Improving CTF gameplay

[caesium]

Originally Posted by illogicality-

xks - I think we're in a losing battle here. The devs have a direction in which they want to head and we're not going to be able to sway their mind. I've said a lot of this stuff before, in the beta forums and to other devs and they simply don't care. Guys like caes are going to do what they want regardless of what others say, even if they are the majority.

ye what??? i'm one of the ppl who thinks it's absolutely essential we don't neglect or abondon CTF, and believe it must be our core gamemode in the future. i've been doing everything i can to improve our existing CTF maps, get new good CTF maps made, and push the importance of and ideas for the development of an alternative mode for CTF maps that tries to make the gametype accessible to new players. either i've misunderstood what you're trying to say, or you don't read ppl's posts (here and in the beta forums). either way, it's nice that you appreciate the hard work that lots of ppl put in for you.

[Green Mushy]

I have refrained from weighing in on this debate because for one, i feel its below me, and secondly, i feel that it is impossible to explain the dev teams focus to people who obviously maintain a steady regiment of paste.

I like ctf, and if it were a perfect world, we could sell FF on its CTF maps. If you have not observed how pitiful and embarrassing gameplay is on pubs, you eat paste. If you do not understand why a dev team would acknowledge this and try to move away from a game that embarrasses them, you eat paste. Its just a matter of getting away from a gametype that has not proven to be the best way to exemplify the strong points of FF in a pubbing environment. CTF may be the best gametype, but it will never translate into something that can be received and admired by a large player base. So, we either adapt a new game type, or sit in our empty servers playing CTF.

This change of focus is not really so much a change in philosophy. Its more an adaptation to our playerbase. If the community is a bunch of retards, we need to make maps that they can have fun on, without ruining them. At the same time, we acknowledge that dumbing down our desired gameplay is not a good thing. We have discovered a compromise by making the same map enjoyable for the experienced player. And this is what it is really ALL ABOUT. Just making a pubbing environment attract the new player and the experienced player. It really doesnt need to be looked at further then that. Its not about striving for ideals, or what kind of message it sends, or the cultivation of future generations of FF players. Its merely a fix, and it is going to help our game succeed.

[redux]

My first love is CTF by far, but I think one thing here is that we've been playtesting some maps that are awesomely fun...but they have not been seen by the community yet.

There's been a lot of CTF work and polishing lately; Caesium and Elmo have been doing nonstop CTF work. It is in no way shape or form being neglected. True it be that most new maps are going to be ADZ or something else, but the old CTF maps are still being worked on. We have a ton of official CTF maps already, but not as many AvD or ADZ maps.

I still plan on making at least one more CTF map for FF, which will be geared toward more pub play.

[xks]

Originally Posted by Green Mushy

I have refrained from weighing in on this debate because for one, i feel its below me, and secondly, i feel that it is impossible to explain the dev teams focus to people who obviously maintain a steady regiment of paste.

I like ctf, and if it were a perfect world, we could sell FF on its CTF maps. If you have not observed how pitiful and embarrassing gameplay is on pubs, you eat paste. If you do not understand why a dev team would acknowledge this and try to move away from a game that embarrasses them, you eat paste. Its just a matter of getting away from a gametype that has not proven to be the best way to exemplify the strong points of FF in a pubbing environment. CTF may be the best gametype, but it will never translate into something that can be received and admired by a large player base. So, we either adapt a new game type, or sit in our empty servers playing CTF.

This change of focus is not really so much a change in philosophy. Its more an adaptation to our playerbase. If the community is a bunch of retards, we need to make maps that they can have fun on, without ruining them. At the same time, we acknowledge that dumbing down our desired gameplay is not a good thing. We have discovered a compromise by making the same map enjoyable for the experienced player. And this is what it is really ALL ABOUT. Just making a pubbing environment attract the new player and the experienced player. It really doesnt need to be looked at further then that. Its not about striving for ideals, or what kind of message it sends, or the cultivation of future generations of FF players. Its merely a fix, and it is going to help our game succeed.

That has to be one of the most insulting and most useless posts I've ever seen a developer of any game write to his playerbase.

FF is already sold on CTF, the great majority of people playing FF are playing CTF - on publics - and enjoying it immensely. The stats I have available for just one set of servers in Europe show around a 400% increase in players in the last 4-5 weeks. These servers are playing CTF maps almost exclusively and with pretty small map cycles. From around 400 unique players to more than 2000 in a short space of time, surely that's pretty good? I bet the other servers aren't seeing that rate of expansion with their less CTF oriented map cycles.

