Hi I’ve been trying
and failing thanks to ccbm/hale to get more people into Vanilla after the weapon and time-to-kill updates so let’s talk about CTF
Originally I was just going to put in a post saying something like “
hey there’s only 2 maps with MM9 weapons and 1 map with a v6 weapon what the fuck you guys are mad lazy 
” but I think turning it into a discussion on which new weapons to bring forward, rather than just adding them for the sake of it, would be more healthy for the game mode’s balance.
Remember that swapping out any sort of weapon or adjusting balance for these maps has what I’d define as a three-pronged effect on the gameplay:
- Changes how easy it is to catch someone running with a flag (buffs to this are generally good if not obnoxiously overtuned eg homing weapons)
- Changes how easy it is to run with the flag and get past people trying to get in your way (also a good thing, I would think)
- Changes how easy it is to defend your flag, or defend someone holding the other team’s flag (buffs to this are generally bad? Or at least when I played stalling was an issue).
The main issue is that, likely only because of the timeframe in which they were made, dang near all of these maps rely HEAVILY on v1 weapons and v1 weapons alone. Whilst they have been updated with MM7, 8 and in some cases &B weapons they are far less prevalent, and don’t go far beyond adding Water Balloon to every map where it’ll fit. This tilts the balance more in favour of the last point on the list, solely because so many v1 weapons are extremely slow travelling. For example, if you look at the totals for long range weapons, the most prolific options are Gemini Laser (9/25 maps) at an incredible 22 speed, Thunder Beam (8/25 maps) at 30 speed and Gyro Attack (8/25 maps) which is 35 speed and also is prone to splitting in two. By contrast, Laser Trident only shows up on a single map and quite possibly the smallest one on offer, MMCTF25.
I don’t think it’s an unpopular opinion to say that slower weapons favour defensive play by design, it’s much easier to hold a corridor with a bunch of lingering rippers or bouncing lasers than a weapon that requires precise aim and face to face confrontation. Likewise it’s much harder to catch someone on the run when your lightning bolts barely travel any faster than your player character does, and obviously don’t adjust their trajectory beyond the point at which you first fired them.
Here’s the totals for each type of weapon, there might be some inaccuracies if I just straight up didn’t spot a weapon but I tried my best lol
LONG RANGE WEAPONS
Placements of these weapons often favour slow travelling lingering projectiles. Whilst there are some standout speedy and reliable weapons in v1 such as Dust Crusher or Silver Tomahawk, they aren’t placed as often as the top scorers. Fire Storm is the most common long range weapon that I’d consider to be offensive. V2 weapons aren’t that neglected but getting to v3 and beyond there’s only single placements of weapons I would consider to be key, such as Laser Trident and Ice Wave.
9 x Gemini Laser
8 x Thunder Beam, Gyro Attack
7 x Fire Storm, Search Snake
6 x Blizzard Attack, Dust Crusher
5 x Silver Tomahawk, Noise Crush (v2)
4 x Spark Shot
3 x Freeze Cracker (v2), Thunder Bolt (v2)
2 x Magnet Missile, Mega Ball (v3), Copy Vision (v4)
1 x Ice Wave (v3) on MMCTF10, Laser Trident (v5) on MMCTF25, Deep Digger (v6) on MMCTF24.
Notable absences, Rebound Striker (lingers less and is faster+more powerful than Gemini), Homing Sniper (shotgun is generally good for runners but unreliable tracking isn’t too strong for defenders).
RAPID FIRE WEAPONS
Generally rapid fire weapons are very common on these maps for obvious reasons, most have 3 out of a combination of Needle Cannon, Yamato Spear and either Metal Blade or Ice Slasher, which shows up on way too many maps for a 22 speed projectile. Water Balloon got shoved onto a fuckton of maps as well but it’s quite good so I don’t mind. There are way less of these in general and not every expansion even has one so it’s to be expected that they score higher numbers, however there is a severe lack of appearances when it comes to V4 and V5 weapons like Wave Burner and Plug Ball.
10 x Yamato Spear
9 x Needle Cannon, Water Balloon (v3)
8 x Ice Slasher, Metal Blade
7 x Quick Boomerang
(severe falloff point)
3 x Water Wave, Wave Burner (v4)
1 x Screw Crusher on MMCTF10.
