Flux

This battleground is like watching bugs fly to a light. In most pick up groups, there is that group of people that run straight for that shiny flag in the middle. They will fight tooth and nail for it, even if your side doesn’t have a single tower to turn it into.

To win EotS your side has to get two thousand points. You get points by controlling any of the four towers and capturing the flag in the middle and bringing it back to a tower you control. But fighting for that flag so hard usually loses the game.

Why do they do it?

You can still win with almost everyone on offense, so the fact that very few people like to defend doesn’t make much of a difference. The reason everyone seems to run to the flag is likely a combination.

• it’s shiny, people like flags
• Warsong Gulch conditioned people to get the flag
• they don’t know how vital the towers are to winning
• it’s more fun to fight in the center and ignore everything else

How important is the flag?

To get a feel for that we need to know how many flag captures your side can get before the game ends. Because of the distance needed to run the flag, it’s difficult to capture the flag faster than once a minute assuming the other side lets you. It usually takes closer to three to five minutes if both sides are fighting for it.

How long is a game assuming no one captures any flags and you get points only from towers? It depends on how many towers you have the entire time.

Let’s see how capturing flags changes each situation.

0 Towers: You can’t capture the flag so it doesn’t matter. You lose.

1 Tower: In 13 minutes you will capture the flag between 2 and 13 times. You might actually capture it around ten times if you are fast because the other side is probably busy taking towers. This means 750 points. Your side still loses. Even if you managed to get it once a minute that’s only 975 extra points. You still lose.

2 Towers: Assuming both sides can’t get another tower then they will be fighting for the flag. This means you won’t capture it very often, maybe once every five minutes. But in a 33 minute game this means 561 points and will break the tie and end the game slightly earlier.

3 Towers: The best they are going to get is 975 extra points if you let them capture the flag over and over. You win.

4 Towers: They can’t capture the flag so it doesn’t matter. You win.

The key point is that if one side has three towers the whole game no matter how many times your side captures the flag, they will win and you will still lose.

For simplicity we assumed that all the towers are captured by one side from start to finish. But in the case where a tower sits uncaptured or a side captures a third tower occasionally, it makes little difference. For example, if your side has one tower and they have two towers leaving one unoccupied the entire time. Then your side would have to capture the flag every two and a half minutes and not let them capture it a single time. Technically it’s possible, but it’s unlikely. If they manage to capture that unoccupied tower even occasionally it becomes impossible. In a game where each side is losing and capturing more than one tower then you will need to watch the points to see what you need to do.

Remember that towers are worth more in the beginning than at the end of the game since they award points over time. So a few flag captures at the end if the points are close is better than a third tower or even recovering your second tower. But for your side to be that close in points you would have had to have those towers most of the time.

When should I capture the flag?

The short answer is that the flag is useful to break ties when both sides can only get two towers. If you have one tower you must get a second one. And if you have two towers you are best off getting a third tower rather than the flag. Only resort to flag captures if you can’t get that third tower or it’s late in the game and you are just a few points behind.

Of course capturing the flag will speed up a game if you are already winning. And if you manage to capture four towers then each flag capture will give you some extra honor if it’s not already a bonus weekend.

Stay away from the light!

Tags: pvp
Author: aos

This entry was posted by aos on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Games, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.