CTF is the life and soul of a Fortress game, you can't get away from it and pretty much any attempt to make your mod unique by pulling away from CTF will result in a decrease in playerbase. This doesn't mean I think you should completely refrain from other modes of play, as long as CTF is the priority until it's working as good as it can in all fields of play (this is the way it should be).

You will never become successful with assault based modes of play because other games such as Unreal are capable of doing it in much better ways, with larger maps, more weapons, more interesting objectives and many more players (taking advantage of the larger maps). All of these things lend themselves very well to the assault mode of play.

Your only realistic rival in the CTF field right now is Quake Live, but fortunately for FF the way Quake CTF works is very different to the way it works in FF.

If the community is a bunch of retards, we need to make maps that they can have fun on, without ruining them.

Whilst you didn't directly accuse your community of being retards, you at least elightened many on the kind of thoughts you have with regard to your playerbase and how to cater for them.

CTF may be the best gametype, but it will never translate into something that can be received and admired by a large player base. So, we either adapt a new game type, or sit in our empty servers playing CTF.

This quote shows how little knowledge you have of multiplayer FPS gaming in general, the history of the Fortress games and you own playerbase/servers.

You only have to look at the history of CTF in gaming to see how silly the first sentence of your quote is.

As for your second sentence, empty servers? because of CTF?

I've already stated that the most popular European servers for FF are almost exclusively running CTF maps. I gave you rough stats as to the volume of new players they are seeing on those servers, the overwhelming majority of which are playing on the CTF only server.

I also find that the overall quality of players (new and old) to be better on these servers than the American based ones. Although, many of the players on these servers are also from NA.

If I had a reliably way to view stats from the Talos and o-t servers it would be interesting to see how long each day these servers are full and what maps are most popular.

If I was to generalise I would say that the non-CTF maps are more popular among the NA gamers than they are among the Europeans. However, I am quite sure that CTF is the overwhelming favourite amongst the playerbase in NA like it is in Europe.

I wanted to further analyse these behaviours by making a separate non-CTF and CTF server to see which would be more successful. But given the lack of willingness from most people to join most of the 'other' servers around I don't think this will work without partnership from people who have already existing servers with regular players.

Finally, none of us are saying we want the alternative gametypes to disappear. It's just clear that they play very much the second fiddle to CTF in terms of popularity and overall enjoyment and we are concerned when the reverse seems to be the case when talking to the developers of the game we all play and enjoy.

This thread is full of negative comments towards CTF from developers who then promote and justify their decisions to try and pull away from CTF as a viable gametype (on publics especially).

Equally this thread has many negative comments towards the non-CTF gametypes, but players are always expected to criticise and discuss the games they play and truly care about so I view this as more of a positive thing.

I've never seen developers come out and slate certain parts of their game openly. I don't remember John Carmack coming out and telling the world that Q3DM (his flagship gametype) sucked and everyone should be playing Team Arena (id's newer gametype).

There are countless suggestions coming from many of us on ways to improve the CTF game and take it forwards in a positive way. Most of which have been disregarded by some devs who have almost preferred to say that CTF is broken and doesn't work so they might as well give up on it.

I also fully understand that some devs still do work on CTF of course.

This turned into a longer post, oh well.

[Crazycarl]

We're not working for the man. We're here because I want to be, and we can say whatever we like. I said the game has big problems that we are trying to fix.

And we make the type of game we want to play. One thing most of us don't want to do is make a carbon-copy of TFC.

What's popular is not always what is best. If it was, we'd be copying TF2. If you haven't noticed, there are many times more TF2 players than FF. That kind of deflates your "Everybody loves CTF" argument.

If you have a suggestion that you think should get consideration, use the link in the forums called "Fortress Forever Bug and Feature Tracker". It ensures that your idea will not be lost and forgotten in huge threads like these.

[eternity94]

Originally Posted by xks

That has to be one of the most insulting and most useless posts I've ever seen a developer of any game write to his playerbase.

FF is already sold on CTF, the great majority of people playing FF are playing CTF - on publics - and enjoying it immensely. The stats I have available for just one set of servers in Europe show around a 400% increase in players in the last 4-5 weeks. These servers are playing CTF maps almost exclusively and with pretty small map cycles. From around 400 unique players to more than 2000 in a short space of time, surely that's pretty good? I bet the other servers aren't seeing that rate of expansion with their less CTF oriented map cycles.

