Lame mechanic

Stun abilities can interupt flag locking.  It is also very difficult to lock a flag when you're dead.

That's just about the only way to end fairly-balanced matches on most maps. Are there ways to make maps that would have more interesting gameplay? Yes. For sure. Check out some of The Scottish Alien's map suggestions that are floating around the fourms.

As far as your ideas... I don't know. I want to like the idea of not allowing you to cap a flag that your opponent is in range of. But if we did that, I think the cast time of cap locks would need to be reduced slightly. By the time you see someone coming towards your flag and start casting, they would be at the flag.

Or maybe you just couldn't *start* using the lock if there was an enemy in range, but one moving into range wouldn't interrupt it (w/o actually interrupting it by normal means, of course.)

Edit: Making capture locks instant-cast would be a miserable idea. Please ignore my speeding up the cast time comment. Thank you.

The stun comment is very valid.

He used a perfectly valid tactic. If you were wise you'd have learned from this and not posted this 'lame thread'

-AGREED-

You can only 'port one way, so either he has to run up or run away. If you can't stop someone from waltzing into your base, you're probably gonna lose anyway.

My point was simply that he can't lock it if he's dead and waiting for his respawn timer.

Alot of people fail to do 2 very important things late game...

1) always have teleport scrolls ready
2) watch the frakin mini map

It happens so often that I have to stop a team of 1-2 DG in the base alone (which usually gets me killed). This is complete FAIL of the team, not intercepting.

If you didn't let him cap the flag in the first place, you would not have had that problem.

What did it teach you? Always have a teleport scroll on you and watch the minimap like an hawk.

Oh yeah. That makes sense. As a previous poster said (I think it got eaten during that bug fest the other day), I guess he can only port one way, not both.

The one tweak I saw suggested that I liked (although it doesn't make much "sense") is to make flags immune to locking while they're locked and for a brief time after they become un-locked.  Nothing drastic, say 10-15 seconds.  That allows infinite locks, which I think are a perfectly valid tactic, but it forces the lockers to defend their turf, not just bat in, lock, and teleport out (or vice versa).

thats true to a point but imo its only a problem in cat map. I do it all the time it does not matter what dg you use at the time of the game the OP said it was. Any dg can completely ignore the 4 towers. they need to put 2 towers right at the portals so dgs can not do this at least on cat map i think all others have it that way.

However it is a valid strategy to use. Simplest way is be aware of where and what the opponents are doing. If you do this thy cant cap the flag. all you do is run on the flag they are trying to capture to cap.

Cataract is the biggest 'victim' of this tactic. I've actually seen a level  Demigod spend their starting cash on a Sigil of Vitality, a Teleport Scroll, and a Capture Lock item... run in with sigil, capture, lock, teleport out.

Can't say I think it was the most effective use of your starting 1k, but it was certainly a surprise!

It takes 3 seconds to teleport out, interrupt the tele and kill your opponent. I play Sedna so obviously I'm making it sound easy with access to pounce, but most DGs have access to stuns/interrupts.

If he hasnt taken the preceding flag, he can't see you coming.

I love it when people get smart and try to backdoor too early in the game, they die quickly and they have nowhere to run.

Well I think the more valid point is that the teleport cooldown should be increased so that you cannot get back to a flag before the flag lock expires.  There should be at least a small window after the lock in which you can turn the flag before they port in and do the same thing all over.  It is particularly annoying on Crucible when erebus can just swarm into your base, turn flag, lock, and swarm out.  If you wait for him to swarm over when his lock is expiring, he just locks and mists to wait for his swarm cooldown.

Personally I think the cooldown on flag locks should be 90 seconds.  They're a bit too strong as of now.  Problem solved.

Although I do agree with the sentiment of your post, it doesn't solve the "problem" in the OP.

Seriously? I would be jumpin up and down from joy... instead of two creep lanes, you now have 3 and they only have 1. If you keep the rest of the flags captured (which you should be able to do considering your money and level advantage over them) they will still not have more flags than you do and as such you will be evenly matched in warscore.

Once I had a chasing Oak chase me past the towers and to the portal where we fought to the death.  The portal flag had gone to yellow.  I contemplated leaving it like that.  Only one lane of creeps would be coming then.  Exp -50%

I've been thinking along the same lines actually. I have no problem with a team of demigods being able to alternate cap locks on a flag, but I'd rather not see one guy be able to keep coming in for just long enough to renew his cap lock then leaving again. It's a little harder to get two people to talk to each other enough to alternate their locks like that.

*edit*

dangit I wanted to quote infinite vengeance about increasing the cool down times on cap locks but I suck at using forums.

tactic isnt lame at all. its smart and likely to win. 

it puts the enemy team on the defensive, camping out at their locked flag waiting for the other guy to come over and try to lock it again. or it forces them to concede the flag and try to do the same thing to the enemy, in which case it becomes a race to down the citadel. neither of those scenarios is lame or boring. they're both highly interactive strategically deep play scenarios. good gameplay, not lame. 

lame gameplay is where you just beat the others guys down until they're helpless than win by walking over their nearly dead bodies. thats lame. a fight to the finish is the opposite of lame. 

According to the game manual, you get a XP boost for holding portal flags. I assume this was set in place to make up for the fact that you are in effect generating XP for the other team.

Who knows if it actually works like that or not... I don't exactly trust what tiny bit of documentation we do have.

I think the dynamic of flag capping/locking anywhere on the map is one of the main ways to turn the tide in a balanced matchup.  I get the opinion that without something like it you would inevitably be forced into a slow slug-fest in every balanced matchup.