Looking for Feedback - Decreased Flag Pickup Delay

I'm playing CTF regularly since 4 years and I'm a soldier main on offense. I can tell you that even if I main offense since a lot of time, it's not easy to steal and capture a flag. For sure old players are better at the game than new players, but it's getting to a point where even if you are good on offense, it's often not fun to play. I'm personally here to enjoy the game and have fun, so it's not only a question about who is better than who and what is easier than what, it was also a test to make the game more enjoyable for offensive players. Since a certain time now, we have seen the amount of offensive players decreasing. This test was not meant only for new players, it was meant to all the CTF community (for both old and new players).

 

The most reasonable solution in my opinion is a 1/2 speed reduction to 0.250ms or a 1/4 speed reduction to 0.125ms pick up time. This means the benefits such as helping offense is kept, and the negatives such as elf and chemist being too strong is fixed.
Considering how defense bias CTF is, and also how CTF has "Fast paced gameplay", It would make sense to reduce the time on flag pickup.
Obviously being an offense main my opinion will be slightly bias in favour of a faster pickup time. Similarly a defense main will have a bias that no change should be made, however a 1/2 or 1/4 speed reduction is the best solution that meets in the middle and overall help CTF gameplay.

 

100% agree with this potential solution. Keeping a few milliseconds on the timer eliminates the complete "shock factor" that defenders might experience when guarding the flag (0 ms = so much as blink and you're done), but still provides benefits to offenders. They have the opportunity to get out of a congested flag room much quicker and, therefore, the likelihood of a successful steal/cap increases. Would definitely be interested in looking into this, even if it requires more testing. We want to be certain that it's the smart move in the long run.

 

Extend elf.