CTF is the life and soul of a Fortress game, you can't get away from it and pretty much any attempt to make your mod unique by pulling away from CTF will result in a decrease in playerbase. This doesn't mean I think you should completely refrain from other modes of play, as long as CTF is the priority until it's working as good as it can in all fields of play (this is the way it should be).

You will never become successful with assault based modes of play because other games such as Unreal are capable of doing it in much better ways, with larger maps, more weapons, more interesting objectives and many more players (taking advantage of the larger maps). All of these things lend themselves very well to the assault mode of play.

Your only realistic rival in the CTF field right now is Quake Live, but fortunately for FF the way Quake CTF works is very different to the way it works in FF.



Whilst you didn't directly accuse your community of being retards, you at least elightened many on the kind of thoughts you have with regard to your playerbase and how to cater for them.



This quote shows how little knowledge you have of multiplayer FPS gaming in general, the history of the Fortress games and you own playerbase/servers.

You only have to look at the history of CTF in gaming to see how silly the first sentence of your quote is.

As for your second sentence, empty servers? because of CTF?

I've already stated that the most popular European servers for FF are almost exclusively running CTF maps. I gave you rough stats as to the volume of new players they are seeing on those servers, the overwhelming majority of which are playing on the CTF only server.

I also find that the overall quality of players (new and old) to be better on these servers than the American based ones. Although, many of the players on these servers are also from NA.

If I had a reliably way to view stats from the Talos and o-t servers it would be interesting to see how long each day these servers are full and what maps are most popular.

If I was to generalise I would say that the non-CTF maps are more popular among the NA gamers than they are among the Europeans. However, I am quite sure that CTF is the overwhelming favourite amongst the playerbase in NA like it is in Europe.

I wanted to further analyse these behaviours by making a separate non-CTF and CTF server to see which would be more successful. But given the lack of willingness from most people to join most of the 'other' servers around I don't think this will work without partnership from people who have already existing servers with regular players.

Finally, none of us are saying we want the alternative gametypes to disappear. It's just clear that they play very much the second fiddle to CTF in terms of popularity and overall enjoyment and we are concerned when the reverse seems to be the case when talking to the developers of the game we all play and enjoy.

This thread is full of negative comments towards CTF from developers who then promote and justify their decisions to try and pull away from CTF as a viable gametype (on publics especially).

Equally this thread has many negative comments towards the non-CTF gametypes, but players are always expected to criticise and discuss the games they play and truly care about so I view this as more of a positive thing.

I've never seen developers come out and slate certain parts of their game openly. I don't remember John Carmack coming out and telling the world that Q3DM (his flagship gametype) sucked and everyone should be playing Team Arena (id's newer gametype).

There are countless suggestions coming from many of us on ways to improve the CTF game and take it forwards in a positive way. Most of which have been disregarded by some devs who have almost preferred to say that CTF is broken and doesn't work so they might as well give up on it.

I also fully understand that some devs still do work on CTF of course.

This turned into a longer post, oh well.

Are you just not reading? NOBODY SAID THEY WERE ABANDONING CTF, THEY ARE JUST SHIFTING FOCUS!

If everone was so sold on CTF we would have more then 3 servers at an average time and everybody would be heading for the objectives and doing what they are supposed to do.

That is not the case. There is so little you can do to get people to play CTF the right way right now. Even tutorials wont help as much.

Hense why you either have to adapt or die. When i go into a pub (i only really play pubs) i always see the same people playing and at least 2 "WehnFFWIllouts". Most quit because the gametype doesn't make sense and they cant feel like they're contributing in any way to the actual match. Because of so many different factors. So when a new gametype is made to compensate for both new and old gamers, you complain?

You can still play CTF, it isnt going away, it never will, just that the focus is going on a new gametype, THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT CTF WILL BE PUT IN A CORNER AND SIT THERE FOR THE REST OF ITS LIFETIME.

FF has probably 4 times more CTF maps then CP, AVD, IVD, ADZ. So why is it all the sudden a bad thing for them to make maps that appeal to Attack and defend people.

"I've never seen developers come out and slate certain parts of their game openly. I don't remember John Carmack coming out and telling the world that Q3DM (his flagship gametype) sucked and everyone should be playing Team Arena (id's newer gametype)."

Thats the problem, nobody said CTF is actually a bad gametype when played properly. Just that in pubs, it is not played properly for reasons already stated in so many posts that you just ignore and post the same shit you keep doing.

