Give frag credit for causing environment-based deaths

[Ironb4lls]

It'd be cool if you could score a point by killing an opponent with an environmental hazard, like the crush trap on Tourney6 (can't remember the QL name, but Xaero's map), knocking someone into an abyss or lava, or that grenade room in the CTF map.

It takes skill and perfect timing to kill someone like this, even though you're not scoring by shooting them directly.

[KaasMan]

The point is that you can't be sure what caused the death.
Maybe he partly jumped into the direction of lava, but also got knocked back a little by a rocket. Then does the shooter of that rocker deserve the frag? Or what if two people both shoot a rocket to knock someone back? Who will get the frag?
Environmental frags can't be rewarded in score. You can laugh at them and say 'Haha loser!' in your head though. That also gives a lot of satisfaction.

[Ironb4lls]

True about the rocket knockback. But what got me thinking about it was the person who mentioned the Fragpipe from Quake 2, where you can flip a switch and boil someone in a room full of molten lava. With something like that, or the grenade room in Silent Night, or the BFG crush trap on Beyond Reality, one person definitely pressed a button to make it happen, and ought to get credit for whoever gets splattered because of it.

[emilie]

Maybe QL could add 'assist' as part of the stats? That would be when you cause more than 50% damage to the opponent and something else (environment or another player) gets the frag.

I like that they do that in a different game I play. When an FFA match is over in that game, I can see that I had 8 frags and 11 assists (or whatever). It is fun to know that.

I realize that stealing frags is part of the strategy in FFA. Everyone knows that. So even if assists were counted, that part of the strategy (stealing frags) would still apply.

At least with assists being credited, you don't feel like your effort was all for nothing (in cases that Ironb4lls mentioned involving environment and in the cases where you do all the damage work and someone else gets credit for the frag).

One last thing about environment frags - sometimes it is wicked fun to steal the frag when an opponent is about to die in an environment. For example, when someone is falling to their death in a space map - I pull out the rail gun and zap them! Or when someone is in acid, I pull out the shotgun and end it for them! (Of course, opponents do it to me too!)

[RockvilleRideOn]

nah, f2.... you can't be sure... and plus... it sounds meh

[TheMuffinMan86]

It's a good idea, it's just complicated to predict whether you really did push someone to their death in certain circumstances. Giving knockback onto your opponent knocking him from the ground to the void would be easy to check for though. If they coded it properly then it'd definitely be a great feature to add.

[MexicanPadre]

They did it in QAA, and i remember a mod from q3 that is based off of that, so it shouldn't be a problem.

[themuffinman01]

Yeah OpenArena has it ^^

[RockvilleRideOn]

Okay, semi-changed my mind... How about when we can ascertain that an action by another player killed a person with 100% confidence.... such as the crusher on Beyond Reality...