Notable absences, Plug Ball, Triple Blade. Screw Crusher only shows up once but it’s pretty polarising in its ability to control space so I’d be careful with it.
CLOSE RANGE WEAPONS
I think this is both the broadest and most inconsistent category since it contains weapons that are really good in mid-range like Ring Boomerang and weapons that only work right up against someone’s face like Flame Sword. In general CTF tends to favour the former a lot more than the latter, which leaves flag runners without a useful metaphorical football tackle to get through someone trying to block them. In most cases it’d be more useful to try and use your power weapon instead otherwise it’s Air Shooter the entire way down. I’d really like to see Slash Claw and Flame Sword used in more maps, possibly Power Stone too. This category also contains too much Bubble Lead and Wild Coil for some reason. Honestly there should be more Magic Card too, breaking defences through walls seems more fun than whatever Shadow Blade is meant to be good at.
7 x Air Shooter, Ring Boomerang
5 x Bubble Lead, Shadow Blade
4 x Wild Coil (v2)
3 x Rolling Cutter, Knight Crush, Power Stone, Slash Claw (v2)
2 x Flame Sword (v3), Magic Card (v4)
1 x Wind Storm on MMCTF22, Flame Blast on MMCTF08, Thunder Claw (v3) on MMCTF10, Magma Bazooka (v5) on MMCTF22, Sakugarne on MMCTF16.
Notable absences, Chill Spike, Salt Water. Magma Bazooka and Thunder Claw only get to show up once despite how cool they are. Thunder Wool is absent as well but I think it might be too powerful anyway. Weapons like Charge Kick, Tengu Blade and Break Dash are entirely absent for reasons of speeding the flag carrier up with their use, so I don’t know if just disabling their charges / velocity increases for flag carriers and releasing them into the wild would be a good idea.
POWER WEAPONS
Lots of really notable absences here. This category is very underpopulated though being able to dunk on someone in two hits flat can be way too strong for defence so I get it. However, that doesn’t stop Napalm Bomb from being allowed to roll around every corner at the speed of slow and Crystal Eye filling entire rooms with shrapnel on some maps which isn’t great. Drill Bomb is absolutely everywhere while faster explosives are only on 2 maps or missing entirely.
6 x Drill Bomb
5 x Napalm Bomb
4 x Super Arm, Pharaoh Shot, Crystal Eye
3 x Crash Bomb
2 x Hard Knuckle, Ballade Cracker, Remote Mine (v4)
1 x Atomic Fire on MMCTF12, Danger Wrap (v2) on MMCTF01, Spread Drill (v4) on MMCTF02.
Notable absences, Solar Blaze, Commando Bomb, Bubble Bomb (the sine wave has better counterplay for people than some of the other defensive options), Photon Missile. I think Danger Wrap should be on more maps as the mines are hardly that centralising compared to how big and lingering something like Flash Bomb (also absent) could be.
AREA WEAPONS
Only Rain Flush shows up on two of Ivory’s maps. MMCTF08 and 09. I don’t know what can be done about this since area weapons are crazy centralising. However it’d be pretty cool imo to see Tornado Blow show up.
SHIELD WEAPONS
The only shield weapons are Ice Wall on MMCTF05 and Jewel Shield on MMCTF22. I think if the flag carrier was again denied access to these then you could add the revamped Skull Barrier or Mirror Buster to let people move around the map a little more at ease. Who knows.
ITEMS
Tango Roll is the most placed offensive actor across all items and weapons, with 13/25 maps having it. By contrast Treble Sentry shows up twice and Eddie Bomber doesn’t show up at all.
W Tanks are in every map but only 5 have Energy Balancer which imo is a much more smooth solution.
Item 1 shows up 7 times, but Item 3 hasn’t been added and Wire only shows up in MMCTF04 (I get the feeling it was added there with its old, ceiling-gripping behaviour in mind). If rope swinging is too much mobility in CTF, consider adding faster weapons like the entire point of this post (:
Anyway please let me know what newer weapons you think would be good to bring into CTF. Maybe drop into a CTF or FOOTBAWL server sometime
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