[UpInSmoke]

I dont understand the need for new gametypes at all. Im playing tf-ctf since '97 (maybe 70% pub / 30% clan) and ctf is still the one and only gametype for me, ... ok here and there a c+h-map, but as soon as any other gametype hits the server, i hit that little disconnect-button. Anyone trying to tell me that ctf on pubs is no fun must be sick or something. Instead of trying to find a gametype that suits your (imho) broken classbalance, you should try to match the classbalance to the one and only tf-gametype: ctf!

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by xks

This thread is full of negative comments towards CTF from developers who then promote and justify their decisions to try and pull away from CTF as a viable gametype (on publics especially).

xks, get this out of your mind. Seriously. It's false. We are talking about public CTF exclusively. Not CTF in general, not CTF in leagues, not CTF with experienced players, but CTF with a mixture of new, bad, and skilled players that do not know each other and do not communicate.

UpInSmoke: Use the feature tracker. Suggest some things that would balance CTF in your opinion. In my opinion, FF is VERY well balanced for CTF at the moment.

[reaper18]

Why not add more Deathmatch-focused maps?

[xks]

Are you just not reading? NOBODY SAID THEY WERE ABANDONING CTF, THEY ARE JUST SHIFTING FOCUS!

I did read, I wrote that I understood some admins continue to work on CTF and I didn't say they were abandoning CTF to let it rot in a corner to die. Even the admins who dislike CTF still understand the need for it and I can see that. Stop being a capslock whore too ty.

If everone was so sold on CTF we would have more then 3 servers at an average time and everybody would be heading for the objectives and doing what they are supposed to do.

That is not the case. There is so little you can do to get people to play CTF the right way right now. Even tutorials wont help as much.

The statistics I've posted and the general points brought accross in this thread from multiple players shows that (as we all know) the most popular gametype in all areas is CTF. I doubt you'll find CTF to be the reason that only three servers are populated each day, I expect it's more to do with lack of publicity and awareness of the mod as well as lack of acceptance amongst many from the TFC community. You're welcome to see how many servers would be populated each day if they were all exclusively running non-CTF gametypes though.

Hense why you either have to adapt or die. When i go into a pub (i only really play pubs) i always see the same people playing and at least 2 "WehnFFWIllouts". Most quit because the gametype doesn't make sense and they cant feel like they're contributing in any way to the actual match. Because of so many different factors. So when a new gametype is made to compensate for both new and old gamers, you complain?

That's funny, didn't I just say more than 2000 unique players played on the SNT servers over the last month or so. Didn't I also say that that was an increase of something like 400% over the last month, always the same players eh? Of course, many players are regulars but there is a great deal of different players visiting the server every day (the stats proove this).

As for CTF not making sense, this is one of the stupidest things you've said. You think CTF doesn't make sense, yet the rules of ID are easy to grasp? I think not. Even the rules of TC/AvD/ADZ are essentially more complicated to explain than CTF. Both teams have bases and flags, your objective is to capture the flag more than the enemy captures yours. On the ADZ/ID maps it isn't even clear which side is the attacking side when you join the server, it's just blue vs. red. The experienced players will know blue is usually the attacking side but how will newcomers know?

They've made the new gametypes, now they need maps for them which is something I completely agree with. However, many devs and other people constantly tell us how broken CTF is (on publics mostly) yet instead of focusing on changing that the focus is on engineering other gametypes and perfecting the new modes they've recently created. That is what a lot of people are complaining about, the lack of determination or apparant willingness to focus on CTF. When it's the far and away most popular aspect of their mod and if it really is 'broken' as some put it then why isn't it priority?

And we make the type of game we want to play. One thing most of us don't want to do is make a carbon-copy of TFC.

None of us are asking you to make a carbon copy of TFC. I like many of the gameplay evolutions you've made with FF and you've already taken yourselves forwards from where TFC left off in my opinion. What I would like to see most are some completely original high quality maps, for all gametypes (but certainly including CTF). Of course, the remaining classics need to be redone too, but not every single map.

What's popular is not always what is best. If it was, we'd be copying TF2. If you haven't noticed, there are many times more TF2 players than FF. That kind of deflates your "Everybody loves CTF" argument.

I did mention many times "most popular amongst your playerbase" rather than "most popular amongst the global population of FPS gamers".

