Idea Do CTF Maps Have to be Symmetrical?

Minor tweaks are interesting though, if you ask me^^ Of course, maps like SubZero are extremely confusing, I usually run to the other team's spawn if I want to steal..

But as long as there's a lot of thought put into the un-symmetrical-ness of it all and it's well-balanced, I'm fine with it. There would of course always be those players who blame the map for a loss then

 

Maps have to be symmetrical so as not to risk any map-based advantages or disadvantages for each team.

 

Maps must be 100% symmetrical. Any variations must not affect gameplay.

 

They have to be symetrical, so noone will have an advantage or disadvantage which depends on their team.

 

Regardless of how little advantage you might think there is, if such a thing occurred, people would figure out which side has an existent, albeit slight, advantage.
For example, if red side had higher terrain, soldiers would be better on that side, so offensive soldier would be better on blue.
Even though the other team's other classes (red defensive Pyro, for instance) might be better, this would create a) pay-to-play aspects if you're on red and b) better offense on blue and mostly unaffected defense on red.
In addition, there is the smaller effect of vanilla PvP mechanics coming into play: players have greater vertical reach upwards than downwards, so even a single block of difference creates an advantage.

To put this into perspective (sorry for the long post), let's say a balanced map has a Blue/Red win rate of 1/1, or 50/50. The asymmetrical map would have something like 40/60. Even a difference as much as 49/51 would cause an uproar, as it would never be able to be a legal map in official matches, and casual play would be affected, too.

 

it depends really. as people have stated you dont wanna change things that will alter gameplay too much. they don't have to be 100% symmetrical though. canadian fort isn't:

 

You don't have to be symmetrical,but both sides should be equal

 

It should be as close to symmetrical as possible. However, small tweaks can make the game interesting, as long as they do not make the map unbalanced.

 

Yes.

 

Asymmetry is an interesting concept, and I wouldn't be opposed to seeing maps like that, but there's obvious imbalances. If such maps were implemented, there would have to be a system that would allow both teams to play both sides.

The System may work well as a Bo6 system. After 3 flag captures (both teams combined), the teams switch sides. First team to 4 flags wins. If both teams get 3 flags each, it's a tie.

Since a system like this would require many flag captures, this uneven map type should be segregated into it's own flavor of CTF rather than being in the regular map pool. Or the maps can be designed so that capturing the flag takes very little time.

Overall uneven maps can work (see: Counter-Strike), but they're generally more time consuming if done right.

 

I don't think so, I think they only need to count of Blue Side and Red Side.

 

agreed, it depends really, the map has to be symmetrical for balance. But I see the case where changing a block that has the exact same function as another one would be fine, for example placing a block of gold on one side and a diamond block on the exact other.