get dammit!

I think in its most basic form, "sudden death" implies some kind of competition between at least two parties, where a "death" occurs for one party and a victory occurs for the other. As such I think that in scenarios that have just one party present, activating sudden death would simply confuse the lone party.

I propose a simple rule to address your concerns: add a "last player standing" element to sudden death.

1) What if there is only 1 player, or players on only 1 team. Should the game be extended? If not, who wins?

If sudden death activates and there is only one player left standing, they are declared the winner. Similarly, if there is only one team with players left standing, they are deemed the winners.

1a) If there are two teams when the normal game ends, each with 0 points, and only the first team has a player, what happens?

Same situation - team with players remaining gets the win.

2) What if all the players quit such that situation 1 happens in the middle of sudden death? Should the game just be ended? Who would win?

No, I think you should finish the sudden death period. At that point a winner would be determined, respective to the "last man standing" rule.

3) What if there are three teams, A, B, and C; A & B are tied for first, C is losing, but only A and C have players? What should happen then?

This is tricky, but going by the rule, the team who (1) is leading and (2) has players on it would win. In this case, (1) rules out C, and (2) rules out B. A would win.

Some notes:

- Something to consider is to weight wins in the above scenario differently than a traditional win, for the purpose of fairness in rankings. A win with no players on the enemy team should not be considered equivalent as a win with several players on the enemy team.

- I don't agree with an indefinite period for any overtime situation. I think this might perpetuate a "stuck game," where for whatever reason players are physically unable to win and rely on the game ending to continue playing in the server. For the event scoring modes where the indefinite period was proposed, maybe have increments of 2 minute overtime occur, with a maximum of three overtime periods (OT, 2OT, 3OT). I figure most rounds wouldn't last that long... if they did, the score would just be counted as a tie and a new round would begin.

- Finally, is your heart set on using sudden death as the overtime format? Sudden death dictates the first score following the tie would end the game. But I think it'd be more fun if each team/player had unlimited opportunities to get points throughout the overtime period. Once the period elapses the new scores would be tallied and if a tie still remains, a second overtime period would occur.

So for the rapid scoring modes, players would receive the full 20 seconds to tack on points. I imagine you could allow unlimited overtime periods during these modes because (a) the periods are so short and (b) it's a lot easier to score in these modes.

For the event scoring modes, players would receive full 2 minute periods to accumulate points. As I described above, a maximum of three overtime periods would be established to prevent a round from lasting forever. I think this kind of system would be more entertaining than an outright victory for the first team that scores.

what if it is like a 9 team game as in castle?

Bumped Because I want this :]

[watusimoto]

This has been mostly implemented, either in 019 or 020. I know because I did it, and it was a real pain!

Awesome, I'm even more excited for 020 now!

[raptor]

it was 020. I'm still working on 019d bugfix release and it doesn't have the overtime in it as far as I can tell.

I agree infinite time in sudden death wont work especially if thete are 2-3 people using repair....

For Nexus, the Nexus is opened (and will remain open for the rest of the game), and time is extended in 20 second increments as in Bitmatch games.

For Core, I'm thinking the game will enter a sudden death period, and cores will slowly degrade. First team to get ahead wins immediately.