I am well aware that what's popular amongst the general population is not always what's best. I am not saying copy the most popular games and everyone will be happy, I've never said anything like that. I haven't even said copy TFC!

By all means take your own angle on CTF, so far you have and in my opinion it's working well. But it could be better and that's really what we are hoping for and discussing.

My major concern was the diversification in gametypes when the mod is in it's infancy popularity wise. Having a couple of gametypes can work and add to the mod but there are currently three (general Attack vs. Defence) types, each of which with their own different rules and nuances. This is more confusing than good when it comes to catering for newcomers. There is also talk of a new adapted gametype from ID as far as I've read where both teams have bases or something similar, as well as creating options to run the CTF maps as AvD. That would bring the game up to a total of around eight gametypes (not including concing/trimping/sniping). In my opinion this is too many when you only have 2-3 servers full each day.

I voiced my concerns on this and I hope they've been noted. I love creativity and innovation, even if it comes to new gametypes and I can see the fun in them and know what the devs are trying to do. I have praised the devs for the changes they made to the TC gametype, although it's a shame there aren't some high quality maps coming out for it. It's surely one of the gametypes that offers a great degree of freedom and room for ingenuity that the mapper can take advantage of. I also praised ADZ and the new maps made for it, I think that is a far superior way to play and attack/defend style than the original AvD gametype. For me the logical thing to do would be to kill off the original AvD and get the focus on ADZ rather than keep them both.

As for posting ideas as suggestions, I would much rather have a discussion/brainstorm creating and evolving multiple ideas on the main forum first. The best ideas can then be presented in the suggestions section or read by devs and taken off to be beta tested. That's kind of what this thread was supposed to be, even if we moved into more of a general discussion about the game.

[eternity94]

Originally Posted by xks

I did read, I wrote that I understood some admins continue to work on CTF and I didn't say they were abandoning CTF to let it rot in a corner to die. Even the admins who dislike CTF still understand the need for it and I can see that. Stop being a capslock whore too ty.



The statistics I've posted and the general points brought accross in this thread from multiple players shows that (as we all know) the most popular gametype in all areas is CTF. I doubt you'll find CTF to be the reason that only three servers are populated each day, I expect it's more to do with lack of publicity and awareness of the mod as well as lack of acceptance amongst many from the TFC community. You're welcome to see how many servers would be populated each day if they were all exclusively running non-CTF gametypes though.



That's funny, didn't I just say more than 2000 unique players played on the SNT servers over the last month or so. Didn't I also say that that was an increase of something like 400% over the last month, always the same players eh? Of course, many players are regulars but there is a great deal of different players visiting the server every day (the stats proove this).

As for CTF not making sense, this is one of the stupidest things you've said. You think CTF doesn't make sense, yet the rules of ID are easy to grasp? I think not. Even the rules of TC/AvD/ADZ are essentially more complicated to explain than CTF. Both teams have bases and flags, your objective is to capture the flag more than the enemy captures yours. On the ADZ/ID maps it isn't even clear which side is the attacking side when you join the server, it's just blue vs. red. The experienced players will know blue is usually the attacking side but how will newcomers know?

They've made the new gametypes, now they need maps for them which is something I completely agree with. However, many devs and other people constantly tell us how broken CTF is (on publics mostly) yet instead of focusing on changing that the focus is on engineering other gametypes and perfecting the new modes they've recently created. That is what a lot of people are complaining about, the lack of determination or apparant willingness to focus on CTF. When it's the far and away most popular aspect of their mod and if it really is 'broken' as some put it then why isn't it priority?



None of us are asking you to make a carbon copy of TFC. I like many of the gameplay evolutions you've made with FF and you've already taken yourselves forwards from where TFC left off in my opinion. What I would like to see most are some completely original high quality maps, for all gametypes (but certainly including CTF). Of course, the remaining classics need to be redone too, but not every single map.



I did mention many times "most popular amongst your playerbase" rather than "most popular amongst the global population of FPS gamers".

I am well aware that what's popular amongst the general population is not always what's best. I am not saying copy the most popular games and everyone will be happy, I've never said anything like that. I haven't even said copy TFC!

By all means take your own angle on CTF, so far you have and in my opinion it's working well. But it could be better and that's really what we are hoping for and discussing.

