So what's the state of CTF?

[Ru5tK1ng]

A few people in a server earlier mentioned that CTF needs love and attention in the map department. Although our group of dashing young lads have experience with CTF such as Velocity CTF and RageCTF, I'd like to know what's been done and what's the status with CTF these days. Being new, I'm not entirely sure of any history and I'd like to get a feel of the situation before considering anything. What's good about it, what's bad about it ('all of it' isn't an acceptable answer)? Any standards or norms?

[Orange juice :l]

Relevant:
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=10309
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=10279

What's good: Trying to run about with the flag is a wild goose chase instead of fast-paced trenchrunning around corners for a quick and high damaging shot. Of course not "better" than the alternative but it's a change of pace (possession is, for all intents and purposes, dead). Some maps are very good, some are very bad (especially before learning the layouts which can be convoluted as hell), some are middling.

What's bad: Half the time when someone's running from you, they're GONE because your shots literally can't reach the end of the corridor before they turn the corner. Sticking in the opponent's base and grabbing the flag on return is a very strong strategy because it's so difficult to kill them if they're focusing on staying alive, especially if you've respawned with just the buster. Due to this matches will often come to a standoff where both teams have the others' flag (though this isn't a bad thing). Flag carriers tend to bounce from health pickup to health pickup. There are weapons that can kill carriers, though how easy they are to get depends on the map. Often getting your flag back requires ambushing the carrier, cutting them off, or ganging up on them. There are many intrusive pits that will get the flag stuck until it auto-returns or someone suicides after it.

Oh right, and Classes is hugely popular and Classes doesn't play well with CTF at all. Ergo, dead game mode.

Standards: Lots of ring boomerang and sr50ing faster than bullets

[Magnet Dood]

CTF's always been crippled by a lack of maps. I mean, it makes sense as to why- can't use any of like the 100 other maps in core and you're hamstrung by just 20, some of which have suspect quality. Eventually the rotation gets stale after being in a server for extended periods of time.

OJ's posted link about the compo is attempting to alleviate that to a degree, but it's still difficult when there's something like 130 maps for DM modes and the like in regular rotations when you include map packs, and there's still only the core ones that can be used with v4 for CTF. Not to mention the aforementioned health grubbing that's a problem-- might help if the mode was played in buckshot, but that would probably come with its own problems as well.

[Bikdark]

lack of maps isn't a problem. 20 is more than enough to have a good time (see overwatch)

what oj mentioned is exactly what is wrong: running away is too strong in this game. players move fast enough to avoid all damage in the many hallways of ctf maps, and there is more than enough health to go around.

the fact of the matter is that the former problem is unfixable unless you want this game to become very "un-megaman". increasing speeds of all projectiles would be crazy, and you'd be better off just making a mod that has ctf-friendly weapons made from scratch.

health pickup abuse is easily fixable: simply place a limit on the amount of health one can munch. sure, it's not canon, but who cares when the mode isn't fun?

[King Dumb]

Bik, OJ, and Dood all raise most of the popular complaints about CTF in MM8BDM. I do think they paint a bit more negative of a light than is felt in servers, though. CTF in MM8BDM plays much differently than CTF in other arena shooters, due to the speed differences (of projectiles, players, etc.). It results in a different kind of game, where many times you're playing more when both flags are held, then when neither flag is held. To people used to other arena shooter CTF modes, this may not be a lot of fun, but there are a lot of us here that enjoy MM8BDM CTF!

That being said, to address maybe some other aspects of your questions. In general, CTF hasn't really been the competitive game mode of choice in MM8BDM, for a lot of reasons.

Aside from the usual norms of arena CTF maps, MM8BDM's huge variety of weapons means there are a lot of standards about what weapons to put on CTF maps, and where to put them. Not all of these standards are strictly necessary (though some are all but essential), and the nature of the game means that a lot of times, it can depend on the shape of the map. I'd recommend hopping into a CTF server sometime to see how people play it, and also maybe observing some matches of the ongoing CTF tournament if you're ever around when a match goes down; these experiences will give you good (if varying) ideas of the ways MM8BDM CTF plays out.

[Mendez]

I would be more than fine with health pickups in CTF working like the classic games, or as Justified Classes once suggested, where you're not able to pick up more health until the last capsule you picked up has finished loading up onto your health bar. As for fast escapes, maybe the simplest solution is to slow down the flag carrier a tiny bit. Not so much that leaving the enemy base is impossible, but just enough that SR40/SR50 stops providing a mass advantage for people who can turn corners on a dime.

[Ru5tK1ng]

There are quite a bit of interesting points that have been brought up and I think I can see why CTF really isn't played much. First, regarding the maps, 20 is a fair amount of maps only if every map is at least average quality. It sounds like there are more than just 2 or 5 bad maps in the pack. In Doom, there are plenty of CTF map packs around and people generally gather a bit from each one into a compilation for a specific purpose ( public play, private, tournament, etc). Additionally, a mappack can literally make or break a mode or mod and I've seen it happen several times through the years. The quality of maps is rather important because if something isn't fun, people won't play it. An overabundance of gimmicks in a map is not really fun and also leaves a bad taste. But I'd say this is an issue with the least impact on CTF.

As for the problem of running away being to good of an idea, that is basically the fault of the weapons. Spawning and not being able to at least do chip damage is pretty frustrating. In Quake or Doom, you get a lousy low grade weapon that you can at least hit a few times with. Of course, the speed of the projectiles, as stated, doesn't solely affect the buster and reworking a group of weapons for CTF would probably be the best way to go about it.

Aside from the usual norms of arena CTF maps, MM8BDM's huge variety of weapons means there are a lot of standards about what weapons to put on CTF maps, and where to put them. Not all of these standards are strictly necessary (though some are all but essential), and the nature of the game means that a lot of times, it can depend on the shape of the map.

I see that as a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand you have issues where individuals disagree with what weapons should be featured on maps and what should not be (something like woodman's probably should not). On the other hand, this opens up options and allows for creativity for map authors and allows for spice to be added to gameplay. But regardless, it is a tough issue to address.

So another question needs to be raised. Is there a general consensus in the community against things that aren't canon or un-megaman like? I read a wiki page about disputes over classes and how people split over balance being canon or competitive based. How big of an controversy is this?

As for the health issue, I'm guessing this is because there is not only plenty of health all over the map but because players drop health on death? If flag runners are stalling and moving around the map collecting health, then part of the problem is that the map has too much health.

I'd recommend hopping into a CTF server sometime to see how people play it, and also maybe observing some matches of the ongoing CTF tournament if you're ever around when a match goes down; these experiences will give you good (if varying) ideas of the ways MM8BDM CTF plays out.

I'd like to hop in a server some time and see some of these problems in action. Although, since I hardly ever see any CTF servers occupied, this might take a while...

[CutmanMike]

I am open to the suggestion of slightly bending the rules of CTF to make it playable (i.e slowing the flag carrier down), but not so much redesigning weapons around CTF. External mods can be made to do that. I've made a few team based mods (one quite recently) that use the CTF maps in an attempt to get people playing team based modes again, but I think people just enjoy the simplicity DM/LMS more (also classes, which as of right now are imbalanced for these modes) since they rarely last on the server list.

[Ehibika]

I don't believe there is much we can really do about this, even if we add more maps or try to resolve the issue of runners and the need to prepare yourself after death (both of which I tried to tackle in a CTF centered mod of my own), in the end of the day, people don't want to play the game mode, like cutmanmike said, DM/LMS will remain in favor for it's simplicity, no objective to worry about, no need to consider team composition, just pick a class and kill folks.

not to mention that since they are always populated, no one will venture out of it.