My major concern was the diversification in gametypes when the mod is in it's infancy popularity wise. Having a couple of gametypes can work and add to the mod but there are currently three (general Attack vs. Defence) types, each of which with their own different rules and nuances. This is more confusing than good when it comes to catering for newcomers. There is also talk of a new adapted gametype from ID as far as I've read where both teams have bases or something similar, as well as creating options to run the CTF maps as AvD. That would bring the game up to a total of around eight gametypes (not including concing/trimping/sniping). In my opinion this is too many when you only have 2-3 servers full each day.

I voiced my concerns on this and I hope they've been noted. I love creativity and innovation, even if it comes to new gametypes and I can see the fun in them and know what the devs are trying to do. I have praised the devs for the changes they made to the TC gametype, although it's a shame there aren't some high quality maps coming out for it. It's surely one of the gametypes that offers a great degree of freedom and room for ingenuity that the mapper can take advantage of. I also praised ADZ and the new maps made for it, I think that is a far superior way to play and attack/defend style than the original AvD gametype. For me the logical thing to do would be to kill off the original AvD and get the focus on ADZ rather than keep them both.

As for posting ideas as suggestions, I would much rather have a discussion/brainstorm creating and evolving multiple ideas on the main forum first. The best ideas can then be presented in the suggestions section or read by devs and taken off to be beta tested. That's kind of what this thread was supposed to be, even if we moved into more of a general discussion about the game.

There are players visiting the servers each day, yes, just like i said, but then there are people who leave the next day, for reasons already shown.

You can throw numbers around all you want, but numbers never take into account many things.

(BTW im not a "capslock whore" as you say, i just find it hard to emphesize words over other words when speaking on the internet). You just admitted that you understand that devs are not abandoning ctf, yet for all your last posts you continually say that the devs are trying to abbandon ctf?

The point is that there isnt that many things that you can do to make CTF more presentable to pubs, there just isnt.

Ive read everything people have said to make people want to go to the objectives more, but they will just not work. And the fact is that CTF is just not focused enough. All CTF maps are just bases connected by a yard. And the gameplay focuses around getting to the enemy base, taking the flag, then returning it. Its just that in every single one of these maps, the objective is almost always out of your way.

The point with AvD and things that are close to that. (Because they are all very similar in design) is that everything is focused and much easier to understand. Your point saying that it is over diversifying is just wrong. Because AVD, IVD, ADZ are all basically the same with only minor differences. If you played dustbowl, you can understand Impact in less then a minute.

When i first played FF, all everyone played was CTF, it was probably the most confusing game i ever played, because the maps were so much different then any other game i played, and because nothing is focused at all. I had to go out of my way to watch videos on youtube and read a bunch of shit to understand exactly what i had to do, not even counting everything i had to learn from trimping to conc jumping.

The point is that those people filling the servers on any other game are not the people sitting in theyre chair playing games all day. They are the people who once in a while sit down casually and play some TF2 when theyre bored. When playing CTF for the first time, it doesnt matter how good you really are, it just doesnt make much sense. With AVD, you dont have that problem.

[Everything]

Thread title is very misleading, someone will click on it thinking it has to do with improving CTF, but instead will stumble upon monkeys throwing shit at each other. Over and over.

[fishBurger]

I'd like to make a quick point in the midst of this developing novel:
Map Size and Player Count.

Problems with public CTF play often have alot to do with the number of players in the server. Usually theres one or two pubs nearly full. Without O/D balance on a team, and good coordination, 2Fort cannot play well 10v10. A lot of maps are made for smaller players, and while theres some breathing room, few maps can physically handle 10v10 without clogging every chokepoint and route with D.

Solutions:
Larger sized CTF pub map with multiple routes and more room to maneuver.
Popular pub servers lower player limits.

[Credge]

Originally Posted by fishBurger

I'd like to make a quick point in the midst of this developing novel:
Map Size and Player Count.

Problems with public CTF play often have alot to do with the number of players in the server. Usually theres one or two pubs nearly full. Without O/D balance on a team, and good coordination, 2Fort cannot play well 10v10. A lot of maps are made for smaller players, and while theres some breathing room, few maps can physically handle 10v10 without clogging every chokepoint and route with D.

Solutions:
Larger sized CTF pub map with multiple routes and more room to maneuver.
Popular pub servers lower player limits.

This is another issue with pub CTF that, realistically, is an issue with all FPS that have different maps that are supposed to be played with different player amounts.

All maps are made with 16 players in mind. 4 defense, 4 offense. Two teams. This makes 16 players.

2 fort? 16 players.

Aardvark? 16 players.

Shutdown2? 16 players.

Congestus? 16 players.

Monkey? 16 players.

This isn't to say that these maps can't be played with more or less people ~ very much the opposite. They are certainly playable with either more or less people. The issue revolves around a defense and what makes a good or bad one. Most maps are designed in such a way where 4 players fits perfectly, 3 players is fine but not choice, and 2 is just boring. 5 is fine as well but not choice and 6 deludes roles.

The problem with large CTF maps is that they are often confusing and people migrate to yard DM more so than smaller maps like openfire. The reason for this is that, generally, it's easier to navigate to a yard than it is to navigate to a yard and through another base.

Couple this with the fact that pub play is unorganized and it's just no attractive.

Essentially the problem with pub ctf is two fold:

1. CTF requires organization and knowledge. An example would be L4D. If you go off by yourself and stray from your team, you aren't playing properly. It's still playable, but that's not how the game is meant to be played.

2. Pub players generally just want to have instant fun. CTF is not the game mode for that. The fun comes from the planning and proper execution of a strategy, the out playing and out maneuvering of your enemies. These are things that do not exist in a typical pub environment.

This is why CTF fails miserably in all pub games and this is why the majority of TF2 servers are 24/7 2fort with instant respawn (for DM'ng) or on maps like goldrush, dustbowl, and gravelpit. It's also why Valve moved away from CTF and made maps like Well in to CP maps instead of CTF. This is also why, when people asked for a CTF version of well, nobody played it for more than a month.

You can like CTF all you want. It's the only game mode I enjoy playing consistently in FF. Currently it's the only thing I have time to do with FF (besides test odd bits of things). You, or anybody elses like for CTF doesn't mean that it's an acceptable game mode for pub play, or that there could exist anything that could change about FF or the game mode that would make it a realistic game mode choice for pubs.

The >only< way to do it is to make it AVD, which is not CTF.

[Credge]

Originally Posted by eternity94

The point is that those people filling the servers on any other game are not the people sitting in theyre chair playing games all day. They are the people who once in a while sit down casually and play some TF2 when theyre bored. When playing CTF for the first time, it doesnt matter how good you really are, it just doesnt make much sense. With AVD, you dont have that problem.

This guy gets exactly what the issue is with pub CTF.

CTF is a fine competitive mode for FF. In fact, it's probably the biggest test of teamwork and individual class skill out there from just about any game. It's a great game mode that works insanely well.

The reason it works well is because I know for a fact that the guy standing next to me isn't going to run off and do something else, or leave mid game. It works because I can go in to a game with my team, with a strategy we made, and execute it. It works because I can see if my team is able to think quickly enough to take out the enemies strategy successfully.

In pub play, you don't go in to a game with a general sense of knowing what to do or what your team will need. You don't go in saying "I'm going to be playing solly at the T" and expect things to work out. You don't get to come in mid game, or go to another map, an expect a defense to be working solidly together. When you go in to a pub game, you don't expect the enemy to be organized enough to hold the flag, or the offense to be competent enough to try to juke my pipe nest.

In pub CTF, you have multiple things going on at once ~ more so than you have in a competitive game. In a competitive game everyone has their own little roles they have to fill and they know what they need to do at all times every time. It's very simple. You stand here with this class and shoot things. I build gun here and repair it. You pipe flag and blow it up. You play scout and get the flag.

It's that simple.

In a pub environment, you don't get any of this. It's not a product of design ~ examine TFC or TF2. It's the product of the players and it's as simple as that.

There's a very small group of servers for TF2 that require teamplay. The Texas Teamplay servers are two out of the, maybe, 10 that exist. You will get kicked for not working as a team. It's this grooming that allows maps like Turbine and even 2fort to work decently.

It has nothing to do with design. People can work well together with the current state of CTF. This is present with the competitive scene. It has everything to do with people.

The problem is simple. There does not exist enough people in FF to get a REAL game of CTF going at all times.

Look at TF2. Look at all of the servers with mods (instant respawn, joke/fun maps, nonstop crits, etc) and then compare them to those with vanilla values. It will be harder than shit to find one. FF is no different. The players of FF are not some golden haired children of the PC gaming master race. The players of FF are your average group of PC gamers that just happen to like FF.

It's as simple as that.

Until we get the numbers for a dedicated competitive rules CTF pub server (there have been a few before haven't there? didn't they all fail?) then anything other than 4v4 OVD and once a week hour long matches are a big pipe dream.

That's all there is to it. We don't have the players. We have the players for AVD. We don't have the players for CTF. It's just that simple.

[binky]

The idea that CTF is a less viable form of gameplay because more people in tf2 play other types of maps is absolutely rediculous. There was this mod a long time ago that was also extremely popular and the gameplay was almost exclusively CTF with the odd novelty map here and there...I forget its name...
Wait I remember, it was called "Team Fortress"
*CTF worked way better there because the maps were different. Typically bases had more compact chokepoints with flag areas that you generally could not bunnyhop through in one fluid motion, which made many types of defense much more viable. The structure of the bases was such that even the most clueless dm'ing newbie would by default ofen run into the enemy and assist in the ctf aspect of the game.
Now I am not saying this to suggest that ff is too fast, for those of you who remember real tf, you might remember that not only was it faster, *all* classes were faster, or at least had the potential to be. But the maps forced combat to achieve the goals and even in losely organized pub games, co-operation was often absolutely required to complete the goal and combat avoidance tactics were generally either only one part of an offensive strike on the flag or were more succesful for getting through midfield dm on the way to and from the bases.

*of course there were MANY maps for tf, many hundreds with many different layouts and yes, some were certainly wide open capfest maps like in ff, but with a few exceptions, maps that emphasized combat for ctf goals were the norm.

Perhaps this was before the time of many here and they were busy eating paste or whatever, I dont know. But decent CTF on pubs is certainly attainable, I played it for years.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by binky

The idea that CTF is a less viable form of gameplay because more people in tf2 play other types of maps is absolutely rediculous.

No one has said that. Not even one person. Credge said that public CTF in TF2 doesn't work just as public CTF in FF doesn't. He was only drawing a comparison, not establishing cause-and-effect.

Perhaps this was before the time of many here and they were busy eating paste or whatever, I dont know. But decent CTF on pubs is certainly attainable, I played it for years.

It doesn't really matter who played what and when. That was all in a different era of gaming. Attention spans shortening and all that; it's been said a million times. The point is, we can't attempt to compete in a market that has been extinct for 10 years, we have to live in the present.

And the present is no fan of capture the flag. If you want to make the perfect CTF map and prove yourself correct, though, go for it.

[Iggy]

Squeek, I have to disagree with you, partially. There is a small group that enjoys a good CTF game. The problem is there are very very few of us. I count myself as one, and I'll continue to stand for the CTFers. Needless to say, I'm open to other game types, but I am against completely abandoning CTF(which is not what anyone on the dev/beta team is demanding).

Binky, I never got to play QTF... but I still play TFC. I have a couple thousand maps for that game, and I enjoy all gametypes. Squeek was right about CTF being too much for most of todays gamers to deal with. The attention span is horrible. Plus, there is the lack of "instant gratification" involved.

[xks]

I've not played FF in more than a week now, want to know why? Because I'm far too busy playing Quake Live CTF.

The games are far closer, far more often. The maps are great, the powerups from Team Arena work very well. The balance of the game is fantastic.

You can't cap in QL CTF without having your own flag safe in your base, this alone makes every single game a rush of balancing offence with defence and creates a great deal of tension that FF rarely has.

I had a game the other night that was 5-4 to my team with 30seconds to go. The enemy team capped and the time ended, which sent us into sudden death - first to cap wins. We then spent a further 19 (!!) minutes locked in a frantic battle with both teams coming within inches of winning it before my team finally sealed the victory.

This was on a public server.

FF is finding it hard to compete with the fun for me and I deeply love Fortress games, the classes, the maps and the style.

So you see, CTF isn't dead at all. Many people are perfectly happy to play CTF in the 'present' squeek, just one of them might not happen to be you.

Oh and QL CTF also has a skill gap most of the time where there are some poorer players against massively skilled ones. In fact the skill gap is far worse in QL than it is in FF. The maps are also more complicated and harder to learn and apart from the manual which no one seems to have read the game doesn't give you a lot of clues about anything.

FF could stand up as the premier game in it's class, the only Fortress game left. All these diversifications and deviations from the tried and tested great gameplay will not serve it very well in my opinion.

You'd get more players focusing solely on CTF, making better maps, balancing the game for everyone and galvanising the community with some well maintained and run servers rather than the randomness we have now.

More flames to come I guess

[Skanky Butterpuss]

so youve proven ctf works in quakelive how it is supposed to in pubs, and stated that it is much more fun than ff ctf in pubs because in quakelive, people play it how theyre supposed to (whereas they dont in ff).

good job?